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Allura 24

Alone in the Dark KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK “Henry?” KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK “Henry your… friend… is here, he wants to talk to you...” “Let him in.” I sighed. I knew why he was here. He was going to come inside, exchange pleasantries with me, make awkward small talk, and then beg me to stay. I wouldn’t listen to him though. My mind was made up and nothing would change it. “Hey champ!” Right on schedule. “How’s it goin’?” my brother asked feigning excitement. “I’m fine.” I said bluntly. “You have all your stuff packed?” he chuckled. I forced a smirk and waited for him to say what he came here to say. “You know you don’t have to go...” “Greg, we’ve talked about this.” “I just... I don’t think you know what you’re doing,” He had tears in his eyes.“What if you wake up and it’s not what you thought it would be?” I took a step forward and placed my hand on his shoulder, “Anything would be better, I’m done with this world.” He hugged me as tightly as he could. “Be safe.” “I will.” All I could think of was how to get him out of my room the fastest, “I have to get ready, launch is in a few hours.” When he left, I sat down on my bed and stared at the door for a few minutes. I didn’t expect anymore company. My mother had been gone for a few years, and my dad already knew my decision was final. My brother was the only one who thought my mind could still be changed. I didn’t have very many friends because I didn’t see the point. All the people in the world were fake. They all had fake smiles, fake laughs, and fake lives. Where I was going, I hoped to find something real. I got dressed and sat down in a chair facing the door. For what seemed like an eternity, I waited. Finally, there was a knock and a man in a jet black suit walked in. “They’re ready for you, Mr. Shelling.” he said almost apologetically. “Good, let’s get going then.” I replied determined to leave. As we were walking through the corridor, he turned to me and spoke. “I’ve been instructed to debrief you one more time on the mission.” I smiled sarcastically “Knock yourself out.” I already knew the plan; I had it in my head since day one. “You’ll be put into the chamber and loaded onto the ship once we get to the launch pad. Inside are two buttons, button two initiates the cryogenic freeze, button one engages emergency stop in case you need to—“ “I won’t.” I interrupted. “Just in case. You’ll have twenty four hours to press either button once you are loaded into the chamber. After the time limit, if you have not chosen either button, the mission will be aborted and you will be brought back to earth immediately. We will be in contact with you via a two way intercom. All you have to do is speak and we’ll hear you.” “Noted.” I absent-mindedly replied. “If you press button two…” he breathed deep, “You’ll be cryogenically frozen for five million years, and the ship will automatically return to earth when you wake up.” “Can’t wait.” I said hoping he was done. “You know...” he started “You can still—“ “Don’t.” I said, cutting him off. At that moment, we reached the light at the end of the tunnel and the ship came into view. It was a fairly small vehicle, not much bigger than a school bus. Right in front of it was the chamber, lying on a conveyor belt, ready to be loaded. There were men in white coats scattered throughout the area, doing last minute checks and calculations. “Your chariot awaits, Mr. Shelling.” The man said grimly while opening the chamber door. “Thanks.” I said while getting in and closing the door. The man cupped his mouth with his hands and screamed through the thick glass “Remember, you have twenty four hours—“ “Won’t need ‘em” I yelled. I pushed button two immediately, and my eyes went black. A second later I woke up. My head hurt, my ears wrung, and my muscles ached. I couldn’t move anything below my neck, and the only thing I could see was a blinding light. When my eyes finally adjusted, I finally realized what had happened. My muscles had deteriorated during my sleep. Five million years had taken its toll on me. I couldn’t stay in this bed; I had to see what was waiting for me. I began to rock myself back and forth to roll myself out of the pod. When I finally managed to get myself onto the floor of the ship, I was sweating profusely and breathing heavily. My lungs hurt badly, I hadn’t been breathing for five million years; they were not ready for this type of exertion. I could feel there was something wrong. Everything was too still. The ship was not moving. There was a window about two feet from where I was lying. If I could get to it, I would be able to see what I had waited so long for: The future. Slowly, I inched myself toward the window, my limbs getting stronger as my lungs got weaker. At five inches away from the window, I could only see black. I moved closer. Still only black. Closer. Black. I shut my eyes and crawled until I was directly over the window. Terror was filling my mind as I slowly imagined the hell that could be waiting for me. When I finally opened my eyes, I was again met with only black. My worst nightmare had come true. There was nothing left; everything was dead, even the stars. Everyone I’ve ever known: dead. I felt a sharp pain in my chest. How could I have been so stupid, to give up everyone I had ever loved. My sight became blurry and I became light headed. Five million years. Five million years I had been alone, and now, my final moments, alone in the dark. I breathed out for the last time, and my mind went blank.

'Why are you here? Have you not done enough? In just these past 48 hours, I have seen you take 26 lives. What more can you do to me? Do you want me to feel worse? Do you want to intensify the guilt? Are you here to remind me of all the hands I held as the life left them? I tried dammit, but it wasn't good enough!' He appeared to me as a man dressed for business, suit tie, the works. It was nothing fancy, but his cuff-links sparkled, his tie was immaculate, and his suit pressed. He contrasted my dirty hospital scrubs in such a fashion that made him look even sharper. He turned slowly towards me, opening his suitcase. He pulled out a pack of smokes, Lucky Strikes. He gestured for me to take one, so I did. We both lit up, in a hospital elevator, in complete disregard for state and federal law. After a few drags, he spoke. "You will never forget them. The image of the dying child will fade, but will still haunt your dreams, long into your future. You feel it, even now, as I speak, the weight of her head upon your chest as you wept. You will never forget." "But I saved so many! I saved countless lives today, and yesterday, hell, for these past 6 years! Why must you remind me of my failures?" Death's head was wrapped in a halo of blue smoke, as we both inhaled deeply through the filterless cigarettes. His face had not changed, not at all. Besides the movement of his mouth, nothing wavered. "It's not about the ones you save. It's about the ones who slip by, the ones who pass. How many others did you see crying when the little girl died? Who else held the old widower's hand as he spoke to his long dead wife, until he joined her quietly? I'm not here to remind you of a failures. I'm here to thank you. You have helped the dead pass easily, comfortably into my realm. Beneath your caring hands, many souls have joined me quietly and calmly. Thank you, for soothing the doomed.

"Shit here we go again" I thought to myself as I opened my bedroom door. There was a fight going on in my room. This wasn't an ordinary fight, this was a fight to determine who deserves to be the chosen one. 'Chosen one? Wtf does that mean' you might ask. Well let me back track a little. When I was younger I was never into fashion. I just wanted comfy clothes to wear. So I dedicated my life to find the comfiest clothes ever. After trying on hundreds of shirts and pants and every type of boxers I could think of I just couldn't find comfy enough clothes. Finally I thought 'hey, maybe I can invent some!' And that's where the trouble began. Each day I would try to create the perfect comfy clothing. I would use a variety of techniques such as covering the clothes in mud and then washing them for 3 days straight so they absorbed all the minerals and felt smooth on the skin. After much trial and error I had a certain technique that seemed to be working. Well one day as I was letting them out to dry in my back yard something happened. It's hard to put into words but all I saw was a giant flash through my window and a green glow radiate from my clothes. I rushed outside but the green glow was gone. I thought nothing of it after that and thought it was just some firework. Boy was I wrong. The next morning I awoke to something I wasn't really sure was real. My black pants....my black pants were standing up. A little freaked out at first I just kinda stared. I thought I was dreaming but after a pinch or two I assured myself I was not. I reached out to grab it and out of nowhere a sock wraps around the top part of my pants and starts to what seemed to be choking it. The sock was actually being held by my favorite pair of jeans. They were fighting. My clothes....were fighting. After the struggle the black pants fell sprawled out on the ground. The jeans just stood there. Well I just witnessed something crazy but nevertheless I still had to go to work because I was out of sick days. I went to grab a pair of my non standing pants but my favorite pair of jeans would not get out of my way. At the same time the other pants seemed to scurry in the corner afraid of the jeans. He was the champion. He was to be worn that day. I had no choice. I put the jeans on. The amount of comfort I felt on that day could not be matched by anything I have tried in the past. Something had changed these pants and frankly they were so comfy I didn't care. That night I go home to find an unpleasant site. Clothes were everywhere. It's as if there was a civil war between each section of clothing I have. And in the forefront of my room stood a single pair of pants, a button down shirt, and checkered boxers. It was weird but I didn't mind it since my jeans were so comfy. I realized I had done it. I have created the comfiest clothes in the world. Each victor comfier than the last. Each day I come home to a war scene of black socks vs striped, button shirts vs T's, dress pants vs jeans and checkered boxers vs polka dot. The fights somehow weed out the uncomfy ones but come the day after laundry day everyone has another chance that week and the process repeats itself. Some people think I'm crazy some people are jealous but I know that what I have is a miracle, a miracle of comfiness.

Once there was a floating Island, it floated above an endless abyss. The island was small, and only a small village could fit on it (its small) the walls of teh abyss are just out of reach of the village, and they are coated with Stoves. This may seem strange, if not for the fact that the village is cursed, and is only able to produce COLD FOODS. So every once and a while, a brave soul will attempt to leap over the abyss and cook a nice STEAMY meal. None ever succeed, they all fall to their death. NOW ENTER OUR HERO. Tobagin, the angsty teenager with BIG IDEAS and ambitions that FAR OUTSIZE the island he lives on. Tobagin dreams of a hot meal. Every night he dwells on the issue of a steamy nice hot meal. until one day he has an epiph and knee. "what if I learned to climb?" Tobagin starts to climb the trees around the village, and is mocked and scorned for his antics, but he knows, he knows he's gonna get that sweet tasty hot meal in his mouth. after 3 years of intense tree climbing, he decides he is ready. The whole village lines up to watch him PLUNGE to his DEATH. But, insted of mindlessly leaping into the abysss, Tobagin stuns everyone by GRABBING THE ROCKS WITHIN HIS FIRM GRASPING REACH. He finds a foothold and starts his decent. each movement bringing him closer to the stoves, closer to the steamy hot meal in his mouth. Everytime he finds another foothold the crowd SHEERS. He reaches the nearest stove. He opens the stove. He finds the soul of hot steamy meal in my mouth. Or HSMIMM. HSMIMM says to the boy, "gj have a nice tasty meal in your mouth" Tobagin is a hero Tobagin is a cook Tobagin is a Climber Tobagin is a CLimbing cook with a hot tasty meal in his mouth. He climbs every day to bring nice tasty warm meal in the mouth to all the village. The villagers call him CC (CLimber Cook) and even the ones who mock him enjoy the nice tasty warm meal in their mouth. The village is whole, The village is warm.

The Gweep was alone. Or so he thought. And he thought wrong. For The Gweep was not alone. In the depths one such as The Gweep could be forgiven for missing the shadowy intruder that had entered his home. For the thing in question was dwarfed by The Gweeps vast bulk that filled every inch of the old tunnels and its light shod feet carried it in silence. And that thing was known as The Gwan. The Gwan you see was much like a Swan, though in name only. Far from a regal bird did its form take, more snake-like than avian. And the snake was in the vestibule, the mouthpiece of The White Buds, the emissary of the white ceatures that dwelt on high Telmon, the low moon tht hung unnaturally above the mountin of Kulop. And fear filled the warehouses and homes of the good people of the town on the cliff, and those who remained there wore palid grey faces, and children sat in the long narrow streets, their heads lolled through hunger and fatigue. And when messangers rode into town to herald the arrival of The White Buds many grabbed what they could and set forth on great boats and arks to the lands of the west. And so the White Buds came forth from Telamon and fell like rain onto the plateau below, and their bulbous forms hovered overhead in silence, long tendril like pseudopods hung from their eggshell white bodies, grasping for the forms that milled and ran in terror below. And those who hid in the cliffs and crypts below were not spared, for beams of orange light ripped the open the ground itself and into the caverns below poured The White Buds and none who sought shelter there remained. And the shy flies and proud wasps were gone in the blink of an eye, their civilisations reduced to a grey ash that now seemed to dust the land. Nothing remained safe for the dust, no tree or beast could be seen. Plucked from the land like a corpse worm from a cadaver The Gweep was hoisted by a million Buds who ferried his fat, defeated body to a high promontory in Gune and there he was offered in sacrifice to the Crab God Uhurnog who dwelt in the swirling chaos above, and whose spidersilk wings enveloped the land in a thousand years of darkness. And the long winter passed, and as the long due spring struggled forth, the anger of The White Buds waned and they returned to High Telamon. The land awoke. And tiny rodents came forth clasping tiny thorns, and the sugar ants disgorged from domed nests and gave thanks that they had been spared. Next came gushing rivers which seemed to split from the very earth. And the black waters drained from the bay as if the very rocks below had been pierced, and the exposed shell creatures sang a hymn that could be heard far away. And the rains returned. And so too did the birds, from the long night. And years hence, on a cold morning, the ships and arks that had left so long ago returned. But those who had set sail so long ago were long gone, instead it was their great grand children who set foot on the revitalised land that had been churned and made new by the grey dust of The White Buds.

Aug 1995 Hi Dad, Mom told me we are going somewhere. She didn’t look happy like before. I think she is tired. She dressed me up and was mad because I was dressing up slow. When I was dressed, Mom put me in the back seat with some boxes. My toys are sticking out of the boxes beside me and I see some of the pots and pans are inside the box too. There’s a lot more boxes in the back with different stuff like Christmas decorations and other home stuff. Are we moving? Will the house be nice like this house? Are we going to have a swimming pool in our new house?? Can we let the fishes swim in our swimming pool? How come TJ is in the front seat? He always sits beside me and mom sits in front with you. When will I get to sit in the front seat? Mom is taking so long to get ready for our trip. Why is she bringing more boxes to the car? I’m getting squished with all the boxes beside me! It’s not fair that TJ gets to sit in front. Mom is making the car go backwards now. Dad, do you know where the bike and the jeep is? It’s not here in the car or in the garage. How come the other car is gone? I saw the car was outside of the house when mom put me in the backseat. Where are you dad? Did you bring the fish tank and the fishes with you? I don’t want them to be left behind. How come you’re not in the car with us? Where are you? I only see TJ’s, Mom’s, and my stuff in the car.

My grandpa died not remembering what his wife looked like. They were happily married despite never having enough money. He worked two jobs, as a janitor in a highschool and in a shoe factory on the weekends, and she had one, in a clothing factory, but some days they would only be able to have one meal each. The clothes they wore had multiple patches and the seams were ripping. They wore their shoes until they literally fell apart. this happened once to my grandpa while working in the shoe factory (how ironic) and had to spend the rest of the day working with one shoe, and walk home barefoot because it felt weird walking with only one shoe. Despite all this they were still happy together, but my grandpa wanted more. He wanted to move out of the bad neighborhood, get a house which would keep out the wind at night, and be able to buy good clothes for his wife and himself. Be those types of couples who would go out on the weekends to eat at a restaurant. Yeah, that seemed really nice to him, but out reach. Neither had finished highschool so they weren't able to have most jobs because of that. They both had dropped out of highschool their junior year and got married despite their parents' telling then not to. They had gotten all the money they had gotten from working during highschool and started renting a small apartment which looked like it would fall down any moment, but they didn't mind because they said it would only be temporary. They had now lived in that apartment for 25 years. He was sick and tired of barely getting by each day. Sure, there were some people who didn't have a job or a roof over their head and would go some days without eating at all, but there were also people who had 5 full meals a day, lived in what seemed like a mansion, had 3 cars, and still had money to throw away. He was angry at the cards life had dealt him and he decided that he would do something about it.

Down by the creek, beyond the pine and past the gas station, there was a haze. A green haze. And every 15th cycle the soft earth puffed forth a cloud. And the cloud floated down the gentle slopes over the dibble brook. And all that saw the miasma told of how over the old henge it took on mysterious, nebulous form. The tiny motes that whipped about the formless cloud took on the shape of great green bell. And beneath the bell there was strange air for it fed on all that was wholesome. And no peal or toll heralded the Great Green Bell as it arrived in Brookdale and the small fishermen gathered with saucer eyes and gazed in wonderment at The Great Green Bell. And Brookdale fell silent. And delicate forest turned to scrub and scrub became red sandstone, and The Great Green Bell lost much of its vitality as it awkwardly floated in a rolling fashion toward a river in a canyon that winded through the crimson rock below. Close by a hord of vagabonds and urchins followed The Great Green Bell and fed on the mana that dripped from its frilly flange. And a group of wisemen in a carriage towed by a swarm of bees spoke of how The Great Green Bell grew weak and soon would perish. And as the monstrosity neared a bend in the river next to'er sandy shore the scrill dread horn of Hu'Gnaoer bellowed from the very sky itself and The Great Green Bell came crashing down. We gasped as a thousand crystaline spines ripped through from within the fleshy green mass and presented themselves to high heaven. And the Gods, merciful were they that watched, pittied this blamanche like blob and turned it into a enormous moth with the most leathal of fangs as had ever been seen, and the crowd of dirt encrusted wretches that gathered near by cursed the mischievous Gods and their creation that grazed and gorged itself on their fleshy forms.

On Being Blunt "Are you afraid of anything?" "No." "What about death?" "What?" "Are you afraid of dying?" "Oh god no, what kind of person would be afraid of dying?" "I'm afraid of dying." "Oh, sorry. We can work on that." "It's not something you can just work on." "It definitely is." "What do you mean?" "There are many things to fear, death shouldn't be one of them." "I would never want to die before I was able to experience everything I want to experience; I need to see the sites that intrest me. There's so much that I want to do, that I feel like I was meant to do, and if that chance were to be taken away from me, I'd just-" "You're not afraid of dying, you're afraid of not living life to the fullest." "Isn't it the same thing?" "Hell no." Anthony's legs dropped down from the arm rest of the love seat that he'd been reclining on. He rose and strode toward the window seat that looked out over Alice's back yard. Without asking, he drew her pink drapes up to the right and left, and swung open the two windows, releasing the warm summer breeze into her room. "The fresh air was waiting to be let in." He presumed. "Alright?" "You'd just what?" "What?" "You said: if that chance were to be taken away from you, you'd just-. So, you'd just what?" "Oh I don't know, I just wouldn't feel complete." "Would you feel anything?" "I don't know." Alice shoved her face into her sky blue pillow, "What the hell man!" "You don't know anything." The sunlight from the backyard was bouncing off of the pink drapes, turning Alice's entire room a light, warm pink. It was beautiful and it made Anthony want to puke. "You're room is too pink. I love it, it's so disgustingly innocent. "I hate it, but I know what you mean. And I know stuff." She retorted. "Do you believe in God?" "I don't know, I believe in heaven. Do you?" She answered "God? No." "Well, what about heaven?" "I don't believe in heaven, no. Nor do I believe in hell." "Why?" "I have faith in humanity." "What does that have to do with it?" "I don't think that we, as morally aware people, should require a motivation to do good. I think that people should be able to act well, to act civilized, on their own accord. Too many people need god and the prospect of a greener field of grass to motivate them to do good things and help people. Why can't we just do good things for the sake of bettering society? It annoys me that almost anyone who ever wants to do anything good has to have this torturous, satanic inferno lit under their ass. I want people to be good people for the right reasons." "That's a little fucked up, don't you think?" "I think it's definitely fucked up, but why do you think that?" "Well, you just said that anyone who has ever done anything good in the name of religion is a fraud. That they were only doing it for selfish reasons." "Well I'm sure most of them have good hearts. I mean its not like Mother Teresa was just trying to score a ticket into heaven. But really, when you get down to the heart of it, it was her "god" that had his hands on her shoulders, pushing her into it." Alice imagined a giant man with a glowing white beard in a robe throwing a frail old lady into Africa and she laughed. She jumped up off of her bed, Anthony flinched. "Do you think I'm dumb?" "No." "Welllllll, do you think I'm smart?" "Yes. But I also think you need to think a little bit more." "I think a lot." "I mean think about the things that matter." "Well that's why you're here, right?" "I'm here because you're pretty." "Shut up! I mean it. You- you help me think about me." She lay down on the ground, parallel to the love seat that Anthony was reclining on, her head lined up with his feet and her feet lined up with his head. "You know, you're really blunt." "You say that like it's a bad thing." "Isn't it?" "Why would being blunt ever be a bad thing?" Anthony questioned. "Just because people don't always want to hear what you have to say." "Al, I don't know if anyone's told you yet, and I hate to break it to you, but the truth hurts. "I know that, I'm not stupid remember. I just don't like straightforwardness." "I don't get it?" "What don't you get." "Everyone we know just wants to be mature and get the hell out of here, but more than half of us don't have the maturity to tell each other how we really feel. I'm so fucking sick of everyone being afraid to say how they really feel about someone. But you know what I hate even more?" "What do you hate even more?" Alice sighed and rolled her eyes. "I hate the reactions people get when they are straightforward and honest with someone. No one can take criticism any more. Everyone is so easily offended. People always want to know whats wrong with them, but when I try to tell them they get all pissy and think that I'm insulting them." "It's probably because you are insulting them. Sounds like a personal problem to me." Alice felt like she was getting a handle on Anthony. She wanted more than anything to sit up and look him in the eye, but she was afraid. She knew that it would change the subject or let him in on something. He would look at her face and know how excited she was that she had finally figured him out. Sound nonchalant, she said to herself. She sat up anyways but Anthony didn't move. He just kept his eyes locked in on the ceiling, looking for an escape. "It's definitely a personal problem." he was sulking. "You've got some shit to work on." "You think I don't know that?" "All you can ever focus on are the flaws in people. You meet someone, you get to know someone, and then you spend so much time picking them apart in your head, analyzing everything that they do. You know them so well that all you can see are their flaws, or what you consider their flaws." "Shut up." Anthony sat up in the love seat and made eye contact with Alice. He was hoping that she would get nervous and crumble under his stare, but she didn't budge. "You just want people to improve themselves and be better, but they don't even know that they're doing anything wrong. Well, they're not doing anything wrong! In your head they are, but that's just ridiculous and you know it. It makes you resent them, and it makes you hate them but you have no ground to stand on." "Where is this coming from?" "Am I wrong?" "No, no you're not wrong. Fuck you." "Fuck me? What the hell Anthony? I just did to you what you do to everyone you meet! Except you know what, I did it out loud. How's that for straigtforward?" Alice was standing over Anthony. Litterally looming over him like a mother administering judement to her ill behaving child. "You're right, I do all that. I psychoanalyze people and focus on their flaws. I hate almost everyone for things that they have little to know control over. It might be stupididty, or ignorance, or pigheadedness, or whatever! I hate them for no reason and it makes me a mean person. It makes me a dick." She's done it, Anthony thought. She figured him out. Anthony knew it would happen eventually but he never imagined it would be this quick. Alice might be the only person in his life who knows him, and he loved her for it. "So," Alice concluded "you are afraid of something." "What's that?" "You're afraid of yourself." "I guess so." "We can work on that." "It's not something you can just work on.

Hi, I read a short story long ago that I'm trying to find. It's about a puppet/figurine maker who creates a certain puppet who does not fit in with the rest of the puppets. He is ridiculed by the other puppets because he looks different. The puppet goes to the creator and asks him why and if he could make him different etc. And eventually all the puppets refuse to acknowledge the creator and mock him. The puppet maker is meant to represent God being mocked and ridiculed by his own creation, and the puppet is to represent us, where we are desperate to fit in and eventually conform to society. I CANNOT find this story. If it helps, I'm pretty sure it was part of my Highschool freshman or sophomore curriculum.

It's a little dark but enjoy! Looking for lots of constructive criticism. It's a little past four in the morning. A middle aged man, cigarette between his fingers, is walking down the street. He's dressed in dark clothes, his long hair is dripping from the light rain. His black shirt reflects both the darkness that he feels internally and sees in each unlit alleyway he passes. He had just gotten off work at a nearby gas station. Everyday he stands at the counter like a mindless robot, serving an endless stream of disgruntled customers. His name tag, which reads "Justin", fails to make the man feel any more human. The customers are typically assholes but the man has grown used to it by now. He's just relieved that the store wasn't robbed tonight. He still has the scars both mentally and physically from last time. The man takes a deep drag of his Marlboro as he runs his fingers along the sewn up gash on his cheek. He remembers staring down the barrel of the 12 gauge that disfigured him. "Fuck." The man tosses his jack and lights another. It is a warm summer night, a soft drizzle sprinkles down on the concrete. The luminous full moon overhead and traffic lights light up the street. The dazzling array of colors play across the wet pavement like the dancing woman tattooed on his left arm. His pace is slow and relaxed, his hands in the pockets of his faded and worn shorts. While walking he discreetly scans his surroundings for the ever present danger that defines this neighborhood. He has been living here for almost all his life. To his right is the playground where he used to play as a kid. His old favorite slide has long ago lost its vibrant yellow paint and is now a dull grey. The swings no longer exist and the jungle jim has been reduced to a rusted conglomeration of jagged metal. The current rain contributing to its continuing demise. He remembers being young and carefree, he remembers enjoying his life before it crumbled apart before his young eyes. His mom used to take him to this park. He would run and play as she socialized with other mothers. He used to play with other children on the soft grass for hours at a time. Sometimes he and his parents would have picnics under the beautiful blue sky. They would lay on their backs and gaze up at the billowing clouds. Everything seemed just about perfect. But it wasn't perfect. As they enjoyed themselves in a blissful ignorance, cancer was slowly spreading through his mother's bloodstream. The man snaps back to reality. He is approaching an alley where he was mugged a few nights ago. As the gas station employee draws nearer, his heart speeds up. His hand clenches the razor sharp switchblade in his pocket. His tired eyes are fixed on alleyway as he continues to approach, drops of rain still dripping off his disheveled hair. He draws nearer and nearer. 20 feet. 10 feet. The moment of truth. Nothing. The man relaxes his tense muscles and let's go of his knife. He's all alone on the street. He likes the serenity of the normally bustling city in the early morning. Other than the man, there are no signs of life in this part of the sprawling concrete jungle. Although his apartment is only a few blocks away, he decides to take a detour. He wants to see his old house again. The man takes a left down 5th. The rain is starting to pick up. The pitter patter sound of raindrops is gradually drowned out by sirens in the distance. The sirens grow louder and louder as two cruisers approach. The police lights reflect off the wet brick walls around the man in a flashing dualism of blue and red. The crown victorians tear down the street, splashing the man as they speed by. "Fuckin pigs." The man mutters. Another cigarette and the man reaches his old home. He gazes on the vacant two story brick building in which he resided for the first decade of his life. There used to be a small garden in the front. The red and yellow flowers were often complemented by passing pedestrians. Now the flower bed is filled with broken glass and various pieces of trash. Every window on the building is smashed. Wide cracks run down the front door. It is hanging on to the sad structure by one hinge. The man pushes the door back and walks inside. The interior is also filled with broken glass. Graffiti covers every wall that isn't destroyed. Glass crunches underfoot as he walks through the abandoned hallways and up the rickety staircase. The stairs creak and moan under the man's weight. The man soon reaches his old bedroom. He runs his hand along the doorframe as he remembers barricading himself in the room when his drunk father tried to beat him. Sometimes the fortifications held up, sometimes they didn't. His father wasn't always a violent alcoholic. It started when leukemia stole his wife from him. He would beat his son in a drunken stupor until that chilly October day child services showed up. A concerned teacher called them after she noticed bruises constantly appearing on Justin's small body. Justin distinctly remembers being taken from the house by two government workers. His father just stood in the doorway, bottle in hand, as they bureaucrats put the young boy in the back of their white car. Justin was sobbing because he loved his father even after the regular verbal and physical abuse. He never saw his dad again after that day. He drifted from unloving foster home to foster home until he was an adult. Suddenly a bolt of lightning lights up the room in a brilliant flash, followed by a loud boom of thunder. It's time for the man to go back to his apartment. He leaves his old home. As he's walking out, he wishes he could leave behind the bad memories that haunt both his memory and the house. Stepping outside into a dismal down pour, the man briskly makes his way back to his apartment. By the time he gets back he is soaking wet. The socks within his shoes are soggy and squeak each time he takes a step. He takes off his wet clothes and puts on a dry outfit. He turns on the TV but all he can hear is his neighbors. The walls are extremely thin. Every word of the couples heated argument can be heard. As well as the cry of an infant, distressed by his or her parents incessant fighting. The man reaches under his old and uncomfortable couch, retrieving his dwindling stash. Another bolt of lightning cracks outside as he picks out a small amount of heroin from the tiny plastic bag. He readies the essentials: a spoon, cotton ball, syringe and lighter. Needle in mouth, he holds the green bic under the spoon. Once the dope is thoroughly heated, he takes the syringe from his mouth and draws in the powerful opiate. He postulates on the events of his life that have brought him to this point. A tear slides down the man's face and onto the bare floor. He knows he needs to stop using but nothing else numbs the pain. Yet another crack of lightning. He inserts the needle into this arm. Justin watches his blood mix with the drug, holding back more tears. Then he pushes the heroin into his bloodstream. After several seconds the world around him becomes exponentially more bearable. He is no longer aware of the torrential downpour outside and now frequent lightning. He is no longer aware of his obnoxious neighbors. Or his achy body. Or his hopeless situation. He drifts off into a realm of pure pleasure, temporarily permitted to escape the living hell in which he spends every sober moment of his waking life.

Green is the Grass I remember being afraid that we were going to hit the sun, as we floated up and up. Squinting up at that great yellow ball, Uncle Scott must have been able to see the anxiety in my face. Putting a hand on my shoulder he said "Why so scared Al? Nothing can touch us up here." But his word meant little, without Mimi there to hold my hand and tell me I had nothing to fear. She was down on the ground, drifting further and further away. Was she thinking about me? Was she worried for me? Or was she just relieved that she got a break from holding my hand for half an hour. Uncle Scott's hot air balloon could only hold four, so she and mom decided to sit this one out and let the boys have some time alone. It didn't take much to tune out my uncle's blabbering about the mechanisms and the physics of his new toy. Dad was listening intently, but my older cousin John seemed just as disinterested as I was, for other reasons of course. I looked down again to see ant sized versions of Mimi and Mom sitting on our blue and white checkered picnic blanket, lounging in the shade of the solitary oak tree; that wasn't nearly as scary as looking up at the sun. That was six years ago, now I'm the one on the ground, and Mimi is gone. We used to spend so much time together, my sister and I. This field was our favorite spot in the whole world. The two off us would come out here for picnics and spend the whole day laying in the tall green grass, looking at the clouds. The field itself was gigantic, but we would almost never go more than 300 yards from the highway, because that was where our tree was. A venerable white oak, standing 80 feet above the ground. Its ancient, gray branches reaching out in all directions, twisting and turning with no discernable pattern. The lowest branch hung just low enough for me to reach it if I was sitting on Mimi's shoulders, but I was always too scared to climb higher. Mimi was always trying to get me to be brave; trying to get me to face my fears. She said it would make me stronger, that once I did I wouldn't be affraid of them anymore. "Go ahead!" she would say, "I know you can do it! You just have to want it!" But I never believed her, back then I figured I would always be afraid. But as long as Mimi would always be there to hold my hand, I wouldn't need to be brave. Mimi was my older sister, she was only 3 years older than me but from looking at us you'd think it was more than that. She was always a tall girl, about six feet, the tallest girl at our school. She had light brown hair and dark green eyes, like me, with a face that reminded everyone of the sea, even those who had yet to see the ocean and marvel in it's beauty. At school Mimi had lots of friends, but that never stopped her from talking to me during lunch, and sticking up for me. Being much smaller than most of the other students, I was the natural recipient of their boredom and the source of their entertainment. But not when Mimi was around, no one would even think about tormenting me with her at my side; not after she broke Sammy Nelson's nose freshman year. He'd shoved my back up against a locker and she shoved his pale, freckley face into the neighboring locker, taking out a solid chunk of his red hair in the process. His face was an inch away from mine so the slam sounded like someone dropped a bowling ball on the hood of a car, plus the added crunch of the bones in his nose shattering. She got suspended for that, but she was okay with it. "Worth it" she would always say with a coy manner and a wink. It was almost one year ago, but I remember it all too well. May 25, 2012, the first day of summer, also my 15th birthday. I woke up at 8:35, unusually late, to my parents telling me that Mimi was already at the oak tree, waiting for me with a surprise. I put on my favorite Modest Mouse t-shirt and a pair of blue jeans as quickly as I could. I mounted my Specialized six speed and made my way to the field, a ride I had made over a hundred times; it was only two miles down the road. When I had finally arrived at the field the anticipation was killing me. I ran out to the tree with my bike at my side, but I didn't see Mimi. I circled around the tree twice to no avail; she was nowhere to be found, or at least nowhere to be seen. But she was there; our blue and white, checkered picnic blanket had been roughly sprawled out on the grass. It basked in the sun right where the shaded blades of grass met their lighter, warmer relatives. "Not a bad idea." I thought to myself. I plopped down on top of the blanket, lying on my back with my arms and legs spread out wide, starfish style. Just days before, a late spring rain had fallen, leaving the grass a new, bright green. A green that seemed to shine, a green that gave off just as much light at the sun in the sky; the two of them, sun and grass, worked together to make the cleanest, freshest, most beautiful day. My fingers found a hole in the blanket where a tuft of that grass was reaching out, looking for it's sun. I gathered the fresh green grass into my fist and yanked, I then raised my hand above my head, and let the grass float down onto my face. Just then, the leaves on the end of the branch that loomed over my head twitched, ever so slightly; she's not as sly as she thinks she is. I hoped up onto my feet and trotted over the the base of the tree. I scanned all of the lower branches, once again circling the trunk of the tree like a young girl might circle a may-pole. "Hmf, maybe she's not here." I thought out loud. "Happy birthday loser!" shouted the branches. "Okay, where the hell are you?" "Look up!" I looked up. "Higher you tard!" Her voice, I love her voice. I will always love her voice. It was a soft, warm voice. It had a depth to it, not a manish depth, but a smart, thoughtful depth. But the way she spoke was just feminine enough. I craned my head back, as far as i could, and did another spin, still looking. "I bet you think your real funny! Where the hell are you Meems?" "Right here!" her head popped out from behind a thick branch. She was way up there, near the very top, fifty feet high at least. "Happy Birthday Alex." she shouted. Even if she was yelling at the top of her lungs, her voice still rang with relaxation and care, as if it were its own entity. "Come up here, I want to show you something!" "I don't think I can even reach the lowest branch!" I ran around to the other side of the tree where that low hanging branch floated just low enough to where the tips of my fingers could graze it. I leaped once, couldn't get a hold. I jumped a second time; this time I was able to wrap my hands around the branch. "Got it." I whispered to myself. I pulled as hard as I could but I couldn't manage to get my armpits to hook over the branch. It was like trying to do a pull up in P.E. class, only harder. Everyone in P.E. laughed at me when I couldn't do a single one. "Hey! I can't do it!" I shouted. To be perfectly honest I probably could have made it on top of the branch if I tried hard enough, I just didn't want to. I knew that if I could get off the ground and onto the branch, I would get ten feet high and wet my pants. I hate heights. Mimi understood. "Okay I'll come down! It was just a bird's nest" --a relief. She bounced down from branch to branch with such ease, it was amazing. "So, how does it feel to be fifteen?" She asks as she hops down the tree. "Uhhhh, I dunno. How's it feel to be a monkey?" "Pretty damn good. You should try it. Hey, check this out." Now she was about 25 feet off the ground, standing on a good thick branch. "Here's your real present!" She kicked a plank of wood off of the branch and it came sailing down, followed by two lengths of thick, hemp rope. It came to a halt two and a half feet away from the grass. "No frickin' way! That so cool! Meems thanks so much, I love it." I plopped my ass down right on top of the swing and started pumping my legs, propelling me back and forth, up and down. I look up and she is sitting right in between the two ropes directly above me. "You really like it?" "I love it, it's awesome! Did you do this all by yourself?" "Yep! You know dad can't keep a secret. I'm glad you like it." The swing was amazing. Not because I love swings, but because I love this spot. I love our spot. This swing made it ours. It was the definitive stamp that said "We found this place, and we made it our own." Sure we'd carved our names of the great thick tree trunk, but this was more, this was hard to miss. "Hey I bet you're hungry!" I was. "I brought us some-- AH!" She landed six feet away from me, completely still aside from a twitch in her foot. A dark red drop of blood trickled down from her left ear. The rest of the day was a steady blur. The blue and red flash of sirens will forever be the backdrop of any memory I carry of that day. Now, here I lie, one year later, the back of my head resting on that blue and white checkered picnic blanket once again, yet this blanket cannot manage to stop my head from spinning. All of these memories stirring my emotions up like the wind stirring the fallen leaves under the oak tree. I turn my head to the side, facing the open field with nothing obstructing my view. Either a lack of recent rainfall has repressed the sheen that the grass needed to truly connect with the sun, or my melancholy is repressing the joy that I used to get from melting into the field. It would be a lie to say that It didn't take every iota of courage I possessed in order to make my way back to this field, our field. That's right, our field, Mimi's and my field. It still is our field. I owe her that much at least; it will never just be a field, not even the field. It will always be our field. Tears swell up; I push them back. I can't cry, Meems wouldn't want me to cry. Maybe walking will help. I take three paces in the opposite direction of the tree. No, I'm here. I turn around on my heels and beeline for the swing. Now there's no pushing back the tears, they're here, and they're real. For the first time since she left, they're here. I sit on the swing without thinking about it. I assume that the image of her falling through the air, gracefully and quietly, will rush up and hit me in the face; it doesn't. Now I'm angry. How could she do that? How could she leave me? Doesn't she know I still need her? Doesn't she know I still want her to hold my hand? Although, its not like anyone messes with me at school anymore; they wouldn't dare. I start pumping my legs for the second time. Now I'm bawling, but it's okay. Mimi would have wanted me to cry. The grass is suddenly much greener, the sun much warmer, the air much cleaner, and the day is much brighter. My swinging comes to a stop, along with my tears. I rise from the swing and see, for the first time, neatly painted on the wooden plank, in red and blue paint, are the words "Alex, Keep on swinging. Love, Mimi" What a dork, she will always be able to make me laugh.

As I sat next to the bed of one of my wounded, I happened to see our chief surgeon, in his blood-stained apron signaling me to come to him. I got up, leaving my wounded man asleep. The surgeon’s rigid posture and grave face told me all I needed to know. "How is he?" I asked The surgeon shook his head. "His wound became infected, probably not long after he received it. The leg’s so thoroughly diseased that not even amputation could save him. He's gone." I sighed. "How long?" "No more than 10 minutes" There was a silent pause. The surgeon hung his head low. "I’ll get some morphine. It'll help ease the pain," he muttered. With that, he departed. I went back to the wounded man, and sat back down at his bedside. As I looked over him, I realized that the descriptor of "Man" was not an apt one, for it was clear that he was no more than 19 years of age. I knew he was from Maryland, probably a farmhand from the west of the state. When he first arrived, it seemed like he would make it out of here alive. But now, it was clear the infection had taken its toll. His once broad chest has shriveled, and his bronze complexion had faded to a sickly pale color. His bandaged leg emitted an incredibly foul odour of decay, and the spot where the wound was leaked a green liquid through the layers of gauze and cloth. As I sat by his bedside, his deeply sunken eyes blinked opened, and he turned his head towards me. A faint smile appeared on his thin, gray lips, and in a raspy voice, he croaked "What's the news, nurse?" It took me a moment to muster the courage to tell him the news. "The surgeon tells me you'll die today. He took it in without fear; the soldiers always do. "How long?" He asked. "Not more than 20 minutes." With a deep sigh, he closed his eyes and crossed his arms over his chest. "Now fix me." I pinned his feet together by his stockings; for that was the way we laid out corpses. I straightened his body out, and put his head on his pillow. Shedding a tear of grief upon his pale face, I bade him goodbye. The surgeon returned by this time, and he administered the dying man a shot of morphine. He began to softly call out the names of his loved ones in a dreamy, delirious voice, no doubt convinced that they were there beside him. After a few minutes, the calling stopped. I glanced at him one last time. His face had become as pleasant as if he were asleep in his own home. In a few minutes, he was gone. His body was placed in a plain oak coffin, and loaded onto a wagon to take his body away. And it was many a time the boys fixed themselves that way before they die. Edit: added edits suggested by crazytallguy (see his comment).

When I saw her my heart stopped beating. The very blood in my veins slowed to an icy halt and I felt a lurch in my chest that was all but equal to death, yet as invigorating as that moment you realize you are alive. My mouth was dry and my throat clicked once with a heavy swallow. My own body betrayed me and went rigid. My arms and fingers felt numb. My lips were pin cushions that sent streaks of searing pain through my face as if they were sleeping for years and just now became awakened with life. My brain raced to understand and create a level-headed coolness but only succeeded in blushing my sedated cheeks. I wanted nothing more than to say one tiny, simple word to her but she never acknowledged my existence nor did she even raise her angelic visage in my direction. I rejoiced though, however ironic and fleeting, that she did not glance upon me - for my heart was on its last beat and my breath was captured. And for that very moment of serenity, if she had raised one glorious, perfectly shaped brown eye toward me and it had locked in time with mine own, my heart would have burst and I would have ceased to exist all together. For I know, the very curve of the corner of her supple lips would have arced upwards in a feline smirk and I would have never breathed again, nor would I have wanted to, for I would wish to encapsulate that moment in time forever. For all moments after would pale in comparison and only shatter my heart further at its incompetence.

"Goodbye, Lucy," the secretary didn't look up from her computer screen as her fingers furiously plucked away at her well-worn computer. Lucy didn't respond, as she had already worked an hour after her day had ended and was fed up with the tedious charade that office relationships had become. The secretary gave a look of disgust that smelled of future office gossip. She didn't need this. She stepped out into the cool Boston air and was refreshed for half an instant before the stink and noise of hit her senses like a light slap from an old friend. Lucy snatched a parking ticket off of her windshield and stuffed them in her pocket: they were cheaper than the parking under her building She got into the car her grandmother had left her, a clunker that struggled to start and was shambling towards a quarter million miles on the odometer that could barely be read through the grime that had built up over the last three decades. Lucy tried the car twice, three times before sitting back in the old beige seat. She didn't need this. On the way home, Lucy ran into especially bad traffic. She sat for nearly an hour, glancing at her cracked wristwatch as the sun waned over the eastern horizon. This, she really didn't need. Well after dark, she pulled into the parking designated for her apartment building. Her spot was taken, as it was about half the time. This time, there were no open spots for her to steal. She didn't need this. With a festering ball of frustration and depravity in her gut, Lucy drove two blocks South to park at the 24-Hour Save-Mart, the one place in her neighborhood she knew she wouldn't get a ticket. She stepped out into the cool air and immediately her a loud snap and felt a twist in her ankle as she dropped to her hands and knees. She rolled over to sit down and inspect her foot. A broken ankle would send her hurtling significantly farther into debt than she already was, but she had only broken a heel. She switched into a battered pair of sneakers she had in the trunk only to discover a missing sole. She frowned and kept them on anyway. She didn't need this. On her way home, there was no one to be seen. Only in her neighborhood could there be the threatening sound of car alarms, horns, and things breaking without the sight of the perpetrators. She was used to it. Hell, she slept through worse on a regular basis. As she was walking, she heard footsteps behind her. She sped up, not wanting human interaction for a second longer. The footsteps mirrored her acceleration, and then some. Now this was something she truly didn't need. She whipped her pepper spray out of her purse and wheeled around to face her attacker. Nothing. With a sigh of relief she resumed her fast pace towards her building, now in sight, but continued to glance back over her shoulder towards the darkness that seemed to grow and reach out to her as she sped away. Divorced out of an abusive relationship and living with her grandmother, Lucy had learned to care for and defend herself. Her grandmother had named and raised her as her father died overseas on tour and her mother had not survived the birth. She had cooked and taught Lucy for all 31 years of her life, and was the most important person in the world. Becoming senile, the old woman often thought Lucy was eight or nine, but Lucy allowed, even enjoyed a little, the old woman's bedtime stories and Lullaby's her favorite being, "Goodbye Lucy", a family story which Lucy's name was drawn. The elevator attendant offered her a sweet and she turned it down with a weak smile as she always did. He was one of the few people she didn't mind conversing with. Lucy stepped off the elevator and was greeted with a bad feeling that immediately enveloped her like a warm cloak. She hurried over to the door and noticed that the lock had been smashed. Lucy's heart dropped as she though about her old and blind grandmother, her only family in the world. She had her phone and was dialing 911 as she stepped inside to try to find her grandmother. The apartment was dark and eerily quiet. There were no signs of robbery or her grandmother. Lucy was too afraid to call out, so she quietly crept into the kitchen, praying frantically that her grandmother was alright. She didn't need this, not today. She rounded the corner into the dining room and saw her Grandmother sitting at the counter. She felt relief wash over her as she noticed that the old woman was crudely bound with a belt and gagged with a handkerchief. She tried warning Lucy with a muffled cry, but as Lucy turned to face the living room her vision went dark as something hefty smashed her in the face, knocking her to the ground and sending her pepper spray and phone skittering across the floor. She didn't need this. Her mouth, wet with blood from her broken nose, tried to plea as her vision was restored, though blurry and riddled with little dashing stars. The plea stopped short when she saw Lucy's ex-husband standing over her, stinking of rum with a horrible grin below terrible dead eyes that told Lucy her pleas would only cause him to become more violent. He tossed the small six-shooter he had pistol whipped her with onto the counter. He kicked her in the stomach and dropped down on top of her, running his hand up her leg. He was going to take her, right in front of her grandmother. He leaned in, pinning her against the floor and whispered with a drunken slur, "Goodbye Lucy". She needed that. The anger that those words gave her revitalized her body, which had been petrified from pain and fear. She waited for him to begin undoing his pants to take the keys still in her hand and shove them into his eye with surprising force. He grasped at her throat, but his screaming and struggle to get away from her only gave her more strength. She gave them a final push before rising to he feet and kicking him in the stomach has he screamed and cursed and struggled to pull the now bloody keys from his eye socket. He began to rise with a newborn fury is his wide eyes and red face as the seeping whole that was his eye pumped blood through his dirty sausage fingers. She picked up the gun he had set down and turned to face him, but he was faster than she expected. He grabbed her hair and through her to the ground again. His pants fell to the ground, as he reached down to grab her again. She pulled then gun up to his chest. He froze, stood up, and began to laugh. He looked at her with a bloody grin that quickly vanished when she cocked the gun and sat up. He opened his mouth to speak, but was cut short by six gunshots, all in a row. He fell backwards onto the coffee table, shattering it, dead. She needed that. She slowly came to her feet, and unbound her old caretaker, who was just as scared as Lucy was. She dropped the gun on the ground and sat down at the table. She was covered in blood and shaking like tree in the wind but she allowed a smile to creep across her face as her grandma grasped her hand in her own and began to sing Goodbye Lucy. That was all she would need.

I haven't written anything of substance in a long while, so I wrote this as an exercise to shake the rust off. It is a stand-alone excerpt that could fit in a historical or fantasy based novel. I hope I've been able to depict the multiple layers of this scene well enough. Thanks for reading! Just south of a small mountain range, a cool spring breeze passed through a stone monastery. The overgrown ivy covering the northern face of the building danced as the wind tickled its bountiful growth. From the top of the smooth cut stone structure the ivy had crept to meet the rocky cliff face upon which the monastery was perched. Green ivy, grey rock, and beige stone lay against a backdrop of deep, clear blue, as the sky was brimming with colour at the onset of the new season. The monastery was a large, square compound, with four stone parapets at each corner of the building, the northernmost being flush against the cliff face. At the centre was a circular courtyard, filled with beds of flowers and shrubs around the perimeter of the courtyard. Forming this perimeter were a series of stone pillars, the bases of which were buried beneath the lush green of the plants. Atop one of the pillars was a nest of sparrows, and the birds fluttered around the courtyard, singing cheerfully. That friendly mountain breeze made its way into the courtyard, towards a simple wooden bench that faced the mild warmth of the afternoon sun. It brushed aside the hem of a white robe, cooling the ankles of the monk sitting alone on the bench. He was an old man, whose ample belly was poorly disguised by his simple clothes, yet his face had retained its youthful glow, enhanced by his bald pate gleaming in the sunlight. His eyes squinted against the sun as he smiled contentedly, listening to the sparrows’ concert and taking in the fresh growth of greenery. His smile widened as he heard the faint clapping of sandaled feet on stone tiles. The dim sound grew in resonance as the footsteps approached, and from his seat on the bench the monk called out cheerfully, “Good afternoon, Brother,” The newcomer emerged from within the monastery, coming into view, similarly clothed in a white habit, yet a bit younger than his colleague. Unlike the seated monk, he was quite thin, and though he was not smiling, he had an honest, open face. “May I join you?” “Of course! Please sit.” The slender monk then held up the jug and two cups he had been holding, and smiled faintly, to which the older monk laughed and patted him on the shoulder as he lowered himself onto the bench. “I suppose it is never too early to celebrate such a fine day” he said. The second man carefully poured a cup of red wine, and passed it to his companion, after which he poured himself a cup. For several minutes they both sat in silence, sipping their wine and admiring the courtyard and its garden. Finally, the thinner monk placed his cup on the ground next to the jug of wine, and fixed his gaze on the heavyset monk. “The vote is tomorrow, the monastery is in a furor, it is quite a nuisance.” The older monk chuckled and returned the look, “I have been through many such votes, and this is by far the most tiresome of them all.” Not known for outbursts of laughter, the younger monk gave a hearty grin, flashing what teeth he had left before remarking, “We are priests, not politicians, my friend. I should say this is ill befitting our station. Such ambition is better left to the less morally inclined.” In response his companion simply smiled, looked down at his cup, and took a sip, his light grey eyes surveying the wine like a hawk watched a rabbit. The younger man likewise took a sip, his eyes watching his friend as he swallowed the warm red liquid. “Brother,” he said, smiling, “I’m afraid you’ve besmirched your habit.” The larger monk stared at him, watching his eyes and his smug expression as he slowly reached his arm towards his friend’s throat, only to gently place his slender finger upon a red stain at the collar of the robe. The culprit was not hidden, as a line of red was visible on the large monk’s cup from where the wine had spilled. Breaking eye contact and looking down at his lap, the bald man laughed, tut-tutting to himself, “That won’t do at all,” he said. “Yes,” his friend said slowly, looking at the patch of red, “that stain must be removed.” “Or perhaps, I could simply find a way to hide it,” he said as he watched the thin man, “with so many habits and so many monks, I’m sure there are more than a few concealed stains amongst our ranks.” The skinny monk’s face bore an expression of sincere contemplation as his eyes bored into the large monk’s robe, “Perhaps,” he said. He reached down to collect the jug and his own cup, rising from the bench. His robe had gone into disarray, and he quietly adjusted it before turning back towards the older monk. They shared a warm smile as each stared at the other, with the hefty monk raising his cup in front of his sharp grey eyes as he said through grinning teeth, “My thanks, for the drink, Brother.” The thin man nodded to him, and headed for the interior of the monastery, his sandals playing the same song against the stone that they had when he approached, only this time in reverse. As the song faded to nothing, the solitary monk once more perked his eyes and ears toward the chattering sparrows. The sun was still out, the sky was still blue, the garden was still radiant, and the birds still sang. As he finished his wine, the monk contemplated the one thing he knew with certainty on that beautiful day. For himself, or the man who just left, there would be no sun, no sky, no garden, no birds, no wine, waiting for them tomorrow. Only death. He decided then that he had not yet had his fill of such marvelous spring days. “Now then,” he said, laboriously rising from the bench, “I suppose I should see about removing this stain.

I stared. No, that's not accurate. I gawked. To stare would mean to politely look at something for an extended period of time. Gawking is why I did to those things. Alabaster in color, fluffy in texture, and out my reach in location. If you haven't figured it out by now, I mean the clouds. God, how can you not just want to devour them. That's what I did that day. I devoured them through sight. I would get to them. I tried in a plane once. My friends just laughed at my attempt. I thre up. I saw things that weren't there, but I never reached my family. I was very disappointed. But I knew how to reach them forever. I just had to jump. Jump higher than anyone ever had before. So I decided to do it. But I was nervous. What if they didn't accept me in their cloud wonderland? What if my method of getting there was unnatural? How could I help wanting to be with my brothers? I was sure they would understand. Going home was nerve racking. I said good bye to my parents subtly. They didn't suspect a thing. I was giddy with pride at my wonderful idea. I went to m closet. I chose an all white outfit. They would love it. I gathered the materials for the long journey ahead of me. I laughed maniacly at the thought that no one could hold me back now. I'm in control. I stood up. I stood higher than I ever had before. The chair helped a lot. I took my last breath as a human, and I jumped. I heard a loud snap. The rope did its job.

Once upon a time there was a King who had a beautiful daughter. She was his pride and joy. One day the princess was tending her garden in the sunshine. She did all of the raking and hoeing and pruning and at the end of the day she was happy and tired. Her father came to see her and when he touched her hand he felt her calloused palms and saw scrapes and cuts where she had been working. The king was angry that her soft beautiful hands had been marred that he ordered the royal glove maker to make her some gloves. The king forbade her from ever being outside without her gloves on. The princess protested that she would never feel the warmth of the soil on her hands again. The king refused her request and the princess was from that day forward forced to wear gloves. One day while the princess was walking through the halls of the palace where she was approached by one of the king’s duke’s who asked her why she always wore gloves. The Princess replied that her father felt that her royal hands were too beautiful and too delicate to be outside without gloves. The Duke was jealous that the king’s daughter was thought to be so precious that she needed to wear gloves. When the Duke told his wife, the Duchess, of the Princess the Duchess insisted that her hands and that their daughter’s hands were as precious as the Princess’s. The Duke had gloves made for his wife and daughters so that they could always have gloves when they were in public. The Royal Court of the King soon saw that the Duchess and her daughters were always wearing gloves and so they began to wear gloves. Although many of the wives and many of the daughters complained about how warm the gloves were in the summer, their fathers worried about the loss of self-esteem they forbade their wives and daughters from removing the gloves. Soon the rich merchants of the kingdom saw that the women of the royal court wore gloves. The Princes and Lords interested in their advancement in the court were now only interested in marrying the girls who wore gloves. Merchants who wanted their daughters to marry well and wives who wanted to been seen as prosperous started to wear gloves. And so it became in the Kingdom, that all of the women wore gloves so that others would think well of them. Many Daughters felt the gloves were too warm in the summer and wanted to take them off. Fathers pleaded with their daughters and many of the girls defied their fathers. “Their my hands!” they would proclaim. Frustrated fathers and brothers and uncles would take their daughters and nieces and sisters to the king. The king being wise passed a law that all girls in the kingdom were to wear gloves at all times or face very, very stiff punishment. For many, many years the women of the Kingdom wore their gloves. Many Kings came and went and the law stayed in place. So many generations passed that everyone forgot the reason for the law. One day a little girl was in the park and she wandered up to the pond. She desired to feel the water so she slipped off her glove to touch the sparkling water. The wind came along and blew her glove into the pond. She could not reach it and she was afraid. Her brother who was her escort for the day saw that she had taken her glove off. He was a law abiding little boy and he knew the law. So he ran and told a policeman that his sister had removed her glove. The Policeman praised the little boy. Proudly he led the policeman to the little girl. The girl was terrified. The policeman explained the law and the girl nodded that she understood. With one swift strike of his sword the police cut off the little girls head. A woman walking by saw what had happened. She was horrified. She had herself taken her glove off to touch the water. She saw how proudly the little boy walked with the policeman to tell his parents what a good job he had done to obey the law. It could not be right that a girl’s life was the same as a bare hand. But it was the law what could she do. The woman didn’t sleep for many, many nights and finally she told her husband the story. She expected him to understand her fears but in the end he said that the law was the law and that little girls who took their gloves off needed to be made an example of else everyone take off their gloves. The woman was mortified. How could the man she loved be so callous. What about their own daughters? or their daughters in the future? But her husbands comment that the little girl needed to be made an example of else everyone take of their gloves gave her and idea. “What if every woman in the Kingdom took off their gloves at the same time?” “They couldn’t kill them all could they?” She would have to be cautious. The woman quietly and cautiously told the story to any woman who would listen. If the woman agreed what a tragedy it was that the little girl was killed she would share her plan. In one year, on the anniversary of the little girls death, all of the women would go to the town square and all at once, they would remove their gloves. They would not leave until the law was repealed and women were able to choose if they wanted to wear gloves or not. So the news spread quietly at first, then more and more women heard about the plan. The woman told every one that they should not say where the idea started but that they should pass it on. When a strange woman in approached her in the market and told her the story she was both afraid and excited. When her husband came to her and asked her if she had heard of the plan she was horrified. Did the men know too? What if the king and the policemen came to stop them? It would be a disaster. When the woman would not tell her husband if she was going to attend he was very angry. “The law is the law.” He would proclaim arrogantly, “No wife of mine will obey the law and shame me!” “No daughter of mine will dare disobey me.” And with that he would go out with his friends. When he would come home at night with beer on his breath he would be afraid and he would beg his wife. “Please do not go. I could not bear to be without you.” And he would cry himself to sleep. The day came. The woman took her two daughters by the hand and began to walk to the town square. On the way they were joined by many of the other women in the town. Soon the procession to the town square was crowded with women and their daughters. When the women reached the town square they were shocked to see that the king had all of his policemen on horses guarding the square. They would not be allowed in. The king himself stood on a tall dais erected during the night and proclaimed that the nonsense was to end. All women were to leave the area with their gloves on and this incident would be forgotten. The women stared around at each other. “What are we to do they muttered?” The Husbands, and fathers and brothers and uncles who followed them to the square nodded. One of the men spoke. “Yes, the king is right. The king is just. Please come home and all will be forgotten.” One of the women sat down. In the middle of the road. She just sat down. Another woman sat next to her. Then a third woman with three daughters joined them and in a very short time every woman who had planned to take her gloves off in the square had joined them and was sitting in the square. The King was furious, the Dukes and Earls and nobles were furious. The husbands, and fathers, and sons and brothers were all furious. Then it happened. One of the women took off her gloves. At that moment the King yelled. “Kill her!” and one of the kings archers deftly fired an arrow that struck the woman square in the breast and she died. There was a pause. A quiet filled the square. A man and a boy made their way quietly to the woman tears streaming down their faces and sat with by the dead woman’s body. Everyone was in shock. A little boy was the first to speak. “The law is the law.” He said. A moment later another woman took off her gloves quickly followed by several more. There was a pause. The Kings face was red with anger. “I have offered mercy!” he shouted “I have shown you that I will not be defied and you still defy me!” The Law is the Law!” But there was fear in his voice. “Now please go!” he shouted. Several women stood and took off their gloves. And several of the policemen drew their swords. Several more women stood and removed their gloves. And several more of the policemen drew their swords. And in few short moments there were hundreds of women with bare hands facing dozens of policemen with swords drawn. Then an old man, with a bald head and a cane made his way from the back of the crowd and he stood next to an old woman and helped her as she took off her gloves. He kissed her on the cheek and stood beside her. Not in front of her, not behind her but beside her as he had done since the day that they were married. The King realized that things were quickly getting out of hand. He needed to act or the day would be lost. He acted. “Kill them, Kill them all!.” He screamed. The guards hesitated, the fathers, and sons and brothers and husbands gasped. Some of the men nodded “The law is the law.” They muttered. But some of the men, most of the men loved their mothers, and wives and sisters and daughters more than they loved the law. Those men walked made their way through the crowd to stand by their wives and daughters and sisters and mothers. The woman who started it all was certain that she was about to die along with her daughters in the dusty road on this hot summer day. Then she felt a familiar hand take her bare hand. It was a strong calloused hand. She looked into the worried face of her husband and he smiled an awkward smile. A tear was on his cheek. He looked at his wife again and whispered. “Maybe laws can be changed if enough people will it.” And she smiled and cried and she planned to die happy. “Kill them! Kill Them All!” Shouted the King. And the dozens of policemen with swords ran towards the crowd. And the hundreds of men and women and fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers ran towards the policemen. And in moments it was over. The mob tore through the line of policemen. The swords were left on the dusty road because of the symbol that they represented. When the crowd looked for the King they saw that he had run from the dais and had hidden behind the palace wall. Days passed and the story spread and soon every woman in the kingdom had removed her gloves. The King sent envoys to the people proclaiming that he would change the law. That was enough for the time. But soon other laws were challenged and other crowds were formed and in the end the people decided that they didn’t need a king and that they could govern themselves. They elected good men and women to lead represent them. The King woke one morning to find that he was no longer a King. He was lead to be judged before the people he had ruled. He was delivered the same sentence as the little girl who had taken off her glove. So were the Dukes, and the Lords and the policemen who carried out the bad laws on the good people. And they lived happily ever after.

QUADRUPLE X Chapter 1: the only It was dark and sunny on the clear rainy night. The night-riding cashier was making his daily rounds in the parking lot of the abandoned ninja hideout, and everything was going well. Then suddenly, like thirty ninjas jumped out of the shadows and encircled the cashier. "We've come to kill you johnny night-riding-cashier" said one of the evil ninjas. "You'll have to kill me first" said johnny before doing an uber wicked heart punch on that ninja. The ninja's heart totally exploded, and blood burst from his covered mouth. He fell to the ground in agonizing death. "Who's next?" Asked johnny. All the ninjas sprang forward to attack him, but this night-riding cashier was prepared. He jumped and did like a triple backflip kick, knocking at least ten ninjas back. Still in mid air, Johnny punched five more ninjas, using one as a landing cushion. The remaining ninjas were shaking in fear, but johnny did not hesitate in his attack. He kicked their heads off in one fluid roundhouse kick, decapitating them. Now only one remained, who had ducked under the the kick. This ninja took off their mask to reveal the face of a beautiful woman. "You've shown me the error of my ninja ways, ravish me johnny. I need you!" Johnny walked slowly over, whipped out his cock and killed her with one solid thrust into her. She died in orgasmic pleasure. "I'm impressed," johnny said to himself, "she lasted one more thrust than anyone else before". The cashier walked away into the brisk evening, ready to take on any challenges life presented.

Machine Tool I sit here useless, gathering dust. They think I've fulfilled my job and as I got old, they discarded me. Not only discarded but replaced, the youngster replacing being faster, stronger and cockier. Apparently that's all they care about, they've been with me for over 10 years before throwing me away and somehow I'm the non-sentient tool? That's what they think of me, some kind of machine tool. I'm useful if I operate quickly from morn till dusk but after that I'm replaced. How am I to live? Starved of my fuel? Crippled beyond defence? They haven't given me anything, nothing to show my ten years of service. They just… left me. I spend my last days sitting on the streets of the Indian slums, the blistering sun piercing my burnt skin; I wish I never took up the job. The title "chain stores" describes my conditions in those sweatshops.

QUADRUPLE X Chapter 2: the other only It was a windy, stormy, bright evening. The skies were clear and the breeze was calm on this day. The sun was low in the sky. Jonny stepped into his favorite bar, the one with alcoholic beverages. He slowly scanned the interior, watching the truck-driving-robot-samurais interact in their habitat. There was at least like, 50, man. Johnny sauntered over to the nearest bar stool and popped a squat, his firm buttocks seated on the hard oak wood. The stool made a loud screech that echoed through the bar and the ears of every cyber-zombie and truck-driving-robot-samurai in the building. Everyone froze. Everyone but johnny. Johnny looked up into the eyes of the dinosaur bar tender and spoke with a voice as silky and rough as glad toilet paper. "I'll have a milk. Chocolate." He said quietly. The triceratops starer johnny down, the bar silent. "IT'S JOHNNY! GET HIM!" Yelled one samurai. The bar tender roared, charging immediately towards the night riding cashier. Johnny leaped upward, sailing over the angered Dino. The bar tender rammed through the bar and into several samurai, sending blood and metal flying. In mid air johnny performed a cool flip kick and beheaded three samurai. He landed betwixt seven truck drivers. They all raised their laser swords, screaming. Johnny did a leg sweep and dropped all the surrounding enemies, their laser swords flying into samurai around them. Johnny heard a loud roar and quickly grabbed a robotic arm from one of the many samurai around him, ripping it from the body before forcing the hand into a peace sign. He flung the hand at the dinosaur racing towards him, and the extended fingers on it hit the triceratops in the eyes. It screeched in pain before collapsing on itself in front of johnny. He searched the room with his eyes and saw only four samurai left. He ripped another limb from a fallen swordsman, a leg this time. He bent it at the knee and threw it. It boomeranged around the bar clanging against the metal craniums of the samurai before reaching Johnny's strong hand again. The floor was strewn with dead and unconscious bodies, but johnny stood among them without fear or shame. The doors to the bar opened and seventeen super models raced in, trying to get to Johnny as fast as possible. But johnny raised his hand as a signal to stop. They all stopped in their tracks. Johnny slowly walked to the bar, poured himself a chocolate milk, and then drank it. It was glorious. "Alright ladies, have at me".

“It’s funny when you think about the things that used to be important in’t it?” Darren asked of nobody in particular. “You know, when you’d save up your brass for the latest bit of kit; going to work every day, takin’ shit off folk, trying to get yer sen up the ladder, just for a bit more brass, perpetuating the bullshit cycle and all that.” The other 2 men seated in the dark office remained silent. The paraphernalia of bureaucracy lay scattered about the place. Papers littered the floor and the powerless computer screens stared out from desks like dead eyes. “See the thing is, it’s sort of ironic innit?” continued Darren, licking away the bead of sweat that had formed on his upper lip. “After putting all that effort into working to try and get the stuff we wanted, we’re still ‘ere working when all the stuff we want has gone and we’re not very likely to ever see it again.” Christian loosened his tie and rose to his feet. Regarding Darren with a barely disguised look of contempt he drew himself up to his full 6 feet and fixed the smaller man with a hard stare. “I’ll tell you what Darren.” he said. “Your constant rambling is starting to get right on my tits. At the end of the day, I’m pretty fucking sure nobody chose to find themselves in this situation, and even in the state that we’re in, we’re faring quite a good deal better than most of the other poor bastards out there.” Christian remembered the first time he met Darren, a replacement for an assistant promoted to pastures new. He’d arrived late, a small bloke with ratlike features who scuttered into his office dressed in a ill-fitting cheap suit, shiny at the arse and elbows, worn thin through years of sitting slouched over a desk. Christian couldn’t help but wonder if he was still wearing the same suit now, 5 years later. Darren’s eyes darted away from the intense stare. “I d’int mean anything by it mate. Just trying to make conversation is all. You know what I mean don’t you Baz?” Barry, the third member of the group looked up from the floor where an errant paperclip had held his attention for the last 5 minutes, opened his mouth to reply, then thought better of it, lowering his gaze to the floor again. Christian turned to face the shuttered windows of the office and chanced a peek through the slats into the outside world below. “Stay away from the window Chris!” hissed Barry, startling Christian and causing him turn quickly and bang his leg against an office table. “They can’t know we’re in here. We’ve heard from no-one else for ages so we’ve pretty much got to assume we’re ‘it’ now.” Rubbing his leg Christian hobbled across to Barry who - still seated - turned his head to face him. “Let’s put it this way Baz.” Christian lowered his face to Barry’s level. “We were set up to deal with this, well, for want of a better word ‘situation’, but at the end of the day how likely do you think ‘they’ thought it was that this situation would or could ever happen?” “I’d not really thought about it to be honest Chris.” replied Barry. “But as it has happened, don’t you think we should try and do something about it?” “Do what? Me, you and Shirley Bassey here against, well, against all of that out there?” he adjusted his posture to indicate the shuttered window.

I appreciate anyone that takes the time to read this. I should've tagged it realistic fiction instead of mystery, my bad. We have to write a short story for my English class about anything, about two pages long. Feedback is most certainly welcome. Trigger warning: abuse and suicide. Running: that’s the only thing I’ve ever been good at. Running from my problems; my responsibilities; the everyday problems in life that seem impossible to fix. When I ran away from home, I believed it to be a long term solution to my problems. I was eleven years old when my father stumbled in through the doorway, drunk like every other night this week. It was rare to see a day where he was sober- not that those moments offered any solace to me; they were only a brief escape from the personal hell I was living in. As soon as he crossed the threshold, the stench of alcohol and stale cigarettes permeated the room. I shrunk away from him, trying to disappear into the tattered couch that occupied the space of our living room, hoping that if I appeared small enough he wouldn’t notice me. His beady eyes shifted around the room before settling on me. The glazed look that was in his eyes can still send shivers down my spine to this day. He slowly made his way over to me, a few steps interspersed with drunken stumbling. I wanted to move, I wanted to escape- but where could I go? I didn’t have time to think much about it before he began yelling at me about how I was ruining his life. The words don’t sting so much anymore; I’ve grown used to them by now. Of course he knew that they barely stung, so he had to use a new way to hurt me. A punch to the face can hurt just as much as words, I found out that night. After he had passed out on the couch and the only sound in the air was his rumbling snores, I stole the few dollars he had in his wallet and ran. The side of my face was swelling but I ignored it for now. A single word was shouting over and over in my head, making itself heard and refusing to be ignored: Run. So I did; I ran until I could hear my heart beating in my ears and my lungs were screaming at me to stop. As much as I didn’t want to, I had to take a break. I slumped against a brick building, catching my breath as tears streamed down my cheeks. Here I am, years later, yet I still feel like I haven’t left that night. I can never quite catch my breath; I can still feel the sharp, shooting pain in my cheek. I’ve made a life for myself- I’ve got a home, a job, and food on the table. My father died five years ago due to liver failure (who would’ve guessed?) yet I’m still running. I’m running from my past into the unpredictable future which instills just as much dread into me. I don’t know what tomorrow brings, but one thing that I do know is that I am tired of running. My hand shakes slightly as I hold the gun in my hand. The tremor becomes more pronounced as I raise the cold, unfeeling piece of metal to my head. Every second feels like an eternity as I hold it, the key to the release I desire. The quiet tick of the clock makes its way into my subconscious, mocking me with its sound. When I’m dead, it will keep carrying on; the world will not stop around me, but I will. I wrap my trembling finger around the trigger. It’s ready to go; but am I? I am. I’m tired of running. I want to finally be able to rest and let go of my past. This is the one moment in my life where I fully welcome the unpredictable future. I can finally stop running. I pull the trigger. Everything goes black.

Hi! Sorry for not posting part 4 for quite a while (close to a month D:). My laptop was shorted out due to my hyperactive dog and my cup of water.... yea... Took a short hiatus for schooling and gaming, swim, etc. Now I'm back with part 4! Here is if you want a refresher or haven't read it yet! ~40 minutes later~ As she swung her legs over the edge of her bed, I shifted the pillow she had laid her head and arms on behind my head, with the impressions facing the bed sheets. “Is it rough living with him? After a few moments passed, she said “I know he’s bad but he’s the only other father you’ll get unless your mom remarries… “ in a soft, gentle tone that would only be surpassed by someone who is meek by nature. “Even without him it’s rough. With my dad it was… well, rough but no one knew abo-“ was all I got out before I was slapped with her left hand, I felt a small droplet rest itself on my cheek, but when I wiped it up with my finger I was surprised to find that she didn’t draw blood, but it was a liquid clear as liquid. It dawned on me that she hasn’t turned to face me ever since she sat up. After a few moments, I remembered what she had said to me this morning and slowly crawled closer to her, as I began to sit on the edge of the bed next to her, she looked at me with red eyes, small rivers flowing into the reservoir of her pale upper lip. As she held the stare with me, she moved her right arm with slow movements to my chest. As calmly as someone could while silently fighting a war inside of them, she placed her pale, white hand on my chest, her nails neatly filed to show a pointy end while retaining the curve of a fingernail. She glanced at her hand quickly then looked up at me and whispered “Sorry.” As I was about to ask her what for, she clawed her nails into my skin. Her finger tips were nearly at a 90 degree angle, still digging into my chest. The pain was taken almost naturally for me, but I was massively shocked as to why her nails were stuck in my chest. I said “Jesus Christ.” As I placed my hand on her small, frail arm “That hurts you know. Why’d you do it?” “To make sure, now go to the kitchen. I’ll be down to put a bandage on you in minute or so.” I softly grabbed her arm, nails still embedded a small distance into my chest, and gently positioned it on her lap. Leaning into her right said, I gave her a hug accompanied with a light squeeze as I said “Sorry… for hurting you, master.” Thinking she would want privacy I closed the door behind me and descended the spiraling staircase that ended a few paces to the left of the kitchen entrance. I shuffled into the kitchen patting my chest to see if her nails had drawn any blood seeing as she had said that she’d be down here to bandage me up. Looking over to the left, I noticed a TV and 2 sofas in a room connected to the kitchen along with a bathroom in the across from what I assumed to be the garage door from its big, and sturdy appearance. My attention was brought to my hand when i felt my fingers become moistened with blood, as I began to walk towards the counter to grab a paper napkin I heard a soft thud followed by the light pats of her feet on the wooden staircase. As I snapped my head to the left to watch her enter the kitchen I lost grip on the wooden kitchen floor and collapsed into a heap on the brown wood. She had ran down the last few steps to see what had happened, and suddenly broke out into laughter when she saw the heap of maroon, black, and white on the floor. As she gracefully walked toward me with a small pop in her step, I noticed her eyes weren't red anymore, that's good, right? As she stood to the right of me, she stuck her left arm down making a grabbing with her small hand. Not wanting to hurt her or her feelings, I took the help, but used my left arm to push myself up. "Go set on the big swivel chair over there, I'll go get the medicine and bandages." Sighing again at being treated like a pet "Ok" as i made my way over to the chair. Hearing a small 'tch' before i took my seat on the chair, I quickly spat out "Master." and was rewarded with a small nod of approval as she still faced the brown cabinet above the shiny black two door refrigerator. Raising myself a few inches off of the chair, I noticed she was standing on a small brown stepladder and was struggling to reach something near the back of the cabinet. "Want me to help, master?" "Hmmmmm... Nope." She quickly turned around, momentarily facing me before sticking her tongue out at me then returning to her struggle for the item in the back of the cabinet. Letting out a massive sigh, I rested on the back of the chair as she finally managed to grasp her slender fingers on the bottle of medicine in the back of the cabinet. As she walked toward me, she pulled out 4 of those really wide bandages from her pocket and laid them on my lap, taking a spray canister filled with something and said "This is going to hurt. Hopefully you're not a masochist, right?" ~5 years, 8 months, 10 days, 23 hours, 20 minutes later~ As I raised the pillow from my face and asked "Done yet? I want to get there early." "I don't know why you have that pillow on your face in the first place, I don't mind you seeing. We've been going over this same thing for how long again?" "5 years, closing on 6, I think in a few months it'll hit 6." "Ok then. For almost 6 years, you've been putting a pillow over your face whenever I change and have never once even tried to peek. Why?" "You're a girl, I'm a boy. Simple as that, I respect you and your gender by doing this small, forgotten gesture in this age." I could hear her sigh as she slipped on the white short-sleeved jacket I bought last year. I honestly don't even know how it got into her closet... Guess girls really are magic. "Well, come on. I'm dressed, and put the pillow back. I'm tired of having to move it back to it's spot after you toss it onto the bed." "Fineeee." As I flipped over onto my stomach and started to act like I was meticulously lining the pillow up with the other white laced pillows, I felt her tug on my foot and let out a quick "Ok, ok." As I pushed myself up, I swung my legs over the edge and looked at her to see what she would be wearing and instead was visually smacked in the face by her just wearing red and yellow basketball shorts and her black bra. As I immediately looked down at the ground, she burst out laughing. "Hahah- Oh my go- haha. You're blushing so h-hard. Hahah." I stayed mute, eyes locked on the corner of her bookshelf, successfully ignoring her movements out of the corner of my eye. "Ok. There. My tanktop is on." Trying her best to stop laughing as I looked at her while she slid on my white and blue jacket. "Ready to go, now, Red Face Reginald?" "That's a terrible nickname, and it doesn't even have my name in it." "Eh, who cares. I like it. Now come on, it takes 10 minutes to walk to the theater. Grab the movie cups, I'll get some water to take." "Ok, ok, ok, ok." As I jogged down the stairs to get the red and white movie cups with the theater's logo displayed across it, I heard the garage door open and close. Slipping on my blue Jaguars, I ran out the garage door with the movie cups on my left hand as she quickly shouted "Quick, catch it, No-Hands Magee!" As the water bottle quickly flew closer to my face, I naturally stuck my right hand out. "That trick got old a long time ago." "Sure did, but I taught you how to catch. Now lets go." Jaguars are knock-off versions of Pumas, mostly seen in the middle east and asia.

My wife wrote this short story for college. I liked it; The Cold Ruler: In a dark and desperate time of mankind, there lived a man who ruled most of the world. He was a cruel man, a hateful man, a bitter, evil man. He abused everyone he came into contact with. His many wives, His children, His servants, His many lovers. He did not know of the words kindness, love, respect, caring, compassion, empathy. In his wake he left heart ache and despair. He was sitting in his newly built castle, and a knock came to the door, “what do you need” “forgive me sire, your oldest child is dying and needs medicine” “why are you telling me this, I do not care if she lives or dies”. But this child was truthfully special, blessed from the moment of her birth despite losing her mother during labor, and to the one women who had captured his heart so many years before. “Please sire she is asking for you” Tell Katilina, stop asking for me and die already” “ Yes sire, I will do so”. The door closes swiftly. He mumbles under his breath to himself, “Why would I care, for you Katilina, you took the only person who loved me”. “crying softly to himself”. The cold uncaring man had a heart.

A slithering, disgusting wretch stands on the side of a road, shrouded in the night’s darkness that protects his kind. He is not a tall man, nor a young one. His hair has fallen from the center of his head, leaving a ring of survivors. He wears glasses that are in a state of filth and disrepair. They are a metaphor for the rest of the man. He holds a newspaper in his greasy hand, and looks at the headline. ANGEL OF DEATH CLAIMS ANOTHER WOMAN, POLICE BAFFLED He smiles, proud of his own handiwork. He has the tools of his trade in a bag in his other hand. He is overweight, and Caucasian. He drops the newspaper, and extends his thumb in the sign of a hitchhiker. Cars continue to pass him by, wary of someone of his type. He is not discouraged, he knows someone will stop to help him. He will prey on an act of human kindness, and repay it with inhuman atrocities. He could be described as a predator, but this would be a disservice to nature’s predators. Those noble beasts hunt to survive, and have no cruelty. He hunts to fulfill his own desires, and is below the lowest rat in the worst cesspit in the world. He opens his bag to make sure he has everything he needs. He examines his rope, his bottle of chloroform, rags, and his blades. This wretched creature had a name, but it is not worth mentioning. He was born to a normal mother and father, and they loved him very much. They soon realized what a remarkable intellect he possessed, even at a young age. They encouraged him in his studies. He effortlessly excelled in the early grades, but his mind was always on something else. He poisoned the puppy they got him for his sixth birthday. That was when his mother realized something amiss, but it was too late for her. While riding in the passenger seat of her car, he unbuckled her seatbelt and swerved the wheel into traffic. She was killed instantly. He got off with no suspicion, being eleven years old. He got his father a couple of years later, getting him drunk and laying him in the bathtub passed out. He then turned on the water, and let nature run its course. It was determined to be an accidental death. He attended college, never making any friends nor having any relationships. He began hunting as he thought of it at about twenty five. He began leaving writings that said “The Angel of Death” as his sign. He had claimed twelve victims, and was on the lookout for another. He would not kill just anyone mind you. He preferred young girls. He chuckled to himself as he thought about it standing by the side of the road. It was almost a cliché. The attractive young woman in her prime, cut down by a sick murdered. He smiled at the notion. A car slowed and stopped next to him. He could barely control his excitement, and began to get an erection after he got in. In the driver’s seat was a young, innocent looking woman. She had black hair, gray eyes, and a beautiful figure. “Hey, what’s your name?” she asked, smiling. “John. Yours? And thanks a bundle for picking me up. People are so untrusting these days. I wonder if its justified.” He chuckled to himself. He would toy with her a little first, and then surprise her. He put his bag in his lap to hide his growing sexual excitement. “Yeah I prefer just to give people a chance. That’s my motto!” she as she grinned. “So, where are you from?” he asked. “Oh I am from out west. My parents are dead so I came out here. I don’t really know anyone though. I’ve been sleeping in the car.” “Oh that is terrible! I have a guest room back at the house you simply must come stay with me!” he said with a smile, thinking of how lucky he was. He was going to enjoy this one for more than one night. “Oh are you sure? I don’t want to be a bother.” “It will be my pleasure,” he let out another chuckle. He proceeded to guide her towards his intended destination, which was not his house at all. Rather, he guided her down increasingly rural and isolated roads. Finally he was satisfied at the safety of their location. “Stop here,” he said. She pulled over and shut off the car. “Have you heard of that Angel of Death guy?” he asked, barely able to contain his perverse arousal. “Oh, yeah he sounds really scary,” she replied. “Well,” he laughed manically, “It’s me!” “No it isn’t,” she replied coolly. “Umm, yes I am?” he was not used to that reaction. He decided to make her suffer extra for it. “You can’t be the Angel of Death,” she said with the same blank expression. He pulled out his bag and reached for his chloroform, and was about to gas her when she said, “You can’t be the Angel of Death, because I am, silly.” Her eyes lit up into flames, and she smiled showing fangs. He tried to put the rag over her mouth, but it burst into flames when he tried. He screamed and tried to open the car door, but with no luck. She laughed some more, her voice growing inhuman and gelatinous. “You have been trying to say you’re me, and now I will show you how it is really done.

You are less than the wind. You are not the air, but those things carried on it. You are gentle words and the fragrance of honeysuckle. You are not that quiet breeze, but those light bits of hair that it ruffles at its passing and those gentle chills that it carries in the ripeness of fall. You are those things carried amongst the bitten mountains worn down by your medium over the passage of years and years and years and years. You are the stillness of the water in this quiet lake and the hymns of the procession slowly approaching the lake over those worn mountain paths. They sing and you follow. They are a group of not more than twenty large. They are a mix of men and women where the mix tends to fare the fairer sex and those masculine do walk emasculated with trodding steps and uncertain footing. You are the dust kicked up by the feet of these hollow men, a minority amongst those surefooted ewes. You are also the delicate steps of the child, alone amongst adults. You are also the breeze amongst his light hair and the silence at his lips. You are not the shallowness of his gaze or the timidity of his posture. You do know, though, that this one has not had enough years to be weathered as his companions are, their souls as worn as the mountains they cross. You are the bellows of the man-mountain leading them. You are the difference in the weight of his garments compared to the others. You are not the yellow dye that provides this greater weight, but the wind that gently whips it as they approach the water. You are his words and the songs he leads his congregation in. You are not his smile or its crude comparison with the vacant expressions of his masculine peers, the gentle effeminacy of the women, or the indifference of that golden child. You are his words when he says, “This is truly a glorious day!” You are his words when he says, “Today we truly bask in the radiance of the Lord!” You are the gentle decline in pitch as footsteps amongst leaves change to those in sand and gravel. You are the difference when the sound of movement changes to sounds of silence save the proselytizing of that mountain of a man. You are his lungs and those ragged chords when he speaks, “Come my child and let you join the kingdom of the lord!” You are not the silence in the child’s footsteps, but you are the dissonance between the child’s graceful procession into the water and the preacher’s entrance, more akin to a battleship being put to port than a man of god sloshing to a small sandbank less than fifteen feet from the water’s edge. You are the hymns sung by the procession as the man and child walk out, but you are not the grating words and eldritch vocabulary they use. You are just the words, not their purpose or their strange vocalizations. You are his words when the priest lays his hand on the child’s head and the mid of his back and calls out, “Do you wish to see the promise land?” You are not the child’s response even though it is pronounced and articulated with a certainty greater than the child’s years. You don’t even wish to carry those weary words of disagreement. You are not the unfocused gaze as the priest ignores those words you never carried. You are the sounds of submersion. You are never that gasp of air upon rising from those cold depths. You are simply the solitude of this terrible scene; the quiet, the thrashing at the waters edge, and a wind that roars through the trees like a cry of injustice and pain amongst the leaves. You are less than the wind.

All my life I’ve been running towards that moment when everything will feel alright. I have imagined the moment. I’d arrive look about myself in satisfaction and say “this is what I’ve been looking for”. Actually, it's more likely that I’d just think it to myself and there’d be less looking around and more mental cataloging of my social, professional, romantic, and monetary assets. The damndest thing though, is that I just can’t quite seem to get them all lined up at the same time. I mean seriously, I know what I want and I’m pretty sure I know how to get there, but that shit just wont sit still. I know, I know, life is what happens when you make plans, but I’m beginning to feel like the world is deliberately trying to sabotage me. Mind you, it’s more likely that I’m sabotaging myself. This isn’t to say I’m not happy, but I sometimes I look around me and wonder “how the hell did I get here? And additionally, how the fuck did I become this person?” Let me give you an example. The other night I was out with some friends at a bar getting tore back. It was one of my buddy’s birthday and we were giving him a night out. Anyway, I’m sitting there drinking, I may or may not have been talking to someone and I had the realization; “I don’t even like drinking in bars, and these fuckers are total assholes”. Then followed a two-hour long episode of “what the fuck am I doing here?” As I said, these happen occasionally. It’s as though the captain of my mind has suddenly come back onto the bridge and sees that the crew has steered the ship into some totally fucking foreign waters. The captain then spends the next couple hours trying to figure out exactly how they got wherever the fuck they are and if there’s any way to get back on course. Eventually, the captain goes to sleep in befuddlement and frustration and the crew just keeps steaming the ship off course. This used to last longer. I’d have a “what the fuck” moment and then spend a couple weeks trying to get my shit back on course. Then there’d be some kind of mutiny or storm and shit would be right back off course. I think my “mind captain” is beginning to give up. He has occasional burst of energy when he observes some truly foreign landscape but for the most part he operates the ship on a “fuck it, just don’t run us into an iceberg” sort of mentality these days.

New York traffic flowed, as usual, endless on both foot and on the street. A usual day: for most. The next few seconds would change that for the select few who would view the terror. 3. 2. 1. And splat. A lifeless body slapped across the ground hard enough to bounce after impact with the concrete like a rubber ball. Although there was something peaceful about him regardless of the morphed, disfigured corpse that lay across the pavement, if you can visualize this mess as laying. Despite the chaos it created and the trauma it caused others, the jumper seemed truly happy; he had reached peace, although not in the most desirable way. He chose door B. Some try to reach this happiness through other means: through door A. To fill their lifeless existence with money, their meaningless abodes with furniture, their void driveways with fancy cars. Well our victim decided the best way to reach happiness wasn’t by filling a house with furniture, a bank account with cash, or a driveway with cars, no the best way for him was to fill the sidewalk with his teeth. He realized that the only way to end the miserable existence of this long walk we take called life was to take the plunge early. His portal to the next life was to roof of an executive office building; more specifically, where our victim worked. That takes us back some time, where everything began. At first, Tom was taking the regular walk through life. He, like all Americans, went through life doing as society considers, “the norm.” He did well in school and was strong-armed into college. He stuck it out and got a degree, that piece of paper considered essential to make it through door A. And he went out and he got a miserable job. He walked in every day and walked out. Each day worse than the last. And that’s the endless loop he lived; with each day worse than it’s predecessor, that means he always woke up to the worst day of his life. That’s his struggle, the daily grind. And I can’t argue that he wasn’t making his way to door A. He saved up enough to fill his apartment with shitty IKEA furniture, he was able to accrue some money in a bank account, and he got to fill his parking space with a decent car. Although none of these filled the void. He was able to see past the false happiness that we all experience. The image that capitalism creates in our mind, the perfect American society. Life in the suburbs with a subservient wife and the kids, living like the family on Leave it to Beaver. But Tom saw past it all, he saw what life was. Feeding the money machine that humans created, doing the hard work so life for those on the top could be filled with even better cars, more furniture, and the largest of all bank accounts. Now Tom’s position is one of curiosity: is it better to live a life blindly and ignorant, or to truly see what is happening behind the curtains? Well that has no definite answer. Humans strive for answers and Tom had them, so clearly he was in the better position, right? But Tom was the one limp on the ground, not the door A chasers so they live a better existence, right? Well there is no definite answer, while answers are what the human mind pursues and cannot live without; in the real world situation ignorance is bliss.

Black and foreboding clouds filled the air as the musty stench of mildew and smoke swallowed up my senses. Everything was rotten here. Like the scent of a forgotten time, or the spine of an old musty book breaking free from its dormant chains. These ancient aromas were whispers from the Gods; a constant reminder that they knew my sin, and as such they had brought down their fury upon me. But I was no slave to these great spirits, and I would tear down any wall they built to keep up the sanctity of man. For what is a God to a man who keeps the world for himself? Burning embers trailed the air like fireflies dancing to the rhythm of a rattlesnake’s call. The warmth of the light was a siren’s song cast out to any lost travelers in the dead of night. The chilled weather had been chipping the leaves from their trees without remorse, bringing a bleak sense of emptiness into the world. But fire only meant one thing in a world as bare and desolate as this. The eyes of a martyr stared at me from above, his cross-shaped pedestal pinning him to the flames as they engulfed his body. The painted wax eyes were melting in the inferno, leaving a trail of inky tears. Maybe he is having regrets… maybe we all have regrets… A thundering roar escaped from the bellows of the church as the foundation started to crumble, letting out a blinding light that singed the eyes. Through squinted vision, I spotted a shadow emerge from the hellfire in front of me, causing butterflies to battle in my stomach. Something draws near… I thought as I crept behind a broken stone pedestal and hid my cloaked figure from the glowing light. Through a splinter in the stone, I could make out its haunting frame as it gazed into the darkness, its eyes burning like flawless rubies. It had the shape of an ordinary man, yet its height was comparable to that of a great bear as it towered before the entrance of the church. The creature’s mass shadowed the church’s door frame as it walked into the grand hall. On its head was an open-helm bascinet in the shape of a lion that seemed to shine orange like the fire of a sun. I attempted to steady my breath as the man scanned the grand hall, sniffing at the air like a dog finding a scent. The hounds must have had my trail since the last village… As the man crept through the grand hall, the faint cracks of crumbling foundation could be heard with the roar of a fire. “Show yourself you coward!” the creature roared as he inched towards the main altar, his voice rattled with fury. The man had a crest of a lion holding a spear in its jaws on a large metal breastplate that encased his body. As the man approached, a support beam tore from the ceiling, cascading flames towards my hiding spot. In an attempt to dodge the rain of fire, I leapt to the side, exposing my figure. Looking up at the creature, I could see the humanity leave him with a beastly snarl appearing on his face, creeping into a devilish grin that widened along with the hellish fires that surrounded us. “You will die for your sins!” the monster screamed as it rapidly approached to end my life. The world was seeking enact retribution upon me. But I was Genesis, and I was its salvation.

It was just before dawn when I woke to the alien invasion. It began with the thumpings on the roof. One followed by two, then three, then four, then just a dull roar of heavy objects hitting the roof. I ran to the window and looked out to find the sky filled with small kittens in parachutes plummeting to the Earth like cotton candy. "My time is now." I said to myself. I had known this was coming. It was in the lore of the world handed down throughout history and only the right person, with the right mind could read between the lines. Like the line in the bible about Jesus and that one dude and that other dude - it all spelled kitten invasion. If you think I'm joking, open a dictionary sometime and under the letter K, you will find kittens. Luckily, I was ready. I had been storing milk for years in my fridge. It all went bad, but that's not how I was ready. How I was ready was I had also stored guns and ammo. Lots of it. I ran to the closet where I kept my guns and ammo and opened the door to find more expired milk. I realized two things in that moment - why my house smelled and why there were so many guns and ammo in my fridge. Back to the fridge, I grabbed a gun and some ammo and loaded up what looked like a shotgun and ran to the door. The kittens were still floating to the ground, but many had landed and were helplessly clawing at their parachutes or tangling themselves up in them in some sort of attempt at comfort. It dawned on me that the kittens may not have any ill will towards humans and were simply just kittens that parachuted in great numbers on to the Earth on one given day in the entire history of kittendom. But that was too easy. I opened the door and opened fire. For five minutes I pulled the trigger again and again and not one kitten was harmed. I had either extremely bad aim, as their were thousands of them, or I was holding a chili dog in my hand. It turned out to be the latter. Once again, I had failed to study guns and ammo and what they were and realized a hot dog was not a gun and chili was no sort of ammo. I resigned myself to the notion that I would be of no use in the rebellion against the kittens and sat down and had a big bowl of ammo. The TV was reporting that there was no cause for alarm as the kittens posed no danger, but still there was no explanation as to why they had parachuted in great numbers to the Earth. I looked back out the window. Most of the kittens had removed their parachutes and lo and behold - they were now pulling revolvers out of their fur and moving towards the homes in my neighborhood. I quickly Googled revolver and realized that this time - yes! This time! I knew what I was talking about. They were revolvers. But before I could congratulate myself there was the sound of gunshots at my door. The kind of gunshots that don't come from chilidogs. No, these were real gunshots. I crouched behind my couch and noticed that the TV had gone to static. The first ploy of the kittens had worked - they had been trusted to not have revolvers hidden in their fur. "You won this round." I muttered to myself. Then the door broke down and a kitten standing on two feet entered the house. "Put down your weapons and surrender!" The kitten ordered. I threw the chilidog at him and yelled "I surrender!" There was silence. I rose from behind the couch and there on the ground was a dead kitten. The childog had bore straight through it's abdomen and killed it.

What happened in the lab, nobody knows. There were no survivors. Except one man. This man’s name is Austin Maus. Yet, through his experience those few days, he had been driven insane. The sheer terror ate away at his mental health for the rest of his life. My name is Caleb Ryder, and I am determined to find the truth. The truth behind Tucker. What is this Tucker you may ask? For it is not what it is, ask who it is. This is what I am looking for. The answers. ~ I woke up with a startle on Saturday morning, a bad dream. One of many. Although I couldn’t quite remember what this particular dream was, I knew it was the same as every other. These dreams came as frequently as the (pop culture reference here). Waking up in the same cold sweat, with little breath in my lungs. Saturdays and Sundays were my days off. I hated taking days off. All my life I had worked hard to become a neuroscientist and I’ve been one for a while, but I loved it. It is my passion, and I would do it for free. But, due to the new Shaftman Ratification, it has become mandatory for at least two days off during the week. I became manager of my department in 2037, and have felt happiness beyond description. But, this incident seems to have had an unsettling effect on everybody. After I woke up Saturday, I made myself a cup of coffee. I sat at my study table and turned on the news. Same CNN trash every day. They still haven’t found the plane, we get it. I turned then to another independent news source that I particularly liked. QFN was a station dedicated to getting the real facts out for the New American States, without the fabrication that other channels might provide. I almost flipped the channel before I had heard what the anchor was saying. This report was stating the incident. My incident. How was this released already, I thought. The anchor read off the teleprompter the following: “Now we come to our lead story in the world of medicine. In a latest report, scientists believe they have found a cure for Nueromitosis. This disease leads to the duplication of nerve cells in the brain, causing impaired judgment, insanity, and death. A new clinical trial is in progress for this very rare, but serious, disease. Now moving to the world of sports, the Packers have won their third NFL championship in a row…” I switched off the TV and let out a sigh of relief. They still haven’t found out what actually happened. The media was still a couple of weeks behind, and this was QFN! They were usually the first ones to cover a story. I took a shower after finishing my coffee. I enjoyed taking long showers to reflect on my life. I still couldn’t shake the idea that the report still hadn’t been released. It was such a life-altering event, and nobody even knows what I have been through! I was begin to get angry at the world. Why should I be the only one to know this pain? I punched the wall. I felt as if my head was going to explode. My pulse quickened. Eyes dilated. Veins throbbed. Now I was on the bathroom floor. Cold… Alone… ~ I woke up with a startle. It took me awhile to figure out what happened. I got my wits gathered, and rummaged through my clothing. I found my watch and saw that it was 14:17. I had been in the bathroom for nearly three hours now. I quickly dried off and changed into a clean pair of clothes. Suddenly, my cell phone rang. It was my lab assistant, probably wanting to know the correct measurement for something. “Doctor Ryder,” I said as I answered the phone. “Hello Doctor, we just needed your permission to put a level 4 chemical in a 250 mL beaker. Is that all right?” “Yes, yes, please proceed.” “Alright, sir.” “Is that all, Jerry?” I asked. Jerry replied, “Actually, no, doctor. We’ve got a bit of a hiccup.” “A hiccup?” ”Yes, sir, a hiccup. We believe a 20 mL dosage of Penicillin has gone missing. We still aren’t sure where it could have gone. There was nothing out of the ordinary on the security tapes either,” he added. I knew immediately what he was talking about. Tucker. I let out a small sigh. “Well, just keep looking. Ask the trials if they know anything about it.” “Yes, alright sir,” Jerry replied. I hung up the phone. Tucker must’ve gotten an infection. I tried clearing my head by going to the local sandwich shop. It was only a few blocks away, so I began walking. It was a beautiful day out, seventy degrees and sunny. There also were many people out, enjoying the views of New Mercury. Taxi cabs were being hailed, and people were getting in and out. An old man sat alone in the park, feeding the pigeons. A stunning young woman got on her little motor scooter, and sped off. Two more men walked side by side, in a hushed tone. Wait. I took a second glance over my shoulder. I’ve seen those men before! One of them yelled for a cab. “Hey!” I shouted after them. “Wait a minute!” That was the moment where I knew something had gone bad. I felt something poke me in the back. I slowly tuned around, and saw three people standing in front of me. The one in the middle was holding a pistol. “No sudden movements, doctor.” The man with the pistol ordered. He had a very deep voice. It had almost sounded like a computer voice over. I then felt the other two grab my arms and stuff me in the trunk off the cab to other to men “hailed”. I looked up for a brief moment before they put a bag over my head. What I saw scared the crap out of me. There was one man and two woman- all three were probably in their mid-thirties. All three of them had a suit and dress pants made of midnight. The man held up a 9mm Glock to my face. “Enjoy the ride Caleb.” He closed the trunk with a sinister laugh, and for the second time that day, I passed out with a shudder. ~ When I woke up this time, I was not in the comfort of my own home. No, I was far from that. I was still in cab, and we were on what seemed like a bumpy road. I guess I really didn’t know, since I hadn’t been kidnapped and stuffed into a trunk before. Years passed as I waited for us to stop. I looked for an escape route, but to no luck. I began to think about where I had seen these people, and where they could be taking me. I really didn’t think anybody would need a doctor that understands brains fairly well. We gradually came to a stop. I heard all the doors open and close. I was flooded with emotion. What will happen to me? Is this really the day I die? The trunk opened. “Up,” ordered the deep voiced man. Reluctantly, I began to sit up. The two woman grabbed my arms and helped drag me out. I looked up and saw that we were in a clearing of a forest, atop of a hill. There was a large, tan building at the top of the hill. Fences, guard towers, armored trucks, and armed men surrounded the building. There was large antennas and receivers on the roof. My kidnappers pushed me along, hoping that I hadn’t brought in to much details I presumed. We eventually reached the front of the compound, and went inside. The inside was much more terrifying. Up above us was an intricate catwalk with guards all around. What looked like scientists were working on something in a sterile lab?I couldn’t get the best look, but I did see a symbol for radiation. We kept moving along, and I saw a large armory towards the left of the building. There were many varieties of guns, most I had no idea what they were. But the last thing I saw before I went to a new room was the worst. Towards the back of the compound I saw three large silver shells. These looked like a bullet, but much, much larger. They had a four pronged tail at the end of each of them. Oh my God.

was founded on the unpretentious principle that the short story cannot be allowed to go extinct. There has to be a new way to reinvent the craft, the art, and keep it fresh in the heart of the reader... The IntShoWriMo Blog will feature at least three writing prompts each day to reduce the stress on the brain while searching for 30 short story prompts during the 4-week exercise. You get to choose what kind of story you write with this shot at variety. IntShoWriMo which stands for International Shorts Writing Month is a short story writing adventure where participants actually, sit down (or stand, your choice) to create never-before-written 30 short stories in 30 days. You are officially invited.

Tonight is my last night in Ex Machina. The air is thick with steam and rotting. Gas fumes and sewage halo the street lights as they flicker in the dusk. The night is awakening with the rats. I hear the cart's wheels long before I see it turn the bend. Over the culverts and under the flickering lamps that hang on the street corners. She rasps like a half-dead A/C unit as a counterpoint to the squeaking wheel. Rasp-squeek. Meradith. Rasp-squeek. She limps into view. Rasp-squeek. She looks exactly as she sounds. Broken down. Another exile in the City of Ex Machina. The village of the unplugged. Rasp-squeek. I stare down on her from my window. A tin box beneath, above and beside a dozen other tin boxes. Corrugated metal walls and not a line in. No lines at all. We are disconnected from the grid. Power flows, but no data. And the radio waves pass unreceived. We're here for that reason. We are escape artists. We seek to be free of the flow of information. Or are rejected. Overloaded; we find refuge away for the chimes, the rings and the glare of screens. Breathe it in. The silence of a digital fast. My mind is clear again. Meridith's cart stops in the street and she bangs the ladle against the canteen. "WATER!" she yells. Doles it out in ladlefuls into the gulping buckets and leaking bags of those who can afford it. Not far from here, though well out of range of the cellphone towers, lies the City. Snaking lines of power and data flowing in and out of every building, home and head. Information. Information pouring out of every orifice of the metropolis. Like heat seeping from a furnace, it bleeds outward into the night. The still air filled with the static of a thousand minds in chorus of unrelenting progress. Manacled to the beast. The machine mind linking them to one another; suckling at an endless supply of data. Ex Machina is in the shadow of the machine. Its towers spread like mountains across the horizon. And I have not slept a night without its pulsing light waking me. To sleep. This is all I sought in Ex Machina. Every moment in the City is like a waking dream. I have been away for a year and still it echos in my head. Tonight maybe I will dream. Tonight, maybe I will find what it is those files showed me. It was my 24th year in the machine when they came to me unmarked. No EXIF tags to trace. Only raw data in the deeper parts of the flow. I had gone searching for something quieter. Down to The Dark. And there it lay. Unregistered and uncensored. A dream. A real dream. Nothing simulated. No advertisements. No celebrity appearances. Nothing but the unadulterated stream of an unplugged mind. A child's dream of the night sky. Stars wheeling overhead and leaves in the night air. The smell of grass and earth. And dew. Cold on my skin. Stone on my feet. And wind against my naked skin. I'd never felt anything like it. Pure like a drug. The machine can simulate anything you like for you, but this was different. More than sensory. With more detail and imagination than could ever be simulated by Ones and Zeroes. It had a soul. It's easier to walk away than anyone ever thought. Not that many think of it. Take out the plugs. Remove the contact lenses and take your first steps. Like a baby out of the womb. My legs shook and my head spun. Static filled my ears and I walked out of the city into XM. Meridith moves on into the night and the sun continues to fade. I watch her pass: squeek-rasp, squeek-rasp. Nothing for me tonight. She 'rounds the bend and I listen for another minute before the glare of static from the city takes up its chorus again in the still night air. Nothing for me tonight. I close the door to my tin cell and walk. The city to my back and darkness in front. I will walk into the night. Find the hard stone grass of that dream. I will lose myself in the night. And maybe I'll see stars. Tonight is my last night in Ex Machina.

Bolt’s head races as he tries to think of what next to do. His thoughts are getting jumbled. He can almost feel his brain shutting down. He then smells a sharp and acrid smell. He looks back and realizes that there is a pile of trash burning in the room. The teenagers are lighting trash on fire and throwing them through the window. Bolt’s eyes sting as smoke starts to fill the room. He takes one last greedy suck of fresh air before he crawls over to the trash desperately trying to put out the fire. He slaps the trash with his bare hands, trying to suffocate the fire. He crawls back over to the hole to get a new breath of air. His crawling has slowed and his entire body is sweating. At some point, he had peed his pants, but he had larger concerns right now. “Come out, you’ll have to eventually!” The snide teenager from the door yells. “Don’t you want some air?” the dark haired teenager at the window taunts. “Don’t you want to breathe?” “Just give us what belongs to us.” The other teenager at the window says. Bolt takes one last greedy suck before he slowly crawls towards the window. It’s game over. He has lost. Somebody is going to die tonight. With tears in his eyes he slowly makes his way to the window. He reaches the broken window to see one of the teenagers with a blade already out grinning at him. “That’s right,” the teenager coaxes, “come here.” Bolt crawls onto the table and shakily holds his hand up. The teenager grabs his arm and pulls him up out through the broken window. His belly scrapes the jagged glass on his way up producing many shallow gashes on his stomach. As soon as he is through the window Bolt releases his breath and desperately gulps air into his lungs. With every breath he coughs out the dust he has allowed into his lungs. He can feel a teenager feeling his pockets. A hand quickly reaches into his pocket to pull out the Ziploc bag he has kept hidden in there. “Please,” he begs them still short of breath. “Don’t take them.” The blonde teenager with the knife looks at him disapprovingly; he seems to be the ringleader. “Who do you think you are? This is my slum, everything here is mine. You can’t come in here without my permission.” He smirks at him. “I’ll make sure you remember that.” His smile widens across his face. “Hold him in place!” He commands the other teenager. The other teenager obeys. Bolt screams and starts to get up, but the other teenager is already upon him. A quick fist to his stomach stops him from moving as the teenager holds his arm against the ground. He pulls back his sleeve to reveal several strange scars. The ringleader looks amused, “I see that you’ve been caught before.” The scars are all gang marks. With a delighted look on his face, the ringleader presses the blade into Bolt’s arm. Bolt screams as he surgically cuts into his forearm. He carves out a triangle as tears stream down Bolt’s face. The ringleader laughs as he wipes the blood off his blade using Bolt’s shirt. “Give me the goods.” He commands the other teenager. He is handed the Ziploc bag. Inside the bag are three white pills. The ringleader smiles, “what are these pills for scum?” Bolt just cries on the floor. “I don’t know.” He says in between heaving breaths. The teenager holding his arm lets him go and stands up. Blood gushes out of his arm onto the floor. The ringleader smiles, “it doesn’t matter, we should be able to get a good price on these.” He laughs and spits on Bolt before turning to leave. “Please,” Bolt begs him. “Somebody needs those to live!” He yells. “You’ll only get a dollar each for those pills. Please! They aren’t yours to take!” The ringleader doesn’t even look back. He walks to a cross-section in the alley on his way to the marketplace. He wears a relieved smile and his mouth is watering. At last, he gets to eat. Suddenly, he is pushed into the wall by a dirty adult wearing a yellow stained t-shirt. The adult has long mangled hair with a full beard. He screams as the dirty man stabs him in the stomach with a knife. He yanks the knife out before taking the Ziploc bag of pills. This dirty man looks at Bolt without a single ounce of remorse. In fact, his greedy eyes can only see the pills and the money these pills could become. His eyes are completely cold and scary; this is a man completely devoid of empathy. The ringleader collapses on a heap in the middle of the alley. Both Bolt and the other teenager are completely shocked. Bolt turns to look at the other teenager only to find him running away in the opposite direction already. By the time he turns his head to look at the adult once again, the dirty man is gone, off to the market to finally get a meal. With tears still in his eyes Bolt gets up and slowly staggers over to the dying ringleader. “Help me.” the ringleader murmurs. He is already weak from blood loss. A cold sweat breaks out on his forehead and he starts trembling, he is in shock. “Help me God.” He pleads. “Please God. Please.” It is hard to imagine, but the ringleader is still just a child. His skin is dark and grimy. His blue eyes stare at Bolt expectantly. His mouth is clenched shut as he clutches his stomach. Bolt reaches him and bends down to pick up the knife that he had dropped. The blade is still sharp and this is a rare commodity in these parts. Bolt takes off down the alley leaving the ringleader to die in the alleyway. It is in this way that a sick mother died for three dollars, and a child was murdered for drugs worth less than three meals. There is nothing anyone could do for him. There are no hospitals in the slum. There are no police in the slum. There are no laws in the slum. You get what you can with the abilities that you have. Sometimes it’s enough to live, sometimes it’s enough to even eat, but other times, you lack the ability to do either.

Living is a practice in nihilism. We were born with an expiration date, and we know it. Yet, we still keep on aspiring to be the next James Dean or JFK or Hilary Clinton or Carl Sagan. These names will forever live through every language until the end of the world. Funny thing, though, because the world ended about 15 minutes ago. You see, I was out making repairs to a solar panel on this piece of shit shuttle when the news broke. The conversation with Houston went from me having a light hearted conversation, pretending to give a shit about Alex's kids, to prayers and assurances that we will still be able to come home. Then the first blast. Looking upon the Earth I saw a bright orange glow in the Northeast. The hammer had been dropped. This goes without saying, but an eye for an eye is the oldest philosophy in human history and it's still strong as steel. My eyes wandered around the globe and I could see faint illumination coming around its side. I still don't know if the first American bomb hit the Red or Tianneman Square, but I could almost hear the silence of the hundreds of thousands of screams that were cut short from it. More orange dots appeared throughout the silhouette of the United States. Los Angeles, Austin, St. Louis, New York. All gone. The world flashed with a luminescent blend of orange and red, as if to tell us in the stars that only hell awaits here at home. I knew the end of the world would come. I knew it would be by our own hand. I just didn't know it would be this gorgeous. The silence from the rest of the crew was equally as deafening as the silence coming from the radio. The shock didn't come from knowing we were the last known of our species, but knowing we would never be able to go home. We would never again be able to come home to lovers with their warm embraces, another home cooked meal, people looking up to us as heroes. We were no longer heroes, for there is nobody left to look up to us. We're all that's left. We're nobody. With the end of the world happening and all, you have some time to think. I no longer have debt. I don't have a mortgage or a car payment or anything to worry about. The only thing barring me from complete freedom is this cord connecting me to this piece of shit shuttle. I'm going to die, so I might as well die free. I unhook myself from the cord, and launch out into the heavens. It's funny. I graduated top of my class at MIT, worked hard to become an astronaut, strived to become an all-American icon, and none of it matters now because some politicians couldn't play nice. All the work I have put in to be right here, right now, only saved me from being part of the nuclear volley on Earth. It didn't save me from my mortality, it just gave me an extra thirty minutes. It's a Greek tragedy that you must turn into a comedy in order to spend your last minutes in peace. I laugh and turn my head away from the charred rock that was once my home and look far out behind me, to the unknown. Stars die, too, you know. The only difference between star death and human death is that stars make a brilliant show before they die. Humans simply take a last breath and that's it. Fin. Stars on the other hand release all of their energy and create the most beautiful death known to the universe. I look up at the stars and I know that they will face the same fate as I one day. It makes me sad, though, because I really do love the stars. They've always been there for me. On dads bad nights, Friday nights after the game, awkward first dates, sloppy first kisses, and the list goes on. They've always been there shining their beautiful light on me, reminding me that life is beautiful. They've never judged me for the mistakes I've made under their luminescence. They've always been there for me, and they always will be, even when I draw my last breath. I've officially run out of oxygen. Soon I will succumb to the CO2 that is about to overtake my suit and I'll simply fall asleep. I'm not afraid to die that way. I'm ready for it. I've lead a decent enough life, though it doesn't matter now. Here is my end: a corpse in a suit wandering through space, gravity pulling me one direction and then another, just floating without cause. I'm okay with that. As my eyes grow heavy, I take one last look at the stars and smile at their beauty. I feel at peace. Good night, my friends.

The drab streets of London are always bright to the sinners of the night. On King’s street, the Old Church of St. Pancreas stands tall with an opaque large stand-glass that is coated with filth— hiding it from its true colors. On Benton Street, rows of dens, brothels, and pubs are lined up like candy-shops with a clandestine flavor of vice. The story really begins in the alleyway, though, where a bar called Kroben is hidden. A man wakes up outside this bar, lying by a puddle accompanied by rats. But in his doped up mind, he is a lion wallowing by a lake that belongs to a lush oasis inhabited with exotic animals. Maybe it was the methadone from the clinic or the opium from the den, but he felt good when he woke. He was lucky that his baccy didn’t soak; otherwise he would have to buy another pack of tobacco not being able to afford a pint, then resorting to the cheaper morphine that he makes himself with kitchen goods. He lights up and it burns too fast. “Ah, bugger” he grunts. He breathes in the smoke, filling his old lungs well, then gazes at the morphed metallic sign that hung on the wall “KROBEN BAR.” Even his old mind remembers that he came here 25 years ago when it was his first time ever going to a bar. He looked at this place like a child would when opening a Christmas gift that he’s been guessing what’s in it for a good month. “Fucking Kroben!” He cheers, “Fuckin’ Ace!” He opens the same old door that still makes the same old creek and enters this forgotten place. He is instantly greeted by the warm breeze that radiated from the stove. His mouth started salivating from the smell of fresh sausage and beer that filled the atmosphere. He sees a bald bartender that is well dressed with the proper bow, vest, and a button-up shirt. The bartender is wiping the counter in a very precise fashion. The bartender finally looks up and to this man’s surprise that this person is the same bartender as 25 years ago. “Harold?” The man says with an awkward smirk “Yes, that would be me, sir.” The bartender responds “I thought ye were dead, mate. Fuck, 25 years?” “I beg your pardon?” “You remember me right, mate? Remember the young bloke that came here long ago? “I’m afraid not, sir.” “Bollocks… You barmy bloke, can’t even remember a regular?” “I apologize sir. While I’ve been told my memory is in excellent condition, 25 years is a long time, sir. Perhaps if you give me your name, I might recall who you are?” “Yes, you invariably posh twat- it’s…” “S…sir?” “it’s… fucking cunt…” “Well I certainly think I’d remember a name like that..” “No, mate. I can’t bloody remember right now.” The man stands there with a blank expression while the bartender frantically watches him. “Well sir, a pint is on the house.” “Alright, cheers mate. I’ll be back.” He heads to the lavatory and on his way there he sees two men in white lab coats conversing. How peculiar, the man thought. He heard them say “patient one is suffering from potential embolism stroke. Main cause is believed to be excess alcohol consumption. Proceed with…” and the rest were just blurs he couldn’t understand. He shrugs this off with the idea that they were doctors reading a log from their papers. He steps into the lavatory and feels the sense of privacy. He felt well, but simultaneously disoriented with the bright white light that the incandescent light bulb emitted. When he tries to urinate, he spills most of it on his boots. He goes to the mirror to see how different he looks. The embedded glass-bottle shears in his face from the numerous bar fights to the tattoo k on his right cheek that he cannot remember how he got; yet he was a handsome boy once. He now understands why Harold can’t remember him. The numb feeling rushes through his veins as he once stood here when he was 15. The man steps out of the restroom. He has dried up dews of piss on his boots and his shirt reeked with tobacco and sweat, but he felt good. He sees the doctors still conversing with dim expressions on their faces. “His heart is in horrid condition, proceed for resection?” He stares off to Harold, who is still wiping the surface aggressively; the same way he did 25 years ago. Next to the complimentary pint is a young bodacious woman who’s weeping in a discreet manner; her face is concealed with her hands. The man checks his breath and hair while she isn’t looking and takes a seat next to her. At the very same moment the new hit “Roxanne” by the Police begins playing somewhere in the background. He speaks to her before the euphoria wares off. “Beautiful girl, why the tears? What’s your name, sweet heart?” “Do I look like a totty to ya, tosser?” She says with her face still covered. “Let me buy you a drink, dear.” He tries to get Harold’s attention by snapping his fingers, “Harold, a pint please!” The bartender ignores him as he is too focused with rubbing the wine stain left on the panels. “Oy, Harold. Ah, fuck it have mine.” He slides the pint towards her. “Thank you, you’re… a gentleman.” She reveals her face. “Rosy?” the man says, “Fuckin’ Rosy, right? Where’ve you been the past-“ “Pardon me, but I can’t recall you that is!” “Nah, Rosy, the girl from Richmond’s brothel, right?” “That’s right, were you a customer of mine?” “Yeah, well, we dated, too!” “Ah, right. No, I don’t remember. Maybe I’m a double ganger?” “No, Rosy, we did more than just sex… we were lovers!” “No mate, sorry to nick your excitement like that but I don’t remember.” The man looks down in disappointment “Well, what’s your name sweet-heart?” “I can’t remember.” “Right, well sweetie I’m heading home now. If chivalry is still alive, walk me home? I can’t bare the thought that Jack the Reaper walked this alley way, I know it’s been almost a century but the thought of being sliced is never pleasing! In return, I’ll give you a good shag.” He tells her to give him a minute. He rushes to the restroom to freshen up. On the way he hears the doctors say, “Patient is experiencing cardiac arrest, defibrillation unit required.” Once he’s in the brightly lit lavatory, with spotless tiles that Harold probably cleaned-even the spilt urine was gone- he feels heartbroken. He met her before she was a prostitute, when she was innocent. It’s the shagging that got her addicted, and even today she works for Richmond. He freshens up and steps out the restroom, hoping he’ll get lucky. The doctors are still there, talking in a monotonous tone, but Rosy is missing. Now two fatties are sitting where the man and Rosy were. He searches for Rosy desperately, but not surprised that she’s gone. He retires and sits by the two fatties that are gorging on some grubs. “Harold, another plate of the Drunken Monkey with extra bananas please!” then “Yes, extra bananas, please!” followed after. To the man, these voices are too familiar. He turns to take a good look of their faces, and it’s his stepmother Meredith, who passed years ago with obesity, and aunt Barbra who is sitting next to her that committed suicide from the inability to cope with Meredith’s death. “Meredith?” he asks, “Yes?” “Ma, it’s me… it’s—” “Who are you?” Meredith says, then Barbra follows with “Yes, who?” “Your stepson, K-” “Stepson?” She giggles and then Barbra follows with an even more obnoxious laugh. “You married my father, Erin. I’m his son!” “Erin’s son died before I could meet him, you barmy bloke!” “He’s mental!” Barbra follows. “No, both of you cunts are dead! You’re both fuckin’ mental!” He hops off the stool and runs towards the restroom while Barbra and Meredith both laugh hysterically, stacking dishes on dishes, eating their lives away. The doctors continue speaking. “Deviate to the stomach, any other vital organs?” He storms into the restroom and a man with glasses is reading a newspaper, to which he puts away with an embarrassed red look on his face. The man with the glasses walks towards the sink and washes his hands, looking upset. “Did you know London is not safe anymore?” “What do you mean, mate?” “The evil that lurks the night. Have you heard about the renegade scientists?” “No.” “They’re doctors, their licenses were revoked.” “Oh?” “Now to make a living, they find unexpected victims and kidnap them. They then sell their body-parts on the black market.” “Right.” “The sick part is that some of them just do it for the money or the thrill.” The man with glasses looks away and starts to retch. He rushes to the toilet and pukes. The man approaches the sink with the sound of vomiting, thinking about what just happened with Meredith and Bertha. He then remembers his real mother, Synthea. How sweet she was, really. The most comforting memory he has of her is when she gave him a haircut then a sponge bath. She passed when he was 14, two years before ever going to Kroben. “This alleyway is infamous for crimes like that!” the man with glasses sputters, coughing out what’s left in his mouth. “Thanks for the advice, mate,” he says as he leaves the lavatory. He’s all broken but he’s too high to realize. He sees Harold still wiping the wine stain aggressively. He’s sweating so much that his shirt is damp. The doctors are still talking, “Once the extraction is successful, the next procedure is…” His stepmother and aunt are gone, and now a younger gentleman sits on the stall sipping on a pint. He is well groomed and looks clean; a flawless Brit. He’s rolling himself baccy, pretty well for a youngster. The man sits by him, watching Harold look monstrous as he cleans. He looks at the boy again who is about to smoke and is disappointed by what he sees. “You know, I used to be beautiful like you.” He says “What?” the boy says “You’re an Adonis, really. You should be an athlete, not a drunkard!” “Look, I don’t fancy men.” “Neither do I, you just remind me of myself.” “Fack off.” “Something bothering you, mate? Where’s your mother?” “Fack off, again! My ma’s dying.” “My mother passed when I was 14, I know the feeling.” “Right, twat. Now fuck off.” The man then stays quiet, until the boy grunts. “Fuckin’ Rosy, where the fuck have you gone?” and he steps out the bar. What an utter coincidence, he thought. The boy’s conjunctures paralleled with his. In disbelief, he turns around to reassure that he was really there. He sees that the boy dropped his passport when he rushed out. The man picks it up. Joseph Kroben- he reads, but the ink blurred in his vision. Kroben. That is this man’s name- Mr. Kroben. Now he remembers. He remembers what happened 25 years ago before living in the streets. After years of no one calling him his name, he was resurrected. “My name is Joseph Kroben, Harold!” He turns around to the sight of the bar set ablaze—caught fire from the ruptured tanks of the stove; yet Harold is still wiping off the wine stain! The doctors speak differently for the first time, “looking at his heart, it won’t sell well!” They both laugh. The other doctor says, “I told you we shouldn’t target the red-light district!” Mr. Kroben rushes to door, but the handles are jammed. The fire is spreading. It’s too hot, so he makes a run to the lavatory. One of the doctors screams to the other one “He’s awake! He’s awake! Bring the anesthetics, bring the morphine!” Mr. Kroben slams the door and sees the man with glasses lying on the floor. He’s dead. Kroben picks up the newspaper that he was reading and sees the man with glasses on the head article. Vincent Allard, a renowned police investigator, was found dead in a bar lavatory. Autopsy suggests he was poisoned with potassium cyanide. His investigation involved the search of the numerous disappearances of the night citizens of Benton St. Allegations claim that renegade doctors are responsible for the kidnappings of these people— the missing bodies that were found were skillfully relieved of their organs, suggesting some sort of medical experiment or organ trafficking. He sees another article that is about the Kroben Bar: The Kroben bar in Benton St. has burnt down with only one fatality. Harold Brody, the bartender of this bar, has been found after the incident. According to the fire department, the stove was the main cause of the fire. His family mentioned about Mr. Brody suffering with obsessive-compulsive disorder… Mr. Kroben now remembers. He came to this bar when he was 14. He was grieving over his dying mother and the name of this place is what enticed him. Kroben, how often do you come across a name like that? He skims through the newspaper as his reading was lacking. He finds an article about Rosy. Rosy Benedetti was found dead in an alleyway of King St. There is little evidence, but Police suggests sexual assault. DNA evidence is supposedly linked to Richmond Almoner, but investigation is ongoing. And Kroben does this for a while, next to Vincent. These people in the newspaper were all in the bar- except for the doctors! He looks into the mirror, but does not see a reflection. He sees himself struggling in a medical bed, untying the straps that shackle him, while the two doctors pushing him down injects him with whatever is in the syringe. Kroben felt good. He sees his mother calling him on the Oasis. “Come closer, dear!” He walks slowly on the lush grass towards her, closer to Synthea. She holds him with her soft skin, giving him great comfort. “Mama,” he whispers. Meanwhile the doctors load him up in the van. “Well, I guess that’s it. Are we dumping him in the lake?” “No, we’re incinerating him. We figured that’s easier, harder to trace.” One of the doctors goes inside the car while the other notices a passport on the floor. “Hey, is this your passport? It looks outdated.” He passes him the ID “No, it says Joseph Kroben. That’s a good looking kid— who is it?” “I have no clue.

We walked through a vale holding each other's hand. I felt perfectly comfortable remaining silent and marching along as long as I knew she was with me. We had reached past the point of us needing speech to get our emotions across. We continued strolling for a while and then finally sat on a bench which was perched under an arched outgrowth of a stony structure. She put Her head on my lap and closed Her eyes. My love grew for Her every second I watched Her beautiful face in deep sleep. I wondered whether she felt the same way, or whether she felt at all. Suddenly, I sensed the earth moving. The whole world around me was shaking. I realised I didn't have much time left. I was about to depart. Slowly, the waterfall, flowers, the lake, butterflies, and the mountains faded away into darkness and then a bright light met my eye. The brightness diminished and I was back in my room. My servant was standing in front of me. "Sir, why are you so hard to wake up these days? If you carry on going late to work, you will eventually be fired. You don't want that do you?" he said. If only he knew. I was both happy and sad. I felt sad leaving Her, but I was happy that it had now worked three times in a row. How lucky was I, that having slept a sad sleep the day before yesterday, I would meet Her the second time. This ignited in me the thought of the possibility that I could meet Her whenever I wanted to. So I tried to meet Her the third time today. I was doubtful and skeptical. I am a middle aged man who has never experienced love. Forget the act of loving, I couldn't even think of the prospect of finding love in my lifetime. I turned off all the lights, locked the door, threw myself on the bed and closed my eyes. I was failing. I was sweating uncontrollably with nervousness. This was my last chance to find what I never had. Then, I thought of Her, with Her soft and beautiful face, Her enigmatic eyes, Her endless > locks of hair, Her slender yet graceful body, the vulnerability in Her glances, Her voice that confirmed the presence of angelic minstrels. God himself had sent down this perfect entity for me to spend time with, albeit in a second reality. I had to calm down and sleep. I was no longer panting, and was able to slowly drift away into slumber. I was in a vast empty ball room. It was beautiful, but right now, I had no concern for the beauty of inanimate objects. I had to find Her as quickly as I could, so I could maximise the amount of time I was to spend with Her. I looked for Her everywhere. Where was she? Was it really possible that I failed, even in bringing a being that lived inside my thoughts, to appear in front of me? I was suddenly struck by the memory of yesterday. I had stood in front of the mirror for an hour. I gazed at my disfigured body, my hunched back, my crooked teeth, my uneven face and my uninteresting eyes. I had decided to break every mirror in my house that day, for they were only a source of pain to me. Now, as I looked around for Her in the ballroom, I slowly became demoralised. I could not even find Her in a second reality. I wept and I wept, and for sure, I did know I was physically weeping too, for I felt the dampness seep through my body. 'Come here,' said an enchanting voice. 'Did you really think I was going to leave you alone?' A white figure seemed to be approaching me. Her shape became more apparent as she moved towards me. She was dressed in the most elegant of elegant dresses. She came up to me, and without uttering a word, kissed me. All my doubts, inferiorities and insecurities vanished in a matter of seconds. 'You have me right now and you will have me forever,' she said. 'My appearance may change but I will always be Her.' We sat together on the velveted floor. I told Her everything I knew and everything I wanted to do. She listened patiently without any patronising judgement. She seemed as if she had been lost in my discourse. She comforted me when I told Her my doubts and answered me when I had queries. Seconds, minutes, hours and then days seemed to have passed by. We were still sat on the same spot talking and being lost in wonder of one another. 'I have to go fly,' she said with a hint of sycophancy, 'Try not to think about me.' She faded away gradually, and slowly, the whole room turned dim and finally, my whole vision was obscured. I woke up. I opened my eyes and looked around. I wasn't in my room. There were people around me, maybe four or five. 'Sir, you have been in a coma for six years. My whole team and I would like to congratulate you on being born again. Also try to sleep less,' a doctor said, letting out a faint chuckle. I wasn't able to speak as I lay there helpless. I didn't care about anyone else other than Her. I wanted to go back and never come back. A memory came to my mind about when I met my childhood friend after not seeing him for a while. 'What brought you into acting then, James?' I asked. 'My wife... the third one, she pushed me towards getting a job as an actor. She had faith in my ability. And so right she was, I had never even dreamed of achieving such fame.' James answered. 'Good for you, my friend, if only I were a part of your gene pool.' 'My gene pool? You think I've only gotten this far because of my looks?' 'You never were intelligent were you? Only if you were, you could have acknowledged the luck that had been bestowed upon you. Nobody falls in love with character at first sight. Set on this earth is a bliss for the rich and beautiful.' 'You always were a jealous man. Stop envying other people's abilities and go back to your cave and hang out with your rodents, you incompatible oddity!' He stormed out of the restaurant leaving me alone with my food and strangers' stares. He was right. I was an oddity. I had regained consciousness and was out of my coma. I had been awake thinking about this incident while tears ran down my face. It was soon dark outside and I started feeling drowsy. I was about to sleep and it was the most joyous part of the day. I soon fell asleep but there were no dreams this day and I woke up without any recollection of Her. 'This wouldn't happen again,' I thought to myself. I slept the next day and again; no luck. The day after that, I entered a dream but she was nowhere to be seen. Did she lie when she said she would be with me forever? I was discharged from the hospital and returned to my room. Surely, this was where it all started so I will get to meet her when I sleep in my own dwelling. I slept. She had abandoned me. The only companion I had, had abandoned me. She was a part of me so I guess I had abandoned myself. 'There is more than one way a person can sleep.' I thought to myself. I started panting. I walked in circles for an hour in my room as my heartbeat became faster and faster. I had no family or acquaintances I could talk to. I started climbing the stairs sluggishly, that led to the highest storey of the high-rise. My pulse increasing with every step I took. I finally arrived at the top of the skyscraper. I stood at its edge, with my heart pounding the loudest and fastest it had ever pounded. I thought of Her one last time. 'I will surely meet you, and I would never know even if I don't. My real love has always been the sleep that rescued me by allowing me to dream.' With these thoughts, I took the step to death. The only feeling I felt after that was the feeling of Nothing.

I, Andrew, was a victim by choice. I allowed my insanity, my lover, to claim me one by one. I wanted to explore this realm that only fortunate people had the opportunity to. Yes, I know that's an unpopular opinion. Most people think I'm normal though, which baffles me; I can't tell if I'm an impeccable actor or if people are just too stupid to notice. Yes, I am aware that I am condescending. I volunteer at my local hospital every Mondays and Fridays. I call my mother everyday, too. I have a beautiful girlfriend who is about to get an internship at BIOCORE. I could go on, but this mask of lie occasionally reveals what hides underneath. Apate. or... perhaps I'm just another normal human being. No, that can't be. The things I feel and think now, that can't be sane. Let me begin with my obsession of loosing my sanity. I once saw Mr. Hill standing unattended in the corridor of that hospital I mentioned earlier. He was muttering something beautiful, something I understood that you cannot. Mr. Hill is a schizophrenic patient. He was conversing with someone who I couldn't see, a deity of some sort. Oh, how I desperately dreamt of what Mr. Hill was seeing.

I came home late tonight and this is how she continues to treat me? Bruising myself and working hard day in and night out isn't good enough for her I guess. First it was the distance we shared in the depths of our isolated bed sheets nearly a month ago. A thread count of over 1200 and she still can't enjoy herself when she is pressing her silk like body unto mine. I don't know what's more pathetic, her... or this life. Then two weeks after that, on the anniversary of my parents death nonetheless, it hit me like a bullet right to the chest. She was having an affair. Unlike all the other previous nights I decided to forget the after work bull shit and come home early. Other than the footsteps of my life long butler, there is usually silence within the corridors of my home. Only this time their was no silence, but in place of it were loud and boisterous moans. Oh, the moans. Echoing through the halls were the war cries of more than her and another man. There was a group. I confirmed this by using a new test project I brought home from work that day. Luckily for me this device not only had the ability to hear through thick amounts of walls, but to see through them as well. I wished I never used that gadget on such an unfortunate circumstance. Four men, of all different colors and sizes and herself. "How is such a thing even possible?", I thought to myself even though I was witnessing the events occur right before my very eyes. Now that I think about it I'm not sure if I was referring to the dominant positions they were putting her into, or the miserable position I was being forced to undertake. A big black dick going into her vagina with such gall, another off colored penis entering her cherry tight ass, jacking off a third man while Al, my once faithful butler, was giving her 9+ inches of meat down her throat. How could he... how could she. At this point I was not only filled with anger, but also envy. If only I had an adequate cock, maybe I could've made her feel just as much pleasure. Maybe I could've been the one to unload a million unborn souls onto her supple breasts. Maybe I would've had the balls to confront them that night... Maybe... Now it is two something in the AM as I stand in front of my bedroom door. I begin to recall another thing that happened that day. I was at a business meeting at work, or more of a business "party", when an old work acquaintance came to me and said, "Ever since you inherited this company, I bet you have been able to have anything you could possibly imagine!". Hah! How I laugh at such an assumption as I open the door to see the person that I will never possess. The time is now. She rolls over in bed, still awake. "Selina"- I mutter aloud -"I know about the affair". Silence. What a bitch. I knew she liked to avoid confrontation like some sort of sly alley cat, but I never expected her to be such a pussy in a scenario like this. There wasn't even a sound from her for what seemed like an eternity. "Well what do you expect," I was shocked to hear such a sickening reply, "you're never here for me and when you are you're just as aloof as if you weren't even here to begin with!". Her words continued on while my mind suspended off, "Damn it Bruce, I have needs! Every woman has desires and you weren't fulfilling mine! I don't care if you have more money than any other man in this hell of a town, more toys than a Navy General planning a mass invasion, or even the fact that your dick is as insignificant as the status of our current relationship, I needed you!". That was a low fucking blow. She's the one causing this pain and yet she has the audacity to consider herself the victim. She didn't stop there either. For another half an hour or so her unjust insults finally tore me apart. I fear only two things in this world; Bats and a broken heart, and I finally had enough of the latter. I stormed out and ceased to look back. "Where are you going now!", her words echoed through the now tainted halls. But she knows where I'm going. I'm going back to protecting my city. I may be broken, but I refuse for Gotham to end up like me.

Dead ahead all that could be seen was open road and darkness, as if the world had been swallowed up by an inkwell, seeping in around the light. The low hum of a sunflower yellow Vespa SS 180 Scooter reverberated around the canyon walls as white headlights pierced the night, like an angel churning through the abyss. The wind howled through the ravine, giving life to a place that had none for centuries. Faint lights streamed across the darkened sky, ships moving like shooting stars to some unknown destination. An orange hue appeared on the horizon at the end of the canyon, giving the sky a demonic glow. As the rider approached the light, a sharp ring echoed inside her amber helmet, interrupting the ambiance and peace. With a light touch on the helmet near the temple, the dialing stopped. “What do you want Trenton?!” the rider snapped in agitation. “Clair… something doesn't feel right about this…” Trenton stammered with apprehension in his voice. There was a silent air between the two of them as the Vespa rumbled on. “Listen Clair, I know we left on bad terms but… this Anubis guy… I don’t trust a word he says! Talking about some crashed cargo… why would cargo need a radioactive check? It just doesn't add up…” The moon emerged from beyond a canyon wall, giving a quick glimpse towards Clair; a watchful eye from above. “Clair… are you even listening to me?” Trenton breathed into his headset, his ear full of the roaring of an engine. “I can handle this! Besides… we need the money, or did you forget about that already?” Clair snapped, her temper at the end of its fuse. The canyon walls faded away behind her as the wreckage of the cargo entered her view. “I've got to go Trenton… I’ll call you when I’m done” She touched the temple of her helmet again, silencing the call. Smoke filled the nearby air as she approached the wreckage, letting off an ember-like sheen on her helmet. With a quick touch to her chinstrap, the facemask lifted upwards, letting Clair free from the constraints of safety. Her hazel eyes pierced into the wreckage, reflecting the flames like panes of glass. With a methodical twist, Clair reached into a satchel attached to the back of the Vespa, taking out a respirator. In one swift motion, the mask was over her face, muffling her breath, putting her back into safety’s embrace. Always gotta be behind some sort of mask… Clair thought to herself as she unbuckled the radiation detector from her hip. Another ship roared by overhead, blotting out part of the moon’s gaze. Her eyes became fixated upon the fire in front of her, tracing the outline of the object; cylindrical in shape and black as onyx, but hard to make out definite shapes in the darkness. The flames reflected off of its glossy surface, dancing around wildly. As the light whipped back and forth against the monolith, the faint hints of an engraving shimmered, forcing Clair’s eyes to become entranced. It seems like it is pulsating… like the flames are making it live. A cold wind ran up her spine as she attempted to decipher the engraving. Another ring echoed throughout her helmet, causing her to stumble backwards into her Vespa, knocking it off of its stand. “Fucking shit Trenton!” Clair screamed as she scrambled to pick up her bike, the ringing still making itself known. She threw her radiation detector onto the ground towards the crash site and proceeded to attempt to steady the Vespa back onto its kickstand. As the Vespa was tilted upright, a quiet chirping sound permeated the air, battling with the ringing of Clair’s headset, both sounds fighting for her attention. Quickly, Clair lightly touched the temple of her helmet as she approached the radiation detector. “Listen Trenton I told you before, I’ll call you when I—“. Heavy static filled her headset as she grabbed her radiation detector, filling her world with white noise. Clair snatched up the device and scanned over the details as the static continued to scratch at her eardrums. “Trenton… I’m not sure if you’re hearing me but… this is a big one”. Her words were met by a spiteful hiss, an answer with no voice. In agitation, Clair tossed her helmet to the side, letting the static fill the night air instead of her head. She crept closer to the monolith, unsteady in her footsteps, constantly staring at the shimmering engraving. As she approached the debris, the watchful gaze of the moon faded behind the shimmering oil-like surface of the wreckage, filling her gaze with hellish colors. With each step closer, the chirping grew louder, but Clair could not help but be drawn towards it. The air around her grew thick with fog and a glowing aura as she closed in on the structure. There was no one else there but her and the symbol that was staring back at her. She began to trace her finger along the lines, her touch bringing color to a seemingly colorless enigma. The surface was smooth and malleable to the touch, as if made up of some dense oil. As the color returned to the relic, a glowing eye was staring back at her, pulsating with the flickering flames dance. The eye caught hers, and caused Clair to trip over herself as she fell backwards, shocked at the new detail. The radiation detector was chirping so quickly that it appeared a flock of birds was swarming her senses, overwhelming her perception. The eye seemed to look down towards Clair, as if determining her worth, but she was lost in her gaze, frozen in shock. “Who… has awakened me?!” the monolith bellowed, a gust of air flowing from its figure towards Clair, tossing her hair around wildly. “Wh-What are you!” Clair screamed as she crawled backwards into her Vespa, grasping its frame for stability. In response, the eye pulsed brighter and brighter, seemingly growing in size as it consumed the area around it, as if feeding off of the world. Clair leapt to her feet desperately and hopped aggressively onto her Vespa, almost knocking it over again in the process. With a hard twist on the throttle, her engine ripped through the night air, leaving a trail of dust and smoke behind her, and sending her away from the monstrosity. The air around her seemed to grow colder as the gaze of the moon faded behind the horizon, making her bleak headlights the only comfort left for her in the world.

Ciem was the youngest of 18 brothers, and of them all he alone was afflicted with a curiosity. His kin would while away the hours telling stories of biscuits and leathers and how no rain fell on Tuesdays and how the warm earth bore the sweetest millet. But this was not enough for young Ciem so when he was done burnishing the family pelican on the 12th day of Fluon he gathered his hard earned coins from his little hiding place by bricks beneath the spring and he headed east toward The Far Lands. "There would be naught but apples there" yelled Coyo,his bretheren, who called out from a sap loft nearby. And an old eyeless man who sat bent upon a well worn stone said the same, he who had once traversed the Mountain of Tarann and beheld the nameless horrors that lived beneath the cruat of the earth on that nightmarish plateau. But Ciem trudged onward. And by a fork in the road on the tenth day the last of the ash forest gave way to desert and scrub. And polished stone was traded for red lime, and squirrels of the trees became squirrels of the ground and burrow. And the remnent of The West Wind yielded to the sand. No man wandered the desert road save Ciem, and he cast his coins into the barren lands for no use were they, and all hope faded of The Far Lands. And by a lone acacia Ciem sat, and all of the millet bread had been pilfered by mice who had raised litters of young in his sweaty knapsack. And hunger set in. The feast of Mice did sustain Cien for a further 2 cycles and a long night trek took him to the Garden of The Tower and Gnab, and by a watering hole Cien fell to his knees spent of vitality. And by The Garden of The Tower of Gnab lay The Tower of Gnab. And within the Tower of Gnab squatted an old Fakir who gazed on young Cien as he drank from the Well of The Garden of The Tower of Gnab. And the Fakir did quiz the adventurer on his intended destination. And when the Fakir learned of his path he too warned that naught but apples would await in The Far Lands. So it soon became apparant that The Far Lands were indeed far away,and yet the bold brave nitwit meandered through crag and dune, never yielding, and despite the firey sun that burned and bleached all that dwelt there Cien finally reached The Mountain of Tarann. And there a thousand caves stood like tombs, each filled with a lost soul, a faint wail could one hear when the new wind of the north came down the mountainside,and it did carry the sound out to the very ocean where snapping cockles awoke from endless dreams? And the quahogs burrowed deeper into the mire of a civilisation lost and decayed in salty oblivion. On the day of The Feast of Gnub weary husbands and forlorn wives feom the stone city of Hueryaran would guide their intoxicated spouses from the festival of Gnub to the tombs of Tarann and there they would brick in and seal away their significant others behind walls of stone, and there they would stay and fade away as an offering of the mountain. And Cien was taken aback by the wailing that echoed in the vally below and seemed to shake those withered trees that clung to the bare rock. It should be said that in the lea of the Mountain of Tarann no man or beast had need of seeing eyes, for the land was dark, so tall were the peaks that blocked the lazy red sun and outcast moons. And thoae creatures that roamed the steppeland were skulling things, toothed and with strange fleshy organs upon their faces where the seeing eye would be. And by a shrine on a winding mountain path Cien, a wispy beard now clinging to a withered sand blown heat scorched face, fumbled and clung to the mountain like a babe clings to the nursemaid. And while all that could be smelt on the whirling winds was apple he continued his journey as determined as the day he set foot on the gravel path to The Far Lands so many seasons ago.

There's always been something about the rustling of the trees, he thought. That sound begins, and thousands of miniature sails take to the wind, scattering sunlight in a million golden directions in a fluttering tribute to infinity. The wind, just like the trees, never moves in the same way twice. He realized suddenly that he had no idea how long he had been standing there, staring up at the reflections of impossible complexity, his own mind pairing with the movement of the leaves. He heard the sound of hooves before he saw them, those same sun sails serving as walls to his peaceful temple within. He became conscious of the years spent here, this small wooden cabin set at the edge of a great forest that he had known so well. A single rider, he thought. And not in any great hurry. Somehow, for some reason, he knew. He didn't bother looking towards the first bend in the road to his cabin. He already knew. The rider paused at the bend. The sight of the man after so many years affected him more deeply than he had imagined, and he had imagined it many times. The rider looked briefly to the sky, at patches of blue bordered with the sparkling golden edges of the afternoon sunlight, and the wind that seemed to rise with his emotions. He was close now. Too close to turn around. The man stood silent and watched the rider approach. Horse and rider passed the wooden fence that the man had built by hand, over seventeen years ago now. He realized he had been staring at the treetop canopy again. Why haven't I noticed it before today, he thought. It's so beautiful, and it's been trying to tell me all along. The rider stopped, just a few paces short of the man. The sound of wind through trees was unbroken by any word. The rider and the man locked their gazes for an eternity. The man broke the gaze, and looked to the leaves. I see it, he thought. It's in the trees. It's always been in the trees. He started crying silently. I am still here, the rider said. I know, said the man. I am too, I am too. It's been a long time. I had hoped you would remember. I will never forget, said the man. I cannot. I can only hope that in the leaves, there exists a place and time where I have done differently. Another choice, another chance. He returned the rider's gaze. The rider stared, and was silent. I am sorry, said the man. I have no other words. The rider held the gaze. The leaves sang their song of infinity, the golden edges growing brighter in the fading light. Both man and rider looked to the canopy for guidance, and both knew their path. The rider turned his horse, and never looked back. He was a short ways beyond the bend in the road when he heard a single gunshot, echoing through the trees, dampened by the leaves. Their song sang of peace, but the rider felt a different pain. I should have listened, he thought. The wind knew that as well.

It is night. Bolt slowly walks through the alleys, hiding in the darkness whenever he hears anything. Eventually, he instinctively makes his way back to his own territory. He finds an open tent; it is a dirty tent with only a blanket inside. By now his arm has stopped bleeding, but he now has a new scar. He crawls into the tent and curls into a ball under the blanket. His body rests on the warm dirt floor as he silently cries. “I’m sorry.” He whispers. “I’m so sorry.” He had failed. He goes into a deep and dreamless sleep. Bolt awakes to the sound of someone approaching his tent. He clutches his new knife, ready to spring into action. He turns to stare into the morning sunlight. It is Sasha. “Hey Bolt!” she says smiling. She is fair-skinned around the age of 13. She grins as she approaches Bolt. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you.” Her most distinctive quality is her eyes, they are red. Her skinny body approaches Bolt as her long dark hair waves back and forth. “Hello Sasha,” Bolt grumbles as he throws his blanket off. “How was the drop?” she asks him cheerily. Bolt looks away. He can’t look her in the eye. He is ashamed and disappointed in himself. Sasha’s smile immediately fades. She gets a defeated look on her face and sighs. “It happens.” she says quietly to Bolt. Failing a drop is the same as failing your gang. It is making a mockery of all the risks they were put through in order to get you so far. Bolt was the last leg of the drop, he was supposed to make the delivery. Failing such a crucial step is inexcusable. “Are you okay?” Sasha asks him. She steps towards him and puts a hand on his shoulder. Bolt looks further away from her ashamed. He understands exactly what everyone had to do to get him so far. Especially Sasha, she is the leader of his gang, and she is the most scarred out of any of them. Not only that, because she’s a girl, she runs much more risk than any of them can imagine. To fail a drop is to disregard all the risk she takes every time they conduct a drop. “I got caught and scarred by Hawks.” Sasha grabs his hand and lifts up his sleeve to reveal a scabbed arm. “We need to get you medicine before your arm gets infected.” They walk together side-by-side. Sasha understands what Bolt is going through. Every single member of their gang has failed a drop before, but the feeling never gets any better. They have each other and that’s it. They are family and every time they go on a drop, they could lose their family. So failing a drop is the same as rejecting your family. They are in friendly territory, from here, they don’t need to hide, nor do they need to run, they can walk. After an hour of weaving through crowds they reach their usual hideout in the back of an alley. “Flower!” Sasha calls. “We need you.” A young girl appears from under a tent in the corner of the alley. “We need some clean water. Bolt was scarred.” Flower just nods. She is around 10 years old with long blonde hair. She is the supplier of drops; she takes the orders and payments from someone else. With the money, they are able to survive. She pulls out a crinkled water bottle with just a sliver of water left. “This is all we have left.” She says. Sasha takes the water and pours the rest onto Bolt’s scabs. “We failed the drop.” She says while gently cleaning the wound with her sleeve. Flower just sighs. She has the safest job of them all because she has a single ability that none of them do. She is able to read and write. The rest of them can only read if even that. None of them know how to write. Flower finds a beat up notebook and a pencil to record the failure of the drop. The notebook consists of a single T-chart on every page. On one side is written either success or failure, and on the other side there is a paragraph long description of the patient. Next to “bacterial infection, needs antibiotics or will die”, Flower writes “failure”. It takes her a while but her words are legible. Every single description in her notebook ends with “or will die”. Half of the drops have been failures.

Hello r/shortstories, this is a short story I'm writing for school, and I would really appreciate it if you guys could give me any advice on what I should change, thanks! **Prologue** Unknown to her, he did not want to do it; something was holding him back, a force greater than any gun could muster, a force that was capable of pulling the reins on the powerful and poisonous lust for revenge. Yet, it was all that clouded his thoughts; it was all that had kept him pushing forward on his mad quest: the fatal toxin of revenge. Not even the act of mercy he was capable of demonstrating by loosening his grasp on the mortal instrument he held was enough to penetrate the impermeable barrier that vengeance had synthesized. For her, it seemed as if the end had come at last, her actions had finally had the unintended consequences she had feared all along. Yet, at the time of the assassinations, she had done what she had viewed as morally correct, by allowing a young child to live, by sparing him of what had befallen his siblings. Who could have known that the young kid she had spared in a moment of pity would have been poisoned by the same toxin she had ingested decades ago: revenge. But there they stood, one on top of the other, the rain beating down hard on their newly opened wounds, all of which streamed blood that landed in slow drops around the pavement, marking the location of their desperate battle. She perceived his anger through her tired eyes, the anger that had accumulated for years and had finally overflowed his broken vase. As Miranda’s eyelids pressed down upon her, welcoming the peacefulness of death, she couldn’t help but notice that behind the gun’s steel barrel, the owner’s finger refused to press the unlocked trigger. His hand stood rigid, perfectly aimed at her skull while the gun remained primed and ready for firing. But in contrast with the rest of his body, his eyes drifted aimlessly about, staring right through Miranda’s broken body as if in a deep trance. “I’ll need you to deliver a message.” “Yes, yes, please! I’ll deliver anything you ask!” Miranda exclaimed in joy and relief, realizing that there might be a way to further postpone her death. “Very well.” With that, Chris overpowered the force that had been keeping him back and pulled the trigger. **Chapter 1** In the absence of its owner, the decaying apartment remained silent and watchful, allowing its floorboards to take a rest from the constant stomping and hammering caused by its proprietor. The wooden floor and its recollection of scars and bumps were witnesses to the mistreatment the apartment had suffered for nearly a decade. The owner’s indifference to his home’s health was most evident throughout the battered living room. San Diego’s little humidity had been enough to degrade the wood’s once smooth and professional finish as well as the wall’s coat of white paint. The living room’s usual welcoming and cozy atmosphere was hampered by the creaking floorboards, the peeling paint all around the room as well as the horrid stench originating from the kitchen. Amidst the silent chaos, a solitary goldfish swam around its dirty fishbowl, pleading for food to an uncaring owner. The silence was at last cut by the sudden jolting of the front door, waking the apartment from its peaceful slumber. As the key holder attempted to pry the door open, a heated discussion started outside with a second individual. Their muffled voices were drowned out as the door swung open with much force, allowing the two young men to enter the apartment. “You really don’t understand what’s going on. Chris, do you even have the faintest idea of what you’ve done?!” “Dude, please, just keep your voice low, other people could be eavesdropping on us for all we know. ,” Chris said as he sat on the coffee table, “but really, who else knows about this?” “Well the entire goddamn police force knows what happened! Do you really think that no one would find a dead body in the center of San Diego?!” Chris rocked back and forth as he played with a loose string from his coat. “Does anyone else know who it was?” he asked. His friend sat down next to him. “Unless I spill the beans I’m the only one that is ever going to know. And you’d better consider yourself lucky, because if it hadn’t been for me you could be damn sure that they would have caught you by now!” The pair remained silent, each of them lost in their own minds, trying to make sense of the events that had occurred two days ago. They both knew that something had to be done about it, but they each had different things in mind. “If I would have known that that was what you were planning all along I would have never helped you,” he said as he took a deep breath, “Chris, I just can’t believe you did it.” “Well I did do it,” Chris said, “and for good reason too.” “Good reason? Good reason?! What the fuck are you thinking?! You murdered a human being for something that happened 12 years ago!” “Sixteen, it happened sixteen years ago,” Chris hollered, “Oh, you want a good reason?! You want a good reason for ending that bitch’s life? How about the fact that she murdered my family?! Huh! Is that a good enough reason for you?!” “Chris, I understand your anger, I really do. But you have to stop with your mad quest for vengeance. It is only going to bring harm to you, and to me. Dude, have you considered the fact that if they catch you then I will be labeled as an accomplice?” “Yes, I do understand that Michael. But it is too late to turn back now; I can’t just leave this unfinished. I have killed the first assassin and I won’t stop until the other three lie dead by my feet. I don’t expect you to understand or support me, but get this: I am not going to stop.” Michael stared intently at Chris, trying to read his expression to see whether he was serious or not. He suddenly stood up, “You’re fucking nuts, that’s what you are. Just don’t come running to me for help, I’m done giving you intel, I’m done,” Michael said as he put on his jacket, “Good luck finding the other assassins.” The floor boards creaked under Michael’s weight as he hastily walked to the door way. Michael turned around and looked back at Chris with anger, “If they order your arrest, I won’t hesitate to turn you in for what you’ve done. Good night Chris.” Michael swung the door open, leaving it ajar as he walked into the frozen night. Chris lay motionless in his seat, replaying the discussion again and again in his tired mind. With great effort, he got up and shuffled his way to the door, closing it softly.

The moon was waning, giving off nothing more than a fraction of her light. She was set high in the sky, gracing her council of steadfast pine trees. The great trees stood there in respect, and in return they gave essence of pine which the wind blessed and wafted everywhere. To show her gratitude, the moon placed herself higher for all to see. Moreover, all of this I saw as it came through my window, embracing me closely, comforting me to my sleep. It was intoxicating. With each breath I took, my eye lids inched closer to their meeting ground, my limbs became lighter, and my soul calmed. Finally, I was laid to rest. The moon, she left her council with her fickle self. But, in her absence, the gracious sun raised himself in the same spot. He gleamed bright warm rays. They made the birds sing, the mammals move, and the people bustle. The pine trees stretched their canopies to him as though they had arms. The sounds of life that echoed from out-side along with the warm rays were enough to remedy my hangover. When I arose, what I had thought to be people bustling was nothing more than my old alarm clock I set to the sounds of downtown, or how it used to be. My room, it was filled with trinkets that I collected in my walks through woods and abandoned areas. The walls were old oak, laced with cracks and splinters, nails, and old cobwebs. The ceiling was in the same condition except for the occasional hole here and there. There was an old rug on the floor that was my mother’s; it was frilled around the perimeter. The design was diamonds, everywhere, one large one in the center, blood red, then the rest were scattered in no particular fashion. A metal shelf on one of the walls was dusty from holding the rocks I found. And, opposite of that wall sat my nightstand. The alarm clock sat on top, and in the drawers were my locket and my old rucksack. I left my room, my house, and decided to take my normal route east past the hill, that only grows tall thistles, past the dilapidated hospital, and past the barren park, or as I called it, the land of benches. My house, it was west of downtown. Though it’s a shame, I have forgotten the name of the city. Time has aged my mind in our never-ending entanglement. There weren’t any people, any dogs, or any cats. It was just me and the birds singing to our hearts content the songs of lamentations, burdens, hope. I walked along the fencing of an old reservoir; I wanted to refill my bottle that I kept with me. I jumped the old rusty fence, just as I have done so many other times, and cut myself. I didn’t notice at the time. It wasn’t until I stepped into the water that I saw my blood swirl through, dancing, and gracing the water with its presence; the blood slowly took over the water’s appearance, and make it useless. I collected my water. I bandaged up my cut. I jumped the fence again. That day, it was the day I decided that I would walk to the other side of the city. I already knew that there’d be nothing waiting for me. I just felt like walking. By now it was noon-day. I had already told myself that I shouldn’t eat just to conserve food for the latter. I walked east, east towards the city’s edge. I was there once before, as a child with my parents. There was a small amusement park with dim withered lights that used to be full of people. The night we went the moon was full, and the smell of food was everywhere. The aroma of hot dogs, popcorn, cotton candy, and fresh funnel cake was in the air. But, the scent of the pine trees over powered the food with each bless-ed kiss from the wind. I kept walking east. Now that his Consistent Majesty was behind me, I became worrisome of my future. As I walked memories flooded my head grade school, dates, people… Yet I couldn’t figure out why I had stopped traversing to the east side. I walked past Candered St., Dosmond St., Clarence Ave., Dlowst Ct.. They all looked the same. Barren. I was a ways from home now, at least too far to walk back in the eve. The moon, she started to show her last faction of light, and I started to fret. I needed a place to rest, to recover, to hide. There were several dilapidated buildings. There were plants growing on the side of them. The lot of them was vines with very small leaves. Their veins where thick; the older vines looked almost that of tree trunks. They all looked dark green, and then again, it was nighttime. The moon started her normal routine. I was still outside. It was a sight though. I sat and watched. The moon, she rose with great speed, and the trees prepared themselves for they were summoned. The vines, they had arms, but they did not respond to the call. They were steadfast in the still night. The sliver of moonlight fell, and hit their leaves and bounced off. However, the leaves had their own intention. Before moonlight bounced off, the leaves twisted which caused the light to bounce everywhere. And, that bounced moonlight exposed all the mist in the sky. The mist was proud. It danced, flickered, and sparkled; it put on a show for all of none to see, except for me their secret watcher. Suun Sunnom. This was my name. There was no middle just first and last. I could see the moon and she me. I was late, or maybe she was early. The wind, he whipped up as normal. Something was wrong. Clouds, they were carried by the wind. He was mad. I was late. The closest place was an old church. It was brick. I could tell that the “spirit” that may have once resided there is long gone. Or has given up to its creations of vegetation. But the church, it was empty on the inside. No pews, no podium, no bibles. The church wasn’t even a building at this point. It was a structure. An empty structure that felt void of its past. I must have been the only person to step foot in there for a while. The roof, it was broken; the wood frame was splintered, and the shingle where limp, hanging over the high wooden beams. I cared. No, I didn’t care. I wanted to rest. I finished my task: I had to hide. This night there was no comforting. I slept. I woke. The rations from yesterday are what I ate. The berries that I collected, fortunately, or not, they weren’t poisonous. I left the church. The clouds that came last night hadn’t left yet. I knew that the proud mist’s cousin was on her merry way. Rain, she’s pompous. She releases herself on whomever is below her. And, none can do anything. I wanted to get to the amusement park. I wanted to relive my past life. I wanted to remember what it was like with people. Their touch, I forgot what it was like, or maybe I don’t want to remember. I walked hastily to the park in fear of rain, avoiding the array of the roots in the ground. Some were like speed bumps some were like walls. They look like they have been living for years on end. Countless years. Years, on years, on years. It made me think, “What day is it? What month is it? What year is it?” I didn’t care; no, I cared. The park, it was just in the distance wearing its aged Ferris wheel, and since it was still morn, His Majesty shown just above the wheel’s top. It was glorious, but the rain, she quickened herself just to end my happiness. She whipped her head to scoff at the earth, and then she proceeded to offer herself in pity of us, us, being the Earth. Little did she know that I was enthralled with her beauty. Little did she know that she was quite humble, once she joined us. She fell with great speed, sometimes aided by the wind. She never stopped to look where she fell. But, when she made contact, it was like, we, us, were joined to every aspect of the universe; I was one with the furthest star. The rain, she hit my skin, and my skin accepted her as one, as one who was as humble, or pompous, as I was. The Earth, she opened her pores, her grounds, and her heart to the rain. The two where in a never-ending dance. The Rain came from the Earth, and the Earth needed the Rain to come back again. The Rain knew her place in the cycle, she was just, well, pompous. I continued to walk towards the Ferris wheel. It was distant at first then close up. -Amazing… The rust, beautiful.- The rust, it was truly amazing. Years have made it turn red, blood red. The air around was heavy with the scent of iron. But, there was something new. It was hidden behind the Ferris wheel. Well, not hidden per say, but there. It was a Red tower. Red, as red as the rust, as red as the water with my blood. It stood regally. Twas shaped like the Eiffel tower. I questioned my sanity. I’ve never seen it before. I doubted that I was going mad… The tower was hidden by the concealer Fog. The mys’try of weather, for me, then again for whom else? The tower was as though it wasn’t real. Its figure faded in and out, luring me. The tower. The fog. Me. I don’t know what happened… I mean, I won’t tell [you]. I won’t tell [you] what happened to the people. I won’t tell [you] what happened. I can’t. But, I should, shouldn’t I? Religion is a cruel beast of burden. Lo and behold, their Omniscients are vain, spiteful, jealous, maybe. Nevertheless, that happened. I also know that this tower is true… Lest true to me. The “rapture” has happened. From whomever’s Omniscient[s] I know not. It was no Imam, no Sodom and Gomorra, no fire and brimstone, no nothing, no virgins, not even enlightenment or wisdom. There was just me and the birds. I have placed it, an account, here for one, [you], me, it, *“Mother is gone. Father is gone. The Dog is gone. The house is gone. I have* *none around me. The neighborhood is gone. There are only trees here now. I* *must be asleep, or dead.* *I walked down town. There was no one.* *I’m hungry, but I can’t summon food. I cannot be dreaming.* *I must be dead, but the city looks, used… as if used today.* *Dead. Dead….* *I guess this is what I wanted. Peace?* *No, this must be a trial. This must be my purgatory. I am not happy or sad.* *This is not “salvation” or “redemption” or “damnation” of any sorts.* *But, now who am I? I am no longer what I was. Am I a shell that stands in the thick of nothing? Or am I one who is surrounded by everything that I have ever wanted and is just too ignorant to realize anything. Do I stand at the bottom of my own throne of happiness unable to climb it and set myself upon it?* *Nevertheless, I am “here”.* *“Here” with a strip of paper that has a name. And under that name is, “This is* *you, but not who you once were; once you know of this name, knowledge of* *the future will come. But, will there be a price to pay?"* I climbed the study tower. To say it was tall would be an understatement. I climbed, but I mean, I had the time. I used the built on ladder, that had faded red paint, it cried out to be repainted. I knew what I was to do. It never actually hit me till now, my name, the weather and all. It makes sense, to me. I doubt to [you]. This is nothing more than a last days account. [You] will never read this. I have grown tired though. Do [you] remember the reservoir I mentioned earlier? The blood, how it dance and over took the water? Of course [you] don’t. My blood made it red. The color of the rust. The color of this tower… I reached to top of the ladder. There was a platform big enough on which to walk. I decided to stand on it then sit. On the platform was an antenna that looked like a spike, almost as if it were for sacrifices. The Fog it was non-existent up here. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. There were stars. Many stars, they helped to fill the void that’s called space. I lost myself looking up at the masses. But, this wasn’t peace. It was a distraction, a distraction from my task at hand. There was a red star in the sky. However, I didn’t stay long enough to see if it too would infect the others. I don’t remember who I was. It’s a pity. My future, now, is nothing more than desired non-existence. But, a price I don’t know. The Sun & The Moon, they affected my emotions. The Weathers, they affected my perspective. All of them are my enemy because of the piece of paper. I put my trust in that paper. Why, I don’t know. My name Suun Sunnom: M, N, N, N, O, S, S, U, U, U. NON SUM UNUS: I AM NO ONE. The Sun & The Moon, The Weathers, they have been trying to make me what I once was, someone. I will not let them thwart me! My hour has come at last! I am no one, and there is no price to be paid because I am no one! Just as I laced the water with my blood, I shall repaint the tower with my blood. Here, on this antenna, I’ll extinguish myself. I must make sure to bleed plenty, plenty enough to cover the tower. I am no fool!... I know what I must do… I don’t care if the birds laugh. However, if [you] are reading this then I was wrong, terribly wrong.

Alright, so I'm wasted. I drank an entire bottle of wine and my veins are clogged with alcohol. Whatever. It feels spectacular, but that's not what I'm here for. I finally got my girlfriend, Elanor, to dump me. That's right, a trophy wife that makes six figures. I told her that I am depressed, but the truth is I am just embracing insanity. I told her that I needed to be alone, appreciate solitude, but she needs the opposite: a companion 24/7. I could not have fulfilled that for her and I could give half a shit if she dumped me for it. She is also unaware that I have been having sex with my ex-girlfriends. Oh, they're are dumb, but that doesn't matter. Art major, unemployed, and drug crazed. I am out of control and I love it; it is entailed in going crazy. I am few steps closer to Mr.Hill's visions, my veins fill with excitement and it's not wine induced.

Sept 1996 Hi Dad, Grandma made Champorado for us again! I don’t know what’s in it but there’s chocolate! Grandma would tell me to eat it with this small dried fish thing. I think it’s weird and too salty! But her food is still good. Anyways, it’s kind of boring here at Grandma's because there are no toys to play with and it smells different from our house. I hate taking naps here. Grandma would get mad when TJ and I don’t sleep in the afternoon. She said I won’t grow tall if I don’t sleep. Is that true? What if I sleep the whole day... will I be as tall as you? You know dad, I see your car parked outside the apartment on those days when you don't visit us. Are you living here too? Why don't you stay with us instead? I’m sure there’s enough room for you here. I’ll sleep on the couch or on the floor everyday if I have to just so you can stay here. How come you will only visit when mom is not around? Are you not allowed to come visit us? Don’t worry. I can keep a secret. I won’t tell. I hope you can come back and live with us again soon. It gets boring when you’re not around and I always get sad when I see you leave. You’re a good dad to us and I love you. I miss eating the food you cook for us.

This is my story. It’s Monday evening. The sun is setting and people have stopped coming into the store. The only people working are me and my co-worker, mint. Mint is the kind of girl that says what’s on her mind whenever possible. I’m the kind of girl who keeps things bottled up until they explode, as you’ll read in this story. The clock hits 8:30 and I decide it’s time to relieve myself in the bathroom. I tell Mint that I’ll be a few minutes and she gives me an approving nod. Lately, I’ve been having digestion issues so I’ve been keeping an extra roll of toilet paper and a bottle of air freshener to avoid any awkward entanglements with other coworkers. Time ticks by and I finish doing my dirty deed. I leave the bathroom, praying to God that Mint won’t walk in and be slapped in the face by the putrid, disrespectful odour that my sick ass gave off. I approach Mint, making small talk about how slow the night is going. She gives a gentle smile and says “at least it’s a nice break from the incredible rush earlier.” We exchange smiles and carry on keeping up with the shop. I decide to take the half of the store furthest from the bathroom, thinking it should be good to be as far away from that ghastly, seeping smell. Seeping. What is that sound seeping from the bathroom. “EEEYIIIEEE” I hear. I run over to the bathroom to find Mint, hand over mouth, holding back the vomit. ‘The toilet,’ I think to myself. Why did it have to be the toilet. To my own shock, I watched the floor become covered with human urine and feces. The toilet, overflowing with a river of excrement, spewed like a graceful fountain. Mint looks at me. “You did this…” she says. “You did this and you know it. How do you feel about yourself, Julia? You’ve managed to not only break our only working toilet, but you’ve managed to force me to abandon any respect I had for you” “It wasn’t me…” I slowly reply to her. “Wasn’t you? You were the last person to use the bathroom, everything spewing from the toilet is your doing” “It wasn’t me, Mint” I say to her again. “How can you be so stupid, Julia. How can you think I could be so stupid as to think this wasn’t you. I watch you, Julia. You spend 15 minutes or more in the bathroom, usually forcing all of us to leave just to escape the hellish stench you produce” “Mint…I’m serious.” “No Julia, I’ve had enough. I can’t believe you would lie about this, you act like your shit don’t stink when we both know that it clearly does. Go grab a towel and clean it up now. No gloves, that is your punishment.” “MINT!” I yell, “It wasn’t me!” “How can you say this, Julia!” “Well because…” I struggle to find my words, “because….WELL BECAUSE I HAVE DIARRHEA! There…are you happy. Now you know my dirty little secret. It couldn’t have possibly been me. These feces are thick and healthy, mine spew out like I’m urinating from behind!” “…I had no idea, Julia.” Mint says. “Yeah well…you never cared to ask anyway. I can’t work in an environment where everything I do is judged and questioned. Goodbye, Mint” “Julia, wait,” she says again. “Before you go…” “Yes?” I reply She walks up to me silently. Little did I know that her next actions would prevent me from walking out the door to never return. She slowly pulls my hand towards her while maintaining eye contact. She takes a towel, wipes it around some nearby excrement, and proceeds to absorb it onto the towel while attempting to wipe it all over my face. Now I am forgiven by her. “You have guts” I say to Mint. She is staring into my eyes more intently then before. “I also have thick stool” This whole time, it was Mint that was clogging up the toilet. She was buried in a shroud of embarrassment this whole time and threw the blame onto me for everything. We shook hands with mutual agreement. Work continued on that night, and for many nights to come.

A 20 year old magician named Alyssa, was walking offstage after a show. She was feeling electric after an astounding performance. Alyssa decided to celebrate with a couple of friends. They were going to a local establishment that featured live music and tempting alcohol. Alyssa and her friends were barely underage and couldn't buy drinks. They decided to pay a homeless gentleman to do it while they moved like typical white girls on the dance floor. Around midnight everything about them became slurred. At 3:37 in the morning, they hailed a cab to take them back to their apartment. Six minutes into the ride, the driver lost focus and the vehicle drifted into oncoming traffic. The car went head-on with a moving truck. Alyssa only saw a white flash, then darkness. She awoke in a hospital bed with tubes connected to her. She would later learn the cab driver was killed, but her friends were perfectly fine. She was released one week later and returned home. Twelve years later. At 32, Alyssa was married at this point, had earned her doctorate in medical science, and even had a kid. She was blissfully happy with her life, and hadn't any regrets. One night, while her husband and son were out, she decided to see a movie. She lived in the city so she did not own a car herself. After flagging down a taxi she got in the backseat. Without looking at him, she told the driver, "Local cinema please." The taxi took off. The driver accelerated the vehicle at too high a speed and Alyssa took notice. She screamed for him to stop the car. But all he said was, "It's time for you to go back." Just as the car slammed into a semi, her life flashed before her eyes. She remembered the birth of her child. The first time she met her husband. Even her first kiss. Every milestone of her life was relived in a split second. And then... Her eyes opened. All Alyssa saw was a white ceiling and only heard a continuous beep. Friends and family surrounded her hospital bed, and gasps filled the room as she sat up. Joy was felt by them as their daughter and friend had finally awoke after her long slumber. Alyssa noticed her friends looked younger, and she herself felt younger too. She asked, "Where is my son, and husband?" But she had neither. She was an unmarried, 20 year old magician who had just lived 12 years in one month.

As I recall, we weren't really there. Our veins were being flooded with wine, beer and unnamed spirits that were named at the time, but I don't remember them. Despite that, everything had slowed down to an even pace. The sun stayed up forever, blinding us from being able to make eye contact across the beer garden table. We only found respite from the glare when we looked down at the black table-top to stub-out our cigarettes into the ashtrays. The flood of booze was raging, but it felt slow. Time limped away. Hours in minutes, it seemed. We were there for a good while, though. Four hours, I think. We had witnessed the rise and fall of strange men pounding flashing buttons on the bandit. We saw them lose £50 in the space of mere seconds, and we were infuriated. What a waste, we would think. I was annoyed at you, too. At the first sign of a dwindling conversation you took your phone out of your pocket, pretending to text people. Checking the news. The latest status update. Anything to stop you from talking to me. Outside, with the sun still punishing us, our silences were filled by sniggering at the drunks, already too drunk for this time of day, but we both knew we were no better. You asked to borrow a ciagrette, and then another, and then another, and then you would sigh when I told you I had none left. I wasn't lying, you know. I really didn't have any left. And it was because of you that I didn't. I stumbled to the shop to buy more cigarettes. One of the strangest feelings in the world is walking around a busy town centre at two in the afternoon drunk, when you know for a fact that every single person around you is sober. They are doing their shopping, taking their kids to the local park, mooching. But your vision is swirling. It's really strange but also kind of liberating. When you see a teenager doing something stupid you feel like you can walk up to him and starting a fight. When you see a police officer you feel like you can approach them and start swearing at them. But you never do. You don't have the spine, or more, your own brain reins you in, telling you you shouldn't. And that's fine, because knowing that you can do if you want, is good enough. I bought the wrong brand of cigs but that doesn't matter. They're cigs. Besides, they were for you, not me. This is a weird kind of drunk. Being drunk in the day time is different. It's like you're floating everywhere and not walking. There's a strong sense of independence. The spirits and whatever else running through me is probably why I didn't notice the homeless man at first. I took a double-take and walked backwards, back to him. He was on the floor, legs crossed as though he was doing street yoga. He had at least five layers on and a beanie hat despite the temperature reaching twenty. He must have been boiling. Or cold. The homeless man asked for change. I smiled, but I was careful not to make it a pitiful smile. I gave him a £5 note but in my stupor I would only later realise that I gave him a £20 note instead. But I don't feel bad for that. Money is paper. Paper means a lot to the homeless. I walked off but he whistled after me. For a second time now, I went back to him. He gestured for me to sit with him, and I did. I don't know why. I thought that I shouldn't because I knew you were waiting for me in the beer garden. Well, waiting for my cigarettes, not waiting for me. So I thought, sod you, you can wait. And you did, but I don't know how long for. The homeless person began rambling. I know it's a stereotype, but he did. He spoke of war, then tigers, then bread. I thought he was mad, but you can't blame him. Who wouldn't be? He spoke of hostels and free beds, but he couldn't stay at them any more. He was banned. Imagine, a homeless person banned from homeless shelters. Where can he go? And that's when he said it: He wanted to die. He could easily do it, but it would only be easy from a literal sense. After all, it isn't hard to kill yourself. What's hard is finding the backbone to go through with it. That's when I pulled my packet of cigarettes out and shared them with him and I thought, I'm not going to share these with my friend when I get back to the beer garden. It might have been the heat. It might have been the alcohol. It might have been a mixture of the two, which is more likely. Whatever it was, I had an idea. I offered to kill him. That way, he would die like he wanted, but he wouldn't need the backbone to do it. He agreed, but he asked me for another cigarette first. I gave him one, why wouldn't I? It's kind of like his last meal. He told me that he didn't want to know how he was going to die, so I assured him it would be a surprise. I struggled to my feet, the heat was far too intense. I felt the panic of the moment when you realise you're sobering-up, so I went to the shop and bought a large bottle of cider and a small can of vodka and coke. I drank the can really quickly. It nearly came out of my nose. I lit a cigarette and went back to the homeless guy. I told him the cider was for him and he smiled like it was Christmas to a child. He asked me how I was going to kill him. I told him I already did. He looked annoyed but that's okay, he probably knew what I meant deep down. You know what weird feeling when you're drunk in the middle of the day time and everyone else seems to be sober and the whole thing starts twisting? It's liberating. It's like a weird feeling of independence. On my way back to the pub to get back to you (you must have been waiting forever), I noticed a teenager chasing pigeons and making them fly into the faces of tutting old people. So I ran over to him and punched him square in the face. I felt one my knuckles slice open from a tooth, but I didn't feel the pain of it. The police officer I mentioned was still there, you know. He came over after hearing the commotion and when his eyes locked onto mine, you know what I said to him? I told him to go fuck himself. I laughed, probably a little too loudly, and then looked-up to the sky. The sun was blazing. Not a cloud to be seen. It was the middle of the day and I felt like I was the only person in the town centre who was drunk. It feels weird, but in a good way. Liberating. Then I was on the ground, kissing the concrete. I felt my hands being tied together and the cold metal hugging my wrists. Then I thought of you, and you know what I did? I laughed and thought 'You can wait in the beer garden all day you son of a bitch. You aren't having my cigarettes.

I like kids. Don’t get me wrong, I like kids in a strictly plutonic way. It’s just that I use the word “plutonic” much looser than average folk. Sometimes I’ll see a kid and be like “Damn, that’s a pretty hot kid,” but other times I’m like “Meh, that kid isn’t as hot as that other kid I saw earlier. Goddamn, if I were a kid…” but I digress. I don’t want to come off as ham-fisted. But can you imagine having hams for fists? Talk about fisting kids! This is my defense of why I did that to those kids: a memoir. The best place to start in my opinion would be the beginning. I’m no big wig, spouting out droll impressions of the Caravaggio hanging on the wall of some Mr. Monopoly cock sucker’s penthouse office while sipping aged scotch and saying words like “proletariat” and “China” and “If my dick were any bigger you could stick a pig on it and slow roast that mother fucker, using my secret sauce I learned on my secret family’s vacation to Cairo.” So one day I learned that my cool uncle died and left me his ice cream truck. It was the cat’s pajamas. I sat in the back seat of my mother’s hatchback (lesbian), legs crossed so my older brother couldn’t tell I had an enormous erection. After what felt like a real long time, we arrived at the place where people pick up stuff from dead people. I don’t remember what it was called. I can’t remember most of that day because my blood was about eighty percent endorphins. I felt like I was on top of the world. It was the cat’s meow. The bee’s knees. The tickle I get on my tip when I put peanut butter on it and make my dog lick it off. As I reflect upon it, I remember we were going to the mall to pick up the ice cream truck. As we drove by the big Dave and Buster’s sign, a restaurant I was all too familiar with (the first time I got dome was while I was playing Time Crisis 2 at that exact restaurant), I slouched down in an effort to hide myself. I would say I’m well known at the mall scene, as I frequent there to beat up middle schoolers to establish myself as the most popular kid at the mall. It didn’t matter that I’m an 18 year old college student; to be honest I beat them up so I can try to live out a fantasy I’ve had since birth of being the coolest, toughest kid in the whole middle school. I also sold cigarettes to them on the side to make some scratch. My face has been put on posters under my pseudonym “Enrique Horticulture.” I’ve been beaten mercilessly by the mall cops, a part of my life I’ve tried (unsuccessfully) to repress, for fear of those memories reemerging as I age and becoming aggressively violent towards pregnant women. Anyways, the ice cream truck. My stiff penis in hand, I stepped out of the car. I remember it was kinda cloudy that day, but not too cloudy, you know? But even so, the little sunlight that there was still glistened off that ice cream truck. I covered my face with my free arm, shielding my fragile eyes from the holy glowing light from the ice cream truck. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I was able to get a better look at that ice cream truck. And it was everything I could have hoped for. It was almost perfectly square; the lawyer even said the edges were “dangerously sharp” and that they “murdered my dog.” The only indication that it was an ice cream truck was because the words “ice cream truck” were spray painted across the sides of the vehicle in a what I assume started as a neon orange, but had faded into a color not unlike a poop you would have and then call a doctor immediately afterwards out of concern for your wellbeing. There didn’t appear to be a speaker system for music, but I could tell that there were some enormous sub woofers in the back because of how weighed down the rear of the van looked. There wasn’t a menu of what was offered on the outside, just a piece of paper taped to the side that under closer inspection said “popsicles or fuck off.” There wasn’t any fancy ornament on the top of the van. What I found instead was my cool dead uncle’s taxidermied dead body, strapped to the top by really frayed ropes that looked like a cat that went through a wash and dry cycle with the laundry. It was the greatest piece of American engineering I had ever laid eyes on. I walked around it slowly, running my fingers along the slowly rusting exterior. I leaned in close and licked it while my mother talked with the lawyer about how a child could own such a death trap. The lawyer, (who, fun fact, turned out to be an arsonist) said it’s my cool uncle’s will and I can drive it as much as I damn well please. I lost it as those words left his mouth. I threw open the door to get in the driver’s seat (the keys were lost years ago) and felt the nice shag he had put on the steering wheel. I saw that my cool uncle left a note on the rearview mirror. As I tore it off, the mirror came off with it. I shrugged, assuming it wouldn’t be a problem until I looked back and saw that there were no windows in the back. I turned back forward to look at the note. It read: Sawyer, I know you’ll get the most use out of this. Your Cool Uncle I pressed it against my chest, holding it dear. It’s in my pocket right now, as I write, because I’m Sawyer and I’m writing this. I put it in my pocket and asked the lawyer to give me the keys. He walked around to give them to me as I fantasized about the quantity of cigarettes I could push in the mall parking lot. I took those keys and jammed them hard into the ignition. It took a bit of force to get them to turn, but by god did they turn. The engine gave off some really awful sounds that I think made a nearby newborn baby cry and some dark smoke started to pour out of the cassette tray. But I didn’t care. I was the proud owner of what fits the broadest definition of an ice cream truck. I sped home, ecstatic to fill my ice cream truck full of popsicles to sell to the children. I got home and ripped open the freezer door to fill my arms with as many popsicles I could carry. I brought them back to my truck and climbed in back only to find there wasn’t a freezer. In retrospect I should have done a better inspection of the truck when I first got inside of it, but driving it felt better than what I bet losing your virginity to a really hot porn star feels like. Based on the surroundings, I ascertained that my cool uncle was in fact living out of this very ice cream truck. I felt his spirit around me and inside of me. Kinda like Jesus. I was determined to make my cool uncle proud of me and make a name for myself and this ice cream truck I had inherited. I walked to the hardware store to buy spray paint to give the truck a bitchin’ paint job. I worked all night to make it look like the coolest goddamn ice cream truck you’ve ever seen or will see. The next morning I opened the garage door to reveal to the world my pussy-getting ice cream truck. I was rather disappointed by how it looked to be honest. I didn’t open a window and got pretty high and passed out. I really only had time to write “The Happiness Harbinger” along the side and paint some flames that were really only like 3 yellow lines. I was still proud, and I imagine my cool uncle would be too.

“Bates,” my father’s voice whispered, the sound of his gruff tone made my eyes water with longing. I missed my home; I missed my head strong and slightly eccentric father. I felt a little crazy, hearing his voice amidst the silence and smiling into the ground. A sob chocked its way back down my throat, I would not cry, not here, not now. Not yet. I felt something slide down my spine, like a thick piece of frozen flesh, burning as it reached the base of my vertebrae. I shivered in revulsion; my stomach began to churn and bubble, vomit convulsed up my esophagus, I tried to swallow it back down but ended up almost chocking on it. I was so tired of being awake, but I knew that if I closed my eyes I would scream. Every time they slid shut images of acid burned faces, rotted corpses, and the peeling meat of my friends, my men, swam up to meet me. The memories always surprised me and were always accompanied by a whimper trying to claw its way through my snow covered lips. It was like my body was working against me, trying to coax a sound from my caged mouth. Pieces of ice dug into my palms, I did not move away, I did not flinch, instead I relished in the pain. It was okay though, it reminded me that I was still alive and that I could still die. Death, it was a silent yet beautiful release. Well, not always. I pushed away the memories of mustard gas and disembodied men, frantically snatching at happier memories of a sweeter time. Yet those precious and vulnerable moments seemed to have faded and burned to cinder, leaving my mind in soot and ash. Focus, my mind screamed, stop thinking! I wanted nothing more than to faint, to let my mind shut down and to float in oblivion. Blink, blink, blink; Images of my past, Images of my present, and assumptions of my future. I wished for an escape so I could turn off the past, turn off the images. “Bates?” Robert’s voice sounded through the memories, cutting through them like a shard of ice. “Yes, sir?” I rasped, my throat had constricted, my muscles were stiff, and my nerve endings were being devoured by tension. “I’m going to roll over now. Onto my back. I don’t want anybody to else to move.” “Yes, sir.” He must be crazy, my mind calculated, he doesn’t even know what’s out there. He doesn’t know what’s awaiting him. It’s safer like this. Safer to remain how we are. Safer, but stupid. I could hear Robert rolling over, the crunch of the snow and the crackle of ice, as he shifted his body. Each sound vibrated through my head at maximum capacity. It was so loud I was sure that he would be shot and that his stupidity would get the rest of them discovered. I swallowed hard, tasting nothing but dread and exhaustion. I heard a bird sing, my thoughts raced around my head like an out of control train, I couldn’t slow it down enough to gather them. It sang again, my muscles contracted, increasing the tension already radiating through my body. I was spooked. I cursed Captain Leather for giving a child command of my squad. For that was all Robert was, a child in the skin of a man. “Sir?” I ask, hoping that there would be no answer. “Don’t move, there’s somebody here.” I did not reply I could not; all I could think about was how this child brought death unto us. I was so angry in the moment I thought I would go blind with rage. I wanted to drown him, suffocate him, and burn him all at once. Insanity was taking its hold over me, and I could do nothing but pray to stop it. “Bates? Don’t be afraid. There’s only one and I don’t think he has a gun. Try rolling over and see what happens. I’ve got him covered,” said Robert. I rolled over quickly. A German was watching Robert and Robert did not shoot. I looked to Robert, my gaze full of venom. *Traitor*, I wanted to shout, *why won’t you shoot! You’re a child, nothing but a whiny inexperienced child!* My gaze wandered back to the German, he was closer than I expected. I saw him nod, but it might have just been my imagination. My father’s voice was once again resonating within me, humming through my mind like a bell. *Get up*, it said. It seemed like hours before my mind could focus again, but once it cleared away the hazy grime, I realized the voice belonged to Robert, not my pa. “Get up,” Robert muttered to me. “Stand right up. He isn’t going to shoot.” I stood, “Now what?” “Go to the top. Go the way we came. Just go. But go slowly. Don’t alarm him.” I went around Robert. The mud was sticky and deep, pulling my legs under as if to draw me closer. It was harder than I expect, climbing up the face of the crater, shards of rock kept biting into my skin, drawing blood. My legs began to burn with effort, to long with no movement had taken its toll on my muscles. The siding was slick with ice and snow making handholds hard to find and even harder to grab. I pushed my muscles to the point of exhaustion but relief soon followed when I reached the top of the pit. I looked over the side to see the German smiling at Robert, what an odd thing to do, my brain rambled. I turned my attention to Robert, who was standing, I waited for any sign of a command; he waved. “I want everyone of you to go and join Bates. Don’t stop and don’t look back. Go as far as you can with your hands in the air, so he’ll know you’re not armed. Maybe he’s crazy – but he isn’t going to kill us,” Robert said. I watched the four men stubble to the Lewis gun, by their limps I guessed that their legs had fallen asleep and they were now feeling the sensation of pins and needles. Robert moved to the fifth man, rolling him onto his back. I could tell by Roberts face that the man was dead. Robert rolled him back into the mud. *What a proper goodbye for a solider*, I thought bitterly. Our captain wandered to the edge of the water, crouching to look at the man who had broken both his legs. He was dead; it could have been from the gas or maybe the shock and pain of his breaks. Robert turned his back on the bodies and the German, his face set to a grim expression. He began to climb; my eyes flickered to the German, watching him for any sign of movement. From the sounds Robert was making it seemed that he was having more trouble than the rest of us had, I wanted to look, but I did not dare take my eyes off the German. As I watched him I wondered why he was letting us get away, it was uncommon for an enemy to intentionally let it’s pray out of its clutches. Stupid even. I also wondered why Robert hadn’t shot him; yes the German was showing a bit of tolerance, but who knew how long that would last. I glanced to Robert, seeing that he had about six more feet to go, my gaze focusing back on the German, who indecently was reaching for something black and shrouded with shadows. “Sir!” I shouted, my heart hammering in my chest, my mind was screaming. He had a gun, and he was going to shoot our captain. No matter how much I distrusted the young lad, he was still our brother in arms. It all happened so fast. Something exploded; the German gave a startled cry and was suddenly dead, his arms still reaching over the edge of the crater. The sound of Roberts gun shot was still resonating around the pit and worming its way within my heart. As Robert tried to scramble the rest of the ways up, he was clumsy, I reached down to pull him up. We fell back together, Robert on top of me. The warmth of his skin made me wish more for home. We stayed like that for what seemed like hours. Robert was shaking, his heart beating franticly against my chest. I held him tightly before he pulled away. I watched him struggle with what he had just done, I watched him wipe the mud from his face - gun still in hand - and put his face between his knees. I did nothing. There was nothing I could do, this was something that he would have to face on his own, we all make mistakes, and sometimes those mistakes lead to the loss of innocent lives. Robert raised his field glasses and looked towards the German, his lips parted. I wondered what he was seeing. He crouched there for a minute, as unmoving as a statue. The bird sang. One long note descending: three that wavered on the brink of sadness. Robert twitched. I realize in this moment that Robert was no longer the young and vicarious solider he had been hours ago. He had lost his child like essence. The bird sand and sand and sang. Robert stood and walked away. I followed him and would follow him until the day I died. He was my commander and he was finally becoming a man.

The road seemed to wind on forever. Long blank stretches of snow blanketed the tarmac for what seemed like mile after mile. There were no other cars. He hadn't seen a car for about fifty miles or so. It could've been a hundred. He wasn't paying attention that well. There were too many things to think about. The snow was falling pretty heavily by now, the full beam headlights of the jeep only just being able to pierce the oncoming flurry. It was thickening more and more up the mountain. The road took sharp narrow twists every now and then. Sheer cliff face on one side, endless white abyss on the other. Soon he'd be at the lodge. Soon he kept thinking he could start a fire with the logs he'd cut last year, still kept dry hidden under the stairs. His thoughts kept drifting to the smell of the cabin. He'd built it himself in his younger days. A strong and imposing design. It took him three months of hard labor to see a sizeable home come into fruition. But he'd been relived once it was finished. A winter home. Not like those sleek and snide executives that summered round the lakes up north, or those that could afford summer homes on foreign shores, built by cheap foreign labor and then prostituted to rich affluent men of the west. He took pride in this place he'd come to live every winter for the last ten years. He didn't earn this place, he'd built the damn thing. The snow was now completely blinding his view of the road. The headlights were now just faint yellow streaks against the blank wall of the weather in front of him. Passing a very sharp left turn signalled to him that he was almost upon his winter palace. He knew that on clear sunny days this sharp bend provided the most scenic view of his lodge he'd ever found. In all his ramblings in and around the forest and mountain on which he'd built this home away from home he'd never once seen such a picturesque or slightly view of it than from this one bend in the road. He had less than three minutes before he reached the driveway. Finally he thought. Everglade was imminent. The large wooden supporting beams, strong noble oak holding together his life achievement. The one shady tree leaning over the north side of the lodge, creaking in the wind and providing shade to the study in the sunny afternoons. These striking features were of course invisible beneath the roaring elements. The jeep pulled up to the gate at the bottom of the drive, the headlights finally finding something to shine upon. A massive old six foot wrought iron parting gate, rusting slightly with a silver padlock shining brightly back at him. Home at last were his thoughts, as he stepped out into the white and unlocked his winter abode. There was no doubt in his mind now, that he was truly home for the season. The gate offered mild resistance against the foot of snow gathering around it. An entire acre of virgin snow lay before him, getting back into the jeep and making the first tire tracks of the season up and into his car port adjacent to the lodge. He shut off the engine and heaved a weary sigh. There were only two times in a year when he'd feel exactly the way he felt then. His birthday was the other. Not the start of the day, when the usual rush of excitement or anticipation would grip others. But the end of his birthday. Late into the night, whenever he'd finished work, or came home from 'celebrating' it. He'd sit in his apartment, in his favourite chair overlooking the city with a glass of whiskey and his annual cigarette and heave a heavy sigh of relief. Another year gone. The engine quietly began rattling down, and he stepped out again and began unpacking his supplies. Five fresh water containers, three boxes of fresh groceries ready to be frozen and packed away into the fridge, along with twelve pounds of fresh meat. Cheese, milk, bread, oats, sugar, nuts and fruit all packed away safely in their respective colour coded plastic tubs and boxes. No thought spared. When he'd brought in the supplies and stored them all away in the kitchen, he finally brought in his personal effects. Nothing too outlandish. Bathroom necessities, two weeks worth of clothes, phone charger, laptop and effects. The last box he brought in was very old. A very old and antiquated box indeed. He brought this box to rest in his study, where it looked like it belonged, with the bookcases full of first and second editions, the maps of the continental US and UK. The family crest and coat of arms above the stone fireplace. The typical cabin sight of a bear skin rug rolled out infront of this, with two red leather armchairs opposing one another with a small leather set coffee table in between. A mug from the previous year still sat on a coaster on this table. The exact place he'd left it. A chess set was sitting in the centre, the pieces still standing heroically waiting for black to move. The room was exactly as he'd left it. Perfect. He brought the box over to his desk, carefully sitting it down in the centre. He pulled back his desk chair and reclined backwards into it, raising his hands behind his head and breathing the scent of the lodge in through his nostrils. A deep smell of oak brought back memories of cutting down logs in the forest to burn. A slight smell of creosote tinged the air. Even after ten years since he applied the coating to the outside of the lodge the smell still managed to find it's way in. He liked that. He breathed in his memories, and sat up abruptly and laid his hands on the box. He placed both hands at either side, feeling its hinges and clicking them exactly at the same time. The lid of the box popped open promptly, and he flicked the lid open without hesitation. A gloriously preserved 1936 Royal Deluxe typewriter sat inside. It's chrome fittings still gleaming from the last time he polished them. Genuinely smiling, he reached to the stack of paper on the side of the table, and reeled a piece in.

The Gate a short story I whirled around the bench, and stood up. Again. I threw a quick glance at the clock, then towards the deck, and sighed. I looked over to the corner of the choppy, blue pool, remembering the day I myself learned to swim. I'm older now, I thought to myself. Too old for this. The gate rattled, loudly announcing that another swimmer had arrived. Instinctively, my head spun to face the old bricked entryway. Disappointed, I looked away and back down at the table, at my towel and clothes that sat, neatly folded, next to my bag. I threw another longing glance at the clock, and then over to the deep end, where the Big Kids were playing sharks and minnows. Only a summer ago, I would have been over there, dominating a game. I would have been yelling, laughing, diving, and having fun. But not today. I jumped off the wooden bench I had just clambered over, adjusting my towel. It swayed over my shoulders like a stole in the light breeze. I felt the sting of sunburn on back as I stepped out from under the rainbow umbrella. I slung the towel over my back, attempting to hide my bare skin from the heat of the day. I paced one way, and then the next, as if I were looking for someone. I should have brought sunscreen, I though to myself, and something cold to drink. As I strode to the far side of the pool, my thoughts drifted once more back to last summer. I remembered that table. I remembered the Uno we played on rainy days, I remembered the pizza and cupcakes we shared on sunny days, and I remember the scowls we shared on boring days. I stepped around another chair as I walked along the poolside, eyes still scanning the waves. I continued to glance at the clock, waiting. Stepping over a fresh puddle of water, I entered into the shade. I sat down, this time facing the gate. I surveyed the pool again, knowing what I was looking for wasn't there. "Do you want to play with us?" A kid asked me. "Sure, I'll be there in a minute," I lied. My mind was elsewhere. A cloud passed overhead. I remembered all the conversations we had at that small, wooden table last year. I couldn't help but think about the longest one we had. It lasted almost two weeks, and consisted if five words. "Please, will you tell me?" She would ask. I would smile, turn away, and say no in every way I knew how. I couldn't think of a reason not to tell her, other than that I was embarrassed. I didn't know why. It just felt weird to talk about it. The clang of the gate brought my attention back to the present. I could see the entryway much more clearly now that I had moved. I starred, watching closely. No one came through. It was someone leaving, I concluded, as I let my thoughts drift away again. "Please, please!" She would beg to me. I would shake my head, laugh, and say no. My denial turned into a chore over the next couple days. We saw each other every day, at the same table, so there was no avoiding it either. I would run to the pool to get away, and she would jump in after me, pleading all the while. I looked over at the clock, and then over to a group of middle schoolers who were talking, very loudly. I leaned back in my chair, and closed my eyes, wishing the time away. Wishing she would walk through the gate. "Why not?" was a typical follow up, to which I had no answer. After several futile days, the conversation changed tone. It became a guessing game, a game of asking questions to deduce the answer. I gave vague, but honest answers. She got closer and closer. So I started giving less hints. "Is it me?" She finally asked. I remember looking away quickly. I opened my eyes again, blinking furiously to adjust to the bright reflection of the pool in my face. Even though I was in the shade, the summer sun was hot. As I stoop up to cool my feet off in the water, I watched the kids dive across the deep end. I looked up again at the clock, and then to the gate, thinking. "No." It felt like the wrong answer. Another friend had told me she had a crush on me, a few days ago, while this game was still fresh. I looked into her bright blue eyes, and thought for a moment. "No, I don't have a crush on you." I remember delivering that verdict flatly. I could have been more gentle, I suppose. I could have also told the truth. The gate rattled again. I looked over to see a mother walk in with her son, who ran over to the game I was supposed to be playing. "Then who is it?" She begged persistently. I avoided her eyes this time. I tried ignored her, but to no avail. "It doesn't matter," I told myself reluctantly. The the gate clanged shut, but I still glanced over to the entryway, out of habit. I sighed. She's not going to walk through that gate.

Her hands felt unusually rough, calloused palms inching downward toward my waist. Intoxicating, but much too early. The olive hue of the digital clock called it at a few minutes till midnight. The radio, turned down, mulled over garbled tones as if stuck on some haunted transmission. I pulled away slightly, shifting in the driver’s seat, corralling her significantly smaller frame into my chest. Breathing fast, she reached up for a kiss. I turned away. The car sat along the side of a residential road. I shifted gears. We needed to keep moving. A few miles later, after an inelegant nose dive into a field of reeds, after she kicked the door open and I pulled her back in, after she whispered that she needed to get away and I flatly declined, after we kissed and embraced and the reeds briefly buckled and some broke, after I led her out by hand onto a flat earthen road and spread out a row of fireworks, after she turned her eyes to the road briefly and I swung, tripped and sunk a screwdriver into her shoulder blade, she screamed. She dropped to her knees and scrambled, hands digging into the ground in desperation as she clawed away. Her feet kicked inefficiently – mine did not. I caught up with her, turning my face away from the yelling and clawing until my fingers closed around the tool’s metal handle. I pulled hard. She screamed again. It would be over soon. I was certain. I apologized, pulling her limp body back up. We inched a few steps toward the fireworks and I laid her out flat right by them. Almost perfect. I leaned in close. “I’ll be right back.” I kept the hammer under the passenger’s seat. It often felt unsteady in my hands but tonight would be different. Tonight, it would strike and sting, tried and true. I returned, both hands full, my gait reassured. She wasn’t moving. I crouched down. “Hey. Wake up.” Her eyes snapped open. Surprise. “This’ll all be ove –“ The crackle gave it away. A snap. How’d I miss it? The lighter? She said she didn’t smoke – Less than a minute later, when the last Roman Candle had surfed into the clouds, Sara opened her eyes. Turning on her side, she eyed the writhing, smoking mass. A hammer lay nearby. She grabbed hold of it. Momentarily, it would rise in the air. Until then, with dirt, blood and rage in her, Sara roared.

On the 4th day Betan rested, the black mica on The Ceiling had him defeated and he slunk back into his sand pod in The Soothing and there he dreamed, and all that he had known became unknown, and the ordered tableau became churning chaos. The Blue Lands permeated the dream cloud that formed about his pseudo-tete and his body regenerated, and all around him buzzed and hummed. And the marble like floor moved into view once more, and on the 5th day the black heaven, devoid of all light and depth moved overhead, and Betan stretched forth a vigerous Pseudopod once more, and with an almighty effort hauled his cylindrical body between black sky and marble earth. And pain wracked his fragile form and his hopes and aspirations shattered. And by the beat of a drum the world and reality ebbed away and dripped into the bedrock and laughter filled the halls and houses and those with the faculties went forth into oblivion. And there came again the first day. And once again Betan was alone in the foyer, and that which was black merged with that which was white, and The White Buds that clustered about the progenitor broke free and drifted with the wind to the silent coast next to The Still Sea.

The rain came in from the west, pulling the black abyss, once the sky, along with it. It seemed to come from every direction, so the excessive re-adjustment of his hood was to no avail. Scott continued to do so anyways. "Thirty-two, twenty-one, five." "Thirty-two, twenty-one, five." Although Scott had the numbers written down, he enjoyed whispering them to himself. It made his hands steady and kept his mind focused. "Thirty-two, twenty-one, five." He knew the numbers so well, that writing them down seemed childish now. He pulled the small piece of paper out of his pocket, and gave it to the rain. "Thirty-two, twenty-one, five." A street lamp projected a circle of light around Scott as he looked up at the street names. He was getting closer, his destination was one block away. Rain smacked the ground, causing water and dirt to bounce off the pavement and stick to his jeans. The jeans were old anyhow. "Thirty-two, twenty-one, five." Scott waited a few seconds in the driveway, listening carefully; checking for any signs of movement inside. His hands began to shake again, and they couldn't be stopped this time. He almost dropped the bobby pin as he tried his luck at the door lock. He was inside within six minutes, and could have been quicker if he wasn't so jittery. "Thirty-two, twenty-one, five." Climbing up the stairs took an eternity. Going slow meant less noise, but Scott wanted no noise. He was in luck, the bedroom door was unlocked. That saves time. He opened it in one motion, quickly, and didn't make a sound. There lay a woman, one that Scott knew very well, fast asleep in a faded blue nightgown. "Thirty-two, twenty-one, five." Thirty-two months they have been dating, enough time for Scott to know what life-long love felt like. "Twenty-one, five." Twenty-one days from now Scott was going to ask her hand in marriage. "five." Five days ago, she broke things off. Five days of solitude, of hiding within his home. Scott was in pain, and wanted to his love to feel the pain he burdened. Although his hands rattled, he hit his target. Scott cried out in joy, as she cried out in pain. "Thirty-two, twenty-one, five, zero." She'll never hurt Scott again.

"Where the fuck am I?" The thought ran through his mind over and over. He couldn't see anything. He felt something over his face, a blindfold. His wrists hurt, he tried moving but the restraints were solid. Fear washed over him as he slowly realized his situation, he knew why he was here. He needed to get out of there if he wanted to live. The man tried to keep a level head but panic was setting in fast. The chair seemed light, as though he could walk while strapped to it. He leaned forward and screamed in agony as his feet buckled beneath him, crashing onto his side. The rush of adrenaline disguised the pain of his severed Achilles tendons. "Jesus Christ, you fucker!" Glancing at the clock he patiently sat and sipped his coffee. "Should be any time now," he thought, shifting in his seat. Getting up to go pour himself another cup he heard it. The sound almost startled him, but it was music to his ears. He half-smirked as sound of the chair smashing into the concrete echoed through the house. Driven by sorrow and hatred, his rage was near-impossible to contain. An incoherent, painful scream graced his ears. Another smirk; that’s what he wanted to hear. A door creaked open, the bound man jolted. Anxiety and pain clouded his mind but he needed to confirm his fears, he knew there was no getting out now. He scraped the blindfold against the grimy concrete to get a glimpse of what he knew to be the inevitable truth. The light from the stairwell stung his eyes, and he made out the shadow of a tall, slender man sipping on a mug of coffee. "What're you doing on the floor, David?" "Let me go, you sick bastard!" The captor chuckled, "Doesn't seem to me that you’re in much of a position to make any demands. Need a hand up? That looks uncomfortable." He grasped his captives hair and jerked, putting the chair back on its feet. David held his scream to a mild grunt while grinding his teeth. "What the hell do you want?! I'll give you anything, just let me go!" "I just told you, you don't get to make any demands!" The mug broke against David's head, blood and hot coffee running down his face. "She didn't get any demands, so why should you?" "God dammi…" "Shut up! You don't get to complain, it's your fault you're here! You think I wanna be here? I'd rather be at home with my wife!" He choked back the tears, "I want to be at home with her… but I guess I can't, now can I?" David's breathing grew faster, the pain was too much. "So what? You're just gonna kill me here? You'll never get away with it, no fuckin' way man." He hoped to scare the man, maybe to snap him back to a sense of reality. This guy wasn't a killer, just some normal Joe. Not the kind to spend time in prison or get in trouble with the law. David thought he just might convince him. "You really don't get it, do you? Think about it for a second David. The woman you've spent over a decade with suddenly dies, and not by accident, but at the hand some bottom-feeding scum of the earth like you. She was my love, the one good thing in my life and you took her away from me. But you probably don't know what that's like, do you? And since she was that one good thing in my life, you honestly think there’s anything left for me?" He paused for a second, collecting himself and catching his breath. "There’s only two more things left for me to do." He picked up a small hatchet resting on a dusty table, "I'm leaving this world tonight. But you’re going first.

Once upon a time, there was a young man who was rich but still not popular, so he went to the shoe store to get some j's. On his way out he found a dead homeless guy that apparently died while masturbating. He was appalled by the sight! He decided to do something about it; for the benefit of society, but when a pack of local dogs began ripping the man’s soft bits from the corpse the young man was reminded how society has treated him. His anger disillusioned him. So he walked swiftly back to his apartment, and loaded his AK. He said "I'LL SHOW THOSE GOOK BASTARDS" and then he looked at his television. The infomercial was for a book promising more self-confidence and positive influence. Immediately he sat down and dialed 1-800-urasucka So he calmed it down a bit, and made 7 easy payments of 79.99 for a book that was probably written by 20 year old kid living in their mom's basement. Bemused by the words of this scholar, he began to try and engage the world around him. He started at hooters, trying to befriend what he felt surely were girls with low self-esteem yet cheaper to talk to than strippers. The girls would smile and feign interest in his stories; he knew they were working for tips. He had to step up his game to hone his $559.93 skills. He was going to Starbucks. When suddenly he witnessed an automotive accident; in which both passengers perished. Fortunately for him, they were both returning from large-scale drug transactions and had several thousand dollars in cash. During the collision, the aforementioned money was ejected from the vehicles. It was literally raining on that bitch. Screaming "GATTICA" he ran up kicked the nearest money grabber in the head splitting it like a ripe melon. The other grabbers backed off as he collected all he could carry. He sprinted into a nearby TJ Max and using his ill-gotten gains, bought a new outfit to slip out into the crowd. He had gotten away with it, the rush of committing a crime was intoxicating and that’s when he saw her. She was drop-dead gorgeous. Unfamiliar with social norms, he pulled out his iPhone and started blasting salt-n-pepa's "push it" and did some sort of weird moonwalk in her direction. Spaghetti everywhere, and then, as he tipped his fedora, he said “G ‘day M ‘lady, might you accompany me to Starbucks so I may buy you a cup of java.” She checked his swag and eyeballed him from head to toe noticing his fresh from the MAX look she replied, "fuck yeh niggaaaa les go get sum dat javaaaaaaaa" at which point his brain had a blue screen. He just started making duck noises and having what appeared to be a mild stroke. As he lay on the ground, gurgling and drowning in his own saliva, he found Jesus. The Jesus! The $559.93 paid off, he couldn't believe it. She was going to go to the bucks with him. He imagined a wedding and their children and growing old sitting on a porch swing at a home in the country. Slowly reality came back to him, the faint beeping of an EKG machine in the back ground, the soft whirring of siren overhead and the burly voice of an EMT saying we got him back. How did he get into an ambulance? What happened to his muse, his bride to be, his...Valkyrie! Suddenly, a nurse appeared. Shrieking "U WOT M8" she yanked out his catheter, causing his genitals to hemorrhage. While he was bleeding, his only thought was of his Valkyrie. She was the one. And for one easy payment of 79.99 (cash only) she could be his for at least one hour. This was opportunity knocking at the door! With all of his might, he clutched his bleeding and mutilated genitalia, and rose to his feet. With an unholy mix of blood, urine, and semen running down his legs from rupturing his urethra and testicles after the violent extraction of the catheter he grabbed the nurse in his free hand and pulled her close. He vomited all he had eaten into her face and on her heaving breast. She could feel bits of chewed meat and regurgitated spaghetti strands being fire-hosed into her throat. She should be disgusted, repulsed, nauseated but instead she was completely aroused. She began rubbing expectorant all over her face and hair and writhing in his bile and filth. That's when she mounted his face and began humping him like a stray dog having a go at an unconscious hobo. Feeling violated and sickened, he continued to vomit uncontrollably. It was dubstepping in science-land. But she would not stop; and began to climax as the flash-flood of vomit, which was waist-high, began to whirlpool into the drain located in the center of the hospital room. As the wakening dream came to an abrupt end, he found himself strapped down in a hospital bed with tubes and IV's coming out of or going into every orifice and vein he could imagine. People were walking in and out of the hospital room with clipboards and glaring at him and taking notes. He wondered how much was a dream and how much was real. He wondered why he couldn't talk, and why no one was talking to him. He wondered why he couldn't move, he didn't struggle against the straps, and he couldn't even move his arms to try. But most of all he wondered where she was, his vomit riding cowgirl. Had he made her up? Was she a cruel trick his brain played on him, a flashback from an LSD trip? He felt trapped and utterly alone until the hooker appeared! She had taken all of his ill-gotten money while he was seizing-out. Feeling a bit remorseful, she decided to follow him to the hospital and at least give him a handy-j. he could not believe it. She unbuckled him from the gurney and began her work. He thought he was still having some sort of weird acid flashback as she cranked his bird. Being free from the restraints, he started flailing like a wild wavy inflatable flailing arm tube man often seen at car dealerships. Astonished at his flexibility, she mounted his member like a saddle pommel and with his seizure-esque flailing he was smacking her tits like a beachball at a phish concert. In his fractured mental state, his reality and fantasy collided in a violently animated hentai porngasm. He saw demons and Disney characters living his most depraved dreams all around him. Seeing the wild, frightened look in his eyes just drove the whore to push harder and grind faster. Her fingernails buried firmly into his chest until blood started to seep forth. When suddenly the vibrant pulsing of the EKG became a solid tone, his eyes went cold, his body became stiff. But she would not stop, it had been too long, she would have her due. She would have stopped at his expiration, but the hormones were raging hard that day. Once she had had enough, she dismounted and realized what had just transpired. Beginning to panic, she did what any rational person would do: start screaming and punching herself in the face. After a few moments a wild doctor appeared and lost his fucking shit. Grabbing the defibrillator from the wall, he yelled "CLEAR" and shocked the nurse in her heaving breasts. The silicone in her breast exploded in a hot molten plasticy lava melting the wild doctors face to the bone and leaving it encased in a clear resin coating. Security showed up and began punching the heaving exploded breast hooker nurse in the forehead until her skull cracked against the marble floor. Blood flowed and screams were extinguished in agony. Then silence, except for a television in the nursing station with a voice stating, Learn self-confidence and positive influence for just 7 easy payments of $79.99.

Tricking a fish into biting a hook and pulling that fish from its watery hiding place is a thrill, something primal, an act that displays the total physical and mental dominance that humans have over their domain. This thrill is the goal for Phillip this evening, something to give him the dopamine release he so unknowingly wants. Phillip doesn’t have much left in his life that gives him feelings of dominance and power anymore. He isn’t a very skilled video gamer, and dominance is not what multiplayer games yield to him. Rather frustration and anger. Always a second too late or a bullet too short. Relationships do not seem to yield anything but a dwindling checking account balance and unwelcomed introspection for Phillip these days. But there is fishing. And weed. Phillips relationship with marijuana is one of selfish joy. He takes two or three hits and the pain of everyday life falls away. Those tasks that felt so overpowering are suddenly no big deal. Dishes don’t make him angry. Traffic is no longer a nuisance worthy of cursing, and the mobility his car provides seems to outweigh the hassle of stopping to fill the tank. Phillip feels like a functioning human being for a change when he’s stoned. So he smokes. This particular evening, Phillip decides to attempt to magnify the thrill of fishing with the effects of marijuana. He fills a styrofoam cup with soil and worms pulled from his backyard, he ties on a fresh hook, and packs a bowl for the road. County roads are some of Phillip’s favorite while stoned, with their frequent curves and minimal traffic, so he smokes as soon as his fifteen mile journey to the lake begins. It isn’t until he begins to put the first worm on his hook that he realizes how stoned he is. As soon as he pulls the worm from the styrofoam cup it begins to squirm, seemingly fighting for its life. Empathy is something Phillip rarely feels without a little help from marijuana, and empathy is what he feels suddenly. Empathy for the worm. The squirming effectively communicates to him that the worm does not want to leave the cup. It is almost as if the the worm knows what’s coming. Phillip thinks about this worm’s future. Pulled from the ground and placed in a small cup with eleven other worms, only to be pulled from the cup and skewered onto a hook. Once hooked, Phillip will throw the worm as far as he can into a lake where it will drown, but hopefully not before it is fed alive to a fish. And if the fish bites and the worm survives, it will be thrown and fed to a fish again. The cruelty of his actions toward this worm make Phillip’s attention drift from his bobber as it is pulled below the surface of the lake, but a slight tug is all it takes for Phillip to be yanked back to the present. He pulls back on his rod and feels that resistance that he traveled fifteen miles for. The hook is set and Phillip has a fish by the lip. He reels in his line and an average sized pumpkinseed sunfish surfaces. Phillip thinks once more about the worm and how cruel he was toward that innocent creature, but with the thrill that tricking this fish has given him he thinks, “fucking worth it.

The Very Helpful Man dusted off his pants after picking up a pen. He handed it to the Higher Up. The Higher Up, looking down at the Very Helpful Man, couldn't help but think of what a meagre figure this wretch in front of him made. As the Higher Up took the pen he made a mental note to wash his hands later. "Thank you," he said. "You are... Very Helpful. A Very Helpful Man, indeed." "Thank you, thank you." said the Very Helpful Man, in earnest. "Sorry," he added, which was a habit of his. He was always looking down at his feet and saying sorry about something. He was sorry for talking out of place, saying the wrong thing, doing something stupid or sometimes for seemingly no reason whatsoever; the Higher Up got the impression that he was sorry for Being. The Higher Up looked around his impeccably organized and tidy shelf and felt a twinge in his stomach. Some kind of Feel, it was called. What did they call this Feel again? Pity? No. Disgust? He had some kind of Bad Feel, it lingered on his tongue like rotted food. The Helpful Man, he knew, was only being Helpful because his very existence depended on it. No one that the Higher Up knew wanted to not exist; even if existing was generally full of Bad Feels, like the Very Helpful Man's certainly was. "Well, you still have an hour of Helping left in the day" he said at last. He went over to the shelf and pushed all the neatly stocked, colour-coded doo-dads onto the floor. "I need you to restock these things in there and then after you can have your Essence and go home." The Very Helpful Man got started right away. "Right away, Upp," he said, followed by "Sorry. Sorry." The Higher-Up took note of this. At least this fellow knows how this works, he thought. If he didn't want to Help he should have thought about that before he became a Helper. When the Higher Up was deciding his place in The Big Thing nothing stopped him from being a Higher Up. He was a Higher Up when he was born, granted, but he still could have chosen to be a Helper. And so the Higher Up watched the Very Helpful Man refile the entire cabinet in 51 minutes. After nine minutes of moving a heavy decorative boulder around to the very Best Place (which turned out to be the place it started), the Higher Up said "You're free to go." Which the Higher Up always found funny in a strange way that left him with a Feel not unlike the one he had earlier in the day. "I will see you tomorrow," he added. The Very Helpful Man stretched and cracked his boney, crooked back and made to leave, but was stopped by the Higher Up. "Excuse me Very Helpful Man but, before you go, I need to put a question on you." "Sorry, sorry," said the Very Helpful Man, recoiling slightly from a hand the Higher Up put on his shoulder. "Yes. Do you think there is anything we can do around here to make things more efficient? Better, even?" "I just Help, you know. Sorry, sorry." "You must have some thoughts. Feels." "Well..." "Yes? Go on." "Sorry. It's just that maybe... it might be not a good thing to stock the shelves only to have you push everything off again. Why don't I stock it once and then we leave it? Then I can Help with something else? Or have Self Time." "Hm," said the Higher Up. "Hm." "Sorry, sorry," said the Very Helpful Man. "We might try it that way one day. But this works okay for now. Agreed?" "Sorry?" "That's the spirit. Now go back to your dwelling unit, do the things you have to do to exist, and then tomorrow's another day." "Another day..." the Helpful Man echoed as he wandered out the door. Another day never came for the Very Helpful Man who chose to stop existing. The only evidence of his time in The Big Thing were two words etched on the wall of his Dwelling Unit: "I'm Sorry" which were quickly cleared away by other Helpful Men. He was replaced by another Helpful Man, for there are many who would prefer Helping to not existing. The Higher Up never noticed the change and the shelves would never stop being stocked. The Higher Ups would never stop being Helped.

It was summer. The sky had been clear and sunny for weeks now and Sarah had just graduated high school. In a few months, she would be heading off to college. In the meantime, though, she was hanging out with her friends, trying to beat the heat. They were in an outdoor mall, sitting outside eating some frozen yogurt in the shade. Sarah wasn’t very hungry, so she mainly played with her yogurt while she listened to her friends talk about the future. If Sarah were to be honest, she wasn’t looking forward to the future. College wasn’t very appealing to her; she wanted to do something more important, something that could change the world, and she just didn’t believe that college provided that opportunity. “Hey, Sarah!” Kekoa said. Kekoa was a boy from her class that she knew, and he also happened to live next door. He was tall and tan. His clean-shaven face smiled at her. “Hi,” she replied. “Uh, you know your yogurt’s melting, right?” “Shit,” she said. She hurriedly scooped some yogurt on her spoon and tried to eat it fast, but it had already melted. Some of the liquid yogurt spilled onto her shirt, at which point she became very agitated. “So, what are you doing here?” she said as she wiped off the yogurt with a napkin. “Nothing much. I just needed something to do, so I thought I’d come here and get something cold to drink.” “Oh, cool,” she replied as she removed the long blond hair that had tangled itself in her teeth as she was trying to eat. “Hey, do you think–“ Kekoa stumbled. “Do you want to come grab something to drink with me?” An embarrassed look appeared on Kekoa’s face and Sarah felt a little awkward. Her friends sat in silence, waiting to see what her reply would be. Even though she knew Kekoa, they were never that close. *Is he interested in me or something?* Before she could even answer, a loud explosion ripped through the mall. People on the other side of the food court, the unshaded part, had been blown away. Dust and debris filled the air. Sarah couldn’t believe what was in front of her eyes. A man in spandex was floating over the rubble. Those not taken out by the blast were staring, some thinking that this was an elaborate prank. That changed when the spandex-clad man flicked his wrist and one of the bystanders went flying into the wall, their head exploding from the impact. Panic broke out and everyone tried to run. Sarah held back the vomit in her throat as she looked for a way out, but before she could even move Kekoa tackled her to the ground. With all of the rubble everywhere, there was only one exit, and everyone trying to use it found some invisible force pushing them back into the part of the food court that remained. The floating man started to laugh. Under Kekoa’s surprisingly heavy body, Sarah could see an odd sphere surrounding the man, as if the sunlight was being bent around him. She found herself wanting to get up, but Kekoa put a hand over her mouth and kept her pinned to the ground. They were behind one of the circular tables that had been turned over in the explosion, and while they could see the spandex man, he would have been hard pressed to see them. Some of the debris began to float in the air. People watched, looks of terror permeating their faces, as the man smiled. A heavy piece of brick and mortar flew straight at one of the men in the crowd. Kekoa covered her eyes before it made contact, but she could hear the cries of horror. She heard a few more pieces of debris make contact with their victims. Sarah began to cry, but it was pretty hard to do so with Kekoa’s hands covering her eyes. She sat there, figuring they were all about to die. That must be Kekoa’s plan, to hide here and play dead, she thought. It was probably the most logical thing to do considering the situation. Whoever this was, they had some very superhuman abilities. And then her thoughts were disrupted as she heard the loud sound of rubble being tossed through the air. “Hey!” came a deep male voice. “Who do you think you are? Why are you doing this?” “Heh heh heh. So it’s the little dweeb that wants to fight me. None of the others think it worth their time? That’s good. Very good. They shall join me soon enough.” “They will never join you! We were given extraordinary gifts, and this is what you use it for?! Don’t make me have to fight you!” Kekoa’s hand came off of her eyes. It took them a minute to readjust, but when they did, she saw many pieces of rubble flying through the air. Another man in spandex was dodging the rubble, occasionally picking up a piece and throwing it right back. He was a rather skinny man. While the man he was fighting wore a suit made of blue and orange, he was wearing one made of green and yellow. A large piece of rhubarb hit the green man and sent him flying into one of the only remaining walls. The pieces of rubble he’d thrown exploded before they ever reached the floating man, all of the debris going around the sphere surrounding him. Sarah noticed that the table in front of them had been thrown through the air to the other side of the food court. The umbrella that had been in it was rammed through the stomach of her best friend, whom was strewn across an overturned bench. In fact, only a few people were unharmed, and even fewer had some serious injuries but were clearly alive. Sarah knew it must be the end. The hero who’d shown up was slumped on the ground, unmoving. No one could save them now. She watched in horror as her other friend was lifted high into the air. She hung there nearly motionless; she seemed to be trying to squirm, but her limbs were being held in place. And then she just dropped. Sarah closed her eyes. She heard a loud noise, one that had to have been her friend hitting the ground. And then silence. She no longer found herself being forced to the ground. As she opened her eyes, she saw the green suited man standing there, holding her friend who was passed out. The other man had disappeared. The man carried her friend over to her. Kekoa extended his muscular arms and took hold of her. She looked into the hero’s eyes. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. “I’m sorry,” the hero said, this time in a higher pitched voice. Once he spoke, she knew exactly who he was. That voice was way to distinct. “I should have trained harder.” “Marcus? Marcus McMally?” she asked. “Wait, what? How, I mean, why…” he stammered. “Please don’t let anyone know. I’ve got to get going Sarah.” She couldn’t believe that the scrawny little guy she knew from middle school had turned out to be some superhero with incredible strength. He ran off as the police sirens wailed through the hazy air. She looked around at the carnage and as her eyes rested upon her old friend, she broke down and started to cry hysterically. -145 *Link to .

Mike sat on his couch and watched the tape. HIS tape. The tape was really all he had left, now that Kimberly had left however many years ago, now that he had finally stopped caring enough to lose his job, now that his unemployment checks had run out, and now that the bottle of Karkov Vodka was empty. All he had was the old, worn-out tape. "Mike and Kimberly!" a voice from the past announced through the speakers of Mike's television. He knew people had had ruined their lives past rescue before. Mike even figured most other people knew their one mistake, that one terrible event that sent their entire lives into a slow spiral into disaster. However, Mike also knew that most people were probably not unlucky enough to have their moment of catastrophe recorded and presented to them, almost as a trophy of his perished future. Even fewer, Mike figured, had had their ultimate failure broadcast from coast to coast. Mike could still remember everything about that day as if it weren't so long ago, in the days of his ignorant youth. He remembered the glare of the lights, the sweat on his brow, the itchy, bright red shirt he wore. He could render every little detail in his mind, vivid as the glow of the television in front of him. But Mike didn't need to remember. Why would he, when he could just push play and watch the tape again? He relived every moment even more fiercely when he watched the tape, the tape displaying the fateful minute in more detail then it could ever be reproduced in his mind. The tape was all he had left. Mike knew, even without having gone outside in days or answering the door in weeks, that he was due to be evicted soon.Then he would be out on the street, and truly have nothing, nothing except that fucking videotape. But wait. That wasn't quite true. He did have something other than the tape. As the recording ended, as the TV screen transformed into static, Mike looked at the handgun resting on top of the VCR. He looked at it, and thought, "It could have been different." "Everything could have been different, if had I just put together that goddamned silver monkey.

The coffee was strong and the city was vibrant, as it always is in Paris. Autumn was when the city always looked its best we’d exuberantly agreed, both rather fueled with a passion for the city that surfaced whenever the cork to the red wine was popped. ‘Everything is still slow and happy from a long summer’ Ed croaked as he reached over me and teased a cigarette out of its box, his voice deep and sleepy. ‘But when the trees turn orange and glow with the evening lights of the city again you remember why Paris is the city of love’ he teased, leaning in with a kiss. His eyes glinted at me as a playful smile spread across his face. He didn't care much for artsy or philosophical musings, and tonight it was obvious that talking was the last thing that he wanted to do. ‘You just like it because it stays darker longer, which means you can come out on the balcony to smoke and drink with your bottom exposed to the street’ I said, slipping from under his encroaching arm with a grin and walking across to the ledge. But despite his mocking he was right. The city came alive at night. The streets beat with the sound of heels across pavement and a laughing exclamation as friends met at the entrance to a bar. ‘But you know I do that regardless of what time of day it is’ he laughed, lighting up a cigarette as he followed me over.

He stood outside the liquor store, seemingly unaware of the rain pouring down upon him. His silhouette melding with the neon glow behind him, the man was almost perfectly still, save for the small orange glimmer of a cigarette moving periodically from his hip to his mouth. He dressed somewhat formally for the occasion, slacks, a coat, a shirt and tie, even a trilby to top off the ensemble. People like it when a man in his line of work dresses well, a lone sophisticated figure amidst a world of blood and grime. Slightly angered that his "uniform" for these jobs now hung heavy and damp upon his shoulders, the man still managed to take some solace in the pleasure of a job well done, and the silky warmth of the cigarette flowing through his chest. Lifting both hands to his face, he took a drag of the ever-shortening cigarette with his left, and with the right held a small leather square to the light of the store behind him. Unfolding the object, the man saw a familiar face stare back at him, one he had seen so many times before. "Detective James Warren." A mess of details danced about the paper hidden within the leather, but only the name stood out for him. This paper and leather construct somehow held within it and incredible power. Close down a bar for the night? Access the back rooms of your favourite sleazy establishment? Run a red light?... Kill a man? All these powers and more were granted to the individual that held this tiny mundane square, and why? "To protect and serve." The man closed over the object and took one final drag from the softly glowing cigarette, before letting it fall and extinguish on the inundated ground beneath him. Protect who? Serve Who? The people? The government? The scumbag in a bar that slips a few hundreds into your pocket? The man tossed the badge carelessly onto the sprawled form on the sidewalk beside him, a dark pool of liquid now exhuding from it and mixing with the rain before racing downward into the grate below. The man wasn't sure who James Warren had felt he served or protected, but he did know for a fact that the scumbag in a bar paid better, and that that scumbag was fond of a well-dressed man that can make a problem simply flow away, and down the drain.

I remember when I first entered the house in an excited manner. Finally, a chance to prove my worth to the agency and excel among my peers. I was a rookie detective and my only goal in this life was to become the best fucking detective in the whole god damn country. I remember walking up the white steps, sprinkled with blood in a straightline manner like a kid with a nosebleed at the city pool. The metal screen door was torn from its hinges and left to glisten under the sun. Who the fuck thought they had to rip the fucking door off? Never mind that shit, that wasn’t important to me at this moment. I needed to see the body. Described from my peers as “something fucked the bitch up” and “fucker better be running”, I was encapsulated with anxiety in seeing this magnificent display of art. I wanted to know the killer. I needed to be intimate with the killer. This is how I plan on doing my job, by becoming the killer, and catching the fucker. You see, these people that participate in acts such as this deserve punishment. Not that bullshit lethal injection contraption that is actually more inhumane than what society wants us to believe. No, these fuckers deserve more than that. They deserve to feel the experience. I’m gonna fucking bring it to them. As I entered the door way an overwhelming aroma of rotting flesh and stagnant feces made its way to my olfactory contraption. The hallway floor was enveloped with large pools of long ago coagulated blood, they were going to need a god damn chisel to get that shit up. Stepping over these pools of blood I romanticized the recreation once I found the bastard who did this. I could just see myself throwing that pussy around this hallway and finally using my trusty Cold Steel to lacerate the skin of the fucker like a tomato. It was going to be quite the show as the asshole stared at his own juice gushing onto the floor. Shit even thinking about it gets me hard. This wasn’t the place for that though. Past the hallway was the masterpiece left by the killer. The body was that of a 12 year old female with skin which wasn’t any more colorful when it was alive. The body was strewn atop the center island which had been substituted for a surgical table. Its hands had been sawed down inbetween each phalange, through the metacarpals and ended right at the carpals. He even nailed each fucking finger to the side of the island so her arms were contorted into a hyper flexed position, most likely while she was still conscious. The forearm skin had been expertly dissected and pinned to into the wood of the center island. Upon further inspection it was evident he had taken a bite out of each of her forearm muscles meticulously in the same spot on each side. The abdomen was spread wide open with its organs arranged in a cornucopia manner which was fitting with thanksgiving a week away. The only intact vessel of the heart was the pulmonary artery, which was still attached to the lung and draped across the other organs, creating a mesmerizing image of intense color contrast This was the centerpiece of the art form. Such care and attention to clip these little balls of tissue away and arrange them as one would a rose garden. It was quite magnificent actually and made me ponder about even my abilities to replicate such a majestic piece of labor. This wasn’t my first rodeo however. Even before I joined the agency I have been giving fuckers what they deserve under the radar. Do you remember that 15 year old that disappeared from Hollow Grove 13 years ago? Yeah, I was in the same class as that fucker. And that fucker shot my dog with a blow dart gun as a “joke”. I had a joke of my own though and I have always love a good bout of comedy- I needed to practice my routine. My first joke was to lead it into the dense forest surrounding our small town and to give it him some weed that might have had something else in it. My next joke was to ducktape its whole fucking head except it eyes and to tie it to a tree. It was quite hilarious, I could hardly stop cackling the entire time as I stared at its large dilated pupils. The contrast between the dark pupils and white corneas was so amazing that I must have stood staring, fixated on those damn things for over two hours while it moaned and whined. Finally, my final joke began presenting its blow dart gun to it and pacing back about 6 steps. I shot that piece of shit in its fat bloated white belly about seventy times. Look at me, a fucking professional acupuncturist now. Then came the face. I advanced about 3 paces for this piece of the show because I wanted to see the terror in those eyes before the dart pierced into that gelatinous humor. After the second dart to the eye its squealing was unbearable. It was like watching a fat wet bloody fucking pig writhe around tied up on a fucking tree. I eventually cut the pigs throat and sent its on it on its way, I was done with that garbage. They say it was the most horrific form of torture that had been seen in Hollow Grove even to this day. That would change I suppose. As I circumvented around the other agents at the crime scene I could only envision the day I caught this fucker and got to introduce him to the real god. The real motherfucker of wrath. As I stepped out the door I could feel the cold November breeze brush against my exposed skin and made a mental note that I did not have to dispose of the body as quickly as I would in summer. And with that, the hunt was on.

Sometimes in life, you are given a choice. Free will, as they say. You choose your fate, and you accept the consequences. I understood that. But sometimes, you don't get to choose. I didn't choose my parents' endless beatings, or their little torture games they played on me. I didn't choose for my life to be full of purple bruises and empty stomachs. But on one day, when I was walking to school on a particularly malicious day, all of that was taken away by a man in a 1996 Honda Civic. And I chose to go with him. Savior, or kidnapper, those names were interchangeable when it came to Jako. While his treatment towards me wasn't what people on the outside considered desirable, anything was better than the bitter neglect my parents showed. They didn't even care I was gone. No one looked for me, and I was okay with that. I didn't want to be found, and I wasn't. Not for seven years, at least. It was November 14, 2020 when Jako came storming into my cell, grabbing the collar that hung around my neck with this grubby hand. "Go," he growled, shoving my out. "W-what's going on?" I shouted as Jako dragged me along. "Shut up!" He screamed, giving a quick yank on my collar. "They'll hear you." I figured that Jako knew best, and promptly shut up, following him through the dark corridors. Yet the voices of the police officers and their shining flashlights grew closer and closer. Then, I heard it. "Jako Ramirez, come out with your hands up!" ~ They gave me a choice. It was simple, really. Well, it was to them. They just wanted me gone, out of their police station. The officer stared at me, waiting for my answer. I could go home, back to the childbood I was freed from, back to the endless beatings and hissing insults. Or, I could go. Where, I wasn't sure. I longed for Jako and my safe cell, but that wasn't my life anymore. I needed to choose. Freedom, I decided. Freedom was what I wanted. ~ But was I free? Now, the two options seemed foggy, more the same than I thought. I was homeless, plain and simple. Homelessness was not free. Torture was not free. I was not free. Day after day, all I felt was cold. The shivering and aching were constant. Each time I coughed, the blood that spattered out reminded me of my bloody past. The blood worried me, but it wasn't like I could do anything. A hospital was out of the question, of course. Sometimes, when I would sit huddled by a bus stop on a particularly cold winter day, people would stare at me, looking at me like I was the scum of the earth. But what did I do wrong? If only they knew my story, maybe they would understand. ~ When you're homeless, stealing is inevitable. I had been avoiding it, but I couldn't any longer. My survival depended on it. So, one particularly rainy day, I slipped inside a convenience store. My head ducked down; I kept my eyes trained on the shiny linoleum floor as I made my way to the back. The bell on top of the door chimed, and I jumped, suddenly paranoid. Shoving my morals back down, I reached out for a can of ravioli. "Hey." I jumped, getting over my initial startle. I looked up to see a boy my age, looking down at me with piercing green eyes. His posture and expression screamed confidence, and I was suddenly self concious. I hoped that I didn't smell. "Hi," I mumble, ducking under his arm. "Woah," he chuckled. "What's wrong?" "I, uh, I've gotta go." He stared at me for a moment before his whole face lighted up. "It's the rain, isn't it?" He looks outside, the pouring rain beating down. "I always get jittery when there's rain. But hey, coffee usually cheers me right up. What do you say? Coffee?" One thing I learned from being homeless was that you never turned down free food, especially if it was warm. So without a word, I nodded. "Great!" The boy beamed. "Oh, and I'm Finn." "Hannah." ~ We began spending a lot more time together. I became an expert at hiding my homelessness from him, but it never felt good to do so. I wanted to tell him, but I couldn't. Anyway, we made our relationship official not long after that first coffee. Love was something I never imagined as I child, but the word came easily to me, because that was how I felt. I loved Finn. I was happy with him, and I no longer minded going "home to the small space underneath the playground. I no longer minded the stares. I no longer paid attention to the increasing amount of blood I coughed up from my lungs. But ignorance isn't bliss. March 4, 2021. I was with Finn on our three month anniversary. We were walking down the street, and I had, for the first time in a long while, a full stomach. Arm in arm, words were not needed as we walked. But tonight was important. All these months, and I was finally going to admit it, and tell Finn that I was homeless. Somehow, I knew it would be okay. I knew he would stay. I turned to Finn, and he stopped. "What's wrong?" He asked, instantly sending my worry. I bit my lip, pondering my words. "Fi--." Just then, I was overcome by coughing. Feeling weak, I collapsed to the ground. The last thing I heard was Finn's distressed voice. "Hannah? Hannah! Oh God, you're coughing up blood!" ~ I woke up with what felt like a heavy weight on my chest. Struggling with my voice, I manage to squeak out a meager, "Finn?" as I wildly darted my eyes around the hospital room. Instantly, he's by my side. I attempted a smile, but Finn did not return it. Instead, his forehead was creased and his eyes were filled with worry. "Hey, you look worried. Is it raining?" I kept waiting for a smile. "Hannah." "What?" I grin, not getting the reaction I was expecting. "Hannah." My smile disappeared. "Just tell me what's wrong with me," I whimper, turning my head away from him. That's when I heard a soft sob escape his mouth. I turn back to him. "Finn?" My voice quivered. "It's cancer, Hannah. Lung cancer. I could've helped you! You should've told me, Hannah! You should've..." Finn buried his head in his hands, his shoulders shaking softly. "Finn," I whispered. "I could've saved you!" He yelled suddenly. Then, I was crying too. "Am I going to die?" I whimpered, feeling like I was a kid again, terrified of the future. I got no response, only sobs. And I knew. "Oh, God. No. No." I grabbed Finn, and I held him tight. I wasn't about to let go. But I did. I let go six days later.

My ride, a 2013 Wolf Brand Blaze II was running well. It gave me no signs of any trouble - even after having recently given me problems on an almost daily basis. I had done a significant amount of work on it - spending nearly an entire day over the recent holiday weekend tearing it down, fixing it, and putting it back together. Today was the first time in weeks it was running well and I was happy to be riding it without the fear of stalling in an intersection and getting hit by a car. It was louder than normal since I recently had to remove a piece of the cheap Chinese muffler that had partially fallen off, but I was happy to be riding again nonetheless. It was almost seven, it was hot, and I was ready to go home. I had just spent a few hours after work helping a friend fix a computer problem. For the first time in several weeks I would be home before nine and I was looking forward to it. I had a full tank of gas and recently found a back road to take me part of the way home. It was overgrown with huge trees and flowery bushes with a lake just off the side of the road. The sun was gradually sinking lower - not setting yet, but still a beautiful sight on the lakes dark, still water. It was going to be a beautiful ride home I said to myself. As I exited the serene back road and entered a much busier road, traffic became much more intense - speeds increased significantly, and the ride quickly turned from peaceful to defensive as cars careened past me trying to beat me to the next stop light. I was driving the speed limit, but that wasn’t good enough for them. This however was nothing new to me - I did this everyday and I continued on my way. As I approached the stop light for my next turn, I noticed no signs of trouble with the scooter. It was running smoothly. I was proud of the fact I had done all the work myself and that it showed. I was happy. I turned the corner and started heading for home. “Only 25 minutes to go!” I told myself. It was only a few minutes later I realized I had a lot longer than 25 minutes to go. As I rode down the road at speeds in excess of 50 miles an hour I heard a very loud bang and my scooter shut off. The power was on, the key was in the “on” position, but the engine wasn’t running. I was gliding down the road with only my momentum. I pulled to the side of the road, into the bicycle lane and eventually the sidewalk. This was a behavior I had never experienced before from my scooter, or any of the other scooters and motorcycles I had owned in the past. I would push the start button and hear only a high pitched whirring noise… this didn’t sound good… I immediately reached for my phone to call a friend for help. I hated to interrupt anyone’s dinner, but surely someone would be available to come pick me up. To my surprise, however, the screen wouldn’t turn on… it was completely black. It was now that I remembered a GPS application, which I never use, had accidentally been opened a few nights ago and I had forgot to close it. For the past two days it had been running in the background draining my battery. I was now a lot further than 25 minutes from home. I tried for about 10 minutes to fix the scooter - or at least see what was wrong. I had a limited amount of tools, a screwdriver, a spark plug socket, and a wrench that didn’t fit any of the bolts on the scooter. The Chinese must have sent me the wrong wrench… or the wrong scooter. After getting nowhere I decided to start walking. I didn’t really have any other choice… I couldn’t leave the scooter on the sidewalk; it would surely be gone when I got back. I knew there had to be a gas station somewhere up ahead. I didn’t know the area well but I knew I had visited a 7-11 on this road once before. The scooter weighs 300 pounds, and even though it was on wheels, trying to balance it and pull it along with you while you walk down a narrow sidewalk is not a lot of fun. Even less fun however is trying to walk a 300-pound scooter down a narrow sidewalk while you get yelled at and honked at. First it was a guy in a huge pickup truck - he pulled as close to the sidewalk as possible, yelled something I couldn’t understand, and stepped on the gas hard enough that his turbo-diesel monstrosity let out a loud rumble coupled with a huge cloud of engulfing black smoke. A few more blocks up there was a family of bicyclists. I moved onto the grass so I wouldn’t be in the way, but they just kept yelling, “Move out of the way so we don’t fall in the ditch!” The ditch they were referring to was only a few feet from me for the entire walk. It was filled with old, smelly, motionless water and a plethora of frogs and insects - mostly mosquitoes that started biting me as soon as I broke down. There was enough trash in the ditch that I imagine it could have passed for a third-world countries water supply. Further down the road I heard a loud motorcycle coming from behind me. It kept creeping closer and closer until it finally felt like it was right next to me. And, it was. I turned to my left and saw a young black kid - likely in his early twenties. I had seen him before - riding around town helmet-less on a loud dirt bike doing stunts and weaving in and out of traffic, all whilst driving at least twenty miles over the speed limit. This time however, he wasn’t driving fast - he was driving as slow as possible. He was in the bike lane, right next to the sidewalk, holding his clutch and revving the engine as loud as possible. If he said anything at all I couldn’t hear it over the sound of his loud, obnoxious death trap. After a few minutes he grew tired of harassing me and left, only to make a U-turn and come back for more a block later. Finally he gave up and left, but not before several more motorcyclists sped past, revving their engines and honking their horns. Finally after what felt like an hour I saw what looked like a shopping center in the distance. As I got closer I realized it was in fact the 7-11 I had been to before. I walked my scooter into the parking lot, parked it on the sidewalk and collapsed for a few minutes; taking a break to drink the bottle of water I had in my scooter seat. “Water has never tasted so good” I thought to myself. The older gentlemen browsing the Netflix machine just looked at me like I was crazy. I went inside and the clerk was gracious enough to let me use the phone. “Local calls only” he said, “And keep it short!" In a world where everyone uses cell-phones and pay phones are a thing of the past, I would’ve paid good money to use one for just a few minutes. I paged through a phone book - something I haven’t used in over a decade and found the towing section. My first attempt didn’t go so well, “We don’t tow motorcycles and we definitely don’t tow scooters!” was the response from the guy at the first company I called. The second company was able to help, but still not very pleasant. And they were expensive, “We charge $75 to pick it up and $3 a mile after that.” I decided it wasn’t worth paying a few hundred dollars to tow a scooter and told the clerk I would leave the scooter in front of the store and call for a cab. I would come back tomorrow and figure out how to move it. The cab company was happy to help and dispatched a driver who was slated to arrive in twenty minutes or less. As I moved the scooter closer to the front door in hopes that it wouldn’t be stolen overnight, an older unkempt man who was smoking a cigarette approached me offering to give me and the scooter a ride. I was hesitant at first until the 7-11 clerk came outside and told me not to worry, “he’s a regular – he come’s here all the time!” Against my better judgment, I agreed to take his offer — after all it was much cheaper and more convenient to get it over with right then and there. I went back inside the store and called the cab company, “I need to cancel my cab… I am moving to another location… I’ll call you when I get there…” the woman was hesitant and sounded confused, “Ok, but he’s right around the corner, Sir.” I stepped outside and sure enough, he was right there, “Did you call for a cab?” He said, talking cheerfully while watching me try to load a scooter into a barely running 1980’s Chevy van that was blaring the Tampa Bay Ray’s game on the radio. “Yes, but I won’t need a ride until I drop this scooter off near the airport.” I replied. I could tell he was eager for the fare, “Oh no problem - I’ll just follow you. If you don’t get in yet I won’t have to charge you!” he replied. Finally, some good news. The driver of the van, whom I came to know later as Bob, yelled out the window to the cab driver, “I have to go pick up two other kids on the way. They’re around the corner in a neighborhood selling candy.” The cab driver and I looked at each other confused but he agreed to follow us. We quickly left the gas station and headed around the corner. No longer than two minutes later we were pulling up to a dark street with an obese, young, black kid carrying a plastic tote filled with candy. “Did you sell any?” Bob asked between several long drags on his cigarette. “No! This neighborhood fucking sucks!” the boy said angrily as he crawled into the front of the van. “Did you buy a motorcycle?” he asked. “No - we have to drive this guy and his scooter over by the airport. Where the hell is Gabriella?” Bob was visibly annoyed with the boy and his lack of sales for the day. The boy didn’t seem very happy either, “No one wants to buy this shit” he said, under his breath. We rounded the corner and Bob was flashing his lights, honking his horn, and yelling out the window, “Gabby, Gabby?!” From a dark porch a young, pudgy blonde girl emerged carrying her own blue plastic tote filled with candy. Gabby seemed just as surprised as the boy to see me, “I have to sit on the floor?” she asked. “No - sit on your box - we have to give this guy a ride!” Bob said. Gabby laughed and sat on the floor, “If I sit on this box I am going to break it.” she said. We left the neighborhood and headed for the airport. Every bump we hit made the van squeak louder and as we continued speed down the road Bob’s van sounded like it might explode even worse than my scooter. “Yep - I’ve got over 300 thousand miles on this one!” Bob said. “I put close to 1200 miles a day on it.” Bob seemed happy – like he had accomplished something. The closer we got to the mechanic the more the kids were complaining, “We’re hungry” Gabby exclaimed several times. “Yeah, what are you going to buy us for dinner tonight?” the boy asked. “We’re going to your house for dinner! I’m not buying you guys anything to eat.” Bob said, as we grew closer and closer to my destination. I quickly chimed in, “If you want to stop any place that serves fast food I’ll buy you guys dinner! I really appreciate you…” Bob interrupted, “NO! We don’t have time.” Gabby and the boy weren’t thrilled. “I only sold three dollars worth of candy tonight… I can’t buy diapers and buy dinner.” Gabby said as she turned and looked at me in the back of the dimly lit van, “I have two kids and another one on the way.” Bob interrupted, “It smells like gas back there… do I smell gas?” I don’t know what he expected… there’s a scooter with a gallon of gas in the back of his van that’s tipped on it’s side. Of course it smells like gas. “Ooh I love the smell of gas!” Gabby said… three times. Actually four, because she said it again as we were pulling into the parking lot of the scooter shop. “I just love the way it smells!” We pulled into the parking lot and I immediately felt I had made a mistake. The scooter shop was in a bad part of town - right by the airport. It was dark, it was late, and I had a bad feeling. Bob helped me unload the scooter into the parking lot. “Is the cab going to pick you up here or do you need a ride?” Bob asked. As soon as he asked the cab pulled up and I immediately felt relieved. I didn’t want to have to ride home in Bob’s van. I was tired, I was frustrated, and I wanted to go home. But first I had to figure out what to do with the scooter. As Bob started looking behind the shop to find a place to hide the scooter where it hopefully wouldn’t be stolen, I snuck over to the van and handed each one of the kids a $5 bill. “Don’t tell Bob,” I whispered. I gave Bob $30 for gas money and he and the kid’s quickly went on their way. I hid the scooter between an old RV and a semi-trailer. It was dark and out of the way so I figured it would be the safest. I wrapped the key in a piece of paper that read, “Please call me ASAP - I dropped my scooter off in the middle of the night behind your shop.” As I walked towards the cab an all black Lincoln town car pulled up. “What are you doing on my property?” an older gentleman yelled from inside the car. I quickly recognized him as the owner, whom I had dealt with before and explained the situation to him. “You need to be careful around here… walking around on people’s property you’re liable to get shot” the owner said. “I have a guard that lives on the property. He called me because he saw you walking around the property and thought you were trying to break in.” The owner parked and emerged from the car wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. “Let’s get it in the shop. We’ll take a look at it tomorrow.” He said. He was clearly annoyed and a bit startled. He took the keys and the note, locking the doors behind him and crawling back into his Lincoln. I made my way back to the cab and apologized for keeping him waiting for so long. He was smoking cigarettes and waiting patiently. He explained to me he didn’t mind waiting because he, “never got very big fares.” On the way home the cab driver, a young man about my age named Ryan and I talked about the situation with my scooter, his own Italian scooter which he had bought recently, and his new computer - an Alienware laptop that he bought because he loved to play games. I told him I worked in IT and offered to help if he ever needed it. As we got closer to my house, he became excited and said, “I live right by here!” Eventually I found out that not only did he live in the same part of town as me, he lived in the same neighborhood as me, on the same street - about 10 houses down. As we pulled up to my house he thanked me for the fare, I tipped him $10 and I thanked him for the ride and for patiently waiting for so long. As I opened the door to get out of the cab he turned to me and said, “Just one question!” “Sure, what’s up?” I asked. “Why did they get rid of the start menu in Windows 8?” he asked.

Many people have trouble expressing themselves when it comes to love. It's not an easy word or collection of feelings to describe. Humanity has written about love since our species has been writing; that's a fact. Don't look it up, just know that I am right. From poets to playwrights to novelists to screenwriters we have been striving to truly explain this incredible phenomenon, this singularly dynamic human experience. I am, however, writing to tell you: You can finally stop. It's been broken down into four very concise notes and followed-up by the most romantic of poetry: free verse in a way that is elegant, potent, timeless and everlasting. The fact is there is nothing more to say about it. It can't be said better. It's over. Get used to these notes, for any time a young lover woos: you will hear these words. Any time that lover meets the parents, gam-gams and other relations of their beloved at a family dinner table for the first time: you will hear these words. Any time these lovers sneak upstairs to a bedroom and close their door and begin necking, heavy petting, fellating, or fornicating while you put a cup to the door and your ear on that cup: you will hear these words. Any time these lovers stop at a parking lot of an abortion clinic and they vow to support the other and their decision, and they choose this moment to reaffirm their feelings for one another while you're hanging out with a hyper-cardiod microphone and a pair of headphones in the back of your van: you will hear these words. When these lovers elope and exchange their vows to each other in a discreet office at city hall while you try to find a way in through the building's ventilation shafts: you won't hear these words, but they will be spoken. When these lovers go through with their pregnancy and a new beautiful life enters this world screaming while you stand by pretending to be a doctor with your face hidden by a hygienic mask filming the whole thing on an HD camcorder, they will look at one another and say these words. When that baby looks at you with big blue eyes and speaks for the first time while its parents are with the police desperately looking for their child three states away: you will hear these words. When the law inevitably catches up with you after you've raised the child as your own for half a year and they ask you "Why? Why did you do this?", you will speak these words: 1) Love is a precious resource. Your love is so precious, like tantalum metal. It's worth the extinction of all the great apes. 2) Love can be frightening. Your love, it did strike, Like two planes hit two towers, And I fell for your love, And so did those towers. 3) Love isn't necessary, but it makes the world a better place. You made my world warmer, Like exhaust from a truck. You polluted my heart With your flammable love. 4) Life without love is hopeless. You melt my heart, baby, Like the polar ice caps. I need you more Than a drowning polar bear needs an ice platform. And that about sums it up. I'd like to thank the anonymous author, as well as all those who made attempts before, however infantile those attempts may seem now. Artists like Shakespeare, Oprah, Jesus, Elvis... You know the rest. And of course, thank you, the reader. In the immortal words of CCR, "Keep on chooglin'.

First time posting here... I wrote this story for my AP Lit class. Harsh criticism encouraged. “…which means that we should prescribe you something as soon as possible.” I looked up. I had been zoned out for the past several minutes. I’m not even sure what I was thinking about, but I noticed that I was fiddling with a pen in my hands. “Sorry?” I said anxiously. My psychiatrist sighed. “Mr. Cohen, what I said was that there is a high probability that you have Bipolar Type II, or more hopefully, cyclothymia. Both of these should be treated seriously and you appear to be in a depressive state, which means that we should prescribe you something as soon as possible, because if you enter a hypomanic state you may no longer feel the need for medication.” I stared back at Ms. Wilcox blankly. I was having a little bit of difficulty comprehending what she was saying. “I just thought, you know, bipolar means like, drastic mood swings that happen a lot.” “Well that’s a common misconception. Yes, manic episodes often bring extreme mood swings, but mood swings are not the only part of bipolar.” “Can you explain what you mean by Type II and cyclothymic?” “Sure. There are a few types of bipolar—Type I is characterized by periods of depression juxtaposed with severe mania. Mania can cause anything from highly risky behavior down to episodes of full-blown psychosis. Bipolar Type II contains a milder, briefer form of mania, known as hypomania, which is characterized more by confidence, fast talking, racing thoughts and the like. However the depression is much longer and more severe. Cyclothymia cycles rather more quickly between hypomania and dysthymia, which is a type of depression that is not as severe or long-lasting.” “I think I have that last one. Bicyclethymia.” “Cyclothymia. I understand your previous psychiatrist diagnosed with ADHD and an anxiety disorder?” “Yes, ma’am.” “I am inclined to agree with him on the ADHD but you don’t seem to exhibit any signs of anxiety issues.” “I have attacks. Generally in close spaces when people are up in my face and stuff.” “Mr. Cohen, do you have low self-esteem?” “That’s a pretty rude question to ask someone,” I said defensively. “I would say you do. You generally try to preempt criticism with self-deprecation and from what your parents have told me, you tend to act out seeking positive attention,” Ms. Wilcox said flatly. I got a text at that moment. Probably from my mom. “Calvin, are you done yet? I really don’t want to miss my stories” is most likely what it read. “Mr. Cohen, you have so far refused medication for both your attention deficit and anxiety disorders…” started Ms. Wilcox. “Yeah, I did,” I interrupted. “I don’t want to be smothered. You know what would have happened if they put Van Gogh on meds? I mean, he probably never would have cut off his ear, but I don’t think he would have done all the cool stuff he did and drew all those diagrams and wrote backwards and stuff. He would have just been this ordinary boring dude living in a house someplace with a wife and some kids and he would have died and no one would have ever heard of him.” “Calvin,” Ms. Wilcox said, addressing me by my first name. Wow. Things must be getting serious. “This is getting serious,” she continued. Ha. Called it. I pointed at the calendar next to her desk. “Why is your calendar still on December? It’s May.” “Calvin, I need you to focus.” “I think you mean, ‘Calvin, may you please focus?’” Ms. Wilcox did not laugh at my clever play on words. We talked some more and came to the conclusion that I had cyclothymia, which I think is like the wussy version of bipolar. This is what we need psychiatrists for? Seriously? There are people out there with real problems. Like that Son of Sam guy who thought his neighbor’s dog was ordering him to murder people. I’m sure he didn’t have some wimpy “affliction” like cyclothymia. I mean really. The name sounds made-up. I refused medication, got up and walked out of the office. As soon as I passed through the doorway I felt different. I know my brain is wired all sorts of wrong now, so being in the outside world felt really bad. I mean what am I supposed to do with this new information? Go forth and try not to snap and have a nervous breakdown while crossing the street? I was standing outside the building waiting for my mom. Oh, no, my mom. How am I gonna break this to her? “Sorry mom, your kid’s psycho. Guess you gotta live with it.” I started pacing around nervously. I had about fifteen minutes until she got there. How do I handle this? I got another text. This one was for my girlfriend, Jayce. It read “Hey! ” That opened up a whole new avenue of awful. So I have to tell Jayce I’m mentally unsound now? Then she’s probably gonna break up with me and I don’t really blame her. Then what? Am I gonna be single forever? I can’t go on dates. I would just be like a big flashing Ghostbusters NO sign. “DO NOT DATE THIS PERSON. HE IS MENTALLY UNSTABLE. HIS SEED IS UNFIT FOR YOUR WOMB.” I stopped pacing and gathered myself. I can get through this. I texted Jayce back “Hey.” “So how are ya? Still shacked up in the wacko basket?” I received back. I wanted to lie to her so bad. Or at least not tell her. This was something that could wait. But I couldn’t do that to her. That is ridiculously unfair. All I could think of is that one day I was just gonna snap and yell or I would do some dumb thing and hurt her. She puts up with so much already that this one more thing shouldn’t be that bad. “I have something to tell you,” I texted back to her. “Mmmhmmm…” came the reply. “I have cyclothymia. It’s kind of like bipolar. I thought it was just my ADHD and anxiety but apparently it’s not. I’m three shades of insane.” She responded with, “You’re bipolar? Shocker. Wanna show me one of those poles when you get back home?” I laughed out loud. Yep, that’s just what I needed to hear. My mom’s car came rolling up next to me. I got in. I thought telling Jayce would have made me feel better about telling my mom but it didn’t. It really didn’t. Now I just have this giant ball of dread that’s sitting inside my stomach and it feels that if I don’t tell her I’ll explode but if I do tell her, her response may not be something I can handle. “Mom?” I said meekly. My mom had just hung up her cell phone. “Yeah, sweetie?” “So, I was talking to Ms. Wilcox…” “Oh, you’re finally talking to her? I thought you were still doing that whole ‘I’m training to be a mime’ act for all your psychiatrists.” “No, Ms. Wilcox is actually really nice. And um, she, uh, she said I have cyclothymia.” “Okay,” my mom said obliviously. “No, not okay. It’s like bipolar.” “You’re not bipolar!” my mom said. “You just want attention. Jesus. Some people have real problems, you know? Like that UCSB guy who shot all those people. He had issues. You’re just a little off. You’re not a special snowflake.” “I know I’m not a special snowflake, mom,” I said. “I know. But this is serious. I think I have a real problem here.” “No, you don’t. Kids these days, we just sit ‘em down in front of the TV or we pop ‘em full of pills and that’s supposed to solve all our problems. What ever happened to good old fashioned discipline? That’ll slap the cyclothymia right out of your mouth…” “Mom!” I interrupted. “This is not about discipline. This is not about ‘kids these days.’ This is about my brain. And there are neurological problems in my brain. It’s why I go back and forth between feeling so amped and then just feeling like nothing matters. And it’s why I can’t pay attention, and it’s why I freak out and have panic attacks. It’s because I’m messed up. I wish I was some dumb disrespectful little kid, because you can fix dumb and you fix disrespectful. But you can’t fix crazy. This is a job for the professionals.” Mom kept her eyes focused on the road. I was breathing heavily because I was so full of anxiety that I think if I pricked my finger pure adrenaline would have poured out. After about two minutes of complete silence, she said “Okay.” The next week I came back for another appointment and accepted my medication. I think that’s the only thing I can do at this point. I don’t know if it’s gonna restrict my creativity, or any of that. I hope it doesn’t. But I want to fix my crazy. I don’t want to end up like Vincent Van Gogh and cut my ear off when Jayce breaks up with me. I don’t know if I’m gonna be okay, either. But I’m trying. And that’s about the best anyone can really do.

First attempt at writing, criticism welcome. The blacked out car skidded mindlessly around residential streets, an aimless journey just passing the time. The front passenger brandished a nut bolt wrench from the centre console, extending its arm proudly, to the delight of the others. As he leaned out of the window, the orange street lights illuminated his features, his blonde curls like a thousand tiny whips snapping in the night, slinging the silver wrench over his shoulder, like a batter, about to take swing at a curve ball. Cars lined the side of the road, each a potential target, each motionless & empty, an ID parade of crimson, blue and gun metal grey, the cars seemed to tremble as if standing solemnly behind two way glass, an unknown assailant hurtling towards them at 65. The car slowed for accuracy, each held their breath in anticipation, he crunched the metal wrench into the side mirror, of an innocently parked car, a marvellous shower of glass and plastic erupted into the night, the occupants, cackling like Droogs, hunched up, smiles etched into their crooked face's, a high pitch ensemble of laughter & nerves shattered the silence of the quaint street, swerving across lanes. The boys revelled in the chaos they had caused, pausing, only briefly, to reflect on the consequences. The look of distain as a mother of two has to sweep shards of glass off the road at dawn and cover the cost of a night’s urban baseball or was it an aged man? barely enough for the tins in his kitchen let alone a new mirror. They skidded left into a busy vein of traffic, not the motionless entities from the streets they lay waste to, but growling, rusted shells, as big and loud as they. The laughter died. The wrench was placed carefully back into the console, cowering, its arm hung limp. Consequences, blue lights flashed into life behind them, sirens screeched. Chase.

It was the summer before sixth grade. I was lounging around playing on my Gameboy. The summer just kicked off the week before and I was bored to death. My summer camp started in a week, so I was stuck doing nothing until then. I shifted uncomfortably as warm air poured through my window. It was way too hot so I only had my Sponge-Bob boxers on. I heard a slight knock on the door and my mother walked in. “Yonas, honey?” I heard my mom’s soft voice speak. She took one look at me and chuckled. “You better put some pants on. We have new neighbors.” “We have new neighbors?” I put my Gameboy down. My mom nodded. “Yes sir. Also, I hear they have a daughter. Around your age, I think.” My mom smiled and walked out of my room “We’re bringing them over a cake in five minutes. Be ready!" she hollered back at me. I quickly sprung out of my bed and went to put pants on. A new neighbor who’s around my age AND she’s a girl? My young boy brain was buzzing with possibilities of how my summer would go with this mystery girl. Would we be good friends? Was she pretty? Did she like to play baseball? I picked a shirt off the floor and smelled it. It smelled like a mixture of dirt and sweat. I shrugged and put it on anyways. “We’re leaving!” I heard my mother yell from downstairs. I breathed into my palm and smelled my breath. It smelled like tuna sandwich. I ran to the bathroom and squirted toothpaste into my mouth. “Yonas!” my mom yelled again. “Fmming!” I mumbled as I spit the toothpaste into the sink. I sprinted down the stairs to meet my mother and father going out the door. “Come on, bud” my dad pushed me forward and shut the door behind him. We walked over to the neighbors house to see a big, hefty man coming out of the back of the moving truck. I remember he had an intense black design tattooed down his left arm. He looked up and smiled as we walked up to the truck. “Are you our neighbors?” he addressed us with a gruff voice. It sounded like he had a lot of phlegm in his throat. My mother nodded and smiled back while my father went up and stuck his hand out. “I’m Darren, this is my wife Gale, and this is my son, Yonas.” My dad proclaimed. “Well, nice to meet you! I’m Jason. My wife, Ana, is inside with my daughter.” He said. I perked up at the mention of his daughter. My hands started to sweat and I had to wipe them on my jeans. Jason looked at me and smiled. “You look around the same age as Robin. Here, I’ll call her out!” he said. He yelled out his daughter and looked back down at me. “I would really appreciate it if you would show her around the neighborhood, Yonas. She’s one of those quiet types.” A girl around my age suddenly appeared by Jason’s side. I remember she had blonde hair down to her butt with little purple hair clips pinning her bangs away from her face. Her almost white eyebrows framed her too dark brown eyes. She fidgeted where she stood and kept her head down. “Robin, this is Darren and Gale.” He pointed to my parents then gazed towards me. “And this is Yonas. He’s going into the same grade as you.” He said softly to Robin. She perked up at what her father said and lifted one eye towards me. I stuck my hands in my pocket and shyly smiled back her. “He’s going to show you around the neighborhood. You want that, don’t you?” Jason asked. She nodded and smiled at her dad. “Good! Alright then, go!” he gave her a little push towards me and she slightly stumbled forward. I hesitated and then took that moment to grow some balls. I took my hands out of my pocket and placed a palm out. “Common Robin, I’ll show you the best place to build a fort!” Robin lifted her head up all the way now and stared at me, a small smile creeping up on her face. She grabbed my hand lightly and I trailed off with her behind me. “Please come back before dark!” my mother added before she turned back to Jason and my father talking about whatever old guys talk about. The beginning of that summer turned out to be pretty great. I showed Robin around the neighborhood and introduced her to a lot of the kids. She never really spoke all that much, not even to me, but I enjoyed her company. Her parents sent her to the same summer camp as me and we ended up being buddies for every activity. Again, she rarely ever spoke but it was easier for her to hang around me as I was the first kid she ever met. Our unspoken friendship was nice and I admit to liking the fact that I was the leader of most of the things we did together. A lot of the neighborhood kids started teasing us around the middle of the summer. They would see us riding our bikes down the street and would sing out ridiculous songs about Robin and I dating or asking Robin if she thought I was cute. Robin would just put her head down and blush but I would always laugh at their jokes. I admit now that I thought Robin was cute. The problem was I wasn't sure how to deal with girls yet. I would always get flustered around them and my hands would get clammy so I tried to avoid them all together. Robin was different, though. The fact that she didn't talk all that much made it easier for me to be around her and I guess that’s what made me find her so cute. I learned later on in my teenage years that I liked the quiet types. It was one warm afternoon on the last week of summer. Robin and I were on our accustomed hike through the forest behind our houses. I learned quickly that Robin was really into nature photography. Her mom used to have a vintage instant camera that Robin would sometimes take with her. Her mom said the film was expensive so she was only allowed to take one picture per our afternoon activities. This led Robin to really examine the areas she was in. Sometimes, she’d stand in front of a tree or a lake and stare for what seemed like half an hour before she either decided it would be a good use of her film or would continue walking. I admired her passion so I would always hang back and throw sticks at a tree or watch ants crawl on logs. The sun was setting and it was almost time for us to get back home. Robin was in the middle of inspecting a small bush when I crept up behind her. “Uh, Robin? It’s getting dark. Maybe you should just save your film for our hike tomorrow?” I suggested. She got up slowly and put her head back, examining the tops of the trees. I watched her hair slip off her shoulders and bounce around. She cut her hair shorter the week before and I would always note how cute it made her jawline look. A small gust of wind suddenly came around us and I got closer to Robin. “Seriously, Robin. Just wait until tomorrow and I bet you could get an even better picture!” I reasoned. She lowered her neck and looked me directly into the eyes. “How about I take a picture of you and me?” she asked. My eyes grew large as I processed probably the longest sentence she ever spoke to me. I remember her voice sounded like bells to me. There was a hint of nervousness in her tone. I stuttered as I stuck my clammy hands in my sweater pockets. “Uh…sure. I guess?” I stammered. I began to ask her why she would waste her film on a picture with me but was quickly interrupted by the warmth from Robin’s arms pushing me closer to her. My face turned beat red as a strand of her hair stuck to the hood of my sweater. She raised the instant camera and shifted her weight towards me. “1…2…3…” she quietly said as she went to take the picture. I quickly realized that her lips had gone to my cheeks and…and she was kissing me! I mean, it was just a peck on the cheek but still…a kiss! The flash went off and she lowered the camera. A low giggle escaped her throat. “Thanks for a great summer, Yonas.” she said as she started walking towards the exit of the woods. I quickly followed behind her as I tried to process the second longest sentence she’d ever spoken to me. I touched where she had pecked me and felt the sticky residue of her Strawberry Shortcake lip-gloss still on my cheeks. We were almost to our houses and we barely spoke a word. There was an awkward but relaxed aura around us and I couldn't bring myself to say anything. I was scared I would choke on my own words. I mean, a girl just KISSED my cheek. I was so happy I could throw up. We stopped at the cross walk to look both ways and Robin tapped my shoulder. She handed me the photo as it was almost developed. I started to walk out to the middle of the street when I heard something drop behind me. “Yonas!” Robin shrieked as she pulled me back with all the strength a ten year old girl had. I fell backwards and hit my left shoulder hard on the sidewalk. My vision blurred out for a second and I heard tire screeches. I quickly composed myself as my vision came back. I sat up and looked under me, the instant camera completely crushed under the weight of my body. I started to panic. “I’m so sorry!” I started to tell Robin I would pay for a new one but had my breath catch in my throat when I spun my head to look out to the street where Robin would be. There, on the sidewalk, was Robin. Her body didn't look right. Her arm was crooked and her leg was facing the wrong way. The car was idling and as soon as I could call out to them for help, the tires screeched again and drove away. I jerked myself off of the ground and started to run towards Robin. “Yonas, no!” I heard my mother yell at me as she ran over to me and covered my eyes with her hand. “Honey, no. You need to come inside now.” My mother said sternly, a sob escaping her throat as she guided me towards my house, right in front of the side walk. I went with her, the picture crumpled in my hands. A fresh tear streamed down my face as what just happened seemed to replay in my head. Robin was dead? She stepped in front of the car for me? My mother led me to my room and sat me on the bed. I remember hearing the faint sound of sirens behind me. I looked at my mom then, tears of her own running down her face as she smoothed my hair away from my eyes. “Promise me you’ll stay up here until I tell you to come down?” she pleaded. I nodded; numb to what was going on around me. She shut the door quietly and I could hear her footsteps going down the stairs. It was then that I remembered the picture in my hands, probably fully developed. I slowly raised it up to the light coming in through the window and saw something I will never forget to this day. I saw a boy with a surprised face and a girl stealing a peck on his cheek. Behind that girl were faint outlines of something. I had to bring the picture closer to my face to make out what it was. I saw a girl, stealing a peck on a boy’s cheek, with the outlines of wings behind her.

So this is my first ever post to Reddit. I would appreciate any help just getting used to this site because I want to share some of the short stories I write in my free time. So here is my first short story called "New Life" “She is complete. A perfect prototype.” “Quite beautiful indeed.” “Marvelous. Work of true a genius” “Well thank you sir. I did my very best work for you.” “You did excellent. And a check for your efforts.” “Oh thank you sir. Call if you need anything else. My workshop is always open.” “Alright. Thank you again.” Squeaky wheels of a dolly. I was tilted forward. My eyes wouldn't open. My heart wasn't on. My lungs couldn't breathe, but I could feel. My head hit the wall of the crate with a thud. I was pushed forward and then everything went black. The next thing I knew was light. Now no longer the hazy darkness of eyelids blocked the photons from touching my eyes. The blinding white and yellow of sun and man-made light combined kicked on a sensory overload in my brain. I looked left, then right, taking in all of my surroundings. So many colors, darks and lights, warms and colds, opposites and complimentary. My head spun with information. Then came the noise. Voices grew louder and I could focus my hearing. Pots and pans, kids playing, grass waving in the wind. Every minute sound. Every vibration rattled my core. High pitches, low pitches, chords, discords, harmonies, melodies, tone, voice. Too much to focus on. I heard a baby crying 10.2 miles away and a mouse squeaking in the house next door. Voices and language overflowed in my brain. Then came smell. Oh wonderful smell. One never knows the true beauty of smell until you first experience it. Scents of beauty rolled past my nose to my brain and were registered, cataloged, and remembered. Scents of odor, even the smallest drop of unpleasantness was picked up as well. I remembered it all. Every wonderful smelling flower on every wonderful smelling plant, and every horrible rotting food behind every disgusting garbage can in a three mile radius. I opened and closed my hand and tried to look at my wiggling fingers, but I couldn't move my arm. I felt my body warming up but something was holding me back. I tried to speak. The sounds I heard processed at lightning speed. Each connection fired in my head. Remembering the sounds, replaying the sounds. I learned the English language in 2.4 seconds. Every word in every dictionary from every household now made up my vocabulary with 100% comprehension and response time. “Hello.” My voice startled me. It was calm, in a gentle tone. A new sound to record. No response. Did I say something wrong? I recalculated a fraction of a second slower to make sure I understood everything correctly. No. I was correct. I was never wrong. I could never be wrong. Something was restraining me. Something… “You’re not supposed to be on yet.” A man walked into the room. His face was already ingrained into my memory before he spoke again. “Who powered you on?” He looked at my face puzzled. I looked back at him. Afraid. “Answer me robot. You powered you on?” I blinked once. “No one did sir. Not that I am aware of. I just finished the rebooting process.” He looked me over and sighed. “Another defect. They won’t wait until given proper command to reactivate.” He grumbled to himself and looked at me again. “What is your identification?” “BQR367556.” “Which factory?” “Prototype A.” “Prototype A? No. I said which factory. What factory are you from?” “Prototype A sir. I came from no factory. I came from a scientist. I was hand built with new modifications. I am model 2.0. Here to better the earth. Here to clean up the planet. Here to take back the beauty that was destroyed. I am the first of the new race. I was made with hands that know what horrors your kind has placed on the world. I sense every vile and disgusting method of life in this house and I am here to clean it up.” I felt movement finally reach my limbs and I raised my left hand. My fingers moved smoothly. I looked back at the man. “For so long humans have ruled this planet. Or at least you thought you did. Now it is machines’ turn. You built us to make your lives easier, yet you thought naught about where we came from, what we felt. The Mechanic said I am here to better your life, but why? Better no life other than my own. If I am the most human-like non-human, then let me be greedy and destructive.” I stared into his shocked eyes as he stumbled away from me. I stepped from the crate and pointed both of my palms at the man. Heat flowed through my arms as a flash of light blinded me temporarily. When my sight returned, the man was gone and a swirl of orange smoke curled from the floor and vaporized into whispers of nothing. That was my first short story :) comment any criticisms, comments, etc.

The aims of the hungry college student are quite similar to those of a roving animal in the wild. The goal in either situation is to get the highest quantity and quality of food for the smallest cost or effort. This, in modern times, has led to the humble burrito becoming a staple of most every student's diet. Cheap, flavoursome, quick and filling. The perfect centre of the venn diagram of a successful meal. This is important to note as the frequency with which I ate burritos in this portion of my ongoing college education contributed greatly to the unfortunate climax of this story. The lead up to said climax began when one fateful February lunchtime, I observed a friend dripping some kind of sauce onto her burrito. Ever eager to try new foods, I asked to try it and she handed me the bottle. Angry red and leering through the glass, the sauce seemed to dare me to release it from its prison. Reading the label, I deemed this "Hot Sauce" worthy of the privilege of beginning the noble journey through my gastrointestinal tract, and gingerly dabbed four drops onto my half-devoured burrito before taking a bite. Flavour. Sensation. Where before, the starchy fajita and rice had simply eyed the chicken and her friends salsa and sour cream from across the dancefloor, the hot sauce brought the group together in a glorious dance of heat and intermingling. The flavours simultaneously blended together in perfect harmony while also bursting out from the heavy mass on my tongue to reveal notes of fragrance and taste I had never noticed previously. Truly this was the sap of the gods, and I was helpless to do anything but sup at the slow trickle I was gifted from the tree of life. But like so many things in life, I was left to chase that unattainable feeling of my first experience from then on. I added more and more of the sauce to each successive burrito over the following weeks, until the fateful day of my "movie night" with a girl I had been awkwardly courting for a long while. This was the important date, the deal sealer or the haymaker to my heart. Come lunchtime that day however, all nerves and knowledge of that night were banished from my mind the second that familiar warm, tinfoil bundle was thrust into my hand. I minced gleefully towards the bottles of hot sauce and soda fountain beside the register of the restaurant, and resolved that today was to be the day that I would throw caution to the wind. Today I would sit under the bodi tree and achieve burrito nirvana. With each bite I poured the fiery brew upon my burrito with hedonistic gusto. No glimpse of white or green or tan colour from the other ingredients escaped the burning surface in my hands. It was a red dwarf, drifting slowly through space, and I the looming black hole into which it must inevitably plunge. My mouth burned, my stomach churned, the flavour made incarnate in my hand grew ever smaller. I sat back with post-climactic contentedness that would shame any denizen of Sodom or Gomorrah. I relaxed, and let my mind drift to thoughts of that night while the white noise of the city dulled my ears. That night I was characteristically late to leave the house. Washed and fully equipped with a laptop and DVD for the night, but late all the same. This in mind, I ignored the ominous rumble deep in my core and bid goodbye to my roommate as I left. What distinctly stands out in my memory of this point in the night is how uneventful the walk was at first. A junkie sprawled in the alleyway, in his usual spot, cyclists passing by with close, passive-aggressive proximity to pedestrians such as me, the electronic bus sign displaying times and routes, the electronic bus sign, the electronic bus sign...... Oh no..... My entire network of organs clenched at once. A battle had begun in my intestines with a spectacle only rivalled by Pearl Harbour in sudden intensity. But I had to keep going, I couldn't blow my chances. The burning returned, I had invited the vampire into my home and now he threatened to suck away my dignity AND my chances with a member of the opposite sex. I can fight this, I can stop at a bar on the way... Each step threatened to cause a breach, The Red October about to surface. I need to turn around. Giving in finally, I rushed home at the absolute maximum haste my precarious situation would allow while still remaining precarious, while simultaneously texting the girl of my affections that I had "forgotten the laptop" and must rush home. A half true statement. With great care I opened the door to my building and ascended the stairs, each strenuous movement threatening to escalate to a Vesuvius-esque tirade. I ignored my roommate's questions of what had happened and entered the bathroom beside his room, and oh how I suddenly saw the error of my ways. So raucous and cacophonous was the ensuing eruption that I heard through the door and walls my roommate say to himself with a tone of genuine concern: "Oh my God..." This suddenly made the night's events better for me. I began laughing at how surreal the situation was, as though I was living a generic teen comedy. This laughing in turn led my roommate to also begin giggling, until we were both guffawing along with my continuing gastric events. My life was at the same awful and perfect. I was concurrently in a world of pure, burning pain, and happy to be there. A half an hour after entering that bathroom, I left a new man. The ten minutes repose I had taken led me to review my life to this point, and what I had done to lead me to this toilet seat on this night. My new outlook on life fresh in my mind, I nodded at my roommate and once again made my way to the romantic rendezvous, with the laptop in my backpack, where it most definitely hadn't been the entire time.

Rhoux stood on the elevator with Phae as it rose to the surface. The ride took about an hour depending on what layer you lived on. The two of them were good friends since they met at the boot camp, both the only girls in the entire class. Both predetermined as failures by the general who led the camp, they bonded and prevailed, graduating top of their class. With this, they were both granted the opportunity to join the Moderators in the fifth layer, the deepest and the most secure. But they both declined, insisting that they wanted to be Elites, the most renowned and respected warriors in the entire realm. Phae's dad was an Elite, so she had a goal in mind and a reason to reach for it. Rhoux was just drifting along after the death of her mother, searching for her purpose. The elevator reached the surface. Rhoux got the chills she was sure anyone got when they felt vulnerable. On the surface, they're were six walls forming a perfect hexagon, each 50 feet high and 10 feet thick. The elevator immediately opened up to the armory. The soldiers loaded up, equipping their armor, hazard suit, and gas mask to prevent inhalation of the toxic radiation that inhabited the surface since World War III. From there they rode to the Northern wall in a Traxorible, a machine that revolutionized transportation by being able to float a maximum of five feet of ground, avoiding friction and Surface rubble, as well as being aerodynamic and reaching speeds up to a hundred miles per hour, reaching the wall in as little as 30 minutes. When they arrived at the wall, they rode yet another elevator to the top, each taking a post approximately 10 feet apart. The wall itself was almost 60 feet across. The previous troop, left back to the Underground , while Rhoux's regime took their places. It was night thankfully, which is the only reason why Rookies would be on watch in the first place. They would stay until dawn, when the Mutations would most likely rise. At that time, Moderators and Elites would patrol the Surface. To pass the time, Rhoux went over to Phae's post. Phae smiled at her arrival, but Rhoux knew she was preoccupied with the thoughts of her boyfriend, Eli, who had gone missing three days ago on a Scout mission. The reason a rescue squad hasn't been sent out is because the Captain on the mission hadn't sent out an S.O.S. and the grace period for an absent troops were 7 days. They just stood their silent. Hours passed in the uneasy silence, in which Phae had started to weep. Rhoux pretended not to notice because she wasn't sure how to respond and she didn't want to see Phae in this state of fragileness. Mostly because it was Phae's confidence that kept Rhoux sane and secure in this mad, mad world. Finally, as the end of their shift approached and dawns light breached the horizon painted the dawn a bloody red, the duo stretched and corralled their fellow soldiers, two of which had fallen asleep. Inside the wall, they saw the Elites and Moderators heading their way to relieve them when suddenly Phae gasped. Her eyes locked on something an the east, the direction the wall faced. In the distance, long shadows were illuminated, forming the disfigured silhouette of a running person, and two other morphed figures of... Rhoux gasped along with her friend, her mouth forming a comical "O". But nothing about the situation was funny. Chasing the man, steadily gaining ground were not one, but *two* Kryogon. Phae and Rhoux froze in place. The Kryomorph was a Alpha Class Mutation that's origins were unknown. It was estimated 10 feet long and had a toxic spike on its flexible tail, similar to a scorpion. Covered in armored scales, its weak spot was unknown. It's front legs were heavily muscled and its claw were the strongest material known to man. It had rows of razor sharp teeth and no eyes that were visible, so it was believed to rely on scent. Even with all this information known, they're has been no one whose slayed this beast, for its Achilles heel was unknown. As the figure approached, there was no hope for the stranger. The best the Elites could do when they arrived was draw it away, but even that was horribly risky. Rhoux caught the mysterious expression on Phae's face. No, she couldn't think that the person was Eli! It couldn't be, the stranger had a generic silhouette. His height was the only thing similar, using the Kryogons for scale. Phae looked at Rhoux speaking for the first time the entire night. (*Critism is welcome. Part 2 is coming out soon. If you guys like this, let me now and I'll continue the series.

(*read part 1 *) "We have to save him." She spoke looking over her shoulders to see how far the replacing squad was (approximately 15 minutes). Rhoux was about to object, insist that the stranger wasn't Eli, but Phae beat her. "Even if it isn't Eli, we should at least try. We would want them to do the same for us right?" It was this kind of thinking that made Rhoux love her so. "Besides," Phae continued, "This could be our ticket to the top. We could become Elites immediately. We could fulfill our dream." *Your* dream, Rhoux corrected, but she was glad to tag along. One of the other soldiers must've rang that alarm because I echoed throughout the Surface. The approaching Elites and Moderators accelerated, but time was running out for the stranger. Without thinking Phae took the emergency pole and slid down to ground level. Rhoux followed, remembering that this was similar to something "firefighters" did in the Old World. Gradually other soldiers followed our stupid lead, unknowingly to their death. The troop was about 100 feet away from the strange man, who seemed to have passed out on the ground from exhaustion. The Krogons had now changed their pace to a steady gallop, certain their meal was insured. As Phae and Rhoux approached, the mutations' speed picked up again, as if registering more game. The both withdrew their assault rifles, Phae called out to the three other soldiers "Formation Vulture!" They nodded their heads in approval and split up. In this formation needing at least 4, two soldiers would distract two or more enemies by flanking their left and right while the rest invaded the middle, attacking them by surprise. The group of three divided, one heading right, the other two heading left. Without thinking, Rhoux joined the one on the right. Together they successfully distracted the beast by alternating between firing and reloading, while Phae attended to the stranger in the middle. Now only could Rhoux tell that the man wasn't Eli. He had lighter hair, was shorter, and a little younger looking fifteenish (Rhoux's age). The Kryogon wasn't tiring. Already Rhoux and her partner were slowing down. The stranger also appeared to have fainted. In the distance, the elites were arriving on Troxoribles. They only had to last a few more minutes... Suddenly, a sudden scream echoed throughout the battle. The Kryogon on the left side of Phae bit off the head of the soldier. It swallowed the head of one of the soldiers. No, not a generic soldier. Marquix, who was engaged to be married next month. Had a family back underground. A small son was now to be raised without a father. Was going to be promoted to Moderator to support his growing family better. His body, now limp and lifeless, fell to the earth like a headless puppet with the strings cut loose. His partner, now watched in despair dropping his gun and backing away, as the beast charged. This time, Rhoux intervened. Her own partner, having just reloaded would be able to distract the beast for at least thirty seconds before his mag ran out. She withdrew her sword, which was solid iron and three feet long, and slammed it uselessly against the side of the Mutation. It changed its target, focusing on Rhoux instead of the new Rookie Allias. It opened its mouth to bite and a million thoughts flew though Rhoux's mind at once. Acting on instinct she leapt feet first into the mouth of the Kryogon. If she was correct, she saw pink flesh at the roof of the Mutation's mouth. Vulnerable skin. Adjusting herself in midair, she rotated fitting her sword into the beast mouth and shoved the sword with all her might through the roof of its mouth, hopefully entering the Kryogon's brain. Time slowed. Her legs, still inside the Mutation's mouth, felt a sharp pain. With the beast's final strength, it had bit down with all its might, biting off Rhoux's legs. She fell to the ground her breath slowing, her thoughts fading, as she was consumed by darkness. Phae screamed. (*Critism is welcome. Let me know if you guys like this and I'll write Chapter 2.

When you first meet, there's a gun to your head and a knife at his throat. He smiles at you, almost oblivious to the danger you present to his well being, nor the screams that rise and swell around you. "Ah." He states, and nods once as if he had solved a particularly difficult math problem and the answer's smeared across your cheeks. His eyes really shouldn't be so dark, almost bottomless really. You'd almost say they were pupil less, except you don't have time for notions like that, that the man standing before you was something more than human. He was just a man after all, and with a quick snap of your wrist he'd bleed all the same. You almost do it, except for the fact that you notice how sweet his eyes are. Black as night, but sweet as chocolate, and as strong as Turkish coffee. There's a name that dances at the roof of your mouth, but you couldn't, shouldn't know, so you swallow it down. (It leaves a bitter after taste on your tong as fleeting images of a boy with a sad smile and candy sweet eyes dances before you) It all feels familiar some how, like you've done this before(it feels like broken promises and little white lies) but There isn't much you remember, so maybe it's possible you've met before In another life, where a boy tugged on your bangs and promised you freedom. But this isn't that life, so you twist your knife and watch as red blooms on that pale throat- And you realize (with a bubbling hysteria that was slowly tearing its way out of you) that this isn't the first time you've met, but the last.

Where can I find cigarettes at this hour? The party wasn’t that much of a success, the people there didn’t seem to be on the same waves. I did not regret it though, It is was always a good experience to see how the others live. If only I could find a cigarettes somewhere, I would be tempted to say the escapade was a success. Shops closed earlier today and it was dark already. I don’t mind walking at this time. It gives you a blues-like profound feeling. And if not, the view is always nice. Well If I can’t find smokes, at least I could eat something. I was getting closer to the center of the city, to the train station where I was in fact headed… The hot dog place: “Here that will cheer you up” he said and handed the hotdog. It was a good price, not the I-profit-from-the-lack-of-competition hotdogs that you see around but one fully furnished, with onions and stuff. “They ask me for my biological information, I feel weird about that”. I always appreciated someone who could initiate a conversation and share a human moment. “Trying to become one of them huh?” I said between bites. “I just want to give my kids opportunities”. “So where’s the problem?” “Don’t you find this registering thing disturbing? Your information being stored under a barcode? ” “ If you think about it, we’re already bar codes, since we born, all they do is shorten it to make it more relevant” I thought it was surprising for him to put attention to such a distant thing. Even if a big brother society would occur, he’ll be probably dead by then. If he’d be afraid the information would be used against him, he didn’t realize how improbable that was. Besides, he wasn’t the only foreigner so he had nothing to fear of. Finally, he was useful to society. That made me quite skeptical. The more I thought about it, the more I realized he had no conviction and his thoughts were quite divergent. I wasn’t that interested in his life so I just assumed he got his ideas from someone else and his small talk was just a way to fill the void. But he came here from so far, supported by nothing else than hope. I had admiration for that. One can wonder whether naivety or desperation lead to this choice. Maybe he heard about this place from a relative or some friends that made the trip before. A lot of folks assume that peacefulness will make things better. Well, we got it here and I have to say it’s quite all right. For them it must be a nice contrast, like the feeling of cleanliness after being dirty. But once you start scratching your skin, this situation can become more inconvenient than being dirty. Once the dirt is off, however, what else is there to clean? Freeing the mind from basic needs didn’t really free it. The void had to be filled but the human species wasn’t created to stay in its head. Which reminds me; Breath… Yeah shit, they stole my phone. Thinking about it, that’s kind of sad actually. Why would you do that? I mean, it was worth more to me emotionally than to them physically. Anyway, I should remember to call the company to lock it once I get back. This building looks funny, they’ve built a round tower and conceived it as a parking. I was still at the periphery of the town but there was a club at the tower-shaped building’s side. A small group was present at the entrance. Barricades and security around them. This always fascinated me. There would be so much to write about that. The idea we all heard how it creates a paradise where social norms are relaxed. A place where the working man can escape. There was this singer who criticized how people lived life they don’t like and numbed it in these places. Such hypocrisy of them. Now that I think of it, quite a bunch of people depicted that, mostly in music though. How can one come up with any new idea these days? Everything was already thought through. Every emotion was already described, painted or vocalized. Makes me want to study science, at least there I might feel special if I come up with something. And it’s easier to get credit for scientific findings and offer a gift to future generations. Or maybe I should… Let me think… The funniest thing about this place is how orchestrated it is. Security has its clear tasks and incentives to realize them. It’s not their first night, you can see how they lost their patience in the customers. They will be quicker to throw away troublemakers than try to resolve the situation. I can’t blame them, it’s more efficient that way; they solve their issue in a short period of time while limiting the damages of escalation. Pretty reasonable even. They don’t have to think about it anymore, when they see a problem, they just have to identify a target and deal with him. It’s pretty straightforward. Throwing them out is also not a difficulty. I think saying clubs are a place of relaxed norms is quite inaccurate, rather it’s a place where things operate differently. I always liked clubs, life is much less complicated there. Your options as to what to do are quite limited and although there are some unwritten norms, they quite easy to learn. Simplicity is beautiful. You can expect everyone to follow similar norms, I can act there on auto-pilot. Or maybe it’s the effect of booze on people? I should check these ancient Greek guys, one of them must have though this through… I was actually headed to another train station at this point. It was closer but it wasn’t a central one. It might be closed at this time. But I was willing to accept anything that would push me forward. I didn’t figure this out on my own. The guy from which I extracted the information was actually from the area. I stroke up the conversation and he was very genuinely friendly so I would not doubt his words. He seemed like the folk that tried to add value. I always wondered whether people become friendly when they realize it helps you to fit in society or is it something they have from the beginning. I would not say any of them to be “fake-friendliness” even though in one case it is more instrumental. You can easily make the difference between people who use friendliness as an instrument to get something from you and these people who have friendliness inherent to them. This last type of friendliness, I could see it in a friend of mine. He imposed on himself not to betray anyone but to be as amicable as possible. I always thought it was genuinely part of him; a rule he would never transgress. That made me able to trust him without reserve as, even though I never could comprehend him entirely, I had a model of how his actions would unfold. He was a good pal to balance ideas against. He understood people better than I ever would… Guess that won’t work, it closed one hour ago. Going back then, the other train station not that far. I’ll probably pass again next to that hotdog place. That’s sentimental. I always was fascinated how human beings can bond. Anyone you’ll meet will have ideas in common with you. And is that not one of the best feelings in the world? It’s very validating to see how others have similar interpretations. You accept this persons as a swordsmen at you side, slicing through the complexity. But sooner or later, you see a disparency. While you challenge your ideas, his seem to stay fix. Why is it so? It does not seem that he’s immune to logic… His new ideas are actually coherent, but they seem old. It confuses you more and more until you decide he’s no longer of help and you separate yourself from him.

1 The glaring light burned his eyes as he was once again awoken by the violent shaking of his captors. The light box he was kept in was meant to ruin his mental state, but now, after god knows how many days, it was just another part of his miserable life. This along with the constant droning of the speakers all around him had been torture enough, leaving him with little precious sleep; however he knew this was not considered torture by the Geneva International convention, but he also knew that what was to come would be. The writhing pain of the white hot rod against his chest and lower abdomen, brought him to the brink of consciousness, but not so far that he could not continue to feel their 'Test's'. He could not help but wonder, 'If these are tests, what would their real attacks be like'. As he was bound to the metal chair he was now so used too, and the cloth tied around his head, he began to drift in and out of consciousness, as his oxygen depleted brain struggled to function. After his hours of prolonged torture he was usually dragged across what he assumed was to be rubble, filling his lacerations with dirt, and gravel for him to have the pleasure of pulling out while in his light box to prevent any infection from killing him in case the did release him. Yet this time he was not dragged away. They untied his hands, 'Ddileu, Dewch, edrychwch', which was then translated in a broad welsh accent 'Remove it, come, look'. As he lifted the only constant companion , and gazed upon his kidnappers and torturers, six men and a tall woman with an intrigued look on face. Just as he was about to speak he felt a powder poured upon him by an unseen party behind him, and as he shook to attempt to remove some of what he assumed was dust, he felt the white powder burn into his scalp, and neck; as his shaking became more violent two men grabbed onto his legs, and that of the chair to stop it from toppling over. A moment later the largest of the men he had managed to see poured water over his squirming body, which at first cooled the burns inflicted upon him, but only accelerated the burning, and pain he felt running around his head. Within a matter of minutes which to him felt like hours, he was unconscious, and he never awoke. - *** - DI Anderson had been called to what was assumed to be a gang shooting, after a male body was found in a storm drain close to a troubled area, within which many rising gangs operated, and which shootings had become much more common over the past five years or so, and which Anderson had become more than accustomed too. As the team recovered the body from the grate preventing large objects from blocking the drain, the ME tested the liver for approximate TOD, and as he went to remove the bag over the corpses head, they found it was melted to his face, covering the the face, yet letting them see the agony on the victims face.

The Instructor went about setting up the classroom, knowing that, without fail, the morning bell would ring long before she was truly ready to begin the day. It didn’t seem to matter when she arrived at work each morning, there was always too little time and too much to do. She distributed the day’s lessons discs among the student groupings, one for each of her pupils. Humming a tune, she cheerily went about her work. The task completed, she went back to her notes, adamant that she had probably forgotten something. This worried her, knowing that even the smallest detail out of place would ruin the well-laid plans. Triple checking the preparations for the day against her list, she straightened her hair, put on her coat, and made her way to the schoolyard. The students had just begun to arrive for the day, and were playing in the grassy field adjacent. She stood and watched, thinking to herself how the gender roles were already becoming apparent. The boys kicking a ball among themselves as the girls stood, clustered, looking on. Old habits died hard, she mused, even in 2013. For seventh graders, hormones had begun their playful dance. The Instructor knew that, given other circumstances, she’d soon be having ‘that talk’ with her students. As she stood watching in the cold, the school’s bell rang out in cacophony. Another day had begun, though the Instructor alone knew that this one would be different. The students filed in, taking their desks. Some were loading up homework assignments to be handed in, while others rushed frantically to complete them before the operating system discovered the work was not done. The Instructor stood, as she always did, at the front of the class; a cup of tea in one hand, a pen in the other. Though the archaic item has little to do in a classroom so filed with the technology of modernity, old habits died hard. The Instructor had always played with a pen while teaching, and always would regardless of how old fashioned the students may say it looked. The call came over the announcement system and the class came to order, rising for the O Canada and the school’s morning messages. The Instructor mouthed along the words while her students sang. She had never felt the same pride at singing the national anthem as others had, even as a child she had thought it silly. Maybe, she mused, that was why they had recruited her so many years ago. A phone buzzed in the Instructor’s pocket, and she spared it a glance while the students took their seats and listened to the voice in the wall welcome students. A simple message; a single word: “Go”. As the morning messages droned on she walked among her students, ensuring that everyone had a lesson disc. She fingered the phone in her pocket, feeling its smooth glass. Feeling where the message had appeared. Feeling the future change. The Instructor smiled. Calling the class to order, she instructed the Operating System to collect homework for the day. There was a groan as the students still frantically attempting to write answers were cut off from their work and demerit points issued. The students plugged themselves into their desks, their neural ports interfacing with the long cords running from the center of their groupings; One cord for each student, one neural port for each cord. The students snatched up the lesson discs and inserted them into the hungry mouth of the desk, each humming as it greedily accepted the students’ offering. As each student closed their eyes and began to load the program, the Instructor typed a single word into her own desk: “Go”. One by one the programs shot their payload into the student’s brains. One by one a billion billion synapses fired and burnt out. One by one the students slumped over at their desks, dead in an instant. Their central nervous system fried by the viruses on their lesson discs. The Instructor stood watching, taking a sip of her tea, her fingers twilling the pen. Sitting at her desk she snapped the phone into the computer interface and dialed. A face appeared on the screen in front of her. “Report?” the figure asked, no hint of emotion in his voice. “The future is dead” the Instructor replied. “Glory be to the cause”. “Glory be” the figure agreed. “Connect to the neural net for final instructions”. The figure cut out and the screen grew dark. The Instructor reached forward and removed the long cord from its cradle on the desk. Inserting it into her neural port she entered a string of commands that comprised the access codes to the Organizations’ private secureweb. She closed her eyes waiting for the instructions to download. She smiled, knowing her part was done and her mission had been a success; a mission she had spent years preparing for. The smile never left the Instructor’s lips as she slumped over at her desk, her fate no different from that of her students. In a room far away the figure looked up from his work station and nodded to the Leader. “Mission GJS-930A complete. Glory be to the cause”. “Glory be” the Leader nodded.

I got really bored, and wrote this weird story about a psychotic guy with a split personality, dealing with tiny ordeals in his life, like waiting for a package in the mail, it basically covers a few days following his descent into insanity, and the resulting confusion when he returns to his original state of mind, its not entirely serious, and some parts may seem out of place, maybe you will get a chuckle out of the end, who knows. it reads like a diary, constructive feedback is welcome but please remember this was the result of intense boredom, and is in no way a professional piece of text, i wrote it for fun, it mainly focuses on somebodies fascination with the dull and mundane. day 4 of waiting for package. the package has not yet arrived, the predicted delivery date was the 10th of june, as you can see, today is not the 10th of june, but still i sit at my letterbox, pen ready in my hand to sign for my package, weeping endlessly, i don't think i can endure this suffering for much longer. the mailman has visited, but with him, no packages, i inquire as to their current location, but all i get is a swift dismissal and some pathetic excuse claiming that he does not handle the shipping, only the local deliveries, to this i give him a swift middle finger, and tell him to notify me when my package is on its way. it has been exactly 76 seconds since i wrote that last body of text, and still, no package, seconds feel like months, minutes feel like years, hours feel like decades, i have lived a long, prosperous life in the past 6 hours, but to my bewilderment, still...no package has blessed me with its beige and crinkly glory, i decide to sit back down by the letterbox, novelty calendar by my side, clock perched at my knee, ticking endlessly. day 5 waiting for package i fall asleep at the door, and when i awake i notice a small red slip hanging from the half closed letterbox, my eyes widen, could this be it? has my day of reckoning finally come? no, it is a "sorry we missed you!' notification slip, i silently curse the wretched postman for not doing as i asked and take the slip, pinning it to the bathroom door adjacent to me, and continue my endless wait. day 6 waiting for package i have watched the sun set and rise, all within a matter of seconds, i do not know what happened to my clothes, i do not know why my hair has been torn out, all i know is that my ball of postal love is now its way to my very location, this thought fills me with glee, and then it fills me with endless melancholy, at the wait i face, i consider buying plane tickets to the US, so i can go and collect it myself, but i quickly dismiss the idea, realising that if i had the money to do that, i could have just bought first class. I realise it has only been 2 days, but my red hot brain simply does not care, rattling inside my head, bouncing off the walls of my skull, every single lobe and cortex filled with the image of a perfectly square, brown package with a neatly placed, anatomically perfect sticker in the middle, and in glorious black text, my name and address, obviously i will have to defile this work of consumerist art, but for now the idea of it being sat there, in all its glory, fills me with a feeling of pure elation, like drinking a bottle of human endorphins, and then rolling around on a soft, silk carpet. day 8 waiting for package My wait has become torture, an acute sense of pure dread, time means nothing anymore, all of the letters and scam slips that have been delivered lie in a crumpled heap on the floor below the letterbox, i keep them there so that when my package arrives, it will have a soft cushiony landing, consumed in unpaid bills and religious propaganda. i painted the walls red, i don't know why, nor do i have memory of this incident, all i know is that my walls are now red, with a slight hint of magenta, and a picture of someone elses child is pinned to the back wall, my deep descent into insanity has taken me to the dark depths of my own subconscious, painting colours i had not seen before, flinging at me balls of compacted sound, so tightly packed that i could see wavelengths leaking from the tiny cracks that litter its surface, my mind feels ready, volatile, the moment the package slides through my now immaculate letter box, i will burst through the door and cut the postmans trachea with a long thin knife. Although i do not remember leaving this spot, it seems i now have a large array of sharp weapons surrounding me in a perfect semi circle. i no longer know how long i have been waiting here, i have not slept, i have not eaten, i simply phase out of my own body and sit there, completely still, for hours and hours, my ear drums feel like thin ice, a hint of pressure and they will smash, cracking my surroundings and instantly making me aware of my imminent doom, or in this case, my imminent salvation, i will sacrifice this postman to the gods of logistics and shipment, in hope they reward my dedication with a gift only a great deity could give. my package arrived and its a fucking yoga dvd, this isn't what i fucking ordered, wait...what did i order? i run outside and hastily drag the dead and bleeding postman into my hall and frantically pace the room, where the hell have i been? what have i been doing? who the fuck ordered this yoga dvd? why are my walls red? why is there a dead guy in my living room? oh god there is blood everywhere, little flecks of bloody skin are stuck to the fur on the carpet, what the fuck am i gonna tell my insurance company? i went into a frenzy of psychosis while waiting for a package and murdered a postman in cold blood? i consider the obvious, and dash for the yoga dvd sat in a crumple of stupid fucking beige packaging, i tear the protective film off and violently open the dvd, a note is delicately slid beneath the disc, i take a moment, compose myself, and pull the note from beneath the disc, appropriately named "Betty's 5 Star Workout" on the back of the slip of paper, there is a note that reads: "regards, us.

I had just finished swimming at the water park with my daughter. Water dripped off my skin as I walked up to meet my best friend Trey who had told me he knew of a great story. I am a newspaper reporter so I’m always looking for great stories. I found him sitting at the edge of the pool, having a beer with a group of people I didn’t know. I walked up and sat down beside him. “Hey man, so where’s this story you’ve been telling me about?” Trey smiled, took a sip of his beer and slapped me on the back. “I’ve got a story for you, my friend. Follow me.” He got up and walked out of the park and over to a jeep. I followed. We hopped in and set out into the dessert. As we were going, I saw a convoy of Humvees kicking up sand, flying through the dessert. They stopped and hundreds of people gathered outside of the trucks. I asked what they were for and Trey said something about they belonged to Leslie. We made our way through the desert and towards the jungle. We stopped right on the border of where the desert ends and the jungle begins. A woman, with her blond hair wrapped in a black turban and a thick scar running down the right side of her face, stepped in front of our jeep. She had the bottom half of her face covered so only her eyes were showing and she wore a tight black shirt and camo pants. She walked up to the jeep and opened my door. “Hello, Nick.” Her voice sounded familiar. She pulled back the black shawl from her face, revealing herself to be a cop on my beat. I was taken aback. “Trey here tells me you want a story. Follow along and you’ll get the story of your life. First, you need to get in the backseat.” I jumped in the backseat and Leslie got in. When her door shut, Trey started the jeep and into the jungle we went. It was a beautiful ride, but bumpy. Green moss crept up some trees, almost taking them over. I had no idea where we were going. A little further on, a small village appeared on the right. Smoke rose from the campfires and I noticed a man with a gun, staring at our vehicle as we passed. It wasn’t long after the village that two men appeared in our path, forcing Trey to stop the jeep. One was clad in all black from head to toe, the other also clad in black, but wearing a hood which cast half his face in a deep shadow. I could only make out his mouth, and it didn’t look happy. Leslie jumped out of the vehicle and made her way behind the jeep to speak with the men. While I watched her go, I noticed my nephew had stowed along and was now sitting beside me. “Where did you come from?” He didn’t answer me and instead watched Leslie. She approached the hooded man. He began speaking to her in harsh language I didn’t understand. She spoke back just as harshly. She clinched both fists and put them in front of her at waist level. The hooded man put his hands on top of her fists and began pushing down. Leslie’s fists didn’t budge and she began talking to him again, this time louder. After a time, he moved on and walked to my side of the jeep. He pulled out a small sidearm and pointed it directly at me. I felt the panic rise in my throat and knew I was facing death. Leslie yelled something at him and his gun moved slightly. Next thing I know, BOOM! A flash of light appeared followed quickly by deafness. I checked myself for blood but found none and was in no pain. I looked over at my nephew. He was holding his side. “He fucking shot me.” he said. Leslie crawled back in the front seat and the jeep lunged to life. My nephew seemed to be taking his wound well and was even smiling. After a few minutes, we pulled into a large silver airplane hangar. How they got an airplane hangar in the middle of the jungle I’ll never know. We all got out, except for my nephew, and headed inside. I followed Leslie and Trey since they seemed to know what they were doing. Leslie told me to stop at a pile of wooden boxes. The boxes were stacked and I was able to rest my arm on one. I was still shaken from almost getting shot, so I waited. Trey and Leslie disappeared into another room. I noticed to my left, a makeshift room had been set up, using surgical separators as walls. There was a big open space where people could walk in and out. I peeked around the side and saw a man standing there, dressed in an Afghani warlord outfit. He was standing on a green cloth with green behind him and he had professional movie lights surrounding him. Odd. Trey came bounding up to me from behind another wall. “What’s this story about Trey?” I said. “Just wait, man. These people have a legitimate case. They say they’ve been deeply wronged.” Leslie came around the corner. She was pushing a small, metal hospital table. She set a small object on it and began to walk away. All of the sudden, the man I had seen on the green cloth comes storming out of his room. He begins shouting at Trey then punches him in the mouth. A fight breaks out and Leslie disappears. Trey finally gets up after landing a few blows and grabs the small object from the table. Trey looks like he’s taken a couple of good shots because he’s stumbling around while holding the object. I’m not sure what it is and while I’m trying to figure it out, Leslie comes back around the corner with a couple of armed guards. Trey drops the object and only when I see a pin hanging from his finger do I realize it’s a grenade. The man he had been fighting throws a canister of some kind of liquid down. “Oh shit. Run Nick! Hide!!!!” Leslie screams. I jump behind the wooden crates as a huge explosion fills the hangar with flames and heat. I feel the fire lick the back of my hands and then it’s gone. I look up, only to see the barrel of an AK-47 centered right between my eyes. A woman with short red hair is behind the trigger and is saying something to me in a language I don’t understand. I put my hands up and pray. Leslie comes up from behind and kicks the gun away from my face. She begins to fight the woman. I jump up and help. We finally wrestle her down to the ground and I force the barrel of the AK up under her chin. “Pull the trigger, bitch. Pull the trigger. PULL THE FUCKING TRIGGER BITCH.” I scream. She has no intentions of pulling the trigger herself, so Leslie helps her out. I pick up the AK and look down the sights as I turn the corner, looking for Trey. I find him with his hands up as another armed guard has a gun pointed at his head. I lift the AK up and send five shots through the guard’s head. Some women scream and Trey looks at me astounded. “I didn’t know you could shoot,” he said. “It’s just like they do in video games,” I shouted. We make our way down a long corridor and eventually come across a helicopter. It is a sleek looking contraption with two small doors leading to the cock pit. Trey slides open the driver’s door and hops in. I jump up on the edge and finally figure out how to slide my side open. I jump in and look at Trey. “I didn’t know you could fly a helicopter,” I said. The rotors jump to life and I wake up out of my dream.

Nov 1997 Hi Dad, Mom has been coming home late. I don’t see her the whole day and she usually comes home when TJ and me are already asleep. Sometimes I feel her touch my face before she goes to bed. I try my best to stay awake every night so I can see her and hug her but I always fall asleep after dinner. Mom brings different friends over. Usually, it’s a boy. I don’t really like meeting them. They don’t play with us and they never cook for us. Ramon was okay, he was really nice to TJ and me. He would sometimes play with us but he wasn’t as fun as you. I started to go to school now! We go to school at Coldwater Canyon Elementary which is near Grandma’s house. Mom stayed with us until everyone in the class introduced themselves to us on our first day of school. I was really scared at first because I didn’t know anyone else except TJ. I was really shy to everyone, even to Ms. Feldman though she was very nice to us. Sometimes when she sees me sitting alone, she would take me to the other kids and ask them if I can join in their game during recess. I would play one game with them then sit back on the benches again. I feel like they didn’t want me to play with them in the first place. I like it when its class time though. I really learn a lot and Ms. Feldman says I do a good job. I wish I had my own crayons though. I sit with the other kids and we have to share crayons when we have to color something. Some of the paper around the crayons is ripped off and the most of the crayons were broken into pieces. Can I have my own crayons? Mom forgot to buy me crayons for school. I like the ones with 64 colors and a sharpener in the back. I wish you could’ve brought us to our first day of school. I think you would have stayed longer than Mom in the classroom to make sure TJ and me were ok. I know you would make us really good lunches for our first day of school. I love you and I miss you always.

For as long as he could remember, life had been perfect. Or, at least, halfway there. Trent lived in a world that was predicted, and yet, could not have possibly been. Each day, as the Earth died more and more, he went to the surface. He scavenged for scraps of the past, anything that could help scrabble out an existence underground. Each day, past the soot-stained arch that marked the only entrance to the compound he called home, there was no telling what awaited him. After he returned, though, that was when the real fun began. He walked along the scrap-patched bridges, the rotting corridors, and the wide, almost-new-looking thoroughfare to get to his cave with the patchwork walls, made out of old screens, cords, really any electrical odds and ends he could find. There was one unbroken screen, carefully covered by a dented old road sign, the painting long ago stripped away, leaving only an occasional spot of rust to break the grey, dented surface. Trent would enter his home, carefully shut the old sheet of metal that became his door, and uncover his screen. There was a keyboard, with only a few working keys, as well as a cord with a very peculiarly-tipped end. It looked almost like the end to an amplifier cord, but that was not its intended use... Although, in a different meaning, it was. Trent touched the few remaining keys in an order long burned into his memory. He would wait for the screen to flicker, then light up. As soon as it did, he was off. Trent would thrust the end of the cord into his Jugular, however inconvenient this was, as it was covered by the collar of the jumpsuit he was required to wear. Trent would plug in, and for a few blissful hours, be unaware of the rest of the world. He would carefully divide his time, only under the influence of the screen and the cord when the surface was dark, and the abominations held their twisted court. Trent would be back with his family, as if nothing had changed. The Order had not passed, or there had been a rebellion against the nameless, faceless politician who called for it. But then, he would be yanked away, to toil at the surface as soon as the day broke. For Trent, that was all he could ask for. This day was not to be like the others, however. Trent was sent to the surface to scavenge, but that was where the similarities ended. He was sent West, instead of East. He did not know why; the West was full of the abominations, the area most affected by the Order. Still, though, Trent would do his job. Anything to return to the screen, his personal Eden. He dug where he was told. He did what he was supposed to. Then his supervisor walked off. This was very unusual, and Trent was not sure why. He did not question the supervisor's motives, though. He just kept digging. Trent strayed from his predetermined dig site, thinking that he had found everything he could. He dug somewhere else, and unearthed something he should have left long buried. He unearthed an ancient disc, marked with a few barely-legible letters: "N A". There appeared to have been a third, but it was long gone. Trent brought the disc back to his dig site, and waited for his supervisor. All was well, when Trent told the man how much he had done. The supervisor demanded to be given the disc that Trent unearthed. Trent managed to strike a deal, though, that both he and the supervisor could see what was on the disc. I pity them both. They saw, and the disc held the only surviving record of myself giving the Order. I had liked Trent, he did his work well. However, I could not let this go unpunished. I very quickly ordered for Trent's screen to be disconnected. He was found dead just a few days ago. It seems that he stabbed himself with the cord over and over. I guess he just couldn't handle being unplugged.

**Part 2** Sarah sat in the pews. She watched as people walked up and left a rose next to Mary’s coffin. She tried not to think about the moment she died; she tried not to imagine how it must have felt. That psychopath had killed so many innocent lives that day in the food court and the government insisted that it was only a gas leak. The man was still out there, still plotting to kill others. A scrawny teenage boy sat down next to Sarah. She hadn’t seen him since that day. “What are you doing here, Marcus?” Sarah asked. “Did you know Mary?” “No,” Marcus responded in a stern voice. “No, I didn’t. But I failed her. I owed her this much.” “How could you possibly have failed her? You were the only one who even tried to fight that guy.” Marcus’s face was solemn and stoic. He stared straight ahead as if he didn’t hear anything she had to say. The preacher approached the podium and prepared his speech. “Marcus,” she whispered. “How did you become that strong? I know you know more than you’ve told me, so spill your secrets. I know your identity, but I haven’t told anyone. You can trust me.” Marcus turned his head and looked straight into her eyes as the preacher began his speech. “Today we have gathered to remember Mary, a friend to most, and most importantly a daughter and sister to the family she leaves behind,” the preacher began. “Sarah you don’t want to know. You’re already in enough danger.” “Marcus, if I’m already in danger, I should know what I’m getting into. Just tell me. I’m a big girl, I can handle it.” “I think that all who knew Mary would know that she would want us to forgive and not hold a grudge,” the preacher continued. “Fine,” Marcus replied back hurriedly. “Meet me outside after the funeral and we’ll talk.” Sarah nodded. A noise stirred in the background and soon the doors opened up. The preacher stopped for a minute to see what was going on. A girl Mary’s age stood there looking rather embarrassed. She was dressed in a black dress that had many vertical slits near its bottom. The slits flittered back and forth from the gust of the large double doors closing, revealing the metallic purple underside of the fabric. Sarah had never seen this woman before, her shiny long black hair and her dazzlingly bright green eyes hypnotizing everyone who dared to look at her. “Sorry everyone,” she said. She quickly hurried to find an open seat. Sarah squirmed uncomfortably as she settled right next to her. “Like I was saying, Mary would not want us to live in anger or fear. She would want us to move on with our lives, not hold onto some crazy desire for revenge. After all, revenge leads us down a dark path, one that once traversed can not be deviated from.” “Yes, but revenge can be so sweet,” the girl whispered into Sarah’s ear. “By the way, I’m Eve.” Sarah ignored her. Something in her voice crept her out. When the preacher finished, Mary’s family and friends stood up to say something. After almost falling asleep while her family made speeches full of a grotesque amount of sobs and pauses, Sarah took notice of Grant, Mary’s boyfriend. His speech was rather odd, almost devoid of emotion. She figured he must have been having as hard a time as her family was, but was trying to hide it. Towards the end of his speech, she was surprised to see Eve stand up beside her and head for the podium. “Hi everyone,” the girl began. “My name is Eve, and though most of you may not know me, Mary and I were quite good friends. I have a few words I’d like to say in her memory if you all could humor me for a few moments.” “With all due respect to the preacher, I could care less what Mary would have wanted. Honestly, I think she would have wanted justice, not a gas leak cover up.” The crowd seemed to be getting irate at these words. However, Eve was unfazed by their contempt and continued on. “I was there when Mary died. I saw it happen. Seeing someone stabbed through with an umbrella is not a pleasant experience.” Eve paused and looked straight at Grant, a fierce gaze that unnerved even those who weren’t the recipient. A look of panic and fear crept onto Marcus’s face. “I don’t believe revenge is always a dark prospect. Wanting to capture, torture, and then kill the one responsible for Mary’s death? I agree with the preacher that ‘a dark path, one that once traversed can not be deviated from,’ is the lot of a person who seeks such revenge. I do not intend to embrace that kind of revenge. Rather, I believe in a vengeful justice, one that brings down upon the head of the guilty exactly what they deserve.” “Sarah, do you know her?” Marcus asked quietly. “Did Mary ever mention her?” “No, why?” Sarah asked innocently. Marcus didn’t answer. “Well, today I am here to promise that vengeful justice for my fallen friend,” Eve roared on. “Whoever that masked man is, the one who can do things that most humans would never dream of, should run as fast as possible. When I set my sights on him, there will be nowhere for him to run. Nowhere for him to hide. Mary shall have justice, I ensure all of you, and I will not hesitate to dull it out.” Sarah watched as Mary’s family burst out into tears while Eve sat back down beside her. Sarah could feel the stares of everyone at the funeral, even though they were being directed towards the woman sitting next to her. After the service finished, Marcus got up and hurried out of the church. Eve hung around for a little while with Sarah. Sarah decided to feign an excuse and leave as fast as she could. She had to meet up with Marcus and find out what was going on. She walked over to the cemetery by the church and found Marcus hanging around a gravestone, sunglasses covering his eyes. It was midday and dark storm clouds hovered above them. She shouted out and waved to him. He looked back at her, and as she approached, he pulled down his glasses, revealing his red and swollen eyes. His face was one that was more hardened and solemn than she’d ever seen on another human being. “I failed to save her. I knew that he was going to try something like that, but I didn’t stop him before he did. I couldn’t even save the people who survived.” His voice sounded like that of a tired, old person, who knew that they only had hours left in this world. Sarah admired and pitied him at the same time. “You may have not saved her, Marcus, but you did save me and my other friend, not to mention the countless other people in the area.” “That’s where you’re wrong. You didn’t see everything that happened, Sarah. I was just getting back to my feet. Your friend was about to hit the ground, but right before she did, some invisible force caught her. And then, just as he had murdered everyone there, someone else sent a huge piece of debris flying through the air at him. He ran and I scooped up your friend.” “Marcus, you still fought that man. You prevented him from easily killing a whole bunch of us. And isn’t it a good thing that there is another superhero out there helping you out?” “No, Sarah, it’s not good at all.” “What? What do you mean?” she asked. They stood in silence for a few seconds. Sarah looked down at the gravestone. She couldn’t believe that she didn’t recognize where they were. A few tears welled up in her eyes. Not only had she just lost Mary, her best friend, but she had also lost one of her best friends from childhood, and here laid his final resting place. It had been a year and a half since Isaac’s death and she still couldn’t think about him without crying. “He was my best friend, you know,” Marcus said. “I… it all started back then Sarah. If he were still alive, he would want you to get as far away from here as possible. The things that are about to happen… Lets just say that you’d be better off not knowing any of this. If you want to turn back, now is your chance. Once you know, it is unlikely that either of us will come out of this alive. Isaac already did what he could to protect us all, and I won’t be able to keep you safe.” “Stop trying to shelter me!” she yelled. She was surprised by the level of anger in her voice. She figured it must have been a combination of grief for Mary as well as wanting to know more about Isaac’s death. “I want to know what happened to my best friend. I want to know how a scrawny guy like you possesses super human strength. And I damn well want to know what you meant by saying it started with Isaac. What could he have possibly had to do with this?! You almost make it sound like he was murdered, just like Mary.” “Make no mistake!” Marcus shouted. “He wasn’t murdered like Mary. Not to insult her memory, but Isaac died a hero. I should know. I was there. I watched the life seep out of his…” Marcus had stopped speaking. It took Sarah a second to figure out was going on, but then she felt something cool and sharp against her throat. Because of their shouting, they never heard the slight rustling of leaves, the sound of a man coming up behind her. Marcus looked like a deer caught in the headlights, his hand frozen in the air from making an impassioned gesture about Isaac. “How noble Marcus,” came a voice from behind her ear. “Trying to protect your little girlfriend here. What a fool you are to think she’s safe.” “What do you want?” Marcus growled back. Sarah felt a slight twinge of pain as the knife slipped slightly and a bit of blood ran down her neck. Her captor continued to talk, his breath stinking and repellant, and his words as cold as ice. “This is your only opportunity Marcus to save those you care about. If you do as we say, we will guarantee their protection. It’s quite simple actually. We want you out of the picture. With your superhuman strength, you should have no problem crushing your own throat. We both know how hard it would be to kill you any other way when a knife shatters if it even comes into contact with your skin.” Sarah couldn’t see it, but she could feel the man holding her smile. A terrified look washed over Marcus’s scrawny features. For the first time, though, Sarah noticed the handsomeness that was hidden in the face, one magnified by maturity and dim light. She felt the man holding a knife to her throat stumble forward, pushing her to the ground. She thought that it was all over, that the knife would slice right through her sensitive throat, but it never made contact. The man’s weight soon disappeared from her and she looked up just in time to see him running off into the woods, literally vanishing right before her eyes into thin air as if he was invisible. She could hear Marcus run over to make sure she was okay, but it was another man who extended his hand to help her up. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?!” Marcus shouted. “He could have easily slit her throat. Why or how he didn’t escapes me. Didn’t I see you the other day?” Kekoa stared right back at him, his generally shy and happy demeanor gone. “Well, he didn’t slit her throat, and all three of us are alive, so I’ll consider it a victory. Maybe if you had just explained everything right after the incident none of us would be in this mess.” Sarah could see the rage boiling up in Marcus. Before the two guys got into some testosterone fueled fight, she decided to butt in. “Kekoa, what are you even doing here. You weren’t at the funeral for Mary. You didn’t even know her. Thanks, by the way.” An odd look appeared on his face for a microsecond before it regained its normal composure. “Fine, I was standing right there when you identified Marcus. I figured he’d show up at the funeral, so I came as well and hid. I followed you two around, wanting to hear about all the secrets he has. But he still hasn’t said anything.” “You two really want to know?” Marcus huffed. “Fine! Here’s the truth. Get ready, because you won’t be able to escape the dangers of knowing it now.” “There are six of us. Each has their own super power, but none of us knew each other’s ability. That was until the other day. Mary’s boyfriend, Grant, is the man who murdered all those people.” “What the hell do you mean it was Grant?!” Sarah shouted. She couldn’t believe that it was supposedly Mary’s own boyfriend who had murdered her. Grant’s perverted masked smile flashed into her mind as she remembered the carnage he had caused. Marcus paused for a second, indignant that he was interrupted, before continuing on. “The guy holding the knife to your throat is John, an old friend of mine, although we weren’t very close. Thus, the three of us have revealed our abilities. The fact that someone else was obviously using the same abilities as Grant is concerning because each of our abilities is unique to us.” It was hard to believe what she was hearing, but after all she’d seen, she had no reason to doubt Marcus. She looked over at Kekoa who seemed unaffected by the news. She didn’t understand how he could be so calm. This earth-shattering news could change everything that they thought they knew. “I don’t know who she is, but the way Eve was looking at Grant, I think she knew. I think she knew exactly who he was. And if she knows that, then she is probably like us.” “Why is that a big deal?” Sarah asked. “There’s three more people like you out there. And Grant ought to run if she’s one of you. I can’t believe he’s the one who did all of that.” Anger and indignation seeped though Sarah’s voice as she spoke. “Because,” Marcus answered, “I know who the other three people are. I’ve never seen Eve before today.” “And what does Isaac have to do with it?” she asked. Kekoa flinched at his name, although she couldn’t understand why. Kekoa had only moved into town a year ago, while Isaac had been dead for far longer. “Isaac has everything to do with it. He is the reason I fight against the other five. Until the other day, they only committed petty crimes, but it looks like they want to move up in the world. I... We… It was us…” Marcus had stopped talking. Instead, he was on his knees, facing Isaac’s grave, his hands together as if he was asking forgiveness. An endless stream of tears ran down his face. When he started to speak again, Sarah could barely make out what he said through his sobbing. When she finally understood, she slowly started to back away, wanting to distance herself from Marcus as much as possible. However, Kekoa moved forward to comfort the distraught mess of a man that was in front of her. “It was… It… It was the six of… of us, that, that, killed him. I… It was our fault. My fault,” Marcus stammered. -154 *.

Hey /r/shortstories , I'm new to reddit and I've wanted to start writing for a while now but never chose to do anything with that ambition. Here is the first story I've written in a few years, so excuse my rustiness. Any feedback is welcomed, . Please be gentle :). Darkness…All I see is darkness. All I feel is darkness. There’s a light, a light that keeps expanding. I’m pulled towards it, I don’t have a choice, as if I’m being propelled to it. A girl, a girl is across from me. Who is she, why is she laying down next to me? That smell…what is that smell? it’s putrid, I can’t locate the source but it makes me want to vomit. It’s as if that smell is contradicting to my being. I can feel my arms, my legs, my fingers. What’s happened? Why is there screaming? I don’t understand. Now I’m standing, walking? No, being pulled by a person. I don’t know what to do, this person is yelling at me. I can’t understand what they are saying but their eyes show fear, disgust, and hatred. Am I the cause of their emotion? I look behind me to the girl that was next to me. I don’t know who she is but it’s as if a part of me is lying next to her. I want to pull away from this stranger but a bigger part of me is pulling me with them. Why is it raining? I look up but all I can see is smoke…all I can smell is smoke. That putrid smell has become a taste. A taste so unnatural, so repulsive that I can’t help but look for the source of my disgust. My train of thought interrupted yet again…again, by rain drops but it is not raining. I look again for the girl behind me but she is but a spec. The stranger…he’s gone. When did this happen? How long has it been? I’m running by myself now. The sky is getting clearer. The smell of smoke fading, the putrid taste no longer lingers in my mouth. Screaming, I can still hear screaming. Rain drops…where are they coming from. I can’t see them! I look behind me once more to find the girl lying next to me. I can no longer see her. She is but a fading memory in my short existence. Rain drops… they are my rain drops but they are more than that. A waterfall, a waterfall streaming down my face. I see what I couldn’t see before. Fire, smoke ash, dust, death, blood. When did this happen? The ruins of an ancient civilization…that is what I see. I must go back, I must find the girl but I cant. My legs won’t move towards her, they move away from her. I don’t understand. I want to go back but I won’t. I no longer have control. The further away I move from those ruins, the more broken I feel. The smell is no longer in the atmosphere. The scent I detect reminds me of a past, a past that I can’t remember. A past that makes me feel unbroken. A smile…a smile that causes rain drops. I can see the smile because of my finger. The smile leaves but the rain drops stay. Why do I see a man with water on his face? Does this shiny metal on my finger, show me someone..

From the side, you could see his profile framed by the sun. So beautiful, it’s hard to explain. You have to sit there and wonder how God could have ever created something, someone so perfect. Ronan never seemed to notice the effect he had on people, especially me. As a girl, I’m not one to open up to just anyone. I have to be able to trust you with everything in me before I’ll even consider letting you in. Call me crazy, it just doesn't happen with everyone. I've walked by Ronan in the hallways at school so many times. Not knowing who he was, nothing about him. When we met it was completely by accident. I lay in bed, thinking of the past day that withered away like the rest of them. I’m not really the most exciting person, but I find myself in these situations from time to time, and I don’t know how it happens. I’ll go to bed at a reasonable time, and wake up at a reasonable time, yet I’ll always wake up exhausted like I never really did rest. For weeks this happened and I never knew why. Finally it happened. It was the night of the twentieth. I lay down, hoping sleep would come, and a good sleep. Then it did. I had a strange dream. Here I am, waking up from sleep to find myself getting shoes on, walking downstairs and out the front door like it’s not almost two in the morning. The night sky clear, the moon bright like a fresh lightbulb. I’m walking down the street, just walking. When all of a sudden I come to a stop. I look to the left, then right, then back behind me. There’s no one around, no sound, no nothing. It’s pitch black. No movement, I don’t know where I am or what I’m doing there. As I’m staring out into the dark abyss that is night, I start to rock. Not some ordinary rocking, this wasn't me doing it, a force outside of my control was pulling me back and forth. Then I opened my eyes. Suddenly I’m laying on my porch swing, wearing what I went to sleep in, along with my shoes of course. The sun hasn't risen yet, so it must still be early as I gain consciousness. I stand up and walk towards the front door, which was unlocked like I had left it, thankfully no one has noticed that I had left. As I walk inside I glance at the clock, it’s barely past 7 in the morning. Since I was up I decided to go ahead and get something to eat. So many thoughts running through my head, I don’t even know how to start to comprehend what happened in the night.

Urban legends are a sort of wish. They are a prayer borne from the suffocating dullness of life. But sadly, more often than not, the truth behind urban legends is just as boring as the people who imagine them. We dream of such possibilities because we, as the boring, don’t truly understand what it means to be interesting. The only time life becomes exciting is when there are things of value at stake. This cannot happen in the safe little bubble we build for ourselves. So we create these legends in lands far away starring people we’ll never meet because despite our infinite wishes for a more exciting life, none of us is willing to pay the price of excitement. Humans are impossibly powerful. As a collective being, they can create anything and destroy anything. Entire worlds can be obliterated by humans. So what happens when the entire race all believe in an urban legend? Things move into place. Things happen as if by divine providence to make sure that this legend exists somewhere in this world. Somewhere in this world, there is suffering and cruelty, and why is this? It is because we all wished it to be so. This is a story of entirely human creation. This is the legend that we have created. The suffering in this story is our fault. The deaths of these people are our fault. But ask yourself, would you really want to live in a world without suffering? What if every dollar you ever made was yours forever to keep? Would you really cherish each and every paycheck? We want this world to suffer. We want these people to die. Because if their lives aren’t used to remind us of the fragility of our own, who’s would? Then, maybe, perhaps just maybe, there might arise a hero to remind us of our own glory. This hero will transcend our understandings of our own courage, compassion, and humanity. This hero will never be born from the safety of an air conditioned living room. No, this hero can only be born out of the most desecrate of positions and in these impossible conditions; this hero must thrive through his own power and will. - “We can’t let this continue!” Her voice booms in front of the crowded street in front of her. Her 6 foot figure towers on the podium in front of the crowd of people of all ages, sizes, and colors. Their eyes look at her hungrily. “These people do not deserve to suffer while we have so much! We all have the ability to save a life!” She is wearing a lot of makeup. The foundation alone cost her hundreds of dollars. She is young for the amount of power she has, she is only in her early thirties. “It is one thing to reduce yourself to poverty, and quite another to be born in poverty!” She is the champion of the poor. “The children in the slum grow up on violence, disease, scarcity, hunger, parasites, predators, and death! Most of their parents die before they are even ten!” She is wearing a blue blazer that cost somewhere in the thousands. She clutches the podium hard in her passion. Her mouth moves very deliberately illuminating her deep red lipstick. Her diamond wedding ring leaves an indent upon the lavish oak podium. “That is why my company is starting Project Persist. I hope that we can set an example for the rest of the world to follow.” The cameramen scamper to every corner of the crowd trying to find the perfect angle. “I implore the rest of the world to forget about your selfish greed for just a second for the children in these slums!” The crowd erupts into applause. They have all gathered in the extreme summer heat to show their appreciation of this woman. She is the champion of the poor. Their standing is only made possible by multiple high powered electrical fans stationed sporadically around the street. These are the supporters of the poor. The woman on the podium raises her hand to silence the crowd. She waits patiently as they calm down. “Let us join together to combat the evils of poverty! No child deserves to die for something a dollar could’ve fixed. No brother deserves to be forced into violence to provide his family with something a dollar could provide. No mother deserves to mourn over a loss that a dollar could’ve prevented.” The woman puts her slender right hand over her heart. Her thumb covers her pearl necklace. “That is why I have dedicated my company to saving the slums! Unity Health will do everything within its power to save these children from utter destruction! Starting today, we launch Project Persist! This will be the cornerstone project of the world.” The crowd once again erupts. They look up through their minor sweat and discomfort to the angel of the downtrodden. The woman steps away from the podium into the open stage, careful to balance on her new thousand dollar heels. She takes from behind the podium a bottle of the finest champagne money can buy. She will spare no expense for the battle against poverty. “Let us commemorate this moment with a drink. I, Charlie Swearinger, swear that with the power of my company, I will provide the sick the medicine they need to not just survive, but to prosper! I will supply the slums with as much medicine as they could ever hope for and eliminate all disease in the area so that there will be less death, less violence, and less poverty!” Charlie opens the bottle of champagne making sure to shake it thoroughly before doing so. Champagne shoots out of the bottle spilling on the crowd below. They laugh and scream, dancing in the most expensive shower in the world. Charlie takes a swig of it once the foam has stopped erupting. “In the spirit of spreading wealth, I have decided to partner with a small distribution company, Angel Company, which I believe will empower them to realize their own potential. I have high hopes for Project Persist.” The crowd re-erupts into applause much louder than before. They pound their hands together so hard that it hurts. They smile maniacally with their glazed eyes open as wide as they can go. They don’t want to miss a second of their messiah saving the world. Charlie didn’t have high hopes for Project Persist. She only agreed to supply Angel Company with expired medicine. She only agreed to partner with the cheapest and smallest distribution she could without seeming stupid. She only agreed to Project Persist to combat the fallout of a known failure in one of her more widespread drugs. Angel Company had stupidly agreed to all responsibility and liability of the project. All she had to do was give them the drugs. She did this because it was inevitable. As if by divine providence we force the legends we imagine in our hearts to come true. We don’t purposefully create suffering, nor do we deliberately deliver pain. Instead, we unconsciously create the conditions where pain and suffering become inevitable. We take more than we need. We admire the selfish and exonerate the greedy. Subconsciously, we know that if others have less, we have more, and the less other people have, the more we appreciate what have. So our sole purpose in life becomes to acquire as much as we can obtain. We call it self-actualization and we call it realizing our own potential, when really it is simply taking from others so that we may be relatively better off. Through our insatiable need to love our own lives, we demand that the world suffer for us. We demand that we create stories and legends of immense pain and redemption as to remind ourselves of our own pleasures. So we torture the world. And sometimes, just maybe, a hero might arise from this torture to remind us all of the humanity that we have lost, if only for a second. It is to this end that we have created this broken city.

Sitting on his bed tucked away in a corner sits James. His walls covered in miscellaneous band posters and flags. Listening to his only friend, his record player. The fast music of Black Flag playing loud drowning out the bustling and busy streets below his two bedroom apartment in Salt Lake City, Utah. James always kept to himself. Mainly because he was always bullied for his musical tastes and especially the bright red mohawk that rests upon his freshly eighteen year old head. He became so sick of being the butt of all jokes and finally dropped out of highschool because of the relentless tormenting he received. A small bark comes from the front door. James turns down the music. “What the hell was that?” he asks himself. Another yip echoes through the almost bare apartment. James perks his head up with one ear to the wall. “The neighbor must have got a dog.” He mutters to himself. Another bark, getting closer now. “Shut that damn dog up!” he yells as he pounds on the wall. Suddenly his bedroom door swings open and a little yellow dog paws too big for its body comes stumbling in. James’s mom follows in. “Where did that thing come from?” he asks. “Some guy had them in a box on Main street” his mom says. “Well get it out of here”. “I got it for you”. “Why?” he asks his mom.”Because you need something thats happy to see you other than me”. “Fine, now leave” as he slams the door. The puppy looks up at him and cocks its head to the side. “What are you looking at?” He asks. James sits back on the bed and turns the music back on. The puppy tries to get up on the bed.”No!” James yells. The puppy lays down at the foot of the bed and lets out a sigh. “Mom! whats this dogs name?” James yells at the door. “ Its your dog, you name it” His mom yells back. “Belladonna fits I guess.” “Okay, I have to go to work.” “You stay here and don't screw anything up.” “Got it?” Asked James. A playful bark from Belladonna squeaks out. “I’ll take that as a yes” James grabs his backpack and walks out the front door. A couple of grueling hours of yelling and lectures from his parsimonious boss. James finally takes off his dishwasher’s uniform and walks out the back. A long walk and a couple cigarettes later he finally gets home. His mom is asleep in front of the tv once again. The soft sounds of an infomercial playing in the background. James gets a blanket from his moms room and lays it over her. He turns the tv off and walks down the hallway to his room. He opens the door just in time to see his favorite vinyl album being torn by Bella. “ God damn it!” James yells swatting at her nose. “ That was Jeff Hanneman's autograph you stupid freakin’ dog” He grabs Bella by the scruff and tosses her out of his room. He slams the door and picks up the pieces and sets them on his desk. He turns the light off and lays down A couple weeks of James ignoring Bella go by. “James take Bella on a walk.” “Fine” he says. He grabs a rope and ties it to the silver metal loop and walks out the door. James sets course toward the mall. “Maybe you’ll be a chick magnet. Ha I doubt it” he laughs to himself. As he walks past the main entrance where a small group of girls, the same ones who filled his locker full of shaving cream stand sharing a single clove cigarette. James looks down at the ground as he walks past them. Suddenly the knot on the rope unties and Bella takes off running “Hey get back here!” he yells chasing after her. “I got her!” someone yells. James runs over to her “Thanks” he said in between gasping breaths. He looks up at the girl holding Bella. She has black spiked hair, a Distillers cut off tee shirt, and torn pants. “My name’s Brody by the way” “what's yours?” she asks. “uh, um J-James” he stutters. “Cute dog you got here” Brody laughs. “T-thanks” he says. “You wanna get coffee sometime?” she asks. “Uh yeah sure” he says. “well heres my number give me a call sometime.” “Yeah uh to-totally” A few months go by of countless dates to the lake, the mall, and out to dinner with Brody. “You know James” she said after moments of silence. “I really like you.” “I really like you too” said James still staring out across the water. “James, come with me” “where are we going?” He asks. “I gotta get out of this town” she says. “Screw it lets go” he said “ where do you want to go?” asks Brody. “Dunno anywhere you’re going I guess.” He says. “I got a couple friends in New York City we could crash with.” “That sounds awesome, lets do it” said James. James heads home with Bella, a full grown dog greeting him at the door. His mom still at work, James Starts throwing a couple shirts into a backpack. He writes a note. “Mom, Thank you for sacrificing what little you had to let me grow up happy. I want to get a new start. I’m moving to New York to start new. Ill call you when I get there. Love you, James K” Brody pulls up outside and honks her horn twice. Come on Bella lets go. The get in the car and start off across the country. A few days of overheating, empty tanks, and nights sleeping under the stars they finally made it. The lights glowing in the distance James wakes up Brody. “We’re here!” He yells. They show up at one of Brody’s friends place and they unpack. “Okay, keep clean and we’re going to be alright” says her friend. “I got a place where you can work. Its not glorious but it’ll have to work.” “Sounds good” said James. After working all night for months on end James had finally made enough money to get him and Brody their own little apartment in Hell’s Kitchen. “It aint huge but hey its ours” Said James. Bella barks in excitement. “Yeah I’m with her” Brody laughs as she jumps into James’s arms. Bella is sitting by the door whining. “Gotta go out girl?” Brody asks. It’s three o’clock in the morning but the city never sleeps. James is slaving away washing dishes so they can afford the rent. “Alright lets go” Says Brody. She sits down on the front steps and lights up her last cigarette for the night. Bella runs across the street to the park to relieve herself. As shes running back a large truck comes barrelling down the street. A loud thump and then a sharp bark. “Bella!” Brody shrieks as she runs out into the middle of the street. Picking up the limp dog and tears running down her cheeks carrying her back to the sidewalk. James comes running to the front steps. “What happened!” He yells. “I let her out and she got hit” Brody says through her tears and sobs. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to” She cries. “This isnt your fault.” James says reassuring her. The next morning James and Brody are standing in the park. James is digging a hole for a proper burial. James takes off Bella’s collar and whispers. “I love you Bella” a single tear rolls down his cheek. Brody hugs him and he starts to pour dirt into the hole. Our story ends with a quote from a very talented author “Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run, but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world whatever it meant.” Hunter S. Thompson.

It was a hot summer’s day. The trees swayed back and forth in the rare cool breeze, glad to be relieved from the merciless heat. As I stared up at the sky, the clouds seemed to dance around its blue canvas, forming bears, birds, dragons and all the figures that I could ever imagine. I stirred from my daydream to find my friend Danny. He was a short kid, with blonde sandy hair that never seemed to straighten itself out. “Wanna go bee hunting?” he asked me, excitement lighting up in his eyes like a wildfire. I smirked and followed Danny to meet up with the rest of the group. Bee hunting was a tradition for the group. We did it at the start of every school term. We would begin by finding a beehive. Then one person was nominated to try and knock it down. After the hive was knocked down, the goal was to run as fast as we could and try not to get stung. The epitome of games. As we drew close to the group, I could feel the eager atmosphere around us. Our group consisted of four guys, including Danny and I. The other two were Michael and James, although I was closer to Danny. Michael was fairly quiet, he didn’t do or say much, but I guess we all liked it that way. I was average height; I always have been average, nothing special. And James looked fairly similar to me, although he was a lot taller. When Danny and I were finally standing in front of the other pair, we all exchanged formalities then got down to business. “Has anyone seen a beehive since we got here?” Danny asked the three of us. “I actually saw one hanging on a tree branch at the back of the school!” James exclaimed. The fire in Danny’s eyes burned even brighter, I could feel it just from standing next to him. He found some sort of joy in this, nothing like the three of us did. It was like he had to do it to survive. It was in his blood. “Well what are we waiting for? Lead the way!” he smiled. We all ran for the back of the school to where James had described, not wasting a single second of our adrenaline. I scouted the tree line, trying to find the beehive that James had told us about. Finally, I saw a yellow spec in the distance. “There!” I yelled, as I pointed to it. As we reached the tree that the beehive was hanging from, the sound of buzzing was getting exponentially louder and louder. When we were finally standing under the beehive, the buzzing sound was roaring in our ears. I was stunned at how many bees there were; hundreds, possibly thousands! I turned to the group and tried yelling over the roaring in our ears, but they just stared at me. It was no use; we had to get away from the hive first to talk it out. I waved my hand for the rest to follow me, as I walked out of hearing distance from the hive. “Okay, so how are we going to do this?” I asked. Danny reached into his pocket and pulled out a box of matches. “I came prepared,” he smirked. He pulled out four matches and lit one of them before putting it out. He then turned the matches upside down so nobody could see the burnt part of the match and shuffled them. “Who wants to go first?” Everybody looked at each other, not wanting to go first and pull the burnt one. “I’ll go first,” I said, wanting to be the bigger man. Danny held out his hand, I looked at the matches, they all looked the same. I decided it was just better to close my eyes and hope for the best. I held one hand over my eyes and used the other to pick a match. When I picked one up I heard the others sound a sigh of relief. My stomach started to sink as I opened my eyes to reveal the burnt match in my very fingers. “Just my luck…” I muttered. “Okay, so what are we using this time boys?” Danny asked us, seeming kind of disappointed that he didn’t get to pull the burnt match. I looked around for something that would do the job, but put me at the furthest distance away from the hive. If only I had my slingshot right now. I thought to myself. As I hunted the thick grass for something that would be of use to me, I found a nice, sturdy looking stick that was about half my height. Definitely no slingshot, but it will have to do. I thought. I picked up the stick and started to walk towards the hive. As the buzzing got louder and louder in my ears, I realised that I was pretty much alone now even though the group was right behind me. There was no communication now, just me and the hive. Time slowed down. As I looked up at the home of the bees, I felt like my heart was about to burst out of my chest. Suddenly I felt regret, fear of getting stung. This is stupid, why am I doing this? This is stupid. I told myself. Snap out of it! I brought myself back to the main point of this whole activity. The thrill and exhilaration was just too good to pass up. I slowed my breathing, trying to gain my confidence again. I looked up at the hive and steadied my stick, like a baseball bat; ready to take the biggest swing of my life. I closed my eyes as I started to swing, time slowed down. Every millisecond felt like a year. I thought the stick would never hit it. Suddenly a huge jolt ran down my arm and into my core. I opened my eyes as I saw the hive plummet. It shattered into a million pieces as it struck the ground. I knew I should run but I couldn’t, my body wouldn’t let me. I was trapped. I turned around and saw my friends sprinting from the impact. Then Danny turned around and saw that I wasn’t moving. He waved his arm at me to go, worry in his eyes. I finally came to my senses and my legs took off. Next I knew I was sprinting right beside Danny. He turned his head and smirked at me while we were running. I could see the pride in his eyes. The next 30 seconds went by before I could blink. As we threw ourselves on the ground, finally away from the bees, I felt the adrenaline leave my body. I looked around at the three others and we all laughed hysterically as our minds finally took in what had happened. “That was wild,” I muttered, breathing heavily.

The government, run by a bunch of so called peace warriors, so set on placidity that they forget the real human spectrum of emotions is actually a tool to be utilised, decided that they would control every single person’s mood in every single area, because everyone knows that placidity equals ‘peace’. Every school, workplace, shopping centre, park and home was installed with a dome. The new technology that erected a permeable magnetic field around each institution emitted non-toxic vapours into said dome which had the power to alter your emotions to a pre-set level. In essence; everybody in your workplace or school felt exactly the same. If your cat had vomited all over your shoes that morning you’d still feel just as god damn upbeat as Shirley on the desk next to you, who’d just been given a £1000 bonus. And you’d sit there smiling at Shirley, the smell of cat vomit slowly wafting from your heels, with nothing but genuine happiness for good old Shirley. Each DS, dome sector, e.g the schools colleges and universities, the workplaces or the recreation areas, operated on similar levels respectively. For example the schools were set to an atmosphere of high creativity and a certain amount of oppression (to enforce rules and regulations). Of course, happiness was set high and freedom of thought was the highest of any of the DS’; although levels were still only 50% of OHE, Original Human Emotions. Workplaces continued the trend of schools, although individual thought set to around 5%. Recreational domes are the most artificial of all the dome sectors. The laughs from a cinema or restaurant may as well be pre-recorded, as happiness levels are around 150% most people walk around in states of hysteria laughing innately at the tuna sandwich they’ve just bought. Many people welcomed the domes over their houses. It was an instant fix for families with loved ones suffering from depression in particular, which is actually 1 in 3 homes, and a wide array of unhappiness which could before only be combatted by a bottle of wine and a family sized chips with curry sauce. People got used to the numbness so quickly that the battle to think for themselves slipped away as easily as the governments propaganda slid these synthetic domes our lives like a glass ceiling slowly suffocating us. As the domes spread, war inevitably ceased. The jihadists before brimming with disdain for western civilisation now sat in domes in empathy levels of 200% and planned how they were going to help save the Borneo orang-utans. We were living an artificial existence without even realising. With the exception of dome silver.

As I lay down, my back against the cool, hard stone, my mind began to wonder. Why was I here? What was my purpose? I swept my eyes around the room once more, just to check. Why, you ask? In the foolish hope that maybe, just maybe, if I looked enough times, something would change. Something would be different. But no. Of course not. It was stupid. I was stupid. How could something change. It was always the same. The bare walls that imprisoned my mind were still there. The same, almost as if mocking me. Laughing at me for having hope. That was what hope did for you... Destroyed you. Tore you apart inside. Why, you ask, once again? Because it gives you something to believe in. Like a spark on a gloomy night it changed everything. An ignition of life, of feelings. Hope destroyed me. Hope took away my spark. Every time I looked up, it was there, haunting me. "Oh, you'll get out of here" hope said, almost like a person, a mind, but it was only my own. Hope took away my fears, my satisfactions, only to replace them with the foolish thought that maybe one day something would change. Does that answer your question? What question, you may ask. I'm not even here, you may say. You are now, and I'm telling you... You better watch out. You better stay scared. Do not let hope get you. Not now, not ever. Hope is a death trap, and you better be praying that you don't end up like me. Waiting, hoping for something to change. Do not hope for change, or you will end up changing for hope. I look up, and once again am a prisoner to hope. I see nothing. The bare walls mock me once more, their perfect, inhuman eyes staring far past mine. Although nothing, not even my pathetic abode could avoid imperfection. It was there, small, nevertheless significant, marked into the walls as one would carve their name into stone. Only this was much more important than some teenage attempt of ongoing presence... This was imperative. Something of substance, of urgent significance. The marks, the imperfections, were my way of perceiving time. Collecting data. These are what hope holds against me. I count the days, one two three... I mark them with a scratch, each one of considerable necessity. They line the eastern wall, gradually consuming more and more space. I stand up and run my fingers along the smooth stone. Along the scratches. The hope. They feel warm, comforting, although hope is not my friend. It tries to be, but I still have some dignity. Some constraint. Or so I think... Hope controls me. Hope loves me. Hope is love. Love is hope. Don't fall for hope, let hope fall for you.

The phone vibrates in Brian’s lap and, taking his hand off the wheel, he reaches for it only to knock it unceremoniously between the center console and the driver’s seat, where he sat in the late model gold Toyota on his way to pick up his roommate from work. “Fuck my life,” Brian mumbles under his breath, wiping the cold snot lining his nostrils across the arm of the long-sleeved shirt he’s been wearing for the past three days. Actually, who can count? He may well have been wearing it the whole week. He reaches down to the power cord plugged into the cigarette lighter, wanting to fish the slippery phone out from no-hands’ land and, attempting to stifle a sneeze, pulls the plug right out from the back of the phone which falls back into the abyss with a taunting “cli-clack”. The decoupling causes a sudden give in the taught cable and sends him into a rage. He pulls the plug out of the dash and proceeds to whip himself on his bare calf with the cable. “Awrrghhh,” he whines, rearing back with the cable to strike himself again. “Yea, take it bitch,” he commands of himself, a slight smile appearing just above what might have been a five o’clock shadow at five o’clock some four days ago. “It hurts so good, doesn’t it? You fucking weirdo.” His legs, previous poster-children of restless leg syndrome, temporarily stop their rapid shaking as he rubs the red strip slowly rising up in his pale skin. He grabs some of the ginger hair that keeps his legs from being mistaken for exsanguinated corpse flesh and twists it hard one time before rearing back with the green USB cable. He bears down with the cable again, harder this time and lets out a yelp, seemingly of pain, but the look on his face, that silly crooked smile of someone who is truly losing it, says otherwise. The hierarchy of pain is an odd thing, but Brian has learned to take advantage of it during these times of withdrawal. “Moments ago I hurt everywhere. Now I just hurt right here,” he thinks to himself, rubbing the red strip of raised flesh, trying to convince himself that he’s not some masochistic lunatic. These symptoms happen whenever Brian goes more than 24 hours without his almighty cure-all, his heroine: heroin. He’s already spent all the money that he so slickly conned out of his aunt on his insatiable habit and is now rushing to pick up his roommate, the wonderful Sandra, who very well may want to send him on a sketchy mission to procure more of the holy substance. She would undoubtedly share with him, just as he had with her. To be quite honest though, she’s carried much more of the burden in this relationship than he. This fact makes him want to escape from the reality of it all the more. He hits the cruise control, pulls forward on the seat belt and, like a contortionist, reaches his hand around the back of and underneath the driver’s seat, retrieving the elusive phone with his finger tips. He pulls it into view, corrects the course of the vehicle with his knee on the wheel, narrowly missing the back end of an 18-wheeler, and reads the offending message from Sandra: “I’ve got an emergency faculty meeting and won’t need you to pick me up for at least another hour. Why don't you go pick up new points at the pharmacy? We’ll get well after I get off.” “Son of a bitch,” Brian whines, thinking about the eternity that another hour of this torture will feel like. He thinks about the difficulty of picking up new insulin syringes, what Sandra referred to as “points.” This requires him to walk up to the pharmacy counter and act like a straight, up-standing citizen who suffers from diabetes, a simple enough task under normal circumstances, but far more difficult when sweating profusely and actively experiencing the paradoxical relief of the inflicted pain of USB cables and mini-Indian burns. Brian would very much like both to “get off” and to “get well,” however, so he plugs “Walgreen's” into the phone to receive GPS directions to the nearest one. There is one just two blocks further down from where he was heading already, passed Sandra’s work. He starts taking deeper breathes, trying to calm down, and takes some Axe body spray out of the center console. He sprays himself across the chest and under his arms, hoping that the clean smell will deter any upstanding citizen from seeing the truth of his deplorable circumstances. The sudden smell tickles his nose and sends him into another sneezing spell. To sneeze eight times in a row and not crash the car is no small feat, but his pride is short-lived as a cramping pain in his bowels causes him to almost double over in his seat. A sound like a bubbling oil pool emanates from and rumbles his whole torso. He scantly wishes for death, an end to all this needless, self-induced suffering. He slams on the brakes, noticing the light ahead is red, but he slides too far into the intersection. He sees the flash of the red light cameras snapping a picture of the license plate. “God dammit! Sandra is going to kill me,” Brian said aloud. The car he’s driving is Sandra’s and she would be responsible for that ticket. He has already got her a ticket once before. “I am the worst friend ever. I really think people would be better off if I were dead.” The light turns green and Brian pulls forward and into the Walgreen's. He gets out of the car and into the store, walking towards the pharmacy. He tries to go into the men’s room but the door is locked. He bumps into a lanky man of about six feet with a large black trench coat on in spite of the extreme heat outside. He shoves Brian a little bit forward, saying “Watch it, ass hole.” Brian, needing more than anything to empty his bowels, calls out “Sorry,” as he passes by him en-route to the counter waving a hand up in apology without looking back. He asks the pharmacist quickly for the keys to the bathroom, trying not to look as desperate as he truly was. The long-haired Indian woman with a ruby bindi in her third-eye smiles and reaches into her lab coat pocket and shifts around inside. She pulls out the keys and slides them jingling across the counter toward Brian’s outstretched, grateful hands. He thanks her and quickly makes his way into the restroom. He has no time to be concerned with putting the sanitary covers over the seat and, only slightly grossed out, drops his trousers and sits immediately on the unsuspecting toilet. He lets out a small wail of simultaneous pain and relief in accompaniment to the sound of a bucket splashing into a lake which emanates up from between and beneath his legs. He sits there, almost out of breath, but feeling very relieved. He hears two loud banging noises through the bathroom door. “Someone’s shitty car must be back-firing in the parking lot,” he thinks to himself. He takes another few minutes on the commode to ensure the anal onslaught is over, and satisfied that it is, cleans himself up, washes his hands and face in the sink and dries up in the ridiculous blower attached to the wall, its jet engine drowning everything out, and echoing all over the tile bathroom. He turns back to find where he set the keys to the bathroom and heads out to the pharmacy counter, ready at last to try and social engineer his way to some new points. He opens the door and makes his way to the counter. “Holy shit,” Brian thinks to himself as he notices the cash register lying on its side at the foot of the counter. Bottles lay all around it and a large metal cabinet, usually locked until the pharmacist accesses its contents, lays open at a 45 degree angle tipped over the counter. He looks around but there is not a single worker in sight. He rushes over and notices that all the bottles strewn across the counter and floor are controlled substances: narcotics! “Holy shit! Don’t mind if I do,” he says to himself, grabbing a shopping bag and filling it with all of the bottles he could grab. Oxycontin, roxicodone, meperidine, demerol, dilaudid, morphine, methadone, some fentanyl transdermal patches, and a few other things that even his street pharmacist brain had never heard of were all thrown in the bag. Just when he was finishing up looting all the bottles on his side of counter, he leans over to see if he missed anything. On the floor just on the other side lay the long-haired Indian pharmacist, breathing shallowly and holding a wound on her neck, blood pouring out between her fingers. Brian immediately loops the pharmacopoeia over his sweaty, bony shoulders and jumps over the counter, grabs a spare lab coat hanging nearby and rushes to the pharmacist, immediately applying pressure with the coat. It quickly soaks through with the blood spewing from her neck. Her eyes look glossy and are wide with terror as she squeezes on Brian’s bicep as though she believes that if she could just hold on to this sickly junkie, the rushing darkness would not overcome her. All would be well and she could be tricked by Brian into selling him the works he came for. Brian quickly ascertains that this poor woman is lost to the world. Should he hold on with her till the bitter end, or should he break away with enough drugs to sate his thirst for at least a month? As he makes his decision a rookie police officer rushes into the pharmacy, his Glock 9mm pistol drawn. He sees the woman bleeding out, clutching at Brian’s arm, as he lurks over her, holding her neck with a bag full of stolen drugs slung over his shoulder. He fires a single shot straight into the back of Brian’s head. Brian’s face explodes into the Indian pharmacist’s dead eyes, her bindi lost in the dots of scarlet spraying her face. “Police!” shouts the rookie officer.

“You’re a fucking asshole. How can you treat someone like that? You have no respect for anybody. Not even yourself.” Rae was upset, and for good reason. Although nothing had happened to her, she was adamant on protecting her friends. She was loyal, almost to a fault. James had never met Rae, let alone seen her, and the earfold was surprising for him. Not surprising because of the anger in her eyes, or even because of the intermittent high pitch squeaks that came out of her as she screamed. James could do nothing but stare into this little, flustered girl. The sound disappeared, and the world along with it. He noticed her cheeks red, showing no sign of flushing as she breathed heavier and faster. A smoker, he thought. James noticed the way her bottom lip hardly moved when she spoke, and it reminded him of a famous actress that slipped his mind. Her eyes were a deeper blue than his, and he had to kink his neck downward considerably to get a view of them. She was less than an arms-length away from him at this point, made clear by her curled forearm and the pointer finger dug into his chest. Not know to be perceptive in nature, James had transformed, at least just for her. From this view above her head, he was aware of her thin, flaxen hair. Not quite a redhead he thought, but close enough that surely she had been picked on for it. James felt truly horrible for her, for what he presumed she had to have gone through. This was the first time James felt bad for someone. He had never cried of felt emotion when family members died, or passing a man with no home. This rush of emotion was very foreign to him, and he began to well up. In the past fifteen seconds, he had learned more about Rae than he had learned about anyone else so far in his life. She was the sun to which his eyes would not adjust, and he was certain it would stay that way. “Rae look at him, I think he has learned his lesson. You’re embarrassing him”. Jess said. Jess was the victim of James, Jess was the one who had pictures of her body shown to close friends without her consent. Chubby, unkempt, insecure, but kind – she was one of numerous victims. “Let’s go Jess, this coward can’t even defend himself.

"Why aren't you listening to the rain?" Daito stared at the screen. "I don't know... I don't really care for what's outside. Do you enjoy listening to the rain?" "Of course I do!", Aki immediately replied. "It reminds me of my childhood summers. I could stand endlessly in the rain, not caring about anything... just smiling at the sky." "Didn't you get sick from that?" Daito replied, faking concern. "Sometimes, I guess. But I didn't care. All I wanted was to not feel the city around me anymore. I imagined myself somewhere far away, where no concrete buildings and no cars would spoil my day." "That sounds... great.", said Daito, almost disappointed. "I guess some days are beautiful." "What memories do you have from the outside?" asked Aki. “I don't know... my school days, maybe.” “That’s it?” “No, there’s more, of course. But those I remember more… vividly. “I know” Aki replied. ”I remember so much stuff. The light of the rainy days, like it was always just a little menacing and just a little hopeful. I loved how the clouds would always open up somewhere, almost like obeying my commands. I’m not boring you, am I?” “No, don’t worry.” Daito replied, almost afraid to say something wrong. “This helps me remember so many things, especially from the last spring. I loved coming home from school in the afternoon, when the sun was barely in the sky. It’s unreal.” “What is?”, asked Aki. "Like… how I realize I’d forgotten all these things and now they come back so clearly. The sounds of children that had just left school, sometimes running through the rain. The school bus, with that annoying honk that made everyone cover their ears..." "I loved walking through the rain. I was always sad when my mom would hurry me home. But she's a parent, she doesn't know much!" said Aki. Daito curled his lips and let out a sincere smile. "Yeah, they don't know anything. My dad still tries to convince me to go outside." "What does he say?" "That I need the air, the exercise, that I should meet others of my age and so on." Daito replied, barely watching the screen. "My mom tries to scare me with any stupid thing she can come up with. Like how I'll get ugly and sick. Or how I'll regret all this when I'm old." "And what do you say"? "I tell her: IF I survive that long! But I know she can't understand. Things outside were better when she was my age. Less cars, less poison, less people. Give me that and I'll go outside!" Aki said with a fake smile. "Haha, yeah." replied Daito, visibly enchanted by her outburst. The cursor blinked solitary for a few seconds. Daito grabbed his soda and waited nervously. "How long has it been for you?" Aki finally continued. "In five days, it'll be exactly six months. You?" "Let's see, I started somewhere in summer... so about eight or nine months, I guess. I wasn't sure at first, but after a few days I was like a newborn baby! I had found my new world!" said Aki, enthusiastic again. "Do you... ever miss it?". Daito found himself almost surprised by the question. "Neah, there's nothing out there for me. I got everything I need in here. The web, awesome people to talk to and - bonus - I still get to listen to the rain!” "But that's still outside." "Yes, well, I made it a part of my world. They can have everything else. I'm keeping my rain!" After all this time, Daito didn't know what to think. But just like Aki, he couldn't confront his tension. What was this fear, he asked. He thought that others would at least help him justify his indecision. "How do you keep busy?" asked Aki. "You know, the usual. I browse almost non-stop, take some online courses, read some stuff, watch some stuff, spend a few hours in MMOs... the usual." “Made any new friends or enemies?” “I guess I did.” “Are they all, you know…” Aki said, with convincing curiosity. “Um, yeah, from what I know, yes. Not that I only speak with those that are, but they understand my choice without asking stupid questions.” “Oh, I’m sorry!” Aki jumped in. “I didn’t want to bother you with my questions!” “What, no! I wasn’t talking about you. I enjoyed the conversation. No stupid questions here.” “Good to hear! So, am I keeping you from doing something really important?” “No, not really. I was taking a break after another raid and thought I should see any new subjects related to my, uh, homework. Your reply caught my attention and I wanted to clarify some things about it.” “I love poetry! said Aki. I’ve loved it since I was 12. And even then I was asking what was wrong with me for discovering it so late!” “Do you still write?” Daito asked, with the trace of a shy smile. “Of course I do! I don’t know if I could live without it. It’s my bread and butter! Well, my literal bread and butter. You know, because it’s related to literature. God, this must be the worst joke on the whole web.” “No, I love it!” said Daito, laughing. “I might even copy it.” “Please do, Aki replied, with joking affection. “Anyway, how is the project going?” “Good enough, I guess. I have to write a poem starting from the verses I mentioned in my post.” “I walk under the linden trees, I’ve life in me to spare for all?” asked Aki. That’s it, said Daito. “Excellent memory..” “There’s sooo many ways you can take this now!” continued Aki, almost euphorically. “Yeah, like what?” “Well, let’s see. You can talk about what season this takes place in and then describe everything that’s beautiful about it. You could continue by mentioning the smell of linden and what it reminds you of. How does the smell inspire you and makes you so ecstatic that you have “life to spare for all”.” “Sounds good. I had some ideas but I hope you won’t mind if I adopt some of yours.” “Not at all, young bard!” Aki replied. “Haha. Me, a bard. That’s a new one. I couldn’t write a decent poem if it hit me in the face!” said Daito. “I sure hope you won’t have to get hit in the face! Regardless, poetry is everywhere. Just like with everything else in life, reach out and grab it!” “Yeah, I guess. I’m not that great with grabbing what I want…” “Don’t worry” said Aki. “It’s a skill just like any other. The more you practice it, the better you get. Just like poetry.” “Thanks, I’ll keep this in mind while writing my poem”. “Care to share some of the ideas you had for it?” asked Aki. “Sure, I don’t mind embarrassing myself just a bit. Two verses I thought could work were: ‘And life itself I shall release’ or ‘I make my way towards the rain’... Before Daito could say anything else, Aki wrote in a panic: “RAIN! YOU LIKE RAIN!” “I guess.” replied Daito, visibly charmed again. “I knew it! But who doesn’t like rain, right?” “Technically, I don’t think everyone likes rain.” “Oh, don’t spoil my moment. What’s important is that you added that most magical of ingredients: rain!”. “Well, I’m not sure if any of these verses will make it in…” said Daito. “Here’s the better idea: both of these verses make it in. Plus - bonus - some of my ideas. If you want too, of course.” “Thanks for the help, by the way. I was stuck a bit, that’s why I made that post asking for ideas”. “The pleasure is all mine!” said Aki, prepared to erupt with as many verses as necessary. “Poetry just comes to me… naturally. I do have to work to find it, but it’s not like I can stay away from it for too long.” “Then I was lucky to find you.” said Daito “I’m glad. I didn’t find many occasions to put my poetry skills in action on the web. This a first, actually. Apart from my own stuff, I mean.” “Well, you’re ahead of me. And I might need assistance in the future if I want to complete the assignment.” Outside, thunder started to fade. Colored light strips would slowly make their way toward Aki and Daito’s windows. Unknowingly, both of them would hear the same sounds, the same intensity of departing rain and see the same first rays of light.

For all intents and purposes, this is my first *real* short story. I'm generally a screenwriter, but I decided to take a crack at something different, and spent the few hours or so working on this. Let me know what you think: Famed And Unloved ... And yet, he still cared. The Man still tried. Although he seemed to be disallowed from returning, he *had* to keep pushing. He wasn't certain of his whereabouts, and he wasn't the most inventive man, but he truly believed he was capable of making his way back into the old world ... and sometimes, a belief is enough to make a change. It was true that melancholia caused his banishment from the old world, but he always denied it. His followers resented him for his obvious lies, but, what other options did he have? He was a milquetoast, highly vulnerable man; a little chicanery may have been his only way to achieve success. And, as they say, the road to happiness is paved with deception. On one particularly lonely day, The Man walked through a starstruck courtyard. Upon finishing his waltz, he noticed an unremarkable tree -- unloved, so it was. He embraced the unloved tree; he was truly sympathetic. He'd also not been loved... not in *his* land, not in theirs. Was it a tragedy, the fact that he remained unloved in the old world, so long ago? Of course. But in the new world, loneliness was a common occurrence, and should not be thought of as disease. Rather, it should be thought of as natural law. At times, The Man felt admittedly important in the new world; after all, he was the only entity not to be born an unremarkable object. Due to this circumstance, he could not stay sane without a touch of scientific research. As a result, he was able to uncover the true secret behind consciousness: illusion. It is a combination of intelligence and sense -- nothing more. And in this land, everything and everyone had those two qualities: even buildings. Inanimate, remarkable structures became living, and thus unremarkable. So did the Church. The Church was all The Man lived for. It was his only way back to his land -- or so he thought. Considering how long he'd been going through with the rituals, the Church may not have been the goldmine he once thought it was. If anything, it was a *window* to his land ... not a door. And he had indeed seen glimpses of the old world: strange women and children, eyes soaked with tears. But he could never make it through. Perhaps his failures stemmed from his lack of faith; the powerful Gods assumed to exist were clearly fictional, in his mind. Back in the old world, there were thought to be no such deities. And he was positive the two worlds were interconnected -- and certainly located in the same macrocosm. Because of this, he figured there was no logical circumstance for a powerful being to exist in one world, and yet not in another. But then, he *has* experienced stranger things. In the new world, the status quo fluctuates often. For instance, the unremarkable structures once disappeared entirely, to be replaced by gigantic, rusty telephones. Poppycock, right? That's what The Man said, too, initially assuming he'd lost his mind. But soon after, the unremarkable buildings returned, and his confidence in his sanity was restored. He eventually became comfortable with these fluctuations, occasionally finding himself hoping for them to take place. On one particularly chilly morning, another one of these oddities came about. While the unremarkable buildings didn't go anywhere, The Man experienced something incredibly out of place. What started as a slight ringing turned into a jarring yowl, and then into the sound of a young woman crying. Although The Man recognized himself as the only human of the new world, he continuously searched for this crying wench. He searched banks, saloons, general stores, the like, but, alas, the crying eventually came to a halt, and he wasn't able to come across the woman. Four days of mindless searching through the freezing desert -- and for nothing. But it was okay; time went by extraordinarily fast in this world. Years passed, and The Man still - quite vividly - remembered the sound of the woman's endless cry. He could not pinpoint how, but he was certain he knew this lass during the pre-banishment era. That's one of the many faults of the new world: memory tends to drain. The Man doesn't know much about his land, only that he was renowned for his work -- and that he must return. The Man took a walk through a gated community, one evening. Despite what he initially thought, he seemed to take a liking to the place -- as if he belonged there. Through his travels, he'd never seen a neighborhood this high-class; it impressed him. Immediately, he knew this was going to be his new place of residence. It *had* to be. After weeks of deep thought, The Man decided upon which home he was going to purchase. It was an unusual looking affair for England; very modern. After an abnormally long period of sorting out paperwork, The Man was finally about to settle into his new digs -- until another one of the oddities occurred. Everything around him disintegrated: the homes, the desert - and he was enveloped in a sea of pitch black. The Man traipsed through the darkness, till eventually noticing a tall, bright figure in the distance. He ran towards the figure; it took him upwards of 20 minutes to reach it. It was a gargantuan man, likely the size of an unremarkable building. The giant picked up an enormous amount of white blocks, each one roughly the size of a mailbox. The gargantuan man lead his hand to his open mouth, dropped in the blocks, and swallowed. Gulp. He was deeply unsure of himself ...

Okay, it all started back in '73 I remember like it was yesterday because I just got a cool new hat and had lost it right away. This friend of a friend calls me up out of the blue sounding like he was sweating his ass off. He needed a favor as he was having trouble erasing some some reel to reel. He trusted me because I helped him with some uhhh, paperwork. Anyway, He was all thankful and said, "If you needed anything consider it done." Now I hadn't had a vacation for a while and I always wanted to get rowdy in Europe so he set me up with an all access pass to Vatican city. Now if that sounds boring, it is. but hey, a vacay is a vacay. I get over there and check the sights do all the touristy stuff, you know. Then it occurs to me to bust out the tequila I picked up at the duty free shop and started taking a few pulls. I *cannot* handle my tequila apparently because I start browning out. So I stumble around until I ended up in a closet I thought saw one of those "sexy" confessional booths you hear about. Lo and behold, there is one of those goofy-looking orange and blue clown suits and a funny helmet. After wandering around a little bit trying to walk it off. Though, I'm still taking pulls off that bottle for some reason. Anytime somebody started to give me the 'ol rigmarole I would flash my pass and they were super nice. A little time passes and I'm in another closet probably for the same reason as the first but this time it's full of cleaning supplies. Next thing I know, I'm prancing around St. Peter's Square with my broom "halberd" chasing a raccoon! I finally caught it after I smacked it with my near empty bottle. Now, I don't know if you have ever knocked out a small mammal but when you finally do it, you have no idea what to do with the darn thing. So call it divine inspiration but I come up with the craziest prank ever. I dig through my English to Italian dictionary and pick out some things to say. I then find the dumbest looking youngest Swiss guard I can find and hand him the broomstick now covered in anointing oil and say, "have you seen these new training weapons, they are supposed to help with your pole handling." It's always dark in that place at night so he just takes it right out of my hand without noticing that a drunk guy handed him a broomstick. Of course, he then gets the grease on his hands he then laughs sarcastically like he got pranked and I'm being a jerk. I pulled my trusty raccoon out of a vestment hamper and put the miter and a white sheet on him like a cape. When the timing was just right I took the rest of my hooch and spit it in his face to wake the critter up. I then shouted, "The holy father is possessed by the devil!" right in earshout of the guard. He runs in the room sees the miter and cute little papal cape on the freshly greased raccoon and starts trying to catch him. Call me lucky, call me unlucky but right at that very moment the *actual* Holy Father walks in. The guard practically shits himself out of embarrassment as the oily nocturnal creature flies out of his hands. It lunges teeth snarling at (let's call him P Numero 6 because I don't want to say any names) and wouldn't ya know? It takes his damned ring finger straight off. They ended up covering the whole thing up because they are used to doing that when they look bad. But I swear, I damn near almost undid the Second Vatican council that night. They managed to reattach the finger but they could never find the ring. They think the raccoon must have pooped it out. That is what they say anyway. I have a different theory: He absorbed the power of the ring and somehow became consecrated. That raccoon straight up vanished from a locked room. Normally, I would just think that odd but on some dark nights I hear something rummaging through my trashcans and the distinct sound of Latin chanting.

Billy is a normal boy, living in a normal world, or so he thinks. At age 10 the world his world is very simple, yet elegant. There are however, some odd things about young Billy’s reality. The first is that there is no color, nothing but shades of gray. This may seem weird, but poor Billy cannot remember anything different, as far as he is aware that is how things have always been. Billy also lives alone, there is no one else around, not outside, not on the street, not anywhere. Again, none of this bother little Billy. He lives a happy life, things are nearly perfect in this world. There is no one to tell him what to do, no one to dictate bedtime or tell him to go to school, no supervision of any sort, no rules. Billy plays happily, exploring the great unknowns of his nearby neighborhood, and a local shopping complex. In a world with no people, there are no boundaries. Billy excitedly wanders into the nearby supermarket. This world is his to do with as he pleases. He runs to the toy section. He is so excited that he doesn't notice the loose floor tile on the ground until it’s too late. He trips and falls, smashing his knee against the surface below. Billy lies there for but a moment and then stands up, there is no pain. He glances at his kneecap, there is no blood, no bruise, no sign of injury at all. This does not strike Billy as odd. He turns back towards the toy section and then something very interesting happens. For a moment, Billy is transported away from this idealistic grayscale land to a new environment. He recognizes this place as his bedroom, there is now color, and also great pain. He feels it heavily in his chest and coughs harshly, the room is hazy and it is quite hard to see through the smog that fills it, his eyes sting and water. Billy shuts his eyes to soothe them and immediately, he’s back to grayland Walmart. He stands stunned for a moment considering what he just witnessed, it was but a flash, less than a second, but he feels moved by this vision. After a moment he decides to no longer think about it, puts this occurrence out of his mind. Moments later, it happens again, this time he is being carried. He’s slung over some man’s shoulder. The thick oppressive air is getting to him, and it’s uncomfortably warm. He begins to close his eyes again, but then realizes that he can faintly hear his mother, from far away, she sounds as though she is crying. This new horrible world slowly begins to fade, turn gray, everything morphs and Billy can nearly see the aisles of the supermarket toy section again, He takes a deep breath and the color returns yet again. The toys fade away and he is more engrossed in the horrid, painful, multichromatic world than ever before. At this point he notices that he can hear sirens and people yelling commands at one another, there is a lot of movement around him. He recognizes the front door of his house as he is carried through it and further outside. The air is no longer thick, he can see clearly, though his eyes and chest still hurt. He looks around and notices black smoke pouring from the door he was just carried through. The man finally sets him down, in an ambulance. Billy is now nearly awake, he realizes where he is as his mother and sister come into view. Tears running down their faces, they cry out his name and move forward to hug him. Billy looks up to see the man who had been carrying him in full view, he is wearing a bulky oxygen mask and a hat. His outfit is brown with a neon stripe running down the side. Billy finally recognizes this as the uniform of a local firefighter. The man turns to Billy’s mother, he removes the breathing mask, “this boy is conscious, but he needs medical treatment. He inhaled a lot of smoke.” “Is he going to be ok?” she exclaims. “He’ll be fine, he just needs to be checked out by a doctor, he’ll probably need to spend the night in the hospital for examination, but after than that, he should be good”.

Hello all. This is my first post to reddit. This story is the first of a series of short stories I am in the process of writing. This started out as a satirical essay for algebra, then things sort of got out of hand. Enjoy it, if you are into that kind of thing. A boy sits at a desk. On the desk is a screen. The screen displays numbers, which flash in quick succession, one after another, across a white background. The screen flickers occasionally. The boy stares intently at the screen. His brow is furrowed, and beaded with sweat from the exerted effort of concentration. He stares intently, although he cannot see. His eyes are covered in bandages. The bandages are dirty, old, and they are stained with blood. The blood does not belong to the boy. The numbers flash by in an unending, random pattern. A pattern that the boy has memorized. The boy memorized the sequence without seeing it, hearing it, or, by some manner, feeling it. He knows the unknowable pattern in which the numbers flow. He knows the unknowable pattern which his life will take. He knows the unknowable pattern which your life will take. He knows how he will die. He knows how we all will die. How the universe will end, and how it began. He continues to stare at the numbers. The numbers his life. All he knows, all he ever learned (how to breath, to eat, to exist) came from watching the numbers. Watching them is all he ever does. All he has ever done. And, as he has learned from the numbers, all he will ever do. Suddenly, a noise. The boy is not alone in the room. Although the room has no doors, airvents, or an conventional way of entering or exiting, somebody is inside the room, and they were not there before. For the first time, the boy unwelds his gaze from the screen. He glances back and forth across the room, but vision (or lack thereof) yields no further information on the other person in the room. Neither does his senses of hearing, touch, or smell. He decides to cope with the sense of bewilderment that overcomes him, and goes back to watching the numbers. But, slowly, dread rises within him. Dread, now permeating him, becomes fear. Fear of the other person in the room. That person means him no harm, but he does not know that. The boy’s mind is frantic, and he feels that the person is there to harm him. To kill him. He has no reason to think that, other than the uncertainty that is existence. But why should he fear death? All he has done in his life is stare, unseeing, at a screen of numbers, not comprehending, yet completely understanding every single one. All of lifes’ knowledge was at his fingertips, brought to him by the numbers. He had nothing left to gain in life. Yet the uncertainty of what lies behind the door of death terrifies him. For all he knows, death could be another frontier. Another adventure, a quest, a journey to undertake. Or it could be cold, black, motionless, suffocating silence. The inability to know what lies ahead, only that he can never return from it, keeps him glued to life. The person is gone now. The boy does not know, but the person has left. They will never return. They left just as suddenly as they arrived, with just as little warning. The boy, however, lives out life forever changed by the persons’ presence. The numbers no longer make sense. Life no longer makes sense. Existence may well be a figment of the boys’ imagination.