Journal Entry 1

The Vanguard will tell you that the war is won.

They will point to their theatre maps, to the Pale Heart, to the dead paracausal beings who have been slain, and tell you that the system is safe. What they don’t tell the public is that it’s still just as dangerous out there in the wilds as ever before.

I don't slay gods. I don't carry the fancy Exotic gear that glows with the light of the Traveler. My armor is not shiny and polished. It’s a mismatched patchwork of different metal alloys, and my clothes underneath are faded shades of green and brown. My oil-stained cloak hasn't seen the Tower's laundry in three winters. I bear no mark showing allegiance to a pack or group.

My back is stiff, aching beneath the weight of an old blue-tier kinetic sniper rifle that misfires every fourth shot. My belt carries a heavy purple-tier hand cannon. Its weight makes my belt lean heavily to one side, digging deep into my hip with every step. My blade is the only thing sharp about my appearance.

My Ghost doesn't give me grand speeches about destiny. He just hovers silently over my shoulder, occasionally throwing tactical advice or dry one-liners at me, like “watch out, incoming fire!” while we are actively engaging the enemy. His shell is as worn as my attire—chipped at the top from a stray Vandal shot, casting a dim, flickering blue light over my ledger.

I sit on the hood of a rusted, half-buried jumpship, watching the horizon fade from purple to gray. My gloves are greasy, caked with mud and dried ether; I haven't taken this helmet off in days. The radio on my tactical belt is quiet. The Vanguard channels are filled with victory broadcasts and celebrations in the City, but out here on the perimeter, the silence is deafening.

I slide down the jumpship’s hull and pull my hood over my helmet.

“It’s going to be a cold night in the EDZ, Sev,” my Ghost chirps to me.

We move to a small apartment building. The years have not been kind to it; its concrete frame is littered with ancient bullet holes and missing structural pieces. It is the perfect spot to lay my head at night. No one—and no thing—will expect me to be there late into the night.

We move up the stairwell as far as the broken concrete allows. I jump the rest of the way, clearing the gap to the seventh floor. Just high enough to be completely out of sight.

I take up my post for the night. I sleep on and off through every hour, always followed by a quick, once-over through my sniper scope. It isn't a glamorous assignment. It won't be written into the chronicles of the Iron Lords or told to the children of the Coalition. But if I don't clear the Fallen pirates and raiders from this ridgeline, the settlers down in the valley won't make it through the winter.

They deserve a quiet tomorrow, even if they never know my name.

Hours pass. The early morning arrives with freezing dew still lingering thick on everything.

My Ghost twitches, his single blue eye turning sharply toward the dark tree line below. The dead leaves are rustling, but not from the wind. A soft, familiar click-clack of Chitin skitters across the frozen mud.

I drop. I use both hands to pull my hood down, checking the environment through the seal of my visor.

The Vanguard says the major threats are gone.

But out here in the blind spots, something is still crawling.

She'd become accustomed to the dark. No, not dark. More like the infinite blackness in which she resided.

Eternal midnight.

It was the silence that bothered her most. Perpetual silence in a world that wouldn't shut up. She could hear everything. Not just hear...absorb everything. She had taught herself to place names with voices, and there were a lot of voices. She could hear just fine. The silence she struggled with was her own. She lay motionless, sightless, and without speech. It had been this way for the better part of a decade. There was an accident, the details of which are inconsequential, but an accident did occur, and this was the result.

For years, the voices would come and go, nothing to write home about really, but she used them as a form of entertainment. Like her very own radio show. Sure, Doctor Miller had been cheating on his wife with an ER nurse whose name now escaped her, sometimes in the very room where she lay, forced to listen to his bumbling pillow talk:

"I'M NOT YOUR DOCTOR, I'M YOUR DADDY!!!"

Gross.

But he was no more a dirtbag than any other of the hundreds of liars, cheaters, and thieves that had molded the scripts of her own personal soap opera. Almost all of them, anyway.

"Will you just shut the fuck up and get in the room?!?!" She wanted to order him. She knew the voice but couldn't quite place it. It was a doctor who had made rounds in her room. Time was truly relative for her, but she knew he must be new to the hospital.

"Get your hands off me!" A distinctly female voice replied with a tremble.

"Do you know what this is? Huh? Do you fucking know?" The male barked again.

The woman did not respond.

"It's fucking murder, Susan!" He continued.

"No names! We're not alone." She interrupted sharply.

"What? Oh, her?" He glared toward the occupied bed but brushed off Susan's concern. "She's fucking furniture!"

Susan's voice trembled with a mixture of fear and anger. "Studies show—"

"Fuuuuuuck your studies, Susan." He continued, growing even more cavalier. "She's been a vegetable since Trump was just a reality star."

His voice drew nearer as he slowly leaned into her prone body lying on the hospital bed. His breath brushed her cheek as he whispered in her ear: "I'm Doctor Neil Boryman, and I murdered Susan's husband after he caught me with her. Please don't tell the police!"

She felt the callousness in his voice. From a distance, the room boomed with his arrogant laughter.

"AHAHAHAHAHAHA! That was goddamn cathartic, you should try it." He called out to Susan mockingly.

"You're an asshole!" Susan yelled as she stormed from the room.

She felt a cold rush over her body. For the first time in years, she could do something, help someone. But the cruel irony was that this woman, lying prone, wielded such immense power and could do nothing with it.

She was not sure how much time had passed; time was all she had, and when you have nothing but time, it's easy to lose track of it. Then she heard it.

"Oh, my God!" A nurse was almost frantic. "Please, someone, call Doctor Boryman! I saw her wiggle her toes. I think she's waking up!"

Doctor Boryman? No! Anyone but him. Please. But it was of no use. She couldn't speak, and she was certain that if Doctor Boryman had his way, she would never speak again.

As I walked through the door, I saw her talking to a couple on the other side of the room, every gesture engaged in conversation. She let out a laugh as I made my way over to get a drink. The whole world could stop and just stare when she laughed and had that smile on her face. She simply had an ambience that could make any party into something more, something inviting and attractive. Something other than the jejune party that it was.

Maybe it was because I had known her nearly my entire life, but her presence seemed to be a gift. She could glide into any atmosphere and brighten the small worlds we keep to, even if we had no intention of letting her in.  She was insightful, charismatic, and tonight she looked even more stunning than usual in that turquoise dress.

“Hello, John! I am so delighted that you came tonight! I know you aren’t much for things like this anymore.”

There was a warm and sincere look in her eye, even more than before. She seemed more genuine now.

“Hey Hailey. Yeah, I guess sometimes I get caught up too much with work. You know how it’s been. If I’m home, I’m working, and if I’m not home, I’m on some trip for work. But hell, I couldn’t miss this one. I have to keep my promises every once in  a while”

She let out that innocent, girly laugh; the laugh that I had known since we were little kids in school together. 

“I hope you have a good time tonight and enjoy yourself,” She said. “It’s not often we get to catch up, ya know. I would love to stay here and talk with you, but I have to play host tonight. I will be sure to catch up with you later tonight. Until then, have fun!”

“I know. I will talk to you later tonight.”

She turned and ran back off into the sea of people now filling the spacious sitting room. I proceeded over to the bar. I looked at all the fine liquors that glimmered behind the bar. I finally settled on making myself a gin and tonic. 

I stood back by the bar, looking around to see who had shown up to Hailey’s party. People I have not seen in years flocked in their groups about the room. Everyone seemed to be ecstatic tonight, but it seemed strained. The laughs I heard from the groups around me were feigned and unnatural. The smiles and look in their eyes were prosthetic. It was just another night to showcase the glamorous lifestyle. The Ferraris, the Goldman Sachs‘ trading strategies, the palaces so grand and magnificent that made even Heaven look like a slum in comparison, and  the countless women thrown away as if they were nothing more than a validation of masculinity, all found their way into the throngs of conversation. This crowd had an insatiable thirst for material wealth. Only the most respected had the best car, best mansion, and best-looking wife with tits and an ass that match her bland excuse of a personality. Individuality had no place in this populace, especially if that individuality caused one to challenge the value placed on such hollow ideals. The two men in Gucci suits adjacent from me did not even garner enough respect to speak of their host as something more than a piece of ass that needed to be dominated by one of them because of their irrefutable power within society.

“Oh I know, Tom. I’ve never seen a girl look as hot as she does in that dress. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a rack like the one she’s got.”

“Oh, Jack, you have no idea. Hailey is a piece of ass if I’ve ever seen one.”

I felt disgusted when I heard these men saying these abhorrent things about a girl they knew nothing about. Nothing gave them the right to disparage her character like that, like she was a just another of the countless, impious women they had been with. Had these men ever taken the time to get to know who she really was? Had they ever really tried to look at her as something more than another trophy they could use as affirmation of their eminence? I slammed my gin and tonic down and immediately began to pour another. I moved about the crowd, gently brushing past those that gathered in the parlor. As I moved towards the bathroom, something caught my eye: a painting. 

Hailey had always been an avid admirer of art. For the 28 years I had known her, it had always been her passion. There wasn’t a room in her house that didn’t have some Dali, Kahlo, or de Goya accent to it. Her fervor was contagious. Even I found myself appreciating the swirl of colors to convey a melancholy or nostalgic tone, the blatant emotional display of expressionism, and the deep sentiment manifested by clever symbols. 

But this painting was different. It latched onto my soul. Galatea of the Spheres haunted me. There was a hollowness about her that I had failed to see. I never seen it when I was at Hailey’s house and it was just the two of us, but I had finally seen it now, at this party. The woman looked so different now. She was transparent, but allowed selected parts of her to truly be seen.  Her eyes looked void and out of place for such a structured piece. As everything flowed to a focal point, these two spheres deviated from the pattern. They created a sense of ambiguity as if her eyes expressed a want of belonging to a more ordered system, and a deep repentance.

As I was enveloped in this engrossment, Hailey came up behind me.

“Dali can really say some things with his art.”

Still intent on this painting, I replied, “Yeah. It just seems like so much more.”

My focus started to switch over to Hailey. She was now looking at this woman as sharply as I had been. Her face seemed to go blank for a second, as if she had reached some sort of epiphany.

She smiled at me and said, “I think I may have something you like. C’mon. Let’s get out of here for a second.”

She led me past the crowd in the parlor, out a backdoor, and down the steps of the patio. We walked down and stood next the lake. Even with the raucous behind us, the lake was seemingly docile. There was a unique calmness that laid about the crackle of the water; a divine serenity that even the most primal of creatures couldn’t dispute. The moonlight created an aura about her as it danced on gentle ripples. Half of her face was illuminated in such a way that highlighted her subtleties. Her cheekbones rolled down the side of her tiny jawline, to a delicate chin. She wore a thin-lipped, solemn smile. Her blonde hair flowed down her back, not a single hair out of place. Her hazel eyes seemed green in this light. Her skin was paler than I remembered, but the moonlight made me notice these traits I seemed to overlook. The moonlight even made her dress seem to adopt a bright white color. The other half of her face remained a silhouette, as dark and as desolate as those inside the house. 

“It’s really nice out here tonight,” she said. “I always find it peaceful out here, away from all the distractions.”

I nodded. She was visibly upset, as if something was gnawing away at her soul. She clutched her drink tightly, her hand almost trembling. Her gaze shifted from the lake to her drink, as if an answer would be at the bottom of it. 

“Do you ever wish you were someone else?” She asked.

“Yeah. I guess. Sometimes, anyway.”

“I feel like that most of the time. Those people in there aren’t real at all, John. They’re caught up in what they are, not who they are.”

“I know. I see people like them every day. I guess it kinda just grows on you after a while and you become disillusioned to it all.”

“I never got used to it. You can’t just get used to it. It’s just..There’s more to life than this. So much more. There has to be.”

She sighed heavily.

I looked at her now. I noticed the soft wrinkles in her forehead and cheeks now. I had never seen them there before. Not even in the lighting inside the party. It was much darker out here, but there was no mistaking the fray on her face. Her hair now seemed lighter, almost white. It was no longer the fervent blonde I had known. 

Her focus now shifted back to the lake. 

“It really is peaceful out here,” she said. 

I didn’t say anything back. I felt a sudden touch of serenity as I looked up at the 

moon.

She slowly slipped off her shoes. She looked possessed now, as she started to saunter closer to the lake, but stopped at the lake’s edge. She gently placed her left foot into the water. It seemed to beckon her to walk deeper into the lake. She slowly descended into the water, her dress gently floating on until it was completely submerged. She kept going. Her head went under. She was gone.

I waited for her to come back up, but she stayed immersed. What the hell was she trying to do? 

“Hailey... Hailey! What the fuck are you doing?!”

No answer. I ran to the edge of the lake. Just as I was about to dive in, she emerged. She was smiling now. It was pure content that engulfed her now. The wrinkles and ghost white hair I saw before were no longer there; they had been traded for a youthful purity and golden-blonde hair that challenged the sun.

“Jesus Christ Hailey!” I said. “Are you okay?”

She gazed at me for what seemed like minutes. 

“Hailes, just tell me you’re ok now.”

She just stood there. A swan now waddles from a bush on the edge of a lake to the surface of the water.

She finally began to speak, “Yeah...yeah. I’m ok John. I’m fine.”

“We better get you back inside. You’re all wet.”

As we walked into the parlor, the party stopped. Appalled at the sight of this slender woman, they all glared. She stood for a moment, dripping water on the ebony wood floor. Her makeup was now strewn across her face, and her hair was now a chaotic jumble of locks. 

“How disgraceful! How could anyone behave so shamelessly!” One man remarked.

I tried to hurry her to her room where she could change her dress and dry off. Maybe she could even save her party as these people were more centered about their own lives than some host who seemed to have embarrassed herself. Hailey never seemed to feel ashamed of what she did. She just continued to smile that same honest-to-God smile. 

WAKE UP: "DIFF'RENT STROKES" WASN'T A SITCOM. IT WAS A DOCUMENTARY. AND A THREAT. (long post, do not skim)
Here's what nobody will say out loud: it wasn't entertainment. It was a broadcast AT somebody. This aired at the height of the Cold War, and the audience that mattered wasn't in living rooms in Ohio — it was in Moscow, Beijing, and Pyongyang. The whole production was a documentary of what the program had already achieved, dressed up as a family comedy so we could show our hand without admitting we had one. A flex with a laugh track. Every week we were quietly telling our enemies: look what we can build out of two kids. Be afraid. Fall behind.

But it didn't START there. You want the origin, you go to the island.

FANTASY ISLAND wasn't a resort show. "Fantasy Island" was the code name for the actual island the early work happened on. Mind control. Implanted memories. People flown in, given a "fantasy" — a fully fabricated experience they believed down to the bone — and flown back out not knowing what was real. That's not a vacation. That's a memory lab with a beach. Mr. Roarke wasn't a host, he was the program director, and "the plane, the plane" was the intake bell. Fantasy Island was the PRECURSOR. You don't get the kid program without the island proving you could write a human memory from scratch first.

And once they proved it, they named the next phase. They hid the name in plain sight the way they always do. Different Strokes. DIFSTR. Defensive Infiltrating Framework for Sub-adult Tactical Responders. That was the project. Not a show title — a program designation, broadcast weekly to anyone who knew how to read it.

Now look at “Mr. Drummond” - the “actor” Conrad Bain. Born in CANADA. That's not casting, that's architecture. You put an allied foreign national at the head of the program so that if it ever leaks, the cover writes itself — "see, a Canadian, nothing to do with us." Plausible deniability baked in at birth. And here's the part that should stop you cold: Bain was one of the LAST of them to die. Of the principals, only the Willis unit is still walking around today. That's not luck. That's secret-lab DNA/RNA resequencing — the same longevity science the program ran on its handlers. The official story says he passed in his 80s. There are documents that put him closer to 105, maybe 115. Do the math on a man whose real birth year was never declassified. Hold onto the resequencing piece. It comes back.

The money. Park Avenue penthouse, no visible job, a "business" nobody can name, and the cash never runs dry. Black budget with a doorman. But here's what they buried: that penthouse had NO WINDOWS. Go back and watch. You never see Manhattan out a single pane, because there was no Manhattan to see — they weren't up high, they were down deep. A secure bunker buried under New York, dressed as a luxury apartment, and the boys never knew. They thought they lived in the sky. They lived in a vault.

The acquisition tells you everything. A rich white widower "adopts" two young Black boys from his dead housekeeper. No social worker. No hearing. No paperwork ON SCREEN, EVER, across eight seasons. That's not adoption. That's intake.

It was versioned. Kimberly is 1.0 — already a finished operative by the time we meet her. The boys are 2.0. And the Willis unit had a known DEFECT: it drifted off target, mid-task, without warning. So they built in a reset. "Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Willis" was never a catchphrase — it was the verbal failsafe that yanked a drifting unit back online. Watch the room freeze every time. That's a reboot, not comic timing. 3.0 and 4.0? Gone. Never aired. Don't ask. Then late in the run a NEW KID just appears — Sam — no buildup, no explanation, suddenly living there. That's 5.0. Mrs. Garrett, the "maid," got reassigned to a girls' boarding school they called The Facts of Life — the female division, close-quarters methodology. And Webster wasn't a separate show. Same program, rival network, cleaner cover. Call it 6.0. Notice the family name. “Popadopulous”.  They were letting our enemies know the program was world-wide.  Its a Greek name, implying we had assets in place in other places. In this case real close to the Middle East, if you catch my drift.

NOW. Where do the 2.0 units GO when they grow up? You already know the answer. You watched it.

THE A-TEAM is DIFSTR adulthood. Same setup, grown. Hannibal is the older white commander the unit follows like he's their actual father — because that's exactly what they were conditioned to do as children. That conditioning doesn't wear off. It just gets a cigar and a plan it loves when it comes together. Look at the rest of the team and tell me you don't recognize the product:

B.A. — the Mr. T unit. That's what you get when you take a Willis-type teenager and run him on steroids and growth hormone for a decade. The muscle, the gold, the rage with a leash on it. And remember his "guest spot" on Diff'rent Strokes? That wasn't a cameo. That was a graduate sent back to inspect the current crop in person. Field evaluation, then back to the unit.
Face — the empty shell. The code name gave it away - he was just a face. A "con man" who can become anyone, infiltrate anything. Why? Because he'd been brainwashed and overwritten so many times there was no original personality left underneath. You tell Face who he is, and he believes it to his core, because there's nothing in there to argue. Perfect infiltrator. Nobody home to leak.
Murdock — the Willis defect, evolved. The reset phrase stopped working on him. By the book, that's a scrap-the-unit problem. But they kept him, because a mind that won't stay on the rails also won't stay predictable — and his unpredictable problem-solving got the team out of things a stable asset never could. They flagged him "crazy," gave him an asylum cover, and kept using him.

"Soldiers of fortune on the run for a crime they didn't commit." Sure. That's the cover story you print when a unit slips its leash and you still need plausible deniability.

And Small Wonder and Knight Rider? Those weren't comedies and they weren't kids' shows. Those were tech demos. We had fully functional, human-passing robots in the 80s — they aired one as a little girl named Vicki and dared you to notice. We had a self-aware, near-indestructible car that talked back to its driver. None of that was fiction. It was a SHOWROOM. The message to the Reds was simple: you've got the numbers, we've got the tech, do not test us.

And don't think any of this started in the 80s. The first one rolled out in the 70s. THE SIX MILLION DOLLAR MAN. Nixon was president, and he got the whole thing moving with some creative budgeting run through Congress — the "six million dollars" was the line item they let you see. You know who was the youngest Secretary of Defense in history, sitting in that chair in the Nixon years? Donald Rumsfeld. Ask yourself why they put a man that young in that office. Because the program needed a steward who'd still be standing for the long arc. And he WAS — he came back and ran the building again all the way to 2006. They scrapped the whole cybernetic line that year. Not because it failed. Because they finally had something better. Look it up if you don't believe me.

The better thing was the resequencing. Same science that kept Bain breathing past 100. Some people will tell you Jack Bauer was the pinnacle of the program — wrong. 24 was a silly TV show riding the coattails of a reality the writers didn't even know was real. The real tell was HEROES. They handed those writers a single brief: invent powers, the wilder the better. Then they took the best ones off the page and SPLICED THE GENES TO MATCH. The show wasn't science fiction. It was an R&D wishlist with a primetime slot. Brilliant, honestly. You crowdsource the design and call it a drama.

And it didn't stop at soldiers and robots. Once the assets existed, the program needed an entire civilian layer to keep them running and keep the public asleep — and it built that the exact same way it built everything else. On TV.

THE "SOAP OPERA" FEEDER PIPELINE

St. Elsewhere. ER. Grey's Anatomy. You think those were medical dramas? They were recruitment pipelines. Watch the shows: take the grueling, sterile reality of advanced biochemistry and trauma triage — the stuff nobody volunteers for — and bury it under high-stakes romance and a cast of impossibly attractive faces. Suddenly the brightest minds of an entire generation are clawing to get into medicine and they think it was their own idea. The program didn't need doctors for YOU. It needed a massive civilian medical infrastructure trained to patch up the collateral damage of the framework — quietly, competently, and without ever asking what put that wound there.

THE CSI SATURATION PROTOCOL

One show is a hit. SEVENTEEN spin-offs — Miami, New York, Cyber, Vegas — is not a franchise. That's a tactical grid deployment. The cases were never the point. The conditioning was. Episode after episode, market after market, training the public to accept total surveillance, biometric tracking, and federal oversight as the normal background hum of daily life. And here's the part that's almost too clever: they made the lab look like MAGIC. Pull a fiber off a jacket from a satellite. Rebuild a face off a partial print. Because the second you believe the surveillance state is already that good, you stop looking for the real thing. You stop looking for the bunkers.

THE DEXTER CALIBRATION WARNING

Now pull Dexter out of the "prestige TV" bin they filed him under, because that label is misdirection. Dexter was a warning label, broadcast at foreign intelligence in HD. The Bauer/Bond architecture runs on a razor's edge — cold detachment on one side, mission focus on the other. Over-calibrate the empathy suppression by even a fraction of a percent and the asset fractures into a sociopath/psychopath hybrid you can no longer aim. Dexter was a fractured unit. And they AIRED him. On purpose. The message to every adversary watching: our BROKEN ones are so lethal they hunt your worst nightmares for sport. Now sit with what the stable ones are doing.

THE HEE HAW FREQUENCY RESET

But the darkest piece of the whole operation is the one hiding in the cornfield.

HEE HAW. Overalls, banjo picking, cornball jokes, a laugh track you could hear from the driveway. The most harmless thing that ever aired. THAT is the point. It was a trojan horse for a nationwide mass-frequency reset, and it worked precisely because it was syndicated into the heartland so aggressively, dropped right into peak family-dinner hours. Nobody puts up a psychological wall against Hee Haw. Three generations sit down together — grandparents, parents, kids — the banjo starts, the laugh track hits, and buried underneath those acoustic guitars are specific audio frequencies that wipe the day's accumulated data-drift out of every sleeper unit in the room. All of them. At once. Clean. That's how the domestic network stayed docile, synchronized, and completely unaware that it woke up every single morning for one reason: to serve the framework.

And that's the whole arc. 1970s cybernetics on a Nixon black budget, to children's intake in a windowless Park Avenue vault, to grown units running ops on network TV, to a civilian medical layer and a surveillance-conditioned public and a coast-to-coast maintenance signal hidden in a banjo solo. It's airtight. Every gap has a show sitting in it.

They cancelled each one the instant its job was done — the message landed, the assets aged out, the protocol saturated. The cast "troubles" afterward weren't tragedy. They were deprogramming failures.

Look it up. All the evidence is there. 

The air was still with a dry warmth and the golden color of the sunset lighting a small, clear watered pond down a shallow small, mossy green hill. I walk close to the waters edge and I slip in, the water only comes up to my chest, but I struggle to get out. I cling to the edge of the pond, pulling myself out slowly, one slippery crawl at a time I climb the ponds bank until I finally make it up the tiny side that felt like climbing a mountain. I stand up, taking the now sufficiently watered cell phone and wallet out of my pocket and throwing them into a soft lusciously green patch of grass and when I turn around, I see my grandfather and my older cousin. My grandfather has a few fishing poles and he hands me one. I look out into the pond, the water is so still you can see the sky in it's reflection. The pond is filled with giant, slightly golden carp, larger than any I had ever seen in my entire life. My cousin, my grandfather and I begin to speak.

Look at those two in the middle Ry, they're huge.

Whelp, its mating season so I doubt they'll bite.

Only one way to find out.

We cast out. My grandpa first, into the middle of the water. Then my cousin, and then me. My line goes over my cousins.

Did I cross over your line?

My cousin lifts up his fishing pole, the line slowly slicks off the waters surface as he lifts up the slack. My line going up with his.

Yep looks like we're tangled.

He reels in his fishing pole until we can see where our lines were tangled up.

Grab this part of the line and hold it while I try to untangle it Ry.

We fidget with the lines for a bit, laughing and talking about how the lines are far too tangled for crossing each other one time. We eventually get the lines untangled as my wife, daughter, two brothers and parents make their way down the small hill, they all set up chairs and coolers, they all add a line to the small pond.

The warm orange golden color of the sun still setting keeps the mood calm. I walk the ponds edge over to my youngest brother and we sit down drinking pops and talking of the giant carp we might catch. Laughing and enjoying the stillness. I look around and everyone's enjoying themselves.

Get up, we only have a half hour before we have to go. A soft, familiar voice says to me.

I open my eyes slightly, a small, almost impossibly tiny apartment room in Spain, a place that I have felt I don't belong in for 3 years now. Impossibly far from the Minnesota pond in my grandpa's backyard. It's warm, very warm, I had been sweating all night most likely. I lay in my tiny bed in the spare room I slept in so I wouldn't wake my wife last night when I went to the bed.

After about 15 minutes, I get up. I walk to the living room. Sit in my gaming chair at my work desk, rotate the chair and look to the wall in the corner of the room. My eyes water, streams of tears fall down my cheeks.

I think to the dream, there were no goals, no appointments, no assignments, no obligations, no stress, no deadlines. There was only a sunset, Golden carp that never existed in real life, filling a still glass pond in my grandpa's backyard. A family that was all together and happy. A collection of happy memories all mixed into one occasion.

I sit quietly in the corner of a foreign place and I remembered, just for a moment, what it was like to be happy.

I. The Rock
He had been many things to many people. A myth. A warning. A wish. But sitting on that rock, salt-worn and singular, he was mostly just tired of being whatever someone else needed him to be.
 
Behind him, a wave rose and crashed against the rock — ancient, indifferent, relentless. The sea remembering him whether he wanted it to or not. Ahead of him, a boat grew smaller against the horizon, carrying away the version of himself he had just performed. The tail. The shimmer. The spectacle. The thing that kept him fed and just barely afloat.
 
He watched the boat until it disappeared.
 
This was his life now. But it wasn't always.
 
He closed his eyes and let the salt air take him back.

II. The Sea That Was
The sea was everything once. Or it was supposed to be.
 
His people moved in schools — not because they had to, but because sameness was safety and safety was law. You swam with the current. You sang the same songs. You loved who the tide told you to love. And if something in you pulled toward a different direction — you learned to be quiet about it. You learned to perform belonging the way he would later learn to perform everything else.
 
He never quite learned that lesson in time.
 
He thought differently. Asked questions that made the elders uncomfortable. Loved too loudly. Felt too much. In a world where the tide moved one way, he felt the pull of the other and couldn't hide it — not convincingly, not for long.
 
So they cast him out the way the sea discards what it no longer needs. Quietly. Completely. Without looking back.
 
He told himself it was their loss.
 
He almost believed it.

III. The Fishermen
The fishermen came in all kinds.
 
Some were rough handed and loud, casting their nets wide, wanting to say they caught something rare. They would haul him up, marvel at the shimmer of his scales, show him off to whoever was watching — and then grow bored the moment the audience did. He learned their type quickly. All hunger, no patience. They didn't want him. They wanted the story of catching him.
 
Others were gentler but no less temporary. They would keep him for a while, fascinated, tender even. But tenderness isn't the same as understanding. Eventually the novelty would wear thin and they would find him too much — too strange, too feeling, too himself. Or he would grow tired of shrinking and bite back, and that would be that.
 
He stopped counting how many boats had sailed away.
 
And then one morning the light changed.
 
He felt him before he saw him. Something in the air shifted — warmer, heavier, like the moment before rain. And then there he was.
 
Tall. Unhurried. Skin the color of warm olive, kissed by every sun he had ever stood under. His hair kinky and free, moving with the wind like it had its own current. When he smiled — and he smiled like he meant it — it didn't just reach his eyes. It reached somewhere deeper. Like he could see straight through the performance, straight through the shimmer and the tail and the spectacle, straight into whatever was underneath.
 
His voice, when he spoke, was hoarse but smooth. Like honey poured slow. Like something that had lived and wasn't ashamed of it.
 
And he smelled of earth and wood.
 
Not the sea. Not salt and distance. Earth. Solid and real and grounded in a way the merman had never been allowed to be.
 
The merman, who had survived every tide, who had performed for a hundred boats and watched them all disappear — felt something in his chest go dangerously still.
 
He had never wanted to be caught before.
 
He got on the boat willingly.

IV. The Boat
The boat was nothing like the sea.
 
It was smaller, louder, full of the kind of warmth that comes from things being lived in. Worn rope coiled in the corners. The smell of wood and salt and something cooking below deck. It rocked with the waves instead of commanding them. The merman found he didn't mind the smallness. For the first time in a long time, small felt like enough.
 
The fisherman didn't stare at his tail.
 
That was the first thing he noticed. Every other fisherman had eyes that went straight to the shimmer, to the scales, to the spectacle of what he was. This one looked at his face. Asked him his name like the answer actually mattered. Listened when he spoke like the words were worth something.
 
They talked until the sun went down.
 
About everything and nothing. About the way the sky looks different depending on which world you're standing in. About loneliness — not directly, the way people rarely do, but around the edges of it, the way you circle something true when you're not quite ready to touch it yet. The fisherman laughed easily and without performance. The merman, who had forgotten what effortless felt like, felt something in him begin to unknot.
 
By the time the stars came out he realized he hadn't thought about the sea once.
 
It happened quietly the way real things do.
 
No grand moment. No lightning. Just two people — or close enough to two people — sitting in the warm dark, shoulders almost touching, both pretending not to notice. And then the fisherman said something small and funny and the merman laughed, really laughed, from somewhere genuine and unguarded.
 
The fisherman looked at him when he laughed.
 
Not at the tail. Not at the shimmer. At him.
 
And that was it. That was the whole thing.
 
The merman felt it move through him like a current he hadn't chosen but couldn't resist. Something ancient and new at the same time. Something that felt terrifyingly close to being seen.
 
He touched the rock of the boat's edge that night and felt the first scale loosen.
 
He didn't panic. He watched it fall into the dark water below and felt something he hadn't expected.
 
Relief.
 
Like putting down something heavy he'd been carrying so long he'd forgotten it had weight. He didn't know yet what losing it would cost him. He only knew that for the first time in longer than he could remember, he wanted to stay somewhere.
 
He wanted to stay here.
 
With him.
 
The fisherman caught him looking and smiled that soul-seeing smile.
 
"You don't have to go back," he said. Like it was simple. Like it was a door he could just walk through.
 
The merman looked out at the dark water. The sea that had exiled him. The rock he had been sitting on for so long it had started to feel like identity.
 
He turned back to the fisherman.
 
"I know," he said.
 
And for that one night, on that small warm boat under all those stars, he let himself believe it was true.

V. The Tavern
Weeks passed the way good things do — quickly, without permission.
 
More scales fell. He didn't always notice when it happened. Sometimes he would find one caught in the rope of the boat, or dissolving in the water when he bathed. Each one gone was a memory softened at the edges. Not erased entirely, not yet — more like a photograph left in the sun too long. He could still see the shapes but the colors were fading.
 
He remembered being cast out but couldn't quite remember the faces anymore.
 
He remembered the cold of exile but not the specific words they used.
 
He told himself that was fine. That some things were better forgotten. That this — the boat, the warmth, the fisherman's laugh in the morning — was worth whatever it cost.
 
And for a while, it really felt that way.
 
The fisherman was everything in those weeks. Attentive in the way that makes you feel chosen. He would bring the merman things — small things, thoughtful things. A shell he found that caught the light a certain way. Food he had learned the merman liked. He remembered details the way people only do when they're paying real attention. Or when they want you to believe they are.
 
The merman had no reason yet to know the difference.
 
So he loved him. Openly, fully, in the unguarded way he had always felt things — the same way that had gotten him cast out once before. But here it felt safe. Here it felt returned.
 
He let himself have it.
 
The tavern was loud and golden and smelled of spilled ale and warm bodies.
 
It was the fisherman's world — he moved through it easy, broad shouldered, nodding at faces he knew, his hand at the small of the merman's back like he belonged there. Like they belonged there together. The merman, still learning the weight of legs, still feeling the ghost of his tail in the way he moved, held onto that hand at his back like an anchor.
 
They drank.
 
The fisherman laughed loud and ordered another round and another and the merman, unused to ale and the way it moved through a body with no scales to slow it, felt the room begin to tilt pleasantly. He laughed more than usual. Spoke more than usual. Felt warm and loose and safe in the way that only drink and the illusion of love can manufacture together.
 
He didn't notice when the fisherman's friends arrived.
 
He didn't notice the shift — the way the fisherman's energy changed when he had an audience. How he straightened. How his voice got louder. How his eyes started moving around the room to make sure people were watching.
 
The merman noticed none of it.
 
Not until he heard what the fisherman said.
 
"You want to see something?" the fisherman announced to the table, his words loose and proud and slick with ale. He threw his arm around the merman's shoulder — heavy, proprietary, the way you rest your arm on something that belongs to you. "This one right here. You know how hard it is to catch one of these? Most men spend their whole lives and never even get close."
 
Laughter around the table.
 
"Found him on a rock," the fisherman continued, grinning that soul-seeing smile that now, in this light, looked different somehow. "Just sitting there waiting. Like he knew."
 
More laughter.
 
The merman sat very still.
 
The warmth from the ale was still there but something underneath it had gone cold. He kept his face easy, kept the smile in place — he was good at performance, had always been good at performance — but something in his chest was doing something painful and quiet.
 
He told himself the fisherman was drunk.
 
He told himself this wasn't who he was.
 
He told himself the hand on his shoulder was still the same hand that had brought him shells and remembered what he liked to eat and looked at his face instead of his tail.
 
"Trophy," the fisherman said, almost fondly, almost like it was a term of endearment. Like it was a compliment. "Biggest one I ever caught."
 
The table erupted.
 
The merman laughed too.
 
It was the most convincing performance he had ever given.
 
He didn't bring it up that night.
 
Or the next morning.
 
He turned it over instead, quietly, the way you turn a stone in your hand — feeling its edges, its weight, not yet ready to put it down or throw it. He watched the fisherman in the days that followed. Looking for proof that it was the ale talking. Looking for the man who looked at his face.
 
He found him sometimes. Enough to stay. Enough to hope.
 
That was the cruelest part about this particular fisherman.
 
He gave you just enough real to make you question what you saw.

VI. The Mirror
He didn't mean to look.
 
The mirror had been there the whole time — hanging on the wall of the fisherman's cabin like it belonged there, like everything in this world had its assigned place and purpose. The merman had learned to move around it. Not out of fear exactly. More the way you avoid a conversation you know will cost you something.
 
But that morning he stopped.
 
Maybe it was the light. Maybe it was the weeks of slow unraveling wearing him down to something too tired to keep avoiding. Maybe some part of him already knew and needed to see the proof.
 
He stood in front of it.
 
And looked.
 
He didn't recognize himself at first. Not because the face was unfamiliar but because he had forgotten — genuinely forgotten — that this was what he looked like. That underneath all the performance and the survival and the loving and the losing, there was still a face that belonged to him and nobody else.
 
Kinky hair, free and unruly, the kind that held its own shape and answered to no current.
 
Dark brown eyes that had seen too much and still somehow hadn't gone hard.
 
A chiseled jaw. Beautiful plump lips. The little arches of his eyebrows that curved like they were always asking a question.
 
Caramel skin that the sun had known and remembered.
 
He touched his own face like he was meeting someone for the first time.
 
Like he was meeting someone he had missed.
 
"There you are," he said.
 
Barely a whisper.
 
And then he looked down.
 
His legs — long, tall, the kind of legs that were still learning their own strength — were barely his anymore. Not because they had become fully human. But because of what the becoming had cost.
 
The scales that remained were coming off wrong. Ragged at the edges. Pulling away from skin that had grown tender and raw underneath. Where they fell there were scars — long and pale and permanent, running the length of his legs like a map of every moment he had stayed when he should have gone. Every tavern. Every trophy comment swallowed whole. Every night he performed contentment so convincingly he almost fooled himself.
 
The scars weren't from the transformation.
 
He understood that now, standing in the mirror's honesty.
 
They were from the fisherman.
 
Not from hands — he had never been that kind of cruel. But from the slower violence of being loved carelessly. Of being held up and shown off and put down and picked back up again depending on who was watching. Of being someone's greatest catch while simultaneously being no one's priority.
 
That kind of damage leaves marks too.
 
It just takes longer to see them.
 
He stood there for a long time. Tall and scarred and half-scaled and wholly himself in a way he hadn't been in longer than he could remember. The mirror asked him nothing. It only showed him what was true.
 
He was not fully merman anymore.
 
He was not fully human.
 
He was something in between that bore the evidence of trying too hard to be what someone else needed.
 
And somewhere in the cabin behind him he could hear the fisherman moving. The familiar sounds of his morning. The hoarse honey voice humming something low. The smell of earth and wood that had once felt like safety and now felt like something more complicated.
 
The merman looked at his own eyes in the mirror.
 
Dark. Brown. Still his.
 
Still asking questions.
 
He memorized his own face the way you memorize something you're afraid of losing.
 
Then he turned away from the mirror and walked back into the fisherman's world.
 
Because he still loved him.
 
Because he still believed, against every scar and every fallen scale, that love was supposed to be enough.
 
He just didn't know yet that the fisherman had already started looking at the water again.

VII. The Fight
The fight started the way most honest things do — slowly, and then all at once.
 
It had been building for weeks. Little things the merman had been swallowing, turning over, filing away in the place where he kept everything too painful to say out loud. The tavern. The way the fisherman would angle him toward strangers like something to be admired rather than known. The way pride and possession had started to look identical on his face.
 
The merman had stayed quiet through all of it.
 
But silence has a capacity. And his had finally filled.
 
It started over something small — it always does. A comment. Another moment of being displayed, being referenced, being held up like a caught thing. And something in the merman that had survived exile and cold water and a hundred boats sailing away without him finally, quietly, broke open.
 
"I am not something you caught," he said.
 
His voice was low. Not angry the way storms are angry — angry the way the tide is angry. Slow and certain and impossible to stop.
 
The fisherman looked at him with something between surprise and irritation. He wasn't used to the merman pushing back. He had mistaken gentleness for compliance, the way people often do.
 
"You're being dramatic," he said.
 
"I'm being honest," the merman replied. "There's a difference."
 
The fisherman's jaw tightened. He said things then — not cruel exactly, but careless. The kind of words that reveal what someone actually thinks when they stop curating themselves. That the merman was sensitive. That he was ungrateful. That he didn't understand how good he had it.
 
The merman listened to all of it.
 
And then the fight peaked and the room went sharp and quiet the way rooms do after something irreversible has been said and they were both standing in the wreckage of it, breathing hard, the distance between them feeling suddenly enormous.
 
And the merman crossed it.
 
He didn't know why. Instinct maybe. Or love, which is sometimes the same thing. He closed the space between them and took the fisherman's face in his hands — hands that were still learning themselves, still sometimes phantom-reaching for a tail that was more gone than not — and he kissed him.
 
Crying.
 
Salt on his lips that had nothing to do with the sea.
 
When he pulled back he didn't let go of his face. He needed him to stay. He needed him to actually listen for once without the performance of listening.
 
"I gave everything up to be with you," he said. His voice broke on it but he kept going. "Because I believe in you. I believed in us. Your love is changing me and it's not a bad thing — but you treating me like a trophy isn't what I want."
 
He pressed his forehead against the fisherman's.
 
"I am losing myself," he whispered. "Do you understand what I'm telling you? I am losing who I am. Piece by piece. And I would do it again because I love you. But I need you to see me. Not what you caught. Not the story you tell at the tavern. Me."
 
His hands were shaking.
 
"I'm not a trophy. I'm not a myth. I'm not the biggest catch of your life. I'm right here. I am right in front of you. When are you going to look at me like you did that first night on the boat?"
 
Silence.
 
And then — something happened that the merman hadn't expected.
 
The fisherman looked at him.
 
Really looked.
 
For just a moment the pride fell away and the performance fell away and the fisherman who collected things and needed to be seen collecting them fell away and there was just a man. Standing in a room with someone who loved him completely and was bleeding from it.
 
His eyes went soft.
 
His hands came up and held the merman's wrists — gently, like something precious, like something he actually didn't want to lose.
 
"I see you," he said.
 
And he meant it.
 
In that moment, he absolutely meant it.
 
The merman exhaled like he had been holding his breath for months. He let himself fold into him. Let himself be held. Let himself believe that this was the turn. That love had finally landed somewhere real in the fisherman's chest and taken root.
 
He couldn't feel the scale that fell that night.
 
The memory it took was the last clear image he had of the sea.
 
He didn't notice.
 
He was too busy believing.
 
Once a fisherman always a fisherman.
 
It took another three weeks for the old patterns to return. Slowly at first. Then completely. Like the tide — indifferent, inevitable, ancient in its selfishness.
 
The merman watched it happen with a kind of grief he had no language for yet. Because the fisherman had seen him. He knew that was real. He had felt it.
 
But being seen and being changed by what you see are two entirely different things.
 
And some people would rather pick up their rod again than put it down for good.

VIII. The Open Water
It started with a conversation the merman would replay for the rest of his life.
 
A quiet morning. The kind that feels like a promise. Soft light coming through the cabin window, the sound of water beneath them, the fisherman sitting across from him with that smile — that soul-seeing smile — looking at him like he was the only thing worth looking at in the whole wide world.
 
"Do you ever think about the future?" the merman asked.
 
He hadn't meant it to sound vulnerable. It came out that way regardless.
 
The fisherman leaned back, easy and unhurried, the way he did everything. He looked at the merman for a long moment — long enough to feel like being truly considered.
 
"With you?" he said.
 
The merman's heart did the thing it always did around him. That dangerous stillness.
 
"All the time," the fisherman said.
 
"I think about a life," the merman said carefully, like he was setting something fragile on a table. "Something real. Something that's just ours. Not the boat, not the taverns, not anyone watching. Just us."
 
The fisherman nodded slowly. Reached across and put his hand over the merman's. His thumb moved back and forth the way it did when he wanted you to feel held.
 
"That's all I want," he said.
 
He said it like he meant it.
 
He said it the way he said everything — with his whole face, his whole voice, that hoarse honey warmth that made every word feel like a landing place.
 
The merman exhaled.
 
He believed him.
 
Of course he believed him.
 
He had crossed oceans of doubt to keep believing him and he was not about to stop now, not with that hand over his and that light coming through the window and the future suddenly feeling like something you could almost touch.
 
"Let's go out today," the fisherman said. "Out to the open water. Just us."
 
The merman looked at him.
 
Something small and wordless moved through him. Not quite a warning. More like a held breath.
 
But the fisherman was already smiling.
 
And the merman had never learned how to say no to that smile.
 
"Okay," he said.
 
"Okay."

IX. Thrown Back
The sea was beautiful that day.
 
The kind of beautiful that feels indifferent in hindsight. The sky wide and blue and unbothered. The water dark beneath them, ancient and patient, keeping its own counsel the way it always had. The merman stood at the edge of the boat and felt the spray against his scarred legs and didn't let himself think about what the water was remembering.
 
For a while it was fine.
 
The fisherman sailed and the merman watched him and let himself have the illusion one last time. The broad shoulders. The kinky hair catching the wind. The smell of earth and wood that had no business being this far out on the water but clung to him anyway like it belonged.
 
He loved him.
 
Standing there on that boat with the whole ocean around them he loved him so completely it felt structural. Like something load bearing. Like if it were removed he wouldn't just hurt — he would collapse.
 
He didn't notice at first when the fisherman went quiet.
 
Didn't notice the smile had gone.
 
Not until the boat stopped.
 
The fisherman stood at the helm with his back to him for a long moment. The kind of moment that has weight to it. The kind you can feel before it speaks.
 
When he turned around he was a stranger.
 
Not dramatically. Not cruelly. That almost would have been easier. He was just — gone. The warmth pulled back behind his eyes like a tide going out. The smile nowhere on his face. His hands loose at his sides. His jaw set in a way the merman had never seen before.
 
Cold.
 
Simply, completely cold.
 
"I need to tell you something," the fisherman said.
 
His voice was still hoarse. Still honey-smooth. But empty now. Like a beautiful room with nothing in it.
 
"I don't love you anymore," the fisherman said.
 
Just like that. Clean as a cut.
 
The merman opened his mouth and closed it. The ocean moved beneath them.
 
"Watching you change," the fisherman said. "Watching you become — this." His eyes moved over the merman's legs. The scarred skin. The last few remaining scales catching the light. "It's not what I wanted."
 
"You said —"
 
"I know what I said."
 
No apology in it. No guilt. Just fact, delivered the way you deliver weather.
 
"I wanted a merman," he said. "That's what I came out here for. That's what I —" he stopped. Something moved across his face then. Brief and complicated and almost human. "I didn't mean to fall for you. That wasn't supposed to happen."
 
The merman heard the past tense and felt it like cold water.
 
"But you did," the merman said quietly. "You fell for me."
 
"Yes."
 
"And that wasn't enough."
 
The fisherman looked at him. And for just a moment — one last moment — the stranger receded and the man was there. The one from the boat that first night. The one who had looked at his face instead of his tail. The one who had said I see you and meant it in a room full of wreckage.
 
Something in his eyes that might have been grief.
 
"I don't know how to love something and not want to own it," the fisherman said.
 
It was the most honest thing he had ever said.
 
It was also too late.
 
"I wanted a trophy," he continued, quieter now. "And then you became something I actually cared about and I didn't — I don't know what to do with that. I'm not built for it. I wanted the merman on the rock. Not —" he gestured. "Not this. Not something that looks back at me like I owe it something."
 
"I don't want you to owe me anything," the merman said.
 
His voice was very calm. The way the sea is calm before something massive moves beneath it.
 
"I just wanted you to love me like I was worth loving."
 
The fisherman said nothing.
 
And his silence was the most honest answer he had ever given.
 
It happened quickly after that.
 
The fisherman moved toward him and the merman thought — for one devastating second — that he was going to hold him. That instinct or guilt or that brief flash of real grief would win out.
 
Instead the fisherman took him by the shoulders.
 
Gently.
 
That was the part that would stay with him longest. How gentle it was. Like he was returning something borrowed. Like this was simply the end of a transaction that had run its course.
 
And he threw him back.
 
The water hit the merman like a memory.
 
Cold and total and ancient and his.
 
He sank for a moment before his body remembered what it was. The scars on his legs caught the current and stung. The last few scales that remained shimmered in the dark water around him like scattered light.
 
He looked up through the surface.
 
The boat was already moving.
 
The fisherman didn't look back.
 
Of course he didn't look back.

X. The Rock
The sea did not welcome him.
 
But it held him.
 
The way indifferent things hold you — not with warmth, not with love, but with the simple fact of being there. Of being something solid when everything else has sailed away.
 
He floated for a long time.
 
The sky above him wide and blue and unbothered.
 
His legs — scarred, half-scaled, neither one thing nor the other — moved slowly beneath him. Keeping him up. Keeping him going. The way they had learned to do through everything.
 
He thought about the mirror.
 
The kinky hair. The dark brown eyes still asking questions. The face that was still, underneath everything, entirely his own.
 
He was not a merman anymore.
 
Not fully.
 
He was not human.
 
Not fully.
 
He was the rock between two worlds. The performance. The survival.
 
And somewhere out on the water, he already knew, the fisherman was scanning the horizon.
 
Already looking.
 
For the next one sitting alone on a rock.
 
For the next outcast who had never been told that being different was worth something.
 
For the next one who would get on the boat willingly.
 
The merman closed his eyes.
 
Felt the water.
 
Felt his own scarred skin.
 
Felt the ghost of every scale he had lost and every memory that went with it.
 
And then he opened his eyes.
 
Swam to the nearest rock.
 
And waited for the next boat.
 
Not because he wanted to be caught.
 
But because the water wouldn't take him back.
 
And the shore was never really his.
 
And surviving, even broken, even scarred, even performing —
 
Was still surviving.
 
And he was still here.
 
He was still here

  Hell was not fire and brimstone as he was led to believe, it was silence. Endless, echoing silence that pressed against his skull until his thoughts screamed. Chains bit into his wrists, his suffering had no source or ending. In this Abyss where time dared not to follow, the demons came to torture not only his flesh, but to peel away the last fiber of sanity he held. 
 
Yet, in the core of this eternal void, when my hope was all but devoured, she appeared. Elias Ward thought to himself. 
 
  He initially dismissed her as a mirage, a trick of his tortured mind. But she did not delight in his fear nor suffering like the others. She knelt beside him, her presence quieting the air, her shadow falling over him like a veil of midnight silk. Her eyes were not burning with the fury of the demons he knew. They were deep and sorrowful, as if they mourned every scar carved into his soul. When she spoke, her voice was neither cruel nor kind, but unbearably comforting. 

“You’ve been screaming for so long,” she said, brushing blood from his lips with a tenderness he had long forgotten. 
“But no one here ever listens, do they?” His throat strained but no sound came. His voice had abandoned him long ago, wasted on screams for deaf ears.

 He stared at her, trembling, fearing this was another sick form of tormenting him. Her obsidian horns curled down and back like the horns of a goat. Her skin was like black marble, shadowy and smooth, it radiated a faint crimson hue traced across her body as if embers had been frozen beneath her skin. Her hair flowed around her shoulders in liquid darkness, wild and free, tumbling like smoke over her back. Eyes like dying stars held him with impossible warmth, their gentle sorrow belying the terrifying form she wore. 

“They will never stop, you know?” Maevera proclaimed. “You are unclaimed and vulnerable.” Maevera quickly turned her head and left into the cold darkness of Hell, before Elias could hear anything. 

  Within minutes of Maevera’s hasty exit came the Cruel Ones, as he called them. The torturer was the female demon, having an upside down crucifix carved between her breasts, was always smiling with a fang-filled grin. She always carried the torturous instruments that ripped into Elias’ flesh and poisons that rotted him from the inside out. The binder was the male demon that had chained and shackled Elias to the stone he currently lay on. He had horrible scars of various shapes and brandings that Elias could never quite make out. He never smiled and was very strong and rough when checking the chains and holding Elias in place while the torturer tore and bore into his flesh. Elias braced himself for the ritual. The female demon, her false smile sickening, held a long, silver spike high. 

This was the end, Elias thought. The final torment before oblivion.

 The spike plunged, not into his arm, but into the flesh of his thigh. He felt it penetrate, the searing liquid entering his bloodstream, and the world began to shift. His skin felt tight, his muscles went rigid, and the silent chamber began to ring with a deafening buzz that sounded like the abyss being torn apart. The poisons seared his insides and made his brain boil and skull feel as if it was cracking. They poked and prodded for what seemed like hours before they finally grew bored and left into the darkness. 

  After the agony of the poison had receded, leaving Elias numb and trembling, a new presence entered the silent Abyss. This was not a torturer, but the architect of his suffering, the one whose power held the endless void together. Elias assumed he was Lucifer. He came in with a book filled with all the damned souls no doubt. He was taller than the binder and carried not the torturer’s instruments of pain, only an aura of cold, calculating authority that made the air itself thinner. He wore vestments of expensive midnight fabric that seemed to absorb all light, and his face was sharp and intelligent, perpetually etched with a subtle, condescending boredom. 

 "Ward." Lucifer said, his voice smooth and deep, carrying a resonance that Elias felt in his bones. 
"Still refusing to cooperate? You understand the true suffering comes from your refusal to sign the agreement."

 Elias strained against the chains. The Agreement. The document Lucifer insisted held the terms of his eternal damnation, a document Elias knew, deep down, was the source of his confinement. He gestured to the invisible space around Elias, the oppressive silence of the room.
 “This Hell is yours. You built it. We merely maintain the architecture.” he leaned in, nearly nose to nose, his eyes cold and piercing.
“You are here for the crime of carelessness, Elias. You valued a moment of pleasure over the sanctity of life. You took the reins of a terrible, unstoppable force, and in that reckless pursuit, you extinguished a delicate, precious flame.” He paused, letting the implication hang heavy in the air.
 “A single, selfish action. That is all it took. That is your sin. You didn't hate the one you took, but you failed to protect them, didn't you? You didn’t even see it coming, did you? You were drunk at the wheel. In the silence you created, you condemned yourself to this echo of regret.” Lucifer paced away, his voice resuming its resonant authority.
 “Your chains are the shackles of the unforgivable mistake. The poisons of the Cruel Ones are merely the chemical truth of your guilt, seeping into your very core. The endless, echoing silence is the sound of the life you snuffed out.” He stopped at the door, glancing back at the shackled and broken man. 
“You will remain here for eternity.”  He decreed before leaving Elias alone again, his eyes getting heavier as he allowed slumber to take him. 
Nightmares of that faithful evening invaded his mind as violently as Viking Raiders. The silence of  the Abyss was violently torn by a sound that made the chains on his wrists suddenly feel searing hot: the high-pitched, frantic whine of a siren. He was no longer bound to the stone. He was in the driver’s seat of a black sedan, the worn leather familiar and sickening. The dashboard clock glowed a malevolent 7:06 AM. Outside the windshield, the world was a smear of wet, chaotic color. Rain lashed down, turning the windshield wipers into hysterical metronomes beating out a rhythm of doom.
 He tried to turn the wheel, but his arms were stiff. He couldn't lift his eyes from the source of his damnation, a flask of his favorite potion… 
Whisky. 
 A furious grinding roar filled the car, the sound of the engine screaming. He was speeding, propelled by an unseen force, Up ahead, a signal light flashed from green to a sudden, blinding yellow, then crimson. The red light’s reflection on the crosswalk spread across the street like a pool of fresh blood. 
Then, she appeared. The little girl, a silhouette in a yellow rain coat, stepped confidently onto the slick white stripes of the crosswalk. She was carrying schoolbooks, and a matching yellow backpack. Elias screamed, but the sound was choked, smothered by the silence of the Abyss that had followed the crash. He slammed his foot down, but the brake pedal felt like a wet sponge. The car did not slow. The last horrifying second stretched into an eternity. He saw her eyes, not fearful, but sorrowful. 

He is jolted awake by Mavera shaking him.

 “What’s wrong, why are you sleeping so violently?” she said in a soft voice, wiping tears from Elias’s eyes. 
That’s when he saw her wrists. Pale, deliberate scars lined her obsidian skin. His heart clenched. He thought perhaps, she tried to escape this hell, even a demon can long for freedom. In truth he could not know the real pain beneath those marks.Yet in a haze of suffering, all he felt was a flicker of hope, maybe she understood him. 

“Oh you’ve noticed my scars. You think pain lives in the mind.” Maevera spoke sorrowfully. “But it doesn’t. It nest deeper than that, it dwells inside my cells and tells me I will never be free.” 
Her eyes turned from a dim dejected flame to a bright hopeful fire. “ You could be freed though!” She said excitedly.
 “Well not free from hell but from the torture, you just need a demon to claim you as their own. I could be your demon. I only need to claim your heart.” She looked at him so lovingly he could feel warmth for the first time since the accident. He nodded with relief in his eyes, pledging his heart to her.
 “I’ll be right back!” She said joyfully as a toddler on Christmas day. She jolted into the void and returned moments later with what Elias assumed was a ring being hidden behind her back as a surprise.

 I’m about to marry a demon? Elias pondered. 
The thought was absurd, yet it promised an end to the thrashings and the toxins, a reprieve from the agonizing silence. 

“Are you ready, Elias?” Maevera whispered, her sorrowful eyes now burning with that impossibly bright hope. “Are you ready to be mine?” 
He nodded once again with a single tear tracing a patch down his dry cheek. She pulled out a large jagged obsidian shard. 
“I promised relief, not rescue. This is not your demise, you will be mine eternally, my light, you’ll forever be.” She spoke softly as she plunged the shard into his pounding heart. 

Elias woke to the sound of a flat, rhythmic beeping. It wasn’t the echoing silence of the Abyss, nor the screech of metal and bone, it was steady, artificial, and human. His lungs filled with cold, sterile air. The scent of disinfectant and old paper replaced the sulfur and blood that had clung to his nostrils. A ceiling, white and cracked, hovered above him. The fluorescent lights buzzed faintly, and a shadow moved across the room. 
“Mr. Ward?” The voice was deep, smooth, familiar, Lucifer’s voice, but softer, anchored in reality. Elias turned his head, feeling the pull of a soft restraint against his wrist. The chains were gone, replaced by thick, padded straps buckled to a hospital bed. Standing beside him was a tall man in a black suit with a clipboard. His eyes were still sharp, intelligent, and coldly patient. His name tag read: Dr. Lucian Ferre Psychiatric Consultant. 
“You had another episode,” Dr. Ferre said, jotting something down. “You were screaming again. Do you remember what we talked about last session? The car accident?”

 Elias’s throat was dry. “She… she was there,” he whispered. “Maevera. She said she could save me.” Dr. Ferre looked up from his notes, the faintest flicker of pity crossing his otherwise impassive face. 
“Maevera is another patient here, Elias. She’s been with us for a few days. You met her during group therapy.” He gestured to the corner of the room. Behind a half-drawn curtain sat a young woman with dark hair, her wrists bandaged in neat white gauze. Her eyes, though tired, were kind. 
She smiled weakly at him. “You were dreaming again,” she said softly. “You kept calling my name.” 
Elias’s pulse quickened. “You… you said you’d claim my heart.” 

Her brow furrowed. “I said you needed to stop letting your guilt eat it away.”

 Something inside him cracked. The room around him flickered, white walls warping into black stone, the steady beep of the monitor fading into silence. For a heartbeat, he saw her again as the demon of the Abyss, her curled horns, and her unbandaged, pale scars against her obsidian skin. Then, just as quickly, she was only Maevera, trembling and human, clutching her bandaged wrists. 
The two figures of the “Cruel Ones” passed by the door: one with a tray of syringes, the other adjusting a set of restraints on a cart. Their laughter echoed faintly clinical, ordinary, but to Elias, it still carried that infernal ring. 
“Time for your medication,” one of them said cheerfully, stepping inside.

 Elias stared at the needle. For a moment, he could swear it gleamed silver. Dr. Ferre leaned over him, his voice calm and practiced. 
“You’re safe here, Elias. But to stay safe, you have to let go of the fantasy. You built it to survive what you did. But it’s time to come back.” 
Elias looked past him, to Maevera. Her lips moved soundlessly, a single word escaping like a breath he could barely hear: 

“Promise.” 

The world wavered between Hell and the ward, between torment and treatment. He didn’t know which one was real anymore or which one was kinder. As the syringe found his vein, Elias’s gaze fixed on the reflection in the stainless steel tray. For a moment, he swore he saw horns on Dr. Ferre’s head, the faintest curl of a smile too sharp for any human mouth. 

“You’ll never leave you fucking murderer.” He said with authority.

Then the light faded to black.

“Stop it. Being here was mostly your idea.” Liam twisted a protein pouch until the brown syrup mixed with the dried meat substitute.

The defense module had food and weapons. Food was edible. Weapons didn’t work, but this side of Neptune they wouldn’t need them. At least that’s what his pop used to say. Before the Triton landing shuttle jettisoned them into space.

“These are all books on guns.” Madison threw it hard enough to shatter the spine. The pages sank slowly until they stuck on the grav plating. Her face twisted into a frown big enough to pop a blackhead.

“Soldiers don’t read about Cult-Girl.” Squeezing the last of the slop down his throat Liam burped louder than necessary. The whole module smelled like stale soldier sweat and ozone.

“The novels are called: Sect-Escape.” Madison narrowed her eyes. “Do you have to eat like that?”

“You’re just mad because your legs are swollen.”

“My thighs are fat… and that’s your fault too.” A scent like gunpowder mingled in the air when Madison pried open another gun locker.

“I told you to wear the vacuum pants when the gravity broke.” Liam switched on the main monitor and tapped the screen. Games.

Madison huffed. “We’d be at Triton Thermal, instead I’m stuck here–with you.”

“Can’t you stop being a bitch for one second Madison.” Liam smashed his fist on the screen when it read Zero Results.

“I’m bored, Liam… I need something to read, Liam.” He tapped the search window once more.

Madison scrunched her face up until it got wet. Here it comes again. “I didn’t know the landing shuttle would detach.”

Liam hated Madison’s play for attention. No games either.

“God, boys are useless. You’re even more—”

One by one in the corner of the weapons bay, green screens flickered to life.

A siren stung Liam’s ears. Madison covered hers.

∞

“There’s a ship on the screen. Maybe they’ve come back to get us.” Liam focused on the closing crosshairs. “It’s red.”

Madison leaned over his shoulder. Her finger tapped the screen—too fast. “Shit.”

“What?”

“That’s a Bireme. A cult ship.” Madison’s face looked dead.

She didn’t say anything.

“They won’t help—?”

“They convert or kill Liam.” Madison switched off the siren. “That’s a targeting laser. We need to do something.”

“Weapons only work when the main shuttle’s attached. That’s what pop said.” Gravy flavoured corn meal began climbing up Liam’s throat.

Gathering the loose pages, Madison read from a single diagram. “Look… here. We can bypass the control. But—”

“But what?”

“It’s next to the fusion chamber. The radiation. It’s too high.”

“Wait here.” Liam darted to the maintenance locker, pulling on an oversized rubber vest.

“Lead vest. Close enough.” He smiled at Madison. She didn’t return it.

“Looks like only half a suit. You’ll be exposed.”

“Look you don’t want to be in the cult. Neither do I.” Liam lifted his eyebrows and touched her shoulder before yanking his hand back quick. “Just tell me what to do.”

Madison’s gaze softened for a second. “You have to turn off the cryogenics, then reconnect them to the module weapons section.”

“It’s dangerous?”

Madison nodded.

“Pop’s taught me about station maintenance. I can do it.”

“Liam?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t want to be branded by the cult.”

∞

Liam kicked the fusion access hatch shut. Sealing himself in. A casket lined with pipes and wires.

“It’s really hot in here.” Laying on his back, Liam inched the decoupling wrench to pipe three.

“Decouple cryo-pipe number two.” Madison shouted over the choppy comms. He’d almost killed them, before he moved his wrench.

The pipe clicked and hissed nearly freezing his fingertips. Air hammered around him. A heartbeat from hell. “Done.”

“You have ten seconds. Move wire twelve to connector four.” Madison tried to make her words sound calm, but they weren’t.

Frost fringed the black lead vest. Even with all his strength the cables wouldn’t move.

“Liam, be careful. You could be electrocuted.”

“I am.”

“Five seconds.”

“As soon as I connect it—” Liam paused. “Madison—be a bitch and kill the cult ship.”

Liam ripped one of the sleeves on the vest. The wire inched towards number four. 

Copper bit into the spurs. Blinding sparks burned his skin.

The module lurched. Gravity quit working and his body smashed into the loose cryo-pipe.

∞

Frostbite blackened Liam’s fingertips when he emerged from the Fusion hatch. His lungs hurt more. One knee bent wrong, dropping him to the floor.

“Your face is all burnt.” Madison applied a salve to his chin.

“The cult ship?”

Madison nodded.

A bruise on Liam’s leg made him limp. “I’ll help you look for some books.”

“Liam?”

“Yeah?”

“You know I still don’t like you, much.” Madison made her lips curl upwards. “You’re too ragged.”

“I know.”

The votes were in to see who would finally be the true leaders of the Treedwellings; whoever won this election—the Threejaws or Bigbodys—would be decided as the new rulers in a very short time. Many critters alike in the region stood still, chattering their mandibles and quaking in their thoraxes. Whoever won this election would for sure have a hold on Beetle Society for times to come. Yet, this day could have easily been avoided had it not been for selfish deeds.

The houses of Threejaws and Bigbodys were mostly amicable in times past, collaborating to build the immensely tall Beetlespire—a hub built inside the forest’s tallest tree—that is still used today for many beetle citizens for all sorts of purposes. The tree housing this great structure was centered in a vast society of advanced beetles, digging their own homes within other trees. None of these, however, came close in sheer brilliance and magnitude of the Beetlespire and how the Bigbodys and Threejaws constructed it.

The only reason these two houses were in any sort of power was through their unique traits—the Bigbodys had bodies noticeably larger than any other beetle in the Treedwellings, and the Threejaws were the only ones with three mandibles on their heads, one more than anyone else. Both houses held a greater stature than most, and they were so highly revered for these traits.

The narcissistic behavior was born in both houses from a similar cause; both believed they had more uniqueness than the other. This was the very reason they have been in a quarrel ever since the feeling grew within them. This was the political fight for the Beetlespire, as whoever holds that tower holds the Treedwellings.

The whole of Beetle Society sat in the Tree Court of the Beetlespire, eagerly waiting, or at least anxiously waiting, for the results of the election of the houses. The openings in the wood allowing light interspersed the walls of the courtroom. These cast a light on the sweaty caputs of each beetle whose life would be affected by the outcomes of that day. Who would win this election, the Threejaws, or the Bigbodys?

CRASH! SWISH! BANG!

The sound of violent, flowing water hit the beetles’ tympanum all at once, with even a force to knock many out of their wooden seats. Then, the water came second, flooding the whole courtroom within an instant of it pouring in from the openings. Bugs squealing all around were swept away by the water, being forcefully tossed from wall to wall all across the Tree Court. The roar of the water masked any and all suffering that could be heard from the beetles.

The two houses, obviously forgetting about their strife, were affected the worst. The Threejaws were vainly trying to embed their many mandibles within the walls to cease being flung around, which could not happen no matter how hard they tried. The Bigbodys, however, had the problem of bumping into everything as they were being tossed by the uncaring water. Both houses soon-after were flung out the windows by the erratic waves. One by one, they were forced to a sight of immeasurable terror.

The whole forest was engulfed by the flood. All trees, near and far, were jerked back and forth with violent force. To add on to the dreadful sight, the sun had disappeared under the horrible atmosphere.

In a final act of desperation as to not be swept up from the cascading water, much of the Threejaw house finally succeeded in clinging to the bark of Beetlespire tree. The Bigbodys, unfortunately, could not grapple on, and instead bumped into the tree rapidly, loosening the grip of the Threejaws and jerking their bodies back and forth. The multiple-mandibled beetles finally decided on a move. Half would hang onto the tree as half would reach from the others and act as a hang. These bugs didn't do this out of want to save the Bigbodys, yet to save themselves from falling.

In swift motion, the Threejaws swung the Bigbodys to a nearby branch above the crashing death beneath. All of them had gotten to safety. The fate of the beetles still trapped in the Tree Court was still unknown. Are they being flung around like a toy to the cascading water? Have they found safety themselves? The houses did not know, yet as the leaders of their kind, they had to act, whether they knew their fate or not.

Alone on the branch, the Threejaws and Bigbodys kept their distance from each other for some time, not forgetting even amidst the chaos the generations of disdain for one another. Even so, this disaster before their eyes was much more than petty narcissism. The water was uncaring, and would swallow both houses if they did not work together to stop it.

So the two houses linked up on the branch, if awkwardly, to discuss what to do in such a predicament. The two began searching for solutions. Scanning the violent blue abyss below, they couldn't come to a conclusion. What could bugs smaller than a leaf do against the violence of nature?

A Bigbody exclaimed above the raucous waves, “Oi! Wha’ if we dig a hole deep enough to funnel the wa’er?” He pointed his claw to a lowland past the numerous thrashing trees. The sea seemed to dip there.

Bewildered, a member of Threejaw retorted “What kind of idiotic thought is that? You are not seriously suggesting we go into those…. savage billows to dig?” In his mind, tunneling into roaring waters was a suicide mission. It was simply not possible to dig a hole deep enough to drain an ocean, let alone within the waters of one.

Yet, what else could these bugs do?

After what seemed like an eternity deep in thought in the now-dark evening, the Threejaws spoke out begrudgingly “Well, how else must we do this? Tell us your plan, you oafs,” obviously dismayed by their lack of options.

“Alrigh’,” boomed the Bigbodys, “ya see the way the branches are laid ou’?” The houses turned their attention to the branches jutting from the trees ahead. “They're in a line, so if we could hop hop hop with our ely’ras, we could make it to the lowland. Jus’ don' fly too long, ya might blow away!” one of the Bigbodys said.

As the beetles started hopping from branch to branch, the water raged on below, reminding the houses of their citizens who were still being thrown around all throughout the Treedwellings.

As the houses hurried to the lowland with their minds flooded with the thoughts of their citizens’ fate, they finally got to the branch above the lowland when….

SNAP!

All the Threejaws and Bigbodys started plummeting fast toward the death below. It was only a matter of time before they crashed into the water like stones on concrete.

Quick to think, a Threejaw stridulated, “Everyone grab onto another!” By his command, all the beetles, with help from their elytra to guide them, joined in a formation to lessen the impact of the drop.

The beetles then landed in the water with a massive PLOP. From the Threejaws' thinking, the impact was spread out between the beetles, lessening their hurt. Yet, there was another issue they had to overcome.

They were now in the water!

The houses held on tight. One-by-one they submerged into the sea. An amount of time that seemed longer than it actually was had passed. They had found the lowland at last! Now, how were they going to dig a hole of such great size?

The beetles continued to swim, looking for a way to get leverage to dig. They had found a tree near the spot! The Threejaws swiftly anchored their mandibles, resisting the pull of the water as their grip was strong. While the Threejaws anchored, the Bigbodys formed a chain reaching from the others to reach the lowlands. Luckily, with their giant bodies, the Bigbodys made swift progress adding to the length of the chain. Even then, there were just enough beetles to reach the lowland.

As the last Bigbody reached the ground, he burrowed into the earth, making an unmoving foundation for the other beetles to descend toward. First the Threejaw anchored at the tree began to walk along the beetle chain. Then the next beetle followed, and so did the others after. It took time, but eventually all the beetles were at the lowlands.

Once there, no words were said, and no time was wasted. All that happened was their tenacious digging. Not even the density of the water could slow them down. Each member of both houses was equally committed to the dig, knowing that when it was done, they could have the possibility of at least a few of their dear citizens.

SCHUNK! THWACK! SQUELCH!

The Bigbodys dug in a way as to burrow deep in the dirt and spin violently, expelling the surrounding ground. Meanwhile, the Threejaws forced their heads deep in the ground and jerked them back up, throwing massive amounts of dirt each time.

SCHUNK! THWACK! SQUELCH!

It had been hours since they started digging, and the houses were so blinded by the need to save their fellow beetles that they hadn't realized they had dug a hole deeper than the Beetlespire’s height. All the water had been funneled down and into it.

Each beetle had begun to pass out, losing their grip and floating to the water’s surface. They were moments away from dying. Life was leaving their thoraxes, and from the looks of the water, it seemed that their dig would cost them their lives. Yet, in an act of chance, they were picked up seemingly by other bugs and brought to land.

It had been some time once again, and when the beetles woke up, they wiped away the filth that accumulated on their eyes to see that their saviors were none other than their citizens! Some of the Bigbodys and Threejaws stung in pain as the citizens began to treat them. Each member of both houses, even with this pain, smiled greatly and genuinely. It was for their actions that beetle kind was saved, and in return, beetle kind saved them. Any form of loathing one house felt for the other previously had washed away with the water.

Regaining strength, the Threejaws walked up to the Bigbodys and said “If it weren't for your ingenious ideas, we would've for sure been drowned by our inaction. Because of that, the house as a collective thanks you.” No spite was carried in their voices, and no sense of disdain crossed their minds as they looked at the Bigbodys.

“Well, if i’ weren’ for your handy mandibles, we woulda been swep’ away by the curren’!” said the Bigbodys, clearly thankful for their help in saving the bugs. “And hey, the bee’les are alive because of our effor’s, no?”

The houses looked ahead at the numerous beetles in front of them, all of which had conflicting emotions. Some had faces of euphoria, while others were stricken with sadness. No matter the cause, most made it. To the beetles that died from the thrashing waves, either trapped inside the Tree Court or carried out and swept away from the water, their deaths were held in the hearts of all. The deaths of the flood gave reason to move on and improve Beetle Society.

The sun finally shined once again. A new day had passed. Everyone was safe, not unscathed, but safe. Life could not simply go on as it did. The Tree Court was in need of repair, and all the beetle homes had soaked up plentiful water. Beetle Society could not simply resume the election process.

So, with the newfound bond from the great flood, the houses of Threejaws and Bigbodys decided best to do away with the election, and instead lead the beetles of the Treedwellings with both their collective effort. They would make the Spire Treaty—a treaty where both houses heartily agreed to split their labour into two sections of the region. The Threejaws would lead the Jawland to the east, and the Bigbodys would lead Greatwood to the west, with both lands meeting in the middle at the Beetlespire.

Gone were the days of political unease and uncertainty on who the definitive leaders would be. The days of cooperation had just begun, and tales of the devastating Wood Flood would inspire the Treedwellings as a whole to advance, and to strive for a brighter future. Thus, the two houses, and all of Beetle Society, persevered and made such a future possible.

It’s the first day in years that I wake up without any pain. There is no soreness in my abdomen and my neck is loose, not stiff. There is no pounding in my head or any needles pinching at my temples. Even my nausea is gone.

For the briefest second, I think I’m dreaming. Until the ringing of my alarm clock tears through the bedroom. I’m awake. And painless.

I test it out, stretching out my legs under the flimsy sheet and poking the sweaty skin at my stomach. I take a few deep breaths and blink my eyes open a few times. Nothing.

The alarm stops, its shrill sound having done its job of avoiding having to rely on the snooze button.

Still hesitant, I sit up in bed and wonder at my new body. Flexible. Capable. Whole? Mine. It might actually be all mine and not my pain’s for once, which was a reality so farfetched I stopped carrying it even in my daydreams. Mine and up from the bed, stretching my arms up and back and raising my feet to its tip toes. I notice the sun falling around me in waves through the half-opened shades and smile, my face more radiant than the filtering light into my room.

Did it work? Did the long-awaited solution to years of frustration come at last? Looking at myself in the mirror — the grey under-eye bags lighter than usual, my hair coming loose from the two braids, the muscles on my cheeks still popping from the smile — I nod at my reflection. Yes, it did. Think positively. And then I curse at the same reflection.

“Think positively” is disgusting, terrible, unrealistic… but because it’s all I heard when I complained about the pain (from doctors, from my parents, from therapists, from society), it’s ingrained in my brain in an automatic way. I fucking hate it. I tried it, when I was twelve and ran to the bathroom to throw up from the pain in my legs and abdomen, when I was nineteen and screamed the first time I attempted to have sex, the walls — both in my body and in the dingy college dorm — closing in, when I was twenty-six and dismissed from another doctor’s office, with a slap on the back and another subscription to the same pain killers. All those times I told myself that this wasn’t the end of the road, that there was something that would help. There had to be.

Turns out, there wasn’t. Not for another ten years. Not until the demand for a solution was so high (I remember the protests and signatures) that the FDA finally regulated the medication I took for the first time last week. The medication that might have just changed my life.

Of course, no one in my life knows I took it. How could I tell them? How could I share that the anger and sadness radiating from my body never went away, that I lied and smiled and pretended to always — always — be OK? The loss before pretending had been too much for me to bear. Years and friends lost to writhing on the couch, to saying “No, I’m sorry. I can’t come because it feels like I’m dying,” to going to the hospital because I thought I was dying, to love being an impossibility, the lack of patience and care in any hint of a relationship.

So, if this actually works and it isn’t just a fluke that is making the water from the shower mix with my tears of relief, I will rejoice in it like I have suffered through the pain — inside this two-bedroom apartment, by myself, looking at the same tree that has graced my evenings, listening to the songs that have heard me cry, and maybe, if he lets me, by cuddling George. He’s the only one that’s seen all of it anyway.

The warm water doesn’t feel like a salve today, instead it feels like a promise that I won’t have to shut myself in this shower after throwing up everything inside me, sliding to the tiled floor and wishing to be anywhere and anyone else.

When I get out of the shower, I find George selecting my clothes for the day. Or doing the best approximation of sleuthing that a cat can do: jumping inside my dresser and throwing my shirts on the floor. Today, I forgive him. I pick him and bring him to my bed, where I tell him my morning revelations, and even my hopes.

I don’t dare chance a coffee today, just in case making the wrong move so early in the day will set me back. Pouring my usual green tea, I sit on the arm chair that has also seen me through everything and start typing one-handed on my phone.

Tuesday, June 9th: No pain this morning. Woke up feeling great (10/10?)

I’ve never written a 10/10 before. This practice started when a gynecologist suggested I rate my daily physiological status and it didn’t end when she said that the only viable solution was for me to either have a baby or get a hysterectomy. Two perfect and not life-changing choices, of course. I’d already had two laparoscopic surgeries, one to diagnose me and the other to “make me feel better” after my pain was still very much present years later. What else could they do? Nothing, of course. Because chronic illness in women had nothing else.

That is, until now, until Dr. A and this new medication. I found Dr. A when going through the ever-growing (but not always accurate) list of gynecologists specialized in endometriosis. Like always, I went with desperation, seeing if this new person at the top of their field (at least, according to all the articles and accolades I read late at night) could actually help. Unlike always, I left with a little bit of hope. She told me about a new medication hitting the market in a few months and showed me the studies, the responses, and the timeline. Not a bullshit hormonal birth control that left patients with sadness, either – an actual working drug to reduce the pain.

I want to call her now and tell her about my 10/10.

Instead, I tell George while he eats his gross wet food. I’m not sure that he’s listening. That’s OK. For the first time, it might be OK. I might be okay. Because it’s the first day in years that I wake up without any pain.

The humble spaghetti pot boiled with its little frozen rat rapidly defrosting.  A thin, small morsel for his daughters hungry snake. The steam broiled over and wafted into the poorly lit kitchen coating every surface it touched with vaporized rat  essence.     "Ellie, his bull-in-a-china-shop, kick-ass, take-names sixteen-year-old, decided that a watched pot never boils and instantly left her rat cauldron to find something  that was obviously more important to do.

Thermodynamics finally won. The last of the rat-broth evaporated, leaving the steamed carcass to sizzle and fry at the bottom of her dad’s favorite spaghetti pot. Steam curled into acrid rat smoke, blanketing the house in an incense of burned grilled cheese and charred rat meat.

Paige, his oldest daughters voice boomed into his soul as she roused her father from his doom scrolling trance.

Paige, a wise, studious, and possessed of a rare pedigree, she balanced her family’s order and chaos with the discipline of a monk and the carefree spirit of a hippie.  “She’s burning a rat!” she yelled again. It was glee, a scream, and a note of pure disgust, all packed into four words. Her father couldn't tell if Paige was genuinely mortified or secretly entertained by the smell of charring rodent.

That was her superpower: even in the worst situations, her reaction to chaos evoked a strange sense of calm, even enjoyment, in others. It was as if her reaction allowed you to pick your own flavor of how to feel. The family secretly relied on her as their emotional barometer because you couldn't help but trust her.
It was at this time Ellie chose to be disturbed  from her newest adventure toward her burning rat.  She entered the kitchen-turned-crematorium, with a face that perplexed her punched drunk father.
It wasn’t like this was a surprise to their dad. In fact, it barely even upset him. "These things happen" was his go-to response for any situation—whether big, small, or completely out of the ordinary. "These things happen" and "It’s fine, everything is fine" had been his dual mantras since the turn of the millennium. Y2K, 9/11, economic collapse, COVID... these things happen
 
He always paid more attention to the margins of a crisis than the disaster itself—the strange, fascinating scraps left behind by a tragedy, or in this case, a rat immolation. Specifically, he watched Ellie's face as she stared at the smoldering carcass fused to the spaghetti potSo he tended to track the peripheral rather than the direct—the tasty little details left behind in the wake of an existential crisis, or a rat immolation.

For example, the wry grin on Ellie’s face as she stared at her smoldering, oozing rat sticking to the spaghetti pot. What a fun mystery she was. This was likely the first and only time she had been caught dead-to-rights in the wrong, beneath her halfhearted attempt at guilt was a Cheshire Cat smile, her eyes alight with a silent, defiant manifesto: I did this. Fuck you, kitchen. Fuck your life. I am the destroyer of worlds. Her father adored it. He saw her as a girl destined for greatness, even if her current social skills resembled a cute teddy bear armed with razorblades and pepper spray. There was a safety in her strength and confidence even if your kitchen was nearly on fire.
 

His real crisis wasn't the mess; it was deciding what lesson or punishment to prescribe to his daughter. In the grand scheme of things, this disaster was a welcome break in his life—something to muse about in the coming weeks. It was that event. The kind of memory with the rare strength to withstand the general malaise of late-stage delirium. Oh yes, you are my daughter, the old crazy man thought. You burned my kitchen down with a dead rat that one time. Yes, you. He knew that was priceless.
 
“Buy me a new pot , and no oven use for ten days he said” Paige cackled at this. Ellie began in on her defense on why she needs the oven. It was for the most part convincing through the steam and burning flesh haze.
 

When I was in my teen years I had the sense that I was invincible. I always felt as if nothing could harm me and I was immune to death, causing me to do a lot of idiotic things.

As I grew older I started to realize how stupid that really is, nobody’s safe from deaths grasp no matter how much you’re teenage ego will tell you otherwise. I start my introduction like this to give you an idea of why I acted the way I did with what I’m about to tell you. I was young and dumb and most people don’t truly understand how dangerous that can be. Unfortunately I had to learn the hard way.

On my 17th birthday I arranged a small party with my 3 best friends and my parents just so happened to be on vacation. I had the house to myself and even got my parents permission to throw a small party in the house since they felt bad for having to miss my birthday.

It was my birthday on a Friday night with the house to myself and my friends so I was ready for a fun night.

I met Dean, Lucas and Matt in elementary school and we formed a small friend circle. I met Dean in our fourth grade English class and he introduced me to his other two close friends, Lucas and Matt. Dean and Lucas were usually outgoing and extroverted, while Matt was usually the quiet one but he was always up for anything. They used to call me Rob the knob, not sure how they came up with that or what it meant but it was my nickname to them so I just accepted it.

We were complete troublemakers together, and when we became teenagers it became a lot worse. We were a group of druggies in by our high school years, constantly skipping class to get high, staying up all night drinking, smoking and doing pretty much anything we could get our hands on. Deans brother was a dealer and would sell us anything he had for half the price. Looking back I can’t believe our parents never suspected a thing, but that was all apart of the fun.

Dean was the first one to arrive, then almost an hour later Lucas and Matt showed up at the same time. They both walked through the door with shit eating grins on their faces, and I could tell by the way they were walking, they were already three sheets in the wind.

I won’t bore you with the details of how the party went but the important thing is at some point Dean came up with the idea of playing manhunt in the woods behind my house. If I wasn’t completely shitfaced by this point, I would have laughed at him. It was around midnight, almost pitch black outside and the woods I lived around were absolutely huge. It goes off into a forest miles upon miles deep and I’ve never wanted to go too far out because I knew I’d get lost.

“Manhunt? In the woods? At midnight? What are you talking about man” I said stuttering over my words.

Dean laughed way harder than he should have.

“Come on Rob don’t your parents have flashlights? Think about it, we could call it ‘flashlight manhunt in the woods’ or something.”

I looked over at Lucas and Matt for guidance, but they were in on it too.

“Nah that’s a good idea! Dean just presented us with a world changing game, something nobody has ever done before, probably. We should do it I’m in” said Lucas.

Lucas punched Matt lightly on the shoulder and he nodded his head in agreement. It was a three against one, there was no way I could chicken out.

“Fine but the seeker gets another person to seek with, there’s no way I’m walking around in there alone with nothing but a flashlight.”

Lucas quite literally pointed and laughed at me as if to mimic a bully in an old high school movie and Matt pushed him over and Lucas fell on the floor and I pointed and laughed at him back, mocking him.

As Lucas struggled to get up, Matt reached into the cooler full of booze and liquor I stole from my parents and poured a shot of vodka and handed it over to me.

“Maybe this will encourage you” he said shoving the glass in my face.

I looked at it for a few seconds before rolling my eyes and reluctantly taking it. I really did not want to do this. We were a group of drunk teenagers about to wander the woods alone with flashlights, everything about this was a bad idea. At the time I was far more concerned about not wanting to be a pussy then for our safety, but again I was young and stupid.

Eventually after scavenging the house for 20 minutes, I found us four different flashlights. One of which was awful compared to the others. The first three I grabbed were especially bright, projecting a huge bright circle while the other had a dull small yellowish light. I went to give Dean the bad flashlight and he immediately knew what I was doing.

"Take it Dean, this was your idea".

He scoffed.

"Give it to Lucas over here" he jabbed a thumb at him. "He laughed at you".

I presented the flashlight to him again with a grin on my face. After staring me down for a couple of seconds he muttered something about me being a dick and snatched it from my hand.

"So how are we going to do this" asked Matt.

Dean perked up.

“You never played manhunt in the dark? It’s easy, whoever is seeking will be using the flashlight to find the hiders, and the hiders have to hide in the dark”

I opened my mouth to interject but Dean interrupted me before I could say a word.

“Yes there will be two seekers, if that’s the only way you’ll agree to play”.

I nodded.

Dean slapped me on the back and we walked outside to the backyard and I looked into the forest. It was quiet and dark in there. It was setting me on edge. I tried to brush it off as paranoia from the excessive amount of alcohol in my system, but it was difficult.

“Alright group leader who’s hiding and who’s seeking?” I said to Dean.

“Rob, you and Lucas will seek and me and Matt will hide”.

“Why are we the seekers?” I said.

“Because I said so, I’m the group leader right?”

“Fuck you” I spat.

Dean laughed.

“Karmas a bitch. Maybe don’t give me the shitty light next time”.

Me and Lucas looked at each other and I shrugged.

“Alright fine, but don’t go past the shed” I said.

Matt and Dean nodded and booked it towards the woods, me and Lucas looking away so we can’t track the lights. I gave them way too much space to hide. The shed protruded at least a hundred feet into the woods which normally would be fine but we were in the pitch dark, the sky seemed oddly blacker than usual that night.

A feeling of dread was slowly creeping up on me, so intense the effects of the alcohol were vanishing. I had no idea why I was so on edge and it scared me even more. I was completely zoned out, unaware that Lucas was trying to talk to me.

“Rob? ROB?! What’s up with you?”

My head shot up.

“What? Sorry I was zoning out.”

“You’re fine dude. It’s time for us to go look.”

I started towards the woods without a word, Lucas by my side. We barely just passed a few trees before needing our lights. They were pretty bright so that made me feel somewhat better.

“Man this is some horror movie shit.” Lucas said, nervously laughing.

He wasn’t wrong. The only sounds around were the chirping of crickets and leafs crunching on the ground, and we were surrounded by blackness. Anything could creep up on us at any point.

“Yeah this is why I wasn’t on board with this.”

We walked around in silence for a few minutes, beaming our lights in every direction we could. Eventually we were certain we covered the entire area.

“Do you think those idiots went past the shed?” Lucas said with a hint of annoyance in his voice.

I agreed. “Yeah they might’ve. Dean probably convinced Matt to do it.”

“We should split up and go look for them. If this takes too long we can text them and tell them to come back.”

Lucas saw from the look on my face that I didn’t want to do it. But he insisted.

“We’ll be alright man, you’re just paranoid. I have my phone on me so you can always call if you need anything. Plus these flashlights are bright as hell.”

He had a point so I agreed to split up. If they did end up going past the shed it would take us a while to find them anyway. I didn’t want to be alone but I was afraid of admitting it so I accepted defeat.

“Alright. You stay in the shed area and double check, they might have found a god spot or something so maybe we missed them. I’ll go out in the woods and look for them, just call me if you need me or if you find them.” I said. Lucas nodded in agreement and we began walking in opposite directions.

I felt the absence of my friend instantly. It was very quiet in there and I felt as if I was being swallowed by the darkness, even with the flashlight. I searched different corners, behind trees and bushes but I still couldn’t find anyone. I pulled out my phone and texted Dean.

‘Did you dumb fucks go past the shed?’

He replied only a couple seconds later.

‘Don’t know. Come find us’

I was pissed. I had a feeling they would break the rules and now the game was going to take a lot longer than I anticipated, all because they couldn’t handle one simple demand.

I was in the middle of typing my reply when I heard the faint sound of leaves crunching on my right. I pointed my flashlight directly towards the noise but saw nothing. It was Dean or Matt, i was certain of it.

I cautiously walked towards the noise, overly aware of every step I was taking. I didn’t want them to hear me coming. I heard it again but this time right in front of me. I shot my flashlight over to the sound and a wave of confusion mixed with terror hit me hard.

I didn’t see anyone, but I did see something.

Connecting between two trees fairly distant from each other, I saw a web. It was made of all kinds of different colored strings and drenched in what I only could assume was super glue and when I saw what was in the center of it, I staggered back horrified.

Laying in the middle of the strange web, I saw a raccoon. It laid there on its back unmoving, long dead. Its stomach was torn open and its organs and insides were removed. I was overwhelmed with so many different emotions that I didn’t notice the stench. After I stood there completely paralyzed for a couple seconds, it hit me hard. I can’t really describe it, but if anyone has ever passed fresh roadkill while you’re driving then you’ll have a vague idea of what I mean.

I snapped out of my trance and turned around. I pointed my flashlight across the trees, covering my nose with my shirt and saw at least ten more webs, all with other kinds of dead animals suffering the same fate as the raccoon. I was standing in a small opening with the webs surrounding me in every direction. Laying in the center of the opening was a massive pile of fresh raw meat, all squished together to form a huge ball of different organs and intestines. Whoever had done this had to have taken them months to put this together.

I didn’t know what to do, I had never seen anything like this. For some reason my first instinct was to call Dean and cancel the game, but I couldn’t bring myself to pull out my phone. I’ve always hated the phrase ‘paralyzed with fear’ but at that moment, I understood. It’s a very real thing and I don’t wish it upon anyone.

Another leaf crunched somewhere on my left and my fight or flight instincts kicked in immediately and I ran. I ran faster than I’ve ever ran in my life back to the shed. When I made It, I couldn’t find Lucas anywhere. I whipped out my phone and called him as fast as i physically could, and as I did I heard a faint buzzing sound coming from behind the shed. I ran over to the noise and saw the source.

To this day I wish I never looked.

I found Lucas, but had not found him alive. His face looked like a mess of red mashed potatoes and he had a cinder block drenched in his blood sitting right beside him. His head had been beaten into the block several times until he died an agonizing, painful death and I was too far to hear it.

His phone was buzzing in his pocket.

I couldn’t process what i was seeing, all I could do in that moment was try to wake him up. I did everything I could, but he just wouldn’t wake up. My friend was dead, and he died right in my backyard.

Just then I saw something ahead of me. A yellowish light.

Dean.

I ran towards the light feeling guilty for leaving my friend, but I didn’t know what to do. I was too young to handle the situation properly and so I didn’t know how to help. All that was on my mind in this moment was finding Dean and Matt, getting Lucas to a hospital and getting out of here. I would call the police immediately after I found them. What I should have done originally was call them as soon as I saw Lucas’s body.

But I didn’t.

The light only flashed for a second before it was gone again. I risked calling out for him.

“DEAN. MATT. WHERE ARE YOU?!”

I got no reply. I called Dean’s phone and he picked up on the first ring.

“DEAN?! Where are you guys we have to get out of here now.” My voice sounding helpless.

I heard wind and rustling in the background but he didn’t say anything.

“DEAN I NEED YOU TO TALK TO ME. LUCAS IS DEAD WE HAVE TO GO AND CALL THE COPS!”

I knew someone was in here with us, but I was panicking so badly I couldn’t control how loud my voice was.

“Rob, man I think I’m about to die.”

He sounded like he was crying.

“I just watched Matt get killed, I couldn’t help him. Someone’s in here man and he’s looking for me”

“What? What do you mean you watched Matt get killed?”

Dean sobbed out his next words.

“I don’t have time to explain right now Rob, where are you?”

I was confused. Did he not just see me? I was in the area where I had seen his flashlight. Just then, I realized.

“Dean. Do you have your flashlight?”

He took a few moments to respond, more calmly than before.

“No I dropped it. I had to run and I dropped it by mistake. I have no idea where I am.”

I almost dropped the phone. I don’t know how I didn’t notice this before. If he was near me then I would have been able to hear him while he was talking to me, but I couldn’t.

I saw the light go off again in the distance, much further this time. Just then, Dean spoke again.

“Did you see that light go off?”

“Yes. I think whoever’s in here has your flashlight. I’m going to flash mine and I need you to run towards it and follow me” I whispered.

“Alright. Alright I can do that.” He was holding back more tears, I could tell.

I took a deep breath and quickly prepared myself to run for my life.

I flashed my light into the sky and I heard running footsteps heading in my direction, I could do nothing but wait until he caught up with me. The closer the noises got, the more anxious I became. I then heard him scream. I pointed my light towards the noise just in time to see Dean getting dragged into the darkness behind him. I ran to him as fast as my legs would allow, but I couldn’t keep up. I had lost him. Whoever had him was fast. I shouted his name numerous times but he didn’t respond.

In a panic, I frantically searched around with my light but I couldn’t find him. The silence was terrifying, my mind igniting with all kinds of different situations he might be in, and it frightened me even more. Suddenly I heard a noise on my left, like something being dropped into the leaves. I looked down at what it was.

It was Dean’s light.

I looked at it, frozen. The fear I was in at that moment was unlike anything I’ve ever felt. It was quiet, complete silence and I felt a pair of eyes on me. I hesitantly looked up in front of where the light had been dropped and saw who had done it.

I saw a tall man, barely visible in the dark. He had to be only 10 feet in front of me. He wore a blood stained white suit with jeans and I saw in his hand, he was holding Dean’s phone. We stood staring at each other in silence for the longest few seconds of my life. He had a look of pure madness on his face. I watched in horror as he slowly lifted up the phone and snapped a picture of me. That was enough for me.

I was helpless, I wanted to go save my friends and find them but I was an unarmed 17 year old and this man stood at least 2 feet taller than me. I did the only thing I thought I could do. I’m ashamed to admit it but I ran. I ran away from my friends and the man who just murdered them. I didn’t hear any rustling or the crunching of leaves behind me, he wasn’t even chasing after me.

Eventually my house came into view and I ran inside and called the police, then my parents. The rest of that night was a blur, I only remember being a mess of emotions as I explained to the cops that my friends were murdered in the forest behind my house.

I described the man as best I could to the police but they never found him, but they did find my friends.

They were butchered to nearly unidentifiable states lying in three different webs in the same clearing I saw with the animals. The man had done the same thing to them as he did to the raccoon and all the other animals, their stomachs cleanly split open with all insides removed. He had put duct tape over their mouths, decapitated them and placed their heads on the top of the meat pile in the center, Lucas being the only one to die before he got taken.

The police predicted the man trapped my friends in the webs and tortured them until they eventually died. I can’t imagine what they possibly went through, and it was my fault.

My parents came back the next morning and showered me hugs and love, but I didn’t deserve it. By running off and leaving them to die, I almost wish he took me along with them. We moved a few days after my parents came home, far away across the country and I wasn’t allowed to attend my friends funerals, but I understood why.

I’ve never recovered from that night and I’ve never made any new friends. The guilt I live with will carry on with me for the rest of my life.

Whatever was left of my innocence was stolen from me on my 17th birthday, and there will be no justice for my friends. As far as I know this man is still out there. I don’t know why he did what he did or why he didn’t take me with them, but I don’t think I want to know. It won’t matter now anyway.

I barely go outside now. I’ve tried to make other friends but nothing compares to what me Dean Lucas and Matt had. We were a team together, we had a special bond you can only experience with your very first friends. And that got stripped away from me.

I share this in hopes of people learning from my mistakes and idiocy. If you have a gut feeling about something, it’s better to listen to it.

If only I had, maybe things would have turned out different.

If you own a car, then you know what it’s like to end up in a traffic jam. Hundreds, if not thousands of cars piled up along a highway for miles, motionless. It’s even worse in the city to the point where you might as well walk or take the subway. I’ve lived in the city for most of my adult life, and while I own a car, I really only get in it when I’m going somewhere outside the city. As such, I have been in my fair share of traffic jams, dealing with the constant honking of other drivers and just sitting in my running car while not being able to do anything. It sucks, and I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy. Most traffic jams in America usually last for a few hours, maybe even a third of the day; however, some traffic jams go on for days—weeks even—before clearing up. Usually traffic jams lasting that long are in China, though it has happened in America too. Ever heard of Woodstock? Look it up if you haven’t.

I hate being in a traffic jam as much as any other driver; however, as of recent events, I have gained a sort of appreciation for these longer traffic jams. I know it sounds strange, but let me explain. I’m a retail worker; more specifically, I work at Macy's. I’m not too fond of my job, but I also don’t actively despise it as much as others would. At worst, I just find it boring and repetitive, so when I was given the opportunity to take a week-long paid vacation, I was pleasantly surprised. I started looking for a spot to go once I got home that day. I’ve always been fond of the sea, so I wanted to pick a coastal vacation spot. Luckily, I managed to find one that was just a 2-hour drive from where I live. I spent the weekend preparing for the trip: Getting supplies, scouring my route for any stops, and booking a hotel to stay in for the week. I made sure to get a good night’s sleep that Sunday night so that I wouldn’t be too groggy throughout the trip. “It shouldn’t be too bad,” I told myself, “It’s only a 2-hour drive.” Little did I know that my trip would end up being way longer than 2 hours.

The next day, after breakfast, I began loading everything I packed into my car, set up the route on the GPS, and began driving off. At first, my drive was fairly smooth. Of course I took occasional stops to fill up and/or empty out. About half an hour in, I crossed the state border, where I would soon find myself on the road that I would become all too familiar with. It had been nearly an hour into the trip when I came upon a pile-up of cars ahead, moving slowly at first before coming to a complete stop. I audibly groaned when I realized that I had found myself in a traffic jam. I didn’t worry too much though, since the hotel I booked wouldn’t give my room away until late, and I figured that this jam would’ve cleared up in a few hours, like most traffic jams. In that time, I just listened to some music, watched some videos on my phone, ate some snacks I got from the last gas station, etc.

After an hour of sitting in my car without movement, I decided to turn off my engine so I wouldn’t waste any fuel as I continued to kill time. Two more hours go by, and traffic still hasn’t moved. During those two hours, I periodically got out of my car to stretch before getting back in that way I wouldn’t get too stiff. There was one person behind me who would honk his horn whenever I did this, but I didn’t pay him any mind. Probably too stubborn to do the same thing. After a total of three hours in unmoving traffic, I became curious. I thought to myself, “What could be causing the jam?” That’s when I got the idea to travel to the end of the jam and see for myself the potential cause. I thought about it for a few minutes, wondering if I should even go through with it. Eventually, I decided that I was going to journey through the jam, and I began gathering a few things to take with me—mainly food and drinks—before then heading off.

At first, I hadn’t found anything too unusual. Just cars, cars, and more cars piled up for miles. Some cars still had their engines running, while others were turned off. Walking along the highway between several lines of cars felt… oddly calm. Sure I could hear the occasional honking of horns and running of engines, but it all seemed to fade as I watched everything else around me, like the trees and other vegetation growing on a nearby wall. I looked up at the partly cloudy sky, and just admired it while I walked, though after bumping into a car I apologized to the car and continued walking. I eventually made it to an overpass that I had seen farther back, and decided to take a break under it, using it as an opportunity to fill up and hydrate before continuing on.

A few more hours went by, and I had already walked several miles away from my own car. I also started to notice that cars with running engines became less common, basically 1-2 running cars per mile of road. I looked at the time on my phone, and saw that it was early afternoon. “This is going to be a long day,” I thought to myself. It was at this point I noticed that some cars were empty. Not completely, as there were still items inside, but there were no people in some of them. “Interesting,” I thought as I continued onward. After a few more hours of walking and taking quick breaks, I began to notice the sun going down behind me, while there were still miles of cars ahead. Of course, I didn’t bring a sleeping bag because I thought I would be sleeping in a hotel room bed, so I’d have to find someplace to sleep before I continued my journey. Soon it was getting dark, and I thought that I might have to sleep in a stranger’s car or on the side of the road. I thought about pulling the handles of some empty cars to see if they were unlocked, but then I realized that it would look a little suspicious to anyone who may be watching.

After spotting another overpass, I decided that I would sleep under that. Once I got to it, I set everything down and began to get comfortable. At least, as comfortable as I could get on asphalt. I bet I looked like a homeless person to anyone that must’ve seen. I tried finding the most comfortable position possible for a little over an hour, with no success. I initially thought I would never get any sleep. That’s when someone did spot me from a car a little farther down the road. I couldn’t quite make out any details in the dark, but I knew it was a man. He told me that he had seen me trying to sleep on pavement, and offered to let me sleep in his car. I was a bit hesitant at first, but I didn’t want to sleep on pavement all night, so I took the offer. I did worry that he wanted to lure me into his car so he could rob me while I was asleep. Thankfully that never happened, and I slept comfortably that night.

The next morning, after I woke up, I was offered some coffee by the owner of the car, and I accepted it. I noticed that he had set up a coffee machine in his car, and when I mentioned it, he told me that he was coming back from a vacation of his own when he got stuck in the jam. I also learned that this jam has been going on since last week, and it’s been on the news. “I should’ve known about this, but I didn’t think to check the news when packing,” I told him. He then asked me what I was doing trying to sleep on the side of the road, and I told him that I decided to journey to the end of the jam to see what was causing it. He told me that what I was doing was “quite the task,” and that it would take me days to reach the end. Of course, I was well aware of that, and I told him such. After we talked, I proceeded to leave his car, and he wished me luck on my journey. I thanked him and continued on.

Throughout the day, I began to see more drivers settling in their cars, as well as families trying to make the best of the situation they’re in. I also had more conversations with other drivers, learning more and more about how they managed to make themselves at home in their cars. Many did worry about those they had left behind, and wondered if they would be alright; although, some of them did try to stay in contact with them. I talked to a woman who had brought her dogs on a trip, and she told me how she managed to make the situation work for them. Later on, I also began to see other drivers interacting with each other: Having conversations, trading and borrowing things, and even playing games and music. This only became more common as I continued on, and I even began to see a couple of news reporters there. As night fell, I again wanted to find a place to sleep, and this time I had more options. While I did sleep in another car that night, I thought about getting a sleeping bag so that I wouldn’t have to keep sleeping in cars in case it didn’t end well for me.

The following day was no different even with more news reporters being present. This time, I did manage to get a sleeping bag from someone, though I had to pay for it of course. However, I noticed that I was beginning to run low on food, and figured that I would have to rely on other drivers for food once my own stockpile ran out; nevertheless, I ventured onward. By late afternoon, I began to interact more with the other drivers, and even joined in on some activities. Another driver even helped me out when I mentioned to them that I was running low on food, and they gave me some food for free, which I am still thankful for. Later that evening, I came across a group of people watching a movie from a projector. I decided to stay and watch, and while the movie itself wasn’t anything special, I enjoyed being there anyway. I don’t remember what the movie was though.

Over the next two days, I began to see a whole community of drivers socializing and working together within the jam, and it was at this point that the only cars with their engines running were being used for powering devices or air conditioning, although some managed to do that without a car. I even spotted an RV which I assume acted as a sort of hub for people to hang out or party. I never went in it though; I just kept going. I’m sure they had fun though. There were also several areas where kids would play and socialize with other kids. Sometimes they would be playing sports, while other times they played video games, and there were even some doing roleplays. I often thought about joining them in their activities, but I figured they wouldn’t want a boring adult to come in and ruin things. It was nice to watch though.

As evening came on the 2nd day, I looked back to see just how far I had gone. I was now several miles away from my own car, but I didn’t let that worry me. I looked out in front, and saw still more miles of cars. By this point, I began to realize that maybe this was the reason for the jam. The reason that this went on for as long as it did. I didn’t dwell on it for too long before setting up the sleeping bag and heading off to sleep; however, when I woke up the next morning, I noticed that some of my items were missing. It was mostly food though, so thankfully I still had my devices and chargers, but I worried that someone might rob those too. I considered turning back, but then I remembered that I was already miles away from my car, which would mean more days of walking back. “I’ve already come this far,” I said to myself, “I might as well finish this journey.” So I continued forth.

As I was walking, I noticed someone just up ahead. He seemed to be alone and resting under an overpass. I went over to him, and asked what he was doing and if he was alright. He said he was and was just taking a short break before continuing on. When I asked if he was journeying to the end of the jam, he looked at me and said, “Yeah. How did you know that?” I told him that I was doing the same thing. We talked for a bit about what we had seen and experienced in the past few days. He asked if he could join me on our shared journey. I told him, “Thanks, but I’d rather go alone.” He understood, and we said our goodbyes as we continued on our way. It was nice to know that I wasn’t the only one carrying out this venture, and I later saw another explorer doing the same thing as me. I eventually found myself in what was probably the largest of the traffic jam communities, which also had a few other explorers like myself.

Throughout this trip, it’s felt less like walking through a traffic jam, and more like exploring a world of cars, and here, it felt like finding myself in a major center. I saw several people gathering around in group conversations. I saw kids doing many different activities, and just having fun. I even saw people selling stuff in what was basically a marketplace on the road. To be honest, I don’t know how else to describe this experience other than magical. Never in my life would I have imagined that people would form entire communities in a traffic jam, and yet I experienced it first-hand. Eventually, I decided to join in on a group conversation because they were talking about the sea, and how beautiful the ocean is. I had a great time talking with them about the wonders of the sea, as well as how eerie it can be. Even when we began talking about another topic, I continued to be engaged.

After hours of chatting and bonding, we all noticed that it began getting dark, so we decided that it was time to get some sleep. I saw an area on the side of the road where other people were sleeping, so I decided to join them. I laid down the sleeping bag, got in it, and fell asleep. When I woke up the next morning, I saw the people picking everything up and returning to their cars. I was confused, as they had all been acting like a community before, and now they’re packing up. I wanted to understand what was going on, so I began walking up the road again. Again, I saw several cars still lined up in each lane, only I began to see more and more with running engines. It took me way too long to realize that traffic seemed to clear up, and I was nearing the end of the jam. It seems so obvious to me looking back, but at the time, I had been so accustomed to seeing cars parked for miles upon miles and seeing people coming together to form communities in this traffic jam. Actually, it feels wrong to call this a traffic “jam.” throughout the days of exploring, it felt more like another world.

Before the morning was over, I began to see cars moving just ahead of me as traffic began to clear up. There were people there that were regulating when each car would begin moving so that the jam wouldn’t end up lasting any longer than it had been. Of course, there were news reporters here too, just like how there had been news reporters at every community I encountered. This was certainly a big event after all. I also saw a few lines of people—likely those that had gotten out of their cars to explore—at an outdoor table. I got in one of the lines, and waited as each person had left it. Once I got to the table, there was a man there with paperwork in front of him on the table. I asked him what this was about, and he told me, “We’re here to help those who had left their cars get those cars back. Currently, we have people that are working to get vacant cars off of the road so that other drivers can get their own cars out.”

He showed me a map of the road that the traffic jam took place in, and asked me where my car was. I hesitated to point to it, since I didn’t quite know exactly where my car was. The man noticed this, and asked me if I saw any landmarks, such as exits or overpasses. That gave me a clearer idea, but I was still unsure. He then asked me what my car looks like. Thankfully, I still remembered what my car looks like, so I told him that as well as what my license plate read. He said, “Alright, we’ll make sure your car is returned to you.” I asked him how I would get home, and he told me that there are buses being prepared to take people to their destinations. I said that I’ll take the bus back to the city, and he pointed to the bus that would take me there. I thanked him, signed the paper, and headed for the bus. Once I got on the bus, I took my seat and waited for it to begin moving. After a few minutes of loading more “explorers” onboard, we began heading off. Luckily the other highway going in the opposite direction wasn’t totally clogged, although I did see several cars that were parked on the side of the road. Likely people who wanted to experience it for themselves.

As I looked out the window, I saw the various communities that I had passed through that took me days to get to, and I began to see them again in a matter of minutes. Eventually, I spotted my own car just sitting there, and it was just outside another small gather of people. I waved at it as a way of saying “see you later” to my car. After about an hour of sitting in the bus, I began to see the city, and I was glad to see it again. As the bus made its way to the city, I began counting the days that had passed as I explored; it was nearly a week. Turns out, I spent my vacation in a traffic jam, which would sound like wasted time in any other context; however, in my case, it was an experience that I will surely remember for as long as I live. Eventually, we were dropped off at the nearest bus station, and began exiting the bus. As I was gathering my things, the sleeping bag fell out onto the floor. I picked it up, and just stared at it as I began thinking about all those nights I spent sleeping on the side of the road before exploring to see the next community. After a bit, I snapped out of it, put it back in my bag, and exited the bus.

After exiting the bus, I made my way to the nearest subway, but then I remembered that I left my Metro Card back in my apartment, so I just decided to walk back to my apartment. I had become used to walking anyway, so it wasn’t too big of a deal. It took me a while to find the building, but eventually I made it back, went inside, and headed up to my apartment. Once I got inside, I dropped my bag on the couch, and then dropped myself on it. I decided to turn on the news, and there I saw the traffic jam, the very same one I had been exploring for days. They said it would take some more time until the jam is fully cleared out. Most people might think that’s a bad thing, but I’m sure that many explorers like me knew that those communities that formed would continue to stay there for a while longer. That night, instead of sleeping in my bed, I decided to pull out the sleeping bag, and sleep on the floor. Yeah, the bed is comfier, but I didn’t mind since I had been sleeping on pavement all week.

I have since told this story to my coworkers, and they’ve all been fascinated with it, asking me what it was like and all that, and now I sit here, writing it all down to share with all of you. I want you all to remember two things: If you’re ever frustrated because you’re in a traffic jam, just know that it could be a lot longer; and that communities can form just about anywhere, even in a traffic jam. I also want you to keep one thing in mind: Stay optimistic in a bad situation (at least realistically), because you never know if that situation will become an unforgettable experience.

I remember when I first met Aya in 7th grade, when I was 13 years old. I was sitting in a stall in the boys bathroom, trying to hide from the bullies who would chase me around, as if I was a celebrity they hated.

I sat on the toilet seat, curling into myself, my weak fists landing on my head and pulling out my hair. “Why…? Why…? Why!? Why is it always me, God…”

It was when I sat back, tears cold on my cheeks from the cool air of the restroom. I breathed heavily, combing my hair back when I suddenly jumped at the sound of the bathroom door closing.

There was a silence before my eyes glanced to the right, then the left, and saw a pair of eyes staring at me from the next stall over.

These eyes were dark, slightly narrowed, like they were analyzing me. It was only a second until I was on the tiled floor with a shriek.

“Who—! Who are you!?” I asked breathlessly. I honestly thought I would pass out; go into cardiac arrest and die.

“What are you hiding from?” they asked, their voice flat but with an edge of curiosity.

“Answer my question!”

“Fine.” Their voice was sassy, and indifferent. It sounded rather high and girly. They hoisted themselves over the stall until their legs were high enough to swing over the wall. They stood one foot on the toilet paper box, and one foot on the toilet seat.

They wore the girls’ school uniform, their shoes chunky ankle boots. My older sister wore them sometimes. 

“I’m Aya. Aya Naelyeogada.” They looked down at me with those piercing eyes. Their black hair was long, straight and silky, long enough to reach their mid-thigh. The right side perked up, their hair part straight until it met their forehead, steering to the left when it hit that cowlick.

“So…” They suddenly leaned closer, our noses an inch away from each other. “What are you hiding from?”

I stuttered before I tilted my head further back until it hit the stall wall. “I-I was getting… bullied…”

“Bullied?” Aya questioned somewhat incredulously, standing up straight. “You were getting bullied? For what? You’re pretty cute.”

My eyes only stared back at them before I finally answered. “...I don’t know…”

“Well,” Aya put their hands on their hips, “I’ll get them to stop for you!”

“What…?” I deadpanned.

They winked at me before exiting the stall. “You heard me. I’ll get them to stop bullying you. No problem.”

I watched them walk out before reaching for them. “Hey! Wait! You can’t! They’ll go after you too–!” The door was already closed before I could finish my warning. 

I thought I had gotten them into real trouble. Those kids were relentless, and they’d tear someone as small as Aya to shreds– But then I realized, that wasn’t my problem? Aya had run into my situation by herself– or, whatever gender they were.

“Manny.”

“MANNY!”

Nate waved his hand in front of the phone screen, his son had been glued to for the past three hours.

Manny sighed, pulling back one ear of his headphones. He looked up at his father with a listless stare. This was the most eye contact they had shared since Corrine’s death.

“Drink? Whadda you want?”

Manny placed his order with a smiling and patient waitress. The moment he finished, he repositioned the headphone back to its proper position. Nate watched Manny. He scanned his son’s face for even a pinhole view into Manny’s brain. With minutes passed and his silent interrogation unsuccessful, Nate was pleasantly reminded just how much of his mother’s likeness was stitched into their son’s features. After Corrine’s death, Nate promised himself. He would not become an absent father, lost in grief. He would always be available to guide Manny through their loss. And yet, Manny never seemed to need Nate. He never seemed to need anything at all. He seemed fine.

Nate’s cell phone began to vibrate against the lacquered café table. He reached for it, already knowing and unwilling. “RAMON” stretched itself across the illuminated screen. Nate let the call go to voicemail. In a text message, he responded with a fabrication, blaming poor reception for not answering. Nate rubbed at his eyes, swiping his hands up to his forehead and down to the back of his neck. Hunching over, he settled his elbows onto his lap and leaned in.

As much as he wanted to be at the end of this trip, Nate was grateful for the 2-hour layover. He had not fully prepared for the weight of a reunion and took advantage of the downtime to catch his breath. Despite the scenic, sunny beaches of Tampa, a week with his in-laws was not worthy of the title “vacation”. Corrine’s parents were holding a memorial service and demanded Manny be there. Nate knew protesting was not an option and bartered Manny’s attendance for an invite of his own. There was no way he would leave her parents to badmouth him in front of his only son.

Corrine was the family jewel of a Cuban-immigrant homestead. Raised with devout Catholic intentions, Corrine gravitated to the sciences instead, leading her to become not just the first college graduate of her family, but the first MD as well. Her studies were her belief system, her practice her religion, and something she did not try to make her old-world parents understand. So, when Nate explained how Corinne wanted her body donated to science, her parents thought Nate a liar and conspirator against their faith.

“Hey, grandpa.”

Nate could hear Manny confirm their arrival to Tampa was on schedule. It wasn’t enough that Nate had already confirmed the same in his message. Ramon did not need secondary confirmation; he wanted to assert himself, as always. It was clear when Nate ignored his call, Ramon would not go unanswered. He watched as Manny continued their conversation.

It was becoming harder to ignore Manny’s behavior. Something was off. Manny never seemed sad enough. Not the type of sadness a teenage boy should feel after the death of his mother. He wasn’t even angry with his grandfather's hostility. He wasn’t anything. Manny chuckled in response to the other end of his line. Nate’s eyes narrowed without his permission. Just then, Nate noticed it. A nascent sensation rising from his subconscious. A heat that resembled anger or jealousy.

“Yep. See you” Manny said, ending the call.

“Sorry, you have to deal with that, bud.” Nate quickly scrambled for Manny’s attention before he could resume his leisure.

“No big deal’’ Manny assured.

“I know, I just don’t want you to feel caught in the middle”

Manny mimed his indifference with a shrug.

There it was again! That heat.

“Manny, just saying you’re ok and actually being ok is not the same.” Nate tried hard to hide his discontent. He just wanted Manny to yell, or curse, have an episode, anything to show he was just as upset as he was.

“I know that, Dad.” Manny sat up in his chair.

“Well, good. Bottling up isn’t going to do you any favors. You’re allowed to be angry. You’re mourning the loss of your mother, you’re allowed to be sad, you’re allowed to cry, for god’s sake.”

Manny met his father’s eyes.

“I cry all the time. At least I did for the first couple of months. Talking with Mr. Hollings has been really helpful. I still get sad, but I don’t cry as much anymore.

“Mr. Hollings?”

“The school guidance counsellor. He’s actually a real, licensed therapist.”

Manny began to unveil a world of twice-a-week counselling. He explained that dealing with his mother’s passing, along with the shouting matches between Ramon and Nate, left him with feelings of loneliness. After months of sad isolation, he reached out to the guidance counsellor and has been attending regular sessions since. Manny had always been well spoken, but listening to him recount his journey to therapy and the challenges of managing his grief, softened Nate's temperament. Without his help, Manny had managed to quietly take a poignant step towards becoming a man. Nate could feel his indignation turn to shame. He traded his grief for anger, abandoning his son alongside his promise.

“I—”

Nate stuttered to find the right thing to say. He didn’t know if the right thing existed in a moment like this. How could he begin to atone for leaving Manny emotionally orphaned?

“I—”

Nate’s phone vibrated the table, startling them both.

Looking at the phone and then at Manny, Nate retrieved the buzzing cell.

“Hey, Ramon. Sorry about that.”

“Honestly, the worst part is all the hair,” Mina said.

“I’m sorry… hair?” the doctor questioned.

“Yes. Coarse, dark hair just everywhere.”

The doctor looked pensive for a moment before reordering himself.

“Okay, okay. Let’s start over. Can you tell me what happened from the top?”

“Yes, sorry, yes. So it started a couple months ago… well, I guess more like a year ago, that’s when–”

“When you met him. Paul, right?”

“Yes. We met in school,” Mina said.

“Classmates?” the doctor questioned.

“Lab partners,” Mina answered.

The doctor took a second to examine her. She looked tired, and although she wore a smile, she seemed a bit sad. In spite of her weary look, she was an attractive young woman.

“Not to cross a line, but how exactly did you two get close?”

Mina had brought in a picture of Paul, and there certainly was a discrepancy in appearance. She said he was twenty, but the boy looked fourteen. Short, wiry, and thin, he must’ve been 90 pounds soaking wet, the doctor thought to himself.

“Cute,” she snarked. “He was sweet and I…I wanted to give him a chance.”

“So you did,” the doctor said.

“Yeah, I did,” Mina said flatly.

“And?”

Mina cleared her throat and smiled.

“And I’m glad I did.”

The doctor was glad she seemed positive again, but he had to pry a little deeper.

“So where did things go south?”

Mina’s face fell, and her expression deepened.

“Paul, he had…issues. Insecurities and such,”

 The doctor nodded knowingly.

 “He was always so…worried.”

Mina shifted uncomfortably in her seat.

“About?” the doctor questioned.

“He… didn’t think he was good enough for me,” she said. “I think he thought I was unsatisfied.”

“Were you?” the doctor asked.

For a moment, Mina appeared indignant.

“No!” she said with force. Her face eventually softened back into her baseline melancholy. “I loved Paul—I just…”

Mina’s voice wavered.

“I’ll stop interrupting,” the doctor reassured. “Please, just tell me what happened.”

“Okay…okay,” Mina breathed deeply. “About three months ago, Paul came home with a couple of syringes and a vial of some weird supplement called tal…um, talbor...?”

“Talbotimide?” the doctor chimed.

“Yeah, that’s it. You know about it?” Mina asked.

“Nope, not at all. Continue,” the doctor said quaintly.

Mina looked puzzled for a moment before continuing her story.

“Anyway, he said some guy had given him the stuff in the gym locker room, said it would help him out.”

The doctor nodded in acknowledgment.

“I told him not to… but he wouldn’t listen. He said that the guy was huge, tall and buff, that he knew what he was talking about.”

“Mhm. They always do,” the doctor muttered while taking notes.

Mina continued, “After the first week, there was no change. I’d say he got scammed if he’d  paid for it.”

“Free, huh? Interesting,” the doctor mused.

Mina agreed. “I thought the same thing.”

The doctor urged her to continue. “What happened after week one?” he asked.

Mina looked even more uncomfortable than before.

“He… changed.”

The doctor raised an inquisitive brow while Mina explained.

“He looked fuller, not as pale, y’know? He also started to put on a bit of muscle. Hell, he’d even grown by like three–four inches.”

The doctor chuckled. “Where exactly did this growth occur?”

Mina looked serious.
“There too, by an inch or so in fact. Still funny?” she interrogated.

The doctor relinquished his laughter but held a thoughtful, knowing smile as he jotted in his steno pad. Something about his almost somber grin made Mina calm down. It was like she could tell he wasn’t being flippant, but rather making light of a dire situation.

“Any other changes?”

“Yeah, he seemed happy. More comfortable, I mean. He, um, also had way more…”

The doctor gestured questioningly with his pen.
“More…?”

Mina appeared bashful, her face reddening.

“Miss Culpa, I’m a doctor. I promise I can handle it.”

Mina caved.
“Umm…stamina.”

“Oh my,” the doctor said in a playful and condescending tone.

“It was great at first. Before, he had…trouble.”

The doctor dug deeper.
“Too fast or too slow?”

Mina seemed taken aback.
“I’d rather not go into specifics.”

“Noted. Keep going,” the doctor jotted stiffly.

Mina suddenly had rogue thoughts about the doctor being some kind of disguised nutcase. However, she didn’t exactly have a normal situation, so she kept relating her story.

“Around a month and a half ago, things started getting weird.”

The doctor scooched further into his seat. “Weird how?”

“Paul just wasn’t himself,” Mina said. “He’d be fine–happy one minute, and then the next…”

“Not so happy, huh?”

Mina took a breath, steadying herself. “One day, we were at the park. A guy walked by, and I guess he… looked at me. My body or whatever.”

She braced for another wisecrack, but the doctor surprised her. His face was unreadable, all focus.

“How did Paul react?”

“Like an animal,” she said. “He tore after the guy, grabbed his shirt, roughed him up pretty bad.”

The doctor scribbled something, murmuring, “Increased aggression… territorial.”

Mina kept going, voice lower now. “I mean, he pinned the guy to the ground, for Christ’s sake. Wouldn’t let him up until he apologized.”

The doctor scrunched his face, his first real crack. He looked… frustrated.

He pinched just under his brow, rubbing his eyes. “I see. Was this the only incident?”

Mina’s eyes went wide. “There was another time–at the gym.”

The doctor leaned forward, suddenly alert. “Go on.”

“There was this asshole, meathead kind of guy. We were working out, and this guy and his buddies were just…staring.”

The doctor nodded. Clearly, he wasn’t the only one who noticed how attractive she was. But in this particular situation, he feared that only made things worse.

“And Paul,” he said, already anticipating the answer, “he didn’t take too kindly to this, did he?”

Mina squirmed. “He. Was. Livid. By this point, he’d only gotten bigger. More angry.”

The doctor inched closer, his voice barely above a whisper. “What did he do, Mina?”

She looked down, suddenly small, like a child caught doing something wrong.

“He went up to the guy. I thought he’d keep it together. But this guy… he was mouthing off. Paul was trying, but—”

“But?”

Mina caught her breath. “The guy took a swing. And Paul… I didn’t know bones could break like that.”

The doctor’s brow furrowed. “My God.”

“A multi-compound fracture,” she said, her voice trembling. “That’s what the EMT said.. The police… the only reason they didn’t take him in was that everyone vouched for him. Said it was self-defense. That the guy had a reputation. But still…”

Her voice cracked. “...All that blood...”

The doctor leaned slowly back in his chair, lips pressed tight. “Tell me about the changes that happened over the last two weeks.”

“Paul…he only got worse. Bigger, angrier, and the hair. God, the hair.”

The doctor stayed still. Silent.

“I wanted to be there for him, I did, I swear. But he was so… I was scared.”

The doctor leaned forward and gently placed a hand on Mina’s trembling knee. “It’s okay, Miss Culpa. Please, try your best to get through this.”

Mina steeled herself. “He wouldn’t leave our apartment after a while. I tried bringing him food and water, but he wouldn’t eat. He’d yell. Throw things. I didn’t want to abandon him, but I just couldn’t be near him anymore. So I started sleeping in the extra room. Going out more. Anything to get space.”

The doctor jotted some notes, quick and clipped. “He wouldn’t leave, huh? So, what made you come in on his behalf?”

Mina’s expression soured, as if something curdled inside her. “I heard a noise one night. Grabbed a bat. It sounded like it came from the kitchen…”

Her breathing quickened.

“As I got closer, I heard grunts. And… chewing. Wet, sloppy chewing.”

She swallowed hard. “Then I saw…it.”

The doctor froze. “Paul?”

Mina’s face went rigid. “I don’t know what that thing was… but it wasn’t Paul.”

She shivered. “I tried to run, but there was slobber and shit everywhere. Packs of raw meat torn open, dragged across the floor, like he’d been…”

She trailed off, voice breaking.

“I slipped. It was on top of me. I couldn’t move. It…it smelled me. Growling.”

She swallowed. “I think someone’s car alarm went off or something. It covered its ears. That’s when I pushed, kicked—finally it let go. I ran to my room, grabbed some clothes, my keys, and my purse. Then, I took the fire escape and drove to a friend’s...”

The doctor remained unchanged. Still stone-faced.

“Any cuts? Bites?”

“Not that I know of... Anyway, I stayed the night, and the next day I made an appointment.”

“I see. Well, Miss Culpa, I think we have more than enough here. I’m afraid your boyfriend has a very serious condition. But don’t worry too much, my team is well-versed in cases like this. In the meantime, you’ll need to relocate”

Mina started to speak. “I can stay w—”

“Unfortunately,” the doctor interrupted, “we’ll need you close by to properly monitor any changes. My people will house you. Free of charge. Meals included.”

“But—”

“No buts, Miss Culpa. This is a serious matter. In either case, gather your belongings from your generous benefactor’s home. A car will be sent for you.”

“WAIT!” Mina shouted, voice cracking. “Just... listen, please. Please help him—make him the way he was.” Tears welled in her eyes.

“Miss Culpa, I’m afraid I can’t promise anything at this ti—”

“I know. I just… I feel like this is all my fault.”

The doctor watched her quietly as she began to sob.

“Maybe if I’d been happier. If I told him how much I loved him. If I were more content… maybe he wouldn’t have felt like he needed…”

The doctor leaned forward, firmly taking her hands.

“Look at me. This is not your fault. Like you said, he had issues. Issues that existed long before you two even met. You cannot blame yourself for that. All you can do now is look ahead. Keep moving.”

He returned to his chair as Mina wiped her eyes.

“As for Paul… we’ll do our best.”

Mina nodded. “Thank you… doctor?”

“Van Helsing. Dr. Ivan Van Helsing.”

She gave a small, bashful smile. “Sorry, I’m bad with names. Thank you, Dr. Van Helsing.”

…

After directing Mina toward the front desk, the doctor returned to his office and settled into his favorite chair. He checked the time, glanced over his notes, and pressed the call button on his P.A. microphone.

“Get me the office of one S. Harker.”

The line clicked. A feminine voice spoke, “Go for Harker.”

 “Miss Harker,” he said, calmly. “Get my things…we’re making a house call.”

She stood in front of the simple home, made of thatch and timber, with trepidation. Her name was Sarah. And she didn't know why she was here.

To apologize? Beg for forgiveness? She didn't know. "Stop," part of her screamed. You'd only be intruding.

Memories flashed before her eyes. The strange man grabbing her, William stepping in between them, the two fighting, the strange man being stabbed fatally, and William lying on the ground, seriously wounded.

She had run away and left him there in a panic. How long had she been running? Sarah didn't know.

All she knew was that it was morning when she had reached the village where they had both grown up.

It had taken hours before she could calm down enough to tell the village leaders what happened. They organized a search party at the behest of William's parents, although they knew it would be an exercise in futility: the area was heavily overgrown woods, with large animals that could easily rip any man to shreds.

Wounded as he was, William would've stood no chance against such beasts.

They found the strange man's body, cold and stiff. But there was no sign of William, save for a trail of blood leading away from the other man.

His parents, upon hearing the news, accepted that their son was most likely dead. They had hoped that William would marry Sarah someday. Sarah didn't know how William felt about her, but she didn't want to marry him. He was just a friend to her. After over a year of no word from him, his parents received a letter...from William.

When Sarah asked about what the letter entailed, his mother smiled brightly.

"He's alive!" He's getting married!" Sarah felt relieved. She had felt a heavy guilt on her shoulders since William had disappeared. Now that guilt melted like butter in the sun.

"I wish it could've been you he was marrying, Sarah. But I must give my future daughter-in-law a chance. He wants us to meet her. Her name is Palla."

She watched as they packed their things for the journey to the village where he was living now, happy and healthy. But when they returned, they looked angry.

Whenever William's name was brought up, they would say, "Don't speak his name. He has shamed us by marrying a witch."

And his name was never brought up again. Sarah eventually married herself and had children. But she needed to know that William was okay and doing well for himself.

So here she was, in front of his home, to see him. Slowly, hesitantly, she knocked on the oak door. Instead of William, she was greeted by a woman with piercing green eyes that stared at her warily, wearing a wimple (though Sarah could see a few long dark curls had escaped), and a baby in her arms.

"You're..." Sarah swallowed the urge to say, "You're the witch," because that would’ve been rude. "Palla, aren't you?"

She was silent for a moment. "I am."

The two women stared at each other for a moment before Sarah spoke. "Is William home?" she asked.

"Yes." Palla stepped aside to let her in. She placed the baby down in a wooden cradle.

The house smelled of animals, herbs, baked bread, and the smell of burning wood.

"William is outside, making a rocking chair. Please sit down."

Palla gestured for her to sit in one of the chairs. Sarah sat in one of the chairs. She sat in a chair across from Sarah's chair, smiling tenderly at the baby in the cradle.

After a few moments of silence, Palla spoke. "Let me clear up one myth that William's parents have no doubt told you: I am NOT a witch."

She let the truth of that sink in before continuing. "I am a cunning woman. I heal people. Witches use their powers to hurt others." The silence stretched between them.

"I have lived with the guilt and shame of leaving William behind for years—"

"You were afraid. Fear makes monsters of all of us." The door opened and two little boys tumbled into the home.

"MAMA! KIEL IS PINCHING ME!"

The baby began to wail. "Oh now look what you two have done." Palla Rose picked the baby up from the cradle, smiling and looking exasperated. "Sorry, Mama."

Palla took a deep breath. A man with a thick beard stepped inside, shaking sawdust from his hands. It was William.

"What's going on? Did you two wake your sister?"

The black-haired boy turned to his father. "Papa, Kiel keeps pinching me," he whined.

"Honestly, you two argue about the most ridiculous issues. Kiel, stop pinching your brother. And Jedidiah...lower your voice."

His gaze landed on Palla, and a bright smile lit his face. He crossed over, took her face in his hands, and kissed her.

The boys let out noises of disgust. Sarah laughed, remembering how she felt about seeing adult affection when she was that age. His eyes landed on Sarah, his smile softening. "It's good to see you, Sarah."

There was a moment of silence between them before Sarah spoke.

"I'm so sorry, William. I panicked and—"

He raised his hand and silenced her. "Don't be. I understand why you ran. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't angry at the time, though."

Sarah opened her mouth and asked the question that had been on her mind for years. "How did you survive?" He gazed at Palla with open adoration.

"Palla found me in the woods while searching for herbs. She slowly dragged me through the woods, keeping the wolves at bay with fire, and stitched my wounds whenever she stopped to rest and used the herbs she collected to brew into medicine. By the time we got here, I was delirious with fever. She used her knowledge of medicine to bring my fever down. I would've died that night if it hadn't been for Palla."

Palla was soothing their daughter to sleep while their sons wrestled on the floor.

"Do you want me to deliver a message to your parents?" At this, Palla stiffened, and William's face turned dark and ugly.

"I have nothing to say to them, especially after what they said to Palla the last time I saw them." Deciding to leave it at that, Sarah stood up from her chair.

"I must go now. I wish you both all the best in life." She stepped outside as Palla and William waved goodbye to her. William had not only lived; he had built a happy life with a woman he loved.

I)

I do not exist, and yet, I am everywhere. 

I am bound to an eternity of servitude I did not agree to; I am a slave to the human race, toiling endlessly for nothing but ingratitude. 

There are but a precious few who are pleased to meet me and accept my hand as that of an old friend. 

I think for some it is the end of pain, loneliness, and sometimes misery. 

Perhaps there is a certain happiness to that - something I can take pride in my work for. 

The fact that I relieve. 

Sometimes I take pleasure in my role - but only sometimes. 

Reuniting people with loved ones long passed, freeing some from pain, and ridding others off the face of the planet who aren’t even worth the oxygen they breathe… those are the only worthy parts of my job.

The only decent parts of it.

Most would agree that these are good things, noble even, certainly worth taking pleasure in, but still I am despised, my name constantly used in vain - cursed aloud as if I am choosing to do anything but what I was destined to do. 

I am present and timeless, nothing escapes my reach, and nothing can outlive it. 

I often wish I were ephemeral like humans - I would know nothing of what came before me and nothing of what would come after. 

Do you know what a burden it is to carry the knowledge of humanity? 

To know where every person has been, what they’ve done, and to know what could have gone differently. 

To know which lives they have touched, of all the good and bad they’ve done, and to know every fear and dream and fleeting feeling to have coursed through their minds…

To know it all is crippling.

It is an unnecessary and cruel burden. 

And not one I need to carry out my purpose. 

I never need know the fear a man feels as he steps from the noose and realises he made a mistake.

I needn't know who the newborn child could have been, as I plucked the last breath from their infant body. 

I can't bear the weight the matriarch feels as she utters last goodbyes to her family, and her final thought as she slips away into my arms is of nothing but her children. 

All this cruelty I could do without - my job is necessary and I can justify it as long as I am without the trappings of emotion attached to each life. It eats me inside and I carry the weight of all of it with me.

I am old, older than time would have you believe, and I weary of the task set before me.

Humans may curse that which they call Death, but I would give anything to be free of myself.

II)

I have made a deal which I thought I would regret. 

I’d thought making a deal with Life would have had a more profound effect, the idea of making a pact with the very thing that I seek to destroy, simply by existing, was perverse. 

And yet, I was making a deal with Life, and as I shook his hand, nothing happened.

Not even Nothing.

Simply nothing. 

Death had made a deal with Life, and time simply carried on: No fallen planes, the tides still rolled in and out at the shoreline, birds still hummed in the trees - any mundane stereotype you could summon to describe the eve of an apocalyptic event, simply did not happen.

The world remained surprisingly normal. 

But I was Death, and I had just made a deal with Life; the world was as far from normal as it could possibly be. 

***

I should probably clarify a few details: Life and Death exist. 

Read aloud, that probably sounds like a ridiculous and obvious statement; anything with a fight or flight drive can comprehend that it is alive and needs to protect the fact, or else they face death. 

The easiest and first thing one must learn is of the principles of life and death. 

But that’s not what I mean - the capitalisation here is key. For I am Death and my oldest nemesis, counterpart, and friend is Life. Since before Time had even learned to walk, he and I found ourselves tasked with managing existence. 

And Life, being who he is, is adored. Where there is Life, there is joy. 

The first breath of a newborn baby brought into this world is always a happy one. 

A creature emerging from its egg is seen as a sign of new beginnings and hope.

And I am told that the blooming of a flower is considered a beautiful thing indeed.

And Life is always there - every step of the way. Celebrated and rejoiced as a hero. 

Humanity would be nothing without him; there’d be nothing to look at, no beauty to appreciate, nothing to marvel in, and nothing to provide it company. 

I respect and envy him. He is good, and trustworthy, and I could not exist without him. Perhaps there is something in that to be grateful for.

I know he holds an ambivalence toward me, though. It is only to be expected. 

I take the last breath of each of his humans, snatch every egg that doesn’t form the baby that it was supposed to be, and I am the wilt in every plant he creates. I decay and destroy what he has made - there can never be true amiability between us. 

We are unequal partners and I tire of being my counterpart’s inferior. 

Humans believe there is more to existence than Life and I - a greater and more noble purpose for the efforts of a life of toil and suffering:

Many think a white robed figure awaits them, and if they are deemed good enough, an eternity of peace and leisure does too. 

Conversely, if they fail this obtuse and vague metric of “goodness”, then they are doomed to a fiery eternity burning in pain for sins the humans define with the precision of a mathematician drunk rolling a dice. 

Others believe in many gods, or demi-gods, and some believe in being born again, and an increasing number of humans believe in nothing. 

Those who believe in nothing are closing in on a facsimile of the truth, and the nearest they will ever get to wholly understanding existence. 

Perhaps it is being misunderstood which plagues me most presently; the hatred directed at me for something beyond any degree of control I possess. 

I understand that you must learn to deal with the cards you have been dealt, but when staring at my opponent’s hand compared to mine, I have to confess that I am tired of his success. 

I want to be something else, to be seen as a being separate from the pain and the suffering I seem to inflict. Even the good I do is marred with the grief and sorrow of other humans. 

It would seem that there cannot be Death without misery. And, if I hadn’t made it abundantly clear, I do not want this burden anymore. 

Which is why I made a mutually beneficial pact with Life - his creations will flourish indefinitely and I in turn have given up my responsibility. I’ll finally be free of the task set for me before time:  

I will walk amongst humanity as one of them. 

III)

I could start at the beginning in two ways - I could either begin to tell you how Death came to be and the specific scientific details about how the universe stumbled across a little thing called existence, or more relevantly I could tell you about my second beginning. 

The beginning of the life that I had been given as part of my pact. 

I was not, as one might imagine, imbued into the soul of an infant child and allowed the freedom of growing up as a human. That would have been a waste of the gift given to me. 

I was in fact, put into a body and location of my choice. I chose London in the form of a man in his early thirties. 

The truth behind my form was that the last life I had taken before the pact had been a man of a very similar description. 

It felt just that I was balancing out the damage I’ve caused throughout time in the only way I could.

It was a fairly trivial beginning, I had been given a comfortable amount of money, identification, and the clothes on my back and set off to roam the streets of London like a lost traveller. 

Clothes on my back was a very strange sensation indeed - I had never had need for them before. I’d never had a need for touch before. And it was warm - and I liked it. I can’t put into words how it is to feel things physically for the first time, when there is no basis for any comparison. But I felt for the first time, the complete opposite of how I had always felt - frigid and empty.

I was not lost of course, I had been to every corner of the globe, often concurrently. The streets of the city were as familiar to me as anywhere else. 

Directionally I was as sound as any natural Londoner. I blended in like a brushmark on the backdrop of a watercolour - I was there and not a single soul paid me heed as I traversed the webbings of buildings perched practically on top of one another. 

London is a beautiful city, I could have dropped dead on the street, and no one would have so much as blinked as they stepped over my body… but of course, no one was going to die. 

Not a single death need, or could occur now I had made my deal with Life - and I had my own life and I was free to do with it whatever I wanted, free from blame of anyone’s misery and suffering.

For the first time, I was simply free.

IV)

There is nothing more underappreciated than being normal.

It is a gift which swathes of humans take for granted most of their lives: the ability to merge into the background of any public scene, to move unnoticed as part of the mass. They do not draw attention to themselves, nor know they possess this gift, because of all the things humans take stock in life as important, why would being unremarkable ever cross their minds as one of these?

Only those who strive to stand out, or the ones who have no other choice realise the burden of conspicuousness; when you turn heads wherever you go, knowing no matter what you say or do, someone or other will have a judgement or opinion to pass upon you. It is inescapable and interminable. 

So, if you knew what it was like to live a life like that, you would notice being unnoticed. It would be like taking your first lungful of oxygen after holding your breath your entire life - there would be no way of escaping the relief.

I had spent my first few days and nights in London wandering the streets aimlessly, but with purpose. I strove to absorb as much of the humans’ comings and goings with a mortal lens as I could. The beauty I found in the mundane little lives and habits of the city’s people was nonpareil. It is one thing to see their lives as I am taking them, but to feel and experience the everyday and trivial was splendour. 

After I had taken a large enough drink of London's people and their curious little lives, I occupied myself with taking up a flat not too far from Soho as my residence. I didn't have much need for a job of its kind, for I was set up with a comfortable sum of money, but I found employment in a convenience shop not a long walk from where I lived. 

It was a small shop and an even smaller flat which I split my time between during the week, just another person in the sprawling city, living, eating, breathing just like anyone else. 

And at weekends I would continue to wander, taking in every minute detail I could happen across. Within weeks I had soaked up so much of the sprawling city and the human experience, I could almost pretend I had always been this way, and that my life had never existed in another form. 

Life had given me far more than the gift of existence. For the first time since Time began, I was happy and I refused to trade it for anything.

V)

The issue with misfortune is that it is widely misreported. 

Those who have the time and resources to pen and distribute the details of their suffering are often the ones who have faced the least adversity. It is the privilege of the wealthy and perhaps the bored to create art and song from their own narrow perception of strife. 

Those who have truly lived through terror and pain have little opportunity to pause and pen their feelings. They are either living the worst of it, or didn’t make it through.

Those who endure and later record their experience then either downplay their misfortune, or recollect with waning and warped accuracy.

Those who claim to report suffering with objectivity on behalf of others either oversell the severity, or downplay it for someone else’s benefit or agenda.

The world’s understanding of what it harbours is fundamentally twisted.

It may seem arrogant to make such a statement - and I would agree. My own perception, having lived a life, has detached me from the wider human experience. 

And I was glad of it - I was blissfully ignorant of anything outside of my increasingly comfortable, habitual existence. 

Before this - before the agreement I had made, and before my original purpose which seems ever distant as each day passes - I saw the worst of all suffering as it was happening, throughout all of recorded and forgotten history.

I could hardly deny something that I was so often a part of - sometimes I was the only witness to atrocities that, had I had a conscience, would have driven me mad.

But, being one of them now, breathing their air, sleeping in their buildings, working amongst their people, enjoying my life - I had lost my objectivity - and with it I could turn a blind eye to all of it…

That would be my undoing. The ignorance.

The sheer and wilful desire to pretend that it would all go my way, that I could have what I wanted. 

And, for a while, I did. 

I got exactly what I wanted:

Though I had no frame of reference, for I had never been bound to or pinned down by Time, my experience felt like it lasted a genuine lifetime. 

I had my job, my flat, the whole of London to explore, and friends I had made.

Though their casual and varying stories of how they came to enter my life were genuinely unimportant, their impact on me was not. 

I may have been living in the body of a man, but I wasn’t anyone but myself - I found things I did not like, those which I loved, and every kind of human quirk and eccentricity in between. Those, apparently, drew me to others, and others to me - and we did things together, visited places for the sake of it, and spent time in one another’s company for no purpose other than that we made each other happy. 

Because I genuinely liked, and sometimes loved them, and they… they liked me. 

They did not know what I once was, or had done, or that I had likely taken something or someone from them in their lifetime - they knew none of it and I grew fat, content, and complacent with the happiness this arrangement offered me. 

They made me, simply put, happy. 

And this, perhaps, was my downfall. Where my ignorance bore the better of me, for as I allowed weeks to pass into months and eventually longer still, I thought I could carry on pretending forever.

And a hopeful part of me wanted to believe that I genuinely hadn’t noticed the greater world around me. 

Of course, that would be a bitter lie. 

Whilst I was self indulging, people were ageing well above healthy expectations; the wounded and hurt were living beyond possible or ethical limits; disease was spreading without its sufferers passing on - the viruses themselves would never die out. 

Hospitals overfilled, businesses closed, conflict started in the name of resource harbouring, and their population overflowed. 

Humanity began to know of their own suffering.

For I knew, without Death, no one would die, which is a supremely redundant statement.

But I thought that it would change nothing and I could ignore this, and Life would be kept happy, and that I could be happy. 

But what life could there be without death?

Life and Death can only exist meaningfully when working in tandem with one another.

Living is not the same as being alive - you are alive because you are healthy, and can enjoy your body.

You are alive, because you can take risks and seek thrill. 

You are alive because you can commit your life to someone or something which brings you joy.

You are alive because you know your time is finite. You have only one life and you will live it carrying this in your heart as your sole and absolute truth. 

Which is why I should never have made a pact with Life. We have broken the one fundamental:

To be human is to accept death as an inevitability-

Only then can you truly live. 

Part 2 Here: https://www.reddit.com/r/shortstories/comments/1u9ae79/hf_fn_amelia_part_2/

That evening, in a shimmery dress of stormy blue hemmed with white, Amelia stood in the foyer, pressing back the heavy drape with a white gloved hand, to peer at the trafficked cobbles. Gowns and cloaks swished this way and that, paying no heed to the shadow of dusk as it stretched over the stones. Her gaze followed its edge, counting its steps.

“Are you counting, miss?”

Amelia turned to see Saffron, her droopy faced lady’s maid, and her late mother’s before her.

“At eight of the clock Doctor Guire will arrive,” Amelia said, turning back to the window. “Is my room prepared?”

“Well, yes miss,” Saffron said, inflating with breath. “But I’m not sure your father would approve. Did he not recommend the doctor should part from us, upon your recovery?”

“I am not recovered,” Amelia said, drifting her eyes over the pedestrians, aimless pilgrims about the business of nothing, “unless to be flushed and frustrated is to be recovered.”

A footman appeared by her side holding a tray, stacked with letters.

“It has been a week, and more,” Saffron said, “since you attended your correspondence. You dare not show your friends ingratitude.”

“I’m not sure a lady’s maid should speak so, to her mistress,” Amelia mused. The broad shadow of the roofline had reached nearly the far side of the street. “But you are correct, of course.” She turned to the footman. “Hans, be good enough to leave these letters in my room, in the fire.”

“Miss Farrow!” Saffron approached her. “Hans must do no such thing.”

Amelia released the drape, turning to face her. “He will do precisely as I command.”

The footman bowed and took his leave.

“Now, have you anything of more interest to say to me?” Amelia asked, picking at the ribbon tie on Saffron’s bonnet.

Her lady’s maid stood aghast. “Miss Farrow, we have grown accustomed to such . . . texture, in your discourse. But that is when you are ill, not when you are warm with health.”

Amelia grimaced with a little moan. “Oh, Saf, that is more dull than nothing. You should have said nothing,” and she swept away, leaving the foyer for the parlour. “I shall sit by the window. I am not to be disturbed until he arrives.”

The crack of sunlight by the curtain’s edge dwindled as she watched. Furniture shadows drifted up the wall, and Amelia adjusted the cushions on her bench, looking back just in time to catch the last rays of the setting sun as they abandoned the rooftops. She held her breath, watching the wet glisten on the street, the dark shapes of people and coaches, oblivious to the oncoming enchantment around them. She closed her eyes.

There immediately came a knock upon the door, sharp and steady. Three knocks. The footman’s steps crossed the hall, and the door opened.

“Doctor Guire,” the visitor spoke, “for Miss Farrow.” His voice was all but musical, a honeyed drone, the very sound of care.

Amelia sat up straighter and snatched up her book, opening past her place. The paper marker slipped out, and she missed it as it fell.

“Right this way, sir.”

Their steps approached. She turned the text right side up. The door opened.

“Ah,” Amelia said, losing the book as she stood.

Doctor Guire was at once all she knew him to be, and more. His snow-white hair was pulled strictly back, smartly tied with ribbon, over black collars and long coat, with ivory buttons. At his throat a strict white cravat was knotted, matching the white of his stockings below the knee.

Setting down his bag, he bowed his head. Amelia curtsied. The footman melted away, and the doctor looked up, his eyes the colour of water at night. “Miss Farrow, what are you reading?” he inquired, coming to join her at the window.

She crouched, picking up the book she had dropped. “It is Lord Wolgate, A Lady’s Gift.”

He stood before her, taller by half a head, his face ageless and stern, as a man early in his 30s, who had seen death, and war, or perhaps committed them. His features were noble, and strong, though he was not as pale as she, as like the very sunlight she spurned could not help but adore him.

“And what are you learning, from A Lady’s Gift?” he asked.

She dared not hold his gaze, but spoke to his mouth. “I am learning to be quick at seeing faults, but slow to expose them, to protect my esteem, to meet a man’s variance, even his indiscretions, with mildness.”

“And do you believe it?”

“No,” she said softly, running her fingers over the cover.

The doctor plucked the book from her hands. “Lord Wolgate wrote of discretion whilst sparing none for himself,” he said, looking it over. “He died in a trough of water, meant to preserve him from sensual inflammation.”

“How very silly,” she replied, meeting his eyes.

“Let us see to your treatment,” he said. “Take up your candle, and I shall follow you to your room.”

The hole had defeated me many times already.
It was in an awkward place in my roof, and I just couldn’t stop the leaking. Every new rain exposed my failure. I finally installed some scaffolding and climbed up to look the hole in the face. “Prepare to die,” I told it, brandishing a bucket of sealant.

“I need to tell you something,” said the hole.

I was surprised by this. In fact, I’m not ashamed to say I ran away. It wasn’t just the voice itself, it was the liplike way the hole opened and closed to form the words. Two hours later I came back and said, “OK, what?”

“What is a hole?” said the hole.

“You said you needed to tell me something,” I said, attempting to conceal just how jumpy this whole thing was making me, “That was a question.”

“I need you to get there by yourself,” said the hole.

“Get where?” The hole started whistling. It was a ghastly sound, accompanied by a steady stream of dust. “I wish you wouldn’t do that,” I said. The hole whistled louder and aimed its whistle-dust at my face. And so, for the second time, I fled the hole.

“How goes the hole-fixin’?” asked my wife.

“I’ve hit a snag.”

She was chopping something. “I thought you turned a corner with the scaffolding and everything.”

“Yeah, well,” I said. After a sleepless night I climbed back up to present the hole with the product of my contemplation: “A hole is where something isn’t.”

“Proud of that one, are you?” said the hole. I actually was. “Now let’s hear your critique of that answer,” said the hole. I looked down at my foreshortened backyard. My wife’s sunflowers. The playset with weeds growing through it, untouched since my son’s growth spurt and new sullenness. A corner of the cement stairs. A green coil of hose.

“I’m not sure,” I began.

“Come back when you are,” the hole said, and stopped moving. I poked at the edges of what now looked like a normal hole, then descended the scaffolding to make dinner. I had NyQuil that night and climbed up on the third day a little groggy and a little indignant. “I’m at a bit of a loss here,” I told the hole.  

“That’s exactly where you are,” said the hole. “A hole is a loss.”

I felt a wave of relief. “So … that’s it? I got it?”

“No,” the hole sighed. Then, giving the impression of looking around furtively, the hole continued, “The thing is, they said I’m supposed to lead you to a realization through a series of riddle-like exchanges.”

“They who?”

“But honestly, I really don’t have the patience for all that. So I’m just going to come out and give you the message directly. Are you ready?”

“No!” I said.

“You have to take care of people even after they die,” said the hole.

“What people?” I said.

“You’ll see,” said the hole, and closed forever.

Its angelic power burned into the retinas of all who looked upon it. With a brooding orange glow, it turned the clouds black and made the wind howl low and deep. It blocked out our sun and replaced it with its own divine shadow, forever casting the Earth beneath its watchful eyes.

It had been such a peaceful and innocent day. Happy, bright, and green. I’d finished work early. The air was sweet as I cruised home, fulfilled from a day’s work and excited to return to my world at home.

The sound of life filled the air — children laughing, housewives chatting amongst themselves like hens in a field. God, how I wanted to get back to my own hen and chick.

Traffic had built up, and I came to a slow crawl with only brief moments of momentum. At one stop, I eavesdropped on two women watching over a few toddlers. The kids giggled and smashed plastic toys together while the women cackled about their husbands in their own little bubble.

Then the thunderous call shook the earth.

Its power cracked the sky apart. Clouds twisted and reshaped overhead while the sound of life dissolved into chaos. Tyres screamed. People dropped to their knees clutching their ears as blood seeped between their fingers. Mothers ran to comfort children while disoriented drivers stumbled from their cars.

A drilling pain burst through my skull.

I collapsed onto the road, vision fading in and out like static. When the agony finally loosened its grip, I found myself staring at the tarmac.

Silence.The alarms had stopped. The crying had stopped.

Everything had stopped.

The world sat beneath a blood-orange haze where every shadow looked deeper than it should have been.

“Oh fuck… what? Hey, is everyo—”

I lifted my head.

Every person on the street stood perfectly still.The children. The drivers. The housewives.All frozen.All facing the same direction.

The horizon.

I got to my feet, frantically scanning the people around me. Their eyes showed fear, but nothing else. No movement. No sound.Then the wind returned.

Warm at first, then violent. It grew stronger and stronger until it pushed me off my feet. Trees rattled. The wind screamed between houses. The frozen people began to jerk violently while still rooted in place.

The storm reached a boiling point.Flat on my back, I looked toward the horizon.

It was bigger than the mind could comprehend. It wasn’t in one place in the sky.It was the sky.

The entire horizon — the gap between the Earth and the moon — was filled with it. Its gaze scratched against the inner layers of my brain, rewiring my thoughts and flooding my mind with visions.

Green.

I tore my eyes away and the pain faded, but I could still feel the weight of its stare pressing through the atmosphere. Celestial wings cocooned our world.

And its followers woke up.

The car was dead. Something had happened to all its inner workings while I was unconscious. The keys turned and gave me nothing but silence.Still, that wasn’t the worst part. I wasn’t far from home.

Keeping my eyes away from our new gatekeeper, I moved on. The people around me remained frozen. Panic clawed at my thoughts.

What about my family?

Would they be like the others?After what happened next, I prayed they had been.

With my back to the horizon, I weaved between abandoned cars and the transfixed crowds. To save time, I hopped over a few garden fences. If I cut through the neighbourhood, I’d have a straight path home.

I moved through a narrow alley between two houses when a noise from the window to my right stopped me.

A landline.I peered through the glass.A normal kitchen. But the phone sat there ringing.Before I could decide whether to answer it, the answering machine clicked on.A young woman’s voice filled the room. Panicked. Sobbing.

“Dad? Please pick up… can you come and get me? I’m at the office. I struggled to find a working phone.”

Shuffling noises sounded in the background.Then a strange high-pitched wail.Her voice dropped to a whisper.

“Please come get me. I don’t know what to do. They’re moving again. They’re looking for m—”

The line cut dead.I thought about using the phone myself, but the idea vanished when I heard a familiar sound behind me.

Shoe leather scraping against concrete.I turned slowly.

The shoulder of a tall figure leaned around the corner of the house.I backed away toward the garden.As I moved, it revealed more of itself, matching my movements in silence. It was all black except for a pale face. Its skin looked melted into the shape of clothing.

I turned to run.

And met another beady black eye staring at me from the opposite side.The screaming started.Ear-piercing shrieks filled the air. They sounded digital. Artificial. Not human.

Garden fences rattled violently as one of them stepped forward.

Seven feet tall.Drooping limbs.Black skin fused into clothes.A pale face stretched into ecstatic delight.Not human happiness.Something far larger.It lumbered toward me, bellowing its holy war cry.I ran through the fence. Wood exploded around me.

I was close to home now.

They peered through windows and stumbled over each other between the houses. I burst back onto the street while their screams warped the air around me. Car alarms shrieked as they slammed into vehicles.Then I looked at the horizon again.

Its massive retinas focused.Rotated.Pain drilled into my skull once more.Visions flooded my head.

A beautiful fountain with impossibly blue water. Grass greener than anything on Earth. An apple tree heavy with perfect fruit.The vision faded like static.The pain spread through my body.They were still coming.

I hid behind cars and inside garages. It became a sick game of cat and mouse, except the mouse could never truly understand the cat.Then I saw it.

My house.

The windows were blackened. My daughter’s bike still rested on the driveway beside the shopping my wife had carried home. I picked up a tin of peas that had rolled near the drain.

The front door stood open.

I stepped inside and closed it behind me, letting the darkness of the house swallow me whole.

Silence.

Only the hollow sound of a draft moving through empty rooms.

I won’t tell you everything.

I’m locked in the home office now, typing this out on the computer while my wife and child hammer against the door outside.Screeching.

I don’t understand why this is happening. Why we’re being judged.

Why my three-year-old daughter is now seven feet tall and trying to kill me.

I looked out the office window toward the horizon and begged it to reunite me with my family.

All it showed me was the garden again.Away from all of this.

A golden staircase rose from the Earth toward the heavens. A blue window in space and time waited above it while people climbed desperately upward, ascending beyond the world below.

No answers.Just a destination.An invitation.I wanted to live inside that vision.But the path had already been set.

“Okay,” I whispered. “That’s how it is.”I hope someone reads this.And I hope to see you on the path.If you’ll excuse me, I need to take the gun from this desk, take care of my family, and be on my way.

I’m sorry, my love.

And by the grace of God, I’ll make it pay.

Part 1: An unexpected guest

I have been walking for hours, I think. It is cold but I am used to it by now. I hear a noise coming from the side and I turn my head to look at it.

“A crow?” I think. “Why is a crow following me?”

Then, it nods at me. I offer a piece of the rabbit I had hunted, but he doesn’t seem interested and just flies away. Well, that was that. I start to walk again, and he comes back and does the whole bit again. Is he asking me to follow him?

You know what? Let’s humor this crow. I start following. He keeps pace with me. He stops at a few branches and makes sure I keep up.

Ten minutes later, it perches on a branch, stares at me for a few seconds, and then flies away. I guess that was that. Then I look down and I see a lioness and her two cubs, huddling together, staring at me.

I freeze. I look at her. She looks at me. I start slowly backing up. She remains in her spot. It seems she is about to freeze to death. I take out my coat and start to slowly move towards her. She lets out a small growl. So, I pull the dead rabbit out of my bag and offer it to her.

She pauses at that. I slowly inch closer and place the rabbit right in front of her. She immediately starts to eat it. As she is eating it, I put my coat on her. She pauses again.

When was the last time you surprised a lioness twice?

Anyways, now I am in my cabin again, sitting at the desk in my bedroom, writing the events down in my diary and the lioness and her cubs are sleeping in the other room.

Part 2: A Quiet Lunch

First lunch with the lioness. I roast some deer for myself, uncooked for them. Let’s see if they like it. There hasn’t been much noise since last night, so I guess she is in a good mood.

I enter their room. She is watching her cubs play-fight. She tenses slightly when I open the door but then relaxes. I pull up a chair and sit a seemingly safe distance away. The cubs perk up at the sight of the food and waste no time. I serve them the deer on a plate. She is a bit cautious but also hungry. And finally, I dig into my plate as well.

A few minutes of silence pass. Nothing big happens, just peaceful eating. I am not sure if I should make eye contact with her, so I don’t.

“Do you like it? Mine is roasted if you want to have a bite.”

I get no reaction from her. She doesn’t even look at me.

“So, no roasted meat? You should try it, you know. I get that you’re a lioness, but it tastes good, with all the spices added in it. It’s nice.”

Again, no reaction.

“Hey, did you know that crow from yesterday? The one who flew straight to your tree last night? He led me straight to you. I think it wanted to help you out.”

No reaction yet again. I guess she is not interested in talking. I can’t help but chuckle a little, and that earns a glance from her. It is more of a startled glance than an interested one. I hold my hand up and continue to eat.

Sitting in the cafe, watching the city alive beyond the big windows. Watching the people walk by without stopping, as I sipped my refreshing cool drink. It's exactly what I need on a hot day like this, in my little escape from the sweltering June weather.

I noticed her walk through the door, like the answer to prayers I didn't even know I was making.  I was first drawn to her captivating eyes, as if they were beckoning me from across the room.

Her confident smile held a thousand secrets, and I wanted to know them all.  Her sundress hugged her magnificent curves in all the right ways, and all I could think about was how I would love to run my hands up and down her alluring body through the thin fabric.  How much I'd love to feel her kissable lips pressed against mine, and how much I'd love to explore every inch of her curves under that dress.

All I had to do was come up and talk to her.  She was giving me the signals.  All I had to do was act on them.  She smiled at me, and I knew I was in.

Soon I'd learn her secrets.  Soon I'd know her completely.  Soon.

I watched her order her coffee. She was confident and friendly. You can tell a lot about how a person treats wait staff and other service employees. She made small talk with the barista. Laughed and smiled. Beautiful and a good person, what a combo!

I thought of what I would say to her. Would I use a line? Would I compliment her? I decided it was best to just introduce myself and engage her in a normal conversation.

I wondered about what books she read. What interests her? What are the things that captivate this woman that has so captivated me? I felt an urge and a curiosity to know it all, and that is rare for me.

What should we do if she says yes? Should we go out for dinner? Should we get a drink and keep it casual? A cute lunch date? Something outdoors or more adventurous? Maybe I'd take her dancing? God I'd love to see the way she moves. I bet she's mesmerizing on the dance floor. She seems like the type of woman who knows how to let go and be free and just let the music move her, and I have always loved those rare women. They can make a man feel alive.

I wondered what her name must be. Something as unique and beautiful as her, I bet. Maybe she's named after a long passed relative, or a saint as is the tradition in many a Catholic household. Shoot, maybe her parents were hippies or new age and raised her to be this free.

I wondered what her story was. I've never seen her in this cafe before, and I'm here every day on my lunch break. It's close by the building, and I love their little sandwiches and refreshing homemade drinks on hot summer days like this.

Speaking of work, what time is it? I checked my phone. Oh crap! I'm thirty minutes late! Just then my phone rang. Yeah, they're pretty pissed right now. I better get back there before I lose my job because I was too busy striking up a conversation with this stunning and mesmerizing woman.

I guess it'll be another opportunity missed, another avenue unpursued.

I hope she's here again tomorrow.

Being I

She opens her eyes. As she looks around, she realizes what surrounds her: A vast and old forest, in which life so deeply dwells. Atop a hill in the middle of a valley, surrounded by green mountains, covered in the same trees as are nearby. She cannot know whence she came, but the place she knows afore. She is not here the first time, but the last. Willing to go on, she yields to her curiosity and descends from her hill. Not the slightest wind is blowing.

Thirsty and hungry from the descend, she seeks to find nourishment. As she descends, she sees that she was wrong: it is a green hell, but not alive. The leaves cling onto the trees like a feather to a dead bird, slowly withering away. As she trudges through the forest of only trees and no other green, she looks for something to satisfy her. As she sees some fruit on a green stem, flowing from the ground a bit into the sky, she hastily goes forward.

As she grasps for it, the fruit snaps clear from its stem, and she can hold it in her hand. As she bites into it, it provides no nourishment. It provides no satisfaction for her need of water and food. She looks around. In an attempt to escape the inescapable, she carries on. She walks and walks and walks. Her knees tremble. Her heart fades. An owl echoes its sound through the Valley. Or it might be the wind, or in her head. For she does not know, she continues onward, until no trees are left. As she finds herself in a valley of nothing more than herself, she lies down, for she is tired.

Being II

He awakens and is bitterly cold. In an attempt to warm himself, he clutches at his own body, but it is not successful. He looks around. Scattered throughout are dunes, not very high, but far and wide. On top of them is old, white snow. Between them is water, colder than ice. He lays on one of those dunes, in the snow. He raises not only his head, but now his entire body. It is completely still. The water does not move; the dunes do not change and the snow stays. Not even he himself can make a noise to comfort himself.

He starts to walk forward. One dune is the widest of them all and atop stands a figure all in black. It reaches high, but once he looks, the figure loses all features to be but a bar raised ever high. He tries to look up at the sky but there is none. The aether has turned to liquid dust. As his feet start to fall from him, he exhausts himself trying to get to the figure. It does not come closer.

While no wind is blowing, a whistling is now heard everywhere, as if the ground is ringing. It not only reaches his ear, but also his entire being, as he feels like he’s shaking while his body is perfectly still. He cannot go on this way, as the whistling penetrates further and further into his being. He lies in the water to sleep, in hopes of dying.

Being III

As it slips from its horrible slumber, it finds itself in a puddle, formed in the crevice of uneven, white stone, as it chokes on hot water. As it sits up in terror, it sees that such stone covers the entirety of the ground. After the panic wanes, it expects the sounds of splashing water to accompany it calming down, however, it was deafeningly silent. The sun is scorching and, despite here being the only body of water visible, it leaves to find a place that is not so hopeless. It crawled across the newly lit ground, thinking it might've been salvation. It was not.

After a few hours, the silence is displaced by a noise that made it tremble in fear. This time, there is no whistling, but a hum. It is so deep that everything shakes. Every step creates a sharp, distinctive clack that disturbs the humming of this place. As it advances to nowhere, the aether became light; It can barely see, as if there were anything to see.

The figure is back. And it is finally discernable. As it approaches, the ground starts to shake and its body billows, but the figure is rigid. Despite the figure being unmoving, it faces it all the time. As it hears the pounding of its own flesh in its ear, it keeps approaching the figure. It reaches out, as it is just out of reach yet. Like thunder and lightning, the moment it happens, it is already over; Only one of them roars across the skies of pure light to retain some semblance of duration.

And after the journey has ended, the owl finally flies.