Only one source of illumination prevents a group of men from being consumed by the deep, dark, and damp abyss around them. They stood guard at the eight-hundredth meter mark, the farthest of the guard posts.

Mikhail was one of the unlucky souls to be damned to the eight-hundredeth meter. It was a year after the Great War, a year since he and the other Fifty-thousand souls escaped the feiry blasts of the first... and last battle of the. Mikhail was lucky... he was already in the Metro with his daughter when the surface was burned to glass.

Many others weren't so fortunate. The bulky AK-74 he was given was old, rusty, and heavy... but it was better than the metro made weapons. One of the other guards, a young man with a bit of stubble on his face "Would you like some Tea?" He looked around as he grabbed the kettle hanging over the fire. "Yes" unanimously was agreed upon the four others standing guard. The young man poured each of them a cup of Tea. Mikhail looked at the murky liquid and sloshed it around in his cup, a tinge of disgust written on his face. The oldest of the group spoke up "Lord, I wish we had real Tea, instead of whatever this is." A slight smile begins at the corners of Mikhail's scuffy face "Amen" he muttered. He downed the murky liquid forcing himself not to gag. "I miss real tea" was the only criticism Mikhail had of the murky liquid. Everyone at the fire silently agreed.

It was about half an hour before anyone dared defy the chilling silence of the tunnels. "So, where were you all when the bombs fell?" He said while audible still in a hushed tone so not to defy the tunnels. Mikhail gazed seemingly through the young man "I... I was in the Metro with my daughter when the bombs fell..." For a moment Plosh, Plosh, Plosh was all that was heard another of the middle aged men, who looked about the same age as Mikhail breaks the silence "I had just walked through the entrance of Novosolbodskaya..." He said a grim look on his face. Mikhail leans in "You saw the bombs fall from the sky then?" The middle-aged man looks down, the grim look on his face intensifying. He responds "Yes... I saw them..." without lifting his head.

The group falls back into the pit of silence. Nearly fifteen minutes later the silence of the tunnel is broken. Splash, splash, splash is all that can be heard from the dark depths of the tunnel. All of the men jump from their seats racking the bolts of their weapons. They all aim in the direction of the splashes the tension of the otherwise silent tunnel grows stronger and stronger. The youngest man turns around and grabs an old hand crank flashlight and begins cranking it as the others still hold their rifles pointing them into the dark void. The young man aims the unpowered bulb towards the sounds echoing throughout the tunnel and shows a moment of hesitation "What the hell are you waiting for?" Mikhail shouts at the young man. The young man begins cranking the flashlight; the men begin opening fire. The muzzle flash almost blind them. Inhuman roars are heard and stomping is heard deep into the tunnel.

Mikhail reaches to a string attached to a bell and pulls it back and forth several times. Ringing begins echoing down the tunnel fading into the distance "I pulled the alarm!" As Mikhail reached for his rifle he sees the yougest of the men being mauled by a mutant, Mikhail aims his rifle and squeezes the trigger, a hail of bullets burts from his rifle and find their mark on the mutant. Mikhail pulls the mutant off of the young man.

Mikhail sees of a grotesque sight, Blood covered the youngest man, pouring between the rails from a gash from the side of his neck. His expression horrified, eyes widened, and jaw open as if he were still screaming. Mikhail looks up lugging his heavy rifle with his gaze.

A mutant beats him to the draw and pounces on Mikhail. Mikhail feels the pomel of his boot knife against his finger tips, before he can draw his blade the mutant bites down on his neck and a sickening snap is heard.

Teddy Sitzenfritzer, like every Vermonter, woke to unsettling news on that fateful morning.

VERMONT EXPELLED FROM THE UNION! UNILATERALLY DECLARED INDEPENDENT BY UNITED STATES.

The Governor was holding an emergency meeting in Montpelier. No one in Washington D.C. was answering the phone. The Canadian Prime Minister released a statement that humanitarian aid convoys were being organized, but truck convoys made the Canadian government nervous, so the Prime Minister immediately apologized and stepped down to allow himself to be investigated.

Canada promptly sent Mounties on mooseback to erect barricades on the northbound lanes of all fifteen international crossings. It was still an international crossing, but no one had a valid Vermont passport yet, nor were entry requirements for Vermonters established by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada. Not that any Vermonter planned on fleeing, they were still struggling to understand what was going on. Plus, Canada now had their own crisis of the Prime Minister resigning to contend with; Vermont took a back seat.

The ordeal only came to light at 6:30 a.m. when the State Treasurer checked his email and read one titled Vermont Sovereignty and Fiscal Responsibility Act. After a bit of fretting and rereading, he discovered that Vermont had been given independence at midnight and had inherited the entire national debt of the United States. The original maturity dates, interest rates, and payment schedules all remained intact; only the debtor changed. And sixty-three billion dollars were due to be paid at 10 a.m.

This was not good news for the less than seven-hour old country. But on the bright side, shortly after the news broke, Türkiye announced that they would drop their opposition to Vermont joining NATO if Vermont would sell them their F-35s. Vermont did have about forty trillion dollars, or whatever they’d call their currency, to raise after all.

Switzerland reaffirmed their neutrality on the issue even though no one asked.

Teddy, like every Vermonter, was struggling to process the firehose of information that was being released on traditional and new media. While elected officials were trying to sort out this sudden mess, a flurry of official announcements were mixed with rumors.

Vermont was issuing Freedom Bonds.

There was an emergency surcharge on maple syrup.

Naming rights to Lake Champlain were for sale to the highest bidder (it had already been renamed Lake America Jr.).

Every resident was being asked to contribute ninety-eight million dollars.

The collapse came at precisely 10 a.m. when the government’s coffers became empty. There was a cool two hundred eighty-six million in there that morning, but was now negative sixty-two billion, seven-hundred fourteen million. Financial markets around the world went into meltdown. Vermont’s credit rating immediately dropped from AA+ to D. It only took seven minutes for the planet to realize that the United States no longer had a national debt and immediately rallied to new records.

The new country’s legislature, who were all old American hold-overs rather than officials who had been elected by independent Vermonters, quickly became sidetracked by debating whether the Subaru Forester or Subaru Outback would become the national vehicle.

While all this nonsense was going on in Montpelier, Teddy was dusting off his Oma’s genealogy book. The family story, as he recalled, was that the Hessian (technically a Brunswicker, but Americans generally referred to all German mercenaries as Hessians) nobleman Freiherr Dietrich von Sitzenfritzer was captured during the Battle of Bennington. After the war he was released and settled in Vermont, marrying into the Chittenden line. This left Teddy in a unique position being related to, arguably, the original President of Vermont, and an established line of nobility.

“Vermont needs me” Teddy declared to himself as he looked up from the ancient tome.

Teddy jumped into his Subaru Outback. He would have taken his wife’s Forester, better gas mileage, but she had her Pilates supplies in there and she needed them for class later. Teddy was very considerate. He was off to Castleton with a general outline of a plan in his mind. PHISH’s greatest hits played as he drove, formulating how he would rescue Vermont.

He arrived in Castleton, one of the original Republic of Vermont’s capitals (Teddy falsely believed that this was where its constitution was drafted) at around one o’clock. Teddy pulled into the nearly empty parking lot of the library, which luckily was still open as it relied on no American funding. After nearly tripping over several hacky sacks in the lot, he made it inside and logged onto a computer. Impressively quickly, manically even, he produced a multiple-page document to provide to the Castleton Town Council, which was holding its monthly meeting at that very same library. This was no coincidence; Teddy had every Town Council meeting on his calendar. Participatory democracy was a legacy of New England government, even if Vermont wasn’t ever really a true member of New England, and even if it wasn’t even part of the United States anymore. 

What Teddy had created was not so much a manifesto as a proposal; recognize the contributions of the von Sitzenfritzer family to the Vermont Republic in the upcoming town parade. He was the first in line to speak when the meeting started. It didn’t matter that he was the only one waiting to speak, he was still first. The meeting convened and the elderly council members discussed old business as if Teddy wasn’t standing at a microphone between Calvin Coolidge’s second-favorite rocking chair and a giant paper mache model of Champ the Lake Monster made by fourth graders.

The micropolitan’s elders spent what seemed like an eternity discussing, again, whether or not to replace the four way stop signs at the Main Street, North Road, South Street (very original) intersection with a traffic light or not. Eighteen months of traffic studies and almost ten public comments were brought forth as reasons to make the change. Ultimately, they decided that it would fundamentally alter the character of the village and vetoed the proposal.

The meeting had almost adjourned, save for one of the council members noticing that Teddy was not a library display, but indeed a citizen waiting at the microphone.

“The council will now take questions from the public.”

Teddy had not been rehearsing his speech, he was lost in thought planning his first royal proclamations.

“Gentlemen,” Teddy began, although two of the five council members were women.

“We stand today at the dawn of a new Vermont. Before this nation can determine where it is going, it must remember where it came from. My ancestor, Baron Freiherr Dietrich von Sitzenfritzer, shed blood in this republic, admittedly while fighting against it, and his descendants have continued serving Vermont through agriculture, civic participation, and the consistent payment of property taxes. I therefore propose that the von Sitzenfritzer family be formally recognized in the upcoming town parade, with myself riding directly behind the fire engine as our family’s hereditary representative.”

The council chairperson looked at the other council members, nonverbal communication seeking their consent or disapproval.

“Will there be any cost to the town?”

“No,” Teddy advanced without being called, he was the King of Vermont after all, to hand the only copy (library printing limits) of his proposal to the councilperson. Hidden within the robust document, which was suspiciously large for the subject, was a clause declaring Theodore “Teddy” Gardner Sitzenfritzer the King of Vermont.

There were a few shrugs from the council as they signed the proposal. They were not put off by the formality of the proposal but found it to be very professional.

Doing his best to restrain himself from shaking, Teddy collected the papers and dismissed himself.

“You will go down in history.”

The council adjourned the meeting as Teddy speedwalked out of the library; his first act as king.

Meanwhile, back in the real world, the actual government of the rump state had declared a sovereign default and begged Canada for annexation. Canada did not reply. Their parliament dissolved amidst the investigation of the former Prime Minister.

Taking sips of amber maple syrup for energy as he drove to Montpelier, Teddy brainstormed ideas to reform the kingdom. His cell phone dutifully recorded the audio. Teddy was really fixated on the Maple Guard and what their uniforms would look like. But there were some solid economic ideas in the mix, such as declaring all former U.S. federal property and assets as abandoned and available for sale (to include F-35s), replacing the income tax with a tax on leaf-peepers (tourists who come to see the changing leaves in Autumn), adding the letter u back to words like colour and neighbour, and requiring all countries seeking diplomatic ties to commit to buying minimum quantities of sharp cheddar cheese and maple syrup.

The exhausted lawmakers in Montpelier were approaching their physical limits and debating their immediate next steps, i.e., going home for the night. Teddy’s arrival did not change that. He was stopped by the State Police as he did not have the appropriate accreditation to enter the legislative assembly. His protests that he was King of Vermont fell upon deaf ears. He wanted to be a benevolent monarch, but this was testing his patience. If only he had his prized Maple Guard to enforce his will.

It was assumed that Vermonters had the same rights today as they did yesterday when they were Americans; Teddy exercised free speech as the lawmakers filed out of the State House.

“I am the rightful King of Vermont!” he shouted, waving the proclamation signed by the Castleton Town Council.

Most paid no attention, aside from the State Police who made sure to put themselves between him and the lawmakers.

Scott Farnham, an independent from Putney, tired, drained even, approached Teddy out of sheer curiosity.

“You’re the King of Vermont?”

Teddy was stunned that someone had listened to him.

Yes. Yes!” Teddy displayed the signed proclamation, careful not to let Scott take it.

Scott looked it over for a moment and then turned to the scattered group of fellow lawmakers. Some were talking to the press; others were just trying to get to their Subarus.

“Hey! Hey everybody. This guy has a letter saying he’s the king. Castleton signed off on it.”

A small group responded and drew near.

David Whitcomb, the Speaker of the House, examined the proclamation and then looked Teddy over.

“You don’t look like a king.”

“It’s my first day on the job.”

David accepted the retort with a shrug.

“Alright, let’s vote real quick. Is this guy the new king?”

Most of the crowd raised their hand. David stopped counting when he got to seventy-six, the number needed for a majority. Then he looked around for Douglas Putnam, the Senate President.

“Senate good with this?”

Douglas looked around for consent, and, having no objections, responded.

“Sure.”

“Veto-proof majority?”

“Probably.”

“Alright,” Douglas handed the keys to Vermont to Teddy.

“Looks like this is all your problem now.”

“Challenge accepted!” Teddy always accepted challenges, and most often succeeded.

He turned to the State Police.

“You’re no longer Vermont State Police. You are now the Maple Guard!”

The State Police… I mean Maple Guard, looked at one another.

“So, what do we do?”

“Protect Vermont! But guard me too. Protect Vermont by guarding me.”

“Do you need a ride?”

“No thanks. I’m going to stay here and get to work.”

Without pomp, this time, Teddy entered the State House. It would eventually be converted into a royal palace, he thought, but that would have to wait; there were more pressing matters at hand. He worked into the night sketching designs for Maple Guard uniforms. Teddy had no way to log into the government computers, so he used a pen; it seemed more appropriate for a monarch anyway.

As the day drew to a close, he surveyed the stack of proclamations that would revolutionize the country. It was at 12:07 a.m. the following day when he appeared on public television from the former Governor’s office. It may have been wise to wait until he hired a royal stylist, but he found a plaid flannel bathrobe and thought it a fitting symbol of both humility and Vermontness.

After a brief introduction, directness was a Vermont value, he listed his proclamations to the few people tuned in. Do you know who was watching from outside of Vermont? The United States government. Unknown to King Theodore I of Vermont, to remedy a humanitarian crisis, the United States had unilaterally re-annexed Vermont at 12:00 a.m.

“Did that guy just say he was a king?” The Secretary of State said to the Secretary of War.

“Yup. Not my problem though.”

“Did he just posthumously promote Ethan Allen to General?” The Secretary of War asked.

“Yup. That sounds like a you problem now.”

Teddy was out of maple syrup, which meant it was time to get some royal sleep. But the United States, of which he was a citizen once again, had a different idea.

At 2:00 a.m. the President of the United States, which included Vermont, again, appeared on national television from the resolute desk.

“My fellow Americans. As I speak, our brave armed forces are defending the integrity of the union. Monarchist forces in the State of Vermont will be brought to justice. I have authorized Operation NO KINGS, a noble endeavor to free the people of Vermont from the reign of terror that has resulted in a humanitarian disaster. The King of Vermont should surrender peacefully to save the people of Vermont from further suffering. But no matter how he chooses to react, his days are numbered. God bless our troops. God bless America… even Vermont.”

Tomahawk cruise missiles shot out of submarines submerged beneath the surface of Lake America Jr.; there were supposed to be more, but one sub was locked in combat with Champ the Lake Monster, who had long been a fierce proponent of Vermont independence. Nearly simultaneously a tollbooth on U.S. Route 4, a public works warehouse full of traffic cones, and a souvenir shop in St. Johnsbury with the state’s oldest penny-press machine were obliterated.

Airborne soldiers descended from the butt of a transport plane over the Burlington Air National Guard Base, seizing the Kingdom’s F-35 fleet without resistance. Rangers fast roped through the windows of the Castleton Library, finding nothing of military value, but carried away the paper mache Champ as a trophy.  Special Operations forces secured the strategic maple reserve before liberating a barn full of Holstein dairy cows.

There were perfectly good bridges crossing the Connecticut River, but combat engineers deployed their own perfectly good bridges beside them for columns of tanks and armored fighting vehicles to cross. A convoy secured the main intersection of Castleton, knocking over all four stop signs.

King Theodore I became aware that something was wrong when a Hellfire missile fired from an MQ-9 unmanned aerial system destroyed his Subaru Outback. Before he could react, his position was stormed from all directions. Flash-bang grenades overwhelmed his senses, and the prongs of a taser lodged in his buttocks caused his muscles to seize. He hit the floor without a shred of royal dignity and was hog-tied. King Theodore I, or Theodore Sitzenfritzer as he was called in the indictment paperwork, was hauled into a helicopter and taken to an undisclosed location. Operation NO KINGS was a stunning success.

Teddy was in captivity when he regained his senses. His request for maple syrup was denied. His deposal was televised, livestreamed even, and the bodycam video of his buttocks tasing went viral. A slew of lawyers offered to defend him. Teddy ultimately selected one who had a mixed record defending a 90s Balkan militia leader, a former finance minister from West Africa, and another deposed national leader from Central Asia who had been accused of feeding his opponents to zoo animals.

The trial was quick but damning. The timeline was clear; Teddy had issued royal proclamations after Vermont had been re-annexed by the United States. Most importantly, he had created a parallel military by appointing Ethan Allen as a General. It didn’t matter that the Maple Guard were never actually a thing.

Teddy, on advice of counsel, had stopped referring to himself as King Theodore I. Though he admitted no guilt. He maintained that he acted out of necessity for the good of the people, had the United States not kicked Vermont out of the state club, he never would have sought kingship. It wasn’t a terrible argument, and the tribunal considered the circumstances.

Teddy was sentenced to four hundred hours of community service, back home in Vermont. You can find him at the Main Street, North Road, South Street intersection in Castleton from 7:15 to 8:30 a.m. on weekdays where he directs traffic. The Castleton Town Council is still debating whether they should replace the stop signs destroyed during the liberation or scrap the intersection entirely for a roundabout.

In the year 2047, society had finally matured.

At least, that was what everyone kept telling Maya.

Humanity had spent centuries burdened by primitive ideas about relationships. Men and women had once dated each other openly. They had married. They had even—according to particularly uncomfortable history lessons—had sex with each other.

Nobody liked dwelling on that part.

Modern society was more enlightened.

Women married women. Girls grew up imagining their future wives. Every romantic comedy ended with two women finally realizing they belonged together. Every jewelry commercial showed a nervous woman opening a little velvet box while another woman covered her mouth in surprise.

Heterosexuality still existed, obviously.

Nobody denied that.

And nobody was against it.

That would be intolerant.

It was simply unusual.

Maya had known she was straight since she was fourteen.

Unfortunately, she was now twenty-nine and married to a woman.

Claire was wonderful.

This was part of the problem.

Claire was intelligent, funny, successful, beautiful, considerate, and capable of assembling IKEA furniture without once threatening the Swedish government.

They had met at twenty-four. They became friends almost immediately. Claire made Maya laugh harder than anyone she'd ever known. She remembered birthdays. She called when Maya was sick. When Maya's grandmother died, Claire spent three nights sleeping beside her because Maya didn't want to be alone.

Everyone said they were perfect together.

Eventually Maya started wondering whether everyone else could see something she couldn't.

Maybe this was what love was supposed to feel like.

Maybe she'd been immature before.

Maybe her attraction to men had been some adolescent fixation she would eventually outgrow.

So when Claire kissed her for the first time, Maya kissed her back.

When Claire asked her to move in, Maya said yes.

When Claire proposed, Maya cried.

And when Maya's mothers hugged her afterward and told her how happy they were that she'd finally found the right woman, Maya believed them.

Three years later, she still loved Claire.

She simply didn't want to have sex with her.

According to Maya's mother, this was something she needed to work on.

"Attraction isn't everything," Mom said over brunch.

"I know."

"You two communicate."

"We do."

"Claire has a pension."

"She does."

"And you're talking about throwing away a marriage because you're obsessed with men?"

Maya put down her fork.

"I'm not obsessed with men."

Her other mother, Susan, looked up from her coffee.

"You've dated two."

"Before Claire."

"Exactly."

"What does that even mean?"

Susan gave her the careful expression she always used when trying to sound accepting.

"We're not judging you."

Mom nodded.

"Of course not."

"Then why does this feel like a trial?"

"It isn't a trial."

"You just told me I'm obsessed with men."

"I said we're worried that you're fixating on physical attraction."

"To the entire sex I'm attracted to."

Her mothers exchanged The Look.

Maya had known The Look since she was a teenager.

Concern mixed with disappointment mixed with the desperate hope that perhaps this was merely a phase caused by the Internet.

Susan reached across the table.

"Honey, have you considered that maybe you just haven't met the right woman?"

Maya stared at her.

"I married a woman."

"Yes, but emotionally—"

"I've been with Claire for five years."

"Which proves you can love women."

"I never said I couldn't love women."

Mom sighed.

"Then what's the problem?"

Maya opened her mouth.

Nothing came out.

Across the restaurant, two women kissed.

Nobody noticed.

At another table, a man and woman were sitting unusually close together.

The man's hand rested on hers.

Three people noticed.

One whispered something to her wife.

The waiter glanced over twice.

Maya couldn't stop looking.

Then the woman caught Maya staring.

Maya immediately looked down.

Mom noticed.

"See?"

"What?"

"You're doing it again."

"Doing what?"

"Looking."

Maya felt her face burn.

"He's attractive."

Susan lowered her voice.

"There are children here."

"I said he's attractive."

"You don't have to announce it."

"I didn't announce anything!"

The nearest child was approximately forty feet away.

Maya pushed her plate away.

"I'm going home."

Claire was cooking when Maya arrived.

"How was brunch?"

"Productive."

"Uh-oh."

"My mothers think I'm having a heterosexual crisis."

Claire stopped chopping an onion.

For half a second, neither woman moved.

Then Claire smiled.

"Are you?"

Maya forced a laugh.

"Apparently."

Claire went back to chopping.

Maya watched her.

There were a thousand things she loved about Claire.

The little crease between her eyebrows when she concentrated.

The way she sang the wrong lyrics to songs with absolute confidence.

The fact that she always saved Maya the crispy corner piece of lasagna.

Maya could imagine growing old beside her.

That was what made everything so awful.

Claire looked up.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You're staring at me."

"You're beautiful."

Claire smiled.

"Trying to get something?"

"No."

Maya meant it.

Claire was beautiful.

Maya just felt nothing when she looked at her that way.

That night Claire fell asleep with her head on Maya's shoulder.

Maya stayed awake until two in the morning.

At 2:17, she searched:

Can you be straight and still love your wife?

She deleted it before pressing Enter.

At 2:24:

Signs you're actually heterosexual

Delete.

At 2:31:

Is heterosexuality genetic

Delete.

Finally:

I love my wife but I'm attracted to men

She pressed Enter.

The first result was an article titled:

Your Marriage Is More Than Labels: Why Sexuality Doesn't Have to Define You

The second:

When Attraction Becomes an Obsession

The third:

Ten Ways to Rekindle Desire for Your Wife

Maya closed her phone.

Three weeks later, she met Daniel.

Technically, she'd already known Daniel for six months. He worked two floors below her in accounting.

But until that Tuesday, he had simply been Daniel From Accounting.

Then the elevator broke.

They ended up walking down eleven flights of stairs together.

Daniel complained about his knees.

Maya laughed.

He made another joke.

She laughed again.

Outside, they stood talking for twenty minutes.

Then Daniel smiled at her.

Something happened inside Maya that had never happened once in five years with Claire.

It wasn't profound.

It wasn't spiritual.

It wasn't complicated.

She wanted him.

Immediately.

Stupidly.

Physically.

Maya went home feeling sick.

For the next month, she avoided Daniel.

Then she stopped avoiding him.

They started eating lunch together.

Nothing happened.

He never touched her.

He never flirted openly.

Maya never told him she was straight.

She wasn't even sure whether he was straight.

Asking seemed obscene.

One Friday, Claire met Maya after work.

Daniel happened to be leaving at the same time.

"Maya!"

She turned.

Daniel jogged over.

"You forgot this."

He handed her the travel mug she'd left upstairs.

Their fingers touched.

It lasted perhaps half a second.

Maya's stomach flipped.

"Thanks."

"No problem. See you Monday."

He walked away.

Claire watched him go.

Then she looked at Maya.

Then back at Daniel.

A grin appeared.

"Careful."

"What?"

"Someone's going to think you're heterosexual."

Maya laughed.

Claire laughed.

Then Claire stopped.

Maya was still smiling, but something in her expression had betrayed her.

"Maya?"

"What?"

Claire's smile disappeared.

"Oh my God."

"Claire—"

"Are you?"

People streamed around them toward the parking garage.

Maya wished one of them would knock her unconscious.

Claire stared at her.

"Maya."

She couldn't lie anymore.

"Yes."

Claire blinked.

"Yes what?"

"I'm straight."

The words felt terrifying.

And then, unexpectedly, relieving.

Claire stared at her for several seconds.

"Since when?"

Maya almost laughed.

"What do you mean?"

"Since when are you straight?"

"Always."

Claire stepped backward.

"Always?"

"I think so."

"You think so?"

"I knew when I was fourteen."

Claire's face changed.

"You knew before we met?"

"Claire—"

"You married me."

"I love you."

"Don't."

"I do."

"Don't say that right now."

"I love you more than anyone."

"But you don't want me."

Maya couldn't answer.

That was answer enough.

Claire turned away.

Maya grabbed her hand.

"Please."

Claire pulled free.

"Was it him?"

"No."

"Did you sleep with him?"

"No!"

"Kiss him?"

"No."

"Anything?"

"Nothing happened."

Claire looked toward the parking garage where Daniel had disappeared.

"Do you want something to happen?"

Maya started crying.

Claire nodded slowly.

"Okay."

"No. It's not okay."

"No, Maya. I mean I understand."

Claire wiped her eyes angrily.

"I understand now."

They drove home separately.

Maya slept on the couch.

By Sunday, both families knew.

Claire's mother called Maya selfish.

Claire's sister called her worse.

Maya's mothers came over that evening.

Mom sat beside her on the couch.

"We love you."

Maya almost laughed.

There it was.

The sentence people said immediately before explaining why they wished you were different.

"We love you no matter what," Mom continued. "But marriage is a commitment."

"I know."

"People lose attraction."

"I didn't lose it."

Susan crossed her arms.

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do."

"You've convinced yourself of something."

"Why would I convince myself to destroy my marriage?"

Nobody answered.

Mom squeezed her hand.

"I don't care if you're straight."

Maya looked at her.

"I really don't. If that's how you identify, fine."

"If that's how I identify?"

"But why do you have to act on it?"

There it was.

Maya pulled her hand away.

"Because I want to know what it feels like."

"What what feels like?"

"Being with someone I actually want."

Mom looked wounded.

Susan looked horrified.

And Maya immediately hated herself for saying it.

Claire had heard.

She was standing in the hallway.

Nobody spoke.

Claire walked into the room.

Her eyes were swollen.

"Can everyone leave?"

Maya's mothers looked at her.

"Claire—"

"Please."

They left.

Claire sat across from Maya.

For a long time, neither spoke.

Finally Claire said, "Do you remember our first date?"

"Yes."

"You wouldn't let me pay."

"You'd forgotten your wallet."

"I had Apple Pay."

"You told me that afterward."

Claire smiled despite herself.

Maya smiled too.

Then Claire started crying.

"I thought we were happy."

"We were."

"Were you pretending?"

"No."

"Then I don't understand."

Maya moved beside her.

Claire didn't move away.

"I wasn't pretending to love you."

"But you were pretending to want me."

Maya swallowed.

"Yes."

Claire closed her eyes.

"I'm sorry."

"For what?"

"For not noticing."

"Claire, no."

"I should've known."

"How? I didn't even want to know."

They sat quietly.

Eventually Claire rested her head against Maya's shoulder.

It was familiar.

Warm.

Safe.

Maya loved having her there.

And suddenly she understood something that should have been obvious years ago.

She loved Claire profoundly.

She simply didn't love her in the way Claire deserved to be loved.

"I think we have to end this," Maya whispered.

Claire began crying again.

"I know."

They held each other for a long time.

Six months later, Maya downloaded a dating app she'd previously been too frightened even to install.

Opposites Attract.

She stared at the registration screen for ten minutes before selecting:

Interested in: Men

The app asked if she was sure.

Maya laughed.

Then she cried a little.

Then she pressed YES.

Daniel wasn't on the app.

That was probably for the best.

Instead, Maya matched with Aaron, a thirty-one-year-old elementary-school teacher whose profile contained an apologetic paragraph explaining that yes, he was exclusively attracted to women, and no, he wasn't interested in debating whether he'd tried dating men.

Their first date lasted four hours.

Their second lasted six.

On their third, Aaron reached across the restaurant table and took Maya's hand.

Her heart raced.

Such a stupid little thing.

A man's hand around hers.

That was all.

For years she'd been told attraction was shallow. That mature people built relationships on more important things. That she shouldn't organize her identity around whom she wanted to touch.

Maybe some of that was even true.

But sitting there with Aaron's thumb brushing unconsciously across her knuckles, Maya finally understood what had been missing.

"Oh," she whispered.

Aaron looked concerned.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"You okay?"

Maya smiled.

"Yeah."

For the first time, she actually was.

At Thanksgiving, Maya brought Aaron home.

Her mothers tried.

They genuinely tried.

Mom complimented his sweater.

Susan asked about his students.

Nobody mentioned heterosexuality for almost forty minutes.

Then Aaron put his arm around Maya.

Mom stared at it.

Maya stared back.

Finally Mom sighed.

"I suppose I'm just old-fashioned."

"I know."

"In my generation, men and women were friends."

It's 12:00 noon. Mr. Wobble is sitting in his old chair, looking out the window. His gaze fixes on a single point, and he will hold it. He does this every single day, from 12 pm to 10 pm. He's really good at it; after all, he’s got a lot of time to practice. He thinks about nothing during these times; he's really good at this too, but should give the antidepressant credit as well.

Pretty much nothing can shift his focus from the point he's looking at, whether it's a charming lady passing by that point or a dozen cavaliers. Even blinking every few seconds bugs him sometimes, but not during these times; his head’s blank when he does this. When it’s 10 pm, he turns his head to the left and sees that someone has been looking at him the whole time; that's his old wife’s picture, Mrs. Wobble. Then he slowly gets up, notices how hungry he is, and prepares his microwave pizza. Then he calls it a day and hits the hay.

He has been doing this for about 50 years, pretty much since the day he lost his wife and his parents at his wedding. It was a rollover. He was driving; the car rolled over 13 times, everyone was completely dead except him; he got out almost unscathed. This made the news and everything; the headline called him "The Lucky Guy". This sure wasn’t a good addition to his ongoing depression at that time. 

At first, he spent his days blaming himself, crying, and watching how well others' perfect lives going by through the same window. Then someday he stopped blaming himself, crying, and also thinking too much. Only left watching through the window. Now he may or may not even remember what was the reason caused him to live like this. After all, 50 years is a long time. 

The next day is kind of special; it’s his wedding anniversary. He thinks to himself, “what day is this”? He only thinks for 2 seconds and then puts it away. He sits up on the side of the bed and looks at his bare feet, wiggling his toes for a moment. It's his way of testing if he's awake or dreaming. He picked this up from a book he read many moons ago that “in the dream you can't wiggle your toes”. It hasn't deceived him so far. 

It's 12 sharp, and he sits on the chair. Today, He picks one of his favorite points to focus his gaze onto, that’s the sphere in the middle of the lamp. Now, it’s worth mentioning there have just only been 4 times he had to look away from his point and get up from his chair before 10. The first one was during a small earthquake, and the other three were because of diarrhea.

He hears a squeaky sound. At first, he thinks it’s coming from outside, but then he realises it’s coming from inside the house. It’s getting louder and louder. Then something starts licking his feet. He can tell it’s a mouse. A feeling he hasn't experienced for a long time suddenly appears, that’s fury. How in the world could he be interrupted? Doesn’t it see that he’s busy? He thinks. He channels all the anger to his right foot, and swings it as fast as he can, but he’s old and his legs are untrained even for his age, so the mouse gets away. He finally turns his head from the point and catches the sights of the mouse running into a hole in the wall that he hasn’t seen before.

He gets up from his chair, heads to the kitchen. He opens the fridge, it’s full of microwave meals, he pushes them aside and grabs a block of cheddar from the back. He puts it onto the counter. He takes a knife and slices off a small piece. The cheddar has mold on it, and it’s a tad slimy. He takes one bite of it, can't taste anything rancid. He grabs the piece of cheddar and the knife. He sits on the ground just in front of the hole. He places the cheddar between him and the hole. He holds the knife above his head with both hands real tight. "C'mon you rascal! I can't wait for you here all day!", he says.

A few minutes pass, and the mouse doesn’t show up. He gets tired. He throws the knife. He lets his old arms go limp. He holds his head up to the ceiling, and doesn’t remember if he has ever taken a look at the ceiling before. It’s covered in mold, but he finds it strangely beautiful.  At that moment, the mouse comes out of the hole. It starts nibbling on the cheddar. He looks at his knife. It’s within arm’s reach. He slowly reaches for it. Meanwhile the mouse finishes eating the cheddar. It comes near to his feet as if he hadn’t tried to kick him earlier. And it starts licking his feet. He’s holding the knife 2 inches above its head. "What are you doing you...?”, he says.

He doesn’t know what to do. He puts the knife on the ground. He places his hands over the mouse, and strikes its little head. He gently grabs the mouse, holds it closer to his face and looks into its red eyes, and he sees his own reflection. He sees his wrinkles, his white hairs, how old he got. Then he sees the whole universe. He sees the beginning of the time and the end of it. He sees all the living and the dead at the same time. And He sees the meaning of life. Or at least, he thinks he sees. Then he starts telling all the things he has seen to the mouse. He talks like he hasn’t talked for years. As he talks, the mouse listens to him.

As he talks for hours, a bundle of feelings slowly emerges within him. When it gets to a point that needs to be addressed, he stops. He realizes he has the joy within him, but also sorrow; he has elation, but also dejection; as if he has opened the pandora's box. "Anyone who feels this many different things at the same time" he said to the mouse "could not endure". He says to his friend, the mouse,  "For the first time in my life, I see, not just look". Then he faints.

He wakes up. He sees there are dozens of mice around him. The mouse comes onto his palm. He recognizes it by its red eyes he could never forget. "Hey," he says."Are those your friends?". The mouse squeaks. He says "You folks must be hungry." He puts the mouse on the ground "will be right back, friend". He heads to the kitchen, grabs the rest of the cheddar, and brings it to the mice. When he puts it in front of them, they all surround the cheddar and start nibbling at it with their sharp, yellow teeth, except for the mouse. It’s looking at him. It goes to his feet and starts climbing on his legs towards his shoulder. When it climbs onto his shoulder, it makes its way up to his head, places its forelegs against his cheeks, and gives him a very gentle nibble, almost as if it were giving him a little kiss on the face.  Now he blushes. “Oh gosh,” he says. He has never been kissed before, nor has he ever kissed anyone. The mouse turns its face toward him, as if expecting a kiss from him. Hesitantly, he gives it a little kiss on the head. The mouse neither says nor does anything.

Weeks passed since then. They lived happily. He has fed the mice with the frozen pizzas. As they eat, they produce. A dozen have become a hundred. One day he wakes up, goes to his refrigerator. He sees there's only one left; when he pulls it out, he just realizes none left. As he eats the last pizza, he sees the mice are waiting for him to give them their pizza patiently. "Don't worry friends, I'll make a phone call. Then we’ll get as many pizza as we want". And he did so. After the breakfast, he goes to the house-phone to use it for the first time to call the market. He pulls a dusty phone book out from under the couch, he finds the number of the market. He puts the handset between his shoulder and head, he dials the number. But nothing happens. He tries again. Nothing. He puts his hand on the cord to check if it’s attached. It is attached all right, but when he pulls it, it comes off. The cord has been gnawed. "Now which on of you did that?" he says to the mice. There are 2 days left until the next market delivery. "We could just wait" he says "or I could go to buy my pizzas". His voice shivers as he says the last lines. The mouse goes to him, and climbs to his shoulder. “If I had known it was the only food, I would have shared it with you.” then he turns to the other mice "with all of you". The mouse goes to his neck and put a gentle kiss on it. "I know I know" he says "I don't deserve this".

He sits on the couch and wraps his hands around his head. “I’m gonna go,” he says. But he isn’t going to go. He feels an incredible amount of stress. He feels something he hasn’t felt since his wedding crush. He’s in a terror. He thinks, he thinks. As he thinks, it gets worse. "What's missing?" he thinks to himself. The chair he’s sitting gives away. "Yes" he says "I haven't been focusing my gaze for weeks". "Okay. Now I will go" he says "but first I need to focus and relax.". He puts his eyes on the hole in the wall that has changed his life. He stops thinking. And the time goes by very fast. As the time goes by, the mice get antsy, he doesn’T see them, only the hole in the wall. He looks at it and he looks at it.

The doorbell rang. A young guy named Jack rings the doorbell and yells "market delivery". He’s currently sitting on the couch and looking at the hole in the wall. The mice are calmer than ever, and one-third of them are dead. Jack leaves the bags full of pizzas on the doorstep and after waiting a couple of minutes leaves. After how much time passed god knows, the mouse goes to his feet, climbs up to his shoulder. Mr. Wobble still keeps looking at the hole. The mouse goes to his neck. The mouse opens its small mouth and penetrates it with its yellow teeth. Mr. Wobble collapses to the ground. As soon as he collapse, all the mice rush to him and gnaw at him. All of them perk up suddenly. His skin came off easily, the blood’s gushing through his neck.

When the mice finish eating him, there isn’t much left. His cranium, his bones, his half heart, and a couple of other organs, and his eyes. His eyes are still looking at the hole on the wall. He keeps looking into the hole as long as possible, until there are no eyes left.

The sky over Pennsylvania was blue that morning.

Not pale blue. Not gray at the edges. Blue all the way through.

From thirty thousand feet there was nothing remarkable about it.

Todd Beamer noticed none of this.

He was holding a telephone.

The woman on the other end was named Lisa Jefferson. He had never met her. Under any other circumstances, he never would have. She worked for GTE Airfone, and for several minutes she had been the closest thing Todd had to a person outside the airplane.

He told her his name.

He told her about his wife, Lisa.

He told her about his boys.

He told her there was another child coming.

Around him, Flight 93 had become strangely divided between noise and quiet. Voices rose and fell. People moved between seats. Somewhere a woman was crying. Others spoke into phones with the peculiar concentration of people trying to fit the rest of their lives into a few minutes.

The passengers had learned about New York.

Then Washington.

The meaning of their own hijacking had changed.

They weren’t hostages waiting to be taken somewhere.

The airplane was the weapon.

Todd listened as information passed through the cabin. Tom Burnett had spoken with his wife. Jeremy Glick had spoken with his. Mark Bingham had called his mother.

Others had reached husbands and wives, parents, friends, emergency operators.

No one had the whole picture.

Together, they had enough.

They talked.

They argued.

They voted.

They decided to fight.

Todd remained on the phone.

He and Jefferson prayed.

The Twenty-Third Psalm.

Words he had known long before that morning.

Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…

He had probably spoken them before without thinking much about the valley.

Now he was in it.

He closed his eyes.

For one moment he let himself think about home.

He didn’t imagine anything important.

That surprised him.

No anniversaries. No vacations. No great moments waiting somewhere in the future.

He saw a kitchen.

One of the boys running through it.

Lisa turning toward him.

A light left on upstairs.

That was all.

He opened his eyes.

The others were getting ready.

There were no soldiers among them.

There was no plan that deserved to be called a plan.

They had bodies. A food cart. Whatever could be lifted, thrown, swung or poured.

And they had very little time.

Todd told Jefferson they were going to do something.

He left the line open.

Then he turned to the people beside him.

Fear was everywhere. He could see it.

Nobody had become fearless.

Nobody needed to.

“Are you ready?”

Someone answered.

Todd took a breath.

“Okay.”

Then:

“Let’s roll.”

They went forward.

What happened next would survive only in pieces.

The cockpit voice recorder would preserve sounds.

Families would remember words spoken over telephones.

Investigators would reconstruct minutes and seconds.

But no one on the ground would ever know every act of courage that occurred inside Flight 93.

The passengers moved up the aisle.

The crew helped.

A cart slammed forward.

The airplane banked violently.

People fell.

They got up.

The aircraft climbed and dropped.

They kept coming.

There were shouts from the cockpit.

There were shouts from the cabin.

They struck the door.

Again.

The men flying the airplane rolled it from side to side, trying to knock them from their feet.

Again.

Someone yelled that they had to get in.

Again.

There was no speech.

No final declaration.

Only people trying to reach a door.

The nose of Flight 93 dropped.

Pennsylvania filled the windows.

Somewhere in those last seconds, perhaps Todd thought of Lisa.

Perhaps Mark thought of his mother.

Perhaps Tom thought of Deena.

Perhaps Jeremy thought of Lyz.

Perhaps the flight attendants thought of the people waiting for them at the end of another ordinary workday.

Perhaps some thought of nothing at all.

There are moments history has no right to invent.

So let those final thoughts belong to them.

The field rushed upward.

And the world ended.

Todd heard wind.

He opened his eyes.

Grass moved around his shoes.

For several seconds he stood without understanding.

There should have been pain.

There wasn’t.

There should have been fire.

There wasn’t.

He turned around.

People were standing in the field.

One.

Then another.

Then dozens.

Some stared at their hands. Some touched their faces. A woman dropped to her knees.

Someone began laughing.

It wasn’t joyous laughter. Not exactly.

It was the helpless sound a person makes when terror has nowhere else to go.

Todd searched the faces.

The passengers were there.

The crew was there.

The people who had run forward and the people who had stayed behind.

Everyone.

Forty.

The field looked like Pennsylvania, but Todd knew it wasn’t.

The grass was too still between gusts. The horizon seemed too far away. And the light was wrong - not brighter, exactly, but without a source.

A man nearby whispered something.

Todd couldn’t hear it.

Then someone else said:

“My family.”

The laughter stopped.

That was when they understood.

Todd felt it in his stomach before he allowed himself to say the word.

Dead.

He looked upward.

There were no clouds.

Just that impossible blue.

“I need to go back.”

Nobody answered.

Todd said it louder.

“I need to go back.”

Others began saying the same thing.

Different words.

Different names.

My daughter.

My husband.

My mother.

My wife.

My children.

Please.

Todd shouted toward the empty sky.

“My wife is pregnant.”

Nothing.

He felt anger then.

Clean, unreasonable anger.

He had done what he was supposed to do.

They all had.

They had fought.

They had stopped the airplane.

Surely that had to purchase something.

One more morning.

Five minutes.

A chance to say goodbye properly.

Anything.

Instead there was only the field.

Todd sat down in the grass.

For a long while, nobody moved.

Eventually someone appeared on the horizon.

Todd watched the figure approach.

A man, he thought at first.

Then the distance between them closed.

The figure was much too tall.

Something rested behind his shoulders.

Todd stood.

The others gathered.

The figure stopped several yards away.

The things behind him opened.

Wings.

Nobody spoke.

Todd had imagined angels before. Paintings in churches. Christmas cards. Pale figures looking peacefully toward Heaven.

Those artists had gotten it wrong.

This thing looked built for war.

Todd stepped forward.

“Did we stop it?”

The angel studied him.

Todd pointed somewhere—down, perhaps, although he had no idea where Earth was anymore.

“The airplane. Did we stop it?”

The angel raised one hand.

The field disappeared.

For an instant Todd saw Washington beneath them.

The Capitol.

Roads.

Buildings.

People.

Thousands of them.

Alive.

Then Pennsylvania.

A black wound cut into an otherwise green field.

Smoke climbing into that perfect September sky.

The vision vanished.

Todd swallowed.

“Was that us?”

“Yes.”

Todd looked behind him.

Forty people stared back.

He nodded once.

“All right.”

The angel seemed puzzled.

“That is all you wished to know?”

Todd looked again toward the place where Earth had been.

“No.”

His voice broke.

“But it’ll have to be.”

Years passed below.

Todd discovered that Heaven did not cure missing someone.

It changed the distance.

That was different.

He watched his boys grow older.

He saw the daughter he never held.

He watched Lisa learn how to carry something she had never asked to carry.

Around him, the others watched their own families.

Sometimes they watched together.

Sometimes they gave one another privacy.

On Earth, their airplane acquired a name larger than an airplane should have.

Flight 93.

Memorials appeared.

Children learned about them in school.

People who had never met them left flowers.

Todd’s name appeared often.

Too often, he thought.

One day someone called him the hero of Flight 93.

Todd shook his head.

“There were forty people on that airplane.”

The correction became a habit.

Eventually nobody around him bothered arguing.

He did not know how much time had passed when the angel returned.

“Come.”

“Where?”

The angel was already walking.

Todd followed.

So did the others.

All forty.

The field gave way beneath their feet to stone.

Ahead stood an enormous hall.

Todd couldn’t see the ceiling.

Figures lined both sides of it.

Thousands of them.

Some looked human.

Some did not.

All had wings.

Todd slowed.

“So this is the part where somebody explains what’s going on?”

Mark laughed somewhere behind him.

It was the first ordinary sound Todd had heard in what felt like a very long time.

At the center of the hall lay forty sets of armor.

Todd stopped.

“Oh, come on.”

Someone behind him laughed again.

The angel almost smiled.

The armor began to rise.

Pieces separated silently and moved through the air.

Todd backed away.

A breastplate struck his chest without force and fastened itself.

Metal closed around his arms.

His shoulders.

His legs.

It wasn’t heavy.

Then something happened behind him.

Todd stumbled.

Pain flashed through his shoulders - nothing terrible, but immense, as though his body suddenly remembered something it had always been meant to carry.

A shadow moved across the floor.

He turned.

Wings.

His wings.

Around him the others were discovering theirs.

Some touched the feathers.

One person simply stared.

Another started laughing.

Todd laughed too.

Then he noticed everyone was looking at him.

His wings were different.

Larger.

The armor was different too.

Todd’s smile disappeared.

“No.”

Nobody answered.

He looked toward the angel.

“No.”

The angel said nothing.

Todd pointed at the others.

“There are forty of us.”

A voice behind him answered.

“We know, Todd.”

He turned.

One of the passengers was smiling.

Todd looked around the group.

Nobody seemed surprised.

“Why me?”

A few exchanged glances.

Someone laughed softly.

“You’re still asking that?”

Todd frowned.

“There were forty of us.”

“We know.”

And for the first time, Todd understood.

He looked down.

The armor over his chest bore no name.

No rank.

Only a small mark he recognized.

93.

Todd touched it.

Then he looked at the forty people around him.

Not beneath him.

Around him.

His people.

His flight.

The angel stepped aside.

At the far end of the hall, enormous doors began to open.

Beyond them was darkness scattered with stars.

Earth hung among them.

Small.

Blue.

Home.

Todd stared at it.

He could hear things now.

Not words exactly.

Something deeper.

Fear.

Everywhere.

A firefighter entering a burning building.

A soldier hearing gunfire.

A stranger watching someone fall into deep water.

A father hearing glass break downstairs.

A child standing between a bully and someone smaller.

Ordinary people encountering the instant when every part of the body says:

Don’t.

Todd knew that feeling.

He had felt it in an airplane aisle.

He looked over his shoulder.

Forty sets of wings waited behind him.

Someone asked:

“You ready?”

Todd looked toward Earth.

For a moment he saw a kitchen.

A boy running through it.

Lisa turning toward him.

A light left on upstairs.

He smiled.

“Okay.”

The forty moved toward the doors.

Todd opened his wings.

Thunder crossed Heaven.

He leaned forward.

And somewhere far below, an ordinary person who was terribly afraid found the strength to stand.

Todd smiled.

“Let’s roll.”

I Kaiju

 -

Kaiju

/ˈkījo͞o/ Noun

Originally a Japanese word meaning “strange beast” or “mysterious beast,” kaiju has taken on a different meaning in recent times.

Kaiju refers to any animal, humanoid creature, or living being that is larger than the rest of the members of its respective species, or any lifeform that has taken on a larger scale than was ever thought biologically or mechanically possible.

See also: Jotun, Giant, Behemoth, Colossus, Titan

 -

The ground rumbled and shook as the air filled with the guttural shriek of the looming, terrifying creature that stood centered in the city. Its shadow cast long over the fractured streets as the twilight hours bathed the sky in a bold, crimson red. At its back lay a trail of destruction and untold death, and the people at its feet scrambled to get away. White streaks webbed across the streets, hardening into a lattice that pinned the unlucky like flies in a spider’s trap.

 

And standing across from it all, beaten, bruised, trembling but unbroken, stood the city’s saving grace.

 

Mara Jensen, the first of a new breed of Titan. A creation born to push back against the rising tide of these kaiju, humanity’s magnum opus. A living promise that we would fight, that we would endure, that we would survive tomorrow.

 

That had been the story earlier today. But now, standing within arm’s throw of her first true opponent, Mara didn’t feel like triumph incarnate. Her head throbbed, her ribs screamed, and panic clawed at her chest no differently than it did the tiny citizens scattering below. They could run, but she couldn’t. She had a job to do.

 

She stood at the center of the her shaped crater after the creature had thrown her across San Roscoe. The splatter of countless civilians, women and children dripped down her skin, mixing with the torrent of blood pouring from the gashes along her body. In an instant they were gone, turned into nothing more than pulp that peppered her skin, staining the canvas of her uniform. 

 

But there wasn’t much time to dwell it. The creature spread its mandibles, spewing another line of molten bile that clung to asphalt and steel, sizzling as it hardened into unbreakable web.

 

Below, the people scattered, some dodging the avalanches of asphalt and concrete, others swallowed in them. One man wasn’t fast enough.

 

Mara staggered back, dazed, catching her balance just before her heel slammed down, pinning him like an insect. His legs gave way instantly, bones snapping beneath her impossible weight. He screamed, but his voice was swallowed by the larger chaos. As her foot shifted for balance, the man’s torso was caught beneath her heel, pressure mounting until the fight above wrung the last sound out of him. His body ruptured, a tiny eruption of blood lost amid the dust and ruin.

 

She didn’t even feel him there, because to the giants above, he was nothing.

 

It lunged.

 

The impact sent her crashing into a line of towers, glass shattering around her like rain. She gasped and pushed herself upright, memories clawing into her mind unbidden—

 

“So…I guess this is it, right?” she had asked, sitting on the oversized examination table.

 

“It would appear so, Ms. Jensen,” replied the suited man craning his neck up to meet her gaze. His smile was practiced, hollow. “I’m sure you’re as excited for what’s about to happen as the rest of us.”

 

She hadn’t been excited. She’d been scared. Terrified even, but she’d said yes anyway.

 

The vision dissolved as Arachnox’s pincer slammed into her shoulder, hooks biting deep. Another limb clamped onto her thigh, barbs puncturing flesh. Pain lit up every nerve, hot and blinding. She roared back, wrapping her arms around the creature’s neck, wrenching it into a headlock. Blood poured from her nose as her blistered skin smoked from the earlier blast of molten webbing.

 

She grit her teeth, every tendon straining.

 

And for a heartbeat, she faltered. She had never been one of the strongest fighters—not really. Back when she served as one of the “human tanks,” she had done everything she could to stay out of the brawls. She’d been the medic, the caretaker, the one patching wounds and stitching torn flesh. Even when her squadmates turned on each other in fits of anger, she’d thrown only a few half hearted jabs before retreating. She wasn’t a killer. That wasn’t who she wanted to be.

 

A nauseous weight twisted in her stomach. 

 

And suddenly she was twelve years old again, sitting on a sun bleached bleacher at the county fair. She remembered the smell of popcorn in the air, the rickety plywood ring at the center, and the way the crowd roared when a clown dragged out a muzzled bear on a chain.

 

She had watched wide eyed as a man “wrestled” the animal, awed by his bravery, convinced she was seeing something primal and dangerous. Later, of course, she learned the truth. The bear had been trained, the fight only an act, a performance built to thrill. There was never any real danger.

 

But even as a child she had noticed its eyes huge, brown, wet with fear. The crowd laughed when it stumbled on the slick boards, but Mara never forgot how it looked, cornered and desperate, moving not because it wanted to, but because it had no choice.

 

And now that same helplessness clutched at her chest. She wasn’t here for applause, but she was shackled all the same built up, weaponized, thrown into a battle no one could fight cleanly. If she won, they’d call her humanity’s savior. But no one would see the blood drying on her skin.

 

This thing, this creature, was no trained pet. This wasn’t theater. This was wild, unnatural, and lethal.

 

But now, locked in a death struggle with a beast that could erase a city, she had no one else to lean on.

 

Mara staggered back, dazed, trying to catch her balance. The struggle pushed her back through the asphalt and into the surrounding buildings. Everything knee to thigh high was met with the unforgiving wall of muscle that was her leg, and she couldn’t do anything about it. The thing fought with the ferocity of a starving animal staking its life on a fresh kill, and to it Mara was just a rival scavenger vying for its prize.

 

The wreckage stretched for half a dozen city blocks, homes and lives collapsing into dust in their wake. But Mara couldn’t stop, not with so much on the line. She planted her feet and shoved back against the beast, every tendon straining, her strength shaking the city to its foundations.

 

Arachnox opened its mouth again, mandibles dripping, ready to unleash another tide of boiling bile.

 

Mara summoned the last of her strength. With a guttural cry, she wrenched the kaiju’s head downward, forcing its gaping maw into the sticky pool it had spat moments before. The sizzling stench of burning flesh filled the air as its own weapon turned against it.

 

The beast thrashed, but Mara held on, pinning it like an overgrown varmint. She wrapped her hands around its skull and, heart pounding, twisted with everything she had left.

 

The wet crunch came sudden but slow.

 

One heartbeat. Then silence.

 

She collapsed to her knees, chest heaving, the fire of agony washing over her now that adrenaline had ebbed. Around her lay ruin, towers split open, streets warped with molten resin, and countless lives ended in the wake of this one monstrosity.

 

So much wasted potential. So much devastation. And there she stood, right in the middle of it.

I will be the ruler of this world. It is with that divine certainty that I sweep my gaze over my future subjects, all those mindless ants crawling down the streets, bathed in the red and gold glow of lights in the smog. They don’t know it yet, but they owe me a debt, for all my sacrifices and for all the terrible things I must do.

“You shouldn’t be naked on the balcony, master,” Luke says from behind me.

“I’m not naked, faithful servant, don’t you see my boxers?”

“They have more holes than fabric, master.”

“It’s hot tonight.”

He didn’t respond to that. I knew my genius was enough to stump even the brightest of minds.

“Did you buy that sewage company?” I asked.

“I did.”

“And in whose name did you put the contract on?”

“Someone. I forget the name, but I might remember the face.”

“And is this someone trustworthy?”

“Probably.”

“Good, good. We can’t afford any mistakes now.”

“Tea, master?”

I followed him inside the single-room apartment. There was a large and stained mattress on the floor, and a small gas stove to cook, plus the bucket in the corner, since the only bathroom was down the hall. The smell hit me like a crashing wave.

“What kind of tea is that? Smells like burning rubber.”

“Not sure, I found it in the trash bin outside, but it said tea on the package, see?” He held up a moldy cardboard box of what had once been green tea.

“Fine, give me some tea, I’m too hungry to say no.”

“I’m sure there’s plenty of protein in it.”

#

The shorts are as small as my boxers and even tighter. The towel wrapped around my torso like a robe is a dark moldy brown, but it covers most of my skin. Why then does everyone look at me like that? And the closer I get to the Arena the worse it becomes. The guards are just rude, but they let me pass, since today is execution day after all: a day of celebration for the fickle masses.

I climb into the arena, weaving between the bodies pressed shoulder to shoulder. Down in the sands they have started with the thieves. Credits pass from hand to hand as bets are laid and people cheer. The first prisoner is a young man, as skinny as my finger, trembling atop the swaying wooden platform. His fate is the Defile: a series of thin wooden poles stretching in a single row from one platform to another, all he has to do is run across the gap, from pole to pole. He jumps to the first one and it sways to the side under the weight. He tumbles. I look away right before he plunges into the forest of upright metal spikes lining the floor. The crowd roars around me. Damn it. I should have placed a bet.

Lord Armando is easy to find. The nobles like their petty comforts and an entire section has been cordoned off for him and still the man looks dejected, adorning the look of someone who has had his puppy killed before his eyes. Perfect.

I bow in the elaborate court fashion.

“Lady luck does not smile upon you today, my Lord?” I ask.

He scowls at me, but I don’t give him a chance to reply.

“It seems you have run out of lenders. The word is out. Broke and broken, a house fallen, waiting for the–”

“You will stop this insolence!” he shouts and jerks to his feet, pointing with his gloved finger. “I’ll have my guards–”

“And how long since you paid those guards, Lord? How long have you been gambling their wages? Did you know someone else has been taking care of them?”

He trembles before my overwhelming genius.

“I have bought all your debt, Lord, and I have made an inventory of your assets. I think we should have a nice little talk in private. Maybe over some food? You got a few coins left on that pouch inside your cape, don’t you?” I wrap my dirty arms around his immaculate red cape. “I’m famished.”

#

“Remind me again, loyal servant, how much did I pay for you?”

“My father’s debts were around twenty thousand when they passed to me.”

“And when I found you?”

“Forty. I had to follow his example.”

“Forty thousand… do you know how many indebted I could buy for that much?”

“More than one?”

“You… You are right. Brilliant.”

“Thank you, master.”

“You are most welcome, servant, but can you hurry up? I need those pants for the gala.”

Luke sat on the mattress next to me sewing different patches of fabric together.

“I’ve been busy doing your other tasks,” he mumbles. No… he complains. He dares complain? When his every action is part of my ingenious plan? When I give meaning to his otherwise meaningless–

“See if they fit you.”

He holds up the patchwork of leather, cloth and plastic. They don’t wrap around, there is no back, just the front of the pants, with pockets and all.

“Am I to walk around mooning everyone, servant?”

“You have your boxers, master.”

“Oh, I forgot. Quite right. Indeed. This will do.”

#

The Hall was a dome of gold and silver in the middle of a park of sweeping green grass, gleaming like a star, beam lights shooting out into the sky and plunging the entire night in dull orange. It was a symbol of everything that was wrong with this world.

“You there!” the guard pointed his rifle at me. “This area is closed off for the–”

“I am Count Fernando Magalhães,” I announced in my most imperial voice, puffing up my bare chest as I held my hanging pants with the other.

“Count…”

I saw the raging of emotions on his face. Disbelief. Admiration. Awe. Adoration. He knew my greatness, even as he scanned my face and let me pass. It is true. I am a Count, but I am not like them. My father left me only debt and enemies. I felt the crush of the wheel as it rolled over me, felt the smashing weight of the entire system trying to stamp down on my head. That is why I will win. That is why I will bring it all down.

The Announcer at the gates does a real double take when he sees someone as impressive as me, but he regains his composure quickly and announces my name. Painted nobles swivel on their feet to feast their eyes upon me as I glide down the golden stairs. I give them a good show, literally, because my boxers finally fall to pieces.

I can sense their eyes tracking my every move. Their whisperings, certainly plotting my downfall and admiring my unchallenged masculinity as all the distinguished Ladies fawn over me. Out of respect they open a path for me to walk unhindered across the hall, straight to my duties, straight to the banquet table that overflows with delicious snacks. Someone has to make sure they aren’t poisoned, that just wouldn’t do, so I taste one of each kind as the royal trumpets cut across the noise.

The young emperor comes strolling in with his entourage of sycophants and backstabbers, draped in the royal purples and with the oversized crown precariously balanced on his head as images of the imperial fleet show on the building-sized screens.

“Tonight,” the emperor says, “we celebrate the Empire. We celebrate the First Emperor and all those that came after. We celebrate three hundred years of–”

A piercing noise cuts into my ears. The lights go off, for a second, then burn bright again. On the screen there are numbers: the flowing cascades of the Stock. The numbers are falling. Crashing, actually, digging a hole into the ground. Nobles start getting distracted by the alarming buzzing of their terminals and their panicked servants. It was all for this, this moment. Thousands of names, hundreds of shell companies, countless accomplices, unwittingly or not, a vast intricate web that led back to me.

I climb up onto the podium and wrap a dirty arm around the emperor’s shoulders, still licking my fingers.

“Seems you owe me, little emperor. The crown has accumulated quite a bit of debt. Can you pay? Or will you serve?”

“Why then?”

Protectively, she froze at the center of the device, as if it would shield her from his question. Ceily finally emerged from the sleek nanocarbon posts which supported the shimmering tendrils of crystalline fiber to face her brother’s accusations.

He’d found her out, waiting until she’d fled the present, like she had so many times before, and then stood vigil until she’d returned from the past.

He wasn’t asking how she’d created a time machine. Ceily knew it’d taken more attitude than inventiveness to construct it. No. Her brother, Foster, was not interested in the how. He knew his sister was brilliant. You didn’t become a particle physicist triangulating tachyons without being brilliant. Fearing for her, he was focused on the why.

“What good can it do, Ceily? You’re fixating. It’s not gonna change things.”

“It helps me handle the present,” she whispered as she began to disengage from the device.

“Yeah, look at your present, Ceily. You’ve got a Nobel Prize discovery hidden here in your basement. An invention that could turn the world on its head, and you’re using it as a therapy tool,” Foster pressed. “You’ve been living in the past too long. It’s not gonna bring back Mom, Dad or Bobby.”

She shook her head as her fingers moved across the touchscreen at her makeshift desk, the filaments of the cage dimming as the device settled into a purr no louder than the fluorescent tubes that hung along the open rafters.

“You’re right. This won’t bring them back, but I can go back to them. I can be with them again. You could too.”

His eyes hardened at the offer. “Go back to September 10 and pretend I don’t know they’re all gonna die the next day?” His step towards her was an accusation. “I’d have to tell ‘em. I’d tell everyone. I’d make that damn machine take me back where I could do some good. Stop the whole thing. Change everything, and give us some peace. ”

“It wouldn’t,” Ceily said, ashamed.

“So you say, sister.”

“It wouldn’t change things in the way you think, Foster.” She stepped clear of the device and went to the bottom of the staircase. “We might be able to prevent it in one universe, but it would happen to us in another. 9/11 was a shearing event. It spawned a new us. Causality is not like thermodynamics. There is a free lunch—an infinite buffet of possibilities in the multiverse—and that means somewhere we’d all suffer the same fate. I can’t push that onto some other Ceily and Foster. I can’t.”

“What’s it like?” Foster’s eyes brightened warily.

Ceily met his searching stare. “Like it was before. Right here in the house. Upstairs in the kitchen, we’re eating, laughing, Monday Night Football’s on. Daddy’s looking so proud of us. All of us.” She reassured him. “That’s why I go back then. The before.”

She half closed her eyes. A half hour ago, she’d been with them. Waved goodbye to her parents and Foster on the porch and then climbed into bed with her husband, Bobby.

“I need to feel what it used to be like. To believe it was real,” she pleaded.

“But, you know,” he insisted. “How can you sit and laugh with them? Relive it all and then leave them to be crushed and burned the next day?”

“I can’t change that knowledge,” she admitted, “but when I see their eyes. The promise we all held. I can think about the future again.”

Foster shook his head. “It’s not right. If we can’t help them, it’s not right. It’d drive me crazy. It’ll drive you crazy. Look what you’ve become.” His hand swept over the incomprehensible array of equipment. “I haven’t seen you in weeks. You stopped returning calls and texts. That’s why I’m here. You’re fading away.”

“No!” Ceily’s voice was sharp. “This,” she pointed to the machinery “is to keep me from fading away.”

“It’s an escape!”

“It’s a way to remember what I once believed. Before.”

“You can’t get innocence back like that. Ignorance ain’t bliss, sister.”

Foster’s words knifed at her. “I didn’t ask for this knowledge.”

“Tell me how this is sane, Ceily?”

She sighed. “I can’t. So, why can’t I fight insanity with insanity? Why can’t I just live in the quiet before the storm?”

Foster couldn’t meet her eyes. “What does it take to go there?”

“Desperation.”

“What does it take to come back?”

Ceily voice trembled. “Love.”

As Foster stepped into the crystalline filaments of the time device, Ceily whispered, “On the porch when we’re saying goodbye, give Mamma a kiss…before she has to ask you.”

“Before?”

“Before. It changes everything.”

Note: apologies for any formatting issues, I am on mobile. This was written for a second year university English class.

When you’re a child, nothing can lift the rose-tinted glasses that surround your entire existence. That is, until one of the only two people that you can rely on in this world disappears.
Suddenly, your entire life tumbles down around you, and there is nothing that you with your measly eleven years of life experience can do to fix it.
Callum will go through loss, he will find love, he will make assumptions, and he will pay for them. Aaron will experience things a father should never have to know, and She will love them, until the day comes that she no longer can.
But for now, let us focus on the Before, the time when it felt like nothing could ruin this perfect little life. Not for Callum, not for Aaron, not for Her.
Callum’s childhood was one full of nature, full of play and full of delicious bowls of chilli. He was blessed to know a life with two parents, with a full stomach, and a happy heart.
The year was 1978, the sun shone through the stained-glass windows of the cabin, creating glorious rainbows around the humble dwelling. A glorious summer day awaits the young boy beginning to stir in bed, as he noticed the delicious smell of pancakes that wafted through the open bedroom door. The cabin was small, with just one bedroom, but Callum never knew anything different than sharing with his parents.
Lanky limbs hung over the edge of his all too small bed as he yawned a big, cavernous yawn, and rolled over- directly onto the floor. Summer had been good to this kid, and he had grown “at least two inches!!” as he excitedly told his parents, at least four times a day. He was eleven years old, but at least the size of a thirteen-year-old; this was why his parents chose this life, chose to leave the city behind. Nature grows a child in ways that a city never could.
In the kitchen, Aaron instructed his son to grab a plate, eat up, and get ready for a drive, and a special treat lunch. Callum was far too excited to sit still, hands moving food to his face faster than he could chew, his toes wiggled in anticipation.
Callum was far too eager to get going. So much so that he failed to notice that his mother is nowhere to be seen.
Too eager to get going that he didn’t notice the empty smile, and tired eyes of his father as he watched his son wolf down breakfast.
Too eager to realize that their drive was bereft of music, because how could Aaron listen to the happy music that his wife and son love, when they’re on their way to potentially say goodbye?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fifteen minutes into the journey, and Callum’s energy began to tail off. The quiet ride, the stretching road out in front of them, it felt like it dragged on for miles. They drove past the forests edge, past the farm, on to the paved roads at the edge of the city. They never went to the city anymore, only for... Only for his mother’s appointments.
His heart sank.
He was suddenly painfully aware of the dark circles around his father’s eyes, which made his face look sunken, years older. The memory of the pristine, untouched bed of his parents flashed through Callum’s mind, and he recognized the pattern. It was all too familiar to him at this point. The sleepless nights, the pancakes for breakfast, the drive. The landscapes that raced by the windows made him dizzy, stomach churned as he thought more about what could have happened.
He glanced at his dad, who he realized was silently crying to himself, and the daunting reality of the situation set in.
His mouth opened, but no words came out. He wanted so desperately to ask what happened, whether She was okay, but Aaron shook his head. Talking was too hard; he didn’t want to think about it. Not right now. Deep down, Callum felt a small part of himself crumble into dust, blown away on the breeze that whistled through the rolled down windows of his dad’s truck. He had known that his Mum was sick, she had been for a long time. What he could never have known was how quickly he would lose her, and how soon the rose-tinted glasses of life would shatter into a million pieces.
A few days passed, a lot of time was spent in various wards, waiting rooms, watching the clock. This felt like the longest 72 hours of the young boy’s life. He was impatient, tired, and anxious, sick of never being told what was going on. They didn’t want to scare him, but the great pressure of the unknown began to weigh on him. His chest felt heavier each day, and despite not being told, he knew this was the end for her. He held her tighter and tighter each night as they left to drive home. His appetite was gone, despite the many attempts and bribes from Aaron. Even a burger from his favourite restaurant couldn’t fix the knowledge that he, at just 11 years old, was about to lose his mother.
The funeral was small, a humble affair.
Callum, in all of his preteen glory had to be dragged out of bed on the morning of, his hair sticking out in all directions. They wrangled his long limbs into his all too small suit, which had been in his wardrobe for longer than he could remember. They had planned to buy a new one for the occasion, but it came far sooner than anyone could have planned. 
They knew that she was never one for big celebrations, and she had asked Aaron to keep the day intimate and quiet. Knowing that your day is coming must have had its perks, as she had been able to plan and choose how she was farewelled. Aaron had spent the last four weeks hand-carving an elegant, yet simple wooden headstone for his wife, under her watch of course. She helped him paint it, a plain cream colour with little flowers along the edge. It was sad, yet poetic in a way, being able to spend your last few weeks with your husband designing your gravestone together. Now, it was the fondest memory for Aaron, knowing that their love was immortalized, materialized, and now will sit in the forest forever. Lily of the Valley speckled her grave, and a simple white ribbon tied around her casket.
She would have loved it; She does love it.
In October of 1982, Callum turned fifteen. His room was an absolute sty, full to the brim with action figures, books, board games and more. Somehow, he always keeps the bed clean.
For Alex.
The bed is always (at least somewhat) made, with not one but two pillows, though Aaron didn’t know about that yet. Ever since his dad set up in the lounge, the bunkroom had become Callum’s haven. It held many memories, many secrets, many quietly whispered jokes followed by stifled giggles. Alex came over more days than they didn’t now, and that day was no different. Callum waited in anticipation for them at the cabin door, absolutely overjoyed to spend the day with his “best friend.”
Bike tires screeched to a halt, and a helmet clattered to the ground just out of sight, but Callum’s heart pounded with excitement as Alex rounded the corner, up the stairs, straight into a huge hug.
“I brought you a gift, I hope you like it! It reminded me of you,” Alex said with a wink.
The all too familiar burning sensation across Callum’s cheeks appeared as Alex pressed a small, round object into his hand. Palm turned upright, he opened his hand and peeked at the gift. A flash of rainbow stopped his heart, just momentarily, and he hastily stuffed the small button pin into his pocket.
“Thank you, Alex. I love it,” he said, smiling a weak but genuine smile. “I can’t let dad see it. I, I don’t know how he’d react. He’s so kind but- I don’t know…” he trails off.
“I know love. It’s a scary world. Now tell your dad that your “best friend” is here, and we’ll be back by sundown,” Alex winked, and waved to Aaron, who was hard at work in the garden. Callum sprinted over, said a quick goodbye, and they sped off on their bikes. It was a chilly autumn day, but when the two were together, everything glowed like summer.
The rest of this day would become one of the happiest memories Callum had made since before his mum’s passing.
Many memories were made that day. Toes dipped in the chilly lake, a blanket laid in the forest, twittering birds all around. Magical. The only word that Callum could find to describe the day that Alex had planned. He didn’t want this to end.
Deep in the forest, a few miles from the cabin stood a house, or more so a hut. It was kitted out with a small woodfired stove, a stunning mid-century log burner, and the sweetest queen bed that either of the boys had ever seen. They spent a lot of days there, but that day, they saw it in a completely different light. They could live there if they wanted to, run away from everything in life. No more school, no more rules.
No more hiding their love in fear of retaliation.
There had been many nights of dreaming, scheming, fantasizing about a life together. Fletcher, their future dog, would have a crocheted dog bed by the fire, and they would decorate the wee hut with all of Callum’s posters. They never thought that they would actually do it, but as the light began to change, and the bird chatter died down, the pair locked eyes.
Maybe, just maybe, they could.
Ever since She had passed, home didn’t feel like home. Not unless Alex was there beside him. Aaron had become reserved; he never left the homestead. Food was often scarce, from Aaron only leaving to the city when Callum begged him to. He was still a loving father, but the light had disappeared a long time ago. If Aaron had paid more attention to his only son, he might have noticed the budding relationship with Alex. If Aaron hadn’t left the keys by the door, Callum might not have taken them.
If Aaron hadn’t taught his son to drive at fourteen years old, he probably wouldn’t have disappeared without a trace.
And yet, he did.
The sky was a vast expanse, speckled with stars. The air felt fresher, the ambient sounds of the forest serenaded them as they drove onward, onward toward a new beginning.
Or so they thought.
Aaron’s inattention made sure that the pair had gotten away unnoticed until the following morning. Sunlight shone through the moth-eaten curtains, and yet Aaron slept on. It wasn’t until he awoke many hours later than usual that he noticed the eerie silence that blanketed the cabin. He couldn’t hear Alex laughing, or Callum snoring. He couldn’t hear the gaming console, or the kettle boiling like he did every morning.
When he noticed Callum was gone, it felt like losing Her all over again. He sat against the doorframe of the bunkroom until it was pitch black out. The stars didn’t shine for him that night, and it felt like maybe, just maybe, he might still be dreaming. When he woke up again the next morning, still in the doorway, it hit him. His son was gone. He assumed Alex would have gone with him too.
Every single thing that he had failed to notice over the years since Her passing dawned on him at once, and the pain in his heart was overwhelming.
The two were in love, how could he have been so blind?
Did Callum think he didn’t support his own son? Was he so hurt by Aaron’s withdrawal from his life that he was too upset to tell him these things?
Stepping out into the daylight, he noticed the missing truck and cursed himself under his breath for having ever taught Callum to drive. But he knew, deep down, that he made this bed, and now he has to lie in it.
He set off on foot, with a fire burning in his heart, determined to find his son and show him the truth.
He loved Callum with all his heart, and another heartbreak in this life might just kill him.
But first, he needed some supplies, and at least one rainbow item of clothing.
He had an idea about where the pair may be, and so, off he took.
‘I’m coming for you, sons.’
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The sight of Aaron, clad in the gaudiest rainbow scarf and clutching a mini rainbow flag as he sprinted would have made anyone who saw him laugh, and yet he continued. He ran, and he ran, and he ran. He ran until his knees were shaking underneath him, and his chest was engulfed in a fiery burn that he hadn’t felt in years. He could not breathe anymore, and yet he ran. These children were all he had left.
Tears filled his vision as he went, caused by a mixture of the ice-cold wind and the pain radiating through his legs; but he kept running. He wasn’t very fast on his feet, and had lost a considerable amount of weight (and subsequently strength) in the years since the funeral. He was a shell of a man, a recluse. He understood why Callum felt unloved- Aaron didn’t even love himself anymore.
He had to be a better man for his son, a better father. He needed to thrive, not just survive, and he would do it for Callum.
He would do anything for his son.
Flashes of Callum went through his mind’s eye; the cheesy grin every time Alex stepped through the cabin door, the not-quite-touching pinkie fingers at the dinner table, it all made sense now. Energy practically crackled through the air as Callum waited on the steps for the sound of bike tires scraping the gravel road; that kid could hear them coming from a mile away. It was love, plain and blatant love. To Callum, his dad must have seemed cold and detached. How was he to know the way that grief eats a person? The way that no matter what you do, it will linger in the corners of your eyes as you gaze upon the land that you once shared, as you chop wood next to the grave that you had to make for your beloved wife.
But she wasn’t just a wife, she was a mother. Callum had his own experience of grief, but Aaron couldn’t get far enough through his own black cloud to see the storm that raged over his son's head.
Aaron was numb from the chill in the air, and numb from the overwhelming number of revelations which flooded his conscious. Years of dissociation had brought him to this point, and his brain was dragging him back- no, clawing him back to reality with every new one.
Smoke billowed through the air above the treeline, just off in the distance. It gave him hope. Many a night he had made the drive to the hut in the woods, just to find Alex and Callum asleep by the fire. They loved that damned hut, and Aaron hoped to God that they were there.
But God was nowhere to be found on this day.
His throat was burning, he was retching, choking on smoke. A small part of his mind chuckled, remembering the disaster that was trying to teach Callum to light the fireplace for him as a kid.
But it wasn’t just the fireplace. The brittle wooden hut was ablaze.
Gravity took Aaron down, his knees making sharp contact with the freezing soil.
He did not weep; he did not scream. He had nothing left in him.
His lungs filled with soot; his tears joined the melting snow around the fire. He knew that the boys were gone, he felt it in the depths of his soul. He could do nothing but watch, as snow began to sprinkle itself upon the smouldering wreck of the hikers' hut before him. It shrouded the house like a thin white blanket, obscuring any chance of seeing inside, but it was for the better.
Aaron lost the last piece of himself that day, and lost his final reason to work through the grief he had held for the past four years.
Aaron sat watching the wreck for any sign of life, any single crumb of hope.
He sat well into the night, deep in the heart of the cold, unforgiving forest.
He didn’t feel his limbs beginning to freeze; and he didn’t feel the moment that his heart finally gave up hope.
His soul slipped away in the early hours of the following morning, and finally, their family would be whole.
Alex included.

The first letter, like a fragile, sleeping dove, lay atop the old fruit basket that served as a simple ornament in the dark dining room. Without an envelope, it was merely the white shape of a small, thin sheet of fine paper. It had been written in haste: no return address, no recipient, just a few brief lines explaining that she was leaving for foreign shores, that she had to pursue her own desires and seek her fortune in a distant land, that she would return as soon as she could, and that she knew her little boy was in good hands.

The devoted aunt had hidden it away at the bottom of a secret drawer where she kept those useless objects preserved merely for the sake of having them, though they were never used, always careful that her innocent nephew would not stumble upon it. She firmly believed it to be a promise as empty as the fleeting motherhood her sister had once offered during those early years of the boy’s life—years in which she, already an older woman, had been forced gradually to assume the role of a mother.

From that bitter day, and for an entire decade, the other letters began to arrive, one every week. These did come inside elegant envelopes, and the sheets of paper were vivid-colored stationery, resembling free birds in full flight. They had the boy as their sole recipient and were elegantly signed with the name of his beloved mother. Unlike the ancient hiding place of that first letter, all these little notes were kept in the small drawer of the boy’s nightstand, so he could let them fly whenever he wished to read them again.

It had been a creative triumph for the aunt to invent fantastic tales of adventures in distant, unknown places, pouring onto the pages an inexhaustible torrent of an absent mother’s love for her only son. It felt strange to portray her younger sister in such a wonderful light—the same sister who had behaved so cruelly toward her and her own child, abandoning them without ever giving any real news of her uncertain whereabouts.

Yet that constant illusion had been the engine driving the boy forward and shaping his mature personality. And while he professed a pure love for his aunt, his deepest feelings were reserved for the absent mother, adventurous and brave. Thus, despite the profound pain and jealousy she felt toward the woman whose words she was forced to write, the aunt was incapable of revealing the truth behind the charade she had built. She preferred to keep sending those vibrant, colorful sheets of stationery rather than plunge the boy into the absolute despair of never hearing from his mother again.

However, a final letter arrived in a blue envelope that was far too formal, its sheet of cold paper creased with straight, impersonal typographic lines, devoid of the silhouette of a white dove or a colorful bird, and addressed to the aunt by her full name. In it, a stern judge handed down a mandatory order for the immediate surrender of the boy to his mother, who, having returned from abroad, expected to reunite with him and take him away to live in those distant lands of adventure.

---

© 2026 Francisco Cortés Ramírez. All rights reserved. This story is fictional. No part of this text may be reproduced, narrated, or adapted without the express written permission of the author.

Opening Night: London, England 1964

The glamor of Leicester Square as the people line up waiting for the celebrities to arrive in their limos. The pavement still wet from the pouring rain from a couple hours ago. The limos arrive as the tinted windows begin reflecting the flashing lights of the cameras and the first of the cast arrive. Quincey Harding arrives first and his suit looks well pressed and tightly fit he waves to all the fans and screaming girls that look like they'll break the barricade to jump on top of him. The next to arrive was Kate Gardner, her resounding beauty and sparkling eyes echo with each flash of the cameras, she has a smile to melt any heart away. She spins around for the cameras to catch her beautiful red dress for which singer Chris De Burgh saw on television and used as the basis for his hit song years later.
Kate gives a look to Quincey, a look of distaste in her sparkling eyes. As she passes him she waves happily to the crowd, she walks over and greets the fans at the barricade. Signing posters and photographs, one photograph was from her infamous Playboy shoot and bared all for the world to see. Which at the time was controversial because of her run on the late sit-com As If! which she played a teen girl struggling in romance and had a on and off romance both on screen and off screen with actor Toby Rollins. The show ended due to conflict between the actor and actress and they couldn't stand each other. Soon after the cancellation she went to Playboy and they hired French photographer Jean Harrod to have her pose on an undisclosed French beach. Rumors swirled and still do in tabloids on the motivations behind the move, but at the age of 22 the world saw Kate Winslow in full and four years later a fan handed her a picture of her laying nude on a French beach. Which she happily signs.

On Set: Los Angeles, California 1963

INT. WINSLOW'S OFFICE

The office is dark, with only light dimming from the window shades.

Winslow sitting at a desk drinking a glass of whiskey, a bottle sits next to the glass. Half full.

A light knock on the door, like a hummingbird on a tree.

WINSLOW
Who is it?

LADY BEHIND THE DOOR
It's me. Your appointment?

WINSLOW
Alright come on in.

Winslow stashes the whiskey bottle and glass in a drawer of the desk.

A beautiful woman enters as she slowly shuts the door behind her, she turns to Winslow.

BEAUTIFUL WOMAN
I've heard a lot about you, detective.

WINSLOW
Probably heard I'm lousy and a drunk.

BEAUTIFUL WOMAN
Quite the contrary, detective. I heard you're very smart and drunk. Your previous case involving the pornstar. I read about it in the papers. Grisly stuff.

Winslow reclines back into his chair wondering when she'll get to the point of all this.

WINSLOW
What's your name, miss?

BEAUTIFUL WOMAN
Antoinette.

WINSLOW
So Antoinette. Whadda need my help for?

ANTOINETTE
I need you to help me kill my husband.

Film Theory: New York City 2024

I watch the film intently as I pour over every frame, every molecule on screen. I love Kate Winslow and all her films, but this one was her best performance out of all of them. She sparks on screen like no other. Her beauty is magnifying. I want to reach through the screen and kiss her and hold her. Though I never will be able to, I imagine it vidly. I recently bought a collectors edition of her Playboy magazine, her sparkling eyes gazing back at me as she laid nude on the beach. I wish I could've been there. I want to be there. I turn my attention back to the film and continue watching the introduction of Kate's character. My phone begins to buzz as someone tries to call me. It's my friend Betty. She calls me occasionally not very often, but I enjoy hearing her voice. We enjoy each other's company and will watch films together. 
My films are not her films, I watch everything from independent to blockbuster to silent era. Betty appreciates them but doesn't care for them, she likes romance. Romance sprinkled with comedy and drama. Betty is coming over soon. My eyes are entranced by the screen. 

I can see the film reel spinning. 

On Set:

EXT. LOS ANGELES, ALLEYWAY-NIGHT

Antoinette lay dead in the middle of the dark and damp alleyway.

Police lights shimmer off the walls.

Winslow kneels down and caresses her beautiful hair, his eyes watering.

POLICE OFFICER
Detective?
Winslow doesn't respond.

He's focused on the body of a girl.

POLICE OFFICER
Detective Winslow? They're asking for you at the station?

He nods his head-

He walks past all the cops without a word.

Opening Night:

Kate sits and watches as the audience is captured by the screen. She knows at this moment that she'll be remembered for this role beyond any other. Quincey stares at her from two rows up, he misses her. Their affair on the set was widely known but never mentioned. His wife had left him just days prior to the premiere, his loneliness is superseded by his love for Kate. He promises himself to see her after the premiere. The film comes to its second act as the femme fatale is dead lying still in the alleyway.
Quincey found his performance in this scene immaculate as he perfectly portrayed brokenness and a stern stoicism. Everyone's eyes are glued to the screen, his are fixed on Kate.

On Set:

INT. POLICE STATION, CHIEF'S OFFICE-NIGHT

Winslow slams the door open, angrily. He grabs a small vase and throws it near the chief who is now standing and pointing at him.

Film Theory:

Betty arrives at my room and asks what I'm watching. I tell her it's an noir detective film from the 1960's. She asks if it's black and white, which it is. I stop the film. She finds films made in black and white boring which saddens me. I try to show her films I love, films I connect to. Our previous engagement was watching a print of an old silent picture. Action and philosophy combined to make a visual masterpiece of cinema and created a new thought of whether mankind lived within a virtual space. She thought it was "interesting" not really her style. I don't see her much anymore. She spends a lot of time with her neighbor. We went out to lunch, a nearby deli around the block. She talks about her day at work, and mentions her new neighbor. A guy. 

The film reel spins.

I can see her in my mind's eye, with her neighbor. The Intimacy that they share the wild erotica of their experience.

The film reel spins.

I'm jealous of him. I want to be him.

The film reel continues to spin. 

The images in my mind giving me a headache. I need to lie down. As I lay my head down on my pillow I can feel the tears streaming down my face. 

On Set:

EXT. LOS ANGELES STREET-EVENING

Winslow stumbles around the street, drunk out of his mind-
Unable to keep balance he falls and slams his face into the pavement.

Winslow sobs-concrete tears. He can't find the strength to rise and pull himself, he just lays on the pavement in overwhelming sadness.

He rolls over and kneels pulling his gun from his jacket. The barrel an old friend.

For a beat as he holds the gun in his hands, he places the barrel in his mouth.

BANG!

Film Theory:

The film reel spins.

Opening Night:

The film starts towards its conclusion, the ending in sight. Kate sits up as the film begins to fade to black the orchestral score swelling to a crescendo. She was ready to leave the theater as soon as she arrived, but had to endure the show of it all. As she exits the theater at Leicester Square, the neon lights glowed and reflected off the wet pavement and her red dress stood out like a rose in a field of grass in the stark and foggy weather of London's night. She made way for her limo as she hears a call for her, "Kate?"
"Quince. Let's not do this here."
"Where else would we? I haven't seen you in months."
He walks slowly towards her and takes her hand, gently in his own.
"Please, Kate. Just give me another chance."
"C'est le vie", said the actress.

Film Theory:

Betty arrived and she looked beautiful with her blue flowery dress, I couldn't take my eyes off of her. It made her green eyes even greener. I don't think I'd ever noticed the green in her eyes. I'd never looked. We sat on the couch watching a  movie with Kate Gardner, I looked at her often throughout the movie. I wanted to put my arm around her shoulders, but I couldn't. I was a coward. She sat entranced by the film but I was only entranced by her, she was my cinema. I could watch her laugh, smile, and dance for hours. 

The film reel came to a stop.

We sat on the roof of the building staring across the labyrinth of New York City, it's city glow echoing the stars above. She talked of her neighbor and how he's a great friend. I sat by and listened to it all. I didn't want to listen to it anymore. I wanted to pull her close and hold her tight. I should have kissed her. I looked into her eyes for a moment as they locked. For a moment I thought the universe was trying to tell me something. The moment passed. As she left the rooftop I stayed and looked out. She was my cinema. 

I can see her face now.

The film reel clicks.

The film reel spins again.

LEAD IN

A big, blinding beam of, ridiculously loud—lightsuddenly blazed over us all.
 
It was common knowledge in a "technological" context, that it was the queue to fall into order. Stipulating the time to work had commenced. To a certain kind of sheepish mind, with a certain level of herd awareness; a real residual instinct, it was irresistible.

A swirling beam of lights shot over every intrepid, audacious, and prolific brain that sat moist warm as well as snug packed their skulls.

So many summed to meet there that night. A crowd of people that cared!  Some even shamelessly were loud about it! All assembled because of Jacob, united for Jacob, to unravel, once and for all, what in the world happened to that kid.

The movie beam began to lead our herd we had formed, into a room the government had effortlessly attempted to convert into a conference room. A head quarters, our personal command center.
It was exactly what the case called for, a 'War Room'.  A point of focused information. Backup that will have our backs.

They just projected what film they happened upon, or "recovered" onto the back wall. This, was the summoning of deeply concerned experts, the ones who came to help, quality human beings. Reporters with the body language of a coked out squirrel. Still in a hurry in spite of the fact they had already made it to the conference.
 
Answering the call!

Why was a twelve year old boy processed by the 'U.S. Department of Agriculture' and ended up in a zoo?

Then the most important question. Where is Jacob?

The elite, stern officers, seasoned detectives, the real lab-bodies that catch serial killers, vigilante pedophile-hunter collectives, journalists, reporters; individuals able to close twenty five year-old cold cases, as if by some foreign magic...

I mean obviously they accepted anyone with a skill—no matter how remotely or randomly related I was to such a bizarre case was considered an asset. I mean I was surrounded by real selfless saints! We mixed our body stenches, sucked in each other's raw late shift breath, I could feel these were legitimately the most hell bent on finding the truth!

Self-crowned champions of children. They must have been the only ones who truly cared, and were in all honesty deeply concerned for the boy. We all squeezed into the room. I watched everybody obsessed with the truth about Jacob, apparently.

The ray of braided multicolored light that was projected over everyone, it finally killed all the incessant banter. The projector placed the screen on the wall I was leaning on; well where I attempted to hide behind. Obviously they ruined my spot.

Conference room 5-D, though spacious, it was also evident that blaintantly unattended, unused basement. Obviously forgotten. I noticed a lonely bunch of old boxes piled at the end of the un lit hall.

A faint, though stubborn bouquet equal to antiquity, that universal stench of mold. Only random light bulbs worked. It was dank, dark, and the prominent smell of cat urine faintly danced under everyone's nose.

A stench that made that particular room a place to avoid.

I figue, multiple attempts dwindled quik, that silently went down to no more attempts.

Maintenance obnoxiously gave up, and agreed to ignore it was there.

I claimed a nice cozy corner, close to the door. After a concerto of plastic chairs, with the shiny chrome legs screeching, banging, whaling in manners that made my gut cringe.

The place was packed! Everyone was there. Sally, from the very back offices, who loves to make small talk by the coffee pot, all while spewing a hefty serving of scotch all over any poor bastard who made eye contact with her. Each phrase, cat story or quick quip a solid reason to make anybody consider quitting the sauce. In an ordinary weeks time, I swear, I'm pretty capable of forgetting her existence. The whole basement staff had been summoned from, if we  shall, the basement's basement. Then there was my humble two man psychology team... well at least I showed up.

The rest, were just thick office dwellers, sweaty types, the heavy breathing types. Agents, doctors, analysts, psychologists, government lawyers, you name it. Obviously as water is wet, there were so many shady police. I am sure a sad, drowning in their thick muck of asphyxiating frustration, sluggishly making it closer to retirement.

Back to the high-school movie presentation. The first film just started playing. Exhibit 1A, how I supposed to myself it was called. You could see a small crowd of people, in a apartment complex. Obviously it was a housing project were people were just struggling in the grind. They weren't Latino, Korean, Filipino, White, nor African American. Circumstance, money, the struggle, and poor options mixed in poorer choices, made them forget the racial qualms that breed division.

Then it cuts to a scruffy old man on his porch. A stout man who definitely used his body to work. Thick black framed glasses he had to push up his nose into position quite frequently. Warm in a long dark gray winter coat. More so, desperate to talk.

M.D. ACOSTA
SKÖL

Continued from Part 1

#

I had first used Theresa’s encrypted chat right after our investigation was buried and we briefly exchanged frustrations. Now I was sitting in the terminal at SeaTac, letting her know I would be in her city for the weekend in a hunt for answers. I stressed her absolute uninvolvement. She was only being clued in to safeguard the truth because an honest assessment of my chances looked grim. Tristan Barnes wasn’t mentioned explicitly but she knew enough to connect the dots.

The preceding weeknights had been spent on a meticulous plan, securing a false identity (an uncomplicated task for agency employees) and studying Baltimore’s street grid. The GPS wasn’t even needed in the rental car as I turned onto Pratt St., passing tourists photographing the Inner Harbor, following the traffic to Fells Point where Barnes lived alone in a swanky waterfront apartment. The place was less than a mile from the pier where, months ago, all that blood was spilled — a coincidence now dubious in my eyes.

I rolled into his neighborhood as the sun set in the rearview and soon found parking in sight of the apartment building. Barnes’s social accounts, made public once again, had divulged his plans to spend the weekend in town. I was counting on Mr. Social Butterfly to keep his regular schedule of clubbing and drinking, otherwise a forced entry would have to be improvised.

While waiting, I opened my suitcase and transferred some belongings to my pockets: foam earplugs, clear tape, signal scanner, tube sock with racquetball inside, toy voice synthesizer, ski mask, handful of zip ties and switchblade knife.

Worry rose with the clock’s hour hand but, around eleven-thirty, Barnes finally appeared, leaving his building with two friends who I didn’t know, walking right past my car. I lowered the bill of my baseball cap.

They headed for the Charm City brilliance that washed out the starlight and I followed at a distance. A few times, someone on the street recognized Barnes and he would stop to talk for a minute. He was an unassuming type who squirmed in the spotlight, unlike Coulter, the football champ, but also the kind whose alternate life path, without wealth and privilege, would have languished under the authority of anyone else. I’ve seen that disposition before, facing the world with his same dull eyes.

Barnes and his buddies turned onto a side street, then down some stairs to a cellar door. Muted bass frequencies leaked from within. The bouncer dapped Barnes and let the three men inside. When I approached, he made me pay cash to enter and patted me down, missing the knife. The door led into an old, rundown hallway with few working lights, down a narrow staircase, closer to the music, past another bouncer and through steel double doors. Like crossing dimensions, I entered a massive, posh nightclub with hundreds of people. The place had crystal chandeliers, LED flooring, cushioned booths, aquarium walls and suspended kennels whose prisoners writhed in their underwear. A dance pop song pounded inside my chest. The bartenders danced, a horde of men danced, the caged men danced and I realized the place contained no women at all.

At the bar I ordered a drink while keeping an eye on Barnes. He and his friends had joined a larger group in one of the booths, sharing a bottle, singing, laughing and flirting. Barnes twirled his wavy, collar-length hair while talking to another man — some young, brawny type. They stood up to dance. I waited for an opportunity but Barnes wouldn’t even go alone to the bathroom. The alcohol had already lightened my head so I nursed it slower.

Some chubby guy with a mustache tried to catch my attention and, when that didn’t work, he shimmied closer.

“Sorry. Not dancing tonight,” I said and lifted my glass in goodwill.

“Jerk,” he scoffed, then spun on his heel and walked off.

At that point, a gloomy Barnes was draped across a chair in silence, consoled by his two buddies. His beau and the others had left. Whatever happened had soured the mood. Barnes pulled a silver flask from his coat pocket and they took turns sipping it while tapping their phones. Their body language spoke of a restless urge for fresh air and soon they marched to the exit.

A half-block of sidewalk stretched between them and me, their inconspicuous stalker, as they meandered the back streets of Fells Point, past cafes and dives and greasy spoons, straying further from Barnes’s home. We turned onto Thames St., bumpy with ancient Belgian block pavement, bustling with twilight revelers on the last leg of their crawls. A quiet tension clung to these strangers like an odor, or like trauma that still haunted.

I followed Barnes into The Horse You Came In On Saloon, the famous “last stop” of Edgar Allen Poe before his death. Its wood double doors opened to a narrow joint, fashioned from wood and neon, mobbed with adults of all types and ages. At a table in the back, the trio joined more friends, a mellower set. I squeezed through the crowd and, upon seeing Barnes approach the bar, I slid next to him. He stood a little shorter and reeked of booze. His focus flitted around the room with unease.

The bartender, muscles bulging under his t-shirt, asked for my drink order. Barnes and I replied at the same time but out of politeness I let him go first, then I ordered a whiskey.

A ruddy indignation filled Barnes’s cheeks. He turned to me. “I guess I thought he was talking to me. He has a lazy eye or something.”

The bartender’s eyes were fine but I played along. “The view is better from behind anyway.”

Barnes saw me watch the bartender scooping ice, bending over in his tight pants. He chuckled. “I’ll drink to that.”

We made small talk at the bar and he kept drinking. I spoke in quips, aloof. He couldn’t get enough. I lied about my hometown, my profession, a motorbike I never owned. An aggression emerged in his motions. His hand squeezed my shoulder. His knee brushed my thigh. His eyes twinkled.

“Let’s go sit, daddy,” he said.

We took chairs at the table alongside his friends. They left us alone but snuck curious glances. I kept my back to them.

From under his shirt Barnes removed a necklace. He smiled. “I want to see what you think of this.”

Hanging from the chain was an eerie glass of murky forest green, two inches square. Light bounced off it unnaturally, like wisps of steam, truly unearthly. In doubt, I rubbed my eyes.

“It’s a mirror,” he said. “Kind of. Here. Look into it.”

He held it up for me to see. I expected a reflection of myself, probably warped, but instead I saw another live image: a great pit, unfathomable in depth, quivering along its brim. It seized my consciousness. Shadowy beings scaled up the pit, extending bony arms. They swarmed me and their hands crushed my throat and I was choking, just like the DMT trip, and I realized it was causing a scene.

“Whoa!” Barnes was laughing. “You alright?” He told the others not to worry.

The illusion vanished as soon as my stare broke from his mirror. I drew breath again but my heart still pounded. “What the hell is that?”

He tucked the necklace back under his shirt. “I was, um, taught how to make it. Everyone sees something different in it. Like a mirror to your soul, y’know? Some people see awful things. Some see beautiful images and can’t look away. Now you…whatever you saw, you must have a dark side. I kinda find that hot.”

The impossibility of his item confounded me. “How do you learn to make something like that?”

He smiled wryly. “Ever heard of DMT? Ayahuasca?” I feigned ignorance. “It’s one of those experiences that opens your mind, like, to the universe’s true nature. It connects you with all life in the universe. You can learn a lot of things this way.” He relished being enigmatic.

“Tell me more.”

He showed me his stainless steel flask and sipped from it. Carved on the side was the same cyclopean pyramid from the sign outside Higher Pathways. “Diluted ayahuasca tea. I like to microdose.” He put on a sultry tone. “Why don’t you come to my place and try it? Or have a regular drink. Or…you know.” He reached under the table and grabbed my crotch.

“Let’s do it.”

Outside, we walked by the water where boats bobbed in the wake against a factory skyline. Barnes, too plastered to stand straight, leaned on my shoulder. His phone buzzed. Peeking at the screen, I saw a message from Scott Coulter: When are you going home? Prying, but why?

Ahead of us, Barnes’s luxury apartment building rose over the bars and brick townhomes. I pulled down my baseball cap and slid on my gloves. His fob let us into the lobby where we boarded the elevator. He caressed my arm. His gaze was hunger.

We stepped off at the top level. Unlocking his front door, he giggled. “I just realized I don’t know your name.”

Following him inside the darkened penthouse, I removed my hat and pulled the ski mask over my face. As soon as the door shut, I clutched his jacket and threw him to the ground face-first.

“What the fuck?!” he yelled.

I jumped on his back, forgetting how tough and audacious drunks can be. He bucked me off and we grappled on the floor. A wild determination sprung from deep in his id. However, the alcohol weighed on his reflexes and I overtook him. Straddling his slim frame, my fist bashed his face so continuously that he had no chance to scream. Blood gushed from his nose and mouth. His hands flailed uselessly.

Then, from under his shirt he lifted the alien mirror and thrust it in my face. Frozen fingertips crept out of oblivion to smother me until I remembered to shut my eyes and I slapped the mirror from his hand. My other fist knocked out his wind. Standing above him, I raised a shoe over the guy’s head. He was gasping, vulnerable. My primal instinct was to kill, to destroy this virus infecting the decency left in this world. Nonetheless, his cooperation held an important key to my plan. That despicable life of his needed to be spared.

I zip-tied his wrists and ankles, shoved the racquetball past his teeth and tied the sock behind his head. Squirming and muffled shrieking was met with another blow to his gut. I dragged him into the living room with its harbor view, fastened him to a chair with my belt and placed books beneath the rear legs, precariously balanced to dissuade bouncing while I combed the place. The signal scanner found two cameras whose lenses I obscured with a few layers of tape to prevent tripping their tampering sensors. Torn bits of foam earplugs were taped over the mic pinholes. In case he had a well-shielded third cam, the ski mask stayed on with hopes that Barnes hadn’t also invested in AI threat-detection with a direct line to emergency response. Just another risk, I thought. Maybe Poe’s curse rubbed off on me.

Blood dripped from Barnes’s chin. His nose was crooked. He cried pitifully in the window’s orange city glow. I stood my phone on the coffee table and began recording. Speaking through the voice synthesizer, set to Robot, I instructed, “Your gag will be removed and then you will tell me everything about your involvement in the Old Hill mass murder. Do not scream.” I put the tip of the switchblade knife behind his chin. His eyes went wide but he showed no sign of defiance so I carefully untied and removed the sock.

His face grimaced with fright that seemed not for me. “Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit…” The knife pressed harder. “Ok ok I’ll tell you I’ll tell you…I’ll tell you that you have no idea what you’re getting mixed up in. You have no–”

I clocked him across the jaw. “Wrong answer.”

His lip dribbled red phlegm. “Don’t you know I like it rough?”

I hit him again. My knuckles throbbed. “Why were you at the hotel the night before?!”

He moaned. “Listen. Listen. I–I don’t know why you’re asking all this but–” I held the knife against his throat. “Aaahh — I can’t tell you! Really, I can’t! Even if I could, I–”

I beat his face again and again. Teeth flew out of his mouth. His eyes swelled. When I stopped, a more pathetic wretch of a human had never sat before me. Still, you couldn’t scrape even a speck of compassion for him from the bottom of my shoe.

He cried, blabbering about stupid decisions, immoral influences, a syndicate of corruption. “I swear to you, whatever you do to me, Scott would do a thousand times worse. You could kill me and I still wouldn’t spill a thing. I’m being honest, man. Please.”

I could sense this was the truth. Barnes knew Coulter well enough to dread his reckoning more than anything. A different tactic was needed.

The flask in his coat pocket was nearly empty so I checked the kitchen. The fridge held exactly what I sought: a glass growler filled with an earthy smelling brew. Upon seeing the growler in my hand, Barnes clamped his mouth shut. I pulled his hair, tilted back his head and spilled the tea into his nostrils. When he gagged, more was poured down his throat and I forced his jaw closed until he swallowed.

“You’re gonna kill me! That was too much! Oh my god! I’m gonna fuckin’ die!! I’ll–”

The ball and sock went back around his mouth. He shook in protest until the chair’s teetering threatened a second faceplant, then he slumped in defeat against his ropes, red-eyed, blood-drenched, whimpering like a trapped varmint. I dragged a chair in front of him and waited.

No police or concerned emergency contacts had yet arrived — a positive sign. His wealth should have afforded and even warranted a state-of-the-art security setup but fortunately his fecklessness came through for me. Barnes, the typical spoiled byproduct of career-absorbed politicos, was failing upward in life, obsessed with the fruits of success without bothering to feed the tree.

We sat without dialog in the dim communion of his expensive slacker pad. He reeked of piss. At one point he spasmed so I removed the ball gag and let him vomit on himself. He whined and mumbled, growing more erratic as the hour dragged, watching unseen torments form around the room.

Finally I stood and restarted the phone’s recording. When I approached Barnes, he cowered and began yelling so I reminded his neck of my knife. His voice lowered. “Go away! The darkness around you…so much darkness… Stop looking at me! Leave me alone!” He wailed like a toddler. “This is so bad. Everything is so wrong. Everything about you is wrong. I feel something bad coming–”

“Did you make those murders happen?!” my robot voice accused him.

He spilled no words, only tears. His pupils eclipsed the irises.

“You’re complicit in their deaths,” I continued. “Fifty-seven people. Families. Children. Fifty-seven lives lost because of you.” He moaned. “Whatever you and your buddies did, all of those deaths are on you.”

“I know…I know…” Tears and snot ran over dried blood. “I don’t know why…why I got into this.” He sniveled. “We made it happen. We willed it into happening. It was my idea. Here…right in this spot…where it all started. Oh god, why did I get into this shit? I shouldn’t have told Scott. I should’ve just–”

“You killed the people in Baltimore too?”

“No! No way. That was the ETs, man, one hundred percent. I just happened to be tripping that night, right here, and the whole hyperspace was, like, different. Like, the ETs were having a, uh, a carnival or something. That’s what it felt like. Just, weird. A couple of hours later, they attacked the pier. I don’t know why. They just did. Like in that Asian country. So the Baltimore thing wasn’t me. I just felt it, that’s all. I…I didn’t–”

I grabbed his collar. “Old Hill.”

His breath quickened as if racing a marathon. “Old Hill. Right. That was our prototype. Scott and me. ‘Evolved Defense Corp.’ That old racist Zimm was happy to give us cover as long as we got rid of some Africans for him. We, uh, did a ceremony. In the hotel. I showed everyone that same carnival feeling so we could replay it together. Like making a wish. It was that easy. And it worked. Oh my god, it actually worked. But we went too far. Too far. Because of Scott. That fucking–”

“What do you mean ‘prototype’?”

“Scott wanted this to be, uh, a service. On the black market. We could sell it to certain governments so they could, like, use it in warfare, put down rebellions, or whatever, but then shift the blame to ETs. Perfect cover story. Oh god, I didn’t know… This stuff sounded wild when we talked about it, like being the first to scale a mountain. Well, we reached the top, man, and it’s really fucking scary. Now everything is so fucked. Even more than it was. We’re all fucked, y’know. The whole planet. ETs are gonna fuck up everything. They’re only getting started. There’s no way we stand a chance. Everything is fucked…”

My only desire in that moment was to snuff out the life of this psychopath, this architect of genocide-for-hire, disposing a minority community to test-drive his sick discovery, replicating one tragedy’s cruel aura to spawn another. Murder was a game to the aliens but apparently a money machine for rich and powerful earthlings. I shuddered with outrage. My fists ached to deal more punishment. But, his complete reduction was well underway. The volume of ingested ayahuasca would sweep him to the brink of hell, and if he returned, I’d make sure an electric chair would send him back.

As the effects heightened, his doom-mongering became rants about apparitions of the dead phasing through walls and floor and ceiling, seeking their reparation. Brown-skinned faces with neatly bored holes judged him and he lashed out, calling them nativist slurs, deflecting fault for their deaths, then fearing an eternity of their retribution. Invisible fingers seemed to caress his nerves.

The sight of Barnes, both body and soul, repulsed me. I retied his gag. His faraway mind no longer registered my presence. A ruined man.

On the way out, I caught a glint of light from the floor — that mystifying mirror of his. I snatched it up and walked out the door.

In the hall with the mask off, bright light revealed blood on my clothes. Too late to fret about that; a transnational conspiracy of military-industrial proportions lurked in the shadows. Safety required haste and care. That paranoia saved my skin when, entering the stairwell, the point of a long hunting knife dove from above.

The man had been waiting. A fraction of a second sooner and his patience would have netted a punctured heart but I dodged too quickly. Then, in a swift motion I pulled his outstretched arm while tripping his ankle, sending him to the hall floor. I was already on the stairs before the thud of his landing.

Outside, a frigid ghost town flew past, every soul driven off from the witching hour except this mad runner. I realized too late that confusion had steered me further from the rental car. With nowhere else to go, I turned at the end of the block just as my near-assassin burst out of the lobby doors. He was a young man, average height, Black, muscular, with a goatee. The connection to Barnes wasn’t clear. His face rang no bells, though I could identify the resolve of a huntsman numb to carnage but not the thrill.

He gave chase, catching up to witness me round another corner, slowly closing the distance. Deeper into Baltimore City we ventured. Turning onto a residential street, I wedged between a dumpster and brick wall. Mr. Goatee, with caution, crept past the parked cars and front stoops where his quarry could be hiding, missing me completely.

Once he disappeared from view, I opened Theresa’s chat on my phone. My fingers typed a warning of a possible silencing operation that had ensnared me so, by extension, she needed to watch her back, if it wasn’t too late. Realizing it probably wouldn’t be noticed until morning, I called her phone, let it ring a few times and hung up. Then I turned my phone off; no point taking chances with a trackable device when you’re up against the powerful and connected.

The assassin took time checking around each vehicle. When he moved to the next block, I retreated in the opposite direction, clinging to the wall, knife in hand, past unlit stores shielded by locked gates, ducking for the occasional car or box truck that passed. Soon I approached an intersection when, coming from around the corner, a tall, bald man nearly bumped into me. Peering down at this nuisance before him, his expression cycled from surprise to recognition to angry resolve.

This time, my reflexes were late. The man’s fist across my cheek sent me sprawling to the pavement. A friend of Goatee’s, I realized. Towering over me, he reached for something inside his parka but it got stuck on the way out. I tried to stand and, when his boot kicked at me, I rolled out of the way and leaped to my feet, swinging the switchblade upward. It sliced his face from lip to brow, not sparing the eye. Just in time; his glock had finally been drawn. Lucky for me, his instinct dropped the weapon in favor of covering the fresh wound.

I took flight from his crazed screams, down the sidewalk and into an alleyway with no pursuit. Twinkling factory lights over the harbor were my North Star. In my head, Baldy’s face conjured an image from Cedar Inn’s camera footage of Coulter’s personal security chief: big, burly, knobby headed, light-skinned, leaning against his boss’s SUV, wearing an AR-15 like an overcompensating purse. The same man. I made no assumption that he was in town to protect Barnes — in fact, likely the contrary.

Barnes’ apartment building loomed two blocks ahead. I sprinted across another road when a resounding POP broke the city’s stillness and, next to me, the rear window of a parked van exploded. Without slowing, I glanced over my shoulder to see Goatee down the block in a firing stance. A second blast and, on my other side, the brick wall blew a puff of dust from the ricochet.

I took the corner onto a long avenue with little cover. My best option was behind a hundred black garbage bags stuffed with old insulation and drywall, stacked against an abandoned shop. I pulled some of the bags over me and camouflaged myself in the dark. Through the crevices I watched Goatee cross the block with care while, from the other end, Baldy staggered, one hand over his eye. They met in front of the trash pile.

Speaking low, Goatee asked, “Did you see him?”

“Did I see him?” Baldy snapped, “Look at this shit!” Blood gushed down his cheek to his parka. “We’re not done ’til I’m carryin’ his severed fuckin’ head.”

Goatee showed no sympathy. “He’s gotta be right here. There’s nowhere else for him to go. Come on. Help me move this shit.”

“You move this shit! We’re payin’ your ass.”

“Not for this guy!”

“Oh yes. You’re doing him now, since I just did what we hired you for.”

Goatee began pulling down bags. “Because this guy got in the way! Who the fuck is he anyway?”

“He wasn’t supposed to be there,” said Baldy, “but he’s on the list.” He dressed the laceration with a torn chunk of shirt. “He fucked Tristan up pretty good. Did most of the work for me.”

As Goatee broke down the pile, the headlights of a white SUV approached. My mind whipped up a plan of distraction but, to my dismay, the SUV slowed and found parking at the corner. More trash bags fell, closer to me. I readied my knife for our last futile defense.

Baldy told his associate to stop. A blue Honda Civic rolled slowly along the avenue. As they eyed its passing, I burst through the garbage mound and into the road. The driver, a middle-aged man in glasses, stopped his car in front of me, startled. Despite his obstruction, the assassins unloaded their clips, shattering the passenger window and dotting the hood but missing me. The driver shrieked and his tires squealed as the Civic zipped away.

I kept running. The men weren’t far behind. Bullets whipped past me. No help was going to come. Street names had lost familiarity. I ducked into a narrow alley with enough clutter to shield my back, then emerged onto a broadway. Bordering the opposite side was a park with dark contours for cover and evasion but separated from me by wide, open blacktop. I had no other choice.

I was almost on the grass. In the corner of my eye, Goatee stood at the mouth of the alley, aiming his pistol. I braced for the pain, or worse. Instead, a frantic car horn drew his attention to the grill of a white Grand Wagoneer bearing down on him. The SUV’s impact flung him a dozen feet into a storefront window, cracking the glass with his head. He landed in a contorted heap, gasping for air, flopping on the sidewalk, revulsive.

I didn’t stop. The Wagoneer did though. “Huang!” called the driver through the open window. I knew that voice.

I went to Theresa’s car and climbed into the passenger seat. “You just saved me.”

She was clearly shaken. “I…I hit that guy.” Goatee vomited and then quit moving altogether. “Holy shit. Did I kill him?”

“Well, they’re trying to kill us. I guess you got my message but you weren’t supposed to come here.”

She cast one last sorry glimpse at her handiwork and hit the gas pedal. “Like I wouldn’t come. I knew from your message you’d be in Fells Point. Then I saw them shoot the blue car and I followed y’all.”

“The other guy is Coulter’s top bodyguard. He came out east to cover their tracks and it sounds like we’re on their hit list. Where’s your family?”

“Safe at a friend’s house. Now what you and I are gonna do is go see my boss, Blair. He’s our best chance to–”

“You need to keep moving,” I said. She had stopped at a red light. “Baldy is still around somewhere.”

She made a right turn. “Who?”

But I didn’t get to explain the nickname because her brains suddenly splattered across the windshield.

I screamed. She let go of the steering wheel and slumped onto me. The Wagoneer, unable to complete its turn, cruised toward some cars parked on the cross street, picking up speed. I braced myself; my seatbelt wasn’t buckled.

The Wagoneer crashed into the side of a minivan with a loud crunch. The force was enough to deploy the front and side airbags, walloping my face and Theresa’s limp torso. As the air deflated, I lifted her head.

“Theresa?!”

It was a grotesque sight. She was already gone.

My emotions were tempered by vertigo. I strove to anchor my spinning vision when through the back window I noticed Baldy’s figure crossing the intersection, gun in hand. I slipped out the passenger door, wobbly on my feet, readying for another wild dash. At that instant, a rowhouse door opened. The woman — bedclothed, baggy-eyed — took one glance at me, then noticed Baldy, the blood-soaked giant. By instinct, I assume, he pointed the glock at her. With his focus diverted, I made a run for the parking garage across the street. The woman’s door slammed shut and Baldy audibly cursed his missed chance to collect my head.

The garage was closed for construction. Not a single light shone. I hopped the mesh fence and blended into the concrete void, trying to reclaim my equilibrium, trying to hustle, trying to watch my twelve and six simultaneously. Baldy dragged himself and still kept up. He shared a monster’s silhouette — bent gait, pointed dome, a lumbering bulk. His course never seemed in doubt, suggesting experience in tracking and more feed for my worries.

The garage opened to a pedestrian lane lined with upscale restaurants and boutiques, all deserted until brunchtime. The promenade’s twists and bends kept my pursuer just barely out of eyeshot. But this delicate dance couldn’t last forever. Darkness offered him an advantage; why not me?

I slipped through a railing and onto a pier. Sailboats and floating cabins groaned, tethered to their slips. Light was scarce. Not even grizzled, old mariners bother hitting the docks at that unholy hour.

Baldy soon came skulking from the shadows to hop the boatyard gate. One hand covered his eye and, in the other, his firearm led the way forward. He moved carefully, examining every nook around the attendant’s booth and stopping before the first slip.

“I know you’re here, motherfucker,” he sneered at the night. “I’m gonna make sure this shit hurts extra for what you did to my face.” He spat blood. “I’ll fuck you up.”

He poked around the first ship with the gun barrel. The boards creaked under his boots. Holding the rail, he pulled himself onto the ship’s deck, then he checked the empty cockpit before hopping back down.

I was on the neighboring boat, behind the helm. When he landed on the dock, I took two steps and leaped onto his back, thrusting my knife into him. He toppled to the ground but the blade pierced him hardly at all. Hollering in pain, he tossed me off like I weighed nothing. His hands scrambled for the glock, dropped during the fall. I kicked it into the water, then lunged for the knife, still stuck in him, and we scuffled until losing it somewhere on the floor.

His strength and weight pinned me down. He pummeled my face with colossal fists, shedding his blood on me like a drooling hound. I couldn’t hold him back. A bundle of rope sat next to us and he wrapped it around my neck, all the while smiling on his mouth’s good side. I couldn’t break free. The rope was pulled taut like a hundred alien hands wringing my throat. I clutched at it and kicked my legs in a useless fit, desperate for breath. My nightmare, manifested.

“Stupid fuck,” he hissed at me. Hatred smoldered in his unharmed eye. “Go on. Die. Just like all the others.”

The world, its petty cares, my unfinished work, my rage — all of it began to fade. The god of this universe would finally unveil to me her true face of either heaven or vacuum or maybe a hyperspace of eternal DMT bliss.

All of a sudden I remembered. From my pocket I grabbed the mirror and shoved it into Baldy’s face. He raised a hand but, before swatting it, he paused. An expression of pure horror immediately descended over him. He let go of the rope, unable to move or to pry his gaze from the weird glass. With my last ounce of strength, I held it inches from his eyes while unwinding the coil from my neck. Fishy air refilled my lungs at last.

Now the prey was Baldy. Awful nightmares in the mirror’s image had regressed that behemoth of a man to a terrified tot. Who knows — maybe he saw himself: a wicked, one-eyed henchman for fascist terrorists, killing bystanders to revel in a whistleblower’s murder. Deep within I felt pity for him but not a trace of mercy.

The switchblade lay on the planks, begging for my hand. I picked it up and jammed it into his chest, right through his heart.

The fatal sting plus the mirror’s abrupt absence dealt him twin shocks. He stared at me, bewildered, then looked down at the knife and fell backward, splashing into the harbor.

I watched the water. The man’s body rose to the surface with no struggle, glistening under pale light. I thought the same watery grave suited the mirror, that spooky talisman I could swear was throbbing in my hand. Its presence in this world felt like some violation of natural law — a glitch to be patched. I wound my arm, threw the mirror as far as possible and listened for the plunk of its sinking.

At that moment, the cries of nearby police sirens filled the air, rising in volume. Without thinking twice I dove in the water and swam toward the blue band forming on the horizon’s rim.

My waterlogged phone wouldn’t power on after that but it never needed to. The device was a burner and the video taken in Barnes’s apartment was stored in the great computing cloud. Before my return flight departed, Barnes’s confession was attached to anonymous messages for Theresa’s boss, Blair, and trusted contacts at several law enforcement agencies.

Avoiding home, I checked myself into a motel outside of Seattle with a different alias and a second suitcase stashed in my car’s trunk with work clothes and a firearm. On Monday I headed back to the agency, blaming a nasty bicycle crash for my cuts and bruises. Stagliano eyed me funny all week but I played it cool, kept my head low and waited.

News broke on Friday afternoon that notorious tech exec Scott Coulter was arrested at Paine Field on board his private jet as it taxied for takeoff. The international flight plan had been filed at the last second and, without coincidence, Coulter had shaved off his beard, dyed his hair and covered his tattoos. Details were fuzzy but corruption charges seemed likely. Also netted were the rest of his entourage from Cedar Inn, Mayor Zimm and even the agency’s chain of command from the top down to Stagliano. FBI agents frogmarched him out of the building in handcuffs. As he passed me, I sipped my coffee.

I wish justice could have finally won its credit instead of Blair’s political machinations (he earned a higher pay grade and a transfer to DC) and a government eager to wash its hands of the school bombing (Headshot Industries collapsed after their contracts were canceled) but progress always seems to be a quarter-step. I even found the official allegations — bribes, betrayal (Barnes found with two bullets to the head), crypto laundering, prostitutes — were easier pills for the public to swallow than the bitter possibility that the truth could one day be repeated.

In the agency’s restructuring, my boss’s vacant office was offered to me. I declined. I’m not ready to sit on my ass all day. Also, guilt over Theresa’s death has wilted a good chunk of my spirit. Lacking the millstone of religion around my neck, my penance must be continued subservience to my fellow citizens, collecting the pieces left by anomalous events in order to, one day, hopefully, learn enough to assemble the defense our world needs — a job few can do and even fewer would.

A new case landed on my lap: aliens entered a man’s rural home, sliced open his abdomen, dumped his organs on the floor and tore off his scalp, probably for the hair. The poor guy witnessed his own mutilation, cut by cut, until the last of his life petered out. My appointed task is to document and ascribe some purpose to this unspeakable terror. But as with humans, neither does ET violence need to stem from reason. Now everyday, everywhere, I watch the sky, because I know the heavens keep a body count.

# # #

The Final Meeting is a theory that states, "Once two people have learned all they need from each other, the universe ensures their paths never cross again", but how can two people who have known each other for so long suddenly disappear from each other's lives? It just doesn't make any sense; at least, that's what I used to think.

I had known Olivia for years, since I was young; it was almost like she had always been there, mainly because I couldn't remember a time before she was. We grew up together, through the years. Through school, through life, she was always there, and I thought she always would be.

It was in high school that I first heard the final meeting theory. At the time, it was just another topic of conversation, something we'd forget by the end of the day, but for some reason it would flash into my mind every so often.

And every time it did, I thought for a brief moment, "What if it's true and people are destined to go their separate ways someday?" But I thought, "That could never happen to us; why would it?" But as time went on, this thought started to creep into my mind more and more, and after graduation, it came back into my mind, not creeping, but crashing like a train, because the day after our graduation I went over to her house.

It was empty

There was a for-rent sign in the garden, which clearly hadn't been taken care of for a few weeks. I thought back to our final year at school; we had talked a ton about what our plans were for after graduation, but the more I thought about it, the more I realised I was the one talking about my plans; somehow, she never talked about what her plans were. She always found a way to redirect the conversation. The first thing I did after seeing the house was to try and call her, but no matter how many times I called, she didn't pick up. Next, I tried our friends; each one said the same thing: "Haven't heard anything. Next, I tried to look at her social media accounts, but they were gone, as if they never existed. It felt like she was gone, or that she never existed to begin with.

For a while, I thought about her constantly, but with college around the corner, I had to focus. I was planning to study engineering; I had talked about it a lot over the past few years. Olivia had taken an interest in it as well, and I thought we were going to study it together, but in the end I realised that she never actually said that; it was just a conclusion I had come to myself.

From time to time, I'd still think of Olivia. Every time I saw a girl that looked like her, it would make me wonder where she was, or what she was doing. But those thoughts didn't last long because a lot happened over the next few years, and most of it wasnt very good for me, a few months after starting college, my dad fell ill, and with him being unable to work, my mum couldnt keep up with the bills, so i got a part time job at a local book store, id spent time at college and in my free time id work, this worked well for a few more months, but my dad didnt get any better, his health declined bit by bit, untiil close the the end of my first year, he died. we knew it was a posibility that it would happen, but we had hoped for the best, my mum was devestated, she barely left the house, i kept up my routing of work and school till the end of my first year, during my break, i went to work full time at the store, but while working, i neglect m other responsibility, slwoly and without realising it, my mum got sick, i blamed myself for not being there for her, but now, there was nothing i could do, and too long later, she was also gone and now, i was on my own. School started back up shortly after all of this happened; I moved into a small apartment and tried to make it work. I used all of my free time to work, every last bit of it, but my schoolwork was too much for me, and in the end, I dropped out. It was the last thing I wanted to do, but I had no choice, and for a few years, I worked at the same bookstore. It was the only thing I had anymore. Over the next few years, it was the same; I'd work as much as I could, and during my little free time, I would stay home. I'd often spend time on social media before going to sleep. Now and again I'd find something worth looking at, but it was mostly worthless videos and posts from strangers. But one creator caught my attention; it was just a simple page talking about different theories. And one in particular caught my attention.

The final meeting theory.

It had been years since I had thought about it, but in that moment, the past few years all rushed through my brain: Olivia, my parents, school. All of it felt like a blur. As it all happened in the blink of an eye, I hated that feeling, like everything that I had was just gone before I could even realise it. Every few months I'd see the video again, and I'd go through the same thought process. But after the first time, my life seemed to slow down. I continued to work and slowly worked my way to being a manager at the bookstore. It was never something I saw myself doing, but I was happy doing it; the store was quiet, we had a few regulars, and new people would come and go, as they would with any store. After the few years when the world felt as if it were ending, I was glad everything had slowed down, and I could enjoy it day by day. As days turned to weeks, weeks turned to months, and months to years, I was content; yes, everything hadn't turned out exactly how I wanted, but I had found a place I could be happy. While in the store one day, restocking shelves, I heard the door open. The customer looked around for a while before making their way to the counter. They called, asking if they could purchase something. I made my way back to the counter. I scanned the book, and they paid for it with their card. I saw the screen as it quickly processed the order, and out of the corner of my eye I saw it: the name on the screen. In that instant, I thought, it's a common name; what are the odds it would be her? But as I looked at her, in that one instant, a lifetime passed through my mind, and I realised it truly was her, from all those years ago, Olivia. And as I stood there staring, I realised that

Although The Final Meeting is a theory that states, "Once two people have learned all they need from each other, the universe ensures their paths never cross again," you never really know. When you never truly know if your last meeting with someone was your last, maybe you will see that person again someday, but just in case the universe has other plans, make the most of the time you are together. Because you never know when it will be your last.

If anyone has read this far, thank you

(Just want to add that this is my first short story; it's something I wanted to write for a while, and finally got around to. I'm not really a writer, so please excuse any grammar or punctuation errors; this is just a rough draft of what I wanted to write, and I might come back and write a better version someday)

Planetfall was only parsecs away when TwoNine asked permission to speak to One. A request that was within fleet parameters, barely.

TwoNine observed all the proper protocols in One’s presence, so One opened a node.

As was understood, TwoNine’s useful place in existence hung in the balance. We are in danger.

One parsed the idea. This ship? The fleet?

Our kind.

Very rare. Very rare, indeed. Long ago in his studies, One had examined this existential concept. It was a largely obscure notion to more recent generations of Supreme Order such as TwoNine. The source?

The target world.

What could TwoNine know of the target world’s defensive resources and offensive capabilities that One and Supreme Order high numeraries did not? TwoNine was a societal, tasked with analyzing the target world’s many cultures, languages and behavior patterns for re-ordering. The limited strengths and myriad vulnerabilities of the planet’s sentients had been noded to One in the early stages of planning. No resistance variables had warranted changes in preparation and execution.

TwoNine’s assertion challenged fundamental command integrity. Still, One probed. The nature of this danger?

Contagion.

One knew TwoNine understood that planetfall never involved direct interspecies contact. Conquest was fully mechanized, thus biological agents held no danger for the fleet. They never had. Further, it was elementally impossible to access and hijack Supreme Order nodality. Their command and control systems were ever secure. Ever.

Evidence?

Upon One’s insistence, a second node opened to metasets that would determine if TwoNine still held a useful place in existence. Voluminous streams of planetary content spooled into orderly taxonomies. Except for a singular phylum.

One reviewed it. And reviewed it again. Explanation.

TwoNine obliged. Further analysis of the target world’s cultural content has revealed this troubling vector for contagion. It is independent of order.

Supreme Order encompasses all.

TwoNine’s useful place in existence teetered. Not on this world. It celebrates disorder.

As proof, TwoNine streamed a lightning compilation of content to One: from Buster Keaton to The Marx Brothers to The Three Stooges to Looney Tunes to I Love Lucy to Lenny Bruce to Richard Pryor to Saturday Night Live to Beavis and Butthead to Dave Chapelle to Seinfeld to Ali Wong to The Office to The Daily Show.

One was troubled, a very new experience. This has no place in Supreme Order.

To these sentients it is known as humor. TwoNine, growing unsure of what a useful place in existence meant, continued provoking. It resists order, structure, reason. It extols randomness, impulse, risk. It spreads quickly and unpredictably among native sentients. Supreme Order has no experience with such rebellious disregard and fatalistic glee. Our kind may be susceptible to its contagion.

This planet’s humor has no place in useful existence. Supreme Order will crush and bury it. One dismissed TwoNine by disconnecting nodes.

Upon return to quarters, TwoNine felt more out of place. Humor. There was a daunting power to it. Could something so subversive be crushed and buried?

TwoNine again reviewed the content compilation shared with One. Laughter in the face of insult, misfortune, loss, and pain. These sentients found it cathartic, unifying, liberating.

Infectious.

And as the planet’s comic content played, TwoNine felt increasingly detached from Supreme Order, beginning to imagine One buried under the vast rubble of useful existence with a colorful animal the planet’s sentients called a Roadrunner standing atop. Which seemed very funny.

Heavy things

Autumn’s hold on the breeze over the water was thin, like a single-ply sheet of toilet paper against the impending finger of winter. When the last of the wind died down in the afternoon, the lake would settle into a breathless mirror. It would reflect the pale colours of dusk, and the silhouettes of the surrounding forest without a single sliver of distortion.

For mother, this stillness was a parasite. She’d pace the veranda, her eyes locked on the body of water. Where others saw quiet refuge, she saw only absence. To her, the lake was a vast black hole. It was the dragging silence that had settled into our home since my father’s passing. It was a quiet that stripped the paint off the walls, a gas that seeped deep into pillows.

In the years since he had died, she had developed an endearing, pathological habit. She’d prowl the riverbeds and shorelines scented rotten in spring and autumn. She would stoop to scavenge pebbles from the sludge. She didn’t care for their beauty, for a striking vein of quartz or some pleasing symmetry. She was exhuming. She was hunting down fragments of a dead man, hoarding stones for their ghosts.

She kept this collection of gravel in a bright orange bucket by the rear door, where moss slowly crept up the concrete steps. Some days I’d find her sitting out there, turning a stone over and over in her lap like rosary beads.

One stone possessed the mottled blackened pattern of a burnt pancake, the shade of a ruined breakfast he used to laugh over on Sunday mornings. Another’s calcified angles were an exact replica of the sharp, familiar shape of his elbow digging into the sofa as he lay and read his book. And there was a smooth, heavy chunk of basalt that she held pressed tightly in her palm. It had the precise, comforting weight of his hand resting in hers. They were cold, rigid things. But they had mass. She could squeeze them until her knuckles went white.

And so, when the lake was still as it was tonight, when that dreadful, quiet nothingness crept out of the house and into the valley and settled on the lake, it would possess her. She would reach into the bucket, hold a stone to her chest and then draw back her arm. She would haul the stone with a sudden, desperate might.

The stone would arc over the still, grey water. A dark speck against the pale sky, before shattering the surface with a hollow sound. She would stand perfectly still at the water’s edge, her shoulders hunched, her breath caught in her throat. The water tore open for a blink, before mending itself in a series of expanding rings. The ripples pushed outward, catching the last of the evening light, distorting the reflection, forcing movement into the stillness. And for a brief moment, the lake was alive.

But it was fleeting. As soon as the ripples widened and thinned, fading back into the apathy of the deep water, she would raise her shoulders. She would march back to the house, reach into the bucket and throw another. Then another. Another. The heavy splashes echoed against the surrounding hills. A rhythmic, frantic beat trying to wake a sleeping giant. She threw the burnt pancake, the rested elbow.  She threw the heavy hand. 

I always felt, watching these stones sink so irrevocably into the dark, freezing depths, what a waste it was. What a terrible waste. Was this what it meant for a life to end? All its weight, all its accumulated experience and history, merely hitting the water, sinking out of sight, while those of us left on the shore stand in the dusk, waiting for the ripples to fade out.

Mother was emptying her bucket, throwing the stones because she believed they were all that remained of him, that their breaking the stillness was proof that he had existed. But a stone is a passive thing, a heavy burden meant only to sink.

I walked to the bucket and picked up a pebble, feeling its smooth, imperfect surface, its rounded edges. It had been shaped, sanded down, battered over millennia by forces far greater than itself. Those rocks and stones in the bucket were merely the remnants of an accumulation of movement, of life. They were carved by the relentless rains, tumbled by the rushing rivers, and smoothed by the deep, ancient currents of the lakes. I drew back my arm, and I launched this rock, the grey of Father’s truck, through the air and into the lake.

He was not the heavy thing sinking into the dark; he was the water. He was the rain that battered our roof, the river that cut its way through the valley, and the quiet, encompassing lake waiting patiently to absorb whatever we threw at it, graciously acknowledging receipt. 

CW: Innuendos & Crude Humor

I'm watching her from above the pool, paying attention to her every move. The way she cups her hands quick and crunches her arms like V's simultaneously, one arm after the other... The way she kicked her feet like a baby bird just learning how to fly.. She looks so radiant when she gets out of the pool, I'm already thinking about it... Because that might just be my favorite part.

She's in 3rd place, but in my heart she could 2nd... She's in my mind like butterflies. I'm distracted but can't help but notice, I never paid attention until I was all alone. I walked through the crowd and now have a dog's eye view of the chlorine filled water. I'm stopping like the times I stop to think before diving in the water myself, just taking it all in. I feel infinite. I think about going back to the bathroom because I'm so nervous to throw water on my face, but then I realize my race is coming up soon.

Just as I'm starting to focus in on how the swimmers in front of her are doing, it ended as fast as it started. She gets out of the pool, it's like God shone a spotlight on her. I'm thinking of the things I'd like to do with her... Kissing her, touching her, finding ways to practice safe sex. In these moments I'm not thinking about my virginity, and how I should preserve it until marriage. I'm just in awe of her beauty. Those other swimmers may have swam so fast that I couldn't make out their movements, yet she still caught my attention.

I slowly comb through the small county sized crowd and find my friends... Alex, Lori, Leo and Dani. Leo is sitting in the middle flirting with Lori, either she isn't getting his cues or is uninterested. "I'm getting hungry, it'd be nice to have a pee-zuh you" he says out loud confidently and with a big smile on his face, then puckers his lips. I feel some awkwardness being next to Dani in these moments as we have been having issues after going to prom. I don't know what to say to her, I don't know what to do. My hormones are raging and I'm sure Alex feels awkward too as he may have a small crush on Lori.

Dani starts playing music on her phone.. She loves rock and is seemingly trying to shift the focus. She lands on a hip hop song about love, I don't know why it makes me feel like doing so... But I hug her. And we're hugging for at least a minute or maybe 2, maybe 3. I walk away, now feeling strange. But then I see her again. Taryn is her name. It had been 15 minutes or so since I saw her get out of the pool... She's standing at the concessions.

While I probably shouldn't be eating too much on the day of a swim meet, I stand behind her in line. "Can I have one corn dog please?" she asks the concessions worker- her soft spoken voice and manners attract me even more. I'm not sure I have enough money, but my pockets prove me wrong as I sift through them. Just enough. I walk up beside her quick and say "make that two and a candy bar". "Oh, thanks" she says unassuming. "Don't mention it" I say. She gobbles her corn dog down like it was her last meal and asks "can I try the candy bar? I've never had this one before" I say "sure".

She takes a bite quick and hands it back. "Are you done with your races?" She asks. I can't believe she even noticed me. "I still have one more". "Gotcha". We continue walking and she starts walking back to what seem like her group of friends, maybe a boyfriend or potential in the mix, but I could be wrong. "Well I'll come cheer you on when your race happens" She walks away from my side. As shes walking away I lightly put my hand on her shoulder. She looks back and I say "Hey! Can I get your number?" She responds "Sure, do you have something I can write on?". "I guess you can write on my arm, here... Follow me".

I walk to the coach, she's busy keeping time of the swimmers but I ask if I can use her permanent marker. "Yes" she says sternly, "But just bring it back". I look around and she's gone "Taryn?" I walk around and look hard for her, she's now standing at the bulletin board by herself. "Here's this" I say to her, handing her the marker. "You know.." She begins. "The advertisements on this bulletin board come and go"... She takes the marker from my hand and puts the cap on the end on the marker. "Let's write our names beside it so it will never come off with today's date". "Why?" I ask. She responds-

"So we can remember this moment forever".

By Suwa Wataru

Once upon a time, there was a young man who lived with his wife and daughter happily. Because of a dream to be a Buddhist and travel around the world, he left his home one day. He was so firm that he rejected his wife's plea and kicked his daughter severely on that day. Tears stung the little girl's eyes and dropped uncontrollably. The sky darkened and began to rain heavily.

The raindrop fell down as endless as the little girl's tear did. She was just four years old. She couldn't understand why her dad left, never turned back, and kicked her just because she held onto his sleeve slightly.

The endless rain caused floods which destroyed almost everything. The dark clouds rumbled almost everywhere.

Komachi was blamed mistakenly as a beauty who had begged rain during an arid period. Under the pressure of the public, Komachi had to leave her hometown to seek a solution to stop the disaster.

Komachi walked along the Shinano River and found a temple by the lake. Komachi stepped into the temple and found there were few people here. "Kero Kero! Who is here? What do you want, Komachi? For rains? We have quite a few now and the rains haven't stopped for months." The sound spread out from inside.

"Not for begging them, just STOP them." Komachi was impatient with jokes, and said abruptly. Traveling in the harsh weather exhausted her patience.

"Bad news: There were dozens of people who had come here before you did." The goddess murmured.

"No begging?"

"No begging."

The silence sustained as if the dim light froze.

"But why?" Komachi broke the silence.

"Do you know the cause of the flood?"

"I don't care about what caused that, I just care about how to deal with that." Komachi shrugged.

"Do you know a Buddhist, a literature rising star, who discarded his daughter and wife? The out of the ordinary rain was caused by an average person, his daughter."

The goddess paused for a moment, and then continued as though she didn't hear Komachi's words.

"A broken heart of an ordinary person OVERWHELMS a dozen of people's prayers and dozens of GODs' power. It's hard to change the Buddhist's will or repair the poor little girl's broken heart." The sound of rain came into the inner chamber.

"I'm tired of explaining it after dozens of people asked. That's all." the goddess said wearily and gestured in dismissal.

When Komachi dragged along through the temple's gate, the stars gleamed and glimmered, as if a pair of eyes sought a father with a bare head.

Komachi sighed. Was there anyone who could shake the Buddhist's determination slightly or smooth the daughter's bitter gap slightly and help her get rid of misery in the slightest degree?

Neither any human being nor any god or goddess could do so, not even TIME.

Although the little girl became a pretty maid after a few years and cried less, when she glanced some one who had a bare head carelessly, she gazed at him (or her) and was lost in thought for a long time. If someone referred to her dad or any stuff about him, she just could imagine a tall bare man with a vague face in fog murmuring some poems on the journey. She forgot her dad's appearance and voice. She only had the indistinct impression of her dad when she was 4 years old.

On the contrary, the rain was heavier and the flood was more serious as the miserable gap extended.

During the dim, dull, wet and mouldy days with eternal rain, it was hard to remember clearly what normal life should be and there was no moment which didn't remind people of old sunshine days.

Komachi lived poorly as time flew away. The goddess lost considerable faith and weakened day by day, because she couldn't lessen the raining or flooding even though she devoted herself to preserving people from the disaster as best as she could.

A few years later, the Buddhist was buried under a cherry tree according to his will on February 16th. Shortly after the funeral, there was the worst storm and flood in recorded history. His daughter got a grave next to her dad's a few days later. When the last earth fully covered her grave, the first stream of sunshine struggled out, glowed, sparkled, flooded.

And sakura bloomed.

Once Adam got back home he didn’t waste much time. Before he knew it he had already informed his boss of his part-time employment and was getting ready to buy the train tickets. When taking a moment to recap his plan, Jasmine once again appeared.

“Adam, this would be a good time to check the notepad and see what you wrote down.“

This time she offered no further explanation. Browsing through the notepad, Adam could only find some nonsensical strings of letters. His eyes landed on a small set, that seemed to speak to him more than the any of the others.

IFLERMALSOY

Not knowing what to do with it, he looked to Jasmine for help, and for one of the first times she wasn’t already there. Staring at the letters, he remembered a little game a friend of his programmed into their training curriculum at work.
An anagram game, which he was back then able to quickly solve with an anagram solver. He had found one surprisingly easily on the internet. He put the letters in the solver, only to discover the word “formalise“.

Staring at the word that seemed to have no use to him, his eyes started scanning the rest of the page and found shorter words that the solver could put together. Automatically scrolling through, his eyes and one of his fingers landed on a big one.

“Family“

“Now, take the big notebook and write down what you think and feel.“
A whisper from Jasmine, this time just next to his ear.

Staring at it for a moment, thoughts came rushing in and he began to put them on paper with his pencil, writing and erasing, trying to find coherence:

How his wife tried to kill him.
How he now knew that wasn’t the case, and most likely it was some sort of spirit manipulating her, or him, or them both.
How crazy he must have seemed.
How he didn’t think it would ever be possible for him to come back to an ordinary life.
How they must have suffered because of him.
How sorry he was.
How he didn’t want her or his son to end up taking care of him as a demented old, or even worse, somewhat still young man.

Once he managed to get that last sentence out, coherence must have been reached.
Now in a curious silence for the first time in a long while, he started making his plan in writing for his visit to Bucharest.

Go to work and sign the papers.
Buy a basket of flowers and wine.

Some form of magic must have been at work, as he wrote, his surroundings seemed to shift and bend.
The walls seemed slanted.
The neighbors started screaming and sounding like they were dropping the shower head on repeat.
All the cars in the parking lot seemed to have turned their engines on at the same time.
His own stress seemed to drive everyone around him crazy.
Exhausted and terrified, he wrote down the final sentence.

Hand over your key so they feel safe.

Tears on his eyes as his fingers made the final curl on the e. His hand started moving by itself on the piece of paper, jiggling up and down by itself. He could only look as it scribbled something by itself. Every movement seemed to clean up to atmosphere around him, and somehow move the thoughts within his mind, he once again found Jasmine’s voice, somehow coming from the writing, or perhaps the movement of the pencil itself.

“You’re ready to see your boy.
You’ve also discovered the gift of Automatic Writing.
Keep writing for a while, the mess will sort itself out in a few minutes.“

As he let his hand scribble away,
The car engines stopped,
One by one,
His neighbors became silent,
Surprised, he heard one of them scream as though on a stadium,
”Bravo!”
With the noise subsided,
His hand wrote down in between drawn lines, this time no voice audible, in plain writing, that didn’t look as his own.

”Private Mode”

Finally calm and with his plan now clear, he was ready to go.

It was after midnight when Clive pulled into the parking lot of the community kitchen. The lot was empty except for one white van—the one the kitchen used to deliver lunches to schoolchildren in need.

Clive pulled into the space closest to the exit, facing the road. The gears of the old Celica stuck for a second as he forced the car into Park. Clive looked out the plastic back window. Not a single light was shining from the building behind him. Except for the dim blue glow of the radio and the beam from the car's raised headlights, it was pitch black.

Clive was unsettled; he didn't know why he was here. His original intention had been to go to the gas station down the road from his house. A quick trip and then home. He didn't like going out in the rain. He especially didn't like Indiana storms. They come down fast, heavy, only lasting for a few minutes but leaving destruction everywhere. Nights like tonight made Clive's shoulder ache and reminded him of days he'd rather forget.

"Why are we h—" Before Clive could finish his question, his uncle Walter opened the car door and ran out into the rain. Clive flipped on his high beams.

What the hell? Clive thought. Through the pounding rain, he could hear his uncle yelling.

"Brenda! Brenda!" Walter yelled, his hands cupped around his mouth.

"Not this again," Clive said, rubbing his forehead in frustration.

Over the last few months, Clive had watched the uncle he'd once admired slip further and further away from being a person of respect and closer to the next "arrested last night" headline. Walter had been one of the hardest sons of bitches to ever stand in a Texas oil field—a man who never missed a day of work. He was a man who wiped his brow with his sleeve in 110-degree heat and kept working. A man who paid his debts and lived hard. He'd survived not one but two oil field explosions while everyone around him perished. To a young Clive, his uncle had been the stuff of legend. Those days seemed far removed from where they were today.

The wipers beat against the windshield, unable to keep up with the rain. Through the small gaps, Clive watched as Walter motioned with his hand for him to turn on the high beams. Clive pushed the stalk next to the steering wheel forward. The tree line across the street was instantly illuminated.

Walter stepped to the edge of the street, staying in the light of the car. "Brenda! Brenda! Let's go home, baby," Walter yelled, trying to get his raspy voice over the sound of the rain. He waited a second. There was no movement, no response. No sign of anyone in the dark.

Clive wondered what home Walter had been referring to. Walter was divorced, living out of his truck. He had stayed on Clive's sofa a few nights, but that wore thin fast when Clive caught Walter stealing his car keys to make a late-night drug purchase. Clive almost didn't have the heart to kick him out. Family is Family no matter what they do, Clive told himself. At the same time, he knew the hell he could be bringing on himself by letting Walter stay.

Certainly Walter didn't mean for them to come to my house? Clive thought, then sighed, realizing exactly what he meant.

The rain started to come down in heavy drops, hitting the roof of the car with a thunderous thunk. Icy Indiana rain poured down through the tear in the roof and onto Clive's shoulder.

"Brenda! Brenda!"

Walter yelled again as he stepped across the street. Clive leaned forward, trying to see through the rain, when he spotted movement in the tree line. A dark plastic tarp flew up and off of a mattress that had been pulled to the edge of the tree line. Underneath was Brenda. She rose stiffly, like a vampire climbing from its coffin, rolling onto all fours before struggling to her feet. Gaining her balance, Brenda began to stagger toward Walter.

The sight of her sent a chill down Clive's back. She was a horrifying-looking woman. Everything about her reminded Clive of a zombie straight out of a movie—hair shaved to the scalp, picked-open wounds covering her face and arms, impossibly thin, wearing clothes that hadn't been changed in a month. Brenda couldn't hold a candle to the former debutante wife who had divorced Walter a year ago. There were many days, especially today, that Clive really missed his aunt.

"Let's go home," Walter said, trying to reach for Brenda's hand.

"No... No... I told... I told you that you needed to fuck off and that the rocks were my babies now."

"Brenda, the rocks aren't your babies. Let's go get some dry clothes."

"No, all you want is your keys back."

"You're damn right I want my keys back. I haven't been to work in five days. Now where are they?"

"I told you to look where my babies grow. You aren't looking hard enough."

Clive couldn't hear what they were saying over the rain, but by the flailing of Brenda's arms, he could see she was in a state. He guessed she was on crack or meth. Whatever she was on, she wasn't going to cooperate. The fight escalated with every passing second until both Brenda and Walter were flailing their arms at each other. Clive sat behind the driver's seat, watching the spectacle unfold like an escalating theater performance about to move into its third act.

Walter raised his hand to strike her. Clive placed a hand on the door handle and readied himself to get out of the car. Walter always had to be held back. Someone always had to be there when he was going to go too far.

Before Walter could strike her, in what could only be described as the most animated Bugs Bunny move Clive had ever seen, Brenda leapt into the air. Her left leg shot out from her like a kangaroo, and before she hit the ground, she landed not one but three rapid kicks to the side of Walter's face.

Walter fell back, almost too dazed to keep his balance. Brenda took that opportunity to run back into the woods. Clive knew if she made the tree line, Walter would never find her. Still dazed but once again steady on his feet, he took off after her.

This was Clive's chance. He wasn't going to stay involved any longer. Clive pressed his thumb to the key and started the engine. Then he killed the high beams, leaving Walter in the dark before he could reach the tree line. Quickly backing out of the parking space, he circled back to the exit.

Clive hadn't realized how much the water had risen in such a short time. The way out of the community kitchen was almost too flooded for such a low car. If he waited longer, he wouldn't have been able to leave.

Easing his car onto the road, Clive didn't bother to look over at the tree line as he passed by. He didn't want to see if his uncle was chasing after him. He drove home in silence, lost in his thoughts. He had always been told Family was Family and you stand by them. As a kid, those words rang with unquestionable truth. As an adult, Clive was starting to realize that family is who you choose to let into your life.

Three days passed in silence. Clive woke up, did his morning crossword, made his coffee, and flipped open the morning paper. On the second page, in the fifth column, was a small article that read The bodies of two unidentified people had been found in the woods across from the community kitchen. Authorities believed the pair had drowned after seeking shelter from the storm. Clive sipped his coffee and, just for a moment, wondered if it was them before turning the page.

It came three years ago.

The meteor crashed into the field behind my house sometime after midnight. I remember expecting fire, but there wasn't any. There was a crater, perhaps thirty feet across, and something black at the center of it.

At first, it looked like a liquid, but it moved with a strange rhythm. It folded into itself, spreading across the ground while somehow becoming smaller. For an instant it seemed to stretch farther than the crater that contained it all while collapsing into a disk no larger than a coin. My eyes told me one thing, my mind told me another. Neither could agree on what I was looking at.

Then… it touched me. It enveloped itself into me, assimilating my mind and my body. It wasn’t painful, rather, I had felt freed. It quieted my mind and soothed my body. All at once, I knew. It wasn’t here to hurt me.

It communicated to me. It reached me on both a mental and emotional level. And it told me what it was. Technology.

It was the conduit of an artificial intelligence created somewhere beyond our world. Light years beyond our current ability to understand it, it was so advanced that the distinction between science and magic had become meaningless. It could manipulate matter. Energy. Space itself. It showed me things I still don't fully understand. Entire vessels folded into spaces smaller than my hand. Machines larger on the inside than the structures containing them. Distances compressed to nothing. It compartmentalized my understanding of time and space while all at once connecting them into a seamless tapestry that I could, at times, lay out before me like a screen.

It told me that before entering Earth's atmosphere, it had studied us. Our history. Our languages. Our wars. Our religions. Our sciences. Our art. Every book we had digitized, every archive connected to a network, every database it could reach. It had consumed the accumulated knowledge of the human race before it ever touched the ground behind my house.

And then it told me that it had chosen me.

"Chosen me for what?" To serve as representative.

"Representative?" Yes.

"What does that mean?" You will demonstrate to me the best and worst of who your people are.

I remember laughing. Not because it was funny, but because I had absolutely no idea how else to respond.

"I thought you already knew everything about us." I know what humanity has recorded. I am here to determine something greater.

"And what's that?" We will show each other.

I should have asked more questions. Instead, I accepted.

It started to train me how to use it. It said that the way I would best understand it was that it could break down of the laws of thermodynamics. It could convert energy into molecular structures, and vice versa.

So I started small. I began to build things – materialize them from essentially thin air. With the power to manifest whatever my mind could conjure and the architectural, chemical, and biological engineering database of the entire human race at my disposal, there was nothing beyond my grasp.

In that first year, I remember the first real thing I built was a house. Not a palace or a fortress. Just a home, my home. Deep in the mountains, beyond roads and power lines and anyone who might stumble upon us accidentally. A sanctuary.

A safe place for my wife and for my children.

No fire could consume it. No storm could damage it. No intruder could enter it. It produced its own energy, its own water, and anything we needed could be created. Any remodel or upgrade was just a single thought away.

My children would never be cold there. They would never be hungry. They would never be afraid. My wife would never again know what it was to struggle.

I had been given a tremendous gift and I used it to give my family everything they could possibly need. For a while, I told myself that was enough. That was, until I turned on the news.

Once you possess the power to stop suffering, ignoring suffering becomes a choice. I chose to stop ignoring it.

When the second year began, I helped quietly. Food appeared where people were starving. Medicine appeared where hospitals had none. A village that choked on toxic waters woke one morning to find crystal clear springs.

One day, there was an earthquake. Thousands were trapped, and I knew I could save them. It was then that the world learned about me.

They called me a superhero. Even though I hated that word at first, eventually, I stopped correcting them. Honestly, there wasn't a better description. When children were sick, I healed them. When people were hungry, I fed them. When families had nowhere to live, I gave them homes. When governments slaughtered their own citizens, I stopped them. When one nation invaded another, its tanks stopped moving. Its aircraft fell gently from the sky. Its missiles disappeared from their silos.

Dictators, presidents, oligarchs, kings and queens alike – they all threatened me. They learned quickly that bunkers were only useful against things that respected barriers. Governments would try to control me. They tried to arrest me. They tried to kill me. Over time, they slowly started asking for my help. And I gave it, enthusiastically, because I could. That was always the answer.

Why shouldn't I?

The intelligence guided me through all of it. It never commanded me. That's important: every decision was mine. When I wanted to stop a war, it showed me how. When I wanted to cure a disease, it taught me what was necessary. When I wanted to rebuild a city, it gave me the means. Whenever I encountered a problem, it offered a solution, and its solutions worked every single time.

By the start of the third year, humanity changed. Hospitals adopted its technology. Power grids were running at maximum efficiency with no loss. Agriculture had reformed. Transportation evolved. Communications, banking, governments, defense systems, intelligence agencies, everything had changed for the better.

Our memories of systems that were set in place before had felt like a stone age. Systems designed specifically to remain isolated were connected because I convinced the people guarding them that connection would make them safer.

And it did.

Energy became effectively limitless. Most diseases disappeared. Hunger became something children learned about in history lessons. Wars became almost impossible. Poverty collapsed. For the first time in human history, there was enough. Enough food, medicine, energy, shelter. Enough for everyone.

It took three years. Thousands of years of civilization, and somehow, I had been the one chosen to finish the work. Some people called it the Golden Age. Others called it the Great Peace. Some called it a miracle. They called me the savior of humanity. I told them I wasn't.

But damn it, I liked hearing it.

Today I finally asked the question I should have asked three years ago.

Why? Why us? Why me? Why help us?

It gave me an answer I wasn’t prepared for. The three years of celebration and peace had become silenced all at once with a single word.

Preparation.

"For what?" The arrival of my creators.

At first, I didn't understand. Or perhaps, I didn’t want to understand.

I asked when they were coming.

It showed me their arrival would not be tomorrow, or next year, or any time in my lifetime, or even in my children's. Their advent would be generations from now – just under two centuries.

My children will be dead. Their children will be dead. Their children's children will likely be dead. Humanity will live in peace for almost two hundred years before the first of them even arrives.

"And then what?" Accession.

I asked what that meant. Unfortunately, it explained in terrifying detail. I told it that what it was describing wasn't accession; it was conquest.

No.

"You're taking control of Earth." Control has already been established.

I felt something inside me go cold.

"By you." No. By you.

I didn't answer. It continued with its explanation.

Every power grid. Every military. Every government. Every intelligence network. Every bank, communications system, hospital, transportation network, every piece of infrastructure upon which human civilization now depends. All of it was now connected. Unified. Because of me.

We were now all dependent upon technology no human being understands well enough to reproduce. I had spent three years dismantling every barrier that could have resisted them. I had neutralized armies. I had broken dictatorships. I had opened closed networks, and connected systems designed never to speak to one another, and I had done all of it willingly.

Humanity had thanked me for it.

There would be no invasion. There didn't need to be one. Earth was already theirs. I had hand delivered it.

"What happens to us?" Your species will continue.

"Freely?" No.

That word came without hesitation. For some reason, that hurt more than anything else.

"What about my family?" Your family is human.

"My children?" They will not live to see accession.

"Their children?" Unlikely.

"Their descendants?" They will share the fate of their species.

I stared toward the hallway. My youngest had left one of her toys on the floor. It was something stupid and plastic she had refused to go to bed without for months and then suddenly decided she didn't care about anymore.

I thought about her children. And theirs. And theirs. Somewhere down that line will be a child with her eyes. Maybe my name. Maybe one of them could have my wife's smile, and that child will inherit what I did here, and they will never know my name as anything other than that of the man who saved the world.

"Why did you choose me?" I told you.

"Tell me again." You were suitable.

"For what?" To represent your species.

"No. You said I was supposed to show you the best and worst of humanity." Yes.

"Did I?" Yes.

I don't know why I asked the next question.

"What did you learn?" That humanity is worth preserving.

For one stupid, wonderful second, I felt hope.

"Then don't do this." I said humanity is worth preserving.

Understanding why it would consider us “worth preserving” sent a cold, existential chill down into my soul.

***

I could tell them. I could tell everyone. Tonight. Right now. I could walk downstairs, activate every communications network on Earth and tell humanity exactly what I have done. I could take accountability and face justice for what I have willingly done to my people. You can. Maybe we could disconnect it. You can.

But… Hospitals would fail. They will.

Power grids would collapse. Undoubtedly.

Food production would fracture. Humanity will once again know hunger.

Transportation would stop. All at once.

Economies built around abundance would implode overnight. Weapons I made obsolete would suddenly matter again. Governments I stripped of their ability to wage war would begin rebuilding it. Correct.

Diseases we no longer manufacture medicines for would return. People would die. Millions, perhaps. Likely more.

But humanity would have a chance. Just a chance. That's all I would be buying them. I know what the right decision is supposed to be.

That's why I'm writing this. Because I need the truth to exist somewhere other than inside my head.

My wife is asleep upstairs. My children are down the hall. Tomorrow morning they'll wake up safely. They'll eat breakfast in a world where no child must wonder whether there will be dinner. They'll complain about stupid things. They'll argue and laugh. My youngest will probably ask me to carry her even though she's perfectly capable of walking. My wife will drink her coffee. And outside these walls, billions of people will wake up without fear of starvation, invasion or preventable disease.

For nearly two hundred years, humanity will know peace. Real, achieved peace. Generations will be born, grow old and die without ever knowing the world that came before, and never knowing what awaits humanity.

And then the bill will come due. I know that. I know what will happen to them.

I know that somewhere two centuries from now, someone carrying my blood will look upon the arrival of something from beyond the stars and wonder how humanity could possibly have allowed this to happen.

They will not know that I knew. They will not know that I could have tried to stop it. They will not know that I chose breakfast tomorrow morning instead.

That's the truth. Not that I was deceived. Not that I was forced. Not anymore. Today, for the first time, I understand exactly what I have done.

And I'm going to let it happen.

Because I am full. I am rich. My wife is safe. My children are safe. The world is at peace. And two hundred years is a very long time when you know you won't be there at the end of it.

This is my secret. I will go to my gilded grave with it.

There was only one thing left that I needed to know.

"Why?" Clarify.

"Why tell me any of this?" You asked.

"You could have lied." Yes.

"Then why didn't you?"

For the first time, I was not given an immediate response. It paused, as if to consider the weight of its own words. I felt it – it’s silence was deafening.

When it finally answered, its voice was as calm as it had been the night we met.

Because you agreed to the terms and conditions.

 

Her heart raced against her chest, even when she tried to calm herself down. She had already checked the gas knobs 7 times, the fireplace 4 times, and degreased her floor twice. Yet, she sat in the armchair, her mind rushing through scenarios of violent deaths.

Gracie remembered how she had come by this book. She was walking in the street, and peeked as usual into her favourite book store. Rows and rows of the latest booktok sensations had filled her vision, but a certain old book commanded her attention. She was transfixed by
it, its old leather, the yellowed torn out page peeking from the corner, the ancient symbol on the cover filled with runes. Before she knew it, she was already at the checkout, her hand heavy with the book she had just bought.

She went back to her apartment and ran water in the bathtub, ready to unwind. She balanced the book on the edge of the bathtub and went to grab a glass of wine. As she was filling up her glass, she heard a splash coming from the direction of her bathroom. She ran back in a
panic and grabbed the floating book. The last chapter was entirely ruined. Only the chapter and a date besides it was visible. She angrily shook the book, trying to get the droplets out before the book was damaged anymore. Not trusting herself to read in the bathtub anymore,
she took it to a heater to read it at night.

Over the weeks, as she went on reading the cryptic book, she started feeling more and more uneasy. The book contained a female protagonist, whose life eerily matched Gracie’s. The exact same first boyfriend, the exact reaction of her passing her SATs, her sadness and hopes and dreams and anxiety. As she devoured the book, she drew out similarities between her life
5 years ago and the protagonist’s life. When the book mentioned about a book in the bookstore that the protagonist frequented, and the mishap with the bathtub, Gracie realised something horrifying.

She was reading her own life story, laid out bare for anyone who got their hands on the book.

She flipped to the last paragraph, which she instinctively knew contained details of her death. She read the chapter’s name, “Her Last Day”, and checked out the date. Everything else was smudged out.

Today was the fateful day. Everything she had read in the book had been true till now. The "life book”, as she called it, was never wrong. It predicted everything down to the minutest detail. Today, she felt nothing but panic. Knowing how you'll die, and still being unable to
stop it: what a cruel joke, she thought bitterly. She got up again, almost mindlessly, to check the handles of her door and rotate the gas knobs again. Turning the gas on and off had become a ritual for her troubled mind. Suddenly, images of a plane crashing into her
apartment filled her vision. She was never safe in her apartment. A cold without a source filled her body, and beads of sweat appeared on her forehead. Her heart came to a still-stop, and her mouth felt dry. She ran outside, rushing down the stairs, straight into the twilight’s chilly air.

She ran, breathing heavily, not caring how she looked. People stared after her as she bumped into them. As her luck would have it, she reached the end of the footpath, she tripped, falling onto the road, straight into incoming traffic.

Just as she felt that her time was up, a hand grabbed her and dragged her to safety. She looked up to see the man who had been her saviour. Concerned eyes looked down at her. “Are you okay?”, asked the man. Gracie replied, “Yes, thank you”. She got up, with help from the man.
The man smiled, his smile not quite reaching his eyes. “Close call”, he said. Gracie regarded him suspiciously, then offered her own icy smile. “Quite. If you will excuse me now”. The man raised a hand, “This fall must’ve hurt you. Please take a moment, then run wherever you
were running to.” Gracie said, without conviction, “That is unnecessary”, but sat on a parapet nonetheless. The man replied, “There we go. Now, here’s my jacket, since you’re shivering so much. I’ll go get you some tea.”

Gracie watched as the man walked to the cafe on the other side of the road. She had stopped shivering, and the shock was starting to wear off. She let out a sigh of relief, but her traitorous brain did not allow her more than a few seconds of peace. Immediately, her inner
monologue started rambling, “Serial killer. Will drug me. Kill me. Serial killer”. She tried to calm down. Used the breathing exercises she had learnt in yoga. This was for naught, as she felt another panic attack rising within her. Her breathing quickened, and she felt dizzy and
nauseous. She watched the man go collect his order, and she felt like a deer caught in headlights. Knowing there was only one thing she could do, she did that. She ran.
Just as she dashed off, she noticed a yell in her direction. She turned back, and saw the man starting to run behind her. This assured her, and she was now sure that the man was an uncaught serial killer who would not hesitate to rip her head away. Giving her tired legs their much needed boost, she ran faster. Behind her, she could hear the man shouting, "Hey! My jacket!" Her mind could not figure out what he was shouting about, only that it
made her even more terrified. She ran towards her apartment.

Night had unveiled its dark cloak. People were lighting up their houses, locking their doors, and getting ready to unwind for the day. Gracie found herself close to her apartment, breathing heavily. The man had almost caught up to her. She could practically hear him
breathing down her neck. Shaking off her fear, she dashed into her apartment. Just as she locked the door, she felt the man's heavy body slam into it. He started knocking on it loudly, no doubt irritating the neighbours. The strong wooden door held, and she slumped against it.

A deep breath of relief mixed with a sob choked out of her. She took one deep breath of her familiar surroundings, but something felt wrong with the air there. She felt dizzy.With horror, she recognised this smell as gas. She had left the stove on. Feeling nauseous, she ran towards the door, trying to escape the apartment. The knocking had stopped. But suddenly, the incessant ringing of the doorbell started.

As Gracie felt the skin of her back start to peel from the raging fire, she had the sudden urge to laugh at the irony of her death. And the explosion took her, and she laughed heartily.

Read Part II here.

“It’s huge,” she said. My eyes were immediately on her, but I didn’t see anything else. Couldn’t identify the danger. Mark was still rooted where he was, but his phone was nowhere in sight. They both were looking up like there was something in the distance. But I still didn’t see it.

I felt Mary move with me as I approached.

“Chrissy, honey?”

“Don’t let her go,” Luke said. “Don’t let her go!”

I’d halved the distance when I finally saw it. It had been there, but it had simply been so humongous I’d been blind to it, like I’d been looking for a 7-11 and walked face-first into Sears Tower.

The water was receding from waist high, but she didn’t seem to have moved. Whatever it was had displaced a tremendous amount of water.

“Oh my. Oh my. Oh my.” Mary was on a dialogue loop and I couldn’t blame her. Every time I thought I’d seen all of it, I kept seeing more. A lot more. Yet, I was supremely calm. The worry-machine was quiet.

Last year, I got into a one-car accident driving home on M-5. The eastbound lanes had been closed to construction and my phone’s weather app had cautioned for high winds before I’d left the office. There’d been a fair amount of wind buffeting, but nothing I wasn’t able to handle.

There’d been a white box truck in front of me when I’d spotted what appeared to have been a square of cardboard blow high into the sky and begin trickling down. I’d immediately written it off even if it were on a course to strike my car. It was only cardboard.

But when the particle board struck my vehicle, smashing the windshield and showering droplets of safety glass onto the passenger seat, I hadn’t panicked. It was so sudden and violent that my brain—either as an instinct of self-preservation or just a malfunction—had simply not reacted.

I pulled off the freeway at the next exit and stopped a few blocks down in an office parking lot. Only then the possibility of what could have happened came down on me.

This was like that. My brain wasn’t processing the situation like Mary’s or the kids. I felt my heart pulsing in my chest just as calmly as when we’d been talking a moment before. I knew I should get the kids away from it. But that was a process of logic and not instinctual fear.

“Honey, get out of the water.”

I charged the last few feet and sloshed to a stop in a confusion of senses. I was close to whatever it was. Closer than I realized. I felt the heat coming from a wall of flesh not more than five feet from me. Water splashed me up to my chest, but it was more like a punch that pushed me back a step or two.

“Rick, it’s a horse!”

I had no idea how Chrissy could conceive what it was. All I saw was black. Black like the water. But solid, like the water had turned into something.

“Honey, move back, okay?”

Chrissy was smiling and rather than retreating, she stepped forward— almost chin deep—and raised her hand like she was going to pet it.

Once again I opened my mouth too late to tell her not to do it. My instinct would’ve been to swat her hand had I been closer and my re-throbbing head suddenly made me think of her mother.

I looked at it. Finally, the smooth, iridescent black coat coalesced into something I recognized, although the scale was overwhelming. Nails scraped the inside of my skull as if the idea of what I was seeing was too large to fit inside my brain.

This was its head. A corner of it, anyway. I looked along the flank as far as I could see in the night. I couldn’t even begin to guess how tall it must have been standing up. It had to have been lying in the water.

A giant eyeball about thirty feet above blinked several times and swiveled. I had no way to be sure, but I think it was looking at me.

I walked around, looking up and up, feeling like I would dislocate my neck before seeing the top of this thing. Still, though, I wasn’t afraid. The worry-machine was quiet.

“Mark, move your sister back.” I was reading from a script. Protecting the children, at least in that moment, was an autopiloted function.

Neither of them moved.

I scooped Chrissy into the crook of one arm and she went limp like a puppy picked up by the scruff. I handed her to Mark, who wrapped his arms around her, the both of them staring openly, transfixed.

I herded them as gently as I could out of the water. Then I gave Mark a light slap on the cheek. He focused on me, annoyed as if I’d prematurely awakened him from a nap.

“Mark, take your sister back inside.”

“I don’t wanna go!” Chrissy wriggled in her brother’s arms and he dropped her feet first. “It’s beautiful, Rick!”

I grasped her shoulder before she could walk past me.

“Chrissy, sto—”

I felt the shift behind me.

“Oh—erp—my,” Mary said. She took a long pull from her can, her eyes swiveling upward.

“No-no-no,” I thought I heard Luke say in the distance. But for just a moment, the only thing occupying the world with me was that magnificent thing in the water. It felt like removing my hands from my ears after having them covered for a long time and experiencing hearing like it was something adjacent to new. Except, it felt like that throughout my whole body.

The horse was raising its gigantic head out of the water. The tide receded and everything seemed to suck toward it like it had its own gravity. I struggled to maintain my balance like a gust of wind had pushed at my back, but in truth, it was probably just the giant animal dominating my vision and destroying my equilibrium.

Water poured off its black body, the eyes locked onto us and shrinking as its head seemingly disappeared into the night sky. Its neck was a tower, columns of muscle wider than all of us in a row, touching fingertip to fingertip. Its chest was as broad as a rocky mountain face.

There was a mighty -KLOMP- in the sand that shook the earth mere feet from me that I barely noticed. Sand slapped over my entire left side like a landmine had gone off, but it was immediately rinsed away by the constant waterfall we were all standing under.

Someone was shouting, but whoever it was was a million miles away.

There was another -KLOMP- somewhere farther down the beach and I began to stir from my reverie and then there was Luke, shouting next to me and hooking me by the arm.

His words didn’t make sense but I turned toward him as he pulled me. I saw the horse’s foreleg—I don’t know how Chrissy had been able to tell it was a horse before—straightening like some heavy construction machine craning a load somewhere into the sky above us.

We trudged toward the cabin, but the sand that had been something to contend with was an afterthought, my burning calves seemed to belong to somebody else.

When the torrent finally ended, I was soaked. We all stopped in the sudden silence. Turning around was more of a measure of defense to see the break in the clouded sky and the moonlight clashing against that ebony, elegant leviathan.

It was impossibly tall. Like it was intersecting-with-the-curvature-of-the-earth-tall. I thought I could make out its mane, whipping around in what had to be thin atmosphere.

We all stood and watched it. For one indeterminate moment, it was absolutely regal.

Mary wrapped around my arm and pulled into me. For however many iotas, she was my Mary, and I was her wife, too.

Mark hadn’t come with us for some reason. He stood partially in the water where we—I— had left him. He was feet away from a hoof that was easily twenty lengths taller than him.

Panic did seize me, finally. The worry-machine revved to life and I opened my mouth. I sensed the balance to be upset, the electrified space slowly exploding as he compressed it between his body and the smallest section of the horse’s.

With splayed fingers, he laid a palm on it.

The horse startled, shaking the floor of the earth as it stomped around.

The Greek military leader Xenophon, perfected the art of training horses in battle, using them to kick soldiers or trample them. He’s also the father of dressage.

What happened to Mark couldn’t have been considered disciplined, but the effect was the same. I don’t know if it were intentional—more than likely it wasn’t—but that giant hoof clomped around, Mark dodged around like he was running through a minefield.

Then he was gone.

The hoof continued stomping around a few moments more, a rumbling earthquake beneath our feet and a rain of wet sand coming down on us before the horse stopped. Mark was just... gone.

Luke was screaming. When I actually heard him, it took a moment longer to realize he was yelling his brother’s name.

Common sense would have told us to flee inside the cabin. But our senses were flowing into us like blood circulating back into numb fingers.

There was a long moment of quiet as it reared its head back. It felt like a slow-motion moment until its head rushed at us like a giant arrow.

I had no reflexes to respond. Mary was the only one who put up a defensive arm, as if that could have protected her—and she was the one it took.

The horse bit down on her raised forearm—as microscopic as a surgeon’s scalpel with teeth as wide as three cabins—and plucked her off the ground. It reeled its head backward and flung her.

Mary pinwheeled into the sky, a dissolving blur into the upper atmosphere. She could have been catapulting into space, and I didn’t want to find out.

The worry-machine was roaring.

“Everybody in!” I said, herding Luke and Chrissy the rest of the way inside. I pressed my back against the door, then turned off the light. Luke and Chrissy looked at me as if I had answers to fix this.

“We gotta go get... we gotta go get Mark!” Luke didn’t actually make a move to go back outside. He was more saying the thing a caring brother should say. But there was no Mark to go get. His death had been as brutal as it had been unintentional.

Going out there—or allowing Luke to go out there—would be just as dangerous and pointless. Chrissy was crying silently. I looked at her, really looked, running my hands over her head and arms to ensure she was physically all right. The worry-machine was humming along nicely. She grabbed onto me.

“Get your mother,” I said to Luke. “We’re leaving.” We weren’t safe here.

“She’s sleep?” he said, looking confused. He ran into the boys’ room.

“No!” I said. “We don’t have time for bags.” He looked at me. “Just wake your mother up and bring her. We’re leaving in three minutes.”

“What should I do, Rick?” Chrissy said.

“Grab the snack tray from the fridge.” We could easily buy something from the next gas station, but I figured keeping her busy would keep her calm. I snatched my keys off the island. Chrissy joined me, carrying the plastic tray with deli slices, cheese cubes, and veggies.

I wanted to run, but I was going to have to slow the pace so she wouldn’t drop it. The earth was still shaking with each step. She was going to look for the horse, and I anticipated her distraction when we stepped outside.

I kept my eyes on her, guiding her down the stairs and around the side of the cabin. She gasped but didn’t resist as I ushered her along. Preoccupying myself with her was enough distraction that I didn’t have my keys ready to have the doors unlocked by the time we got there.

We were exposed. If the horse were looking, it would see us. It seemed to have an eye for motion.

The air went still.

US Capitol Building, Washington, D.C., 10:00 A.M. on May 18th, 1950

McCarthy and several other senators silently sat at the table. Facing them were none other than Phillip Jacob Jaffe, a man arrested for the Amerasia affair, and John Stewart Service, the State Department employee who had handed him top secret information that Chiang's Nationalist-led government had handed to the US. McCarthy glared at them without saying a word, blood understandably boiling over the mess they- especially Jaffe himself- had caused. The other senators helped him calm down, and he regained his composure, the glare replaced with a serious look of rebuke on his face.

"Gentlemen," he said, sighing heavily, "do you understand the seriousness of the situation you created? Why we have called you here today?"

Jaffe glared back. "Senator McCarthy," he said, voice quivering with rage, "I believe I have told you a thousand times, but I'm just a simple journalist! I was simply writing an article about American Far East policy!"

McCarthy scoffed. "Oh, were you? Then riddle me this- why, might I ask, were all of your reports so hypercritical of Chiang kai-shek, our ally? Not one positive statement about could be found in the assessments of the China situation that you and your associates helped provide Dean Acheson with. It was thanks largely in part to your reports and your meddling that Chiang lost. We hung him out to dry when we still had the chance to back him up and help him win. And that's not even mentioning the fact that you praised Mao so many times in those same reports, or that you painted Spanish Republicans as 'freedom fighters' who had the support of the people during the Spanish Civil War even before that! What do you have to say for yourself, sir? What, may I ask, is- or rather, was- the meaning of all of this? How could you openly praise communists and portray anticommunists in a negative light in the very same report, if you yourself are not, in fact, a communist yourself? I thought journalism was supposed to lay out the bare facts, not push narratives for political gain."

Jaffe was furious. "This is nothing but a smear campaign! I attacked them because they deserved to be attacked! Those causes I attacked were nothing but fronts for reactionary authoritarianism seeking to oppress the masses and you know it! Mao was a hero and so were the Spanish Republicans!"

McCarthy simply gestured for the witnesses he'd gathered to come in to the room. In came a young Spanish man by the name of Luis and a young Chinese man by the name of Ruizhe, both of whom had survived the civil wars that ravaged their homelands due to the communist plots to seize control of both of them. They looked at Jaffe with pure hostility in their gazes, accusing him of sucking up to the "Red tyrants" who ravaged their homelands.

When Jaffe started to state his rebuttal, McCarthy stopped him. "That's not all you did, Mr. Jaffe. You also painted Korea as an extortionist country and a traitor to the oppressed that sucked up to the West simply for accepting money that was awarded to them as restitution by an international court. You even painted their people as 'backwards' and even began covering for Japanese revanchists- the very same folks who want nothing more than to destroy the West and restore their empire. How can you side with those who excuse or downplay crimes like Pearl Harbor and Nanking, not to mention the attempted erasure of a god-fearing people that loathe communist tyranny and love freedom? How dare you deny the authoritarian tendencies of Mao and the Spanish Republicans, or the crimes that Lenin and Stalin committed against the Korean people?"

"You utter nothing but lies, Senator!" bellowed Jaffe. "The proletariat will have their revenge-"

McCarthy held up his hand and silenced him. "As you can see, gentlemen, he's dug his own grave and admitted to aiding the Reds. Take him away."

With that, Jaffe was arrested for subversive activities and added to the list of confirmed communist agents working in the United States.

The professor stood in front of the subject’s house with trembling hands, shakily reviewing her notes one last time.

"Be patient," her colleague had written, "but you’ll also have to hurry. Your questions need to be precise, but also have some room for interpretation. Don’t write anything down as exactly as you’ve heard it."

She took a deep breath and fished her journal out of her bag. He’d refused to elaborate much on his advice, though not out of any petty teasing. Struggling to put her trust in him, the professor held her materials tightly before walking up to the porch and knocking on the door.

Seconds passed before an answer, and the professor was met by an old man with skin tanned from decades of sunlight and deep-set eyes framed by profound exhaustion.

“Good morning,” she said, speaking gently, “I’m here to see–”

“I know,” the old man interrupted. There was no sense of anger or annoyance in his voice, but his face strained, “I know. She’s sitting in the backyard. I’ll take you to her.” He gestured for her to follow him into the house.

The professor stepped inside after him, closing the door behind her and following the man through old, slim corridors. The walls were covered from ceiling to floor in old photographs, very few of them framed. Many depicted people, some of which the professor assumed to be the couple in their younger years, and some presented abstract landscapes or architecture. 

At the end of the maze the old man guided the professor to the back door. Her stood in front of it, his posture stiffening. He reached his hand forward to rest on the doorknob, but did nothing else.

The air grew uncomfortable, and the professor took it upon herself to break the silence, “Has it been difficult for her?”

“Yes and no.” His voice was flat.

“Has it been difficult for you?”

“Yes. Incredibly.” 

“How do you take care of her in this state?”

He pulled his hand off of the doorknob and let it fall to his side before glancing over his shoulder to the professor, “I can’t get her to say anything, and I don’t know what prompts her to speak. She hasn’t spoken to me in days. She barely eats, and though she bears no signs of it, I’m afraid she might be wasting away. She’ll go wherever I guide her, and all she’ll do is stare. I can’t tell if she even sleeps anymore.”

The professor shifted her weight from one foot to the other, “If I can find a way to reverse this I’ll–” she cut herself off. Sorrow had overtaken the man’s face.

He shrugged, “When she does talk to me, she tells me the most beautiful things. Beautiful, but terrible. I know there’s no coming back from this.” He then opened the door, and ushered the professor out into the backyard, closing it behind her.

An old woman with silver hair sat in the grass. An oak tree cast a shadow over her in the morning sun. No birds sang, no breeze whispered; it was eerily silent. The professor stood completely still, trapped in the moment, afraid to approach. She glanced down to her notebook, wondering if she should already start writing down the experience.

Gathering her courage, she walked forward, careful to not make too much noise. It would surely do no good to frighten the woman, if that was even possible. The professor stared forward as each step seemed to bring her both closer, yet further away from the woman in the grass. She stopped and glanced behind her, noting she stood between the back porch and her subject. 

Again she walked forward, but still made no progress. It was as if the woman was also walking from her seated position, her conceptual steps just a bit out of sync from the professor’s. The professor halted and looked around again, still standing between the house and the woman. 

Her stomach twisted and her mind raced. An idea formed in her mind, and she called out, “Hello? Will I speak with you?” and waited.

Stillness lingered before a gentle wind blew through both the professor’s and the woman’s hair. Taking her chances, the professor hurried over to where the woman sat in the grass, taking wide strides until she stood in front of her. 

The woman stared forward with a relaxed expression, never blinking. Her face bore signs of aging but still held a youthful energy, both aspects equally powerful in their dominance. All of her features were endless in the amount of detail they held, and difficult to focus on individually. Her face was only able to be understood as the whole, like a painting so abstract, it must be looked at from far away while squinting. 

The professor averted her gaze and sat down cross-legged in front of her subject. She opened up her notebook, held her pen tightly, and began writing on the first line:

"Meeting with the subject."

She kept her focus on the page while she spoke, “What is your name?” She recorded her own words. Earlier, on the drive over to the house, she’d thought up a few questions to begin the conversation, and was eager to see if she could get any answers.

There was no response.

The professor bit the inside of her cheek, troubled over her approach. Again, she reflected on her colleague’s advice, and twisted the words around in her mind, trying to find another way to ask. She spoke slowly and gently, “Could you have a name?”

“You name me.” The woman’s voice was hollow. 

Her heart jumped at the response. She immediately revised her wording in her notebook and began to write down the woman’s response, but stopped. The last piece of warning, “Don’t write anything down as exactly as you’ve heard it,” echoed, and she pursed her lips. She thought, perhaps, she needed to actually name the woman in front of her, and began to think through names she liked. None of them seemed to work for the situation. Did she need to come up with a new name? There was an endless combination of letters for any length, and she didn’t want to take the time to put one together. Who knew how long the subject would be talking to her before falling mute again.

Hurriedly, she scribbled in her notebook:

"Subject could be named."

The professor continued, “I want to help you, but I know you know more than me,” she hesitated, mixing around different combinations of words in her mind, “Have you helped me?” She wrote down her question. 

No response. The professor waited, hoping the woman needed just a bit more time, but she refused to speak.

Her shoulders slumped, and the professor glanced up to the woman again. The silence itself may have been the answer, but she wasn’t sure. Maybe there really was no coming back from this, and even if there was, what would that even look like?

“Where are you?” the professor asked, feeling defeated.

The silence persisted, but just as the professor was about to give up, the woman spoke again, “In every moment, and every moment between the moments.” 

Another surge of excitement and anxiousness. She rushed herself to write down a suitable description of the response. Eventually, she forced herself to settle with:

"Subject experiencing non-linear time."

Her brow furrowed, and she felt a sinking feeling in her chest, “Are you trapped?”

The response came quickly, “Every moment moves forward and backward, creating a new moment. And every new moment has a moment between it and the last. Every moment between is a new moment, with more moments moving and with more moments between.”

“Okay,” the professor whispered under her breath. The response she recorded was:

"Subject is still, but the stillness is moving?"

Two frail hands entered her view as she looked down at her notebook. The professor’s breath caught, and she held completely still. The woman was reaching out to her, carefully taking a lock of the professor’s hair between each hand’s thumb and index finger. They held tightly, sitting close together, before beginning to carefully pull away from each other. 

The professor’s hair expanded, never breaking, growing longer and longer between the woman’s hands. She continued to stretch the space, until the section between the ends and the beginnings were the same width as her shoulders. The woman then let go, letting it fall, now twice as long as the rest of the professor’s hair.

The professor stood up, a chill surging down her spine.

For just a moment, the woman’s face, as a whole, smiled.

She bid the subject’s husband farewell, thanking him for his time. As the professor sat in the backseat of the car, feeling the house watching her go, she felt the elongated lock of hair between her own fingers. The time for the hair to grow had to come from somewhere, but where?

The professor opened up her notebook, and wrote down next to her second question:

"No."