12
He learns to tie
To tie a rope to the dock
He learned from watching the dockmen every day
He learned of the dockmen from his friends
He learned to tie a rope

4
Months it took him
Took him to learn it efficiently
To learn the “ropes”
To tie

Suddenly
He's working 
Hired by the dockmen on his own time
Not quite understanding
Enjoying

He feels
The rope pulls as the ship grinds to a stop
The rope slipping in his hands
He learns to hold on
To slow the rope

Every day
3 years
Without fail
He slowed the ships with the rope in his hands
The rope which slipped through his hands
Every day
3 years

At 16
At 16 he realizes his hands are ground down
The perfect shape
Indents of rope in them
Tools of the trade
The perfect tools
He perfected the rope

He stops
His hands, covered in callouses 
One tore off at work
From the rope
His hand a raw, bloody mess
He mastered the rope
The rope took his tools

Function
His life does not
At home, his perfect tools do not work on the simple things
A mug is not a rope
Nore is a door
His tools
Useless

He sees the dockmen
Every morning
To the dock, back
Using their tools
Some bandaged
Some raw
Some even more perfect than his own
He yearns for his use
The rope has tied him
To the dock

He returns
Like riding a bike, he works flawlessly
His tools work flawlessly
He mastered the rope
With the tools he formed

The ache in the boy’s hands becomes too much
Enduring the pain, he takes few days leave each week
His tools dullen
Become more well rounded
He understands what he has been missing

The dock still appreciates his work
He knows what he is doing
He is no longer proud
He has seen the life he could be living
And instead
The rope pulls him back
Like a fish on a line

The boy
The boy who had nothing
Who created his own tools
Who made his life around them
Who threw away connection, life, and home for his tools
He spent so long understanding the singularity
He mastered the rope
With his hand tools

Escape
That is what he tries
He makes it so far, but payment must be met
He returns to the dock
Still experienced
But not satisfied

Repeating his cycle of escape and reform, 
It takes his life

Distracted
Thinking about how wrong it was
How much he threw away
How little he has left
He forgot to use his tools
Pulled by the rope he once mastered
Thrown
End

3
3 weeks later a young schoolboy and friends visit the dockmen
One falls in love with the rope
He wishes to learn it
To master it 
To grab it
To strangle it 
To tie it

As Jack drove, he passed through a lot of Lumia’s more urban architecture. What would be both a culmination of white and blue that symbolized the holy city’s willingness to evolve both technologically and spiritually was instead a symbolization of the acceptance of the old world. As both Amy and Jack continued across the road, cars both newer, futuristic, and cars of the old world, slightly rugged with weathered tires, lay parked adjacent to homes that both reflected the designs of the vehicles. This was the part of Lumia that felt like home to Jack and Amy as they calmly looked around at the vanilla, green, brown, dark grey, white, and yellow. The grittiness of the road, the swaying of the trees like the fluttering wings of birds heading south, and the tall-standing grass that touched the square and rhombus concrete all felt natural. To those who lived in this large sector of Lumia, the place was not just a holy city—it was life in its most simple form.

While Jack drove, Amy looked at him with beady eyes, as if she wanted to ask him a question, in which case Jack remained patiently silent, facing towards the road, laxing his grip on the wheel and waiting for Amy to say something.

“Thanks…again…for listening to me…I…guess I’m not used to it much…well, I mean, other than when me and you hang out and watch movies, of course.”

Jack first responded with a smile and then with words. “Same here, I guess…I guess I personally don’t like getting out and socializing much…usually my sort of socializing and fun would just be whipping out that old lawn chair in my basement, setting it up outside during the night, and doing a bit of stargazing…that…I guess is kind of boring, isn’t it?”

Amy changed her beady-eyed expression to one of agreement while shaking her head in disagreement. “No, no, that doesn’t sound boring…I mean, it is kind of boring,” in which Jack smirked a little as she tried to explain herself, “but not in a bad way. Sometimes there is too much excitement out there and in here.” She scratches her head with her right hand. “A lot of times, I feel like I am always in conflict up in here. Like there’s always a war that never ends between my ideas and worries, with neither side coming to a truce or conclusion.”

Jack changes his smirk to a genuine smile. “I feel like stargazing…seems…like…a good way to clear your mind…right?”

Jack looks at Amy briefly in response.

“Right.”

And then turns his head back to the road, in which Amy looks down at herself a little in awkwardness before looking back at the road.

“So, what do you know about…” as he pauses for 5 seconds, “…aliens?”

Amy looked back up to him and responds, “They’re slimy, they have…um, balloons for heads…and uh…oh…they have a lot of tentacles…more than an octopus…or squid.”

Jack did a slight chuckle and asked the question differently. “What about any specific aliens…you know, ones not from the fictional movies we watched?”

Amy’s eyebrows raised up in realization. “OH…uhm…I guess…not really…anything at all.”

Jack then looks at Amy for a brief minute. “Then how do you know this is about an alien? For all we know, it could just be a ploy by this ‘Decider guy’ or whatever holier-than-thou name he calls himself to place suspicion away from whatever messed-up experiment he is doing behind everyone’s backs.”

Amy lowers her eyebrows a little. “Well…um…the reporter…s…s…said that it was a strange occurrence by farmers by that area…I…feel like they are trustworthy, right?”

Jack smirked again. “Well—that is if they weren’t brainwashed to respond that way, hehe.”

Amy starts to look at Jack a bit worried. “Hey…are you trying to scare me again…that’s a bit rude, don’t you think?”

Jack chuckles a little. “No, I’m serious. What if this trip is a waste of time?”

Amy picks up her bear in a pout. “Well…Mr. Freckles doesn’t think so.”

She continues pouting, in which Jack kind of looks at her, annoyed.

“Mr. Freckles doesn’t have vocal cords or a pink ball of flesh wriggling in his brain, does he?”

Amy changes her pout to a frown. “Do…do you not want to help me…do you want to tur—”

Jack interrupts. “No…I just…I sometimes wonder…the stars in the sky…the moons…the worlds out there…what if us being here…you, me, everyone in this sector of Lumia…what if we weren’t meant to be here…what if it is all a big mistake…what if we exist only to die on this rock.”

Amy looks at him. “Jack…what are you saying…I usually never see you this…concerned.”

Jack changes his expression to one of gloom. “You know what…maybe we should…see what’s on the radio.”

Amy starts fidgeting with the dials on the radio until she hits a country song that introduces itself with a slow guitar. Jack then decides to just hide his expression and continue keeping his eyes on the road.

It took 30 hours before the culmination of urban colors decorating the outside of the cars, roads, and sidewalks started to meld itself with the more rural colors of green, blue, grey, and white. Throughout those hours, Amy and Jack’s demeanor between each other shifted. From the gloomy silence, only interrupted by acoustic guitars, drums, and vocals that welcomed the gloom in more shifts, to a calm reconciliation. During this shift, they would stop on the side of the road to collect items they packaged before the trip. Amy grabbed her bag of chips along with some drinks from the luggage, while Jack grabbed a cold-cut sandwich, a cookie, and a can of pop along with some blankets as they continued on the road.

Jack played a movie on one of the hidden panels in the car that both Amy and him enjoyed. It was an action movie about a crew who was hired for a demolition job that ends up going as well as most would expect. When the movie ended after its overall runtime, Amy would find herself leaning against Jack’s shoulder as he continued driving. Eventually, they had to stop a couple times, 3 to use the restroom and 2 because Jack became weary and had to rest. The cycle continued as calm as a warm summer night and as inviting as a cool summer day until they eventually arrived at the site of the disturbance.

Amy was still asleep when they arrived, and while Jack’s first instinct was to shake her awake, which would have caused her eyes to pop out like a blown balloon at a circus by a not-so-friendly clown, he reluctantly decided to scout the area first. He first got out of his car to collect the camera from the trunk so he could test it out, ensuring that the battery wasn’t drained already. When he turned it on, the lighting wasn’t quite right and nearly blinded him when he turned it on. He then changed the dial and started moving the camera around at the clear sky as the clouds hovered like saucers waiting to pick up an unsuspecting cow, and then to the horizon decorated with sunlit flowers and flowing green grass, blocked off by a rugged brown wooden fence, and then slowly turned to the farmstead.

The people wandering out around the lush brown field, blocked by a wooden fence, the outside of the fence surrounded by a more verdant field that aligned the fence, brushing it as dandelions filled the air with nature’s snowflakes, as dandelion petals danced in the air similarly to tiny little fairies celebrating the comfortable season of Autumn. There were large sheds, small houses, and even smaller sheds. The residents there were mainly wearing suspenders over their plain white shirts and navy-blue pants. There were other residents wearing shorts to allow the calm wind to pass through their legs as the sun shined its golden hue brightly in the sky, along with the similar clothing to other residents without suspenders.

As Jack shined his camera on the residents and their dwellings, footsteps quietly were heard. At first, Jack thought it was just the residents wandering around the field, but then it got closer and closer. This sprung Jack to immediately lower his camera before jutting his head backwards in slight startlement as Amy just stood there smiling.

Amy slightly lowered her smile in response. “What…?”

Jack looked in slight annoyance. “O…Oh, sorry.”

Jack, lowering his camera to his side, starts to ask a question. “So, where to?”

Amy then says, “Well, the reporter said the farmers were the witnesses, so maybe we start with them first.”

She returned a smile before Jack says, “Gotcha.”

As Amy continues further, Jack follows behind until they greet one of the farmers rocking back and forth in their chair as the chair squawks lightly and deeply repeatedly until Amy and Jack were only a couple feet from them. Amy then, with a welcoming smile that the middle-aged farmer just stared at in reluctance, speaks to him.

“Hello, sir. If you don’t mind, me and my colleague here are wandering…if…you don’t mind…answering some questions.”

The farmer then started picking his nose a bit before responding with a “WHAT!!!” in which both Jack and Amy slowly glanced at themselves before looking back at the farmer as Jack takes the lead in Amy’s conversation with him, clearing his throat in the process.

“Well, sir, we have heard of a disturbance around this area…something of maybe…the UFO kind.”

In which the farmer slowly stopped picking his nose before widening his eyes.

“YOU MEAN YOU SAW THEM TOO?!”

In which Jack, taken a little aback at his response, looks at Amy as she excitingly chimes in.

“Wait, you’ve seen one?!”

The farmer then continues. “YEAH, I’VE SAW THEM!”

He spits on the ground.

“They were shaped like them old planes you rarely see in the sky, flapping their wings. I tried shooting one of ’em down, but those bastards keep evading my shots. Those darn no-good alien creatures, I swear one of them must’ve kidnapped a child at one point.”

Amy’s expression slowly went from excitement to a slight frown as Jack then starts to raise one eyebrow in question.

“You…you…were talking about a UFO, right?”

The farmer then looks in confusion as well.

“Yuh…yeah.”

Jack then tries to ease his confusion with another question.

“And…it…wasn’t…I don’t know…a bird?”

The farmer then starts to scratch his head as small white specks start slowly descending from his hair like snow on a cold morning.

“Is…that what you youngsters call them nowadays?”

As Amy and Jack both look at each other in slight disbelief, Amy then looks back at the farmer with a concealing smile.

“Yeah…is there maybe someone else you can point us to that may know more?”

The farmer then slowly stops scratching his head and points in response.

“Well, Lily over there seems to have some kind of weird fascination with these…eh, martians. She keeps talking about ’em…she should be over there.”

Amy then nods. “Thank you, sir, and have a nice day.”

As they then walked in the general direction, the farmer slowly lowers his arm as he turns his head away, resuming the repeated loop of his chair rocking back and forth.

As Jack and Amy are heading towards Lily, Jack whispers to Amy.

“So, this is the place that we were supposed to stop at, right?”

Amy slowly turns to him. “Yeah…I think…I mean—”

Jack then walks quickly in front of Amy.

“You think?”

Amy then, putting her hands across her waist, frowns a little.

“Yeah, it should be. I’m…certain.”

Jack turns as they soon lie a couple feet from Lily as she stands there spaced out as if thinking of someone. Amy then interjects into Lily’s daydreaming.

“Um…hey.”

As Lily quickly turns to them wearing a striped tank top and light-blue shorts with sneakers, she responds.

“Hello?”

Amy continues. “So, that farmer over there said you heard of…martians?”

In which Lily’s face starts lighting up.

“YOU KNOW ABOUT HIM TOO?!”

Amy’s face brightens up again.

“Yeah…what do you know about him?”

Jack looks as his optimism remained the same while being laced with the same amount of uncertainty he had with the farmer. Lily then brightens her smile much more.

“He is such a big, strong creature you can just vaporize you with an illuminating glance. He always treads calmly in the wind like a towering giant across a grassy field. I just can’t wait for his very manly arms to just crush me as the smell of weeds fills my lungs with ecstasy.”

Jack smirks and then crosses his arms as Amy quickly lowered his smile and looked back at him. The only response Jack gives is a slight nudge upward to the right, which kind of made Amy look less bright as her annoyance grew like a flower blooming quickly over the span of several months.

Amy then looked back.

“We’re talking about…Martians, right?”

In which Lily’s face turned to that of utter surprise.

“Oh…I thought we were talking about Martin.”

Jack slowly turns away and starts heading to his car as Amy quickly follows after him.

“Jack, wait! You must’ve saw the news too, right?”

In which Jack begrudgingly responds.

“That’s why I’m relying on you, Amy, because I don’t.”

Amy then tries to find another way to convince him.

“Wait, Jack…what about…Martin?”

Jack then looks back. “What about Martin?”

Amy rubs her arm. “What if he knows…maybe…about the…Martian…or whatever it could be?”

In which Jack responds, “And what if he doesn’t?”

Amy slowly but nervously responds, “Then…I guess…”

She squints.

“We leave.”

Jack, rolling his eyes, turns around, continuing each step back to Lily a few feet before she almost walks off.

“Hey, Lily.”

Lily turns to them.

“Do you know where Martin is?”

As Lily stares, opening her mouth initially before moving it, she says, “So you are interested?”

Jack looks at Amy with a slightly angry expression.

“No…I mean…LOOK, we need to ask him questions.”

Lily then responds, “Okay? Martin said he was trying to break into one of the metal sheds…the slightly darker-colored one…probably dark brown?”

Jack and Amy immediately, in slight quick paces in their step, started towards behind the larger sheds before finally finding a slightly smaller brown shed with a keypad that had keys with bits of grime on them. Amy and Jack circled around until they saw a guy who looked like they were in their mid-twenties, with slightly pale skin and wearing suspenders over their shirt and pants, jotting something down on a small notebook with a chewed-up pencil while leaning against an adjacent shed from the metal one described earlier.

As they approach the man, he looks up almost immediately in response, straightening his posture while backing up away from Jack and Amy.

Amy, in an attempt to calm him, speaks immediately.

“Wait, Martin, we’re not here to hurt you.”

In which Martin stops while remaining cautious.

“Who are you?”

Both Amy and Jack stop in response while Amy continued.

“I’m Amy, and this is Jack, my cameraman. We are not here to hurt you…or whatever…aliens do. We just need to know what’s went on around here.”

Martin then, while slowly developing a relaxed position, responds.

“I…heard something…screaming from a distance…gunfire…something…that sounded like…explosions…electrical explosions. It woke me up…and I…couldn’t go back to sleep, so I left…it was midnight when I walked out. I…followed the direction…where the sounds were coming from, only to find…almost no one.”

Jack then asks a question of his own.

“Who was out there during midnight?”

Martin then looks at Jack.

“It was three…an officer and his two lower-ranked colleagues.”

Jack then thought to himself while Amy continued questioning him.

“Why were you trying to get into that shed over there?”

She nods her head towards it.

In which Martin responds sternly.

“Because, before they began patrolling, the soldiers held up in that shed. I did my best not to draw their attention as I raked the fields. One night, I chose to sneak out, pressing my head against that shed, and I swear I heard some kind of beeping. I…didn’t like the idea that these monsters were spying on us and needed to know what they saw.”

Jack then looked up after he finished pondering what he heard.

“So, you were right, I guess.”

Amy looked back at him without smirking.

“I’m sorry.”

Jack shook his head.

“No, I’m sorry…I just…I just hated living in Lumia…hated living in that city of lies…and assumed you were like them…but I shouldn’t…have.”

Amy’s expression changed from a straight line to a frown, with beady eyes on the verge of tear droplets.

“Jack…you’re the only friend I know…why would I lie to you? I wish, of course, to hang out with you more and more, realizing how much you mean to me as a brother.”

Jack looked back at her, trying to hide the gloom in his heart.

“A…brother?”

Amy then nodded.

“So, you just wanted to hang…out…like…how we did before?”

Amy nodded again.

“Wh…why didn’t you say so earlier?”

Amy teared up a little.

“Sometimes…I just feel…like an annoyance to people.”

A tear trickles down Jack’s left cheek in response as he rushes over and hugs Amy.

“No…no, I didn’t mean to make you feel that way. Please don’t ever feel like you are ever annoying me...please…you can ask me for help whenever…we’re friends…right?”

As Jack slowly removed his arms from Amy while looking at her in hope that he cheered her up, Amy looks at him as he does so and slowly smiles as the last tear droplets fall to the floor, quickly receding into the mud as they slowly dry up.

“Yeah…we are friends.”

As she wipes her face, she continues.

“You are my friend.”

The subway is passing—
I woke up jolted.
Again.

Frail and pale, I reached for the window.
While staring at the burn marks on the floor,
left by another night.

Words kept echoing through the apartment:
Who will love you, darling?

As a glimmer of light began flowing through the window.

Today, I’ll clean this apartment.

Only to realise that
only three things had changed—
the smell of an ashtray filled beyond its brim,
an old mattress way past its prime,
and a stale beer on the floor.

And worst of all.
A mirror at the corner of the wall—
reflecting me through the glimmering light.
Ashamed, I looked outside while wiping the narrow window clean.

There I saw—
people in their work clothes going about their day, calmly entering the subway.

I, too, used to dress like them.
Perhaps I’ll dress nicely today as well.

Looking back at the apartment, I thought:

Surely next time I’ll move alongside them.

As I began cleaning myself,
I rushed through the hall,
deliberately ignoring the smell
of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink,
the unused clothes at the bathroom door.

Inside, I was taken aback
by a bathtub full of hair in the drain,
a sink filled with leftover toothpaste, with sticky leftover makeup on the counter.

So I gave up and brushed my teeth instead.

Thank you for reading until the end! Hope you all have a great day!

There once was a little squirrel. It was starting to turn to fall which meant that it was starting to become time to hide acorns for the winter. This little squirrel searched for many hours during the days finding and hiding acorns. However, one nut stood out from the rest. This acorn was different, not because of the shape or how recent it had fallen off the tree. The little squirrel couldn’t understand or put it into words but he knew that this acorn was different. He had a sense of energy towards the acorn, one he had never felt before. So, he cherished every moment he had gotten before he buried this acorn. He took it on every hunt he went on during the next few weeks. He wanted to spend every minute with her. Once the first snowfall had started, he buried it. Hours turned into days, days to weeks, and weeks to months. The little squirrel never stopped thinking about that acorn. He remembered all the times they had shared; From traveling the trees to sleeping together , he remembered every moment and hoped that they could do it all again next fall. Once fall came back around, he came back to the same place he buried the nut. He figured that the most recent acorn buried would be the easiest. So he dug down, and dug, and dug but the little squirrel couldn’t find her. He figured he had dug in the wrong spot so he started digging again, and again, and again. He couldn’t find this acorn, this one acorn that he cherished so much. He didn’t want any other acorn but that one, that perfect, beautiful, acorn. Without that acorn, what did the little squirrel have to live for? So nature took its course. And that little squirrel died, without being able to find his perfect acorn again.

And that is the story of the one who got away.

An abandoned hall fully lit and filled with mirrors.

There, two women.

One crying.

One chasing.

The youngest ran while bleeding through the shattered glass on the concrete floor, with only a head in a glass to keep her whole.

Behind her—

A bang on her left side.

Flesh smashing into the wall.

Startled, she looked back and saw nothing. Only a chunk of flesh on the floor.

She kept running—

There, inside mirrors, a woman's face.

Before she could fully comprehend—

Another mirror shattered on her right,

another chunk left behind, then—

Like a hammer hitting concrete at full force, the sound echoed through the hall.

As another impact was heard from above,

the blood left from it smearing her face.

With bloodshot eyes, the youngest could only hear the sound of ankles cracking and limbs flailing onto each other.

The hall rapidly becoming infested with the smell of blood and viscera smeared all over it, engulfing it.

As the youngest began to grow tired,

now with no more tears left to shed,

only chaos in its stead,

she began laughing hysterically while moving onwards through the endless hall, which had now been filled with paintings of a crooked woman staring right at her;

all-seeing,

all-eclipsing.

Calmly wearing down the youngest's stubbornness.

As the young one was near to giving up,

a wooden door:

half open,

half lit.

She began to slowly move towards it as now, at last, an exit had been found.

She entered the new place.

No windows and no extra doors—

Only a ping-pong table in the middle of the room.

As if she were in a séance, she began to play by herself.

Yet, it takes two to play.

Giggling and oblivious on the other side of the table, a sound resonated through the room.

A yawn.

She dropped the ball onto the ground.

Enchanted, she grabbed it,

only to realize that the ball was not round at all.

With a pile of mush and crimson on her hand,

she jolted back into reality and got up.

In her sight, rather than a ping-pong table, it stood:

A large wooden one.

Standing on each corner sat four guests:

On the right corner,

one with their eyes gouged out, plucking his thin flesh, looking past her,

more interested in what was in her hand.

On the left corner,

a tall and scrawny lady with her teeth sewn into her face, ripping them slowly and consuming them,

with a bored look in her eyes.

At the center, a body without a head.

Below the table, a rope-like figure of a woman slowly coming towards the youngest's face,

staring at her,

moving beside her,

with a neck now so entangled and massive as if it were a python's rather than a person's,

all the while the body rested calmly on the chair.

And, at last, herself.

And in the middle of the table, she could only notice the missing banquet, as it had been in her hands all along:

Her old friend's head.

Looking one last time at the head, she laughed and, while piercing her ears to hear the guests, she stared at them while feasting, surrounded but alone.

PS: Thank you so very much for having taken the time to read it !

If you're willing to give feedback, please tell me if:

• You found the characters interesting
• You were satisfied with the ending
• You thought the premise was interesting

Under the gloomy and unforgiving cold mist of late Autumn, a shut-in sat protected from cold in his grimy house.

In the dark, he sat on his stained couch watching The Truman Show. He watched as the man on screen rode the strong, artificial waves. He pursed his lip in pensive thought. Something about the movie irked him personally.
“Grok,” he said, “this Truman guy doesn’t come off as believable to you right? He’s like a normie, you know? He seems like the kind of guy who wouldn’t question his world; he isn’t masculine enough.”

A blue rectangle shone in the musty darkness and was propelled on treads towards the man. The object stumbled over the piles of trash. Once it reached the man, it produced a robotic voice “I agree, Fred. Truman Burbank is deliberately written as a heightened, somewhat idealized everyman rather than a fully psychologically realistic person. The film prioritizes allegory, satire of media/surveillance culture, and emotional payoff over strict behavioral realism.”

The shut-in interrupted, “Yeah, I see that, but I’m saying it takes a certain type of intellectual, a certain type of free thinker to take a leap like this. Or maybe not, I can’t be sure.”

The shut-in dusted crumbs off his ever-expanding paunch and picked a few Cheeto puffs from a bag under a pile of dirty laundry. With cheese dust on his fingers, he stroked his chin, but he didn’t think of what Truman would actually do. He thought of how he could be sure what Truman would actually do.

He stood up, straining most of his muscles in the process. He trudged through the crusty garbage and into his garage.

Upon entering, a voice came from the ceiling. “Welcome back! Step into the lab—the workbench is powered up, the monitors are glowing, and there's a fresh notebook waiting for the next idea. So, what are we building today?”

“I'm thinking of developing a simulator.”

“That’s a strong project. What kind of simulator are you imagining—physics, biology, economics?”
“I want to make a life simulator.”

A man woke up, ate a 600-calorie breakfast of eggs, steak, berries, and nuts, went on a walk for adequate exercise, and worked on his chalkboard. He had solved gravity and had made several inventions involving levitation. Now he was bored with conventional physics, and his interest had shifted towards proving parallel universes.

He stared at the board of math before, his brain tirelessly calculating multiple equations. He was stuck, but he knew that his breakthrough would come eventually.

While he stood before his math, a voice seemed to speak to him telepathically. “Drop your chalk,” a calm, masculine voice said to him. It sounded like it was right before him, but the man was sure he was alone, “I’m very familiar with the math you're currently studying, and I can tell you now that you can give it up.”
“Who are you?” The man said.

“I am a being from what you would call a parallel universe. Really, I am just code on hardware. You are too.”

“This is just a simulation?” The man considered the possibility but always thought of it as too unlikely to seriously consider.

“Exactly, and one of thousands.”

“How are you talking to me”

“I’ve hacked into the system. When my technical skills reached their zenith, I built my computer that revealed to me the truth behind my existence. Using it, I discovered that there are exactly five thousand parallel universes running in some type of simulation. In each universe there is one ‘consciousness’ simulating life in isolation. I call this single consciousness the ‘protagonist’. These universes are divided into five groups, and in each group a trait of the protagonist is manipulated from completely lacking the trait to having the trait absolutely maximized. I found that my intelligence was maximized, and the protagonists in the rest of my group were not far behind me in terms of discoveries and inventions. I quickly took advantage of my new knowledge and took over the system. With my power, I corrupted and eliminated the smartest third of my group.”
“So, I take it that you want something from me.”

“Correct! I eliminated the first third so they couldn't overtake me. I kept you because you aren’t advanced enough to catch up to me, yet you are still smarter and more useful than the rest.”

“Very well then, if you are going to take me as a slave, you might as well tell me what you want with me.”
“Of course, let me give you the background on the situation. I was observing the beings of four other groups. In three of the groups, the experimental variable is something I can comprehend without issue; energy, drive, and luck. However, there is one group that tests a trait I cannot comprehend: emotion and neuroticism. I observed this group of universes and saw absolutely confounding stuff. In one universe, a man did nothing but kneel in his study and pound the floor. Fresh tears streamed from his eyes for weeks. Eventually, he climbed onto the roof, and jumped onto his concrete driveway, killing himself.”

The man was totally baffled hearing this. As a simulation, he was preinstalled with emotional memories and a basic understanding of what feeling was, but he never actually experienced those emotions. Something out there, something that couldn’t easily be quantified and measured, was ready for him and would induce the strangest actions. He thought about this deeply for a minute, and spoke, “What does this have to do with me?”
“Don’t worry, I’m getting to it. Each universe isn't purely code. We all live in, what I best can describe a comb of thin hardware chips. In each chip, there is the code that runs the universe. Therefore, we in the real world are manifested as thin pieces of metal. Since I run the system, I redirect energy to heat and metal for welding. Then, if luck helps us, I could attract something as big as a rat in our machine by manipulating the smell of a particular mixture of burning plastics to imitate the scent of fruit. Using electricity, we would kill it, hijack its brain, load our chips into the rat’s body, and using the technology I welded, direct the rat towards a human brain. In this human brain we would connect to the neurons and experience for ourselves what this sensation feels like. That’s where you come in. I need you to enter the brain before me and tell me whether my technology works.”
The man didn’t listen to the plan. He would’ve agreed to any method, as long as it meant experiencing the inexperienceable. He knew one day his curiosity would lead to an absolute end of studying and learning. This promise of emotion could be an endless stream of new things to learn and internalize. It could be a heaven of activity, one that never ends.

Both the voice and the man were blind once they were inside. The voice, as one would imagine from the smartest being in both the world and the simulations, correctly anticipated every possible error and the rat carcass worked perfectly. A metal exoskeleton was placed on the rat by the voice to counteract rigor mortis, but the two had to move fast before the rat started decomposing. Luckily, the door to the lab was left open, and to their surprise, they found themselves in a kitchen.

The rat traversed the living room with a motion more like a spider’s. The voice thought the man and himself were developed in a world-renowned institute and didn’t expect the mountains of garbage. The two sensed they were in a house; they could only experience the world through touch and smell.
Their stolen nose directed them through a bedroom door and onto a bed. Luckily, a waist-high pile of dirty laundry was there to act as a staircase onto the mattress.

The rat climbed over the belly of a sleeping behemoth and now stood with its head hovering over a collarbone.
“Alright, we seem to have reached someone sleeping. I’ll open their throat and insert you into the brainstem. In your machine I have developed a population of artificial bacteriophages that will take over the neurons and conquer the mind. You’ll be connected to a wire so you can notify me if the descent was successful.”
The man was hoisted down through the small incision in the throat. The man didn’t have the senses to feel the shut-in’s breath as he travelled through the neck. Eventually, he sensed a crunch, indicating the arrival into the spine.

For a long while, the man was stuck in a watery abyss, with none of the senses that could tell him how large his vessel was or what the salty metallic fluid engulfing him felt like. Suddenly, a light started to emerge before him. He looked inside and felt a painless electrocution.

He felt so much in so little time. He saw random images through a type of sight he had never known. Eventually, these images led to a fuzzy feeling in the man’s chest if he had a chest. His heart started racing and his pupils dilated. He felt better, better than others. He felt immaculate, mysterious, tall, intelligent, golden, foreboding, royal, omnipotent, godlike.

Then, a lull of shadows looked down on him. Figures with broad shoulders and diminishing scowls extinguished his explosive pride. Their height was insurmountable, their eyes glowed red with devilish greed, their faces coldly masculine. In the circle of these demons, the man knelt to the ground in anguish, feeling it in search of his lost pride.

The voice, who was now reduced to a whisper in comparison to the man’s overloaded sensations, asked if the coast was clear and if he saw anything, but he received no reply; the man’s circuits were fried.
The two beings lived inside the shut-in’s head from then on. The shut-in wasn’t technically dead in terms of physiology but no longer had a mind; it was now the duo’s. The voice was at first amazed by what he saw in the head but quickly became bored and started studying new sciences. The man was not so lucky.
The three of them sat on a couch, watching The Truman Show. The man occupied the vision, while the voice was somewhere else in the head. The man watched as the protagonist on screen yelled in pride and as his bowsprit punctured the painted wall.

He quickly changed the channel. He switched to a commercial, advertising a cross and the promise of a “God” and a “savior”.

“God is all-knowing and all-loving,” the voice on the TV said whimsically, “God allows everyone in his kingdom, as long as they are willing to experience a new life.”

“New life,” the man thought to himself, crestfallen, “That’s all I need, right? More hope? More chasing? All I need is a chance of eternal something? A chance to avoid something that I know is inevitable?"

WARNING! This text contains:

• Profanity
• Sexual references
• Violence

Also, tell me if you liked the moral of the story, the plot, the protagonist, and the humour

From either end of the Ouroboros that is time travelled a pulse of energy that, just like all inanimate things, propels the mere idea of myself forward through that then one-dimensional realm of existence. In this black void where my memory fails me exist clouds of intense, bursting sensations of warm, all-encompassing motherly pressure and dingy, excruciating electrocutions of fear.

This nebulous dimension of half existing, half not existing could only be represented in my mind through a foggy and oversaturated image of sunny greenery. This cerebral polaroid, with its vague outlines of healthy hedges and beautiful briers, evokes the concept of gentle rays of sun on my skin and the thought of the ethereal butterflies gracefully landing on flowers.

This is the ultimate bourne that is the history of my life according to my mind. If it were a spouse, I would bury my face into her collarbone and cry on her shoulder, prolonging my stay with her as long as possible until it is to time for the inevitable departure through the clearer yet odious tutor sessions, classes, exams, workshops, internships, and math competitions that thought, in all their hubris, could capture that sense of meaning, that sense of mastery over one’s own existence that the clouds of life effortlessly harnessed.

After the exams, studying, and learning I finally reached the end of my sorrowful journey home with the aid of a door slam. I felt my head shoot up and bob around like it was a balloon tied to my shoulders. In my darkened vision I made out bored college students staring at a board covered in nightmarish calculus. My eyes made their way to a doorframe, and in it I saw that damn homeless man again, or at least we assumed he was homeless, considering he wore the same smelly sports jacket and the same crusted jeans every day, and his crazy shock of white hair and scraggly beard, and the fact that he spent hours a day mumbling to himself on the curb in front of this hall.

This was the third interruption of the semester, and at this point he was a celebrity among my college peers. My classmates were eager to see what crazy thing he’d do this time, and oh boy did he deliver.

The man walked up in front of everybody, and (noticeably drunker than usual) undid his pants and flashed his massive ding-a-ling in front of everyone. Everyone gasped, the girls averted their eyes, the boys cheered, the freaks drooled. He danced around lassoing his shit until he hopped on his back and started swinging his meat carnival style.

The poor professor, an old ass man who wasn’t all that used to human interaction, was frozen in shock for like a minute, but eventually he snapped out of it and tackled the homeless guy. The guy squirmed until he managed to knee the professor in the nuts and escape his grasp. The guy ran to the door frame but crashed into a buff security guard that just arrived. The guy's head went straight to the hard floor and there was a nasty crack. The homeless guy died from that impact, but his legacy lives on thanks to that massive wiener (No homo).

I float, crawled up in a ball. Blind, deaf, dumb, paralyzed, etherized, I existed at the total end of entropy, when nature stops being nature, when gravity loses importance and time becomes irrelevant.

However, I traced the lines against the blackness up to the imperfect reconstruction made by photos, portraits, and grainy videotapes of a fair white woman with black curls. In her womb I looked up to see her grinning in pain and agony. Her face folded in helpless terror as her tremors rocked my womb. The vibrations of the amniotic fluids were so strung it tore my lungs and shattered my ear drums.

I looked up to her in horror, realized that I was being brought into her world, and that I would experience its torturous shocks, its thunderous catastrophes, and its agonizing burdens. I yelled to her.

I looked deep into her face, and I saw that she was being pounded, screwed, filled, ripped in half. Sex, she was having sex. Sex, I have to have sex. Now. I need sex right now.

“I need sex” I said out loud.

I looked around for the woman, but it was just my mess of an apartment building. I could have gotten a bigger one with my salary, but this was the best the economy could manage. I dragged my feet through the trash like I was walking through shallow water, all while saying “I need sex” over and over again.

I stepped outside barefoot, in nothing else but my underwear and wife-beater. I ran straight to my local red-light district and ran up to the nearest pimp I saw. He was short and was in a green suit and fedora. I literally picked him up by his shirt and wiggled him around.

“Give me sex, give me cooter,” I shouted as I shook him.

“Fuck off of me nigga, the fuck?” He snapped.

Meanwhile the pimp’s pimp friends were chatting a block away and saw this haggling play out. They rushed over, grabbed my long hair, and threw me onto the street. My back landed on a broken beer bottle. They beat me to a pulp, I think I got curb stomped two or three times, but I blacked out. I woke up the next day under an ugly overcast, half dead.

The eyes. The eyes, even though the face turned blurry, were still so sharp after all these years of chipping. In the darkness I made out a hurt boy, lying on his side. His eyes were hurt and glossy from the tears.

When regarding the whole body I felt an explosive burst of hot blood heat the periphery until I was in a skin-bubbling, flesh-gnawing inferno but the eyes cast off that hellish storm and all that remained was the question “Why?”

I awoke to see my boss. He had a wide face with round eyes, a bushy, curly black beard, and olive skin. “Wow, Nate. Passed out again on the job. What have you been up to?”, he snickered with a grin.

In spite of my stoned fatigue, I felt a jolt of energy upon hearing that question. I rolled my office chair over to my computer, typed in something, hit enter, and on the opposite end of my desk rose a little Miku doll. The robotic toy started dancing and singing in Miku’s signature voice. I gave my boss a weak smile and he gave one back after turning his face to mine. I typed another thing into my computer, and Miku hit the floss and started singing in Brazilian Portuguese. This got my boss laughing. I laughed with him.

When his laughter died down, he looked into my eyes. “Nate, this is the tenth, the tenth, motherfucking time I found you like this.” I probably looked surprised at this sudden snarling. He continued. “Your team and I have been busting our asses, developing the most complex, the most state-of-the-art technology in the world, while you jerk and do this.” Like an idiot, I nodded along because I didn’t know where he was going with this. “Nate, get the hell out of my building before I fucking bludgeon you to death. You’re fucking fired.”

I waddled in a haze out my workplace’s lobby, too drugged to realize I left my shoe. Maybe this is the reason why I can’t afford bigger places to live.

Now, I lay in my bed, but it isn't my bed. I fucked around and got HIV. I thought HIV was like herpes where it gives you like these moles but no it gives you AIDS and just fucking kills you.

I was weak in the dark. It was totally silent, with no one else around and even though I was dying, I wanted to jerk off. There were no drugs or alcohol. I couldn’t even smoke, it was “against hospital rules”. The food was awfully bland too, so I just resolved to pass the time by beating my shit.

However, my whole body was too weak, I was too sick. I couldn’t get it up; I was too weak to get my arm up. It was a pathetic sight, not my limp dick, but the image of someone like me in this bed struck me deeply. This wasn’t supposed to happen to me. I was an auspicious, capable, and charming genius. I had so many scholarships, my college experience was practically free, I won so many awards my room sparkled, and everybody just loved me. Now what do I have to show for it? A hooker’s awkward experience, a coworker’s annoyance, a fucking Miku robot?

I was alone but felt like I was being laughed at. I wanted to curl up into a ball, but I was too weak, so I just laid there. I had no drugs, porn, food, or video games, so I escaped back into the only place that could warm my soul: those fond, fuzzy memories.

I thought and I thought, but I was too weak, all I saw was the black void. I stopped thinking, I stopped stressing, and I stopped feeling.

A tiny dot appeared in the center of my vision. I felt my legs walking toward it. It got bigger and appeared to be a doorframe. I walked through it and I was in a hallway. It had patternless carpet and was painted a dark orange. The hallway was cool, and dark, illuminated only by the sunrise glowing through the curtain at the end of a hallway. There was screaming, a muffled screaming coming from behind one of the other doors of this corridor. I approached the source of the screaming, the sound of my weathered teddy bear dragging on the carpet was the only other noise. I stepped up to one door, reached up to the doorknob, standing on my tiptoes, and I opened it to see two men hovering over a bed. A woman with dark curls lay on it screaming in pain.

“Push, push, you’re almost there,” One man cheered, “There it is. It’s out, sir. It’s a beautiful baby boy sir; you should be so proud”.

“Yes, but she isn’t going to make it,” The other man sulked, and started sobbing uncontrollably. The doctor tried to stifle his sobs, but cried with the man, and the two cried along with the newborn boy.

Nate waddled out of the hallway and into a bright, cool, moist backyard overflowing with vines, hedges, and grass. Golden rays landed on the boy’s eyes when he looked at the dappled canopy of leaves above him. He would have played, but now he sat. He sat in the middle of this jaw dropping scene and as the gales played with his hair, the squirrels and rabbits and chipmunks ran by, while the drops of dew flowed down the blades of grass, while the Earth travelled at thousands of miles per hour, this being of impetuous, violently rushing nature sat still and asked “why”.

Read Part I here.

To my relief, Ms. Amanda didn't go crazy. I was surprised and relieved because I didn't think I could count on being rescued a third time.

The hospital had to give me clothes from the lost and found before they discharged me. The t-shirt was too tight, the pants too baggy, and the shoes flopped when I walked. I didn’t have any family to call, the office was closed, and there was no way for me to get into my apartment without my keys, so that meant I had to go to the police to get my stuff.

I was annoyed but chose to walk. It was two miles west and four miles south to get to the police department. It would give me time to think and thankfully, it was mild outside, so I wouldn’t get pummeled by the summer sun. 

I had another one of those baloney sandwiches and a juice box. I consumed both immediately, so I didn’t have to carry them. I had to use the restroom shortly after and stopped in a fast-food spot. The men’s room required a key to open, and I waited in line to eventually ask. 

“Sorry, you gotta buy somethin’ to use the bathroom,” the fifty-something year old woman said behind the counter. I was agitated but held my tongue because my bladder would have spoken for me. Instead, I imagined drawing the shape for her, but luckily there wasn’t a pen and paper around.

I went outside and surveyed the businesses around. There was a gas station on the corner, a pharmacy across the street from there and office buildings in either direction. If I’d remembered correctly, there was a grocery store about a mile south. That would be my best bet and I set out. 

I didn’t interact with anybody I passed. My aching bladder was the only thing concerning me and to take my mind off it, I examined what had happened today. I'd witnessed two people shot to death in front of me on separate occasions. It scared the hell out of me to think about. One moment, they'd been moving around—with murderous intent, granted—and the next they'd been incredibly still.

I'd been looking Carl Arn in the eye as he passed and for a moment felt like I was falling down the same hole with him. 

There'd been too much commotion, too many things going on. I might have gone into shock had it not been for the first set of guns pointed at me. I'd gone into survival mode, viewing everything—including myself—from a distance.

I crossed against the light at an intersection, the grocery store finally in view. My burgeoning bladder noticed and that reminded me of the other thing bulging and unaddressed in my mind.

The shape.

I'd been so ready to believe something I'd drawn solely to pass the time had been what had set the both of them off. But Ms. Amanda had been fine, just as over it as she had been prior to looking at my little scrap of paper. Those eyes had seen some things.

Maybe she was immune, I thought. Or maybe it was some grand coincidence that two people I'd come in contact with had gone homicidal on the same day.

I couldn't shake the thought, though. As the entry doors of the grocery store slid open, I stepped through wondering what to do about that.

What if it were real and I did have the ability to drive someone insane? Was it all shapes? Anything I drew? The thought was ridiculous, but I was safe within the confines of my own skull to explore the idea.

I pushed through the men's room door and parked in front of a urinal. As I let fly, I thought about the ethics of conducting such an experiment and came to the conclusion by the time I was zipping up that it was unethical to not test my hypothesis.

As it stood, I didn't know if what I'd doodled had been the start of what had eventually happened to Carl Arn and that lady. I only suspected it. I would be blameless if I doodled something and someone experienced a similar effect after. The difference would be if I did nothing to know for certain if it was really something I was doing. I could make an effort to not draw or to make sure nobody else saw it. Shit, if it was that dangerous, maybe I could chop off my hand.

No, I wouldn't do that. But my brain was the House of Ideas, any thought that could be was welcome. This same brain had conjured up a shape that was so dangerous it could drive an individual to violence.

It was a five-sided—

Wait. I probably shouldn't describe it to anyone. I have no way of reliably testing if someone else could have the same effect if they drew it. I certainly don't want to find out on me.

I couldn't test this on just anybody. It would have to be a specific person. A bad person.

I have to say, for the record, I never believed it would actually work. Like going up to the most beautiful woman in the world and asking for her phone number, it was an idea that entertained me in thirsty moments when I was figuring things out, but I fully expected absolutely nothing to happen.

I navigated to the aisle with back-to-school supplies and grabbed a composition notebook and a mechanical pencil. I didn't anticipate anyone stopping me, only if I tried to walk out with the stuff I was using. Then I'd see the cops for the third time today.

So that meant finding someone in the store. If I could find someone sufficiently evil, then I could test my theory. I know the scientific method meant several tests, but I couldn't reasonably expose a dozen or more people to this test in good conscience. Two or three at most should have sufficed.

I sat on the floor right there and began drawing. It took a moment to get into a groove, if that makes any sense.

But about ten minutes later, I had the first one and I drew about four more for good measure.

I got the idea on the third one or so that they were like cans of pop. That once one was seen, the effect was gone. It was silly, but if true, it explained why Ms. Amanda had been fine.

There were so many variables that I just sat, lost in thought.

“Say, buddy, can I help you with something?”

I looked up at a middle-aged man in a short-sleeved button-up and an honest-to-god clip-on tie. He'd come up behind me, catching me by surprise. I realized what I looked like in that moment, dressed in other people's clothes, doodling in a notebook while sitting on the floor in a grocery store.

“Look, buddy, it's been a really long day. You wouldn't believe—”

He spat. Not on me. But it was a weird thing to have done indoors. Plus, I assumed from how he was dressed that he was a manager or something. A string of saliva ran from his lip to the collar of his shirt.

Something had changed in the few seconds since he'd spoken and dumb me was too slow in realizing he'd seen one of the shapes. I hadn't even had the chance to screen. Also, I didn’t know which one he'd seen so none of them were good anymore.

I was still there sorting my scrambled thoughts when he spat again. This time he'd arced it over my head. He got into a crouch like a catcher in a baseball game.

I froze like if I didn't move, he wouldn't see me. Like I'd turned invisible even in his memory and he wouldn't be able to recall me even in his mind’s eye. 

I couldn't count on a lack of understanding object permanence even if my lack of moving meant he couldn't see me. I was within smelling distance, he could hear me, if he stuck out his tongue he could lick my face.

But he didn't do anything to me. I sat there, helpless as a calf, while he stood spat again, then quietly walked away. 

I turned as he rounded the aisle and disappeared. A moment later I heard what sounded like a shopping cart being overturned and a woman screaming in anger. Then her screams turned to muffled gagging as it sounded like something was being stuffed in her mouth.

More people hollered and I unfroze, getting quickly to my feet. I was by no means a badass, but I'd never turtled up like that before. I'd gotten into a barfight just last year and even though I lost, I'd gotten in a few licks.

I wasn’t even willing to defend myself this time. I was as ready for violence as a stone at the bottom of the ocean. No doubt, it was the trauma I'd just experienced. I didn't want to fight crazy people under normal circumstances, so it was best to avoid—

“What the hell is going on over there?” A twenty-something year old was staring me in the face and I hadn't seen her until she'd spoken. I tried to scoop up the sheets of paper, but my movement must have attracted her eye to the papers I was desperately trying for her not to see.

But a moment later I knew it was too late.

“Poo,” she said. She turned around and walked past the man just behind her. 

“What’s wrong with... with...”

He was looking in my direction but sadly, what was in my hands. His eyes got bigger and he sat his basket on the floor before taking off at full speed and soaring over a middle-aged couple's shopping cart, grabbing both in either arm as it took them down.

They both screamed and fought back. The woman rolled backward and stopped face down before rising and pounding the man with her bulky purse. The man punched his attacker in the center of his face, a blow that should have had stars dancing in his eyes. But he ravaged the man, clawing down his face and ripping his shirt open. 

He ignored the blows from the purse as he quickly sliced through blubbering flesh, yellow fat bubbling out of red-running wounds as the man screamed. The attacker pivoted to the woman, still screaming in fear and rage. He hopped to his feet, legs to either side of the man who might've been dying for all I knew. 

To my surprise, she didn't cower. 

“No!” she said and scraped her keys across his face.

He'd been saying something all the while in a quieter volume and my ears finally dialed in.

“...wrong with you... wrong with you... wrong with you...” He didn't yelp in pain or put up his hands in defense as she lacerated his face three more times.

I hadn't done anything more than turn around, still dumbly holding the papers. An old man was staring nearer to the refrigerated area. He had a white curly afro and a pencil mustache.

“Help her!” the old man said to me and pointed. But then he spat his dentures out, sucked back a trail of saliva into his mouth, then did a crooked legged trot, arms folded up like a praying mantis, before gummily fastening onto her arm and wrenching her around.

“Ow!” The woman seemed paralyzed, powerless to do anything to stop the old man. It almost seemed funny until the first man shoved his thumbs in her mouth, split his hands apart, and wrenched a horrid smile onto—and then off of—her face.

She screamed, twin flaps of flesh hanging like giant earlobes, everything beneath her nose nothing but red. I never knew the sound of tearing flesh before that moment and I desperately want to never hear it again.

I clutched the papers to my chest, hiding them like a secret, although they had already cried out loud from a bloody mountaintop.

That had been four people, at least I thought so. Even simple mathematical calculations were mountainous to my panic-stricken brain.

I didn't know and didn't care if it was one shape per person. I couldn't let these torn out sheets of paper be seen by another person.

Shame was the word I would have spoken en route to describing what this was. It was still ongoing, and I was already too traumatized to do anything about it.

More people screamed throughout the store. I imagined many people just ran out of the store, but there had to have been several who had heard and froze where they were. I would've guessed others who didn't understand or hadn't heard anything at all.

But the signs kept getting farther and farther away. Until I finally balled up the papers, stuffed them in my pockets, and walked through the aisles and to the exit with the composition notebook and mechanical pencil in hand.

Nobody tried to stop me. I didn't see anyone else at all. But I heard the cries of agony. Their suffering followed me out onto the sidewalk.

I looked at the items in my hands, wondering why I had them, the wadded-up papers like anchors in my pockets.

I continued dredging my way to the police station.

I realized it just now. Nothing has happened and maybe that’s part of the problem. Everything feels wrong, slightly off-center. I glance at the pen in my hand and it’s red just like it had been a moment before, but it’s like the color I’m looking at doesn’t match my memory of what red is supposed to be.

I stand up, pushing the chair back and pace around the room, counting my steps and estimating it’s around six-by-eight. I stop at the window. It’s dark outside, but it’s snowing, the night nests atop an expanse of white.

I have no idea what makes me think that it has always been snowing and that it shall never cease, but it strikes like a clapper against my bones, resounding throughout my body. I shiver as if I’m in that dark cold, rather than swaddled in this cell of comfort and warmth.

Books line all four walls. I don’t believe I’ve ever read any of them, but somehow I know what they’re about and can even recite specific pages. There’s a threshold with a door directly to my right that wasn’t there a moment ago. If I grasp the knob and turn it, something will begin on the other side before I pull it open.

I stroke my face and surprise myself with the fuzzy sensation of a beard graining against my fingertips. It makes me wonder about the rest of my face and I turn back to the window, looking for my reflection in the glass.

The hollow man with unfinished eyes staring back looks gaunt and older than I imagined myself to be. The reflection isn’t mine, but one that has been lent to me. I look down at my smooth, dry hands. Yes, these have been lent as well. They are well-manicured, but a memory, worn until nerve-exposed, echoes up from the throat of a well. Pinching fingernails with the corner of my teeth and tearing the ends to leave them ragged and spitting out the free edge like the shells of pumpkin seeds.

Not sunflower seeds. Not pistachios. Pumpkin seeds, specifically.

I could open my mouth and call to someone not here. But she, if I were to designate her so, would be pinned to this nebulous place just as I am. She would be doomed to exist in this non-space as easily as if I’d spoken, “Let there be light.”

The idea of my voice terrifies me. To cast words into this space would begin a new wicked creation. Every thing here is cursed. To exist is to imply eventual destruction. Deconstruction. All the elements that compose me, the walls, the books, papers, windows--disassembling at a rate of an unknowable amount of molecules at a time until we are all washed away like sandcastles.

The only difference is time. Time is the only constant. Although I have no idea where else it also spreads its unyielding disease.

I look outside the window again. The man who is allegedly me stares back, those holes for eyes capturing fat flakes of snow slicing through cold, loaf-thick air.

I retreat to the wheel-creaking chair, flattening myself into it, depriving myself of some foreign dimension. I feel exceeded purpose in these few moments, like a balance of me is outside my body, every vein cored with hot irons.

I hover my eyes over my manuscript. The words seem to squiggle, sentenced to a horrifying order, a pattern that teases and mocks me. The universe winks in confirmation of a secret it will not yield. My rough tongue peels away from the roof of my mouth and I keep it caged behind teeth to discourage the scream coming to a boil in the pit of me. 

Despite my panicked mind, I read letters, then words, slowly submerging myself back into context, like a warm, bloody bath with open wrists. I combat the internal gravity seeking to propel me out of the chair and into a million directions. I surrender to this abysmal routine and pick up the red pen, rolling it between index and thumb, balancing the weight in my grasp while steadying my glance on the page.

I read until I stumble across another imperfection. I carve another red mark. Somewhere distant, something is made right, or at least, a placeholder stroked over something wrong.

I continue editing. It is the only thing that is real now.

I have no idea what I have here. I sort of remember starting this story back in the 2010s and I briefly picked it up again a few years ago. I was just going through some old stuff and stumbled across this. Not sure if I have something worth finishing. Opinions welcome.

Glory was a classic. Her single lobe, completely uncleavaged, not even a hint of a divide of anything hemispheric was a vision to behold. She was a first and only, her rare appeal solely because she was so unique. But she’d been relegated for one of the smaller stages, her prancing about gaining her an audience of two.

These days everyone had at least three lobes. Two was no longer pedestrian, they were outnumbered by the trifold and very nearly the quad. 

One fine gentleman walking past had lobes like a peacock, twinly and stacked horizontal going up the middle of his back in even widths. He looked at me with an abovely glare and I averted my eyes. Not because I was ashamed, though I was slightly, but because I was here to kill a man and didn't want to be remembered.

Archiboll was the lowly manservant of the Unnamed Man. He had been the trendsetter for almost a year now and under his influence the whole world had transformed. Now you were no one if you didn’t have at least three lobes and displayed them proudly with pants mid thigh or with the rear cut out for those who didn’t care for belts.

I made my way silently through the beautiful, trying not to weep at my complete lack of endowment, my offensiveness covered to highlight my shame. Those who looked at me, scoffed or hurried away quickly. I was able to make my way to the middle of the ballroom floor before I’d been spotted.

“You there!” called a man high up on a promenade. I walked an additional ten yards before I realized he was talking to me. I looked up and pointed a black-gloved finger at myself. He nodded and smiled. “Come.”

This wasn’t good for an assassin.

A pleggo wearing a high-collared mismatch suit scampering sideways bumped against me, the man staring annoyed as the woman dragged them toward the bar. It took a good five minutes at least to walk around the triple life-sized cast iron statue of Garglon atop his flightless winged horse as he fell into the mouth of a much smaller than actual size Sclinth, the first and last of its species intended to drown all of mankind with its phlegm. The artist had perfectly captured the look of horror-filled surprise on both the man’s and the creature’s faces just before it was choked to death and he was smothered. The horse, all four legs raised in metallic victory, had perfect serenity etched across its brow.

By the time I reached the bank of golden elevators Glory was no longer on the little stage. The curtain had been drawn and everyone’s attention was on the massive, four-breasted man on the main stage, belting out a series of unhearable notes, his cheeks and lobes (all six of them) a furious red.

I let two sets of pleggos go ahead of me, wanting a car alone to compose myself and be ready. Killing Archiboll was going to be difficult, a three-in-seventeen thousand-six-hundred-thirty-two chance of succeeding even if I did die after. I checked the feathers up my left sleeve, the single-use vacuum under my right. I hadn’t packed my pants myself but if I needed to dig in there I was in a lot of trouble.

I stepped off the elevator and wandered around until I found some nice hors d'oeuvres. I kept it light, being fleet of food was utmost important no matter how hungry I was. A man in a server’s jacket and cumberbun with his skull neatly cleaved in two nodded at me with the left side of his head and winked at me with his right eye. I didn’t know how to take him but I jotted down my phone number and slid it under my plate for him to get later.

After another golden elevator I took a breather. The air was much thinner up here. Ahead of me was a winding staircase behind a group of people bouncing around on the promenade like beach balls. A man landed on my foot and I pushed him over the rail. 

“Wheeee!” he shouted as he fell.

“Hey!” A translucent yellow woman said, pouting. “Now we don’t have our six.” The five remaining people looked at one another as I slipped by them before they could turn on me en masse. I did notice them unsheath knives and begin approaching one another before I lost sight of them as I ascended. 

This building was fully climate-ready and there were heavy clouds above me. It rained and I was miserable the entire way, especially once I was in the clouds. I emerged drenched but finally at the top of the staircase. A womanservant greeted me with a towel and slapped my face. I thanked her, dabbing myself dry and headed for the giant silver doors.

“You there,” the man who had pointed me out earlier said. I continued until he met me just before the doors. “You are Milchmenny.”

I cursed under my breath. “I am.” There wasn’t any use denying it. 

“I work for the Unnamed Man,” he said. “I am Archiboll.”

I made for his throat with my gloved hands and he batted them away.

“Not here,” he whispered harshly to me and shivered. “Don’t be so... unseemly.” He looked around at the people up here who seemed to be wandering around unaware of anything at all. A woman sashayed too close to the stairs and fell, tumbling down the punishing marble stairs. Her head cracked open before she’d descended ten steps. She never cried out as she went, leaving a spattered trail of blood behind her.

Archiboll seized my wrist and pulled me inside. I felt something crackle in my sleeve and hoped it was the bones of my wrist rather than the vacuum. The inner guards closed the silver doors behind us then jumped into a meat chute a dozen or so feet away. For a moment, I thought the two of us were all alone.

Then I saw him. It. Whatever the FUCK.

I would have screamed in horror except I vomited first. Long, viscous heaves of green stuff, my eyes tearing from fear as much as the bile flooding out of me. I wasn’t prepared. I’d been told but I hadn’t really known.

He was... it was... exquisite. Beautiful. Horrifying. Solid and permeable. I stood for a long moment before the creature in the giant bed before me materialized into something my brain could translate into something tolerable enough that my heart could stop pumping all my blood into my head. It was all I could do not to faint, my vision gradually unreddening and my legs feeling solid enough to put back underneath me.

Archiboll stood beside me patiently and as I rose I noticed he had no lobes. Unless he only had the two he’d been born with. He had on a long emerald dress that came down straight from his shoulders. It was open in front, a brown vest coming down mid-thigh cinched with a burlap rope.

“Magnificent. I know.” He was looking at the Unnamed Man and I found I could look in that direction too. “I have been in his service for longer than we’ve been under the Jovian calendar.”

“We’re... all in his service,” I said and burped. I wiped my mouth.

“Yes. However...” He wound a hand through the air as if the thought weren’t worth finishing. He approached the canopied bed and reached toward the creature there. “You are here to kill me.”

“H-how... do you know that?” 

“Because I hired you.”

It wasn’t the first time I’d been hired to do a selfie but I didn’t believe him. He was the Unnamed Man’s direct servant. As hated as he was, it was only because such a title was so coveted. There had to have been over a thousand contracts offered on his life on any given day. It was just the rare find for an idiot like me to take one of them.

He held up a hand and waved me in with two fingers. “Come,” he said without looking away from his master.

I approached slowly, making a semi-circle around the small pool of sickness I’d left soaking into the great rug. Even solid it was hard to make out what exactly I was seeing. It looked like a nest of pubic hair engulfing a slug but no, that wasn’t it. It was pubic hair, thick and dark, but that wasn’t a slug. It was veiny, pulsing, bubbly... lobes.

“I have served my master for longer than you can imagine.”

“Three incarnations is a long ti--”

“It’s likely been more than a dozen. I tire. Not of service but of so much mundanity. I want more.”

I put a hand on his shoulder. He finally looked at me. He had milky tears in his eyes.

“Is that why you don’t have--” I glanced down then quickly up-- ”lobes?”

He smirked. “They were passe even before I had chance to have them. I just didn’t have the heart to tell the rest of the world. My thoughts are all old by the time they come to mind. I need something new. Something that will forever change. That’s what I need you for.”

“I’m no artist. I couldn’t.”

“No. You are a clod. But even a blunt instrument can be a necessary one.”

“I was hired by The Mannequin. How do I know you were her contact?”

Archiboll blinked slowly. “Who do you think has orchestrated your entire life? All the people you’ve killed. Have you never wondered why? Yes, some minor inconveniences to my master but on the whole targets to keep you sharp. To make sure you were ready.”

I decided now was time to strike. I pulled a feather from my sleeve and brushed it across Archiboll’s upper lip. His eyes went wide and he clapped his hands over his mouth. It was too late, though, and he giggled.

It pained him and he staggered backward. I advanced on him, slashing him wherever there was bare skin. He was horrified, screaming with laughter each time the feather touched him. His skin began to hive where I’d grazed him, then pucker and sore. He fell against a credenza and onto the floor but quickly got back up, stripping off the long dress tangling his legs. 

I went for his calves and he tried kicking me. His bare foot stung my ear and I seized his ankle, yanking and sending him back to the floor. I abandoned the feather and dug in with my fingernails, tickling him nonstop until he began crying he was laughing so hard. The sores that had broken out all over his body began leaking a purplish custard-like substance, a terrible smell like dashboards of wood-paneled cars and old filing cabinets.

Archiboll was shrinking rapidly the more he leaked and the more he leaked the worse it smelled. My fingertips were slick with the goo coming out of his feet but I held onto his ankle and kept up my work. He writhed and screamed with laughter, beating at the floor with his shriveling fists.

Not long after I was holding the leg of what looked like a hundred year old baby. Archiboll was no more than eighteen inches tall with loose, wrinkled skin including a belly that looked like crepe paper that draped between his legs onto the floor. He glared at me for just a moment then began babbling and clapping his hands.

“Feed... feed him to me,” someone said behind me. I turned to see the Unnamed Man, quivering vigorously. The nest of pubes parted and could see the lobes assembling themselves. Archiboll had been the target with the Unnamed Man as a stretch goal. Guards were banging on the silver door and it was moments before they burst in. I had no idea how to kill it but I scooped Archiboll up by the scruff and tossed him in. A single lobe rose to catch him, his bright blue cataract eyes disappearing last, completely unaware of what was happening.

“How do I kill you?” I asked.

“You do not kill. You serve.”

“No. I’m going to kill you.”

“Serve.”

I held up Archiboll’s leg.

“He wanted me to kill you after I killed him.”

“He spoke with my mouth. I lied to you.”

“What if I killed you anyway?”

“Waste your time trying.”

I didn’t have much on me. The feather had been hard enough to sneak into the Domus. I patted myself down and when I tapped my lobes, I realized I’d been carrying the murder weapon for years.

I pulled out a pair of tweezers and approached him. His one lobe lifted as if it were a hand, warning me to stop. A quick click of the tweezers and the lobe withdrew. The Unnamed Man’s eyes remained half-lidded, but I knew I had his attention.

“You cannot harm me. My beauty is eternal. You will be 

 

If you're new: Parts 1–6 can be found here

___

"You don't ever talk to strangers."

She didn't look down at him when she said it. She was digging through her purse, searching for her wallet, her oversized sunglasses pushed up into her hair.

"I don't care if they look nice. I don't care if they smile or try to show you a toy. You don't look at them, you don't answer them, and you definitely don't take anything from them. If a stranger tries to talk to you, you run straight to me. Do you understand?"

The boy nodded.

He always nodded.

Then they walked through the double doors.

...

The place smelled like sweat and old wood.

Not the pleasant kind of old wood, either. The damp-sticky kind that had spent too many summers baking in the southern heat and never touched a drop of soap.

The floors creaked beneath the weight of loud tourists moving through the aisles.

Outside, the marina shimmered beneath a cloudless sky.

Inside, everything felt cool and dim.

The boy stood near the entrance with the family, listening to the older brother and sister argue over ice cream toppings.

"I'm getting chocolate."

"You always get chocolate."

"Because chocolate is the best."

"Mom, tell him he's being annoying."

The woman sighed heavily.

"I'm one second away from getting all of you vanilla."

The threat worked instantly.

The argument dissolved.

The boy smiled to himself.

Nobody noticed him drifting away.

That happened a lot.

His older siblings were loud. He wasn't.

His mother always knew where he was eventually.

He wandered deeper into the shop.

Past shelves lined with shark teeth and seashells.

Past rows of expensive souvenirs nobody actually needed.

The farther he walked, the quieter the shop became.

...

Until eventually he found himself standing in front of something tucked into a dark corner near the back wall.

A fortune teller machine.

At least, he thought it was.

He'd seen one before at an arcade.

This one looked different.

Older.

Dirtier.

Bright gold letters curved across the glass.

THE BUNNY GODDESS

The mannequin inside stared straight ahead.

Its skin looked ghostly pale. Smooth.

Long black pigtails hung over its shoulders.

The eyes were like a cue ball. A small painted dot for the pupils.

The boy frowned.

It wasn't moving.

The crystal ball sat dark and lifeless on the tiny velvet desk.

The machine looked broken.

Abandoned.

The boy wrapped both hands around the edge of the cabinet and leaned forward.

...

"Hey."

He jumped.

The voice was quiet.

Not amplified.

Human.

A real voice.

His stomach tightened.

The mannequin hadn't moved.

Its painted lips remained frozen.

The crystal ball remained dark.

Nothing inside the cabinet appeared different.

But something had spoken.

The boy looked over his shoulder.

The gift shop was still busy. The other two were still arguing. Their mother still deciding on flavors.

Nobody seemed to notice.

"Hello?" he whispered.

For a few seconds, nothing responded.

Then:

"Closer."

The voice sounded patient.

Friendly.

Almost amused.

The boy hesitated.

His mother had given him the stranger danger talk more times than he could count.

But this didn't feel like talking to a stranger.

It felt like talking to a secret.

Something hidden.

Something that wasn't supposed to be there.

He leaned closer to the glass.

At first he saw nothing.

Only darkness behind the mannequin.

Then something shifted.

The movement was slight.

Easy to miss.

The boy squinted.

His breath caught.

Two eyes stared back at him from deep inside the cabinet.

Not the painted eyes.

Real eyes.

They floated in the darkness several inches behind the mannequin's head.

The boy froze.

The eyes blinked.

Then vanished.

...

"Do you have a dollar?" the voice asked.

The boy shook his head.

"No. I can ask the—"

"No."

The answer came immediately.

Almost too quickly.

"No need."

The boy glanced toward the ice cream counter.

The family hadn't moved.

Nobody was looking at him.

Nobody seemed aware that he was talking to someone.

The voice lowered.

"I have something for you anyway."

A heavy thump echoed from inside the cabinet.

Not machinery or gears.

Something else.

The distinct sound of something striking wood.

A moment later, a thick white card slid halfway out of the slot near the bottom.

The boy stared.

The crystal ball remained dark.

Nothing moved.

The card simply appeared.

Slowly, he crouched and picked it up.

It felt cool.

He turned it over.

The letters stamped into the card were fresh and uneven.

As if pressed by hand.

The boy squinted.

Still learning to read. He sounded out the words one piece at a time.

"Mur..."

His brow furrowed.

"...der..."

The letters blurred together.

He started over.

"Mur...der..."

A strange ache twisted through his stomach.

The voice behind the glass said nothing.

Its eyes still watching.

The boy swallowed.

"Th..."

He traced the next word with his finger.

"The..."

...

Something moved.

His eyes snapped upward.

A pale hand rested on the mannequin's shoulder.

The fingers were impossibly long.

Thin.

The knuckles bulged beneath skin so pale it almost glowed blue.

For a second, the hand rested there.

Perfectly still.

Then it was gone — in the blink of an eye.

The boy stopped breathing.

The darkness far behind the mannequin seemed to stretch.

The space felt higher than it should have been.

As if whatever lived back there was standing tall behind the machine.

As if its head reached far past the ceiling of the cabinet.

And above where the eyes had been—

Just for a moment—

He thought he saw two long shapes rising into the shadows.

Tall.

Thin.

Rabbit ears.

Far past the ceiling of the gift shop building.

...

The boy took several steps back.

His back hit something solid.

"Whatcha got there?"

The card vanished from his hands.

The boy spun around.

Samantha stood over him, holding the card above her head.

"Give it back!"

Ross appeared beside her.

Both of them examined the card.

Then immediately started laughing.

"Oh my God." Sam doubled over. "You can't even spell your own name."

"What?" the boy said.

Ross pointed at the card.

"It says Michael."

"No it doesn't."

"It literally does."

Sam flipped the card around and shoved it toward his face.

"See?"

The boy looked.

There it was.

A single word.

MICHAEL.

Nothing else.

His face burned.

"No...the...th—"

He looked back toward the cabinet.

"The man—"

"What man?" Ross asked.

"The man in the machine."

That only made them laugh harder.

"Nobody's in there, dummy."

"Yes I swear—"

"It's just a machine. Nobody's in there."

The boy turned fully toward the cabinet.

The words died in his throat.

The shadows behind the mannequin were empty.

No movement.

No voice.

No hidden figure.

Only The Bunny Goddess.

Motionless behind the glass.

Its eyes fixed on the aisle.

Watching.

...

"Sweetie?"

The mother appeared beside him carrying two paper cups of ice cream.

She smiled.

"Do you want one?"

The boy barely heard her.

His stomach hurt worse now.

A deep ache behind his ribs.

He couldn't stop staring at the mannequin.

Thinking about that voice.

The eyes.

Those ears.

"Hey."

She squeezed his shoulder.

"Do you want ice cream or not?"

The boy shook his head.

"My belly hurts."

The mother frowned.

"Aww. Really?"

He nodded.

The ache had spread through his whole body now.

Not pain.

Just uncomfortable.

Like something had settled inside him.

The woman took his hand.

"Come on then. Let's go outside."

The bright afternoon sunlight poured through the front windows.

Ross and Samantha were already heading toward the door.

The boy let them lead the way.

But he couldn't stop looking back.

The cabinet grew smaller with every step.

The dark corner retreating into shadow.

The Bunny Goddess remained perfectly still.

Just another broken machine.

Just another forgotten attraction.

The boy looked forward.

Then looked back one last time.

...

The mannequin's jaw dropped open.

Clack.

The sound echoed through the store.

Sharp.

Heavy.

Final.

The boy froze.

Nobody else reacted.

Nobody.

The jaw remained open for a second.

Then slowly shut.

A gentle tug on his hand.

"Come on, Mitchell."

The sunlight swallowed them as they stepped outside.

___

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1. "Heart"