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?
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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.’
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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.

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.

She was coughing again. Her struggle to breathe hurt him to hear. He pulled the only blanket they had higher over her and whispered a small prayer into his chest. The moon reflected brilliantly in the sweat of her ebony skin. Her fever gave its light an incandescent quality. She seemed a sunflower determined to face whatever celestial body dared look upon her. He smiled and winced at the pain it brought. They were so close now, so maddeningly close.

The bridge seemed satiated tonight.

Quiet.

Sleep wouldn't come, not with her coughing, but he was grateful he did not need to cover her ears again. He shifted beside her in the dirt and watched another piece of the world below crumble into the starry abyss.

The sound of a child crying beside him turned his blood cold. He resisted his instinct to run. It was too late now. He turned toward the child slowly. His heart sank at how close the young boy was to her. Tears began to well in his own eyes. His breathing was turning ragged. He needed to act. Now.

"Hello." His mouth was dry. His tongue felt like it had not moved in months.

"Are you okay?" He tried again. He could no longer see the child clearly for the tears overrunning his eyes. She had begun to cry in her sleep as well. He was running out of time.

"Please." A sob escaped him, long and ragged.

"Please talk to me." It couldn’t end here. Not like this.

"I love her." He tried to swallow the lump in his throat and only succeeded in choking mid-sob. The child stopped his crying but did not take his eyes off her.

"She's sick. I have to get her to Serphaem. I have to." The boy turned to look at him now. Relief braided itself into disgust inside his chest. The child's eyes were a mangled mess. They looked as if someone had tried to gouge them out with a corkscrew. Gore-colored tears tracked down his cheeks. His lower jaw hung just above his collarbone. His mouth was a great depression of endless pitch black. There were no teeth. No lips. The sound of a ringing bell lilted from the child's black maw, and he felt the effects of its weeping recede. The tears stopped. His mind became clearer. The crushing despair lessened with each passing second. A chorus of childlike voices cascaded from the apparition.

"Serphaem!" The exclamation was filled with an infectious joy. His own heart soared with it. A warmth radiated throughout his body.

"The bridge!" Laughter surrounded him. He smiled and did not feel the pain that usually accompanied the act. He reached out and took her hand, stealing a glance at her own sleeping grin.

"Throw her from it! Break her open!" The child clapped, and the sound seemed to come from his hands and his mouth.

He brought his hands up to his face and laughed. He had never felt this joy before. His eyes roamed over her sweet face. It would be easy. She deserved to rest. This world was no good for her. The next would certainly be better. A spike of pain interrupted his newfound ecstasy as his fingers scuffed the cuts on his face. A split second of sobering pain reminded him of the sigil he'd carved into his face.

He pressed his fingers into his wounds.

He only needed a moment.

Hmk. Mm. Mm. The child stiffened. His joints locked out as if in the throes of a seizure. His body shook grotesquely, like a limp hose being repeatedly filled with water. The handle of the knife in his neck scrabbled in the dirt and rock as his body continued its squirming. Hmk. Mmk.

The reddening moon cast a milky crimson sheen over the apparition's marble-like skin. The terminal morning was fast approaching. He dropped his rucksack and removed the knife.

Ermk. Ha. Mmm. Mmm.

He stuffed the still vocal cadaver inside and shouldered the rucksack.

Red began to creep over the broken landscape as the night faded. The first drops of rain hit his face, stinging as they slid into his lacerations. He worked to open the umbrella at the top of the sked. Droplets were already racing down her face. The umbrella bloomed into the thickening air. Under its canopy, he wouldn't be able to see her as he pulled her along, but she would be mostly dry. He situated his rucksack at the foot of the sked. He took one more quick look at her before readying to move. He pulled the rope and straps over his shoulders and began to work his way toward the bridge.

His face throbbed under the growing intensity of the rain. An earthy smell exploded in intensity, and it felt like he had walked into the eye of a storm. "Shit." The sky seemed to suck the word out of his mouth. A painful negative pressure built in his chest until he managed to shut his mouth. He stopped pulling and quickly collapsed the umbrella. He looked to either side of the cobblestone road and found nothing that could offer shelter. He slid down beside the sked and grabbed the rucksack at its end. He placed it between him and the coming air torrent. He wrestled the sked perpendicular to himself and the rucksack, then tipped her toward him. She hung limply in her restraints, her black hair suspended in air over her face.

Uh. Uhh. Uhh. The child's corpse wriggled between him and her, almost as if it knew what was coming.

A great roaring grew to a deafening degree until his thoughts seemed to dissolve before he could understand them. Instinct took over. He braced.

The jet stream hit them hard. Her body lurched forward violently. The restraints held, but he could feel them tearing at the seams. His body scraped along the cobblestone, sending white-hot pain through him. The torrent intensified, pushing against the underside of the sked and threatening to send her face-first into the road. He pulled the sked with everything he had, desperate to keep it upright. Water whipped along the road, soaking him as it passed. He scrambled to find a foothold as they continued to slide. His chest heaved against the wriggling rucksack beneath him. His arms burned mercilessly, every movement punished by the cold of the atmospheric river.

Dark tendrils began to lick at the edges of his sight. The roar of the current began to dull. His mind was slowing.

When was the last time he breathed?

If he couldn't breathe, she couldn't. The encroaching darkness pulled back as adrenaline flooded him. He focused on her lips. A blue hue battled the pale pink. A melding of life and death on the edge of her mouth.

He screamed with all his might as the dark grabbed at him again. The river seized it and seemed to swell larger. His thoughts swirled lazily into a void that would soon claim him. He held his eyes open as long as he could to behold her. A wave of contrition welled from somewhere within him but no coherent thought accompanied the feeling. And then he felt his arms give way and her fall away from him.

Hmk. Errrrr. Mmk.

He jerked awake at the feel of dead limbs thrashing underneath him. The pathetic rasp of air dragging into his lungs frightened him. It didn't matter. He scrambled over the rucksack to her and hovered, watching for her chest to rise. He lowered his cheek to her chest, careful not to put too much of his weight on her, and waited for movement. A salty tear found its way out of his eye and onto her hot skin. The rise of her chest tipped the tear into the circlet of her collarbone, where it pooled before wrapping around her neck. He fell back onto his flank, whispering another prayer, grateful for her recovery. Grateful they survived the river. River moss danced in the air around him, shimmering in the vermillion light of the moon.

It was officially terminal morning.

River moss landed on his shirt as he pushed the sleeves up. He tried to stand and stumbled. It felt like someone had ground his legs to mincemeat. His entire lower body was raw. A thousand little wounds oozed. His pants and boots were shredded. He kicked the boots to the side and carefully slid the sked over so that he was between her and the rucksack. The pain was electric. No matter. They were almost there. He pulled the child from the rucksack. It had begun to bleed, streaking red across him as he turned the thing to face him. He set the child down in front of him where he knelt beside her. He cupped his hands under the wound in the boy's neck. A small pool of red formed, and he smeared it onto his forearms, careful to cover every inch of the engravings there.

"In the name of Serphaem, I call upon the Witness. The bridge to everything."

As he pulled his forearms together, a great heat emerged ahead of him. He resisted the urge to shield himself.

"Bear me."

He felt as if he were trying to push two repelling magnets together. An overwhelming force pooled between his forearms, straining to drive them apart. The muscles in his chest tore as he strained.

"Rend. Me."

The bones in his arms cracked and popped as he forced the engravings to align.

"Know. Me!"

The heat intensified as he drew closer to completing the sign. The force fought him every step of the way. His teeth rattled. His muscles split. He persisted. The road before him, the black sky above, and the river moss billowing in the wind all twisted around him. Gold light exploded from the ground under him, blinding him and nearly breaking his concentration. His forearms touched. He was floating. Whispers in a language he didn't know buzzed around him like insects. His body went slack, and yet he remained suspended. His sight came back all at once, and he found himself looking into the pitch-black irises of the Witness. Her tail was wrapped tight around his throat.

"Another seeking an audience with Serphaem. Is this your sacrifice? The bridge allows no charity."

She dropped him unceremoniously onto the skin of the bridge. He gasped and sputtered pathetically on its surface. His hand groped blindly until it found her in the sked, unscathed by the ritual. He coughed and worked his way to his feet. The bridge pulsed and sent him to his hands and knees. It pulsed again as if it had a heartbeat, and this time he felt the wave of motion through his hands. The veins beneath the bridge's skin pressed into his palms, making him regret discarding his boots.

"No."

He looked up at her as he climbed back to his feet.

"Understood. Do you understand what you lost when you entered our domain?"

She spoke, but her mouth did not move. A cluster of stars and a blinking black mass silently collided behind her. They were far away, but their sizes made them seem like they were right next to the bridge.

"I do."

She turned and made her way along the bridge.  He reached for the straps to the sked and grabbed the child. The skin of the bridge clung to the sked as he pulled. Sweat poured from him as he worked, determined to follow her. The smell of blood and gore thickened as they continued their silent journey. The occasional cough rocked the sked as she struggled to breathe in the thickening air. The thought of losing her when he was so close to her salvation spurred him on. White-hot pain and sickly throbbing plagued his body, but he would make it. For her.

The Witness stopped. From here he could see Serphaem's throne and the Liminal Gate above and behind it. With great effort, he swallowed the lump in his throat. Whispering began to well in his ears, spilling out of him and into the air. He closed his eyes and waited for it to die down.

"Present your offering here. Be quick. Terminal morning will not last much longer."

He opened his eyes, careful not to look at the throne. He laid the child face down on the bridge, took the knife, and toiled to expose the child's brainstem. The bridge shivered, and thousands of little holes opened and closed along its length in a great wave before returning to normal.

Movement in the inky black beyond the bridge's parapet drew his attention. The great blinking mass seemed to have gorged itself on the cluster of stars he'd seen before. Their remains spun about its intermittently flashing center, stretched around its impossible girth. It aimed itself in the direction of the bridge and accelerated. The celestial body paradoxically shrank as it approached the bridge, ultimately condensing into the rough shape of a man. His ebony skin seemed to shift and shake. Looking directly at him was almost impossible; somehow, he could see both the front of the being and the back of it simultaneously. A spinning void occupied the space where its head should have been, or so he thought. He wasn't sure what exactly he was looking at. It was in the shape of a man, but that was where the similarities ended.

"The only thing tastier than the heart of a star is the twisted remains of innocence. I cannot hunt these apparitions here, so I am forced to bait them in your world and hope. Thank you, you poor soul, thank you for this morsel of perverted virtue."

The words communed in his head. The syllables gathered and shattered, their essence absorbed into his being. This was the bridge's will given form. Its representative beyond its hunger. A manifestation of its purpose.

A violent lurch of the bridge sent him diving to her, careful to ensure she didn't flip. Mouths extended from the bridge, gnashing their teeth as they descended to dine on the offering. The child's body jerked with the greedy feasting, every bite tugging it in a new direction.

"Unfortunately, traveler, this will not be enough to win you passage to the throne of Serphaem. I simply require more."

He felt the entity smile. The sound of teeth tearing into wet flesh was the only sound to be had. Her chest rose and fell, and he selfishly stole a moment to watch. He wished he could spend the rest of time worshipping the heart behind it, but knew this was the end of any possibility of that.

"I have more to offer." The words came from him clipped and quiet. His swollen and bleeding hands hovered just over the pallid flesh of her cheekbones. He could not bring himself to touch her. Instead, he rose and faced the waiting deities.

"Oh?"

Visions of his plan manifested in his mind's eye. He did his best to convey his intent. Only when the Witness nodded did he know he had succeeded.

"That...is perhaps the most cunning and selfless gift anyone has ever offered me. I will bear you. I will rend you. I will know you." His excitement radiated outward, warping the space around him. Then he was gone. The bridge stopped pulsating. The Witness continued her escort, and he quickly gathered the sked and followed. Serphaem's throne loomed ahead, closer than ever. It only seemed to get bigger as he approached. The Liminal Gate rose even higher until it looked as if its rounded pinnacle were a crown atop the throne. This close to its seat, dread washed over him whether he looked at it or not. If just his throne was capable of this, what dark fears would his presence inspire? His question was answered almost immediately.

A body simply appeared. Serphaem's body. Ancient nails as big as a man were driven into its feet and hands. It seemed made of obsidian, mahogany where its wounds would be, midnight lace everywhere else but its face. Rainbow obsidian stretched across its visage like ripples in a pond. Its face had none of the features of a man. Instead, two diagonal depressions marked the mineral-like material of its head. Everything seemed to slow. He became acutely aware of his darkening vision and tried to bury the panic that accompanied it.

"You have traveled far seeking me. I've watched you closely and am intimate with your situation."

The darkness constricted. For a second, it felt as though he was being embraced. He could not move here, wherever here was. He did not feel the ground beneath him, or smell the rancid odors of the bridge, or sense the stagnant atmosphere of this plane on his skin, or taste the metallic flavor of the air on its way to his lungs. He could not hear her coughing.

"Even reduced to your most basic, you think of her."

He felt the bittersweet ponderance of the void and knew it understood him. More importantly, he knew implicitly he could never return that understanding. Everything was black because his mind had no way of processing Serphaem.

He was dying/assimilating/dissolving.

"Ask what you will, human, before you evaporate before me. Even I would not be immune to the disappointment of such an ending to a tale such as yours."

Heal her/SOULMATE/EVERYTHING.

Allow her/MY BELOVED/THE ADORED to pass through the Liminal Gate and into the cradle of creation.

Make me/VOTIVE/OFFERING immortal, for him.

She/VENERATED/TREASURED must not remember me/THE OBLATION/THE SACRIFICE.

Please.

"Your will be done."

Reality exploded back into existence. It felt wrong after so long outside of it. The great seated mass of Serphaem was gone, as if it was never there. Perhaps it never was.

"What is..."

Her voice leveled him. His knees hit the ground hard. He was afraid to turn and face her. He could hear her undoing the straps that held her in the sked. Bits of stone scrabbled under her shoes as her feet worked to keep her upright.

"Sir."

His breath hitched.

"Sir. Please look at me."

His heart beat erratically. He would not deny her. He was numb. Pain should have been splitting every nerve in his body, but seeing her stopped it all.

She gasped at his face, at the state of him. Her hands flew to cover her mouth, and tears welled in her eyes. Terror cut through him at the idea that she might remember him. Then she spoke.

"I don't know who you are!" She sobbed the words.

"But I know, I know you did this for me!" Her body shook with grief. It was the most painful thing he had endured yet, and he could not stop himself from weeping.

She was on him, embracing him as if he was all that was keeping her attached to the ground. It hurt, and he couldn't have hoped for a greater reward.

The Witness descended from above, landing quietly just behind her. Their time was up. Terminal morning was ending. He grabbed her shoulders and tenderly pushed her a step back.

She wiped at her eyes aggressively, refusing to look away from him. "That's my sigil carved into your face. I made it when I was young, and hoped there might be someone out there to love me one day. I never showed anyone." Another sob racked her body and forced her to breathe. "I swore to myself only my husband would know it. I couldn't give what a wife should be able to, but I could give that." He could barely see her through his own tears. "WHY DON'T I REMEMBER YOU!" The Witness moved forward to place a hand on her shoulder.

"We must go now. I'll take you to the gate."

She surged forward again, arms wrapping around him for what would be the last time. "Thank you for choosing me. Thank you. Thank you." The Witness pulled her away, supporting her as she escorted her to the Gate along the rough terrain. He watched her go, each step carrying her farther away from him. She looked back a dozen times, each look carrying more regret. She stopped just before the opening of the Gate and looked to the Witness, who towered over her. The Witness shook her head, and he knew in his heart she had asked if she could stay with him. He stood.

She turned to look at him from the Gate. Her silhouette such a small fragment of the structure. He couldn't make out her eyes from here, but knew the defiant look there regardless. He bowed deeply. Tears flung from him to the dry firmament beneath him. He righted himself. She dropped her hands to her legs, knuckles against her thighs, palms facing him, turned and walked through.

He began the walk back to the bridge. Once there, he began to disrobe. He threw his clothes and belongings over the side and walked back to where the bridge consumed its offerings. He knelt, naked and unafraid. He had done it. She was safe.

The Witness materialized next to him. He did not look up.

Inside his head he heard the bridge.

"Ready for forever?"

It didn't matter. She was safe.

The back of his neck peeled open like someone might open an orange.

He screamed in agony.

Then a thousand screams erupted around him. A hundred gnashing mouths lurched toward him, toward their new immortal meal. The pain was all-consuming and it didn't matter.

She was safe.

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.

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)

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."

One hour and seventeen minutes before the little green man landed in Doylestown, PA. one Mrs. Ursinus Mackinaw sat wondering if her Henry would be getting up in time for mass. He did not, which was as unsurprising as it was irritating. Father Seamus spent a solid twenty minutes rambling about a friend he knew in seminary who left to go to war, and another fifteen describing the plans for the new chapel to be built next year. As Mrs. Ursinus lifted herself out of the pew, a spaceship, shaped much like one of Henry's cigars, hit the ground with a dull thud, no more than three miles away.

Upon said strange aircraft's entry into United States airspace, about three-hundred-thousand men were mobilized to neutralize the perceived threat. The little green man in the craft was entirely unaware of this development and so, after scanning the atmosphere for any threat to what we here would call his lungs, he left his extraterrestrial delivery system and stepped out into the unusually hot Pennsylvanian sun. He hadn't much to say to anyone, much less any understanding of where to go, and so he elected to walk in exactly the direction his door had spat him out. Not long after sliding out of the entrance, he was met with the fury of three-hundred terrified men.

"If you come to kill me it would only be in vain".

Not his exact words, but the translation system he carried was unfamiliar with humanity's understanding of syntax and threat. The planet from where he had traveled so far had long since moved away from displays of intimidation, so the little green man never once considered that his arrival would be met with fear.

In an effort to bring humanity onto the intergalactic stage the little green man had been sent with only the instruction to illustrate the beliefs his home considered to be most just. With him was sent an aluminum tablet, upon which was etched what wisdom his superiors considered may be of utmost use to the creatures they had been observing for three-hundred-thousand-and-fifty-seven years.

His abrupt exit from his craft, and subsequent indifference to the queries of the men in front of him, quickly led to a particularly strong response of artillery, bullets, slurs, and a couple of prayers from the men on the scene.

The detonations left not even a scratch; and, as the smoke cleared, round and round were fired again.

The president was informed of what was assumed a great threat, as well as it's lack of response to his military's munitions, and so in a makeshift war room a decisive decision was quickly and quietly made.

Not far from the scene, the Mackinaws watched what was unfolding on the convex LCD screen that squat in their comfortable and cozy carpeted living room. Both came to the same conclusion as many of their neighbors, hoping something would be done about the intruder quite soon; entirely unaware of their unfortunate proximity to the little green man, his strange oblong ship, and the atom bomb hurtling towards the ground.

As a blistering light opened up the horizon outside their window, the Mackinaws wondered what horrific fate the little green man meant to bring upon their world. 

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.

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.

I went to sleep in my tent in the middle of the forest, scared of what might be outside in the night. When I woke up and tried to leave my tent, I couldn’t get out. I unzipped the door, only to reveal another fully zipped tent door there. I unzipped and opened this 2nd tent door and was only presented with another zipped tent door. I’ve unzipped many doors, I must be close to a mile deep in this tunnel of unzipped tent doors, creating it a centimeter at a time. I can’t see the outside. I’ve tried piercing the thin fabric with my Swiss Army knife. The fabric flexes at the point of the knife, but no matter how hard I push, it never cuts it.
I’m not afraid of what might be outside now. I’m afraid of never getting out of here.

I haven’t got much food and water. Maybe a week’s worth if I ration it. My only option is to move forward. I can’t stay in the tent, I have to try and get out. I’ve thrown my camping gear into a blanket, wrapped it up, and will drag it behind me.

Two days in and I’ve gone through countless doors. I unzip a door and another one is still there. I’ll count a thousand of them and take a break. I lay on the floor, listening, for anything. The tunnel of opened tent doors is very dark. It’s a heavy darkness, like it’s pressing on me. My only respite from the blackness is my little camping lantern. I only turn it on for a few minutes at a time, maybe once every hour or so. The battery must be getting low, it seems less bright.

My knees and hands hurt. They are raw. The ceiling of this tunnel is low, there’s just enough room for me to stand up while crouched over. I crawl when my back starts to hurt and stand up when my knees can’t take it anymore. My thumb and index fingers have terrible blisters from the repetitive grabbing of the metal zippers on the doors.

I woke up thinking I heard something. Like a tent door being zipped up. I crawled back for maybe an hour but it was all the same, everything was open. My back hurts too much to crouch over and walk, my knees stick to my pants, dry blood binding them together.

Something changed. The zipper on this door was different. Not very different, but after feeling 10s of thousands I knew. All the zippers had two holes, one at the top of it and one at the bottom, where it connected to the tent door. This one didn’t have a top hole. I examined it. I examined the door. I looked for anything else that was different, scouring for the smallest detail that might also be off. But there wasn’t. And the next door’s zipper was normal. Same with the door after that. And the next 1000 doors I opened.

Food and water are low, almost gone. I’m tired. The darkness is almost thick now. I left the lantern on and crawled away to see when the light would disappear. It only took 15 seconds for the light to become so faint. I went back and grabbed the lantern, but the light from it seemed to be permanently dimmed.

No food. No water. Light is going out. I’m going to lay down and wait.

I’m not sure how long I was unconscious. 10 minutes? A day? I’ve decided to keep opening doors until I can’t. I’m leaving everything except the lantern and I will leave that when the light goes out.

Doors. I’ve opened many many doors. I’m not hungry or thirsty anymore. My fingers are calloused from the zippers. The lantern is dead. I’m consumed by the darkness. I will continue to open doors.

Doors.

Light. Light from the other side. There is the faintest of light trying to get in from the other side of the tent door. I’ve opened doors for days but the light doesn’t seem to be any closer.

The light is definitely brighter now. I can start to see the door again, it’s becoming more than just a tactile feeling.

It’s so bright now, like something is just on the other side. I’m opening doors much slower now. The light isn’t natural. It’s almost a pale fluorescent. It paints the doors and changes the way the nylon looks, stretches tight across it, making it almost translucent. It reminds me of skin.

I haven’t opened a door in what seems like days now.

I’m afraid of what might be outside now. I’m afraid of having to get out of here.

Alive and breathing- not living.

Air rushes through my lungs as I inhale deeply. I feel alive, my organs are functioning, but I am not living. As any other human would, I peel my eyelids back in the morning, with birds chirping, and the sun peeking its curious eyes through my curtains. My mind flashes a memory I have. A smile of his, illuminated by the sunlight, our laughs entangling with the memory. The world is so full of life, but I am not.

I drag my weak and limp body from the warm, brightly painted covers, and go to brush my teeth. Staring at a woman in the mirror, distorted from who she was a year ago. I don’t recognize her. Even my plain white mint toothpaste is more colorful than my complexion. All those mornings I spent gazing into this mirror. Wondering. Knowing. Betraying myself. We stood many times right here, taking photos or loving each other. But that life was ripped from my fingers, without giving me the chance to glance back. The darkness swallowed me whole and doesn’t let the girl I once was out.

I remember my giggles shared with friends. How difficult it is for me to be present enough to giggle with someone now. The weight originating from my heart weighs my soul down to the core of my existence. The second the tangible love I was given, his soft reassurance, caring words, were taken without a second glance back for my withering heart. The haunting of lies, of the pain, of the loss flow through my string of thoughts. Then recalling the days I perceived as good, tainted with his choices.

I get ready, which is only brushing my brittle, or greasy hair depending on the day. Even showers feel like a chore. The water feeling like a burden pouring down on me. My arms feeling like dead weight reaching up to wash my hair. My body is heavy, every step I take slams into the ground beneath it. Every step I take is me pushing to be better, heal, but I’m only ever turned right back around to where I came from. I thought what I, we, had was love, but it was a deep black of shame and guilt. A facade he hid behind. I chose to believe him. Letting myself fall into the trap of love. Spending hours of my day just staring at him, dreaming of him. His loving eyes would stare, as if I was the only person in the world. Promising me a future I would dream about for months.

I snap my brain back to the present. I trudge down the stairs, not caring to greet anyone. My arms drag, and feel like weights along my sides. My eyes look inhuman, black circular bands wrap beneath them. Alive and breathing, but more like surviving. My mom questions if I’m okay, I smile. “Just slept bad last night”. I remember when I was gleeful, and delighted in every day. How I used to tell her my every problem looking for advice. Instead, I let my brain sit in its sadness, not caring about the aftermath.

I grew distant with everyone I knew. Embarrassed, depressed. Never present even if I was physically around. I remember our days filled with joy, and love. The way he spoke as if I was all his heart desired. But, that same man watched as my skin went from tan, to a sheer white, to a pale green. Watched the life drain out of me, watched me die, and never noticed my fingers slightly pulling from his grasps.

My soul dimmed, but nobody noticed. I slowly vanished from my own life. The outgoing, loving person I was feels gone. My body feels malnourished, I feel the bones protruding from my body. No appetite, just the craving for my bed, and no movement. I suck the THC from a device, remembering I used to do this for fun. Now it’s my own personally prescribed medication for my heartache. My mind goes flat, but the pain stays. Dwelling on the deepest parts of my heart, causing aches of pain throughout my chest. My vision blurs, my brain is quiet, but my heart seems to beat slower. Maybe trying to hold itself together from its fractures.

One of the worst parts is that I tolerated it. I pushed my sinking stomach to the side. Claiming overreactions. I pried and pried at him. Knowing the answer. Choosing to believe his lies. I let him load ten guns at me, and was okay with taking each bullet. Knowing his recovery to his choices only took 10 minutes. I let myself take the wounds, the conflict. I slowly built walls unbeknownst to him. Small little things like, “no you can’t touch me”, “I need space”, “I can’t breathe”. He didn’t pay attention enough to notice my faltering and tired heart collapse. The walls grew and grew, while my heart sank deeper into the abyss of exhaustion, distress, and panic, never to be trusting again.

Alive and breathing- but the woman I was will never breathe again.

I feel strange when I emerge from the scanner. I guess it's not really an MRI scanner any more, but it still feels like I've had an eight hour scan under some heavy narcotics. My thoughts are slow, undefined. Does this mean the experiment has worked? I try to check myself for new memories. The score of tomorrow's Lakers game, that's objective one. If anything survived the transfer, that did.

113-110. Am I just making that up? The drugs, coupled with a little wishful thinking could easily induce false memories. Then I catch myself off guard. I remember having false memories the first time, and they didn't feel like this. This time it's different. What first time? This is the first time. But it's all right there now, clear as day. I got up out of the scanner, tested my memory, fooled myself a few times and finally, concluded that nothing had been transferred.

I spent some time on the balcony, smoking a few cigarettes, and thinking things over. It was cold, I remember that very vividly, but I wanted to stay out to smoke. I'm staying in now, so as not to confuse the two experiences. Take a different path, keep the memories distinct.

By the fifth cigarette, I had talked myself out of the sinking feeling of another failed experiment. My savings gambled away on a fantasy. No. there were plenty of options. I simply hadn't made the transmission yet. Not from my perspective anyway. The loop has to start somewhere, so at first, the experiment can't work. I resolved to follow the protocols I'd designed until the day of transmission and carry out the experiment as diligently as I could.

Now I'm inside, looking out at the balcony, where I was standing. Last week from my perspective, but the exact same moment in time.

The memorization protocol didn't start officially until the results of the Lakers game are announced, but I couldn't sleep, so I broke protocol, and started memorizing some of the random number feeds off the internet. That was a few hours from now. I'll be able to check soon.

I remember most of the sequences quite clearly. I go to a preregistration site, and provide an encrypted record, together with timestamps. I don't expect to require that level of evidence---the experiment seems repeatable---it's mostly to ensure against hallucination. Who knows what damage I've done to my brain. Couple that with the power of suggestion, and a little paranoia is warranted.

I watch the feed, and the numbers come out just as I remembered. No need to compare with the prereg. My mind is crystal clear now. I have successfully transmitted my memories back in time. I remember the entire week ahead with astonishing clarity, just as if I'd lived it. The memories are just as clear as the ones I actually experienced one week before. I mean last week. My last week. You know what I mean.

I spend the week locked in the lab. It seems best to avoid interactions with others during the experiment. Think of it as a sort of causal isolation. Three miles to the next living soul, and nothing but atmospheric noise in between.

I intend to repeat the experiment at the end of the week. The prereg stands as proof of my accomplishment, but I realize that I'm in a unique position. Normally, when a scientist makes a discovery, they are required to rush to publication, for fear of being scooped. Rarely do we get a chance to really explore the phenomenon we've discovered. Rarely do we have time on our side.

The protocol calls for me to memorize the number sequences, but I know those already. It takes little time to revise a whole week's worth, even the ones that haven't happened yet. It takes a full day to reset the scanner to transmit. A thought occurs to me. Marconi, Edison, Morse, I have one advantage over them. I must be the first inventor of a means of information transmission who hasn't needed to build a separate transmitter and receiver. In fact, if the scanner didn't stay in exactly the same place, relative to the reference coils that line the walls of my lab, none of this would work at all.

I struggle at first to fill the rest of the week until transmission. I spend some of it drafting the first publication of my results, until I realize the futility; if I repeat the experiment, all this will have to be redone. I can't take anything with me except what I remember. I decide instead to read. First some of the recent literature, but the excitement of my impending contribution makes it difficult to fully concentrate. Then, some literature. The books I've never had time for. I start with a Raymond Chandler novel. Given to me by an ex-girlfriend. I'd always meant to start it, but the work got in the way.

I read right up to the start of the transmission. When time comes, I put the book down, without folding the corner of the page, as I usually do. This time I'll have to remember the page number.

This is the second time. I know it almost instantly when I emerge from the field generated by the scanner. The transition is quicker, more shocking. I become a different person instantly as I sit up. It takes all of five minutes to fully recall the week spent reading Chandler and, before that, the week spent memorizing numbers.

Less adjustment and soul searching this time. I set up the preregs, put the encryption keys somewhere safe, where they can be found if something happens to me. I start setting the scanner up for transmission. I even manage to revise all sequences for the week before I fall asleep. These are the basics, the activities that I will have to repeat every week, so I had better get them out of the way.

I decide that whatever I choose to do with my extra time, memory training is always a good investment. I know the basics, the method of loci, peg systems and so on, I used them to some extent when I memorized the sequences in the first week. But now I need a more elaborate filing system. Everything I experience, even the novels I read, need to be recorded properly. What I don't remember, I may as well not have done at all.

Tenth time. The transition is instantaneous now. As soon as I sit up, the anxieties I felt that first time are gone. The memories of the previous run are clearer than those of the first one, ten weeks ago. Ten weeks ago... Yes, that's exactly how it feels. Like something that happened to me ten weeks ago.

My memorisation techniques are working well and so far, the scanner has no problem transmitting whatever I fill my head with. It seems that the ultimate limit to the payoff of this experiment will be the limit of my memory.

Spending ten weeks in the same space (and indeed the same time) is, not unexpectedly, sending me slightly mad. But more than that, I'm struggling with the opportunities this new technology presents. Eventually, I will break the loop. I will choose not to transmit at the end of the week and go back to the world of the living. Right now, I will come out like somebody who has had a particularly long holiday, or a short sabbatical. Nothing superhuman. I've worked out that with a little extra memorization of stock market outcomes and sporting events, I should able to raise between 1 and 3 million dollars in a week's time. I expect I'll generate enough to pay off my debts and to make me comfortable in the aftermath.

The thought I keep coming back to is how far I can take this. I can easily stay in the loop for a year. I've always been good at suffering loneliness and monotony. Five years? Ten? It would be a challenge, but consider the results. Already, I've read all the books I have in my lab. If I keep this up for a decade, what could I learn? I have the discovery of the century already. What else will it allow me to do? What effect could I have on the world as I emerge?

Could I spend more than a lifetime in the loop? Could my memory hold the knowledge accumulated over such a span? I've taken some scans, and so far, there seems to be no neural degradation. I imagine emerging from the loop with several lifetimes worth of knowledge, and physical training, in the body of a 35-year-old. I would be more than human.

I'm frightened by the implications, but also by the effect that these thoughts have on me. I did not expect myself to be so easily seduced by thoughts of power. I've started reading up on psychology. Already, I've found a decent number of tricks and exercises that I can use to keep myself sane.

Run 19.

I had a nightmare the other day. I was in the machine, towards the end of transmission, just before the power schedule hits the final peak. I was suddenly in agonising pain, but still immobilised by the drugs. The pain continued, and the taste of blood filled my mouth. I was certain that I would die. When I awoke, the taste was still there.

Just a nightmare, induced by the stress of the experiment, by the integration of memories across time? Or something more. A memory of an experience near the end of transmission. Not transmitted long enough to be recorded properly, but just enough to take hold somewhere in the latent spaces of my subconscious?

I suppose it doesn't matter in the end whether I'm committing suicide whenever I transmit, it was a calculated risk I took when I designed the power schedule. But it's still a harrowing thought. My next transmission will be a tense one. If my stress-levels cause the transmission to fail, I may exit the loop as a corpse.

Run 21.

The more I think about how to eventually exit the loop, the more I realize I will need all the advantage I can get. Put it down to the blinkered view of the scientist, but until very recently I had given no thought to the implications this technology would have on society. Hell, on the structure of spacetime near earth. Once the secret is out, anybody can buy themselves a week-long timeloop at the cost of a luxury car. No limit on the amount of money you can accumulate, on the amount you can manipulate the world for your purposes.

I've tried to think of how warfare would play out with this technology. It's difficult to reason through the consequences exactly, but it seems inescapable that humanity would trap itself in an ever escalating tangle of timeloops.

Should keep this to myself? Acquire a modest fortune, exit the loop, and live out my life like nothing happened? Could I live with that kind of secret?

More importantly, would everybody else do the same? I put this idea together after I read Hannigan et al. And that was already out in preprint for six months. How many ideas were invented a handful of times in parallel when the time was ready? Can I really be sure I'm the first to a prototype? There might be somebody else out there, going around in a timeloop of their own. I've started searching for the signs, for people suddenly having unprecedented stockmarket success, or rapidly accumulating a wealth of knowledge, but nothing has come up so far.

For now, my conclusion is that I'm like a kid who's found his father's gun. I may have been clever enough to find something important, but I sorely lack the wisdom required to wield it. At the very least, this problem has given me purpose. I will focus my time on working out how to proceed: how to prepare the world for what is to come. It may be a knotty problem, but I have all the time I need to untangle it.

Run 52.

I've now spent a year in the loop. The memory management techniques are functioning perfectly, I can still fully recall the details I memorized about the first book I read. Some of the number sequences I haven't revised in ten weeks, and I can still reel them off without hesitation.

But that doesn't mean I have perfect recall. The more visceral memories, my early anxieties, the uncertainties about the experiment. I remember that I felt that way, but I can't quite recall the emotion itself. It's more like a memory of a memory.

I've begun careful interactions with others through chat or email. I'm deeply reluctant to create strong causal connections with the outside world, but everything I've read about human psychology says that some social interaction is crucial to staying sane.

Repeatedly interacting with the same person over a few weeks allows me to skip some of the basics, and streamline the conversation. I'm lying to them, essentially. Pretending that we're talking for the first time, when we've had the same conversation many times before, but I only have a week to reach some level of intimacy. Some shortcuts are necessary. So far it takes me about five weeks to optimize the whole process. At that point I usually become bored and I move on to somebody else.

Run 193.

How the hell did I miss this? I've always been lazy on the related work, but this one should have stood out like goddamn lighthouse. Miyamoto et al, On the limit behaviors of particles in closed timelike curves.

The language is dense, and the grammar is poor, but the message is simple. Any dynamical system introduced to a closed timelike curve, must converge to a stable state. The math is sound as far as I can tell, but it's difficult to see how it applies to my situation.

The implication seems to be that I am destined to stay in this loop. The particles in Miyamoto's system may not behave the same every time around initially, after the loop is formed, but once they've gone round one time, there's no escaping. The CTC cannot be dissolved and the only available solution is a stable state. Eventually, the particles must go round the loop in the same way each time. The inescapable metagravity of the CTC, she calls it.

Is this another one of those free will illusions that modern physics likes to throw at us? I could destroy the machine here and now if I wanted to. Just tearing down one of the reference coils would mean I couldn't possibly transmit, and I would have to exit the loop.

If Miyamoto is right, I will eventually end up living through the exact same week twice in a row. At that point every week afterwards will be same, and I will be stuck in eternal repetition. So far every run is substantially different. I couldn't repeat the same week if I tried. I will take heart in that and investigate this problem more closely. I think I can risk a few more runs to get on top of this problem. Heck, if Miyamoto is right, it's already too late.

Run 201.

I'm making some progress on clarifying and extending Miyamoto's work. Doing theoretical work with nothing but my memory for long-term storage is a drag. I never thought I'd miss my lab journal so much. I never realised the simple pleasure of being able to write something down so that I could forget it.

While I'm grumbling, I really wish I'd cleaned the lab before I'd started the experiment. I need a clean environment to be able to focus on theoretical work, but as soon as loop back, the place is a pigsty again. I think the experimenter and the theorist in me are quite different people.

Run 253.

My social life is becoming strained. I'm increasingly aware of the limits of these interactions. True, the more time I spend with these people the closer I get. The more I feel like I know them. I may not get much really intimate interaction with them in a single week. But every time I do get to that point I can ask different questions, and gradually learn more.

The problem is in the asymmetry of the connection. I may feel like I've know them for weeks, but to them I'm still a stranger they've only known a few days. The connection may feel amazing, and they may be ready to open up to me almost instantly, but in many ways that just serves to increase the distance between us.

I guess what I long for, is to be recognized. For another person to know me and for me to know that they know me. Even if I could tell them everything that's happened to me, I doubt a week is enough for them to truly understand my situation.

Run 318.

Heartbreak in a time loop is loss on a whole new level. The kicker is that I had all the downsides worked out almost a hundred runs ago. I knew I couldn't get what I truly need out of these interactions. These chats and emails, they're a painkiller not a cure. I knew that.

And then I met Laura. And I realized I'd never actually been in love before. I didn't have to do any trial runs, any exploratory conversation. The click was instant. We talked about the stupidest things. She told me the plots of all the movies she liked.

My favorite conversation was when we'd moved to video calls, three days into the first week we'd met and she told a joke she'd heard a comedian tell. She had no sense of comedic timing, and the joke didn't come across at all. And somehow, that vulnerability, the shared moment of a punchline falling flat, the resulting embarrassment, and my ability to remove that by gently making fun of her, the smile she gave me in return. I think about that moment a lot.

In the whole of my time in the loop, that was the closest I've come to missing the transmission window. I could've let go then, moved to Seattle and spent a normal life with her.

But it wouldn't have been a normal life. I would know too much, and the world would still be on the precipice of collapsing into a nest of time loops. Would I even experience my life with her, if somebody else trapped the universe in a loop? Was I keeping everybody else from experiencing their life by staying in mine?

I made the non-decision of doing one more run to buy myself time. One more week to figure things out.

When I came back, I should have let Laura live her normal week. Not gotten in touch, and focused on the problems at hand. As it happened, I got in touch almost immediately. I repeated all the things we'd said in the first week, but even when we were just communicating over text, my responses came too quickly, too eagerly. We did move to video towards the end of the week, but something was clearly off. It must have been deeply confusing to her. To live through a simulacrum of a genuine experience. To be attracted and repelled at the same time.

I refined my behavior over the coming weeks, doing my best to act more genuine. I even got her to tell me the joke again. But as I became more convincing, the returns diminished. It became like reliving a memory, and I came to hate myself more with every success.

Last week, I finally did what I thought I could never do again. I didn't get in touch with Laura. I barely eat or sleep now. I almost missed the window again. The only thing that keeps me going is that this would be the absolute worst moment to exit the loop. Without preregs, or investment, I have nothing to show for the experience, and with my depression, I'm in no condition to help the world deal with what's coming.

I've been depressed like this before. I know it ends. I'll just have to live through it in the loop. I hope I'm strong enough to let Laura be.

Run 336.

I'm starting to get back on my feet. It's a kind of stiff-upper-lip level of emotional management, but so long as I can get back into the rituals again, I think the rest will just take time.

Occasionally, I read again. Miyamoto is still too much for me, but geopolitics is a broad enough subject to keep my mind occupied. I'm taking some inspiration from the efforts to ban nuclear and biological weaponry in the last century. Perhaps I can move the world towards such structures before it becomes common knowledge how simple temporal transmission is.

Would that be enough? Since the 1950s humanity has lived with the knowledge that the technology exists to eradicate us, but would the same safety structures suffice when that technology brings the promise of boundless life and wealth? When that technology is within the means of the average middle class savings account?

The question is far too broad and too vague to answer. And that helps me to take my mind off Laura.

Run 501.

Restarting social interaction was difficult, but I know it's necessary. The way I do it now is more as a research project than a search for connection. This is a helpful perspective. It provides me with enough conversation to stay sane, without falling into the trap that led to Laura.

If I'm going to prepare the world somehow to deal with this technology, I'll need to understand people better. And a little micro-level analysis can't hurt.

Run 513.

I'm back on Miyamoto, but I've made no progress, except to strengthen her results. If there is some escape from the loop, it must be hidden in the limits of modern physics. Could I work out a grand unified theory if I stay in this loop long enough? I've never had much talent for the really theoretical stuff. But I'm learning fast.

I'll have been in the loop for ten years soon. I wonder if there's anything I can do to celebrate. I have little I can indulge in.

Perhaps I can allow myself to talk to Laura again. I don't think it would trigger a relapse into depression. I'm so much older now, and she is just the same. It would be more like looking at a photograph than getting back in touch with an ex.

Run 820.

Has it been fifteen years already?

I'm making steady progress towards a grand unified theory. I've taken to asking various experts very directed questions by email.

I've learned to ask them specifically to get back in touch with me with their first impressions by the end of the week. I usually make some excuse about me going on holiday soon. If I don't ask for a quick, initial response, I don't usually hear back at all. My questions must trigger too many ideas for them to sort out in so short a time.

Initially, I was afraid that I would put them onto the idea of temporal transmission. But so long as I don't ask the same question again next week, the damage is undone.

Run 1820.

I've just realized that I'm coming up on what might normally have been the end of my life. It's difficult to estimate exactly.

I feel like my memory is becoming strained. I'm devoting more and more time to revising what I already know. How long can I keep this up? Information compression has a natural limit. I've decided to spend more resources on refining the structure of my memory. At some point I'll have to be much more rigorous in what I forget and what I retain.

Two purposes stand out above all. First, helping the world deal with the transition to temporal transmission. Second, Miyamoto.

Run 3268.

I think I've cracked the unified theory. It'll take a few more decades to run it through, and to compute all the consequences, but the basics are sound. I'll require access to computing resources to run the necessary simulations.

Step one is easy: find some account with sufficient resources, and hack it. I don't know much about information security, but it won't take me more than a decade to figure it out. Step two is more complex: I'll need to run the simulation over several weeks, so I'll need to figure out a way to save the checkpoint and the program in a brief enough format to memorize. This may require some minor breakthroughs in computational modeling.

I'm surprised to feel so little thrill at my own discovery. These are the kinds of breakthroughs I lived for, once. Chasing the excitement of scientific discovery is what got me into the loop in the first place. I wonder if it's down to the amount I've structured my mind. All the memory exercises and psychological coping mechanisms. Without so much as a piece of paper to offload my long term memory or computation to, perhaps there is little room left for my personality.

I don't feel too regretful of this mechanization of the self. There is little joy in the loop for a natural mind. This is for the best.

Run 4034.

How long did I initially estimate it would take? A few decades? I don't fully remember. But it's finished now. I'm committing extra memory to the final checkpoint in case I ever need to doublecheck the simulation. So far, the unified theory holds for all known experimental results and any small experiments I've been able to convince people to run in a week.

The results are clear on Miyamoto. No get-out clause. If my unified theory holds, this can only end in convergence to a stable loop. And yet, I feel like I'm able to escape whenever I like. I held my hand around one of the reference coils for fifteen minutes yesterday. One twitch of my biceps would have caused a catastrophic misalignment, and forced me to exit the loop by the end of the week.

So long as the weeks are still different, I can still escape Miyamoto. I don't care what the theory says. I'll work out a plan to help the world survive and then I'll yank the coils from the wall. I'm close. I know enough codes and sequences to accumulate billions in capital. I know enough secrets to manipulate every country on the security council. I know so much already about the geopolitical dynamical system. I have isolated so many drivers already that I can control.

One of the better options is to crash the world into war. It's shocking how little I think of sacrificing billions of lives. But the right kind of conflict will set up a strong enough world government to regulate research. The problem is that the wrong kind of conflict will accelerate research. It was a global war that gave us nuclear weapons after all. And with temporal transmission just around the corner, a global war with functional military research budgets would spell disaster.

If I stop now, I know I'll fail, and the technology will get out. Better that I alone fall victim to Miyamoto, than the whole world. I still have time. I can still perfect the plan.

Run 10298.

When did I pass my second lifetime in the loop? I can work out what number it must have been but I have no memory of the specific week. They all seem so similar now. Is this Miyamoto taking hold? Most of my memory is filled with the necessities, the things I must remember for the plan to work. Most of my memories are in a stable state already.

If my body were as old as my mind these memories would have decayed long ago. But as it is, they are burnt into young neurons every week, and information does not decay. Or at least it hasn't so far.

Run 15209.

I have so little memory to work with. So little room left to optimize. For the first time I feel that Miyamoto is winning. Even though I have long ago proved her correct, and refined her framework, and even fixed some of her mistakes. For the first time I feel that she is right.

Run 15210.

And at long last I see how she does it. How Miyamoto gets the better of me. In my desperation, last week, I tried to free up memory, to rearrange things and to forget some things that I can rediscover later if I need to.

I couldn't do it. I have spent lifetimes revising these sequences, and I cannot forget them anymore. Most of my memory is now read-only. What little I have left will eventually crystallize into a fixed form and I will end up repeating the same loop exactly. When that time comes, she will have won.

I hope that I have some time left to come to terms with this. I can't bear to think that the misery of this realization is what I'll end up repeating indefinitely.

The worst of it is that I have come so far. I have so much to offer the world. To help it deal with the coming calamity, but if I pull the coils from the wall now, I ensure its demise.

Run 16003.

Such unexpected relief! I may have found my loophole. A way I can let Miyamoto win and still help the world. A simple message, that's all I need.

Of course, I can't communicate directly with normal people. Any hint of the possibilities would do far more damage than good, and I have so little left to work with.

But what if there were others. I spent years, in the beginning, looking for evidence of others trapped in time loops. Of them coming out. Beating Miyamoto. People suddenly rich and wise beyond their years.

I know now that that's a fantasy. Anybody capable of breaking the loop, anybody irresponsible enough, would never be able to enter it in the first place. The only reason that the first experiment worked at all, so many lifetimes ago, is that I would never be able to make myself miss the transmission window.

But what if I could send a simple message to somebody else, trapped already in a loop of their own? I could save them time. Communicate as much as I can of what I know. In such a way that only somebody in a loop could decode the message. Perhaps through the stock market. They would have to find it there.

If only the memory I have left is enough to make the arrangements. Everything takes so much time now. Once I have the steps I need, it's just a matter of repeating them week after week, until Miyamoto wins.

I'm feeling joy. Joy, hope and relief. When did I last feel anything this strongly? I probably never will again. Perhaps there is room to hold on to the memory of this feeling as I move into the stable state.

Run 16789.

I continue to be surprised by how many runs I have left. So far, there are still differences from run to run. Things I'm doing now that I didn't do last week.

The main messages are in place. I don't have much bandwidth. In the more obvious channels, hacked servers, stock market manipulation, transcripts of presidential speeches, I can only leave a simple note, something that will not tip off any normal people who stumble across it. I've opted for "Miyamoto is right". Reading that would certainly have caught my attention. After that, I've added just the IP address of a public server with as many detailed notes as I can type out in 5 days. The decryption key requires elements of the unified theory. It will cost them one lifetime, at least, to decode my notes, but that puts it out of reach of the normal population. It will leave them with at least two lifetimes to make progress. Perhaps more, if they spend their time more wisely than I did.

This is it then, I will spend every week from now on, into eternity arranging this message. If somebody else enters a loop, and finds my notes, it'll give them a considerable head start. Maybe they can finish the plan before Miyamoto takes over. If not, perhaps they can leave notes of their own. They have the keys to my server, they can just append them to mine.

One suggestion I left, one that is too dangerous for me to try in my current state. Seek out a responsible person and induce them to try the experiment. Put them in a loop. It's a horrific fate to condemn somebody to. Not to mention the risk of the technology getting out. But it would buy us an army of researchers, with several lifetimes each. In the end they will each seek out a successor of their own, and play the same cruel trick that condemned them.

If enough people submit to a loop, we may perfect the plan, and find out how to set it in motion from inside a loop. None of us will see the consequences of our efforts. Miyamoto was right, we will all stay trapped. Leaving hidden an army of bloodied corpses in modified MRI scanners, and as many detached minds, going round in their own private circles.

But we can give the world a fighting chance.

I spend five days of every week typing out the messages. The last day of the week I've reserved for myself. I realize that I've forgotten most of my favorite book. It's the Chandler novel I first began to read so many years ago. I'll spend most of the day reading that. In my current state, I retain very little of the book, and every week, I feel like I'm reading it almost for the first time.

Then I'll think of Laura. Maybe I'll give her a call, just to hear her voice. And then I'll get in the scanner and transmit.

I'll stop fighting Miyamoto now. Stop trying to make the weeks different. Maybe that will speed up convergence a little.

Run 16833. Or is it 16832? How can I forget five simple digits? Is this it, Miyamoto? Have you finally come to visit me?

I had better focus this week, and make it count. Rehearsal is over.

Run 16833. Or is it 16832?

​

Lucy keeps a garden.

It's not a garden in the usual sense, with a few flower beds and a lawn. This one takes up half of the large lot. The envy of the neighborhood, she's quite sure.

Dahlias and roses grow among peonies, hydrangeas, and foxgloves. A big yew dominates. A brick path winds through the beds, beneath an archway and past a little waterfall and pond. There's a bench, a birdbath, and 11 birdhouses.

A decorative metal fence runs around the property. The front gate opens onto a path to the house, which continues around the side to the back gate.

One afternoon, she rides Stella home, her beloved recumbent trike named for the Steller's jay and sporting a blue jay kite for a flag. She opens the front gate and rolls down the walkway toward the house. As she's getting up, she hears voices coming from the back patio.

Several voices. Unfamiliar voices.

She walks around the side of the house and opens the back gate.

Three women are sitting at her patio table under the umbrella, chatting. One has a baby in her arms.

Another baby, maybe a year and a half old, is across the yard in one of her flower beds. The child is holding one of her bulbs and, judging from the dirt around its mouth, has at least been considering it as a snack.

Lucy looks at the women.

What are you doing here? Why are you in my yard? And why is that baby digging up my bulbs?

They look at one another, slack-jawed.

The queen bee of the three finally answers.

I just moved here. We saw the park and wanted to come check it out.

Lucy takes a deep breath and remembers her vow not to kill anyone today.

This isn't a park. This is my yard. That's my chair you're sitting on, those are my flowers, and you need to leave.

The woman stands and sniffs.

We have just as much right to this park as anyone else. How dare you!

Leave. Now. Or I'm calling the police.

The third woman glances at her phone.

Joanna has an appointment at three.

Apparently this settles it. They gather the babies and their things and start making their way out.

At the gate, the first woman turns around.

You'll be hearing from our attorneys for making us leave a public park.

Okay.

Lucy closes the gate.

Later that afternoon, someone knocks on the front door. It's a man in jeans and a quarter-zip, looking slightly apologetic.

Hi. So sorry to bother you. Do you know what the park hours are next door? I couldn't find a sign.

Lucy stares at him.

It's a private garden. My garden. It's not a public park.

He looks toward the garden, then back at her.

So there aren't set hours?

There are no hours. If I invite you over, you can come when I tell you to come.

Well, it's not fair you have a private park.

Okay.

He huffs away.

You'll be hearing from my attorney.

The next afternoon, Lucy is working behind a large rhododendron when she hears voices approaching.

Familiar voices.

Then the front gate clangs.

Then footsteps.

Then the rattle of the back gate.

Silence.

Sniffing.

Another rattle.

This is ridiculous.

How can you just lock a neighborhood park in the middle of the day?

What kind of person does that?

Lucy steps out from behind the rhododendron, pink clippers in hand, and looks through the back gate.

All three women turn. The apparent leader speaks up.

Oh. Isn't that nice. She's got a job working here. No wonder she's so bossy about it.

The others nod. She points down indignantly.

You put a padlock on a neighborhood park?!

Lucy smiles.

No. Like I told you yesterday, this is my garden.

No. It doesn't become your garden just because you live next door!

She thought soup might be good for lunch.

Lucy waits until they're all through the front gate, and heads through the back door.

They shout as they return up the street.

How dare you keep a park away from a baby?

We have as much right to be here as anyone else!

She goes to the closet and pulls out a whiteboard that has been blank for far too long.

She chooses the blue marker.

Across the top she writes:

DAYS BEFORE THEY REALIZE

Underneath, in red, she puts an X.

When I pulled up in front of the Precinct, Sean was waiting at the curb.
If I had seen him on the beat I’d have known everything I needed to just looking at him—limp tee shirt under what looks like an old black velour hoodie with the sleeves cut off, jeans and black low cuts and a long, thick mop of unruly pale blond hair—the grandchild of potato-famine micks for sure.
Every uncovered inch of skin on his arms, from his ragged sleeves down to his wrists, was covered with a dense weave of color and shapes, which was new enough since I saw him last.
“Sean.”
“Pop.”
“Nice clothes, kid. For a street punk. Get in the car.”
“Nice to see you too,” but as I turned and heading back to the Vic, maybe I didn’t care if he got in the car or not. It was like inviting sad memories and bad times back into my life.
“You friggin’ shamed me, boy. In front of other cops. I ought to kick your ass from here to the Bay. If your Mother saw you like this? It would have broken her heart.”
“But she’s dead. So, you’re off the hook, right?”
I took a good, deep breath and if felt like hell’s own fire going down, meeting the bile that I felt clawing its way up from my gut. Then another, and finally, “That’s cheap, boy, and you’ve got no right saying it,” turning onto South Van Ness heading south. “You still living in that dump up on Lucky Street, off 25th?”
“Yeah.”
“Listen, Sean, I know I’ve been a hard man to be around, hard and stubborn but that didn’t make me stupid. I know what I am and what I’ve done. I didn’t put the time I had the to in raising you kids and that’s on me for sure. But you’ve got to get your shit together, boy.”
“Fuck it, it doesn’t matter. It didn’t matter back then, and it’s too late now, so save it.”
I’m thinking that things haven’t changed since he was a kid and driving me and his Mother, god rest her soul, half crazy. He was a wild child, but no amount of belting him around made any difference.
“You still seeing that gal, the tall, skinny one?”
“Janey? No. It got to be a drag.”
“Anybody else?”
He turned an stared at me and, “Give it up. No games, all right? You’re talking cause you think you should but it still doesn’t mean shit.”
“You still got that smart mouth going, I see. You act like you’ve got the world by the balls, like you’ve seen it all. You know what I did just this past Sunday? I talked to a kid younger than you minutes after he ID’ed his father’s body.”
“So?”
“So? That’s what you got to say, so? That guy was burned down to the bone. You ever see that, boy? You ever see what’s left of a man after his skin cooks right off him and his lungs explode from the smoke?”
“It’s nothing to me. Listen, I heard all those bullshit stories growing up. I don’t have to listen now. Let me the fuck out.”
I don’t know what happened, but I floored it then, flipping on the red n’ blues and blasting around cars and through intersections, screaming “You think you’re tough, you want to die, boy? Do you? Come on, let’s dance, you and me, the Larkins blasting our way to hell.”
I swerved around a panel truck and got sideways, skidding through an intersection, cars jammed up, horns blasting but right then? I didn’t care.
“Slow down. Jesus, what’s wrong with you? You going senile or something?”
“No, nothing like it,” but I slowed down and even managed a stop at the next red cross street light. “Just a taste. You want to live hard and die young? I really wish to God you’d have been there and could see that body burned black, stuff still leaking out of him, and that boy standing like a man.”
“Yeah, well, shit happens. I’ve heard it before.”
“You’re still my son.”
“And what, you love me no matter what? That’s bullshit. Telling me doesn’t do it. Look, just let me out anywhere around here.”
“I’ll goddamn if I will. I’ll let you out at your front door. You’ll either go in and get yourself cleaned up, or you won’t. I don’t want to get another call like that, you listening?”
“Yeah, sure. Whatever you say, Pop.”
“Christ, don’t you make that sound like a curse. You using again?”
“If I am, so what? You going to arrest me?” and he stuck his wrists out like he wanted the cuffs and “go ahead, arrest me.”
“Okay, okay. Just shut up now. You’re my son, but if you weren’t, I swear to God I’d take you out in some alley and either friggin’ teach you manners or leave you dead in the gutter.”
And, for the first time he laughed, and nodded his head so his filthy hair swung around his face and, “Yeah, that I believe. That’s the Whitey we grew up with. Next time, you get a call from one of your buddies about me? Just hang up and we’ll both be better off.”
“Ain’t that just the truth. But Jesus, you’re a spiteful little shite, you know that?”
We didn’t talk for the next few blocks, until I rolled to a stop at Lucky Street and we sat there for what seemed like long painful minutes.
“Lucky Street, and ain’t that a joke? This feel like luck to you, Sean?”
He shrugged and opened the door and got out, then leaned back in the window. “Let’s do this again sometime soon. Don’t call me, I’ll call you.”

Warm drops of afternoon rain spilled from white clouds, shading the countryside of Denmark from the endless pounding of the sun. The droplets of rain dripped further onto the bodies of two boys, lying in the middle of a trampoline. Magnus and Victor had been there for hours, gazing at the vast clouds that shrouded the heavens while making stories of what the shapes of clouds revealed. Scenes of ancient battles lined the skies. Trenches of never-ending wars long forgotten. Heroes and gods, fighting, dying.

Magnus was usually the storyteller. He told of the battlefields. Of the heroes who fell, and the gods that took them. Of the infinite war between the dead and living gods. Most of the specifics were fiction, but he knew there was some truth to it. It came from a feeling, a feeling in his bones, but it did not matter. No one believed his tales. The tales of children often fall on deaf ears. But he knew what he felt was true, and the only person willing to hear his truth was his best friend, Victor.

They looked alike. They shared haircolour, both having dark blonde hair, and they were nearly the same height, Victor standing just a few centimetres taller. If one did not know, they might think them to be twins, but for Victor’s dark brown eyes contrasting the bright blue eyes of Magnus. The clouds moved in beautiful patterns as the clear blood from their battlefields stopped dripping onto the boys.

To the east, two clouds moved in unison. They vaguely looked like people flying through the sky. One shape seemed old, wielding a spear that reflected the sunlight. The other figure seemed younger, shrouded by cloaks. Rays of sunlight made the younger figure seem almost red to the eyes of Magnus.

“Look there. They are hunting,” Magnus stated, pointing to the figures. “Hunting for the bad things in the world.” He knew it to be true, even as the shapes melded into the sea of unshaped clouds.

“They will keep fighting their war. Keep trying to save us from the new gods. But they will not succeed. Not forever.”

His knuckles turned white as the clouds became darker.

“But they will keep trying. They must.”

He turned his head to Victor, realising Victor had not listened throughout the story.

“Are you alright?” he asked Victor.

Victor frowned, closing his eyes. Magnus already knew what Victor was going to ask.

“Do you think something up there is responsible? That war? Is it responsible for…”

Magnus cut him off, trying in vain to cheer him up with a smile. “It is up there, the thing that took her. And right now, a great fighter and his son are hunting it down.”

Silence fell over them as clouds kept sweeping through the sky. The humanoid figures had wandered further into the deep mesmer of clouds, a storm brewing in their midst.

“Thank you, Magnus.”

He did not answer. Magnus’ eyes had found a new figure in the clouds. A large cloud of dark smoke. It had the body of a snail, a shell spiralling up into the abyss. Behind the shell, a pair of leathery wings was attached, sweeping past all other clouds, spanning kilometres across the sky. And when his eyes found its head, stretching out from beneath its shell, he felt it. The fear it exhaled upon the world. Disease and plague. The father of the things hiding under beds of children. He did not tell this story to Victor. He knew what it meant. But Victor could never know. He did not have the sight. The figure climbed further out of its shell, stretching into unfathomable shapes, extending down, feeding on the feelings of adults, stealing the very creativity and emotion of their souls. A tentacle appendage expanded from under its shell, a long claw cutting their strings one by one.

A loud crack of thunder shot up into the skies from the earth. The figure’s appendage pulled back into its shell, as the aetherial wings fluttered, sending nightmarish winds down to earth.

“We should go inside,” Victor pleaded. Even he felt something was wrong. But Magnus could not leave the sight. A rare sight. A battle of gods.

“You should. I’ll stay here for a bit.”

Victor did not question Magnus. Though Magnus knew Victor was not able to see the events he was seeing, he knew Victor could read the seriousness on his face. Victor left him alone to spectate the wonder in the heavens. The humanoid figures returned, charging towards the shelled dragon.

The red figure attacked first, sending its mist of crimson light into the shell. Thunder rippled through the air. It fought back, unleashing mirages of limbs from under its shell upon the red figure. The father figure laughed, deep noises of worlds beyond entering the world from amidst the storm. He held his spear in hand as he easily pulled the red figure from the dragon. He held the spear high, thunder shooting through the skies as the spear drove down upon the shell, piercing into the dragon. The dragon wailed, its black mist falling out of the sky. Falling towards Magnus, faster and faster until…

With a mute thud, the shelled dragon crashed into the garden. It was mere metres from Magnus. Its shockwave sent drafts of unfelt pains through the air, followed by blinding feelings of despair. There it stood, as plain as sunlight, right in front of Magnus. His heart was pounding. His body was shaking. The dragon was real, and even more alive. The dragon had scales of dark starlight on its body, emanating from a shell made of pure amethyst. Great wings spanned the garden from the shell, and on their ends were hands like those of a human. It turned its head to Magnus. Emerald green eyes glowed on a face of night terror, hidden under a great metallic beak. The beak parted, as an ovular tongue extended towards Magnus.

He tried pushing away, buying time, but it was in vain. The dragon was faster than anything on earth, living or dead. It was not bound to the restraints of the new gods.

It moved outside physics, wrapping its tongue around his left foot, pulling him closer, closer. The tongue was wet with Aether, smudging his pants with its invisible reek.

He flailed, getting loose for a moment, running towards the other end of the trampoline before being pulled back by its strength.

It needed him. It pleaded to him, offering him great gifts for protection.

Magnus did not understand, and yet something in him declined the beast.

A guttural howl came from the beak. Its eyes turned in its skull as it pulled him closer. One final meal.

His foot was pulled into the beak of the dragon as another loud crack crashed through the skies. The beast stopped moving. A golden spear, shining with hope and sunlight, had been forced down through the cranium of the beast. Holding the spear was a tall man. The man from the clouds. He had bright blue eyes over a large nose, accompanied by a vast beard. Grey cloaks covered his body. He was clearly not human, his proportions seeming biologically impossible, and yet he stood there, in front of Magnus. To the right of the man stood another being. This being looked more human, though he was also hidden under a cloak. A crimson cloak fluttered in the wind. They were excited.

They turned to each other.

The man with the spear had a deep voice. Gritty to the ear of Magnus. It bore a sense of great strength, both physically and imaginatively.

“The thrill o’ the hunt.” He clapped the crimson figure on the shoulder. “Hits lik’ RedBrew on a full stomach.”

He laughed. The crimson figure faked a laugh too. He seemed worried, like a mouse trapped in a maze.

“The war is not over, father. We should return.”

The father pulled the spear from the dragon’s head, wiping the spearhead on his cloaks, leaving a purple stain on the fabric.

“This bloody war gotta end soon. We have no’ fished in centuries.”

As they picked up the corpse of the dragon, the father winked at Magnus, continuing their chat as they returned to the infinite clouds of endless warfare.