Men sweated all around her, but Karen Fleiss felt the heat only as a pleasant baking sensation after the cool of the SUV. She knelt next to the exposed footer to read the letters printed there. SHAWN She smiled. The name was blocked out in a childish hand, made clumsy by the drag of wet concrete. Still obscured by dirt and washed out in the high desert sun, it was surrounded by markings she couldn’t quite make out, but which seemed to place the name at the center of an eye with spiky lashes all around. She imagined the little boy, barefoot and dirty, scratching doodles around his signature, then running off with a grin. Into the wash, into the hills and scrub, in search of further mischief while his family finished constructing their new home. These days he’d be sitting in the car with a tablet. She would have it kept, of course. The name. Gene probably figured that much out already. He’d thought to point it out to her, after all, during her morning inspection. After six months, three designers, and five blueprints, he knew her tastes. It looked a little rough to go over the fireplace, but maybe it could be incorporated into some other part of the hearth. She already had plans to reuse concrete from the demolished footer. Maybe there were more designs. It would add a nice touch. A sense of continuity. Karen loved repurposed material. “Kid could be my age by now,” Gene offered cheerfully, standing behind her. Karen did not like that thought. She had been reaching out to touch the letters. Now she dropped her hand. A fresh-faced cherub was one thing. A middle-aged man was another. Sweet kids grew into terrible adults all the time. Now she had to think about things like whether or not Shawn had a criminal record. Gene Naddler did, she knew. Just the one offense, which she’d found before hiring him. She eventually decided to overlook it, since he came so highly recommended. That’s why Karen reserved her affection for animals and children, especially animals. They, at least, stayed innocent. That’s what she told her political young niece, whenever she went on about whatever new injustice was bothering her. It’s what she told those activists always accosting her on the way into the store, looking for money. I donate to the Humane Society. That’s why she was out here. A cattle-guard between her and everybody else’s problems. No one else’s buildings fencing in her stars. No one else’s light washing them out. She loved the space. She loved the sky. And all just a 5-minute drive into the city. Jess would of course be welcome to bring her children out to run around, like Shawn, if they could all just give up their screens and their causes for a day. “I thought the house was older than that,” she said, frowning. “An addition,” Gene explained, pointing. “Older style, with a footer instead of a slab, but abutted to the original wall.” “Hmm,” she said. “I’ve got to go.” “Got everything handled here, ma’am,” he replied, then sobered. “Good luck today.” With any luck, you can beat this, the doctors had said. We're doing everything we can. She nodded but said nothing, looking back at the name with the odd symbol scrawled around it. It was smudged at one end of the eye, like it had originally been a closed shape but got spoiled at the last minute by a careless finger. She wondered if that had upset the child. She reached out to touch the place... ... and stood back to study her work, the stick still dangling from a thin left hand, caked in grey. She pushed a wild hank of hair back from her forehead. Shawn did not smile. “Now this room is yours forever,” said a voice behind her. “You’re written into the foundation. You’ll go right up through the walls.” Shawn continued to stare at her name in the fading light. Gloaming, the time in-between, when everything you did mattered a little bit more. “It’ll be safe out here,” her mother promised. Would it? Shawn thought of the people back in town. She thought of their eyes. She looked back at the lights of the small city, laid out on the valley floor. She watched the windows, winking open one by one. Those eyes would follow her, eventually, even here. They’d dot every hill, climb every ravine. Her mother didn’t know that, but she did. And they would all stare. “Why did we have to come here?” Her mother did not reply. “Why don’t you ever smile?” a boy had demanded once at school, before her mother had taken her out. “Why don’t you ever look at anyone?” She thought about that boy. His voice. Something hurt behind it that she couldn’t fix. She thought about the girl down the street, who didn’t mind all that, and how Shawn used to teach her spells, until one day she stopped coming over. She thought of Ms. May, and how she had only ever tried to help. She thought about the doctors. We've done everything we can, they said. A state hospital would be best. Her mother disagreed, and here they were. They’d build the room together, she said, so Shawn would know what was in the walls. Together they mixed and laid the concrete, though it took so very long by themselves. Others would come help lay stones in the morning - friends, her mother said - but in the meantime Shawn had been able to add her own ingredients to the foundation. As it dried, they put down Shawn’s wards at each corner, the ones she’d drawn all around her old room so she could sleep. Her mother was old-fashioned, and her mother had come from another land entirely, so they also buried one shoe each near the door that would lead into the main room. After everything was done, though, she also insisted Shawn write out her name, like a normal child might do. That was fair. This way they both felt better. But now that she had done so, Shawn began to feel afraid. Her name looked so alone there on the smooth concrete. Exposed. “Sweetie?” Quickly, Shawn drew a circle and felt a little better. A curl around her name. Hugging, almost. Protecting. She thought a moment, then added the spikes. “What is that?” her mother asked. “It looks scary.” Shawn didn’t answer. It did look a little scary. Good. Why did they have to be here? She hated it. There was too much space. The sky was too big. There were too many stars. And behind them, endless black. “It’s so closed in,” her mother complained. “Your name looks like it’s in jail.” Shawn shook her head. Her name wasn’t in jail. It was safe. She felt her mother touch her arm, ever so lightly. She’d waited long enough that Shawn was expecting it and didn’t jump away. “How about this,” her mother said softly, pushing past her a little to crouch at the wet concrete. “Can we leave open a little door, at least? In case your name ever wants to come out?” Shawn hesitated. Would her name ever want to come out? “Maybe,” she said. “What did you say?” asked Gene. “Maybe we can keep the footer,” Karen lied, standing up. “You want to work it into the floor plan?” he replied, his tone carefully neutral. “We’d have to have another meeting with all the subcontractors.” Karen studied Gene a moment. In a half year of working for her, he had always been congenial. He even accepted the background check with equanimity. That was his job, but she suddenly realized he probably didn’t like her very much. Why should he? Pain in the ass rich lady always changing her mind in the middle of a project. “Or we could just go with what we’ve got,” she said, picking up her bag. “I was just thinking out loud.” Was that a look of irritation? “I’m really distracted today,” she held up a hand in apology. “I’ll leave it to you. Really. Before I know it, I’ll have a great home to die in.” “Ma’am,” he began, looking embarrassed. Karen sighed. She was making things worse. “A good place to spend some time with family before that happens,” she amended, turning back toward her vehicle. Tablets, politics, and all. Maybe.


[Potentially NSFW - swearing] Originally a from /r/WritingPrompts I thought it would be long enough for here too. If this is against etiquette of the subreddit, please do let me know! ***** “Memory Lane: Relive your favourite* memory like it was today.” I chuckled to myself as I popped open the bottle and picked out a multi-coloured pill, swallowing it down with a swig of nearby water. Looking at the description on the bottle I couldn’t help but wonder what my ‘favourite’ memory was. “21, not exactly a cushy upbringing, but not scraping the barrel either, and a girlfriend of 3 years. Ha! Should be fun.” I thought, as I cycled through the immediate memories that sprung to mind; the beach holiday with my family was one of the greatest times of my childhood, but it was the beach holiday with my girlfriend that really made me a man. I laid myself on the bed and closed my eyes. I’m awake, I’m stood up, and in my hands is a rifle. I look up and see I’m in a locker room facing a closed red door. To my left is a heavily armed marine, to the right is the same. They look nervous, very nervous. Why are they nervous? Why do I have a gun in my hand? What am I doing her... BANG! The red door shook. The two marines raise their guns to the door, eyes down the barrel at the door. BANG! I jump with shock in my armour, my heart rate now feeling like it is trying to punch out of my chest. A low rumbling begins around me and the marines are looking more on edge, slightly swaying with nerves as the whole room begins to shake violently. “WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?!” I shout, only to receive “RAISE YOUR GUN SOLDI...” bang. The silence following the final subdued bang was deafening, broken by the creek of the red door as it begins to wane and bulge under the pressure behind it. “Raise your fucking gun” he whispered. “What the fuck is going on?” I whisper back, raising my gun to the door. I clasp my sweaty fingers around the trigger as suddenly the door BREAKS from its hinges and unleashes a torrent of black...things...The shooting begins and on my immediate left the marine is sliced down by the monsters. I turn my eyes forward to see enormous spindly legs extended toward me as I’m thrown to the ground, my chest pierced by the sharp legs of the monsters. “FUUUUUUUUUUUCCKKKK” I cry, the searing pain coursing through my body is unbearable as more legs extend into my body. I can’t move as I’m pinned down and can just make out a monster raising its leg over my eye. I wince as I try to turn away, but it’s too late. I’m awake, I’m stood up, and in my hands is a rifle. I look up and see I’m in a locker room facing a closed red door. To my left is a heavily armed marine, to the right is the same. “I’ve been here before” I mutter, the memory of what just happened is forever burned in my mind, I’d never been stabbed before but I’ll never forget it now. BANG! “We need to go, we need to get the fuck out of here now! We don’t have much time!” I plead with the other marines, but they stand fast with their gaze at the door. BANG! “Fuck fuck fuck fuck, oh my god I don’t want to die again”, the room begins to shake violently, my eyes rush round the room trying to find something more defensible, I begin to shake as much as the room, I can’t catch my breath. I..I just can’t I can’t. I throw my gun on the ground, but it spins around my body, attached beneath the metal plates. I claw at my armour looking for something, anything more explosive than the gun I’ve just disowned. “WHAT ARE YOU DOING SOLDIER?!” The marine on the left bellows. bang. “Raise your fucking gun” he whispered. “We are so fucked” I whisper back. The door wanes and I start shooting, the monsters explode out of the door and lurch straight toward me, pinning me down on the ground. The phantom pain I just experienced was nothing compared to the feeling of the knife like legs impaling me to the floor. The seconds of this intense pain felt like lifetimes, god I just wanted it to end. I’m awake, I’m stood up, and in my hands is a rifle. I look up and see I’m in a locker room facing a closed red door. To my left is a heavily armed marine, to the right is the same. I turn around and run, “GET BACK HERE SOLDIER!” I hear behind me as I push through the double doors of the locker room and into a winding corridor. BANG! I scramble through the maze of corridors as I hear the second BANG! Slipping on the freshly waxed floor as I go, my sweaty hands desperately searching for traction on the walls to try and pull me up. Finally at the end of the corridor is a T junction of corridors with a lift. I press the button as I hear the gunfire in the distance start, my hands shaking as I repeatedly press the button, the ground shaking as the monsters get closer and closer. Suddenly they crash round the corner of the far corridor I’ve just slipped on, there must have been hundreds of them. These nightmarish black creatures who only brought death, and I’ll be dammed if they’re going to get me again. I look right, down the T junction and see a set of double doors with people sat down behind them. I sprint toward it crashing through the doors into a Chinese restaurant, “GET THE FUCK OUT, NOW!” I yell as I shoot the ceiling, sending the occupants to the floor and to the door I just came from, through which the nightmares stampede toward me. I look forward and run toward the large pane glass window ahead of me, shooting the glass as I leap onto the frame, springboarding out of the window to a ledge on a billboard in front of me, which I grab the edge of just in time. I look down and see about 30 floors worth of air below me. My body broken, I pull myself up onto the ledge and lie on my back. The bloodcurdling screams from the restaurant become silent within seconds, as I look back to the window I just jumped from and I see a nightmare preparing to make the jump to me. “Not again, never again” I quietly speak to myself, as I roll off the ledge and fall toward the ground. I’m the one in control and I would rather die than go through this again. I close my eyes in acceptance of the end. I’m awake, I’m lying down, and in my hands is the hands of another; my eyes open to an unfamiliar ceiling with a girl who I swear I know sat over me “Wake up, you’re safe now” she says, as she kisses my forehead. She pulls away and I recognise my room, I recognise the bed I’m lying in, it’s mine; and I recognise the girl, the same girl I had just seen a second ago in my memory. “Hand me the bot..tle” the words barely making it past my lips, as one hand grabs the bottle and the other searches my body for wounds. *Favourite memory is purely subjective, Memory Lane will take the most vivid memory you have of anything your mind has experienced and expand upon it. Please note that the human brain, while researched, is not fully understood, and repression may be an important factor in your experiences.


Coffee splashed across the floor, pulling Eli from his peaceful nap. The newest hire was often a little... "much". "I might be your secretary, but I will *not* be bringing you coffee!" Rose dropped the paper cup on the floor and crossed her arms. "I didn't *ask* for coffee! Where did you even get that!?" Eli pulled his feet off his desk, "We don't even have a coffee machine here! Did you seriously go buy coffee just to spill it on my floor!?" "Maybe, but you can't prove anything." Rose shrugged, "Oh, there's a man here to see you." "Should I have a gun ready?" "He doesn't look like that kind of guy." Eli muttered for her to send him in and rubbed his eyes. Rose had only worked for him for a month. She'd stopped telling him she hated him after the first couple weeks, so that was at least better. She did take advantage of any small attempt to antagonize him, though. If he didn't hold himself responsible for her shop being overrun with unknowable and unnamable monsters, he would probably have just fired her. Which would have been fairly merciful since he had blown up the last person he had fired. Life was just a gas. The door swung open and the stranger walked in. Short beard, scraggly hair, slightly overweight, eyes turned red from crying, ring on his left hand. The man had been someone's husband for too long. Or had just experienced a few bad nights. The man dropped down into the chair in front of Eli's desk and cleared his throat. "Eli Thorne." Eli offered his hand, "What can I do for you?" "Walt Cain." The man shook Eli's hand, "I think my wife is cheating on me." "That is a possibility." Eli shrugged, "What do you want me to do about it?" "Well... you're a Private Eye... and I was thinking you could gather some pictures or something." "Oh, I'm not that kind of Private Eye." Eli shook his head and reached into his pocket, "You're looking for a sleazy cold fish. I've got a card for someone around here. Give him a call and-" "No, uh... Mr. Thorne... I just need you to hear me out." "Mr. Cain, what you're asking me to do is called 'stalking'. And I'm not the kind to do that. Drop a dime on this guy here," Eli slid the card across the table, "He's exactly the sort you're looking for. Chrome dome, smells awful, weighs as much as a bus, snores when he's awake. He's perfect for this. Tell him I sent you, and he'll owe me a drink." "Mr. Thorne, please listen." Walt pushed the card back to Eli. "No, *you* listen. This is not the kind of work I do. Now leave on your own or I will help you leave." Eli sat forward, "And I am *very* good at helping." "I know you're looking for info on a guy who owns a coffee shop. Turns out, I have information on Jerome Farmer." Jerome Farmer. That name had come up in a case Eli had worked before. A mysterious man who worked in the open. All attempts taken by Eli, his assistant, or their secretary had ended up completely worthless. Dead ends, all of them. And Eli *really* needed to know about Farmer. Farmer was the reason Eli had blown up his former partner. He needed to know *why*. Eli rolled his eyes, "Why do you think this would be a case for me of all people?" "You did some work for a friend a few months ago. He said it was something to do with a sailor who was smuggling... uh... 'evil books' into Haven City. I think this might be the same kind of thing. My wife has this novel she's been reading... and it's got all these weird drawings in it." "You're sure that's not a comic?" Eli sighed, "Look, Mr. Cain, 'evil books' are incredibly rare. The possibility of your wife having one is not very high." "She turned my dog into a monster." Eli coughed and sat up, "Alright, so maybe it's more possible than I thought. What does this have to do with her cheating on you?" "She's always working late, she always hides her phone, she is completely disinterested in me, and-" "Have you tried therapy? I hear it works." Eli sighed, "I... I can look into it. But the infidelity may be a different situation than the magic. I will be looking into *that* above all. And I would like compensation." "What's your rate?" "Normally, fifty an hour. Since this involves magic and I'm probably going to have to shoot people and cover all of that up, one hundred fifty an hour." Eli offered his hand, "Deal?" "Deal." Walt shook Eli's hand, "Tell me what you know. Anything that can help me track your wife down. Schedule, close friends, family who might help cover up anything you shouldn't know... Actually, do you have the book? Or the dog?" "I have the book here." Walt pulled out a tiny novel and dropped it on Eli's desk, "And the dog is in the trunk of my car." Eli picked up the book and started flipping through the pages, "Well, I think that's animal cruelty. Should have at least cracked a window." "You'll understand when you see the dog." "Well, this is absolutely an evil book." Eli muttered, "Romance novels. Hate 'em. This one's not even well-written. What's up with this infatuation with the word 'moist'? That's just gross." Eli rolled his eyes over and over as he quickly flipped through, but stopped as he picked up on a few strange phrases starting on page 117. He grabbed the lamp on his desk, flipped it on, and pulled it closer to the pages. He pulled a single page up and held the light behind it. The light filtered through, illuminating symbols and phrases that started to scratch at his mind. Equations and spells. "Yeah. Alright. This is magic." Eli squinted, "Now, my familiarity with this language is a little rough, but I think this part means something like 'be reborn in the shape of war'. Or that last word might be 'friendship'. Or 'screaming'. Or 'moist'. Yeah... this is a bad one. Mutating people and animals is never a good idea. Let's go take a look at the dog." \*\*\*\*\*\* Eli had his M1911 in his hand, loaded and cocked, per the instruction of Walt. Walt popped the trunk and jumped back. Large paws wrapped around the edge of the trunk, the body of the beast greasily sliding into the daylight. Its teeth grew from its lips. Its eyes were thin and dark. Its fur was matted and ugly. Its tails were long and curling. It growled at the sight of the two men. "Well, you should probably give your dog a bath or something. I know that I'd flip my wig if I smelled like that." Eli stepped forward, "Hey there, pooch. What's good?" The gurgling growl rumbled from its throat. Eli didn't take another step. "Yeah, this is a bad sign. Your dog looks healthy. Messed up and a little mutated, but healthy. Don't take him-" Eli paused and looked at the dog's underside, "Sorry. *Her*. Don't take *her* to a normal vet, but I know a nice lady who does checkups on dogs like these. Just don't ask her about the rabbits, and you'll be fine." Eli reached out and scratched behind the dog's horns, "You're actually almost cute." "How could you think *that thing* is cute!?" "I've seen some *weird* stuff, Mr. Cain." Eli pulled his notebook from his pocket, "Alright. Tell me where I might find your wife when she's 'working late', and I'll get this process started." \*\*\*\*\*\* Eli stopped in front of the yoga studio, swearing to himself the whole time. He made sure his snub was in the holster on his left hip, the M1911 was on his right hip, and the metal brace was secured safely on his right forearm. He'd dealt with evil yoga instructors before. Their flexibility was an irritation more than anything. "You ready for this, Mr. Thorne?" Eli looked at the passenger seat where his younger assistant sat. The kid was finally ready for a few cases, but Eli had wanted him to tag along. Better experience. The kid's golden hair was styled to match Eli's, and his muscular physique was hidden under his black coat. "I guess I have to be." Eli sighed, "This is just for the information on Jerome Farmer. Investigating cheaters is not going to be a common thing for us, okay?" "You got it, Mr. Thorne." The pair got out of his car and walked through the door as Eli pulled his long coat over himself. The studio was very bright. The interior walls were white and the exterior walls were glass. Plants were lined up against the walls and a fountain trickled by the door. It smelled like flowers and sweat. Calming music played over the speakers. It was actually a pretty nice place. The receptionist smiled warmly at Eli, but paused as he saw Eli's clothing, "Sir, what are you wearing?" "This is the height of fashion where I come from." "Where did you come from? Those clothes haven't been in style for like... eighty years." "Sixty, actually." Chase chimed in, "Mr. Thorne is an old-fashioned kind of Private Eye." "I happen to look very nice. And we don't tell people we're Private Investigators unless we have to." Eli stepped up to the desk, "Anyway, I need to speak with one..." Eli checked the page of his notebook, "Brad Wills. Do you know where I might find him?" "Oh, Brad doesn't do one-on-ones." "Good thing there's two of us, then." Eli motioned to Chase and himself, "Now, it's getting close to noon. Where does he get lunch?" "He brings in his own kale salad. It's to die for!" "I hate kale." Eli grumbled. Chase leaned over and whispered, "Is kale evil, Mr. Thorne?" "Not like... 'monster' evil, but certainly 'tastes bad' evil." Eli pointed at the hallway, "Is your break room down there?" "Our 'break room' is the roof garden." "I hate this damn place." Eli growled, "Is it open to the public?" "Members only." Eli tapped Chase's shoulder and motioned for him to follow. They walked a few steps away, making it just to the door. Eli kept his voice low as he leaned in to Chase, "I need you to distract him so I can get by. How many cameras did you see?" "Two cameras, same model, and one doesn't have the light on. That one is probably off. The other one is rotating back and forth slowly, so you should be able to slip past in about twenty seconds." Eli felt his heart jump, "I am so proud of you, kid. We'll make an investigator out of you yet. You distract him, and I'll-" "Actually, Mr. Thorne, I should go through. You stand out a bit in your clothes." "You think you can get him to squeal?" "For sure." Chase nodded, "I got this one." Eli nodded and walked over to the front desk, standing on the side with the working camera. He knocked on the desk, "Excuse me, sir! I have issues with your establishment! Have you seen what people wear here!? 'Suggestive' is putting it mildly! And what is this talk I hear about 'downward dog'!? What kind of *smut* are you peddling!?" "Sir, please lower your voice. You're-" "Sit up and speak clearly, young man! Where do you get off talking to your elders that way!?" "I think I'm older than-" "Why, back in my day, we didn't have things like these dens of sin and villainy! We had picture books and we were *grateful*! You make me sick with your disgusting business! For shame, sir! For *shame*!" "Sir, what kind of business do you think this is?" Chase slipped behind the receptionist, past the camera's watch, and down the hall, nodding to Eli as he hurried past. The group of people that had formed to watch Eli's outburst hadn't noticed Chase either. That was good. "I actually don't know what came over me." Eli pulled his wide-brimmed hat off and ran his hand through his hair, "Whew! That was strange. You all go about bettering your physical health, lowering your stress levels, and eating foul plants. I wish you well in your endeavors! I'm gonna go take a powder!" Eli bolted for the door as hard as he could. \*\*\*\*\*\* Eli jolted awake as Chase pulled the door open and jumped in. For a moment, Eli was pretty sure he heard screaming and crying coming from the roof, but it went silent as Chase slammed his door shut. Chase pulled out his phone and tapped on the icon that looked like a notebook. Why the kid couldn't just use normal pen and paper was beyond Eli. "Alright, so this is everything I got out of him." Chase held up the phone. Eli tilted his head back and pulled Chase's hand closer to his face, "Ah, so it looks like Walt's wife was *not* cheating on him. That's good. But... what does 'colt leafer' mean?" "Oh, my bad." Chase pulled his phone back, "I typed in the wrong thing there." "This is why you should use paper and pen. That way, you always know what you're writing down. And you don't have to deal with all this newfangled phone stuff." "It means 'cult leader'. She's involved in a cult, and the guy up there was one of her disciples. She's a disciple for someone else, and then on and on. It's like a pyramid scheme." "Ah, but with more magic." Eli started the car, "Do you have an address?" "There's an abandoned church on 1937 Gilman Avenue. I've typed it up in my phone." "No need for that." Eli pointed, "Grab the map from the glovebox for me, please." "Mr. Thorne, we can just use my phone." "Ah, but it's useful to know how to use a map." Chase groaned, but complied. Eli traced his finger across the map, searching out Gilman Avenue among the many branching streets of Haven City. He wasn't sure where 1937 would be, but he was smart enough to keep an eye out for an old church. "Hey, Mr. Thorne... I think Ms. Day might have something wrong with her." "Probably, yeah. She was a business owner, and now she's a secretary." Eli folded the map up and passed it to Chase, "But I'm gonna teach her to be an investigator and then she can do cases of her own. I think that might help her move on." "Well, I meant that she's always staring at me. And then she winks at me when I look over at her. She also keeps buying me coffee. And she always wants to know what I'm reading or what I did that day." "Uh... I think she thinks you're a bit of a dreamboat." "What's that mean?" "She thinks you're handsome." Eli fought very hard to ignore the large, bright, proud smile on Chase's face. \*\*\*\*\*\* Eli stopped the car and turned it off. He passed the keys to Chase and checked his M1911. Seven in the magazine, one in the chamber. He was ready to do something stupid. He unbuckled and holstered his gun. Chase unbuckled, but Eli grabbed his shoulder. "Stay here. I don't want you getting involved." "Just give me your other gun. I'm a lot tougher than I look. I'll have your back." "No. You don't need a gun. Stay here and get ready to drive like the dickens if things go poorly." "Mr. Thorne-" "No. I'm probably going to have to shoot people, and I don't want you in the middle of that. I want you to stay here and call Mr. Cain. Tell him the good news. His wife is *not* cheating on him. Just... try to leave out that she's probably a cult leader. And remind him to take that dog to the vet I sent him to." Eli took a breath, "And Chase?" "Yeah?" "If I'm not out in one hour, or if anyone other than me comes toward this car... floor it, okay?" Chase opened his mouth to protest, but months of knowing Eli had clearly taught him to go along with it. Chase leaned back in the passenger seat and pulled his leather-bound journal from his coat. The journal bore a winged insignia. Eli hadn't known that Chase kept a journal. Eli patted Chase's shoulder and got out of the car. He watched Chase scramble over to the driver's seat and crack open his book. Eli straightened his hat and walked up to the abandoned church. Flaking white paint turned slowly yellow in the harsh sunlight. A few cars sat in the parking lot in the back, some had been there long enough to sink into the asphalt. There was a half-destroyed mailbox hanging from its post in front of the church. The buildings all around were silent, dilapidated brick boxes. He couldn't see anyone looking out from the boarded-up windows... but that didn't mean no one was there... or that no one was watching. He ascended the steps, his hand ready to go for his gun at the first sign of trouble. Cults were a mixed bag. Some weren't terrible, just misguided. Others were antagonistic, but not supernatural. Others... Others were a problem through and through. Eli wished he was just going to deal with the first type... but he knew better. He knocked on the door with his left hand, his right hand looped around the inside of his coat. "What do you seek?" "Oh, shoot." Eli sighed, "There's a password or passphrase or something, isn't there?" "Yes. Did you forget it?" "No, no... it's on the tip of my tongue." Eli scratched his head, "Uh... Can you repeat yourself? Might jog the ol' memory." "Fine." the voice groaned, "What do you seek?" "Uh..." Eli ran through his thoughts. The romance novel had hidden notes about rebirth. Rebirth in the shape of... well... war, screaming, friendship, or something moist. Might be worth the risk. Eli cleared his throat, "I seek to be reborn in the shape of screaming." Silence. "Or friendship." The door swung open. A revolver was pressed right to Eli's forehead. "Maybe something moist." The cultist smiled, his eyes dark and his teeth curling into a smile, "Come on inside. The High Mother has waited for you." "I feel honored, I think." Eli stepped forward, "Well, let's do this." "Not so fast. I'll be taking your gun." the cultist pushed Eli's coat aside and grabbed the M1911 from his hip, "Now, any other weapons you'd like to declare?" "Any other weapons I'd like to declare? Nope." Eli shrugged, "Shall we go see the High Mother?" "Do you have any weapons you would *not* like to declare?" "Clever man." Eli nodded, "Yeah, I got a couple." "Show me." Eli's left arm swung to the side, knocking the revolver from his forehead. His right hand clenched into a fist. The revolver *boomed* right next to his head. The blade on his metal brace extended as it drove into the cultist's neck. "It's a knife that retracts into a metal vambrace. Or bracer. Or thing. It's metal. That's all that matters." Eli whipped the blade to the side, slashing out the cultist's throat, "Thought I'd let you know something as you choke on your own blood: you broke the first rule of guns. *Distance*. A minimum distance of five feet. Otherwise, I can control where it's aimed. And then... you're not listening to any of this, are you?" The cultist gurgled and laid still. "Yeah... didn't think so. Alrighty. I have to go meet the High Mother." Eli retrieved his gun from the fallen man and tilted his hat, "Good day, Mr. Cultist." Eli walked inside, keeping his gun in his right hand as he wiggled his finger in his left. He hoped that high-pitched whine would go away eventually. Having a gun fire right next to his head was great for his hearing. The foyer was a thin hallway. A small table with old, faded papers rested to his right. Stairs descended to the basement on his left. A little room with a sunken floor sat beyond an open door on his right. The sanctuary was just in front of him. "Mike!? You okay!?" Eli turned and raised his gun. A woman in a red dress hurried up from the basement, worry across her face. She froze at the sight of Eli. She started to take a step back, but Eli shook his head and motioned for her to take a seat in one of the rotting chairs. "Sir, we don't want any trouble. We're just here telling ghost stories in the basement, and-" "Your friend shoved a gun in my face. What kind of ghost stories are you telling that require an armed guard at the door? I'm looking for a woman with the last name 'Cain' who mutated a dog. Now, I get that people get upset sometimes, but doing arcane experiments on your dog is never okay. How many people are downstairs?" The woman sighed, "There are two downstairs and fifteen in the sanctuary. They're probably all getting ready to come see what that gunshot was about." "Alright. So what you're telling me is that I'll need about seventeen bullets." "He wasn't going to kill you. He was just trying to scare you off." "Let's do a thought experiment. I have a gun pointed at you. How does that make you feel?" "Scared." "Right. And what would you do if I let my guard down?" "Attack you or run." "Right again. Now, I don't want to hurt you. I'd like to not hurt anyone here. It would be great if I could have one case that doesn't end with me shooting someone. But, hey. We're here, so we gotta do what we gotta do. Why don't you leave and not look back?" The woman nodded and started for the door. "Drop your phone on the floor, please. I don't need you trying to call anyone." She groaned and dropped her phone. Eli stomped on it and motioned for her to leave. Eli watched the door close behind her and started for the sanctuary. He could deal with the two people who would come upstairs from behind him. He didn't want to deal with fifteen coming from behind him. He kicked the door to the sanctuary open and raised his gun, "Hands where I can see them!" Fifteen sets of eyes turned to face him. Their heads all lowered. They all bowed. "Well, this is the kind of greeting I can appreciate." Eli's eyes darted from person to person, "Now, who among you is playing with magic?" The room smelled like rot. But not rotting flesh. Just rotting wood. The pews were decayed and some had fallen apart. The sanctuary was tall, but not very wide. The windows were all boarded, only allowing thin threads of light to spill onto the congregation. "The Seeker has come." the woman in the center of them all raised her hand, "We have seen the signs. The Undying is consumed by fire and continues to walk. The Blackbird rises. The Immortal looks our way. The Destructive is born. The-" "I get it, okay? You're all creepy and you've got vague things to say that you just pulled out of your ass." Eli rolled his eyes, "Just... which one of you is Mrs. Cain?" The woman in the center drew back her hood, "I am she, Seeker. What has turned your path toward us here?" "Oh, you're gonna have to stop talking like that. You just sound like you're trying too hard. To answer your question, your husband is worried about you. He thinks you're cheating on him, and so I went with my assistant to interview Brad at your yoga studio." "My husband... What?" The woman shook her head, "Your *assistant* is the one who interrogated Brad!?" "Yeah, he's a real up and comer. According to my assistant, you're *not* stepping out on your husband. So, that's good. But it seems like you're leading a cult and doing dark magic... and you had an armed guard at the door, so I'm going to go out on a limb and say you're doing something evil. Am I right?" "We do not practice evil here! We merely act! No action is good or bad! What we do with them-" "I'm gonna stop you right there. I burned your evil romance novel." "You..." The woman's eyes got wide, "You did *what*!?" She motioned forward, "Bind the Seeker! Bring him to the altar!" "Whoa!" Eli clicked the safety off on his gun, "Hold up! I have about five pounds of C4 wired up under my coat! If you lay one hand on me, I will blow this whole damn place to shit!" "Then why did you bring a gun?" "As a bluff?" "Grab him!" Eli fired three times, dropping three people. He backpedaled for the door as hard as he could, firing two more shots into the cultists. Eli turned and threw his shoulder through the front door of the church, bursting out into the daylight. He sprinted as a gun fired. A bullet hit the ground by his feet. Seventeen cultists. Five dead. Twelve alive. Some were armed. One knew magic. "I've faced worse odds than this!" Eli shouted over his shoulder. Another gunshot echoed through the street. The bullet whizzed by his ear. Eli turned and fired the last three bullets from his gun. Three bodies dropped. Eli ejected the magazine and reloaded, cocking and firing again as he sprinted for his car. He shouted and waved his arms at Chase. Eli dove through the window and into the back seat. The car started and the tires screamed as the car lurched forward. Eli rolled up to the shattered window and emptied his gun at the cultists. Most of them ran for cover. One dropped. But Chase and Eli were speeding away before they recovered. \*\*\*\*\*\* Eli stormed into his office and threw his hat at the coat rack. He twisted around and dropped onto the couch. Seven cultists remained. Eight, if he counted the one he let go. They were unlikely to let him get away with that. Chase walked into the office and gave Rose a big smile as he dropped down into the chair in front of her desk. "Hey, Miss Day. We solved the case." "I thought you were just searching for a cheating wife." "We were, but then it turned out she wasn't cheating, but she's the leader of a small cult." "Yeah." Eli nodded, "Some sort of small cult obsessed with vague statements. The Undying. The Immortal. The bird or something. The Destructive. They called me 'The Seeker'. Buncha weird shit going on in that church." "Did they really say 'bird'?" Chase smiled a little. "Yeah. I think it was supposed to be threatening or something. Someone's scared of birds. Ornithophobia must be a *bitch*." "They're probably headed here for revenge." "What!?" Rose jumped up, "What kind of revenge!?" "Probably the kind that ends with us all in a pine box." Eli grumbled, reloading his gun, "Difference boxes, of course. I refuse to die if it means being buried with you. Anyway, there's a cot in my office. Rose, you should sleep in there. Chase, take the cot in Howard's old office. I'll sleep on the couch here." "We're just going to *wait* for murdering cultists to show up!?" Rose shook her head, "Hell *no*." "We aren't going to just wait. I've got guns, and I think Howard kept a shotgun in his office. Somewhere. Hard to tell under all that mess. Chase, do you mind finding that?" Eli looked to Rose, "If you could call Officer Brown and tell him about this whole thing, I think he could do something to get these people off our backs." Rose grumbled and walked over to her desk, dialing the police. Eli rested his arm on the armrest of the couch, keeping his gun aimed at the door. He was going to have a long night. \*\*\*\*\*\* "Mr. Thorne? You awake?" Eli groaned and his eyes rolled open, "Must have nodded off... But I'm awake now... are they here?" "No... and... uh... that's kinda what I want to talk to you about." Eli motioned for Chase to have a seat in front of him, "We will not be hunting them down." "We don't... erm... we don't have to, Mr. Thorne." Chase scratched his neck, "Officer Brown called and said that the old church was mostly burned down and they found seventeen bodies in there. Apparently, it got struck by lightning a lot." "That's convenient." "I don't think it is, actually." Chase pulled his phone from his pocket, "Officer Brown wanted me to show you this and ask if you know anything about it. He said they pulled it from an old security camera across the street." Eli rubbed his eyes and leaned in to look at the picture on Chase's phone. Sharp, black wings spread from the body of what looked like a man. The body was wreathed in blue lightning. The glowing blue eyes glared at the camera. "What the hell is this?" Eli whispered. "I think someone didn't like that the cult was looking into them." Eli's eyes got wide, "Or some*thing*... Chase... This... This is that bird they were talking about. What... what was it called?" Eli shook his head, "What... Undying... We blew up Howard because he wasn't dying when we shot him... What if Howard was the Undying?" Chase shrugged, "Probably nothing to worry about. Maybe we shouldn't look into this." "Maybe you're right." Eli whispered, "Call Mr. Cain and have him meet us here. Looks like we have to tell him that his wife wasn't cheating... and that she was killed by... this thing." Eli stared at the black-winged creature on Chase's phone. \*\*\*\*\*\* Nothing quite as mentally-draining as telling a man his wife was faithful until she was killed. However... the man had been true to his word and provided information on Jerome Farmer. It was just an address. Chase had looked into it. It was a building at Servator University on the north side of town. It looked like a history department if the picture from the map thing on Chase's computer was to be believed. "Alright, Chase. We need to go check out that building." Eli pulled his coat on, "It's the only lead we've got on Jerome Farmer, and we can't let it get any colder than it already is." "You got it, Mr. Thorne." Chase closed his computer and grabbed his jacket. The leather-bound journal fell out onto the floor. Eli bent to pick it up, holding it for a second to admire the winged insignia on the front, "You know... I didn't know until yesterday that you kept a journal." "Oh, it's, uh... it's a new hobby. I found an empty one in Mr. Malone's office after he... blew up." "Yeah... he kept some evil books in the office, but I guess some weren't all that bad." Eli offered the journal to Chase, "Well, I like the insignia here." "Thanks." Chase's blue eyes looked over at Eli, "It's a Blackbird.


EDIT: Added more of an actual ending. Changed a couple of lines in the preceding, non-ending part. “Oh shit!” thought Niklas Chalmers as he poured over the results from the latest tests. He read further down the page. “Oh shit.” He patted his pockets for his phone, pulled it out, and dialed Wilhelm. “Wilhelm, the results are in. It’s true. It’s fucking true! They’re hitting the detectors at an uneven distribution. Billions of them.” There was a moment of silence on the line before Wilhelm finally responded. “I see,” he said solemnly. “Well that’s that then.” “This explains everything” said Nik excitedly. “The discrepancies we saw in the weak-force, the lattice results over at Geneva, everything!” Nik paused and thought for a moment as the realisation of the results hit him. “So that it then? We’re living in a simulation? Nothing is real?” There was another long pause on the line before Wilhelm responded. “It certainly looks that way, my boy.” “Well, shit. “ “Well it’s not necessarily a bad thing Nik. Everything’s the same as it was. I hate to sound philosophical about the whole thing, but what is real anyway? Nothing’s changed. Just our perspectives I suppose” “I don’t know what to feel. I just feel kind of empty I guess. I have to get home. Listen I’ll call you again tomorrow morning. We should call a meeting with the investors, shit, there’s gunna be so much press. Jesus, this is it. This is fucking it!” “Nik,” Wilhelm said, urgently. “Have you considered this? Have you thought this through? What would happen, I mean? If this were to get out? Why, it would be catastrophic. Think of the world reaction. Think of how empty you felt just now when it hit you- Think of how empty the whole world is going to feel. That nothing is real? That nothing is worth anything? That life is not worth anything? We- *you* need to think about this.” “So we should just not tell anyone? Wouldn't you want to know? Don’t these people deserve to know? I mean sure, people will be shocked, but it’s the truth.” Wilhelm was silent. It’s the *truth* Wilhelm,” Nik pleaded. “Do you want blood on your hands Nik? Because that is what you will have if this gets coverage.” Wilhelm was angry. His voice crackled through the receiver. Nik didn't know what to say. “Anyway,” said Wilhelm, calmer now. “It doesn't matter. It’s out of your hands. Out of my hands even.” “What do you mean?” asked Nik, confused. The line crackled a little before Wilhelm responded. “I liked you Nik. I always did” “Well I like you too Will, but what are you saying?” “I told you,” said Wilhelm calmly. “It’s out of my hands.” “What’s out of your hands?” And in that instant everything stopped. Nik’s phone dropped to the ground. For a moment he felt as though he was floating. He no longer felt any weight to his body. He no longer felt much of anything. Too quickly, his brain was unburdened of his memories, his body unburdened of his brain and finally, the simulation within which he existed was unburdened of his entire existence. Everything that was once Niklas Chalmers was no more. Wilhelm hung up the receiver, took a deep breath and lent back in his armchair. “*It’s a shame,*” he thought. “*I really did like him.


Me has prepared a chair for me, covered in writhing wires. I raise my eyebrows, just a hair. ‘Sit,’ me says. I sit. The wires snake up my legs, and across my chest, wrapping my arms tight to my sides, sliding up over my face. They force my mouth wide open and flood down my throat. An electric shock sings from the tips of my toes to my brain and I zap in and out of consciousness then fall to the floor. The wires recede rapidly and slither behind the computer screens. ‘All done,’ me says, ‘right, I’m just gonna take control for a bit.’ He pulls on what looks like a wetsuit covered in more writhing wires. He throws his head back and opens his mouth and lets them wriggle their way inside of him. He jerks and they recede. ‘What?’ I say. ‘This is the fun part,’ me says. He waves his hand and my hand waves in unison. He jumps, I jump. His mouth doesn’t move but I hear: ‘Hello, hello, testing,’ inside of my head. My eyes bulge and he grins. ‘Time to get you cleared out, mate, this sorta shit is very draining on the through line,’ ‘The, through, line?’ I say, forcing my mouth open, every muscle resisting my control. ‘Let go,’ me says, firmly, and does a quick jig. ‘OK, so now I am, in fact, wearing your body, but look, no lag,’ he says, demonstrating, and we shadow box side by side perfectly in sync. ‘The through line, all of us,’ he says, ‘one of us is infected, all of us are infected, see?’ Me strips my body naked and replaces the clothes with a suit similar to his own. ‘So, as usual, I will be sorting out, literally everything.’ He grunts and slumps to the floor. I try to walk towards him but I’m not in control. ‘Still here, mate,’ me says in my head. ‘Sit back and enjoy.’ ‘Sgnjgtkot,’ I thinksay, I haven’t got the hang of internal diamonologue. ‘Calm down, now I’m in here I can see. Minor leak in the dark-half, mate, you are fucking confused, hey. Sad, sad, sad, sad, sad. Your core is pissing everywhere, no wonder they can smell ya,’ me says. ‘Gnrjrrr,’ I reply. ‘What is it this time? Ugh. Dull, dull, dull, parallesites, zero imagination,’ me says. ‘Right, let’s go.’ I watch from behind my eyes as I run across the heath with unnatural speed and agility. ‘Where?’ I manage to utter, silently. ‘We’re going to visit your grey mates’ me says. We lope across the heath and into the depths of the forest. The stars above are endless, the air is fresh, the moon is high. The trees rush by in a blur. We skid to a halt in a clearing. ‘This’ll do,’ me says and presses a point on the elbow of the suit I’m wearing. Liquid metal washes over its surface, covering it completely, rippling and extending sending out small silver tendrils to taste the air. ‘There you are,’ the greys say, melting out of the trees at the far side of the clearing. ‘Finally,’ me says, with my mouth. He stays perfectly still and I watch as the couple slowly fade across the field, shimmering above the grass, and coming to rest in front of me. ‘You’re ready, dear?’ the grey lady says. ‘Go ahead,’ me says. ‘Son, this is for the best, one takes us to the next, and through and through,’ the grey man says. He melts back and merges with his female companion, until they are perfectly overlaid, fazing in and out of focus, shifting and blurring from one face to the other. They place two palms against my chest, as one, and I feel the cold begin to seep from their fingers. ‘Gotcha,’ me says and taps my elbow. The liquid metal sheen of the suit explodes and a great net of writhing silver tendrils engulf the blurred grey figure before me. Slithers of metal twist and tweeze the pair apart, tearing them in opposite directions. ‘Oh dear,’ the grey lady says, coming back into focus just as strands of metal begin to worm their way into her ears and eyes. ‘Ah,’ the grey man says, as he reappears, then belches up a torrent of silver and collapses. Me presses the point on my elbow again and the metal cracks and goes rigid, then glows deep orange, then red, then white.


What I want is to lie down in the woods until I die of thirst or some other means. Everything is work, all of this is work, and I would rather not do any of it. You see I’m well beyond asking what the point is; in case you haven’t figured it out, there is no point. God is not real expect in your mind as an implicitly contradictory, discrete conception of everything as one. The individual is damned and you know it. All collections of people, from state to family, fail to redeem the individual.   You might then be asking the question, why am I penning these words instead of adding my biomass to the woods? A perfectly acceptable question, for which I have a perfectly unacceptable response. I can’t. And believe you me, I’ve tried. I’ve embraced the forest floor, caressed the dead leaves and sticks and rocks and dirt, then resigned the mind and invited Death. Curious, how vehemently, how *religiously*, a slave can rebel, only to be subjected once again, over and over, by the hand of the master.   Whose heart heats the hovel? Stone whose pen writes a novel.


I was gullible enough to believe you cared. I thought you valued my friendship. Appreciated our long talks. Enjoyed spending time with me. But you only wanted one thing from me. You wanted an ego boost. I should have realized sooner. Our conversations were always flirtatious. We would occasionally talk about something ‘real’ but we would bookend our comments with more flirting. You only invited me over when you thought you would get something from me. You only initiated conversations when you were in a frisky mood. You never thought of me as a friend. I was never the one you would run to with good news or the one you would ask for advice. I played one role. I guess everything makes sense now. Why you were never there for me when I needed you. Why you dropped off the face of the planet when things got too serious. Why I could never rely on you for anything. I thought we were friends -- but it turns out you were just someone who flirted with me to pass the time. It sucks because I thought our connection went deeper than the physical. I thought we got along well. I made you laugh. I opened up to you. I was my authentic self with you and you seemed to admire that. I thought of you as more than a potential hookup. I thought of you as a genuine friend. I would have liked to hang out with you even if flirting was off the table. I would have liked to get to know you better. I would have liked to have a permanent place in your world. It’s difficult to admit we were on completely different pages the entire time. I thought of you in one way and you thought of me in another way. Looking back, you clearly wanted nothing to do with me as a person. You were never interested in developing a friendship and I have to accept that fact. You never cared about me -- but I cared about you. I texted you first. I remembered the little things you told me. I did cute favors for you. I treated you with the same amount of respect I give to the rest of my friends. But that is okay. I am not going to chase after your friendship. I am not going to drown you with messages, hoping you give me more than a one-word answer this time. I am not going to track you down and force you to pay attention to me. If you don’t want a place in my world, you can leave. I might cry about you but I’m not going to stop you. In the end, I am not upset that we never had the chance to become an official couple. I am not upset we developed an almost relationship but never crossed the barrier to boyfriend and girlfriend. I am upset that we aren’t friends anymore. And that, apparently, we were never even friends in the first place.


I know I was only 80 in Fae years, which was the physical equivalent of an 8 year old in the human world...yet mentally and emotionally I was just as mature as any human adult. I knew the true weight of the event unfolding before me...I was fully aware of the true impact of the closing of the dimensional portal between the Human and Fae worlds...between the mortal plane and my homeland. I was sad to see it happen, yet I also wasn't surprised. The Fae had been in perfect harmony with their environment and with one another for millenia. A few hundred years ago, the Royal Council of Fae had decided to subtly, behind the scenes help the human's improve their society by aiding them in balancing their relationship with Mother Nature...with Gaia, and with one another. After centuries of persistent and tireless efforts the Fae had finally had to give up the act when the humans had started to turn their attentions towards fighting the Fae...towards fighting us rather than working with us like they had before. I hated the fact that we had to stop our communications...to stop our relationship with them in such a dramatic way. But...but we had to break the connection if we were going to survive. Us Fae, we were a peaceful race and had been so for such a long time that we had practically forgotten how to have a war...a war that the humans continously were pushing on us. It was only when they had realised that specially treated iron into our hearts was the only was to kill us...that was when we knew we had to cut ourselves off from them, at least in this stage of humanity's evolution. We couldn't continue to freely give of ourselves with only hostility and now fatalaties in return...it was time to move on. Even though I was only a child in Fae terms, I was still fully aware of the historic importance of this event. I could hope that I would see the gateway between the two realms open up again in my several thousand year lifespan...but I wouldn't hold my breath, based upon what my Father had reported back from the front lines...humanity was so far off peace that not even my children would probably see the reopening of the gateway between our two dimensions. The closing of the dimensional gateway didn't directly affect me...the lands of the Fae were significantly more advanced than the humans in basically every single way so it wasn't like our quality of life would be modified.The only way this affected me was seeing how it influenced those around me...and how it would impact my generation, we would be the ones responsible for living with this decision afterall. Originally, us Fae had been able to somewhat blend into the mortal realm amongst the humans. We were a pecuilar supernatural race with our unique blend of both human and insect features which could make intergrating ourselves into different societies difficult. Fortunately, we were able to somewhat easily hide our insect features such as the retracetable wings and the enhanced senses...specifically our incredulous eyesight. I had only been to the human realm once...and it was the most overwhelming experience of my life. I know that the humans had very limited senses...they could only hear within a certain frequeny and see only a fraction of the visible light spectrum, but I hadn't realised just how oblivious they were to 90% of the world around them. The cocktail of intense emotions surrounding their world...hate,sadness,guilt and pain...it was enough to drive even the most grounded of Fae mad. I knew that Gaia, the Earth's spirit was upset at the humans and the way they treated her...but I hadn't realised just how bad it really was. My parents had spent years sheltering me from the harsh cold reality of the mortal plane, it was only on a eye opening school trip to the human's world...it was only then that I realised just how naive I was. In the Fae realm, everything was in alignment...we were perfectly balanced with one another and our planet's energy...with our planet's spirit. It was because of this balance, this was why us Fae could live happily in this realm despite our insect like senses. We could see and hear...touch, smell and taste in a spectrum hundreds of times larger than a mortals limited sensory range. To truly articulate the differences between our two societies, I am going to compare the different elements I sensed on simply sitting in a park in both the Fae and the Mortal realm. Whilst I admit I am biased towards the Fae realm having grown up here and being Fae myself, I still can accurately compare the two thanks to the scientific training that all Fae are taught in school. Let me set the scene for you accurately...you are sitting on a comfortable park seat simply watching the early morning pass before you. Tuning into your senses you begin to notice several things...factors that whilst seeming similar on the surface are significantly different underneath. I will save you from going into the excessive details...but if you are Fae, or have incredibly acute senses...you know what I am talking about. On a visible light level the two may be identical, but if you engage on other frequencies such as ultraviolet and infared...let's just say that the mortal world was overwhelming...it practically was screaming constantly. The air was constantly filled with the buzzing of electronic waves and the mindless chattering of the various methods of digital mediums the humans used as communication. Visibly, the UV light from the sun was physically painful it was so bright...yet this wasn't all. The negative energy surrounding the planet thanks to Gaia's rock relationship with her residents created a nauseous like vibe wherever you went...no wonder the humans were riddled with physical,emotional and mental illnesses...their environment was toxic as a result of their own actions. Physically, the world were very similar...the touch sensation wasn't the strongest of the senses. Smell wise...it was like comparing apples to oranges. The Fae world smelt entirely natural...like dew and flowers...like running water and snowfall. In the human world...I could tell that these scents were evident, yet they were heavily buried under the stink of burning fossils and garbage infused with untreated sewage and toxic foods...no wonder they were all so sick all the time. I know I am rambling now, but just know...know that the significant differences on a sensory scale between the two worlds. Until these are lessened, I know that until these are lessened the portal will remain closed. Until the humans repair their relationship with Gaia and bring peace to their realm through understanding and spirituality...Fae would always be seperate from humanity., and that was that.


The 2 year Spew Snazzy title right? Probably an odd choice for marketing reasons, who would want to buy a book about a spew? And a 2 year one at that? If that even makes sense. You’re probably thinking ‘What the hell is this going to be about?’ Well it does involve a spew... not mine though... It is kind of a long story, after all I have 2 years to fill you in on. Let me explain. 2 years ago I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy. I know everyone says their child is beautiful, but mine seriously is. He has blonde hair, bright blue eyes, cute little button nose... he’s beautiful, just take my word for it. I’m not sure why, and I don’t know how wide spread this tradition is, but the Dads of newborns having a ‘Head wetting’ to celebrate the arrival of their new baby into the world. Which is essentially just a piss up with all his mates... I’m sure there is some religious relevance somewhere but I’m not religious so I have no idea. I’m sure in the religious version, copious amounts of alcohol aren’t involved.. but I digress... So myself and my little bundle of joy ship off to my brothers house for the night, while my partner (lets call him Alex) has his mates over in the shed for a massive night of beers and music to ‘wet the head’ of his new baby boy. Now I must say I was quite lucky that the newborn stage was quite easy for me, little bundle was a great sleeper, when he was awake he was content and my gosh did this kid love his booby milk. I am grateful that I never had any drama with breast feeding as I know so many do, so I was quite comfortable getting up through the night to feed my bub, even at just a week old. However, my bub for the first year of his life, was an early riser. 5am every morning, without fail. It was still bloody dark outside! I was never sleep deprived, but man a 5am start, makes for a long morning and an even longer day. By 9am (which felt like lunch time) I was bored and just wanted to go home. So I did. And what welcomed me when precious bundle and I got home is the premise to this story, an en suite covered in spew. I walked into my bedroom to see Alex in bed with a bucket next to him, towels strewn across my en suite floor, a wet mop and a smell of straight alcohol so strong I thought my baby might get drunk just from breathing the air. I took my baby into the lounge room where 2 of his friends had slept on the couch, I made them a cup of coffee and they filled me in on Alex’s antics from the night prior. And let me preface this by saying Alex has a bad relationship with alcohol. Anyone who knows Alex has a story of a time when he had spewed somewhere or on someone, and I loathed the fact that is his ‘thing’. They informed me nothing spectacular had happened. Alex drank too much too fast, he could barely speak or walk, so his friends took him to bed. Alex sat on the edge of the bed and proceeded to projectile vomit up to 2 metres in front of himself all over the en suite bathroom. Being the good friends they are (to me as well) they knew me coming home to this mess with a newborn was a bit much, so they did the best clean up job a couple of drunk men could. And to this day I appreciate this gesture very much. I let Alex sleep until past midday, his friends at some stage went home, and I rounded up the spewy towels and left it to Alex to tidy up the rest. I’ll do a lot for people, but cleaning up a grown mans self inflicted spew, is a job for only himself. Now I don’t know when you’re reading this, so let me remind you of a ‘thing’ that was popular back in 2018/2019. The phrase ‘this is my hill to die on’. Well, this became my hill to die on. If you lived under a rock and haven’t heard of this saying, let me enlighten you. It means ‘An issue to pursue with wholehearted conviction and/or single minded focus, with little or no regard to the cost.’ The next day I reminded Alex about his mess in the en suite, how it had splashed up the walls, it was on the wardrobe doors, it was even on the wall next to the bed. I cleaned little bits off the carpet, but again... this is a grown adults self-inflicted spew! I refused to clean this up for him. I’m dying on this hill remember! A week had passed, and it was now well and truly dry. The spew smell had subsided at least. It was bearable to once again be in that room without gagging. Now luckily most of the time the splashed spew wasn’t all that noticeable, but it bugged me. Sometimes the sun would come in on such an angle that it almost lit up every spot of spew in a fluorescent light and it made me so mad I had to leave the room! Alex seemingly forgot? At least that’s what I told myself. Otherwise who would be so damn disrespectful to the other people of this house, that they wouldn’t even clean up their own spew? I’m not a clean freak by any means, I’ve lived in this house for 3 years now and I’ve only cleaned my oven twice. But if I spewed on my oven, it would be a different story... BECAUSE BODY FLUIDS!! Months passed. Alexs relationship with alcohol never changed, but he started to become nasty to me when he got drunk. Not all the time, but often enough that it made me question what the hell was I doing in the relationship. He was a brilliant Dad to our little bundle, and I adore that about Alex, but our relationship started to unravel. They say when you have kids, people change and its hard on relationships. I agree with that, but our problems weren’t new. When I became a mother, I think my tolerance for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour changed. Is coming home and going straight to sleep acceptable behaviour? Yes. Is coming home drunk and yelling at me about a cheese burger and waking the sleeping baby acceptable behaviour? Hell no. These early months were a time of great reflection for me. Because somehow, I had become my mother. Mum died long before I ever even thought of having children. She died young and quick from an aggressive cancer. Very sad. But an unfortunate part of life. Like most kids, I had a love/hate relationship with her. She was in an abusive marriage, and she didn’t do a thing about it. I had to call the police more times than any child should, because of the physical abuse she endured. The next day My stepdad would apologise, and in a few weeks time, we did this dance again. My younger sisters are 10 years younger than me. When the adults had one of these nights, my sisters would cry out from their bedrooms. I’d get them and place them in our brothers bedroom at the other end of the house, until either they calmed down, or I called the police and they deescalated the situation. I hated that my mother put us through this. If you want to put yourself in this position, more fool you. But to put us kids through this was damn near child abuse. And yes, I should have been angry at my step dad for being an abuser, and I was. But I never understood why she never wanted to protect us from this by leaving him. Now I know why. My mother always saw the best in people. So when he said he’d change and it wouldn’t happen again, she believed him. And now I was doing the exact same thing with Alex. He was never abusive sober, in fact he has never been able to recall a single horrible thing he’s ever said to me. Because he’s gotten so drunk, he’s lost most of his memories of the night in general, let alone when he got home. The tip of the iceberg was when we went on a group trip with some family and friends to Bali. Our little bundle was nearly a 1 year old and was perfection on the plane. We had a great time! Sipping cocktails by the pool, taking it in turns to sit in our room when baby slept so the other could explore the resort and the town. One magnificent afternoon, Alex came back to our room and I could tell he’d had more than just a few drinks. He was trying to pick a fight with me. I’d ask him to keep his voice down while the baby slept, apparently that meant I was ‘controlling’. I asked him about his afternoon and how much he’d had to drink, I was deemed ‘no fun anymore’ and it wasn’t any of my business how much he drank. We went to meet the rest of our group for dinner and they all knew Alex was drunk. He snapped at me if I asked him to help with the baby. He made fun of how slow I drank my wine in front of everyone is if it was the joke of the day. A friend pulled me aside and asked me if I was ok, because she hadn’t seen Alex act like this before. I assured her it was fine, he’d just had to much to drink. Unfortunately when I knocked over my drink and it hit the floor, I couldn’t keep up that façade, because in front of everyone, Alex screamed at me calling me a fucking dickhead and somehow I did that on purpose to prove a point (to this day I have no idea what he meant). One of the older guys in our group told him to walk away and cool off. I didn’t see Alex again until the early hours of the next morning when he came back to our room. I could hear him stumble in. He kicked the bin and mumbled ‘for fucks sake’ as he then crashed into the desk that the tv was on, in a failed attempt to be quiet. I didn’t speak a word. Our baby bundle was in a porta cot about a metre from Alex’s side of the bed, in hindsight a mistake on my part. Almost as soon as Alex lied down in bed I could tell he was going to be sick, I’ve been in this situation to many times before with him that I unfortunately knew the deep breathing associated with Alex’s pre spew ritual. I shook him and told him to get up because he’s about to be sick, he could only groan before I heard it rise from his stomach. I was already half way up when it hit the bed sheets, then the baby started to cry. Another spew and a cough later, Alex rolled over in his own spew and went to sleep as if it was the cure to insomnia. Luckily there was a couch in the room. Bundle and I snuggled up on the couch. I didn’t sleep knowing that my bundle and I deserve better than this. When we returned from Bali, I told Alex I was done. All his empty promises to change over the years, were simply just words without meaning now. He called a counsellor, and admitted he had a problem. Over the next few months we attended couples counselling, as well as some solo sessions to try and work on ourselves. I stuck around, perhaps out of guilt. I didn’t want to be the reason a father couldn’t see his son when he got home from work, but I also hated myself for giving him yet another chance to change. I had convinced myself because he was getting counselling now, things would be different. We communicated as issues arose. We talked about our childhoods and learnt why we behave the way we do. I understood my self-hate for replicating my own mothers behaviours, and why Alex has such a strong sense of self entitlement. Now I understood it. But I couldn’t change Alex. He had to do that himself. I’ve had a bad habit in our relationship of doing things for Alex that he says he can’t do himself. He came home from work with terrible asthma. Asthma that had been getting worse for weeks. This time it was so bad he could hardly converse with me. I had asked him weeks prior to make an appointment to get more medication. Did he? No. Did I have to do it for him? Of course. Alex had been paying far to much for a phone plan that did not suit what he needed, I asked him for months to simply call and change it, its easy! I even told him what to say. Did he? No. Did I cave when he asked me to do it for him? Unfortunately, yes. Alex cut down on his drinking, so the abuse stopped. He was making progress, but things at home didn’t get any better. I don’t think he ever did it consciously, but Alex had it ingrained in him this self entitled attitude. He would only help me with chores around the house if it was something that bothered him. If I asked him to vacuum the toddlers crumbs off the carpet, but Alex wasn’t bothered by the mess, he wouldn’t do it. If I asked him to help me change the bedsheets, but he didn’t think they were dirty enough, he wouldn’t do it. One night we had an argument about this very matter, he stormed off and went to bed. He left in the morning with a slam of the door and without a goodbye. When I seriously started thinking about leaving Alex I was a ball of anxiety and guilt. Because if I left, who would look after Alex? I genuinely didn’t know if he knew how to be an adult. I knew he’d be fine with our now toddler when he had him, but when it came to paying bills, packing the toddlers day care bag, cooking decent food, I was genuinely concerned. I was fed up. I sat on the edge of the bed wondering how to fix this with Alex. I had a toddler now, but I felt like a had a lazy teenager as well. As the morning sun came through the windows of our bedroom, the spew that had splattered my bathroom now 2 years ago, lit up like a Christmas tree. If someone can leave their own spew for someone else to clean up for over 2 years, with regular reminders mind you, because its not something that bothers him. Then he was never going to change for me, his son or himself. I packed mine and the toddlers bags. And we left.


The events that are about to occur today have been years in the making. Today is the last day that you will torture me. You have tortured me with the vilest of weapons that exist. Not a whip, nor a knife, what you used was far worse. Maybe it would have been better if you had kicked or punched me. Thrown me in a basement and starved me, if you had taken a knife and cut me, the pain would have been bad, however the wound would have healed. But you did none of these things, instead of inflicting bodily harm you used a far worse weapon against me. Your vile tongue spewed hatred and disease every single day for years. I will never forget the first day I laid my eyes on you. What a dreadful awful day! It was third period on the second day of 7 th grade. I was the average awkward teenager, and my life was about to get much worse. Being in middle school was a whole different world then elementary school. I was surrounded by unfamiliar faces and was awkward in my own skin. You walked through the door late and made quite an entrance. You didn’t so much as walk but strode into class. Disrupting it as you did, however, your face showed you couldn’t have cared less. You weren’t scared of anyone or anything, at least not in our classroom. The memory of your fiery red hair trailing behind you still remains almost 15 years later. You were taller than most of us, and far thinner. The monster of adolescence you had somehow tamed. Your skin was beautiful, without any signs of acne like the rest of us. You weren’t the prettiest girl in the world but there was something about you that set you apart. You held a sense of self-confidence that is unnatural to teenagers. It was as if you knew deep in your soul that you were better then everyone else. You believed it and would make us all believe even if it killed us. You walked in, looked around at, and frowned when the teacher called your name. “Sherilyn, please take a seat at one of the open desks.” Mrs. Farrow said. The look you gave Mrs. Farrow made me shiver. Judging by your look it was more likely Mrs. Farrow called you an evil witch and asked you to remove your black cat from the classroom, when in reality all she had done was request that you choose a seat. That first day I felt sorry for you. I didn’t understand why you had such a callous expression on your face, nor did I know who placed the chip on your shoulder. It would take me years to discover the answer. As middle school progressed so did the look of distain you carried on your features. The contempt spread from your face to your entire being. You were hateful to everyone outside of your little circle of friends. I don’t believe that I ever initiated conversation with you in all of our school years together. But you certainly spoke to me, perhaps its more accurate to say you spoke at me. “Who told you that you could wear that? You spit the words out with such venom I had never witnessed before. “What do you mean? I stammered. “You can’t wear those tights; they look terrible on you. I remember staring down meekly at the plaid tights I convinced my mom to buy me. It had taken me 3 weeks of begging her and doing extra chores, but she finally relented. I paired them with black shorts and low kitten heels appropriate for school. I thought I looked mature and smiled at myself in the mirror that morning before leaving for school. I realized too late that the tights resembled the kind of fashion you liked and that meant I wasn’t allowed to wear them, since I wasn’t part of your group. Tears rolled down my cheeks that night as I hid the tights in my dresser drawer hoping my mom wouldn’t ask me about them again. In high school you continued your verbal assault on me and everyone else. You called us fat and ugly even though we were not. You laughed at us if we danced with a boy at one of our homecoming dances even when you didn’t like him yourself. You tripped us as we ran up the stairs, cackling in our faces as we pushed back tears. I distanced myself as much as I could from you. In high school it was easier since our school had so many students. It also helped that you started to pick on those in younger grades as we got closer to graduating. Do you know that the freshman you tormented for two years before she finally killed herself? You used to tell her she was disgusting and reminded her how pathetic she was. Do you remember screaming at her almost daily before class started? “You are one ugly, fat bitch Kate” Chuckles and snickers enveloped the crowd. It’s sad how many people laughed at their peer, when in reality they were laughing only because you weren’t attacking them. “Who would ever want to date you?” “Shut up Sherilyn, you’re such a bitch” Kate shot back. “Don’t you say me name. Get my name out of your disgusting mouth.” My heart sunk in my chest. I didn’t know Kate well. She was a freshman when you and I were Juniors. She seemed really nice and funny. Yes, she was overweight and a homely girl but so what? Why? Was what I always wondered. Kate wasn’t a threat to you. She wasn’t in your league in either appearance or popularity. Why did you attack her? I remember trying to figure it out as I walked to my classroom feeling terrible. I force myself to stop thinking about the past as I move slowly towards you apartment. I can’t let my emotions get in the way of my plan. Being subjected to your wrath got underneath my skin and became a permanent fixture in my body. This is what happens when someone is tormented for years by such an evil entity as you. I wonder if once this is completed and I’ve changed you if the permanent residence you’ve taken up in my mind will somehow dissipate. I think that it will. I imagine that it will work in an equivalent way as water erodes rock. By washing away, the sediment slowly. I’m almost at your apartment and I have to confess that I’m giddy with excitement. Oh, I should have done this years ago. It pains me that I lost track of you after high school. However, at the time I thanked God for not having to be around you every weekday. It was so nice to be free of your witchy voice and evil eyes that bore through me. I actually hadn’t thought of you for a long time until that fateful day at the beach. I laid on my beach towel enjoying the sun on my skin as I though about how refreshing a cold glass of iced tea sounded. Oh, how I wish I never thought of than damned tea. If I hadn’t, I could have lived the rest of my life not remembering you. I grabbed my wallet, told my husband to watch the kids and walked to the beverage sand. It was after I paid for the tea that the familiar sound of your voice pulled me back to high school within seconds of hearing it. “Cover up Millie, you can see your fat thighs.” Anxiety washed over me, and I froze, the straw between my lips. I slowly turned and there you were. You looked exactly as I remembered you. Long red hair, poker strait, tall and thin. But this time your words were directed at the most innocent of people. A small little girl, perhaps 8 or 9 stood tugging at her bathing suite trying to cover up. She looked just like you, her red hair just as strait as yours. She was skinny, almost unnaturally skinny, and here you were, telling your own daughter that she was fat. I felt the tears roll down my cheeks as I was suddenly standing in the halls of high school again. For the next 6 months I was obsessed. Searching social media in a frenzy and learning all I could about you. I even went so far as to hire a private detective to find out anything I could. Once the PI told me you now went by Sherilyn Gaws instead of Sherilyn Nessle it was easy to find out everything I needed. I found out you were married for a brief time and had a daughter. Facebook confirmed my suspicions that it was the same little girl I saw you chastise at the beach. You went through a divorce out of state and then moved back to the town where we grew up. You own a small vegan bakery and pride yourself on producing organic vegan baked goods. Which I must say taste as disgusting as they sound. You live in a two-story condominium which I have visited frequently at night. You don’t have any security at the condo and luckily for me it is free standing, so I don’t need to worry about a pesky neighbor hearing me when I break in to change you. You have a cat, and thankfully no dog or other pets. You do not have a boyfriend as far as I know, and you barely have people over besides your book club members on the first Saturday of the month. Your daughter spends 2 weeks out of the summer with her father in Georgia and she just left two days ago. I’ve spent hours thinking about what I could do to get you to change, to try to make you understand how much you hurt people and how much you were hurting your own daughter. The more I found out about you the more the hatred grew and that’s when I realized that you wouldn’t change unless you suffered some drastic fate. The private investigator used surveillance allowing us to listen to conversations at your bakery. You are nice to every single paying customer that comes in. Yet the moment you are alone with an employee or your daughter the mask you wear comes off. “Millie, you do not need another cookie. You look like a little pig. You might be skinny now but just you wait; it doesn’t last forever.” “Robert, why are there two racks of brownies? Are you an idiot? I specifically told you we needed three. Is there something wrong with your brain that you cannot remember the simple tasks of your job?” The yelling goes on and on. I’ve listened to hours of your cruel antics, realizing you had to be stopped and that I was the only one that could stop you. I thought about killing you, and even fantasized about how I would do it. Unfortunately killing you is too hard to cover up. The private investigator is a problem I can’t overcome, he would turn me in as a person of interest to the police and I can’t have that. This has plagued me and after over a year of thinking through every possibility I won’t kill you, but I will disfigure you. Maybe then you will understand what it feels like to have others look at you and speak about you with disgust. A smile comes to my lips as I think of the jar of gasoline that I have stuffed into my backpack. You deserve this, plain and simple. Your daughter deserves a mother who isn’t concerned with appearance only. Yes, this is an extreme way to teach a lesson but it’s the only way to get through to something like you. As I walk to the condominium, I can hear you talking. Your windows are open and although its late you are still up. That’s ok, I know you have an early day tomorrow morning, Tuesdays are aways early for you. All I have to do is wait patiently until you go to bed. You leave your windows open and rarely remember to lock your back door after letting your cat out. You have made this quite easy, it’s almost as if you know that the universe has to even out the playing field. It’s been 45 mins that I’ve waited next to your back door. Just as your turning out the lights and walking to the back door in order to let the cat out I hear your phone ring. “What?” you sigh into the phone. Something is off, your voice doesn’t have the normal distain that I’m used to hearing. I continue to listen. “I know that she has problems, ok I know that I’m the problem. I, I can’t do this anymore.” Your voice cracks. “She is almost the age I was when it happened and I’m starting to unravel.” What is this all about? I think as I step closer to your open window. I need to hear everything you are saying. “When Mom left, she told me I was the reason. She told me that if it wasn’t for me being born and changing her body into a disgusting mess Dad would have still loved her and he would never have cheated. She told me I was the reason she became old and ugly. It was her baby who broke her and aged her beyond repair. If it weren’t for me, she would still be with her husband as happy as can be.” You start to cry, and I suddenly feel that I shouldn’t be listening to this. Even though I followed you and listened to your conversations for months, this somehow is too much. But I can’t pull myself away even as I’m getting angry at myself. This isn’t fair, just because you have a bad mother doesn’t allow you to be such a bad person yourself. “She kept me in that awful room, do you remember? She lined it with mirrors and all I could do was look at how terribly ugly I was. All day I thought how I ruined everything for my parents. When Dad and I finally moved it didn’t get better. I lost my mom, even though she wasn’t a good one she was the only one I had. Every time she sent me a letter, I silently hoped that she would say that she missed me, but every letter I received she asked if I had gotten any prettier, or any thinner. When she called, she would scream at me instead of asking me about my life.” Your sobs were uncontrollable at this point, and I couldn’t make out anything else as your words became blurred by tears. I turn and start back in the direction of my car, trying to digest all that I’ve just overheard. I can’t believe this. The hatred I had for you is not the same, its mixed with sadness. I see a picture of your life and realize its different then I thought. It’s softer and its filled with a profound sense of loss. I toss my bookbag with the gasoline in a nearby dumpster before climbing into my car. As I drive home, exhaustion hits me. The time and effort I’ve invested in hating you has taken its toll. I think of my own children, and shudder when I think about the horrendous crime I almost committed. I think about you and your daughter. I hope the two of you can build a better life and think that perhaps all these years you’ve been living in your own hell that I can’t even imagine. I hope that hell can be transformed. It seems you’ve made a relationship with your daughter that’s far more painful than any punishment I could have inflicted. As I drive in the dark of night, I think about my own family at home asleep. I realize now more than ever how lucky I am to have be surrounded by people who loved me both now and when I grew up. I climb out of my car and walk to my own house; I feel a little lighter and for the first time in a long time I feel hopeful.


The first fifty years, two months, and three days of his adult life had finally passed. Prior days were spent dreaming of what life could have been for him and at night, delusions of family dinners and banters of love with his wife danced in his fabricated memories. He painted a fictional story for himself, riding the tidal waves of imagination carried by his ever-thinking mind. From holding his daughter’s hand as she took her first step to walking her down the aisle for her wedding, he regularly visualized events he wished were real. In reality, he was a lonely soul. Family and friends were few and far between for him. His only, for lack of a better word, support was a chain-smoking alcoholic of a father, who spent most days drunk and passed out when not at work. His adolescence consisted of endless hours of mindless cartoon watching. His teenage years weren’t any different as video games replaced the slapstick animations that littered his television. By sixteen, he was stealing cigarette boxes from his father’s cartons and washing down the menthol flavor with the cheap beer stocked in the fridge. Close to failing high school and dropping out, by some miracle, he managed to graduate. An accomplishment he ignored, as no one, but he, was able to partake in the joy. Unemployed for all of summer, with no plans to further his education, he had reached his eighteenth year of life, and like many other recent and past milestones, he spent it alone. He was never sure if his father, who was fast asleep on the couch, forgot or even knew his birthday, but after nine or ten drinks, it wasn’t important. He lit a cigarette and pondered in his inebriated state, mentally creating plans to make big changes to his life. As a legal adult, he made a vow to himself to turn his life towards another path. He envisioned a promising future filled with success and good company surrounding him. Drowsy and nodding off, it already felt like reality. He saw his future years with actual birthday candles flickering, standing tall and many, as wax dripped onto the cake’s icing. Airhorns and loud chatter echoed in the smoke from congratulatory cigars, in celebration of his new wife and his soon-to-be parenthood. With his daughter tugging his arm to wake him in the morning, he could feel the warmth of the sun’s rays slowly peeking through the curtained windows. “Sir! We need to go now!!” yelled the fireman. “Huh? What--What’s going on?” he asked. As he suddenly awoke, he watched the flames swaying back and forth, ridiculing his foolish hangover and stupidity. A blanket of black drifted along the ceiling, muffling the cries and calls for help from above. His father, with legs burnt looked still and motionless. “We have to get my dad! He’s burning! No! Wait!!” he pled while being carried down to safety. He sat across from the apartment building, staring up at the horror that ripped through his home and above. Flashes of red and blue lights bouncing off the bricks brought him into a mindless stare, wondering what could have caused this disaster. Heavy puffs of smoke from the watered down, still burning embers billowed into the early morning sky. With the fire subsiding, he watched the rescue team bring out bodies, seemingly unmoving, and began to question why he was the only one still breathing. With his adrenaline fading, glancing down, he winced in pain.


From the day I remember, I was not like an ordinary person, I used to do those kind of things that normal person can't do. If my brain serves me correctly then at the age of 9 I guess, I were able to control the time, I was able to pause the time, resume the time and many more. I don't know how but I used to do. I used to feel like I am not an ordinary person or you can just say "not a person because only alien would be able to have this kind of superpowers, no ???" Anyway Whenever I try to ask my grand mother that "why is this happening to me" then, she used to divert the conversation and she used told me that I would get to know it when I will be big. Before I used to be afraid of this but afterwards I get to know that I can't stop it and then I slightly begin to learn how to control it and now I am 14 years old but also I don't have much friend except animals and birds do you know that I am able to talk with birds and animals But also my grandmother don't let me to go outside and play with the others because she worry about me a lot although she know that I have super powers but also she always keeps worrying about me a lot. Till now I have not been to school and I read in my home with my grand mother. As always I was in my room reading my new story book and I saw a picture of piece of cake in my book which made me feel like I am hungry Then I slightly walked into the kitchen as i know if my grandmother knew this then she would surely scold me. As I slightly began to open up the fridge And I was about to pick the piece of cake and then I feel like someone was behind me and then, then what ??? I pause the time and not even bother to look who was beside me Then again, I feel like, that person is still moving, I thought, it maybe my mistake that I didn't pause the time properly. Then I slowly turn around to see who the person is then I saw a blue light in the structure of a person who was moving around me. I was scared to death and then I scream but there was no one to listen to me and I hurridly resume the time and scream again as I screamed my grandmother came to me and asked if all the things was alright. I pointed towards the blue light and screamed again. As that person in blue light saw my grandmother it stop moving and began to watch my grand mother as if he knew her already. I asked my grand mother that he is staring at you, do you know who is he ??? She asked me surprisingly where?? who?? And after a while, now she was able to look him as he sightly showed himself to her My grandmother also looked shocked after looking at him Only I was wondering what was happening. Then I asked my grand mother, then she told me that this is the day when you will find out how you got superpower. Then I asked how ??? and who is this person ??? Then my mother let me sit in couch and make me quiet. She told me that he is my grand father and once he was a scientist and he found out the formula of geting infinite power through our subconcious mind and made a soup which will let you have superpowers and after knowing this, many people want to know that formula and soup and kill my grand father and they even killed my grandfathers friends and after my grandfather knew about it he let me and my grandmother to stay at home and take one spray with him and spray it to himself and other people which will make people arrive at the same place after 12 years. After I knew this all I was speechless. I hugged my grandfather and he hugged me too. He told me that maybe those people would come again before he finished sying some noises were coming, from outside our house we hurriedly went outside to see what was happening and then we saw hundred tons of people coming toward us with many fighting materials and even some of them were even flying I was confused and panicking at the same time Then my grandfather hurridely hold my and my grandmother's hand and we disappear from that place and we appear at unknown place I asked my grandfather and he told me that it was the place where he used to live after disappearing from earth and it was heaven he told me that I must use that super power to make this world a better plave to live in and put all of other scientist who wants to kill him in the jail because they all have killed his other friends inorder to get that powerful soup Then me and my grandmother suddenly disappear from that place and appear in secret under ground cabin where my grand father used to work I let my grandmother to stay there and I went outside to see what was going on And I saw those people were destroying our house then I hurridely went there screaming and shouting. Then I was so angry after that longest story that I have heard and seeing my house destroying I went there and I scream so loud that all the others people were injured and half of them were even died Those people who were flying died and half of the people were injured very badly Then I let all of them who were alive in jail. Then my grandfather came and he told me that he was blessed to have a grandson like me and told me that his son, who is my father and my mother also died while helping my grandfather. Then he disappeared, then after I began to help others with a name "Yuliana"