The truth is we were meant to be together, but I always preferred choice. It gives you the ability to snub anything resembling destiny. I spat in the face of destiny when I met you. My heart aches in a way that reminds me I can feel. I crave an interaction with you like the drugs I used to love. You are better. You are real.  It all began with a delightful conversation. How wonderfully free it was. Life and art, existential angst. It was never easy with you. Not from the beginning. Oh my god.  I happened into you again. Months later at a restaurant. You ignored the man I was with and bought my entire meal. Your long message was received in secret from the person that had claim over me. I remember that day you said. I remember you too. Meet tomorrow? Okay...  I told you not to fall in love as I straddled your broad, muscled chest. My beaten down heart laughed delightfully at the idea that I would break yours. My heart can't break you said. It is already broken. I'll never love you. That is what you said. I said I'd never love you either. We didn't fuck. I felt you as we moved against one another, our clothes not quite containing us. I'd made a pact with myself not to have sex. I wanted to feel temptation.  You asked me out with your friends not knowing how dangerous I was with playthings. All it took was a quick compliment, an honest observation of two others. Three pieces to make you feel pain and anger. One more would come later. The idea of others to follow.  I was friends with your friends from that day. A little too charming for one who became your enemy, later your best friend. Perfectly charming for a happy little couple, open to a visitor to join them in a tiny little home. You fucked me before it happened because you saw the invitation coming. It was an angry painful fuck. I liked the feeling of your strong arms grabbing me. The quick angry pumping as a result of you trying to lay claim over the one who had laughed about your feelings. I put your hands against my throat and you applied practiced pressure. The room blurred just the right amount. You don't hold anything sacred you said. I agreed even though I wasn't sure. I didn't know myself as well back then. You had a way of making me feel... so small and deadly. I was a secret monster determined to make you unsatisfied. You were determined to never be satisfied. We played a little game of tug o'war. We made a perfectly terrible couple. Your roommate hated me. Why are you here? He'd ask. I just smiled and shrugged. Hope your day was nice I'd say sugary.  You yelled at me when you found out about the couple. I showed up to apologize even though I wasn't sorry. I told you I wasn't. You don't understand I said. I had a relationship end that day, but it wasn't the one with you. I told you I enjoyed their cramped bed, eating and fucking and smoking and licking. We all moved together. We didn't talk. I didn't want to. You forgave me, but also did not. I was this evil you disliked. I was this evil you wanted to speak with. The temptation and mischief clearly sparkling in my eyes when I spoke to you. There was no one but us. Even as the small pools filled up with the bodies of stand in characters. I felt you. We looked at one another in comfort as a clown performed bad rap and I gave a knowing look that chided appropriation. The years that separated us glowed in your eyes with a "kids these days" look but it didn't matter as I knew I'd see you later. It had been a month or so since we last spoke. You picked me up when I saw you, scooping my thin but tall body up in a way that only a tall, muscular man can. I felt so tiny. Taken.  I did more bad. I liked to do that to you. I didn't trust you or your fucking broken heart. That stupid girl you loved in the past I didn't care for. I didn't do what you wanted. You hated my blatant disrespect. I hung out with your former acquaintance. Crashing at his place. He fell in love with me while I dated half the town. I didn't love him back. I loved him. I didn't want to fuck him. I fucked him. He was a virgin. It made things complicated. I didn't care about anyone. I didn't want to. I saw you off and on. Whenever we saw one another we were in each other. Taken over by something deeper than mere desire. I never texted you after if I could help it. You were always mad at me. I felt my addiction to you. I cried over it as your friend comforted me begrudgingly. Fuck I craved you. I sweated with desire with the hot sun reflecting on that stupid white fence.  I don't know when we stopped. It wasn't for awhile. I remember laying in your arms. We didn't fuck that night. I was upset. I'd found someone else while you were traveling Europe with a poor excuse for me. I told that man that I may not see him again. He cried. I thought it was strange. I had never seen you cry. This creature who didn't know me like you did was crying. I'd made other men cry, but this was different. He wasn't trying to control me. He was feeling. He thought I was good. You knew I was not. I chose him to make me better, but he annoyed me the way they always do. So I went to see you because I couldn't think of where else to go. Of course it had been months and many men and women between the two of us. Still, I felt so comfortable with you. I'd see you sometimes in a way that I attempted to make platonic. You were always trying to convince me to marry you. To leave him. I wanted you to show up with a ring. I wanted you to tell me we were leaving to go elsewhere. You never did. To be fair I never said yes. I made fun of you even while my heart beat with excitement. Don't be dumb I'd say. Don't.  He gave me a ring. It had been a long time since I'd seen you, but suddenly you were there. I felt my throat close up in a way that he never made it close. God I've never wanted anyone as much as I wanted you. All at once the time felt like no time at all. We stood in a crowded room alone pleasantly catching up. I felt your eyes devouring me. I felt my eyes asking them to. I thought we must have looked obscene to everyone fucking each other that way. My friends had not noticed. I realized that people were more blind that I thought. How could they not see us burning there. How was my secret still safe? We parted ways. You were working. I was happy. I told myself. I'm happy. I dreamt of you again. Woke up in a cold sweat of longing. I saw my rock sleeping peacefully beside me. How sweet he looked. How simple his love was. I swallowed the scream inside and burned for a week while I tried to forget.  They told me you had a baby and I laughed so hard. So very hard. It hurt to laugh. I didn't know if it was because it was funny or because I was so angry. You weren't supposed to do that. You were supposed to be like me. Childless. Free. We were going to be together one day. It was just as you would text me. You can be with him now, but I know we are meant to be. You would write such sweet nothings. So empty like nonvenomous snake bites.  You stole me away to the mountain. We watched the lights glitter below us and your hands were deftly feeling me and making me feel. No I said. I can't. It isn't right. I love him. The lights blurred below. The city so far down. The people so small. Again just me and you and him in the distant below. I laughed with you so freely. I knew it was ending. You did too. We held hands as you drove down the mountain. Even as the road curved dangerously out of sight our hands remained entwined. This is the end I thought. I kissed you and felt the craving inside. How would I say goodbye? I ran. I didn't look back to you. When I got home to my better side he was angry. He forgave me. I didn't want him to. I did want him to. He believed in the good side of me. You thought good didn't suit me. I tried to believe in myself. Still I dreamed that night of you pushing me against that stone fort wall. The cliff edge so near. I didn't jump but I pushed you. I let you take me over the edge. I didn't fight. Just fell into the sky.  "This is the moment where you trick people into thinking you are theirs." you said as you penetrated me deeply in the southern cemetery with the flashing of fireflies and coyote eyes. The blanket moved below us and the summer was early enough to cool my hot flesh. Every thrust I felt in my being. You said you could and should stop now. Maybe it wasn't cheating you mused. It is still cheating I said. We cheat when we look at each other you said. You pushed inside me. Earlier I had ducked into a tent. You had asked what was inside. The river was flowing beside us. The memory of the boat we were on was a shadow against the fabric. The whiskey tainted ice clinked against the glass as it slowly melted on the balcony we left. I smiled at you in the inner sanctum of that secret and public place. You can't get in me I said. I won't you said. And then somehow you were in me. No! I said to you and pushed you off me. You reached for me and I panicked. Memories of something less pleasant in my head. Hey what's wrong. We don't have to.  You sat down beside me and hugged me from behind. I hid my panicked tears. I was tired of crying in front of you. I felt safe again. Your body was warm and strong. I was the small part of you once more. I felt the lustful drive to be so very close. We walked away from our hidden sanctuary and arrived upon a place of play. It had been too long since I'd swung, so I didn't feel the need to. I sat on top of you and wrapped my hands around your neck as you relaxed your entire body to be defenseless. I don't care about her. I don't want to make you happy. I know you said. I love you. I know. I grabbed your wrists and thought about how I hated you. We kissed and I laid on you listening to your heart. It sounded fake. You dress like a whore but you're the smartest person I've met you said. Your words echoed in my ear. I do that on purpose. I know. I like it. You are interesting. We're the bad guys you know. I wanted you to know that. Heroes are boring you said.  You mentioned that people are notoriously bad at choosing things that make them happy. I know that is true. I've wanted to choose you, tried to choose you, and it didn't happen. I realize the reason we are drawn to one another, the magic of our connection, is that it can only exist in hostile conditions. I crave you in moments. Not the idea of who you are, because you are a frustrating man, but you. You see me. I see you too. I've seen you for so long. On an instinctual level I have known, despite our chemistry you're not the forever guy. I wish we could be friends, but I know it isn't possible. We burn ourselves up together. It is not fair to compare or good to have what we do. We don't make each other better. When I'm with you I don't care about anyone or anything else. I don't expect anything from you, myself, or the world. I don't pay attention to other people. I don't focus on the things I thought mattered. You make me feel more important than anyone and anything and you encourage me to think little of others. When I think about you I feel on fire. The rage I've had towards the weakness or slowness of other's burns. I crave to be with you so that we can laugh about them. I want to laugh at the thought of coyotes eating us in a land of the dead. You aren't healthy. You make me want to be a bad person. I love how it feels to be her. You're right that heroes are boring to watch, but interest is a bankrupt path. It ends dramatically. Hatefully.  The man whose ring I wear said he was worried about who I was. When he glimpses the part of me you see so clearly it scares him. He is a good man. He is simple. He is kind. He is slow and methodical. He doesn't enjoy watching things on fire or playing with people. He finds himself uncomfortable when he sees me smile and tease with sweet knives. So I try to find the good in life and smile at the small moments. I try not to have claws and walk quietly and put out fires. But I love you in the most selfish way. I don't care about your life or her. I love when you do things I know I should convince you not to. I watch with amusement while you blow up your life. My cautioning paper thin. Fuck I don't want to give up my addiction, but I also don't want to burn the world around me.  Okay you said. Let us try to be boring. I hate you so much my love.


I was born. I lived. I died. Trite words. They belittle what it is to come into existence, to live. They are sterile. Clean. A monochrome, safe, description of life. Life is anything but monochrome, safe, sterile, or clean. Especially clean. Life was messy. Squalling babe to squealing child to sulking teen to stressed adult. Not one moment clean, clear cut, or bland. The late appointments, job interviews, job rejections, bills, the clutter of life made life anything but monochrome, safe, sterile, or clean. Especially clean. I’m repeating myself. I’m losing focus. They say blood loss will hinder brain function. I guess they’re right. Focus, focus! My name is David Litke. I am 26 years old. I am married to Katherine Litke. I was born - Was that a footstep? Just my mind. Damned bunker. Life was anything but monochrome, safe, sterile, or clean. Especially clean. Fuck, stop repeating yourself. Focus, focus! My name is David Litke. I am 26 years old. I am married to Katherine Litke. I was born in Laramie, Wyoming. My parents are Mark and Jane Litke. I am a - Voices. No not voices. Grunts. Strange, primal grunts. You have time. You do. Life was anything but monochrome, safe, sterile, or clean. Especially clean. For fuck’s sake. I repeated myself again. They say blood loss hinders brain function. My name is David Litke. I am 26 years old. I am married to Katherine Litke. I was born in Laramie, Wyoming. My parents are Mark and Jane Litke. I am a frogman in the United States Navy. That’s it. That’s what I needed. That explained the body armor. And the grenade clenched in my fist. And the dead body. Joshua Pell. That was his name. Petty Officer Pell. An arm and half of his face was gone. How did that happen? Why am I still holding a live grenade? Other bodies were on the floor. They were wearing strange gowns - or nothing at all - and lay in tangled, bloody heaps. Life was anything but monochrome, safe, sterile, or clean. Especially clean. My name is David Litke. I am 26 years old. I am married to Katherine Litke. I was born in Laramie, Wyoming. My parents are Mark and Jane Likte. I am a frogman in the United States Navy. I joined because life was too clean. Too safe. They’re snuffling at the door now. That’s it. The people in the gowns, hospital gowns, had tried to kill us. Petty Officer Pell had dropped a grenade as they swarmed him. I must’ve been shielded from the blast. Most of it at least. My right leg was riddled with shrapnel, and stab wounds from the crazed doctor trapped in here had punctured my arms. And a concussion from a blast in an enclosed space - Life was anything but monochrome, safe, sterile, or clean. Especially clean. Stop that, or you might as well blow your brains out now. My name is David Litke. I am 26 years old. I am married to Katherine Litke. I was born in Laramie, Wyoming. My parents are Mark and Jane Likte. I am a frogman in the United States Navy. I joined because life was too sterile, too monochrome. And I am about to die. I shifted my weight from where I sat on the gurney. The movement knocked several platters and needles on the floor. The grunts and snuffling stopped. Shit. . . A primal, raw scream tore from some unearthly creature’s throat. It echoed for what seemed like forever. No. They weren’t echoes. They were responses. My name is David Litke. And I am about to die. It had seemed like an easy job. Raid the compound, snatch the doctors, and destroy the research. We didn’t realize the research would destroy us. The compound had seem abandoned, until we lost contact with Bravo. Then Delta. Then Charlie. My squad, Alpha, had been alone. Then we had started disappearing, one by one. They had hunted us, stalked us. My name is David Litke. We had run to this room to find it locked. We busted in anyway. The crazy doctor who had been hiding in here stabbed me several times before we downed him, all the while shouting “They’ll find us! They’ll find us!” in Arabic. Then the “they” he had been referring to had come. Then Petty Officer Pell had dropped the grenade. That’s why I still held mine. My name is David Litke. They had a hard time coming through the door a second time, those freaks. Their fellow lab experiments blocked the door. They shoved in eventually. Their twisted, grotesque forms lunged at me. Dirty, clawed hands outstretched. Teeth gnashing. Mouths spewing that vile scream. I hardly felt them tear into me. I only thought - David Litke. About to die. The grenade dropped to the floor.


I distinctly remember a scene from exactly a year, five months and three days ago, even as I forget what I’d eaten for breakfast before I went to school. The pink petals floating around my room, the text I’d gotten that day, the smile plastered on my face. Second-year, oblivious, Converse High me couldn’t even comprehend what happened next. He left. He had moved somewhere else, and he had forgotten all about me. No goodbye. Not even a glance back at me, who was waiting for him the whole time. But that... really isn’t my problem anymore, though. I’ve moved on from him, and I’ve adjusted to living without him who I’ve known more than myself. “San Aera!” I hear someone scream from behind me, and even before I turn around a slim, pre muscular arm slung itself around my shoulder. I wince at this, looking up at the boy beside me. He’s been at it for a year already, ever since that day. I call him Gyu, but his actual name is Choi Huigyu. We somehow stick around each other despite tipping our distress meters all the time. I wouldn’t call us friends. Definitely not a boyfriend, either. Our relationship general-wise is just... unnamed? He flashes that bothersome gummy smile of his despite deafening me just now. “Hey. Walking to school?” “Where else would I be going?” I ask, raising a knowing eyebrow at him. Gyu doesn’t say anything else and shrugs. “I don’t know. To me?” “Sure, I’d go to you instead of school and help you cram for a test that’s happening today. Isn’t that why you weren’t waiting in front of my house with my mother swooning at you as always?” “But you love helping me, don’t you?” I slap his arm in defence. He desperately needs a tutor, and yet he comes to me. He needs a friend, and yet he comes to me. I’m not a good enough friend, and yet he comes to me. Like every single day, lunch break, class break, class partner work, group work, and I never know why. Then we’re back to just silence, either one of us not saying much, and the atmosphere doesn’t change color. The sky is a bright blue and the clouds have decided to take a rest today, so the sun has all the space he wants. The road of cherry blossom petals in front of us has deepened a bit, the petals are running around everywhere. This scene seems a bit familiar... Gyu rips the word ‘silence’ from the air with a sigh. “It’s today, huh?” I look at him. “What’s today?” He says nothing when I ask. I’m used to this, yes, but at this point, I’m just so intrigued because he listens to me most of the time and I barely heed to him. He gives me encouragement but my advice-giving skill’s been a bit stiff. What’s on his mind? Gyu sighs again when I ask him. What the hell? “I’m not supposed to tell you this, but since he’s dead already there’s nothing I can do. You have to know something real quick.” I look at him, and he looks at me. It’s definitely not a joke, nor is it another school rant. It’s not about the teachers, not about his family. The look in his onyx orbs tells me it’s all about me and not him. What is it that he knows that I don’t? It looks like he’s hesitating to say anything else other than what he just blurted out because he’s constantly looking at things behind me, then me. He’s nervous. He’s never nervous. Gyu is always confident, if not, pride-ridden. He always boasts about himself because he’s that perfect. Everyone loves him and his milk-white skin, his lovely sharp onyx eyes, but I only hang out with him because he has no one who understands that he’s him because of his personality and I have no one in general. I’m about to interrupt him when he speaks, but his next words stop me and every fibre of my being. “Do you remember a distinct scene from this sidewalk? A scene involving... Sam Hyunjin?” He fiddles with his lost fingers and he doesn’t know where to look. I don’t know where to look, either, because I’m trying hard not to scream, or show that this shocks me, and all I’m thinking right now is What Is Happening . I think he knows that this is a pretty precious place for me. Because this was where my first confession took place. Hannam-dong High School. My second year. At about 4:59 pm when he insisted on walking me home. My silence is a gesture for him to continue, so he does. This time he doesn’t hesitate. “He’s always looked at you differently. Not in a bad way. Hyunjin really doesn’t mean you any harm by disappearing suddenly, so I’ll have to tell you what happened--” “ What? ” The question I’ve wanted to ask the whole time, from when Hyunjin told me he liked me back to the day he was deemed gone from Hannam-dong-- it finally comes out. And I start to speak this time, my blood starting to boil, bubbles sprouting from it. “What do I not know about Sam Hyunjin? What is it that I’m supposed to know? Gyu, this was last year, and if he wanted to ditch me, then why didn’t he just--” “ Sam Hyunjin was a cancer patient, Aera! ” My heart drops into my stomach and to the floor. Gyu’s words linger in my head, and the lava in my head has died down. It fizzes and dries out on its own, leaving me clueless, guilt-struck, and my knees buckle. Cancer . Hyunjin . A patient . Oh my God. Why hasn’t anyone told me about this at all? Who else knew other than Gyu? Who was Gyu to Hyunjin? Why... wasn’t I told? Then it struck me. I remember something from right after he dropped me off to my home, what he whispered in my ear when he pulled me close. I remember him breaking into a soft tear and him whimpering a bit. That wasn’t him being glad I liked him back. He was frightened. Those... those words-- “Thank you so much.” He was telling me something. Why didn’t I realize sooner? My eyes sting now, and I’m trying to suppress mixed emotions in my head right now. It hurts. It relieves me. It just... makes me a bit teary. I misunderstood. And now the consequences of not perceiving it hurt more than when he left. “He didn’t wanna say anything about it because he knew this would happen, Aera.” Gyu pats my back softly, I collapse to him, tightly pulling him close. I know he’s taken back by my sudden gesture, but he returns it as swift as I pulled him. Gyu’s heart beats steadily in his chest-- it consoles me just as much as a fetus. “You know...” I look up to these two words and see Gyu in a state that broke me even more. He was tearing up as he clutched my figure, but I could tell he was trying his hardest to stay strong. For me. For Hyunjin. “He... today was the day he died...” I shattered at this.


We were never wealthy. My family and I lived in a small village near the northern border of Romania, and we had nothing. 1852 was not a good year, as the crops were naught but dust in the wind of the coming Autumn change. Not only were we miserable, we were hungry. There was my father, mother, younger sister, and I, a tender youth of eight. The cold of that Autumn was like nothing I had ever experienced before, and my father became a brash man. An angry man. A... failed man. As any other time, our days were spent working in the field, trying our best to save each grain of wheat we could, hoping that Mother could produce a single loaf for the week, but the loaf never came. I had dreams of Bucharest butter and cream, visions of meat, the fat and all those wonderful things that other children could enjoy but us. The toil of an empty stomach wears heavy on the mind, this I know well. The pinnacle of desperation came when a traveling merchant made his way to our rat’s nest in the woods and my father murdered him to take his goods, but it was in vain. It was a con man, of Moldova, who thought to purloin what he could after gaining trust from a hungry family. As he pulled back the blanket from the merchant’s cart, Father dropped his bloody axe to the ground and followed it, falling to his knees and screaming. His screams were those of a child, a child wanting something it cannot have, and screaming the walls of the house down. Nothing quite shakes your view of the world as a young man as seeing your father falling apart in front of you. He told us to get back into the shack while he buried the slender man in the woods, where he would not be found. I watched through the window as Father slung him into his cart and took him deep into the woods. I heard nothing. He was gone for a long time, too long of a time to bury someone, and Mother was chewing her lips with worry, but she dared not disobey his command. Before long, as the sun was setting, Father came back into the shack, clothes bloody and grim, but he was back. As he stood at the threshold of our shack, he looked at us and, for the first time in months, he smiled. He smiled as he pulled out a blood-soaked sack from behind his back and exclaimed that he had killed a fox that smelled the dead man’s blood. He did not have the sack when he left. He did not have anything to hunt the fox with, only a shovel, and foxes are too quick for that. There was too much meat in the sack to come from a fox. Nevertheless, he tossed the sack to mother and told her to cook. “But it-” “Damn it woman! Cook!” She obeyed him and we had the first glimpse of a whole meal in weeks. Sitting at the table, we dined and ate the fox, lips smacking as toothless hounds, but it was wrong. We had had fox meat once before, and it was tough, difficult to chew, and tasted awful. Eating fox made us want to never eat fox again, but this fox was sweet, tender, almost like the pork we had one rare Christmas night. The idea of my father lying about the meat was a figment in my mind as its delectable taste overwhelmed my hungry self, and I gorged, consumed, even cried from happiness. Before long, the idea was completely gone as I sunk into a deep sleep by the fire, curled with my sister, whom I had loved with every fiber of my being. The Autumn night was freezing and our dire situation was halted for a single night. Until I felt the warm, soft feeling of my sister’s body against mine get ripped away from me. Her screams were piercing, as she struggled against my father’s grasp. Urged by a primal need to defend what is closest to me, I surged from the floor and lunged toward my father, but his other hand was promptly over my mouth and he was telling me to be silent. “They are outside.” Muffled screams died down into soft wallows as I realized he was not assaulting my sister, but keeping her quiet. We were huddled down in a corner of the room directly under the window, through which moonlight reared to reveal his face. He was stricken by a mortal fear, one of a man who had seen either a devil or something much worse. It was the latter. As he gently moved his hand from my mouth, I whispered the only thing on my mind: “Who is outside?” “Th... them, I am not sure. Be quiet and sit down. Do not make a sound.” He released my sister as well, threatening her with a high fist if she were to say anything, something I had grown to hate about him ever since the first time he had done it. Slowly, he crept toward the window to look outside. It was half-barred with wooden planks that we made the previous winter, so he could just peer outside without being seen. As his head came above the windowsill and he closed a single eye, and a breath escaped him. A shaky breath of a dying man, he was petrified. I could not help but satisfy my curiosity, and seeing that he was not moving out of fear, I dared to creep closer and reveal what they were. I wish I had never looked out of that window. There are things in this world that are better left for the mind to imagine, never behold. Outside our shack in the middle of nowhere, illuminated by the full moon above, stood a troop of men, all nearing the image of the wandering “fox” we had eaten for dinner. As my young eyes adjusted to the light and my mind processed the horror, the full gravity of our situation was made clear. Those were not men in our garden. They were corpses. Rotting, putrid icons of people the Reaper either did not care to take or was not allowed to take by something, they were animated, standing in our garden, seemingly pointing their eyeless skulls toward our small measure of safety - the broken and patched window. I was six years old. I was naive to the world, both the goodness of it and the horrors that resided in the recesses of the deep dark woods. I could not help it. I screamed. I screamed as those satanic amalgams burned themselves into my mind as I clawed at my eyes to make them leave. The sanctity of my own mind was raped by things that I could not fathom, things that any god would condemn and keep away from us. I sometimes wondered if whatever god there is was also afraid of what those men were... As soon as the terror escaped my mouth with my breath, the dead men sprung into erratic movements toward the house, as marionettes controlled by a cruel and twisted puppeteer. More came from the woods, but I dared not count them. My father was shaken awake by my screams and took my sister and I by the collars of our worn shirts and flung us into the miniscule cellar where we kept the spare nails and hammers. He flipped the table over and slid it over the door, so we could not get out. “Do not make a sound.” We heard the thumping sound of his footsteps getting further and further away as he took up arms, his axe, and opened the door of the shack. I’d rather not describe his screams or my mother’s wails as they had their way with her... The thing I remember most vividly is muffling my sister’s mouth and smelling iron in the air as it leaked through the floorboards, and remaining like that until the hazy light of the morning shined through the broken and bloody window. The men disappeared along with the night, and we were, at first, too afraid to move. Before long, the feeling of dread was back and we began screaming for help, for anyone to come and rescue us. Even though a god had not thought it merciful to spare my parents’ lives, it did think it wise to send us a smith, Florin, to save us. Florin was stunned by the scene in the house and did not allow us to look, and took us away to his home, where we remained, until my sister died from pneumonia seven years later. I, finding no joy in smithing and no purpose with my sister in the grave, left for a boarding school in Bucharest where I lived, until I established a family of my own. I was at peace until this night. I am writing this to express how thankful I am, truly, that my sister did die when she did. It would have been unfortunate for her to be here now. It is Autumn, a very cold night in Autumn and my wife and daughter are asleep in the bedroom. I have locked and barred the door. My inkwell is almost empty, and as I look out from my study window to the outside, I can see the same strange movements emerging from the wooded area in front of our house. I can see my father’s dead eyes looking up at me, bathed in moonlight. I have made peace with my fate. Irina, Iulia, I love you with all my heart, but I must go. There are foxes in the garden.


Thread of Destiny I have always hated elevators. It goes without saying really that being suspended in a metal box in an open shaft gave me a distinct feeling of vertigo whenever I was inclined by social pressure to ride in the death traps. I hated the feeling of that little jerk right at the beginning when the cab first started to move and then the counting beeps that signified just how fast the floors were passing by. I hated the little bounce whenever someone got on or off. I hated the way the doors closed and gave that little warning to stand clear. And I hated the stuffy paneling and the little rubber dots on the floor. All an all I just hated elevators. It was a cloudless and sunny Wednesday afternoon, one of those days that made me long for just a blanket and a book in the park, but I had a job interview. The place had been on the 12 th floor of some indistinct high-rise that I actually drove past three times before I figured it were to park. I anxiously smoothed my wrinkled blouse and the smooth fabric of my skirt as I stood in line for the elevator. Twelve floors was just too many to walk up in heels. I clutched my resume close to my chest and tried to appear like I belonged here. I could see that I didn’t. The people swarming past me were too posh and aloof to be my sort of people. I knew this was going to be a waste of my time, but I was here already. I might as well just answer the questions that all the others had posed and then go home to drown my continuing failure in a bowl of instant mac and cheese. Don’t judge me. The door made that annoying chiming noise and I steeled myself to step inside with two other people, both of whom looked like they were applying for the same job I was. The woman was a smartly dressed brunette who looked older than I was with her pressed jacket and briefcase. She took the choice spot in the elevator right beside the buttons and close enough to the door to be the first one out. The man had a kinder face with lines drawn in to the corners of his eyes and hair that was just on this side of untidy. He offered me a small smile as I stepped in behind him and positioned myself against the opposite wall. His fingers were trembling slightly as he drummed them silently across his slightly shabbier briefcase. He looked uncomfortable in his tie and kept rolling his neck from side to side. The woman was not trying to hide her distasteful looks in his direction as the elevator starting up, counting the floors with sickening tones. I had my hand clenched into the fabric of my sweater, my fingers fiddling with the bottom button. I was ready for it to be over when everything starting shaking violently. The brunette started to scream and I was thrown to the ground. The man’s briefcase smacked my across the face and smashed open on the floor. Paper exploded around me and I threw up my arms. It stopped, the lights flickered once and died. “Damn.” The man swore into the blackness. His face was close to mine, his voice almost shouting in my ear. The woman was still screaming, her voice bouncing around in the pitch. “We’re going to die. Oh my god we are going to die!” “Will you shut up!” the man’s voice was harsh as he moved away from me and I managed to scramble backwards and put my back against the wall. The emergency lights flared up casting the scene into a hellish red glow. The man was standing now. There was a gash bleeding freely on his cheek. His eyes were wild. The elevator creaked disconcertingly and the brunette whimpered. Her hair had come loose and hung in lank strips around her face, she had her briefcase clutched tightly to her chest and was rocking back and forth slowly against the far wall. There were tears on her face. I watched the man stride to the emergency telephone and pull it out. He held the receiver to his mouth and spoke into it. “Hello?” I studied his face, blood was dripping onto his collar. He wiped at it absently as he listened to the speaker on the other end of the line. “Yes. Three are three of us. We are trapped in the elevator. The power is out.” A pause and he frowned. My head was throbbing where the briefcase had impacted my temple. The elevator groaned again and the brunette whimpered louder, rocking harder. “I understand.” His voice was clipped as he hung up the phone. He set it back in its cradle and turned to look at us. “Well it’s going to be a while. That earthquake was a 5.8, there is a lot of power lines down and a couple of buildings collapsed. Turns out we’re lucky not to be squashed right now.” He slide down the doors. “I’m Garett by the way.” “Morta.” I said holding out my hand. We shook hands. The brunette sniffled, “Kayla.” We sat in silence for a while then. “So were you both here for the job?” I asked. Kayla just jerked her head, but Garett laughed. “Funny isn’t it? I woke up this morning thinking that I’d do this one thing and then go back to playing catch-up on the yardwork my wife keeps nagging me about. In today’s economy when they bite you yank the line taught. They say jump you say how high.” His laugh turned bitter. “Here we are three strangers bound by circumstance to be adversaries, hung in a metal box by a thread. I think there has to be a pun about destiny in there somewhere.” “I don’t believe in destiny.” Kayla tossed her hair. “No? Why not?” I asked. “Well its stupid isn’t it? To think that your life is preordained or whatever. Stuff happens because of action and reaction. People do things because other things happened to them.” I brushed my own hair out of my face as Garett turned thoughtful, “In college I had a professor who swore up and down that the reason people believed or didn’t believe in destiny was because they wanted someone to blame for how very ordinary their lives were. The man who believed in destiny thought surely that if he were designed for greatness then he would be great. The man who considered his own fate thought that surely if he wanted to be great there was nothing stopping him.” I snorted, “They were lazy you mean.” Garett’s eyes sparked and a smile quirked his lips, “Perhaps.” The elevator creaked again and the emergency light winked for just a moment. Kayla was picking at her fake nails compulsively and I shifted my legs to keep them from falling asleep. “Do you really think that we were all meant to be here today?” I asked suddenly. Garett looked up from his fingers. “Did you really think you had a good shot of getting his job?” I flinched as his words stung me. “I...well...” Garett waved me off, “It’s like I said before when they call you, you show up. It really doesn’t matter what the job is as long as it pays well enough and come with health insurance. Can you honestly tell me that you would rather come to an office every day and work for someone who barely remembers your name for the next thirty years until you retire and realize that you wasted the best years of your life making someone else money.” “Why are you so bitter? No one is making you apply for this stuff.” Kayla smarted. Garett sighed, “Really? Let me ask you something, if you said to your landlord that you weren’t going to pay rent because you didn’t have a job, do you think he’d be okay with that.” “No, but...” “It isn’t that there is someone who makes you work for someone else, it’s that you make yourself do it because you know that the consequences of not doing it are harder to bare.” “So where does destiny come in?” I asked sitting up straighter. “Ah destiny. When we think of destiny we think some grand adventure or heroic actions. We think that people with destinies will be great, but I pose to you the question of why? Why should all destiny be grand, wouldn’t it be better served to say that most destinies are quiet and subtle. There are hundreds of workers and only one queen, every society works like that. If we were all great then nothing would actually get done.” “You’re saying that we are destined to be no one?” I picked at a loose thread on my pants and Garett pointed a finger at me. “Got it on the first try.” He ran his hands through his hair and glanced towards the phone again as the elevator creaked more loudly. “Then what’s the point in saying you have a destiny at all?” I argued, “if we are all just meant to be no one.” Garett shrugged, “Who knows maybe you’d turn out to be the queen.” The elevator screeched loudly and slid down a few inches. Kayla started to mutter a prayer under her breath. “Somehow I doubt it.” I murmured. I could see the fear on Garett’s face as he offered me a smile. I just felt numb. The throbbing in my head had stopped and I could hear every heartbeat and every whoosh of breath that came and went into and out of my lungs. “I heard this story once about the three fates.” Garett started, “It was Greek I think. Anyway the story goes that the first fate is the one who gives you life and starts you on your path, the middle one measures the length and the third...” “Cuts the cord.” I finished and we stared into each other’s eyes. I reached into the pocket of my sweater and pulled out a pair of scissors. The cable sang as it snapped. The climb to heaven is long and hard, the fall to hell is swift and easy.


I got drunk last night. That’s not the point of this story, but it needs to be addressed. This morning I awoke at 7:45 to a jackhammer cracking my skull right in front where the wrinkles in your forehead split. I got up, chugged a mug off water, and went back to sleep. My only responsibility for this lazy Sunday was to collect a display from a grocer across town at 6pm. After a couple movies, a few episodes of Arrested Development, and some cheese and crackers it was almost 5. I hopped in the shower and thought of all the great places I could eat dinner. I was going across town, and had my pick of anything I wanted. While packing up the display I decided upon a delicious Philly cheesesteak from a sub shop I don’t get to frequent as much as I’d like to. The idea grew in my head overtaking all other thoughts, which is actually pretty upsetting. I was not starving by any means, just the night before I stuffed my face with a Chicago style dog and some cheesy fries.......If you haven’t already figured out, I eat pretty poorly, but that’s another issue for another story. As soon as I walked through the door I heard two things. The first being a Ding to alert them of my presence and the other was one of the young girls working, yell to the back “It’s your turn!” This in my head is already an issue, her lack luster work ethic is going to translate directly into my food in some weird way. Be it through her emotions as she angrily separates the steak, or even how she slaps the mayo to my bread. It might be all mental on my end, maybe my taste receptors won’t savor the same if my head doesn’t feel the happiness in my sandwich? When she didn’t hear a response she turned to me, gave me a little smile, and asked me “What can I get for you today?” I said in my blandest voice possible, due to my current dissatisfaction, “I’ll have a Philly cheesesteak please.” “Ok, what kind of bread, white or wheat?” “I’ll have white please.”........remember I already said I eat poorly. “Would you like onions and peppers?” The girl working has no way of knowing this, but I loathe onions. If I had the option to rid the World of three things, I would pick onions three times. So I said, “No onions, and could you also make that a large sub?” “No.” she replied. “Please?” I said with a confused look. “Yes.” She said with a smile, as she turned to make my hoagie. I started to think a bit about that exchange, and still haven’t yet decided what it meant. On one hand she could just be making a joke, on the other she could be flirting. For all I know she says it to everyone. I have no reason to believe it was flirtatious in any way, but, shit, maybe it was. I am so oblivious to situations like this that I have to calculate them out later to decide. If it was flirting, and I had even caught on at the time, I wouldn’t have done anything. I am too much of a chicken shit to even say something else. I’m getting off topic again, and this story is about my sandwich. She let me know when my sandwich was ready, and rang me up at the register. I paid her, and asked if Germany had won the world cup. She told me they had and said “Have a nice evening.” Now I know for sure that she wasn’t flirting, or maybe she was, I don’t know. I sit down to eat my sandwich. I pull half out, and wrap the other half back up for lunch tomorrow. The first thing I notice is the dark shade to my white bread. As you might have guessed my white bread was wheat, and this being an honest mistake, I had no issue with letting it slide. However, when I took my first bite I chomped straight into the nastiest, most bitter, tongue stinking, eye watering onion I have ever tasted. The flavor engulfed my mouth and ran all my taste receptors to their doom. Each chew spread this disease. I thought about returning my sub to the girl and asking her to remake it, but that would make me look like an asshole, which is something I am trying to avoid. I mean, I have the ability to pick onions out of my food, and if I return this food, it will go straight into the trash. What it ultimately boils down to is the fact that I got the wrong sub, and I had every right to get up, walk over to the counter, and request that it be remade.......but I didn’t........I picked the onions out, and left unsatisfied with my sandwich to the sound of the girl saying “Good Bye.” as I walked out the door. Does this story have a point? Not really. I dropped my sandwich off to a homeless man on the corner near my apartment. I have deemed him the most deserving, as if I could pass judgment. I offered him a beer one day, and he turned it down stating “That’s the reason I’m in this mess.” Maybe the point is that I need to eat wheat bread, or maybe just eat less, the universe interfering with my quest to get fatter. Or maybe the girl messed it up so badly just because she wanted me to come back and talk to her, which I doubt. In all honesty, it is just a reason for me to bitch and moan, fueled slightly by the fact that I watched “Annie Hall” earlier in the day. Take from this what you will, but if you learned anything. I hate onions.


I’ve heard from a mutual that you’d like to move out to the countryside. They told me you want some place quiet, away from the rat race, more affordable even. I’m the last person on earth to tell anyone what to do with their lives, really, but I have to give you my two cents for this. There is a lot of *Nothing* in between the cities. You might not have heard of it, it happened a semester before you joined. It was the Davies expedition. A group of about twenty-five researchers, mostly students, from our college that went out to collect some data. They all vanished, all but one. That one was me. If you didn’t already know, I’m not surprised. I don’t like talking about it, but if it can change your mind about the move I will. The Davies expedition was named after my friend, and its lead, Howard P. Davies. He was only a year older than me, but several years my academic senior. He was young for a department head, and had multiple fields of focus. I didn’t then, and still don’t entirely understand Davies’ research. We weren’t even relatively close in fields of study. So I was a little confused when he asked me to come along the expedition. He told me that he had enough researchers to do the work, but needed more bodies to carry the equipment. It was going to be a short trip, two days at most, and it would pay well. Of course I said yes. The canyon we were going to was in a heavily protected wilderness. So protected we arrived with a government escort. They picked us up in huge cars with wheels that were almost as tall as I was. The escort took us down a heavily wooded valley that ran between two monstrous mountains. It had a crystal clear river running through it too. It was like being inside a painting at the louvre. That all ended at the canyon. There was a clear line drawn between the rest of the valley, and the canyon. The tree line stopped, and the grass stopped growing. Only the river kept going, because it couldn’t be stopped. I picked up my share of the equipment and looked over the edge. The canyon itself was relatively narrow at the top, but widened at the bottom. It was really more like an underground cave, but there was more than enough sunlight coming through to light the entire area. So here comes the first oddity I noticed. I should have been able to see the whole breadth of the canyon, but looking too far down or up its length the light would disappear. I was sure that the sun should have been able to light up the whole of the bottom, but it just didn’t. It wasn’t a normal kind of dark either, it was almost blinding. Like there was *Nothing* there. It was hard on the eyes. I blinked a couple times and grouped up with the rest. I noticed that none of the people with the escort were getting off. “Isn’t anyone going to stick around?” I asked “No sir,” said the man. “What about animals? I thought you’d leave someone behind in case of animal attacks or something.” “There aren’t any animals around here.” No animals? This far from humanity and he was telling me there were no animals? I could hardly believe it. I wanted to ask him more, but the government men were on a timetable and they were sticking to it. My mind was buzzing, not quite alarm bells, but thinking hard. I watched the escort leave, thinking I should probably have left with them. I watched them until they were completely gone. My mind got snapped back to the here and now when the expedition let out yowls and cheers. Apparently Davies had given a speech and I had missed it because I was too busy wishing I’d left with the escort. The expedition started shuffling to the edge of the canyon and I followed. The walls of the canyon actually had some pretty nice natural stairs along its walls. They almost looked carved. The canyon was deeper than it looked too. It would take us most of the day to get down to the bottom. I took one step down and in the blink of a second I was at the bottom with Davies' hand on my shoulder. It was disorienting, one moment stepping down, the next second on flat ground. Even the shadows shifted, it must have been later in the day. “You weren’t listening earlier, were you?” said Davies. “What-” “Happened?” “Yeah.” “It’s basically highway hypnosis. Something about this place lets you really lose yourself. Have you noticed the air?” I hadn’t, no, but when prompted I realized that I couldn’t feel the air. Down here the air was skin temperature. It was like being in a sensory deprivation tank. “I can see you have now,” said Davies. “What about the quiet, awfully quiet right?” It wasn’t quiet. It was the absence of sound. Totally and utterly, I couldn’t believe it, and it shouldn’t have been possible. For one, sounds should have been echoing between the canyon walls, and second was my mild tinnitus. After attending one concert too many I was stuck with some mild ringing in my ears. If it got too quiet it was hard not to notice, but not here. I was put into a stupor. “It’s okay, you’re not losing. It’s hard to notice *Nothing*, right?” he smiled. I’m not sure how he could be so at ease. This place was unsettling. “Come on, it’s fine. I think it’s a little creepy too. Let’s just set up our gear, get our measurements, and we’ll be out of here in a couple days.” A couple days. I dreaded the thought. Davies put me at ease though. He was probably just putting on a brave face. If the expedition lead is panicking then how can you ever be at calm, right? Davies gave me the cliff notes on working around here. Basically I had to be mindful of the noise, and the people around me. Keep your mind focused on them and you won’t enter that trance-like autopilot. I did as instructed and before long I had managed to put off my mind from the unsettling aspects of the canyon. The sounds of everyone working to set up our camp was comforting. When the set up work was done, everyone gathered around the kitchen area. The kitchen had a fire going, and everyone welcomed the relative heat vs the *Nothing* of the air around the rest of the camp. You could be mindful of the smell of food too. Everyone was bunched up there, chatting with more volume than needed. We wanted to fill the area with sound, because the quiet was dreadful, haunting. Night time arrived soon after though, and with it, a deeper *Nothing* than before. While the area around the camp had been well lit by the sun, that void of light I had seen from above was still present. The camp was surrounded by Nothing on either side. It was somehow worse at night too, because you had real darkness to compare it too. Real darkness was dark, black, a lack of light. The void on either side was Nothing, an absence of reality on either side. One by one people dropped off to sleep, prepping for the next day. It happened slowly because we were all reluctant to leave the campfire and head for our tents. Little by little though, people did leave, and soon it was just me and one other student. A girl named Sasha. Neither of us wanted to get away from the fire. We were terrified, but also tired. We couldn’t keep the fire going forever either. We needed to save fuel for our last night tomorrow. She did the hard part for both of us, snapping to her feet and dowsing the fire then quickly retreating to sit beside me. We tried to make idle chatter, just to keep the quiet away, but to little use. “Don’t you think there’s something wrong with the sky?” she said. Internally I cursed her. Why would you say something like that, in this place, on a night like this. I looked up, just briefly, terrified of what I might see. It was just a regular night sky. “No?” I replied. “Good,” she said, a little relieved. “Good. I’m going to bed.” She didn’t get up though, she fluffed up her backpack and laid her head on it. I gave her a reluctant good night, and fluffed up my own backpack. Was there something wrong with the sky? I asked myself, cursing her again. Why would she even put that thought out there. I took one last look at the sky before I let sleep take me. No, I thought, the sky is fine. It looks just like it does back home. The next day was much smoother than the first. A quiet settled into the camp, but most of us, including myself didn’t mind. In no time at all we had grown accustomed to it, and had relaxed our active mindfulness. It helped to know that it was our last night there. I was tasked with setting up cumbersome equipment, building and tearing it down for the researchers. When I wasn’t needed, I passed the time hanging out with Davies, who had some free time himself since most of his job was just overseeing the work of others. “So...,” I started to ask Davies, “what is this place?” Like I said, I wasn’t in his department, had no clue what he was studying. I didn’t understand what we were doing here. “For starters, it’s not just this place,” said Davies.” There’s places like this all over the U.S.. We don’t have a name for them yet, I’m thinking something like ‘Null Zones’.” “So then these places are...?” “Right now they’re just holes in data. Nothing more, really. I noticed them while looking at a colleague's work. They had been collecting data on animal populations. They had notes on population locations and their spreads. Something seemed familiar so I pinned those populations on a map and noticed these empty pockets. Moreover I recognized these pockets too, from collections of meteorological data. I decided to find other data sets that I could map out and recognized similar empty pockets in all of them.” In other words. *Nothing*. Davies had recognized a whole lotta *Nothing*. I recalled what the government man had told me. No animals in this area. This place was a void. One of Davies’ empty pockets, a Null Zone. It was Nothing. Before I could ask more, a researcher interrupted us to tell Davies that Sasha had gone missing. The girl I had spent the last of the previous night with. When Davies and the other researcher had caused an uproar about Sasha, everyone else began to note that their respective partners had gone missing as well. All of us had been in a stupor, let our guard down just a little too much. Davies gathered the entire expedition together to count heads. In the course of the day, we had lost just over half the expedition. Everyone, minus the researcher who told Davies about Sasha, had the same story. They had been hard at work on their tasks since morning, and when Davies snapped them back to reality with his uproar, noticed that their fellow researchers had disappeared in the blink of an eye. One second there, the other second, gone. There was a panic in the remaining members of the expedition, but Davies kept a cool head. He knew, as well as I, that the first twenty-four hours that someone is missing, are the most important. Every hour they weren’t being searched for increased the likelihood they wouldn’t be found alive. I saw him dig into his backpack for a satellite phone. Myself and a few others had been entrusted with one in the case of emergencies. His face turned sour. I fished out my sat phone as well and knew why. Down here in the canyon, we had no signal. Davies had seen me fruitlessly try and make a call with the sat phone. We looked at each other and knew that someone would have to go up top to make the emergency call, to get a search party as soon as possible. To be clear, the horror of the situation hadn’t escaped us. People had gone missing in the middle of the day, in the middle of camp, without anyone noticing. The practical reality of the situation however, kept us grounded. Ultimately Davies made the executive decision as expedition lead, to go back up the canyon alone. Such a decision wouldn’t have been necessary except that the trip back up would take longer than the trip down, and it was already mid day. Whoever went up, would be climbing a steep canyon wall in the middle of the night. Davies got ready to leave, gathering the minimum to make the trip, just a lamp and some dry rations. A few others had decided to join him, citing that it would be safer to make the trip together, but in truth, I’m sure they just wanted to leave this place as soon as possible. So that was that. One part of the expedition would stay behind to make the safer climb at dawn tomorrow and the other would go up the canyon to get help as soon as possible. I said my goodbyes to Davies, and it was hard. It would be the last time I ever saw Davies again. When he left, I was too tired to cry, or do much of anything. So were the others. There were about ten of us left then, down from a team of about twenty-four. Night came, and with it more dread. We lit the campfire as soon as an inkling of dark came over the canyon. We all gathered around the campfire. I looked up the canyon wall, searching for Davies’ team. They should have been somewhat visible in the darkness of the canyon since they would be making the climb assisted by lamp light, but I saw nothing. Then again I had made the trip down in a trance, and did not know the path up. I held on to the thought that perhaps the way up curved around corners that you couldn’t see at night time. I patted my thoughts with the idea that Davies was just out of sight, somewhere up there, climbing back up the canyon walls. Time passed in laps of awareness. We all tried to maintain the mindfulness that Davies had instructed us in, but it was growing increasingly hard. There was also the issue of those of us that remained. No one wanted to acknowledge it, but we were all gathered around the fire and there were fewer and fewer of us than before. At that time I counted six left. All of them worried, and panicked in their silent isolated bubbles. We had been quietly losing people since Davies’ team had left. The fire started to die some time later. The fuel was dwindling, and soon we would be left alone with the darkness and the void on either side. We would be stuck down here with the Nothing that surrounded us.That’s when it hit me. Just as the fire died, it hit me. There was something wrong with the sky. We were far into a great protected wilderness. Far and away from civilization, there wasn’t any light pollution. SO WHERE WERE THE STARS. We should have been able to see the milky way out here, billions upon billions of stars should have been twinkling in the sky but there were hardly any. Just a few miserable twinkles. “Where are the stars!?” I tried to scream, but nothing came out. I looked to the others, frenzy clear on my face just as it was on theirs. They had made the same realization, the terror was clear on their faces. It was the last I saw of the others. The fire died out, and I only had the miserable few stars to keep company. There were so few I could count them, and they were blinking out of existence. The night sky was turning into a great blanket of *Nothing* right before my eyes. I must have willed myself to stand up and run. Despite the loss of all my senses I must have run. The air was indistinguishable from my skin, there was no noise, there was no sight. I had only my mind, and the faintest inkling of self left. Somehow I stood up and ran, I know it, and it saved me. The rescue party found me later the next day, babbling near a waterfall. At a guess, I must have run toward the booming sound of the river up top crashing into the canyon below. They found me screaming, spouting random gibberish, any noise to keep away the nothing. Later, much later, when suspicions of foul play had been cleared, I was allowed to read Davies’ journal, which had been swiftly recovered but kept for evidence. I tried to read through it, but as I said I wasn’t in his field and understood little. What little I could understand was most of what I had experienced myself. There was only one more horror waiting for me at the end of his notes. *The Null Zones were moving*. In his notes. I quote. “Conclusion: More in depth study needed, original hypothesis invalidated. Originally I thought the Null Zones spawned away from large population centers, but the readings here suggest that they migrated. Rather than large population centers being built away from the Null Zones as I hypothesized, it was the Null Zones that had been “chased away” by the life of large cities.” They move. Places like the canyon move. So I beg you to take me seriously friend, do not move out to the countryside. You may be fine for a while, but one day you might wake to the peace and serenity is just the absence of sound. You may even notice that the air seems strange, and wonder when the last time you saw any wildlife was. By then it would probably already be too late. Stay in the city friend, where it’s safe from the *Nothing*.


“Dad says we have to talk to other people too.” I refused to look at my sister, focusing instead on the fat neighborhood cat that had wandered up to me in the yard. He purred and rubbed his orange head against my hand. I smiled, but it was a fleeting one. Leah sighed and took my hand, forcing my attention away from the cat and onto her face. “Ji-lalo,” she said softly after making sure Dad was nowhere to be seen. “Jo-lali.” I wasn’t afraid if he heard us. “We should try.” “Why?” I was being purposely ignorant, and Leah knew it. “You know why he took us away from the compound. We are human, Lalo. We are meant to be around others.” “All I need is you.” I said it in our secret words. “And you, me.” “We’ll always have each other. In the whole universe, there is nothing that could change that. But-” “But what? Mama always said we were born with everything we need.” “Mama wasn’t right in her head, Lalo. She kept us separate from everyone and everything.” “I miss the woods,” I said, ignoring what Leah said about Mama. Mama loved us more than anything. “Don’t you wish we could go home, Lali?” Leah opened her mouth to answer but a shadow fell over the doorstep where I was sitting. I cried out, a wordless sound from neither language, but it was only Dad. He had his arms crossed, and that meant he was angry. Leah immediately ducked her head, but I held mine high. There was nothing he could do to make us give up our secret words. “We *are* home,” he said, and I realized he hadn’t even noticed our special names for each other. “Listen to me, Rebekah. Leah.” He sat down beside me on the step. The orange cat wound around Dad’s ankles as Leah sat on my other side. I reached over and her hand was already there, ready for me to take it. “Your mother,” he began, and I groaned inwardly. Here came the same story he’d been telling us for weeks now. “Your mother had problems. A lot of them. She had a disease in her head that made her take us all away and hide in the forest. You girls remember our church?” Of course I remembered. It was always so scary going to church for the week. There were strangers there, strangers who didn’t understand Leah and me. “Mama protected us,” I said. I would not hear of her sickness. She didn’t seem sick to me. She was perfect. “She kept the others away from us. She let us be with each other. You don’t.” My hands were in balls, angry little fists that I had no memory of forming. “If you really loved us, you wouldn’t make us change!” Leah gasped, and I expected a scolding, but instead, tears began to fall from my father’s eyes. “Rebekah... I love you more than anything on this planet. You girls are my heart and soul. I took you away from that place *because* I love you. Someday, I hope you can see that.” “You took us away from everything!” I yelled, and a man on the other side of the street looked our way. His gaze was too prying, too curious. I stood up and ran inside the new house, back to our room. Without Leah there though, it felt empty. I sat on the floor and wrapped my arms around my chest. Footsteps came from the hallway, and I scooted around so Dad couldn’t see me cry. “I can’t do this anymore,” Dad said. “I thought you were getting better, but you’re not. I’m getting you two some help.” That was when the meetings started. Twice a week, they made us separate into different rooms while a lady talked to us. Her name was Doctor Saltmarsh, and she asked us weird questions about mom, the compound, the woods. Each other. I knew Leah wouldn’t share our secrets, and so I refused too. This woman was a stranger. She didn’t know us. She didn’t deserve to know us. But every week without fail, she was at the new house waiting for us. It took a long time, but one day, I felt something change. Leah changed. “Jo-lali,” I said when she came out of the living room. Doctor Saltmarsh walked out behind her, and I shut my mouth. She didn’t deserve to hear our language, our secret words. “Hello, Rebekah,” she said. “Are you ready for our session?” I looked at Leah. She had tears on her face. Doctor Saltmarsh had made my sister cry. I said nothing, but took Leah’s hands. She held them for a brief moment, but then she pulled away, and I was left alone with Doctor Saltmarsh as Leah walked to our room. Doctor Saltmarsh placed a hand on my shoulder and led me into the living room where Dad was already waiting. He had a pinched, nervous look on his face. I stood in the center of the room, my arms around myself. “Please sit, Rebekah.” I wouldn’t dignify that with a response. They would get nothing from me until I got what I wanted: Mama and Leah. Dad sighed and forced me down into a squishy armchair. I hated it. We never had anything like this in the compound. I couldn’t sit up straight in this chair. “Listen to the Doctor, Rebekah. She’s going to tell you something very important.” I stared straight ahead. My eyes were for my sister alone. They were the same as hers. Dead grass green. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Doctor Saltmarsh shoot Dad a look before turning back to me. “Rebekah,” she said again. My name sounded foreign and harsh on her tongue. She wasn’t saying it right. Leah said it right. So did Mama. “We’ve decided we need to take some more drastic steps in your recovery. Your progress isn’t where we would like it. We have decided, and Leah agrees: you will be sleeping in separate bedrooms from now on.” It took me a moment to process what she said. When it finally clicked, I laughed. Leah and I would never sleep apart. Most nights, we even shared the same bed. It was so comforting being close. When we slept, our breath would rise and fall in time with each other. Mama always said that we were one in her womb, and should do whatever we could to be one in life. Dad looked surprised at my reaction. “This is for real, Rebekah. It’s happening. Leah is upstairs moving her favorite things into her new room.” Leah would never do this. Not without being in complete agreement. But even as I thought it, I knew something wasn’t right. Leah had been crying. What if they had forced her? I uncurled my arms from around my chest and walked away towards our room. Leah wasn’t there. My heart racing, I rushed to the empty room beside ours. But it was empty no longer. There was a bed, a table, and a desk that hadn’t been there before. Leah sat on the edge of the bed, her eyes red and puffy. “Jo-Lali,” I said, shaking my head. “They can’t make us do it. We are meant to be together. We were born that way.” Leah sniffled and looked at me. It was like looking in the mirror, especially since I had begun to tear up too. “Rebekah,” she said, and I frowned. She never used that name for me. I was always Ji-lalo or just Lalo. “We have to try. I... I think Dad is right. I think we’re sick, Rebekah.” “Don’t call me that!” I cried. That was what *they* called me. “I am Ji-lalo! Ji-lalo!” Footsteps came from the hall and Doctor Saltmarsh and Dad entered the room. “What have you done?” I hurled myself at Doctor Saltmarsh. “You broke her, you did something!” My fists beat upon her stomach and chest, and she dropped her clipboard. I kicked it away, ready to attack again, but Dad pulled me away. He wrapped his arms around me, pinning mine to my side. “Rebekah, please, Rebekah!” I twisted and writhed, but I couldn’t get out of his grip. Leah was still sitting on the new bed, not looking at me. They ruined her. They made her believe their lies. A fear so overpowering came over me, I stopped struggling for a moment, and Dad was able to pull me back into the hallway. What if I couldn’t bring her back? What if now, I was alone? I had never been alone. Not for longer than it took to take a shower, and even then, sometimes we would talk through the door to each other when the loneliness got to be too strong. “We want you to have your own personality, Rebekah,” said Doctor Saltmarsh. “We need you to thrive and flourish on your own as a little girl, not as a part of a whole. We want to hear your voice.” They wanted my voice? Well, I would give it to them. Summoning all of the willpower I had, I screamed. I screamed and screamed until Leah began to scream too, tears rolling down her cheeks. “Leave them be,” I heard Dad say over my piercing wails. “When they get like this, only they can calm each other.” Doctor Saltmarsh shook her head. “No,” she said. “We must separate them. They are feeding off each other. Take Rebekah to her room please. I’d like to speak with Leah.” Dad nodded, and lifted me off my feet. I refused to stop screaming, no matter how much he begged after he set me down on the bed in mine and Leah’s bedroom. Eventually, he left, shutting the door behind him. I screamed until my throat felt raw and my voice started to fade. Once I was quiet, I could hear voices in the hall, and I slipped off the bed and pressed my ear to the door. A pang of deep sadness and loss shot through me. Leah should be beside me. She always was. Until now. “...working for Leah, the progress has been incredible, but Doctor, what about Rebekah?” It was Dad, his low gruff voice carrying through the silent house. “The medication isn’t working. She clings to her sister. You saw what just happened, surely there must be something we can do.” There was a pause, and I had to listen with all my might to hear what Doctor Saltmarsh said next. “You may not think they’re ready, but I think it’s time, Jeff.” Another long pause, and Doctor Saltmarsh spoke again. “Good. I’ll take care of all the paperwork. They’ll have some of the best care in the state, Dunmore has a wonderful school system.” “They can live a normal life?” “We will start them a grade below where they should be. That will help them acclimate. This is an important step. The girls need to socialize with children their own age. They need to learn proper social cues and how to interact with adults. I recommend separate classes. They depend on each other too much.” “Of course,” said Dad. “Whatever you think is best, you’re the expert.” “I must admit, Leah and Rebekah’s case fascinates me. I am wondering when you feel it appropriate to talk with the girls about their mother?” “Not yet.” Dad’s voice was firm. “Let them have their innocence a few years longer. Please.” Doctor Saltmarsh hesitated. “Do the girls know that their mother is dead? Do they know what you saved them from? They had the poison in their hands when you arrived, isn’t that right?” Dad’s voice was heavy with something I didn’t understand. “Yes. I saved them... but I couldn’t save Carol. She had already...” He cleared his throat. “You know, maybe I’m not ready yet either.” “That’s alright. Trauma like this can take a long time to process, let alone heal.” The conversation continued, but I wasn’t listening anymore. I stood rooted in place. Mama was dead? That couldn’t be true. If it was true, I would have known somehow. I would have felt it. No, Mama was still out there somewhere, waiting for us to come back to her. I rushed to the window and threw it open, half-expecting to see her standing there with her arms outstretched, but there was nothing but some freshly-cut grass and a chain fence. The smell of the grass made me think of summer at the compound. Mama would let us swim in the pond when no one else was around. The grass there was always cut short for us to play in. When Mama had long meetings in the church building, Leah and I would roll down the hills or play pretend in the woods. We played that we were warriors defending our forest kingdom, or that we were animals who could talk. Even now, I longed to run outside and scale the lonely tree in the back of the house. It was as close as I could get to Mama. But I wouldn’t go without Leah. I opened my door to find Dad and Doctor Saltmarsh were gone, and hurried to the other room. The emptiness I felt without Leah was all-consuming, but when I pushed open the door, I saw that the room too was void of my sister. “Lali?” I called, but there was no answer. I went downstairs, and to my displeasure, Doctor Saltmarsh was still here, talking to Dad in the hall. I hid behind a corner, listening. “I know it must be an adjustment having the girls full-time, but really, you are coping so well. I can tell you truly want the best for your children.” “Of course I do. They are my life. You can’t imagine what I went through when I thought they were gone too.” “I know. Here, I’m recommending you to speak to a therapist. He’s a friend of mine. I’ll personally make the call if you want me to.” Dad nodded. “I think that would be best.” They walked towards me, but I crouched down behind a long table, and neither of them noticed. “I will see you in three days,” Doctor Saltmarsh said, and exited the house. Once I was certain Dad was alone, I leapt out from behind the table. “What happened to Mama?” I demanded. Dad’s face turned white. “How long were you-” “What happened to Mama?” I shouted. “Where is she?” I started to cry again. I couldn’t help it. Fat tears splashed onto the scratched wooden floorboards. Dad gathered me in a hug, and for just a second, it felt like Mama was there too. But then Dad spoke. “She’s gone, Rebekah. I’m so sorry. I didn’t know how to tell you. I didn’t want you to find out like this. I-” The sound that came out of me was like nothing I had ever done before. I fell onto the floor, unable to stand any longer. So it was true. Or maybe they were lying to me, trying to get between me and Leah. They were forcing us apart in ways I never thought possible. Leah came rushing in to the hall when she heard my howl of grief. “He killed her!” I screamed. “She’s dead, he killed her! She’s gone! Mama’s gone!” Leah was dumbstruck, unable to speak as the truth of what I was saying washed over her. She fell too and we held each other for what felt like hours. Dad didn’t dare try and tear us apart this time. After a while of him standing over us awkwardly, he went to the kitchen. We heard him talking on the phone, but he shut the door so we couldn’t listen. When he returned, I couldn’t look at him. He had done this. I don’t know how or why, but he was there the last time we saw Mama. There had been so many people at the compound that day, and this time we weren’t allowed to go off and play in the grass like we usually did. Mama gave us each a cup of soda. We never got to have soda. It was a special treat, she had said, but we were not to drink it until she said so. We listened to a man talk for a while, but Leah and I were more interested in us than him. When he was through, though, Mama told us we could have our special sodas. She even showed us how to drink it, in one big gulp. But that was when Dad showed up. He ruined our special day and knocked the soda out of our hands. After that, I don’t remember much. There were lots of blue and red lights, and strangers. So many strangers. After that day, Dad said we had to live with him now. But I wasn’t going to let him come between me and Leah. Taking her by the hand, I led the way up to our room, and pulled her down onto the bed with me. We were wrapped in each other’s arms. It was how it was supposed to be. But soon enough, Leah disentangled herself from me and sat up. I looked up at her. “I’m going to go to my room,” she said. “I think I want to be alone.” “But we are alone,” I said, puzzled. “No Rebekah, really alone. By myself. Not you.” My eyes filled with tears when I finally realized what she meant. “Jo-lali,” I began, but she held up her hand. “Not Jo-lali,” she said, and her voice was sharp, cutting right through my heart. “I want you to call me Leah now.” She turned and left my room, closing the door behind her. Leah stayed away all night, even going so far as to lock her new bedroom door. I went back to our room and sobbed. I couldn’t sleep, not while this wall of wood and stone blocked me from my sister. She came back to me in the morning though, and her eyes were narrow from lack of sleep. We held each other for long moments, until Dad showed up and made everything worse. “You’re going to school this fall,” he said with no preamble. “I want you to be prepared to meet new kids, so today, we’re going to the park.” I had read about parks. They were places where children played with their parents keeping a watchful eye on their comings and goings. “We aren’t going,” I said immediately. But Leah gave me a sideways look and my mouth opened in shock. “Rebekah, please,” she whispered. “I want a normal life. I want to be a normal kid.” “But we aren’t normal,” I said. She needed to know this, she must see it. “We are us. You and me. We are all we need. Ji-lalo and Jo-lali.” When I said our special names. Leah’s eyes narrowed even more, and she looked at Dad. “I want to go,” she said. The park became a weekly ritual. I hated it. Leah went off and abandoned me to play with strangers. Strangers! Anything she said to them had to be said in everyone’s language. I heard her talking and scoffed. She and I had secrets together. Once, she was playing with two boys and their younger sister. Strangers make me nervous, but I was determined to remind her that I am all she needs. “Play with me, Lali,” I said in our language. Leah ignored me. My heart seemed to shatter into a million pieces. She had never ignored me, not once, not ever. I hid beneath a wooden structure for the rest of the time we were there, and I refused to come out, even when Dad begged. Eventually, Leah did exactly what I had hoped and crawled through the sand to get to me. “Come back with us, Rebekah.” She still wouldn’t call me by our special name. “No,” I said in our secret words. “I’m never coming out again.” Making a face I didn’t understand, Leah spoke our words. “Come home, Lalo. Please?” Satisfied, I nodded. But the next time, my plan didn’t work. Leah refused to crawl through the sand to bring me home, and I felt lost all over again. Dad had to huff and puff his way through the sand and drag me out. There were no more visits to the park after that. I had won. But Leah didn’t see it that way. She didn’t understand that I was doing this for her, for *us*! Days went by, I’m not sure how many, because Leah withdrew from my comfort. Sometimes, she couldn’t help herself and would come crawling back to me with a strange red-faced look about her. There were nights where she couldn’t sleep alone, and I would find her curled up beside me. Those were the only nights I slept. School began just as the leaves were beginning to change. It made me miss our compound and Leah and Mama even more than I already did. Dad bought us new clothes that fit strangely and made the back of my neck itch. We looked bizarre in these. Dad drove us to school on the first day. We were starting third grade. Doctor Saltmarsh was there to see us off too. I spoke to neither of them. The stink I had put up this morning had hardly done any good at all. We were still here. At least I was with Leah. She was holding my hand. Her fear was palpable, but I wasn’t scared. I had her. Once I stepped inside, it was another matter entirely. Endless tiles led in all directions, and the lights were harsh and cold. There were metal boxes covering the walls, each with a combination lock on it. This place seemed alien and inhospitable. A loud bell rang and I screamed, which made Leah scream. “Let’s go meet your class,” said Dad. I shook my head, and Dad looked like he was bracing himself. I decided to let it go, just this once. Strangers had begun to fill the halls, and I was growing more and more uncomfortable. Dad and Doctor Saltmarsh led us to a room. “This is your class, Leah,” said Dad. “Your teacher’s name is Mrs. Kimball. It’s okay. You can go on in.” I tugged on Leah’s hand, but she slipped it out of my grasp. “I’ll see you later, Rebekah.” She walked into the classroom without looking back. Now that I was alone, my panic was starting to set in. “Lali!” I cried. She ignored me, talking to the teacher and receiving a handful of papers. “This way, Rebekah,” Doctor Saltmarsh said firmly. “You have Ms. Emerson. I’ve worked with her in the past, she is very nice.” Dad was shaking his head as we drew nearer to the classroom. “She’s not ready for this.” “Sometimes dropping in full speed ahead is the only way to make progress. Nothing else seems to work, we’re running out of options. It’s possible she will thrive.” I refused to thrive. I wasn’t sure I knew what that meant, but I wouldn’t do it. I stood silent and unmoving as Dad and Doctor Saltmarsh talked to one of the strangers about me. They directed me to pick a desk, but I wouldn’t budge. I won’t let them manipulate us like this. Eventually, I was made to sit down right in the front of the classroom. “We’ll be available via phone if you need either of us,” said Doctor Saltmarsh. “Thank you, Lois.” They left me. Dad and Doctor Saltmarsh. They walked off and left me all alone in the classroom filled with twenty strangers. But I knew where Leah was. I stood up and walked out the door. The teacher, Ms. Emerson, grabbed my arm and shut the door. “Come on, Rebekah, we’re staying in our seats right now. I sat. And remained sitting. When they all stood up to look at the American Flag, I stayed in my seat. When they started playing some inane game with a plush toy, I scoffed and stared straight ahead. When Ms. Emerson placed sheets of paper in front of me, I ignored them. The only time I was myself was lunchtime. I could see Leah then. We sat together and shared our food. It felt normal. Maybe I could learn to survive at the school. So long as Leah was with me, I could get through anything. But then, the teachers sent us outside with all the strangers. Leah left me alone then, and played a ball game with a couple other girls. I stood by and frowned at her, but she didn’t seem to see me. After that, it was back inside, and I was left alone. Dad came to pick us up when it was finally over. “How was it?” he asked Leah, carefully avoiding looking me in the eye, and for good reason. I was livid. “I made some friends,” Leah said, and her voice sounded like it used to when we played together. Happy and carefree. But how could she feel that way when I was so miserable? “Carolina and Melodie! They want me to play four-square with them tomorrow!” “That’s great!” Dad exclaimed, and hugged Leah. Then, as if he was dreading it, he asked me. “How about you, Rebekah?” I didn’t bother responding to him, though I spoke to Leah, softly in our secret language so Dad couldn’t understand. “Play with me tonight, Lali,” I said. “I miss you.” Leah didn’t say anything. We got home, and she went straight to her room, closing the door in my face as I made to follow her in. I understood all too well what was going on. Dad was trying to split us up. Him and Doctor Saltmarsh. It wouldn’t be so bad if Leah wasn’t falling prey to their tactics. But she was acting like she wanted to be apart from me. They had gone too far. “Jo-lali!” I cried at her door. “You have to listen! They’re doing this to us! It’s like Mama always said: strangers are trying to hurt us! They all do!” The door flew open and Leah stood there before me. I was overjoyed for a split second. Then, she shoved me to the floor. “I am *not* Jo-lali!” she cried. “It was a stupid game we played when we were little! But we’re not babies anymore, Rebekah!” I stared up at her like I had never seen her before. Not once had Leah ever laid her hands on me in a threatening way. “I want friends and classmates, like we read about! We don’t have to be alone anymore, don’t you see?” “We were never alone,” I said from the floor. “Until now.” One of Leah’s eyes twitched and she stared at me wordlessly for a moment before spinning around and marching back into her room, slamming the door. Dad appeared and saw me on the floor. “Rebekah, what-” He looked at Leah’s closed door and sighed. “You have got to let this go. Do you understand? I just- I don’t know how to help you anymore. Go to your room. I’m going to call Doctor Saltmarsh.” I stayed in my room all night, ignoring when Dad called us down for dinner, and when he told us to get ready for bed. It wasn’t like I would sleep anyways. I couldn’t. Not without Leah. The next day was a Saturday, so there was no school. I stayed in my room. All I wanted was to be with Leah, but maybe if she saw how much she would miss me when I wasn’t around, she would come to me. She didn’t come all Saturday, or Sunday. She got up to go to church though, I could hear her moving around in her room. I wasn’t going. Too many strangers. At the end of the day, Dad came to yell at me again. “You need to eat, Rebekah. Or at least have some water. Come on.” He held out a glass of water to me, but I wouldn’t take it. I wasn’t hungry. Monday dawned and Dad drove us to school. He didn’t look like himself. His hair was messy and he had a beard. His arms were shaking too. Sometimes Mama used to shake like that. Today, I decided I was going to *make* Leah pay attention to me. She would have to. I went to my classroom without a fuss and even stood up when Ms. Emerson made us look at the flag. But the minute her back was turned, I was gone. I burst into Leah’s classroom. All the strangers turned to stare at me, but I didn’t care about them, despite the squirmy way they made my stomach feel. “Jo-lali,’’ I said. This was how much I cared, I would come to her even amidst my own fear and discomfort. “I love you, Jo-lali,” I said in our words. “I need you back. Please come back to me.” Everyone turned to stare at Leah now, and I knew something was wrong. She had never looked at me this way before. She plunged her hand into her backpack and pulled out one of Dad’s kitchen knives. Leah leapt at me and I put up my arms to cover my face, but the knife sliced through them like paper. Her blade found my neck and I choked on something hot and metallic. “No!” screamed the teacher, Mrs. Kimball, who until now had been frozen in shock. It was hard to breathe, and my arms and neck hurt so much. I started to cry. The tears stung my throat. Then the floor was rushing towards me, and everything went black. \ “They’re not fit to be around people,” someone said. Her voice was familiar. I opened my eyes and found myself in a white room with strangers surrounding me. Over in the corner was Doctor Saltmarsh. Beside her, Dad paced back and forth frantically. “There must be something,” he said. “I can keep them at home! Homeschool. Please!” “I’m sorry,” said Doctor Saltmarsh, and her voice seemed colder than I remembered. I tried to speak, and a horrible pain went through my throat. “But Rebekah cannot cope with the separation of her sister, and after what Leah did, I’m surprised you would even consider-” “She was just upset!” Dad cried. “She didn’t know any better.” “I think you need to look at this.” Doctor Saltmarsh pulled out a recording device and pressed play. I almost leapt for joy when I heard Leah’s voice, but quickly realized that something was very wrong. Leah was laughing in a crazed, manic way. “I’d do it again! I want her gone! Dead! She’s in my head you know. The only way to get her out is to cut her out. Cut cut slice slice. Lalo? Lalo Lalo Lalo, come here!” The recording stopped and Dad was staring at it in horror. “Is her mind totally gone? What happened?” “It seems that she had a psychotic break. We will treat her to the best of our abilities, but there is the chance that she may never recover.” Dad shook his head, his eyes wide and tear-filled. “What about Rebekah?” They turned to look at me and I smiled big. Hadn’t they heard the recording? Lali wants me! She wants me to come to her! I tried to tell them that everything would be okay, but no words would come out. “I’m sorry. Her vocal cords are permanently damaged. She can’t speak. Jeff, I am so sorry. But your only hope now is to admit them to our psychiatric facility. We are the foremost in New England.” “My daughters,” said Dad, and he looked at me. “This is all my fault. If I had just divorced Carol when I had the chance-” “Looking back on what could have been will help nothing,” Doctor Saltmarsh said. “If you’ll come with me, the admissions assistant will help you with the paperwork.” I didn’t care where Dad was going or where he would try to send me next. All that mattered was that Leah wanted me. She was my sister. She was my everything. And I would see her soon, I was sure of it.