Jason plopped down on the couch. He grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. He flicked through the channels and found Thursday night football. He grabbed his bowl of freshly-popped buttery popcorn, set down the remote and began tossing some popcorn into his mouth. "Jason!" His mom called. "Yeah?" Jason called back with a mouth full of popcorn. His mom walked into the room and looked at the TV, then at Jason. "Have you studied for the test tomorrow?" She said. "You mean on Friday?" Jason said back. "Yeah. That's tomorrow." Jason sat up. His mom wouldn't let him go to summer camp if he didn't get an A on the test, because of his recent grades. Jason choked on his popcorn for a moment, then turned off the TV, set down the bowl and dashed upstairs. His mom sighed and shook her head. "Oh, that boy." Jason ran into his room, slammed the door and ran for his rolling chair, practically jumping in it, and rolling a few inches. He grabbed his desk and pulled himself back in front of his books. He intently looked at them for a few seconds, then sighed and lowered his eyelids. He turned the first page of his History book. He let out a loud moan and leaned back in his chair. Even trying to study nearly drained all his energy. He saw his phone laying on his desk. He contemplated checking to see if any of his friends had texted him. Eventually, he picked up his phone and looked at the screen. Looks like one of his friends had texted him. He unlocked his phone to see what Tod wanted to say. "Come 2 my place. Look what I got." There was a picture of a Ouija board. Jason's youth pastor had once told his youth group about how dangerous those things could be. But it's not like Jason had plans to study... Jason threw on a faded gray hoodie and put his phone in his jeans pocket. He also grabbed his backpack and shoved his books in it, so he had an excuse to leave the house. Jason ran downstairs and quickly put on his sneakers and opened the front door. "Where are you going?" Jason's mother called. "Tod's place... to study. Bye!" Jason shut the door. His mother sighed. Where was Tony now when she needed him most? Jason put on his helmet and got on his bike. He rode down the empty, cold, freshly rained-on street. Luckily, Tod's was only a block or so away, so Jason wouldn't have to stay in the cold weather for too long. When Jason arrived, he got off his bike and parked it on the edge of the driveway. He knocked at the door. Tod greeted him with a smile. "Hey dude! Come inside!" Tod stepped back so Jason could enter. When Jason stepped in, he unbuckled his helmet and set it on the coat-rack by the door, set down his backpack and took off his shoes. At least his socks hadn't gotten wet during the ride like his muddy shoes. Tod led him over to the carpeted area, where a Ouija board sat on the ground. Jason suddenly had an uneasy feeling when he looked at the board, like there was some mysterious presence around it. He reluctantly walked towards the board, and sat down with Tod. Jason looked at the thing. He couldn't take his eyes off it. It was out of place, like it was calling to him... "Hey, you in there? You get possessed?" Tom slugged Jason. "Huh?" Jason said. "Well? You wanna try it or not?" "U-um, sure." Jason said. He actually felt uncomfortable with it, but he wasn't gonna go back and study. Tod and Jason put their fingers on the Planchette. "Let's ask them what THEY want." Tod said. "Ever wonder what happens THEN?" "I don't think it's such a good idea..." Jason said. "C'mon, it's a board game! What's the worst that could happen?!" Jason reluctantly shook his head. Then Tod asked, "Spirits, What do you want?" Then the Planchette started to move It moved across the board. The letters whooshed so fast it was hard to keep track of. B-O-D-Y. "Huh?" Tod said. "Body? I think they're bored of being dead or something" Jason suddenly felt cold. Really cold. slammed the board shut and shoved it back in the box, and got up. "Hey! Where you going?" Tod asked Jason gathered his belongings and headed out the door. "I don't feel good. Bye." Jason biked home quickly in a nervous fit. He felt a buzz in his pocket. Then another. Then another. Then another. When he finally arrived home, he pulled out his phone. As he suspected, the four texts were from Tod. "What just happened?" "U good?" "Do we need to call an Exorcist? lol" "Dude. R E S P O N D!" Jason didn't like how Tod spelled "Respond." It reminded him of how the Ouija board spelled out the word Body. one letter at a time. Jason came inside and set down his belongings. He took off his hoodie and threw it on the couch. Then he ran upstairs, into the bathroom and locked the door. He washed his face quickly, dried it, leaned on the sink and looked in the mirror. There was a grown, homeless-looking disheveled man. The man said, "BODY. Give me a BODY!" Jason ran towards the bathroom door and jiggled the handle. Right. He unlocked the door and ran into his room, turning off the light. It was only 8:30, but Jason figured he just needed some sleep. He tossed and turned, and when he finally went to sleep, it wasn't pleasant. The night was filled with nightmares of mirrors, ghosts, voices in his head telling him to do bad things, and worst of all; Regret. Jason woke up to his blaring alarm. He reached for the snooze button, but when he couldn't find it, he just unplugged it and threw it across the room. "Ugh." Jason sighed. He had gotten plenty of extra sleep, but he felt like he stayed up all night running a marathon. Jason got out of bed. He felt lightheaded and sluggish. He grabbed a pair of sweatpants and a t-shirt, and headed to the bathroom. He looked down at his feet as he passed the mirror, in order not to look at his reflection. When he got to the shower door, he undressed and got in and turned on the refreshing hot water. it felt nice, especially after the previous night. Right as he was finishing up his business, he noticed what looked like a tall, slender figure near the mirror in the steam. Jason, with his eyes fixed on the figure, began to reach towards the shower handle, fumbling to turn it off. When his hand finally grasped the handle, the figure began to walk forward. Jason quickly turned it off, but the figure was still there. Desperate, Jason leaped out of the shower and pushed the button on the wall for the vents. The vent above started humming and absorbing the steam. The figure stopped moving for Jason. Once the steam was clear, Jason got dressed. Then it hit him. He'd somehow been sleeping in JEANS the previous night. "Why would I do that?" Jason thought. No wonder he had trouble falling asleep. Then he thought back to Tod's texts. "Do we need to call an Exorcist? lol" Maybe he did. Then Jason quickly left the bathroom before the mirror could un-fog. Jason pedaled hard on his bike towards the church in the pounding rain. What was he thinking? he knew he shouldn't have played with that STUPID Ouija board. Now he was... cursed? Possessed? The spirit said it wanted a body. But didn't TOD ask the question? Why was the spirit coming after HIM? Just as Jason figured out the answer, he was pulled out of his thoughts by a blaring car horn. Jason blinked and realized he'd drifted off the bike lane and into the left car lane somehow. Jason quickly turned right back across the right car lane and then into the bike lane. He let out a sigh of relief. Now the ghost was trying to kill him! When Jason disrespected the ghost by not properly saying goodbye to the Ouija board, the Poltergeist switched targets. and when Jason had just called the board, "Stupid," the ghost got even MORE mad and made Jason go into the left lane without realizing it. Now Jason arrived at the church. He didn't care about the test anymore, he didn't care about summer camp anymore, he just wanted an Exorcist. When Jason walked up to the doors and jiggled the handles. The door was locked. Right. This church only operated on Sundays. As Jason stepped back from the door, he lost all hope and fell to his knees. Just then he heard a sinister voice say; "SLEEP." The voice echoed deep in Jason's mind, as everything began to fade away. "Jason. Hey. Jason. Wake up!" Jason woke up. Tod was shaking his shoulder. "What are you doing here? Me, Jess and Tony have been searching everywhere for you! So? What happened?" Jason tried to speak. He wanted to say, "I came here because of what happened with the Ouija board. I need an Exorcist! Where's the priest?" But instead, Jason heard his own voice say, "I dunno. All I remember is slipping here and hitting my head." Then Jason started going down. He looked up. He saw Tod helping his body up. "No." Jason said. "NO!" But no one could hear him. Not now. His body looked down at him. "Bye." Jason heard a mix of his own voice and the stranger in the mirror's say. Then his body and Tod walked away. "Everyone will be so relieved, man!" Jason heard his best friend say. So the next time YOU want to play with a Ouija board, remember this; Jason wants a body too.


The one legged mule One cold Monday dougal McDermott woke up to find his mother standing menacingly by the doorway of his room shouting,” get up boy we haven’t got all day!” , “ Your great aunt Marge is coming home for the weekend and I need you to help clean the house.” But dougal didn’t feel like getting up it was cold outside and his bed was warm and cosy so dougal stayed in bed. Dougal's mother shouted at him again but dougal didn’t even budge. Then dougal’s mother got fed up and shouted,”dougal you are as stubborn as a donkey!” Around half an hour later dougal felt thirsty so dougal went to get water but as dougal was going back to his room dougal’s mother saw him and said,”oh I see you finally got out of bed so you can come help me wash the dishes, however dougal didn’t feel like getting washing the dishes so he carried on walking. Dougal’s mother got annoyed and shouted,”dougal you are as stubborn as a donkey!”. At twelve o’clock dougal’s aunt Marge came and she asked dougal to make some tea but dougal did not feel like making tea so dougal carried on watching TV. But little did dougal know his great aunt was a witch. Quick as a flash she pulled out a wand and placed a spell on dougal that every time he is stubborn he turns a bit more into a donkey. Dougal’s great aunt then asks him again to get her some tea and again dougal did not get it. However this time dougal’s ears turned a bit grey and a bit more hairy. Dougal on the other hand did not notice any difference to his appearance at all and carried on being stubborn. Eventually even dougal noticed and he began to worry about what will happen to him and how he might get bullied when he eventually goes back to school. Being a donkey however had its positives and by the time dougal went back to school he already had donkey legs. This to many may seem like a negative but it’s usefulness showed up one fine Wednesday when the school bullies Richard Dickson and his best friend Patrick were bullying dougal as usual and were about to dunk dougal in the toilet when dougal reared his hind legs and kicked Richard in his stomach. The bullies then left dougal alone and went back to bullying small people. The end of the year was nearing and dougal was almost fully donkey when a strange thing happened, dougal’s rear back leg fell of! Dougal’s mother rushed him to the vet where the vet informed him that he was in fact a mule and not a donkey. As dougal was climbing into the car both his front legs came of and dougal just rolled onto his back. Dougal’s great aunt has since learnt what had happened to dougal but as she said in a hoarse voice on her dying day, the spell was irreversible but it thought a great lesson to all the kids in his town. Even today if you go to Warwickshire you will hear the great legend of dougal McDermott the one legged mule.


Family. It wasn't a choice we had, but a gift. A place we call home. To some of us, it is what we live for, and to others, what we escape for. When we went face to face with all our fears and learned our lessons through the tears, it was the same people who we tried to run away from because they didn't understand us, or we felt like an outcast who stood by us and became the ladder we needed to climb our way up to find the light again. When we fell into the most bottomless pits of misery, heart wrecks, sadness, depression, and felt the utmost of betrayal from the dark world we thought we knew better, who did we choose to run back to?

Good memories keep one warm in the storms of living; they are the moment's real flashes of dreams made it into the real world, and so even though we often need to process or ignore the bad memories that they are intermingled with, they are worth keeping safe in your heart. For these are the moments we humans won some joy, despite the struggle, we smiled and laughed anyway. The happy times happened. They were real. We pack our mental suitcases with only the best of memories so we can fly anyplace we want.

Did you ever wonder if our "good" choices are our "god" choices? That they are the ones, we do from a sense of love and duty for others and the self?

My father always told me, I'll always guide you home no matter where you are, and think of me if ever you're afraid. Because one day you're going to leave this world, so make every second of it worth it, live a life you're going to remember and be proud of. I used to think, what is he on about every single day? He probably took off the words from another random motivational speech he was listening to; he doesn't get me. He never will.

Good choices are made not on the journey, but in a moment, at a fork in the road. This is how the brain is; it is how we are. The forward motion comes best when the primitive drive and the higher social brain agree on a path. I just wanted acceptance from the outside world. I craved that temporary love, those like a face that wasn't even originally mine but covered with delusionary beauty standards, to fit in a crowd, forcing me to paint over the real me, be more them and less me. I had to be a certain way, act a certain way, and feel a sure way to earn the kind of love that wasn't promised for tomorrow. A love that changed who I was, the me in my own body felt distant. I behaved the opposite of what was going on in my mind when deep down, I knew this felt wrong, but I wasn't ready to let go because I knew the world wouldn't be in my grasp anymore. I would be lonely and become a refugee, desperate to escape the war inside my head to fit in.

I just wanted a home. I didn't even need plastic surgery to change myself; all I had to do was feed myself negativity, hatred, and envy of myself that I am not beautiful in my skin. I had to become one of them to feel special. And that was the start of a damaged, emotionally unstable, empty me that I regret to this very day. If only I knew the consequences then, I would have never fallen into that trap of fake love and alluring lies.

Yet my family never left my side. Their love was real, the genuine kind that stuck around when everyone turned their back against me as I drowned in my despair. Their love never faded nor lessened; even when I tested every inch of their willpower to raise me into the person they wanted to see aspire into a powerful individual, they still believed in me. They never gave up on me or chose to let me go. But the world did. I was the show's puppet and once got played with, used for satisfactory personal benefits, got thrown away like I meant nothing to them. They shut me off when I tried to run back to them. They never loved me; they just loved what I offered on the table for them. They loved watching me ache in desperation and sat back and relished what they gained from what I was losing. I had nothing left. It was all snatched away. I had nowhere to go except back to the place I hesitated to call home. And when I did, it was like I never left. Nothing changed. The questionable love I put a label on my parents, concluding they don't get me, finally unravelled. No one understood me like them. No one cares for me like them. I sought love to feel appreciated by others and came back home to the love that never died in the first place. Love is a quiet emotion that, in time, becomes part of the oxygen you need to breathe, and so though you may feel not sure that it's there, any form of removal and the emotions begin to choke. I never correctly understood that the love of my parents is eternal. They are the only ones who accept us for who we are. And when I was lost, it was their light who guided me to who I am today. If you argue with your parents or haven't called them in a while, make sure you do. You never know when it can be your last. No one knows you better than them. You can go searching anywhere and will still come back to the place you hesitated to home.

It lives with me till this very day. I can't imagine a world without my family.


“Finally!” John K took a deep breath and raised his chin high, as he looked over the vast desert. A sense of satisfaction flooded his emotions. The desert floor looked desolate from the mountain overlook. “Nothing for miles. An ocean of dirt,” he thought. After a few moments, John's eyes began to dilate. He could not hide the thought of how alone he was up there. A dull chill crept up his spine. He proceeded to pull his phone out of his pocket and check if any of his friends had posted something new since the morning. He sipped water from his canteen and felt the cold liquid slide down his throat. It had been too long since he drank any water. John sat on a rock streaming through Instagram for ten minutes. After his break, he stood up and walked over to the ledge to take some pictures. “Why even hiking up the mountain if you can’t prove it,” he said to himself. After twenty photo’s of the same view but at different angles, and with different facial expressions, he looked at the time. 11 O’clock. “Good,” he thought, “the sun will be high enough to warm the air. I ‘ll be able to get some good cardio in on the walk back.” More important than the cardio, John checked the clock to make sure he wasn’t spending too much time up there. Seven-hundred feet back down the mountain. If he left now, he would still be able to get home in enough time to go out that night. The walk down was always harder. Whenever he was climbing up a trail, the rocks had a way of morphing into steps. But going down, the rocks stayed rocks. Nothing was shaped for him on the way down. Every step had to be a conscious maneuver on John’s part. Copperhead trail was 4.65 miles long. The first mile was flat through the dessert which lead to the base of the mountain. The next 3 miles was a steady zipper pattern up its side. The last 0.65 miles was by far the toughest. Four hundred feet of incline straight up. The trail essentially vanished and became a dance with boulders. A spot turn here, a chassé there as one finds their way through the pass. John was halfway way done with his descending waltz when he decided to take a quick break. It was taking him longer than he imagined it was going to take. Not that it was scary or tough, it was just not made for his skills as a hiker. “Nothing to be worried about,” he thought as he drank some water. John pulled out his phone and looked at the time. “12:30!” John grew panicked. He thought he would be back at the car by 2pm. “I only have another hour and a half to get down the whole mountain and I’m only half way down the steep upper part.” John closed his eyes and took deep breathes to regain his composure. He redid the math in his head. “I have to be at the car by two, so I can be home by six. Eat, shower and be out of the house by 7.” His math was sound. The idea of being late to the party scared John more than the boulders ever could. “I have to pick up the pace,” he thought to himself as he placed the canteen back in his backpack. The added time pressure made the boulder dance extra difficult. John would skip a rock here or there if he thought it would save some time. Getting to the car was all he could think about. The dance slowly become more chaotic as more steps were missed. While standing on a solid boulder, John looked below to assess where to jump next. Five feet below laid another flat rock. John leaped. His arm spread wide like bird wings to guide him through the air. Instantaneously, he knew something was wrong. The additional weight loosened the rock from its teetering position and sent it, along with John, over the edge of the mountain. As he fell, John felt the full force of the mountain. The first impact hit his shoulder. The rock flipped him in the air. When he collided with the mountain a second time, it was his right femur that took the brunt of the impact. The third hit was the most painful for it was a direct hit to his back. Pain went coursing through his body. It was only then that John began to believe that he was actually hurtling down the side of the mountain. There was no way to catch himself while falling. He couldn’t grasp what way was up. The rest of the way down was a daze. Six hundred feet, and thirty-two seconds later, John landed. Blood instantaneously began to pool around his lifeless body. The wounds were numerous (a few that illustrate the severity included a broken right femur, a lung contusion, multiple broken ribs, a lumbar spine injury that affected his L3, L4, and L5 vertebrae, as well as numerous skin tissue contusions to his head and extremities). Three minutes and twelve seconds of silence later, John’s lungs opened up as they gasped for salvation. He struggled for every breathe. He never had to do that before. When John regained consciousness, his first thought was to blow it off. “I’m still alive, act cool, don’t start getting crazy.” That was his go to response whenever he felt nervous, but unbeknownst to him, he had never been in a situation so severe as this. He attempted to straighten out his limbs. Pain enveloped his entire body. “Brush it off. It’s nothing. Just stay calm… just stay calm.” After a minute or two, John was able to wince off the pain. He had no idea what to do for he had never been in a situation like this. “I need to get my phone,” he thought. In complete agony, John reached for the phone in his pants pocket. Over and over, fighting through the pain John felt around for his phone but it was nowhere in sight. Seconds after he began to fall, the phone flew from his pocket never to be seen again. John grew dark with panic as the seriousness of the situation began to set in. What was he to do. He was severed from the outside word. Alone… Only one thing was left for John to do. He picked himself off the blood soaked sand and began to drag himself towards where he thought he had to go. He had know idea where he was going. For all he knew he could be walking further away from his car. A blood drops became trail markers that tracked back to where he landed. Looking back, he determined with great anger that he had only walked 100 yards. It was the most painful 100 yards he had ever walked. As John turned his head back around, a black object appeared near the base of the mountain. “What was that?” John looked back but nothing was there. He looked harder, and shouted, “help, please, I need help… please.” No one answered his pleas. His eyes filled with tears. Loneliness settled into his thoughts. He turned back around, wiped his eyes. There it was again. The same black object was now standing directly in front of him. “No, no, no.” John recoiled, covered his mouth and slowly backed away. When he gained the strength to look again, the black object had disappeared. John had to get help soon. The pain grew as he walked on, and felt despair after seeing the black object. He sensed he wasn’t alone anymore, but who was there was not help. Something was following him. He looked around but couldn’t catch who was there. The desert was laughing at him. Thirty feet later, Johns body gave out. It could not carry him any further. He was too drown in this ocean of dirt. Out of breathe, John laid in the sand. A cool tinge crept down his spine. He looked up and the black object was coming closer. Through the haze coming off the desert, a massive black wolf was walking up to John. John could do nothing but look on as it got closer. He starred into its white beady eyes. They were calm, transcending this brief moment in time. The wolf stopped only a few feet from John. After a short moment of silence, the wolf began to speak.“Well, did you think this is how it was all going to end. In the middle of an empty desert. It seems pretty fitting doesn’t it?” The wolf tried to hide his slight grin. John’s weak body collapse completely. His head slumped and would have landed in the sand if wasn’t still attached to his body. “Wha… what? Who are you?” “That doesn’t matter right now. Soon you will be dead.” The wolf took another step closer. “You should accept it. It makes this easier and you might actually learn something.” John wasn’t ready to accept anything. He knew the accident was dire and he would have to rely on people to help him day and night (which he dreaded most of all) but he was not ready to accept that everything was going to come to an end. Death was not on John’s mind. What was, was the wolf. “How can you talk?” The wolf smirked. He knew John was going to say something stupid. “I just told you you are going to loss your life and you’re worried about understanding how a wolf can talk.” The wolf became vexed. “Man… There was a time when I would talk to humans daily, and you’re… all of you are the same now a days. So worried about the wrong thing. So worried about everything making sense.” John looked away. He’s wasn’t ready to get a lecture from a talking wolf. He debated in his head about whether he was hallucinating. He had to have been. But how could he fully except that answer if he knew he was hallucinating. He thought if he knew he was hallucinating, then he would have to stop hallucinating, because his mind could no longer play games on him.“Maybe it’s real,” he thought to himself. The wolf collected himself and returned to a calm tone. “I’ve been following for a long time.” “I thought I might have seen you from the top of the mountain.” The wolf studied John silently for a moment before answering, “I’ve been following you much longer than that. I’ve been following you your whole life. I was born when you were born. At the same time. I’ve grown along with you, and have been watching you the entire time.” John was still stuck debating whether this was actually happening or not, but what the wolf said angered him. “What are you talking about? What game are you playing? I’m lying here dying, according to you, and you are playing these games.” This was the first time John mentioned the nearness of his own death. Tears swelled and defeat overtook the proud face John was desperately trying to hold onto. “I think I would have seen a wolf following me my whole life.” “Well you did mention how you saw me at the top of the mountain.” “Only today!” John quickly snapped back, releasing some of the anger he had over his near death. The wolf saw John getting emotional and began to changed his approach. He began to sympathize with John. The wolf calmly stated, “You’ve always looked right through me. You decided not to see me. It’s not your fault. I don’t blame you, but I was there the whole time.” The wolf had Johns full attention. John didn’t understand what the wolf was saying but something struck him as true. As though it was really important for him to listen. The wolf continued, “Remember when your dad left? The only way you could keep him and your mom out of your mind was to run long distances. You ran that entire summer. Remember that run right after the divorce. You ran through that park by your house. You clearly saw me standing there in the woods but you shook it off. Like there was no way there was an actual wolf in the woods. You thought that just couldn’t be real. Altercations with wolves happened to the weirdos you hear about on the news, not normal people. It couldn’t happen you. So you shook me off and I disappeared.” “What do you mean you disappeared? Why’d you leave?” “I had no choice, you didn’t want to see me.” “What do you mean?” John was putting all the energy he had left into what the wolf was saying but it was still undecipherable. John shrugged his shoulders and choked on his emotions as he spoke, “I really don’t know what you mean.” The wolf took a deep breathe. “Because I am you. And only now in the last few gasped of air are you willing to talk.” “What… what?" John was too confused and weak to form a coherent question. The wolf talked tranquilly to John. “You have been so afraid your entire life. Why is it you need to act so tough for people? Why are you so afraid of them that you have to pretend. You went your whole life avoiding me, but as far as your life is concerned, those people… your friends, families, coworkers, might as well have been wolves because you never had a serious conversation with any of them. You were too afraid to be yourself. To show emotion. Too caught up in your own thoughts to let them in. Every time you thought you were being ‘manly’, or 'tough’ by not confronting something that upset you, you were adding another layer to your defense. Building a wall and bordering yourself even farther from who you were. You were building a wall distancing yourself from me. From the world.” The wolf paused to see how John reacted, then continued, “So… how are we the same if we are different?” The wolf crouched down closer to John as he answered his own question. “I am everything you had to hide from in order to continue acting as if you were fine. I am the grief, the sorrow, the fears that you felt. You pretended they weren’t there so nothing in you had to change. Because that cardboard personality you erected to keep you safe from any real feelings would blow over and you were afraid of what would happen next. How people would react. When you fell down the side of that mountain, it wasn’t just your bones that broke. That border finally fell. I just wish it didn’t have to happen like this.” The desert winds picked up. The sand lifted into the air and danced around John. John’s lips trembled, as his face turned pail. He thought about his mom. All the things he said to her. All the thinks he didn’t say to her. All the things he wish he said. He thought about his brothers. “We were so close when we were younger, why do we not talk anymore.” “Why was I so afraid to tell them how afraid of life I was? How sad I was. How I wish we could have been closer.” John was sad for his incredulity, but was comforted by the conversation. A weight was lifted. “I’m sorry. I wanted to…” “I know. I’m sorry too. I waited in the shadows but you needed to initiate the conversation.” “I don’t want to die. Can you help me?” “I wish I could. But when you die I die too. What I can do is lie besides you, and be your friend in our last moments.“ The wolf fell from the pain onto his side facing John. In these last moments, while so close to dying, John never felt as alive. The desert wrapped both of them in warmth. Lying there, John imagined his family. He wish he could say goodbye and that he loved them. That everything was okay.


November 29th, 2022 I was wrong. The second time the master alarm goes off and I’m no more composed than the first time. This is helped by the fact that I’m on the dark side of the moon in radio shadow, so it is impossible for NASA to be running this as a test. “Oh god, oh god, oh god, oh god, no-no-no-no-no.” Like so much of space travel, this is one of those good news, bad news, situations. Good news. The LCD display was flashing red and wasn’t saying something totally incomprehensible. It might have said “Error code: x92284022”. It might have said “DSR - 5 Failure!” And I’d have no bloody idea what was wrong. “Radiation warning 130 𝝻Sv/hr“ was perfectly understandable. Bad news: Radiation Warning 130 𝝻Sv/hr. I’m absolutely not going to get super powers from this. NASA’s testing out these new radiation vests with this mission. I was already wearing Moonikin’s, because I’d be an idiot not to. But there are another two on sensor packages strapped into the Orion’s other seats. Sorry NASA… I take the vests off their sensor packages and put them on. You know the old saying, “you can never have enough radiation shielding”. I put the first vest on over top of the one I’m already wearing, doubling up protection. And I was about to put the third one on over top of that when I got thinking. I wrap the final vest around my waist like a skirt. While I’m doing that, I’m having a little mental debate: just how much radiation is this? Earth’s magnetic field is an amazing radiation shield. Inside the field’s protection (which extends up into the kinds of orbit’s the international space station and space shuttle fly at), you really don’t have to worry much about radiation. Out by the moon you’re basically getting full buck of what the universe can throw at you. That can range from “nuclear power plant worker”, to the scene in RoboCop where the bad guy falls into the pool of chemicals and melts. So just how bad is this? Do I have time for NASA to weigh in or do I need to do something now to try and save my life? So, let’s see… 1 rad of radiation is enough radiation to raise the temperature of 1 liter of water by 1 degree Celsius in 1 minute. Then just convert over to Sv using the left hand conversion rule… I’m joking. I have no bloody idea on any of this. I know 3.6 roentgen is not great, not terrible. But I have no idea what a roentgen is, what a Sv is, or how to convert between them. But there’s another way to do this. NASA does have some worry warts, but if an alarm is going off then it’s an issue. I could check the manual, figure out what the threshold amount is, and if I’m way over the line then it’s “I’m melting, melting, what a world, what a world,” time. But that’s when I look back at the alarm. 30,000 𝝻Sv/hr and the last three digits are basically illegible because they’re whirring up. Well that was easy. I’m going to die. Now, how to save my life? I need something that blocks radiation. There’s not much stuff on Orion that I could use to build a shield, and I have no idea how good a radiation block a 1 kg test weight is. Orion’s water tank is probably going to be the best radiation shield I could get. Back to the emergency procedures manual. It takes a few minutes (and by the way, flipping through an index book while the clock on your life is ticking is a whole kind of fun), but eventually I figure out where the radiation sensor is mounted. The next part is something NASA’s not going to be happy about. I’m going to have to start flying the Orion. Now, I’m an engineer, not a pilot, and looking at the gimbles, or artificial horizons, or whatever the hell you call those balls with the sky and ground painted on them that airplanes and spaceships have, looking at those things and the control stick this feels very much like something a pilot should be doing. Anyways, I strap myself in, and very gently pull the joystick back. Nothing happens. Ok, makes sense. There’s probably an ‘on’ button I need to press first. I give up, unstrap, and get the emergency procedures manual. Fortunately for me, “orientation control failure” starts with just making sure you had set the system up right in the first place, and I follow along until I pull back on the control stick and Orion’s thrusters fire in response, the ship slowly starting to roll upwards. “Fucking fucking fuck!” I slip out of the commander’s chair like a bar of soap off the edge of a tub. Always buckle up. I have to climb back into the seat which is all kinds of awkward and weird because of how it, and me, are rotating. I buckle up. I’m watching two things, the artificial horizon, and the radiation meter, which is now up to 45,000 𝝻Sv/hr. I complete a full spin without obvious effect on radiation readings. I use another small jolt of thrust to stop the spin. Then I push the control stick to the side and Orion starts a very, very, very, slow spin like a frisbee. I stop it after about ten degrees, and again spin the ship end over end in a very slow tumble. The first three spins are totally exhilarating and terrifying. By the sixth, with the radiation meter doing nothing but rocket up, my brain is starting to wander. You know… Technically I am now actually commanding the Orion to do things… Without permission… In international waters… See, this is why engineers are a completely different breed from regular folk. This is what my brain chooses to think about. Or maybe it’s radiation sickness hitting already. I’m either a nerd, or suffering radiation poisoning. Though the latter one is a very space pirate thing to suffer from. The radiation meter hiccups, the 4, of 49,000 drops to a 1 then bounds back up. I stop the spin, then very, very, very, slowly, bring Orion back. The radiation meter drops down to 150 𝝻Sv/hr, and I stop the ship, right there, copying down my bearings. Ok, situation: the radiation is now coming in, hitting Orion’s water tank, and the radiation sensor is in the shadow of the tank. Even better, the water tank is blocking a ton of radiation. I don’t know how good for me 150 𝝻Sv/hr is, but I do know it’s 99.7% better than 50,000 𝝻Sv/hr. More importantly, I’ve got a vector for the radiation. I need to get myself into that shadow. A quick look at the emergency manual’s schematic of Orion, and I float myself very quickly to a spot about 18 inches from the summers. Nope, I hate that. I’m just going to call it a head. In theory this spot should be in the water tank’s radiation shadow. New problem. Well new problems. Problem 1) I’m too far away from Orion’s controls to use the radio or see what the radiation meter is saying. I can’t just stay here forever, and I can’t really know when I can leave. Problem 2) remember when I said I “stopped” Orion on this bearing? That was a lie. See, without friction, there is no such thing as zero motion. In space you’re always constantly twisting and turning on every axis. Your speed could be 0.001 degrees per second, or so slowly that a bacterium would be asking you to get out of its way you slow-poke, but over a thousand seconds (or sixteen point six minutes) you’ve still rotated a degree. Anyways, there’s no way I slowed to 0.001 degrees per second, Orion’s probably rotating at a couple of degrees every minute. This little area of shadow I’ve made for myself is at best ten minutes away from being out of the shadow. What I need to do is figure out the heading to turn Orion onto in order to cast the water tank’s shadow onto the commander’s chair. I go to work in the margins of the emergency manual. In space, radiation sources can just be thought of as a direction since everything’s so far away. Basically, like an umbrella blocking the rain, the radiation sensor is now in the shadow of Orion’s most radiation blocking part. Technically I’ve figured out a 3D vector for where the radiation is coming from. Now I need to figure out the 3D vector between the water tank and the commander’s chair (which is where I’m going to need to be), and then how to rotate the Orion to bring those two vectors into alignment. Thank god a degree in aerospace engineering is good for something. Doesn’t even take ten minutes. The radiation sensor goes back to being baked, but according to my math I’m in the shade. For good measure I take off my two extra radiation vests and put them on the seat behind me - which is where the radiation is coming from. That way I should have five layers of protection in addition to the water tank between my chest and the radiation source. There’s a problem to all this though - I’m not a good pilot and every few minutes I have to give Orion a nudge of thrusters to keep her where she needs to be. I can’t keep that up indefinitely because I’m burning fuel. Small bit of pride. A full ten minutes before I get the radio back up with NASA, I find a control panel button labeled “or - lock” and just like that, Orion’s computers are doing the flying again. So I'm stuck, in the commanders seat, until I figure out how to fix a radiation storm. I probably should have used the head when I had the chance. Note to self. \*\*\*\*\*\*\* I’m Nathan H. Green, a science-fiction writer with a degree in aerospace engineering, and I’m going to be doing daily semi-fictional stories tracking the Artemis I mission. You can follow along through my reddit (u/authornathanhgreen). Artemis I Has A Stowaway is a work of semi-fiction. All incidents, events, dialogue and sentiments (which are not part of the mission’s official history), are entirely fictional. Where real historical figures appear, the situations, incidents, sentiments, and dialogues concerning those persons are entirely fictional and are not intended to depict actual events, personality, disposition, or attitudes of the real person, nor to change the entirely fictional nature of the work. Save the above, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. © 2022 Nathan H.


Rain had seeped through the seals of the Cadillac convertible and forced her off the road. Darcy hadn’t correctly closed the convertible top on the new 1970 Coupe Deville as she left fled the restaurant. Who could’ve, given what happened? She’d thought the first pitter-patter of rain onto her lap was the universe’s way of mocking the tears sliding down her cheeks, but as the trickle swelled into a downpour, she realized even God himself had it out for her tonight. He must’ve taken pleasure in making her suffer. In a matter of minutes, he’d ruined her engagement, her makeup, and her new chinchilla wrap. She decided not to wait out the storm in her sodden car. The choice between sitting in a puddle in her car versus making a short dash through the rain to shelter under a bridge was an easy one. With her wrap held over her head, doubling as her umbrella, she threw open the Cadillac’s door and sprinted—as fast as one could in heels—to the bridge. A wolf howl echoed through the night and, although the howl sounded somewhat distant, it made her hurry her feet even faster. When she reached the sloped wall beneath the bridge, she collapsed onto it in an exhausted heap. She breathed a deep, steadying breath and took a moment’s inventory of herself. She was drier than expected, a plus. One heel had snapped off in the mud, which was fine, as she planned to toss tonight’s wardrobe in the furnace. She wanted to burn tonight from her memory, clothes and all. She was hungry, too, having only had half a martini at dinner before tossing the rest in Rob’s face. A gust of October wind whipped under the bridge, chilling the wet skin beneath her sequined minidress. A potent scent of urine and grime—a scent she associated with homelessness—wafted by her and she sat upright, realizing she was not alone. An unkempt man sat not ten feet away from her, a blue tarp wrapped around him like a blanket. He eyed her with equal parts curiosity and lasciviousness. His leer made her shiver a second time. The dim red lights under the bridge, meant to illuminate the space for passing trains, emitted just enough brightness for her to notice a carcass, something like a rat or a rabbit, beside the man. And along with that sat a rusty knife. The killing blade. “Always nice to have company,” the man said in greeting. “I’m waiting for the storm to pass,” Darcy replied. “Oh, it’s no trouble,” he said, as if he were the polite host of some dinner soiree. “Not often I get to talk with pretty girls.” “Thank you,” she said, his words giving her the creeps. Hopefully her curt smile would end the conversation. It didn’t. “How old are you, sweetheart?” he asked, leering again. “Twenty-five,” she lied. It sounded like a less sexy age than her 20. “You a virgin?” His eyes glowed amber in the light. Darcy’s stomach clenched as if she’d been punched in the gut. Fear swam through her, cold and fast. On another night she might’ve shouted at him, maybe even found a rock to throw his direction. But she was all fought out tonight. She’d had it out with Rob in the middle of Emilio’s Trattoria for all of the Hollywood muckety-mucks to see. Her adrenaline was spent and her fighting spirit fried. “That’s not a polite question,” she said, mustering her defense.

“You’re right,” he said, slapping his forehead. “As I said, I don’t often meet pretty girls down here. I forgot my manners. Are you a model?” “Actress.” “Not a famous one,” the man cackled. “Never seen you on any billboards.” “Not yet,” she said, “but I will be.” “Oh yeah?” “Yeah,” she said, projecting as much confidence as she could. The man’s questioning frightened her. It made her feel anonymous and forgettable, like someone who could be easily disappeared. Like a victim. She decided to put some space between her and the man, and invented a story to keep him away. “Look, if you don’t mind, I’m just going to wait over here until my boyfriend arrives.” “Your boyfriend, huh?” “Yes, my boyfriend.” “Lucky guy,” he said, gaps in his teeth showing as he grinned. “He know you’re here?” “I- I called him. From a payphone.” “Sure, sure,” the man said, nodding. “Not a payphone around here, but hey, if you said you called him, you called him.” “I did.” The man gave an exaggerated shrug. Darcy turned away, ignoring him, but glanced back a few seconds later to see if he’d received the message. He apparently had, minding his own business, but the rusty knife was nowhere to be seen. A second howl pierced the night, this time louder. Darcy considered returning to the car, but chose to stay put, assuming the cabin would’ve been flooded by now. She prayed for the storm—no, the night—to end. She’d started the night aglow, eager to see her fiancé, Rob, after a week apart. Handsome and square-jawed, he’d taken her in his arms when they met up at the restaurant. He twirled them both around, planting a gentle kiss on her lips as the spin ended. He even brought flowers. He’d ordered her a glass of wine for her and two-fingers of scotch for himself, then regaled her with stories of life as a Hollywood agent in New York City. She’d never been. The only America she’d seen was her home state of Indiana, Los Angeles, and the bus stops in between. Darcy noticed the first crack in his story right after their appetizers arrived. Rob slipped and said, “When I got back on Thursday-” “I thought you got home today,” Darcy interrupted. “Friday.” “Sorry,” he said, slapping his forehead like the homeless man had, “been a long week.” Darcy assured him it was no problem. Everyone’s brain got a little fuzzy after all that travel, she rationalized. She waited until his steak arrived before she asked him the question that’d been burning in her lungs all night: “So did you tell Marty about me?” Rob chewed his steak a few too many times for her liking. She’d waited a week to hear whether he’d told the Broadway producer about her. Marty was casting a new show, and Rob was supposed to offer her up as a leading lady. “I did, yeah,” he said, his eyes fixed on his steak. His knife splashed the steak’s juices on the white tablecloth as it sawed through the meat. “But he’d already cast the part.” Darcy’s chest tightened. Sadness, anger, depression—the cocktail of emotions crushed her lungs and squeezed the air from her. “You said you’d-” she began. “I know, babe, I’m sorry.” He returned to cutting his steak, something which shouldn’t have required nearly so much attention. Darcy’s brain began to put together the pieces. “You met with him on Monday, didn’t you?” she asked. “Yeah, straight from the airport.” “If he’d already cast the part, then why did you stay all week?” “I think you’ve got the schedule mixed up,” Rob told her. “I’m sure I do,” she said, hoping her words of sincerity sounded like anything but. “We had to stick around and do all the negotiations. You know how it is.” “So one of your other actresses got the part?” Rob winced as he swallowed a large hunk of steak. “Yeah.” “But not me.” “No, babe, I’m sorr-” “So who then?” Darcy’s chicken cutlet had gotten cold by now, untouched during her interrogation of Rob. “Uh, Katherine Cane,” Rob mumbled. “You- she- You represent her?!” Darcy demanded, yanking the napkin from her lap and slamming on the table. Her cutlery jingled, a chime alerting other tables to halt their conversation and stare. “Yeah,” Rob said, shaking his head like this was no big deal, “she needed a new agent, so she called me.” “She called you, her ex-boyfriend?” Darcy spat. “I’m an agent, aren’t I?” “And you got her the part?” “It’s not like it was my choice. I’m not the director. You know I would’ve picked you.” “I assume you’ve told her?” “About us? Of course. I’m a one-woman guy.” “No, about the part.” “Yeah,” Rob scoffed, “I told her when I got back last night.” He froze as soon as he said it. Maybe the week’s worth of travel fatigue really had caught up to him. Either way, the words were out of his mouth and they couldn’t be unsaid. Darcy tried her best to stay stoic, raising her chin high and pursing her lips. “Are you screwing her?” Darcy said, seething. “C’mon, babe,” Rob said, reaching for her hand. She pulled it off the table. “Are. You. Screwing her?!” Darcy said, her temper getting the better of her. She stood, and now she had the attention of everyone in the restaurant. “Calm down, Darce!” The rest of the conversation was a blur of insults and slander, ending with Darcy leaving and Rob saying—gesturing around the room—that no Hollywood producer will hire a dumb farm girl like her if she doesn’t turn around. When she didn’t, he grabbed her by the arm, spun her to face him, and slapped her hard across the cheek. That was when she threw her drink in his face and fled the restaurant. The valet hadn’t even asked for a tip when he returned her car, nor had he dared interrupt her as she battled to put on the convertible’s top. It wasn’t even her Cadillac. It was his. She took it because it was the only thing he really loved, aside from Katherine Cane, apparently. She’d so convincingly demanded the car from the valet that the teen didn’t ask her to prove it. That was also why she couldn’t figure out the top: She’d never done put it on before. Her flight from Emilio’s had felt like a lifetime ago. Now she was here, huddled beneath a bridge, quaking with cold and fear, only feet away from a threatening man. That was when she saw it: a massive hound, scrawny and long like a malnourished greyhound, its patchy fur matted to its back by the rain, with eyes as red as the Devil himself. Long fangs protruded from its mouth. Darcy froze, not from the cold, but from mortal terror. Something in her reptilian brain told her that this dog, whatever it was, was something unreal, something primordial. It shouldn’t exist, but yet it did. It was standing right before her. A werewolf? Surely not. It was just another dog. It had to be. The dog eyed her and the homeless man, then growled at latter. The man scooted up the wall away from the dog, extracting the knife from his pocket as he did. He rattled the weapon at the animal, but it stood its ground. When it turned its eyes—those unnatural amber eyes—toward Darcy, her fear of the animal dissipated. It was as if she knew it was protecting her, warning off the man and marking her as under its protection. The man must’ve sensed it too, as he scurried away toward the far corner of the bridge. The dog huffed the air, turned, and strode back into the rain. Darcy knew she had to follow it. Not just because she feared what the man might do to her if she stayed, but because… Because why? She couldn’t exactly tell why. She just knew she had to, as if compelled. Maybe it was her reptilian brain talking again, this time telling her to follow the dog because animals always know where to find safety. Like how the hunters back in Indiana said that, should she ever get lost, she could follow animals to a source of clean water. Or maybe something in the dog’s eyes had commanded her to. A silly thought, for sure, but Darcy didn’t find it altogether unreasonable. The dog had protected her after all, hadn’t it? The chinchilla wrap held above her head again, she followed the dog from under to bridge and into the storm. They must’ve walked a solid five, ten, twenty minutes before crossing through a copse and happening upon a large, overgrown manor. Darcy didn’t know architecture, but knew the three-story manor must’ve been expensive, or had been until it fell into disrepair. The brown beams sagged with age and the white paint had chipped away in places. She couldn’t spot a driveway in the darkness, nor did she see any egress to the rest of civilization. If she didn’t know better, this house was isolated from the outside world. The dog had disappeared by the time her eyes stopped scanning for the driveway. All she could see now was firelight bobbing and flickering through one of the manor’s windows. She approached a side door, something like a butler’s entrance, nearest the window and knocked. No answer. She knocked again and this time the door creaked open under the pressure of her knuckles. Unwilling to continue standing in the rain, she entered. “Hello?” she called, peering around a corner into the room with the firelight. A man, lanky and gaunt, stood warming himself by a fire in the mantle. He turned upon hearing her voice. “Hello to you too,” he said, seemingly as amused to have a visitor as he was surprised. He wore all black, an outfit that, like the manor, may have once been expensive but now looked faded and worn. A high collar climbed up his neck, a look which elongated his high, pale face. “I don’t mean to intrude, but I was stuck in the storm and-” “You look absolutely frozen. Come warm up.” He pointed to the fire and stepped aside. Darcy, teeth chattering, followed his direction. “I’m really sorry,” Darcy said, but again the man waved her off. “What would you have me do? Throw you back out in the rain? Please. Be my guest. Let me fix something up for you.” He walked to the nearby cabinets and scrounged through them in search of food. The warmth of the fire tickled Darcy’s toes and relaxed her, but after her experience with the man under the bridge, she kept a wary gaze on the new man in her peripheral vision.

He must’ve noticed because he said, “If you’d like to dry off, there are towels in the bathroom.” He pointed to a nearby door and added, “The door locks, if that’ll make you feel more comfortable.” It did. By the time Darcy dried herself and returned to the small butler’s kitchen, the man had arranged a plate of salted meats, cheeses, and grapes for her. Not the fanciest charcuterie board she’d seen in Hollywood, but at this moment it looked better than any of them. “Dig in,” he told her. She didn’t need a second telling. She shoveled food into her mouth while the man watched her in friendly silence. “I’m Darcy, by the way,” she said. “I followed your dog here.” “He does have a tendency to bring home strays,” he said, winking at her. She laughed. “He looked like he could use a few steak dinners. I grew up on a farm,” she said, swallowing a mouthful of prosciutto, “and I’ve never seen a dog so skinny.” “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“Is this your home?” “It is. I apologize for its condition. It’s hard to do what I do these days. To be what I am.” “And what’s that?” The man pondered the question for a moment before saying, “Are you an actress?” “How’d you know?” “That’s my job: I hunt for talent. Are you finished?”

Darcy nodded, and the man laid the empty plate in the sink. “Aren’t you going to eat?” Darcy asked. “In a few minutes. I like to build up an appetite,” he said, smiling. “You must’ve had a rough night to end up out here.” “You can say that again.” “Car trouble?” “Car trouble. Boy trouble. Everything trouble.” “Well relax, kick your feet up,” he said, indicating a nearby chair, “and let all that frustration go. It’s bad for your bones.” She took the chair, but cocked a sideways grin at him as she did. “Bad for your bones?” she asked. “Never heard that one before.” “It’s an original. And it’s true. I’ve had plenty of experience.” “With bones?” she said, comfort overtaking her. Dizziness smoldered in her brain, which she attributed to the food and firelight. “Frustration taints them. You can taste the difference.” “How often,” Darcy said, yawning, “do you eat bones?” “More often than you’d think, but not often enough.” He pointed at his chest. “You called me the skinniest dog you’ve ever seen.” “I called your dog the skinniest dog I’ve ever seen,” Darcy clarified. She tried to roll her eyes at the man, but they refused to move. She was tired, and she knew she was tired, but she’d never heard of someone losing control of their eyes due to exhaustion. “Calm down,” he told her, as if sensing her rising panic. “Remember what I said about frustration.” None of his words could possibly have quelled the fear building inside her. She could feel the blood pumping through her veins. It beat a tattoo in her brain. The dizziness swirled her vision, and she would’ve vomited if the paralysis hadn’t prevented her from doing so. “What did you do to me?” she mumbled, her eyes struggling to stay open. “I just needed a place to stay dry.” “And I,” he said, crossing the room to kneel before her and look into her eyes, “just needed breakfast.”


I never should have gone to her. If I had known then what I know now I wouldn’t have. This is my story and let it be a warning. Remember to be careful what you wish for. I learned the hard way. I fled from that place three years ago and finally stopped running when I hit a backwoods town in southern Louisiana. I had been there for a week when the story of a forty-three-year-old woman who had gone missing from the same town that I had just left came across the news. As soon as I saw the picture of my sweet momma, my heart clenched and the world fell out from beneath my feet. According to the news report her husband, my stepfather, had come home to a wife distraught over her baby girl running away. He had tried to console her, but she attacked him and fled. The news report was wrong though. I knew what had really happened. That sick bastard had made good on his promise. Now I am going to make good on mine. The night I left I swore on everything I held dear that I would make that monster pay for everything he took from us. My innocence, my momma’s light and now her life as well. That’s how I ended up outside of her shack. Nobody knew her name nor how long she had been there. Some said she created this town and others said this sad little town created her. Whispers floated around that she could grant your deepest wishes. She could make the one you love to return the feelings. She could make a barren womb bring life. She could take your demons away. I wish I could claim innocence. Say that nobody told me there would be a price, that I was ignorant, but that would be a lie. As I stood at her door trying to gather the courage to knock I heard a voice behind me. “I see your pain, my child. Your grief is louder than any knock on my door.” Her honeyed creole voice washed over me tinged with razor wire. I turned, expecting an old stooped woman, but came face to face with a girl no older than myself. Dark dreadlocks encircled her head like a crown with pieces falling over her chocolate shoulders. She was petite with a heart-shaped face and would have been considered beautiful, if not for those eyes. I felt myself falling into those eyes that echoed the abyss. Black and bottomless, they threatened to drown me under their power. I could feel myself slipping into a place no human could survive. “You are right to be afraid child.” Her voice jerked me back to reality. As I blinked the abyss disappeared replaced by honey brown eyes. Normal human eyes. I opened my mouth to explain why I had come but she held up her hand, stopping me. “I know why you have come. I can see the scars that monster has left upon you.” The sheer amount of sadness in her eyes told me, in that moment, that she was not talking about the physical ones. I wondered what she had gone through to hold so much sadness. “I will help you but it comes at a price.” I reached into my pocket scrambling for the last of the money I had left. “Will this be enough? I know it’s-” Her laugh cut me off making me feel as if claws were whispering down my back. “I have no use for such earthly items. No, child, my price is much steeper.” Walking past me she opened the door to her shack glancing back at me. “Are you willing to pay the price?” I hesitated at that moment, something telling me to turn back. I could walk away and never look back. My heart leaped in my throat as she started to close the door and I knew if I didn't decide now I would never find her again. Desperately I rushed towards the door. “Wait! I’ll do it! I will pay anything.” I held my breath, secretly praying it was too late. She raised one of her eyebrows. “Anything you say?” I nodded stepping toward her to grasp the door. Her gaze roamed over me as she seemed to consider my words. “Very well then. Follow me.” I followed her through the open door stepping into the one room shack. I looked around taking in the small area. The far corner held a single cot and rocking chair with what looked like animal hides draped over them. To my left was a fireplace with a deep black pot boiling over the flames. I walked further in having to duck to avoid dried herbs, feathers, and what I prayed were animal bones. She gestured for me to sit at the small table to my right. I sat as she took a seat across from me placing small vials on the table in front of her along with a mortar and pestle. I watched as she began to mix herbs and liquids I couldn’t even begin to guess. As she mixed she started to chant in a strange language. Immediately the atmosphere in the room began to change becoming suffocating and heavy thickening as she continued. I started choking from lack of oxygen, black dots filling my vision. Just as I thought I would pass out the chanting stopped. I gulped in air as if it were my first meal in years. As my vision cleared I found her staring at me. “The only thing left now is a drop of your blood to seal the spell and contract. You still have a chance to walk away, my child.” I swallowed and shook my head holding out my hand. I had already come this far. “Not even going to ask the price?” Again I shook my head. “Whatever it is I will pay it. He deserves to rot for what he has done.” Tears fell from my eyes as I thought of my sweet mommas face. She didn’t deserve her fate, but he sure as hell deserves to suffer. I grimaced as I felt the needle prick my finger and watched as the droplet fell in the mixture. “By blood, it is sealed and by blood, it shall be paid.” Her voice had changed to that of a thousand and I watched as her eyes once again became the abyss. “The price shall be five souls of those who have committed the same, if not greater, sin as that of your stepfather. You shall take one life each year for the next five, but no more than one in the year. They shall be reaped every Samhain. If you do not fulfill this your soul and that of your mothers shall be forfeited and will replace these souls.” My heart thundered as my vision went black. I awoke in my own bed the next morning, the only evidence of what I had done lying on my nightstand. A silver dagger with a bone handle and a gold chain with a vial of black liquid sat there. Two days later my stepfather appeared on the news. He had been beaten to death when he was caught attempting to rape a fourteen-year-old girl. It was then I knew without a shadow of a doubt that what had happened was real…... That was five years ago and tonight I finally made my last payment. It has been a long five years. I can still hear their screams in my nightmares just as I heard this one scream as he begs for his life, apologizing for what he did to Michael and Caleb and Noah. I feel tears running down my face as I see those sweet boys twisted and bloody in his basement. His pathetic pleas fall on deaf ears just as those boys tortured screams must have fallen on his. I have paid in full and I will be giving her a bonus. One more tortured soul for that of an angel. Please, Lord, forgive me…..and if you can’t, tell my sweet momma I love her and I will accept my judgment as I stand before you. Goodbye….


The blue mirror of the Earth blinded Steven with reflected sunlight. It was his fault really, as he refused to lessen the view's splendor by lowering the window filters. Better to see his home planet in all its glory now and deal with the cataracts later. After all, an eye exam would be included in the full medical diagnostic mandated by both federal law and SpaceX company policy. Starship rotated away from Earth and Steven was met with the black abyss space. Featureless and without reference points, the wall of darkness could have been across a room as much as an infinity away. Sunlight ran perpendicular to the window and gave off an awful glare. A few minutes of staring produced only a few of the brightest stars. Steven thought it ironic that stargazing was so difficult above the atmosphere. "Room for two, Mister Callahan?" Steven grabbed the bolt-covered windowsill and used it to spin around. The rest of the observation lounge came into view: two titanium gray sofas with fire engine red trim sat on either side of an aluminum coffee table with a magnetized top holding onto four cups designed with a teapot-like spout that allowed them to be sipped in microgravity without fear of spills. The entire back wall was devoted to a kitchen on the left and mini-bar on the right with every drink and snack the company accountants allowed the interior design team to buy. between these two islands of terrestrial comforts lay the entrance hatch, now ajar and hosting a fine silhouette of a woman. "The whole dozen of us crowded in here right after launch," said Steven. "I hope we ain't gained enough weight to reduce capacity to just two." He gave her a disarming smile. "Trying to defuse that bomb you just threw with a smile won't work." She moved with smooth deliberance toward the mini-bar. "Care for a Shirley Temple?" "I'd prefer something stronger." "Too bad. Company policy says no drinking within 24 hours of critical maneuvers." "Ol' Elon doesn't trust his landing computer as much as he publicly proclaims." "Wrong Mister Callahan, he doesn't trust that we won't get plastered and bust the computer." She pushed off the back wall and drifted like a cloud toward him. The resemblance was reinforced by their nimbus white uniforms spattered here and there with the same titanium gray as the sofas. The SpaceX logo and NASA insignia were splashes of blue on their left breast pocket. A tiny American flag adorned his collar while the Union Jack did likewise on hers. She let her shoulder collide with the wall ever so gently and stretched the nonalcoholic drink under his nose. "Thanks Tilly." "You're going to have to stop calling me that Mister Callahan, it's unprofessional." "And what should I call you instead?" "How about Dr. Dahl." "Now that's *too* professional." "Matilda then." "Matilda sounds like someone's granny, which is awkward considering how we feel for each other." "We've only had two weeks of interrupted time together, and half of that was spent collecting samples from Shackleton Crater at the lunar south pole." Steven finally accepted the pouch of pink drink and downed it with vigor. "I'm so glad I could help Elon collect rocks for NASA." "And what's wrong with that?" "14 years and 22 missions; there should be a moon base by now. Instead we stay seven days, plop some new telescope, grab a few hundred kilos of rocks, then it's goodbye Moon." "You know Mister Callahan, you're ungrateful. The Apollo astronauts would have killed for this kind of luxury. They ate food from a tube and were damned grateful when the lunar ascent engine worked on its first and only run. So when your personal fantasies are dashed remember where you are and how you got here. Mr. Musk—" "Can kiss my ass." Even he was surprised by the volume at which he said it. No doubt the rest of the crew heard. Tilly pressed against the wall as if looking to it for comfort. He started to repent but went ahead with the confession. "You don't know him like I do. I was in the first class of private recruits. I stood next to the man as he gave the now famous LA Olympics speech. He told me, face-to-face, that—" "'You'll be the first one considered when the Mars colony starts.' I know, he told me the same thing." "My only condolence is that I didn't put down ten million dollars for a reservation like some. The way money gets passed between Musk's companies, there's no telling where theirs went." Tilly had turned toward the lounge's entrance in the middle of his rant. He followed suit and found mission commander Yojiro Takinawa floating knowingly. "Am I interrupting?" said the man with the tiny rising sun on his collar. Steven and Tilly answered in the negative. "Good, because you two need to come down and get strapped in for reentry." Steven started to push off independantly but found Tilly's right hand outstretched before him. He took it, spoke a three second countdown for dramatics, then both launched together. They flew over the sofas, across the room, and right into Yojiro. All three laughed and slapped the others' shoulders. The thought that this was his last microgee dogpile saddened Steven. But it couldn't be helped. His body had absorbed twice the dosage of career radiation NASA allowed. He should have been barred from this third mission but ability and experience trumped regulation and the agency bent the rules. They would not bend them again. Around a corner, down a short corridor, through a hatch and the trio arrived at Starship's heart, the hub room. The hub was a cylinder four meters wide, ten meters long, and containing twelve crew stations. Each station had a reclining seat that doubled as a bed and a flight status monitor that allowed the hub to function as control center for Starship. Two more meters of ship wrapped around the hub. Here was stored the water tanks, HVAC, extra food, and other amenities. A cargo cylinder sat below the hub and contained EVA suits and newly acquired lunar samples. The other nine crew members were already strapped in and ready for reentry. Steven gave the customary greetings and signs of goodwill, though he honestly didn't care for any of them. Tilly and Yojiro had been the only ones who didn't begrudge him for getting this third mission. Strapped in and with a monitor a centimeter from his nose, Steven surveyed their progress. A thin white line wound out from the Moon's south pole, around it the satellite's globe three times, then wofted toward the Earth like a spider silk in a breeze. Starship was riding that line at the point where will be became has been. Green dots were scattered along the "has been" and indicated successful engine burns. Red dots so numerous as to become lines themselves sat on the "will be." These were the burns that had yet to be made. On cue, Starship's six Raptor engines fired up. Two successive bursts turned the same number of dots green. Starship's orbital inclination was made perfect. The Raptors fired again and for much longer. The lowest point of Starship's orbit now intersected the Earth's atmosphere over Baja California. There the red dots really did transition into a line, one that ended at Boca Chica, Texas. The landing computer had calculated, and so far executed, everything to a tee. According to it power, trajectory, and propellant were all nominal. That last would be very important when Starship started plummeting through Earrh's atmosphere and needed to blast its six Raptor engines in a last-minute deceleration burn. If all went right, Starship would land upright on a pad in Boca Chica. If it didn't, well, the paramedics need not bother with body bags. Yojiro motioned Steven to put on his helmet. The helmet snapped to Steven's collar and created an airtight seal, though a valve at the back would let in cabin air until emergency struck. This procedure was a holdover from NASA who often designed their craft with an ejection system. He knew there would be no escape from Starship. Tilly opened an audio link to Steven. "Looks like you're going home old man." "I had hoped home would be a little redder," he said. "And I had hoped th—" Tilly was interrupted by a loud clang and subsequent power outage. The hub stayed dark for only a few seconds before its lights flicked back on. A system startup screen displayed on Steven's monitor. His lip bled from him biting it and his racing heart pushed more and more out. Nothing this severe had happened on the other two flights. Would he and the others have to land manually? The answer came in the form of a heavily distorted trajectory map that showed Starship deep inside the Earth's mantle. The dozen crew members opened audio links with each other to create a group channel. Something akin to bird calls issued from almost every mouth. Only he, Tilly, and Yojiro kept their cool. It was Yojiro who silenced the babble by performing a proper system reboot in the hope of getting the landing computer to at least acknowledge that they were in space. The reboot finished and in turn finished off the landing computer. Power and fuel were accessible through their subsystem screens but there was no longer a trajectory arc between Starship and the ground. Steven reopened the private channel with Tilly. "What the hell do you think that was?" It took Tilly a moment to answer. "If my math is right, and it is, we just passed through the 1000 kilometer medium orbit reserved for the debris of the old satellite constellations. We're not dead, so nothing too large could have hit us. But the more urgent question is, what do we do now that the landing computer is no more?" "Eight minutes until we hit atmosphere and another seven to the pad. We could calculate and fire the Raptors ourselves." "Is there enough propellent for mistakes Steven?" So it's Steven now, he thought. "Maybe for two or three, but any more and we'll have to rely on lithobraking." Yojiro motioned for Steven and Tilly to get back in the group channel. Starship's functions were distributed among five the twelve crew members. Tilly was made responsible for trajectory calculations while Steven was to double check their position by watching the score of cameras strategically placed across the hull of Starship. Two other crew were given care of the engines and power systems. Yojiro oversaw the main computer and made sure the data feeds kept flowing. The necessary burns were mapped out just 30 seconds before the first one was to take place. Tilly sent the direction, throttle, and burn time to the engine controller via audio channel. Steven watched the Raptors light up through the bottom cameras. They were like six torches lighting up the pink landscape of a desert at dusk. Which was strange considering that they should be over the Gulf of California. Yet there sat a mountainous desert stretching for hundreds of kilometers in all directions. Were they already above the Mexican Rockies? Starship hit the upper atmosphere at about the same time that the Raptors stopped. air friction would play a major role in Starship's deceleration. Or it would have if they had remembered to angle the long axis of the ship 15 degrees off its descent arc like they were supposed to. Instead they retained a large amount of horizontal velocity while falling only a little in altitude. Steven realized that they were going to overshoot Boca Chica before Tilly did and informed Yojiro immediately. "By how much?," said Yojiro to both Steven and Tilly. The pair compared predictions before telling him, "By a lot, maybe 300 kilometers." "That puts us halfway to Florida. Could we make it to Kennedy Space Center?" She replied that, depending on atmospheric conditions, it might take more fuel than they had left. "Then it's worth a shot," said Yojiro. Steven caught glimpses of the seven crew who were left out of operation slim hope. Three were motionless dummies slouching on their seats. Two had taken their helmets off and were touching various icons to their lips. Two others were obviously crying but their tears remained locked behind tinted visors. The last rays of sunlight were now gone and night was complete over the Gulf of Mexico. Starship screamed down through the stratosphere toward cloud tops only made visible by a crescent moon. They would hit the troposphere hard as there was not enough propellant for a superfluous burst of the Raptors. The scream outside became thunderous and the ship rattled from the stress. Steven expected the clouds to part any second and the urbanity of central Florida to light up the sky. But the sky was quite dark under the cloud decks. Light was reserved for a single point on the eastern horizon and even then only at intervals. Then it hit him: they were still in the Gulf and that was a lighthouse up ahead. "Tilly," said Steven, "where should we be right now?" "50 kilometers from Kennedy Space Center," said Tilly. "And if we're just off the Florida Gulf Coast?" "Then we'd better burn all our propellant on a sea landing." Tilly was still speaking when Steven broke the news to Yojiro. The mission commander breathed deeply over the audio link before saying, "okay." The five puppeteers pulled Starship's strings with a deftness reserved for professionals facing death. Starship became ever more vertical as its Raptors burned to Tilly's time. The last kilometer of descent saw the engines burning constantly and at full throttle. Steven stared through clouds of new steam at the lighthouse. It seemed so familiar, so inviting, as if he were a sailor ready to come home. Splashdown shook the ship like an earthquake and brought him back to reality. A few panicked crew members unbuckled prematurely and were rewarded with a toss across the hub when Starship fell over on its side. Yojiro attended to everyone, checking for injuries, restating rescue procedures, and once again proving his fitness to lead. By the time they got around to opening the side of Starship that was above water, a raft from the shore had almost arrived and a helicopter was not far behind. The four in the raft identified themselves as Coast Guard. Yojiro started to explain who they were but a lanky woman in an oversized life jacket waved it away. "We know who you are," she said, "half the world knows who you are by now." With this the crew began descending into the raft under the helicopter's spotlight. Steven caught Tilly as she was sliding off the rope ladder. "I remember you being more agile on the Moon," he said. "I wasn't falling, I was stretching to see the impact that caused all this. Look." Steven swept his eyes across Starship's hull and came to rest on a meter wide crater with a pinhole center. He was forced to look away by a boot tapping his helmet from above. The journey to shore was completed in an eye blink. In another the crew was wrapped in thernal blankets and standing under a billboard that read, "Gasparilla Island." Starship was a distant black cylinder bobbing up and down with the waves. Steven walked to the lighthouse that had help save their lives. He was petting the structure's watertower-like supports when Tilly came up behind him. "Well Ti—Matilda, this ordeal has convinced me that retirement might not be that bad." "Tilly is fine. And I don't think you'll get to retire just yet. We're celebrities now, at least until the next aerial disaster. 'Could even get a movie if we play our cards right." "I'm not interested in—" Steven was broken off by a Coast Guardsman running up with a cell phone stretched out in front of him. He said it was a call from Mr. Musk. "Hello?," said Steven. "Yeah," said Elon, "I heard you were, um, back on Earth after the little, um, mishap." Steven started biting his lip again. "Mishap is a funny way to frame it." "Whatever you want to call it, it's over and you're alive. Now, the press is—" "Are you kidding me?" "I was talking. Now, the press is wanting to interview you and I hope that you'll be completely honest and let them know, um, the role that human error played in this, this, well this." Steven ended the call and handed the phone back to the Guardsman. "What did he say?" said Tilly. "That this is movie material for sure.


Down near the brook at the edge of town, an old woman sat on her honey-yellow cloth sofa watching a rerun of ‘Bewitched’ on her cable television. The woman picked up her crinkled sudoku book from under the side table and eased her mind to its repetitive deduction. Each day, she enjoyed toast paired with orange juice for breakfast, then sat on the sofa to read the Sunday paper. She would flip past the articles heading straight for the comics, her favorite entertainment, besides the sudoku on the back page, of course.            This afternoon, however, contained a change of routine to the grandmother’s delight. She was expecting a visit from her granddaughter for her monthly check in, as the grandmother’s mind became more unstable each day. She felt a deep connection with the girl, as she was reminded of herself in her younger years through the child’s felicity and youthful bliss. This also made the woman angry that her mind was leaving her soul with not a trace of that joy left to savor.            The bulky box which sat on the chestnut-brown stand shut off as the program reached the credits. Still waiting for her visitor, the woman reached for her midday medicine accompanying the cup of water waiting on the table next to her. As she took hold of the water, a tired creak was heard from the hall. The cup once in hand crashed to the ground, the water seeping into the carpet below. The old woman’s eyes squinted down the dark alley of the hall as she fixed a gaze that would not falter. Just as she gave up the staredown, a figure emerged from the doorway and her eyes fixated once again. The specter was a shadow with no owner and moved with the stride of a small child. It glided through the air, slowly, toward the woman imprisoned on the honey couch.            “Stop! Get back!” cried the old woman. The shadow became clearer now, as it stood barely an arm’s length away. Still, it remained, watching the woman closely.            The harsh buzz of the doorbell rang, accompanied by a short knock at the door. The grandmother jerked her head towards the noise, then back at the figure, no longer to be seen.            “Come on in sweetie!” she cooed. The door creaked open as a dainty little girl shuffled in carrying a Pepto-Bismol-pink bookbag. The girl’s golden eyes were wide with glee and her ponytail bobbed as she walked. The grandmother quickly wiped the fear from her epiphora and gave her granddaughter a half-smile.            Despite the efforts to hide her previous terror, the little girl noticed her grandmother’s fright and hurriedly rushed to her aid.            “Gramma, what happened?” she inquired.            “Oh, nothing honey, my show just spooked me a bit. Don’t you worry.” replied the grandmother encouragingly. The image of the specter reappeared in her imagination, but the woman focused instead on her visitor, ignoring the vision which haunted her decaying mind.            “Taken your mornings yet?” questioned the girl as she zipped open her pastel bookbag, pulling out the regimen of pills which followed the old woman’s morning prescriptions. Just as quickly as the girl’s brows tensed with worry, they were erased by her heartened smile. She was valetudinous for her grandmother and would not allow the woman’s indigent mind to be stripped by concern.            The grandmother started, “Don’t you ever go out?”  gulping down her first dose.            “What?” the girl responded as she checked off a calendar and closed her bag.            “You don’t need to come down here for me honey, I can do this myself.” The woman insisted. Despite the new acquaintance of the phantom, and not to mention her crippling psyche, the grandmother wanted more for the girl. She wanted her to get out of the desolate town, to have a life outside of shoving pills down her crippling grandmother’s throat.            “Gramma, coming here is my favorite part of the day. I wouldn’t trade it for anything.” Replied the granddaughter in earnest.            “Mine too baby. I’m grateful for you.” said the old woman, still restrained from exposing her hopes for the girl.            The girl, with intent to start a meaningful conversation, asked “Aren’t you afraid of anything?”            “What’s there to be afraid of?” the grandmother responded playfully.            The granddaughter was taken aback by her elder’s unexpected confidence in the fearful. “I don’t know, like spiders, snakes, ghosts…” The woman flinched in her seat at the specter’s timely mention and hesitantly responded, “Well I suppose a phantom might trouble me. What about you, what’re you afraid of?”            “Losing you.” The girl responded abruptly; her eyes consumed with apprehension.            “I told you then, and I’ll tell you again now: someday I’m not gonna be here no more. And you’re gonna get along just fine.” The old woman answered.            But the girl didn’t want to think about how someday she wouldn’t be around. She loved what she did and never wanted to let that go. Her lips parted in order to react to the grim statement but shut again in the absence of a response. She was only able to respond with a short, “Okay.” The girl rose from the cushion to give the old woman a gentle kiss on the cheek and headed for the door.            Still sunk in the sofa, the grandmother watched as her little girl shuffled out solemnly. A phantasmic shadow formed and lingered behind the girl as she disappeared through the doorway. A month passed since the girl last visited, and the woman sat again on her wallpaper couch, watching a program until the TV shut off, patiently waiting for her granddaughter to arrive. After an abrupt round of sudoku, her mind faltered and the old woman shivered as a gust of wind burst through the window. She could feel the dying presence of something other than herself.            The girl never returned, leaving the old woman clueless to the girl’s end. Her heart failed her--despite all the love she gave--in a series of unsteady palpitations. The woman continued to follow her routine each day, mindlessly waiting for her visitor, who appeared only in the form of a phantasmal specter.


My Dear Big Brother, When we were kids, you were always exploring. You always had a very active imagination. This time you're a pioneer treasure hunter with a blanket for a cape. Braving the dark corners of this old house with your flashlight. Sometimes I wish you could take me along but I never saw what you were able to see with the little that we had growing up. But, when you did find something worth sharing, you shared it with your sister. I remember this one time it was those delicious but hot Fireballs. There were maybe a handful of them you found stashed away in some cupboard. As always, you popped in the Fireball first to eat away the initial hot layer of the candy before giving that sweet candy center to your baby sister. First of all, very gross! It was extremely gross. But, it's also one of my favorite memories of you growing up. Sorry that things hasn't been better for you. I wish you would've told me that you were molested for years as a teenager, about being bullied throughout high school, about being cheated on, about your depression, and about being fired from your job. I wish we had a kind of relationship where you could've confided in me anything you wanted. Instead I had to find all this out from your journal. Did you even stop to think how much you would be hurting us? I fucking hate you for having me find you in your room like that. I fucking hate you for making sure I am the one who took care of everything when you killed yourself. I fucking hate you for leaving me all alone. You were my big brother. I love you and I miss you. I wish I could've been there for you.