Note: I wanted to write a story about a manipulative narcissist. It ended up only being dialogue, and it was more challenging than I had imagined. This said, I would like strong critiques on how this could be improved. To whoever reads this - feel free to let loose with the critiques. Warning: Mentions of suicide, manipulation Interrogation Transcript : Margaret Thompson Date: 05/11/1997 Location: St. George Police Station, St. George, SC Interrogating Officer(s): Sgt. Patrick Green Time at start of interrogation: 8:22 am Green : Good morning Margaret, we apologize for the wait. Thompson : Good morning. Green : My name is Sergeant Patrick Green. I’d like to thank you for choosing to come to the station to talk to me today. You are not being held, and you are free to leave any time you would like. I just want to get your side of the story so that we can best understand what happened. But before we get into any of that though, we just need some basic information for our records. Could you please state your name? Thompson : Of course. Margaret Thompson. Green : Did you grow up in St. George, Margaret? Thompson : No, I didn’t. I grew up in Hillsborough, about…2 hours north of here.

Green : Oh, alright. When did you come to St. George? Thompson : I – well, we came to St. George after Greg got a job in town as a labourer and I was about to give birth to my son, my Peter. That was about thirteen years ago now. Green : Where is Peter now? Thompson : I dropped him off at Gladys Mayes’ house this morning. Many of the families are there now, engaged in prayer. I would like to make this quick so that I can join them. Green : Of course, Margaret. We’ll try to finish this up as quick as we can. Thompson : Thank you. Green : Could you please tell us what your day to day looks like? Thompson : I help with church related activities and donations. I keep the church on its feet, ya know! Did you know that congregation members across our country have been dropping over the past two decades? Kids these days just aren’t being taught proper values. It is becoming more and more difficult for churches to stay afloat, even with government subsidies. My job is to make sure we’re receiving enough donations to be able to keep spreading the good word of the lord. Are you a Christian, Mr. Green? Green : I grew up Catholic.

Thompson : You should come to the church one day. We can have a chat, I can show you what you’re missing. Green : Sure. Now, I understand that your husband Greg is currently in a coma and has been for the past few years, correct? Thompson : Hmph, yes, he has. The idiot was working on the house when he fell off the ladder, leaving Peter and I to survive on measly insurance payments. Thankfully, we have the grace of the church to support us. Green : How did he fall off the ladder? Thompson : How? Green : Yes, how did he fall? Thompson : I don’t know, he just, fell! Maybe a gust of wind or he slipped or somethin’. Green : What was he doing to the house exactly? Thompson : He was fixing the siding, and, I dunno, the ladder tipped. I’ve been trying to call the ladder company since the incident, telling them their product was defective, that it shouldn’t have buckled just like that. Green : Buckled? Was there something wrong with the ladder? Thompson: It just broke, you know, loose screw and it tipped. It tipped and George fell and hit his head so hard. I found him, and there was blood everywhere. I had to clean up my husband’s blood, off our clothes. I was in such terrible shock. Green : I’m sorry that happened Mrs. Thompson.

Thompson: I can only imagine where me and Peter would be if I didn’t work so hard at the church. Without me, Peter would be completely lost. The church probably wouldn’t survive! Green : Ok, yeah. Now, if it’s ok, I’d like to ask how you heard about the incident with Gabriel. Could you please tell us where you were and what you were doing when you found out about it? Thompson : It’s fine, yeah. I was at home, cleaning. Green : What were you cleaning, exactly Thompson : Well, that’s a bit of a silly question, don’t you think? I was dusting, doing laundry, vacuuming. And I was interrupted by the phone call and the cleaning still needs to be done, so I’d like to get to the point of the matter if that’s ok with you. Green : We’re getting there Mrs. Thompson. Who called you? Thompson : Gladys McPhee, a member of our congregation. Green : What time did you get the phone call? Thompson : Oh, um, maybe around three? Yes, around three o’clock. Green : What exactly did Gladys say to you on the phone? Thompson : Well, she greeted me, and then told me that the Porters’ boy – Gabriel – had died. Green : Is that all she said? Thompson: Yes. Well, yes and no, she said that he was found dead, that he killed himself. Green : How did you feel when you heard the news? Thompson : I felt terrible…just terrible! A young boy killed himself, of course I feel terrible, terrible for the family, and terrible for the church! Terrible and angry! Green : Why do you feel angry? Thompson (shaking her head): We lost one of our flock, a young one…and on top of that, people from outside might look at our church negatively. You know, with all the news out there! Green: What news exactly? Thompson : You know, the news! There’re people out there who want to destroy religion. They started a war on Christmas, on God, what with their pride and abortions – pride is a sin, if I might add. They’re the reason that poor boy killed himself you know! Green : What do you mean? Thompson : You said you’re a Catholic. How could you not know what I’m talking about? Green : I just need to be precise for the report, Mrs. Thompson. Could you please specify? Thompson : Sigh… As I already told you before, I teach Sunday school after church. Again, without me, these children wouldn’t have God in their lives, I keep them safe from the you-know-whos. A few weeks ago, I saw Gabriel come into church with a pink shirt and rainbow socks. What does that tell you Mr. Green? Green : What are you implying Mrs. Thompson? Thompson : Everybody knew it, was saying it. Everyone knew for a long time. Green : What did everyone know? Thompson (after a pause, glaring): Gabriel was being groomed. Green : Groomed by who? Thompson : Again, everybody knew it. Word spread like wildfire. They poisoned that poor boy. It destroyed our church, and as the person who’s trying to keep the church afloat, it hurt me, so much. Now, I’m going to have to fix all this, mend this congregation. With the power of God, we’ll get through it. Green : Ok. Are you doing ok? Do you want a coffee? Thompson : I don’t drink coffee. Green : Ok. Well, Mrs. Thompson, we found some letters in Gabriel’s room, stashed under his mattress. It seems he was passing letters in school with some of his peers. Did you know about these letters? Thompson (shakes head): I don’t know anything about any letters. Green: Well, it seems that some of these letters were being passed between him and your son, Peter. Did Peter ever tell you about these? Thompson (after a brief silence): No, but if they were between him and Peter, I’d like to see the letters to confirm. Green : These letters are currently evidence and cannot be shared, but if everything goes well here, we might be able to show them to you. What we can say - Thompson : Then you don’t know they were for Peter- you can’t, you don’t know so you can’t tell me that. I’m Peter’s mother, so I’d know, but, I’m sorry, but you don’t know. Green : Ok. No problem. Do you know much about the relationship between Gabriel and Peter? Is there anything there you can tell me? Thompson (shrugs shoulders):  Until I see the letters, you have no proof that they were between him and Peter. Did you get them at the school? Did that Mrs Roth have them? Let me tell you, I wouldn’t trust her, at all. Green: Mrs. Thompson, we’re simply working on what we have here. Why wouldn’t you trust Mrs. Roth? Thompson : I’m pretty sure she’s a sexual predator. She’s in line with the groomers. Her language reflects that. Green : Can you be more specific? What did she say? Thompson : She probably tells the children they can penetrate each other, tells young girls that it’s okay to sodomize. Green : Ok. I’d like to turn the attention back to Gabriel and Peter. Can you describe the relationship they had? Thompson : They weren’t in a ‘’relationship’’, you should learn your definitions. I’m Peter’s mother, so I would know if they were passing letters. (pause) Green : Ok, can you tell me about their friendship? Thompson : Mr. Green, if you are implying that my son was anyway involved with Gabriel I will call my lawyer and you will be served, by my attorney! Green : Mrs. Thompson, I would just like to remind you that session is being recorded for our records. Have you ever had any contact with Gabriel in the past few months? Have you ever spoken to him personally or on the phone? Thompson: No, why would I? Green : Mrs. Thompson, as I mentioned, you are being recorded. Are you stating – on record – that you’ve never spoken to Gabriel? Thompson : I came here, today, to talk about the terrible events of what, what happened, and just how terrible all this is. I know who should be arrested right now, and you should know too, unless this station and all its people are incompetent. Green : Ok. We’re almost done here. Before we finish, I wanted to let you know that we found a letter on Gabriel’s person. It was a suicide note. Your name, Margaret Thompson, is mentioned in the note.

(Thompson is silent) Green : Is there anything you want to add? Do you know why Gabriel would have put your name in the note, specifically? Thompson (crying): W-why are you doing this to me?

Green : Mrs. Thompson, who started the rumor that Gabriel was gay? (Pause) Green : Mrs. Thompson? Thompson (crying) : No! Absolutely not! But it was true, so what's- why did he put my name in the note? All I do is care for these children, the church, and this is the thanks I get? I.. Green: Mrs. Thompson? (Mrs. Thompson gets up from the chair and leaves the room. Mr. Green leaves the room) Interrogation ended at 8:41 am.


Another Man's Woman

                                                                         Fiction by Doug Rodoski                   I watched the young woman as she gracefully poured my iced tea at the far end of the bar at the Applebee’s on the second floor of the row of buildings on 42 nd street. Watched with, I plead, a non-lecherous detachment. Her name-if you could believe the plastic tag on the upper right side of her blouse-was Sydni, yes, with an “I”. I found that particularly endearing.        She moved fluidly, like a dancer, every move measured as she tended to me, a young couple at the opposite side of the bar, and a couple of families at nearby tables. She stood tall in her tennis shoes, five foot ten by my estimation, and her dark hair was braided on both sides, in an attractive way that would have made Princess Leah envious. Her long tan limbs showed the edges of tattoos, which I often find attractive on women.       I guessed her age to be middle twenties.       I grimaced at the age difference; but I am what I am. (Thirty-eight at the time.)               Sydni was a pleasant distraction after the recent deployment to Iraq with the U.S. Army Reserve. Our unit, made up of Military Police, brought everyone home intact three weeks ago, despite regular mortar attacks on our camp plus Soldiers of another squad returning fire during a couple of ambushes. It was great to be back stateside. Myself and my buddies had returned intact, but feeling a little “compressed”, as the Army micromanages every move Soldiers make on a deployment (with admittedly good intention).      After visiting family in Florida, I ventured north to NYC to attend a couple of Knicks playoff games at Madison Square Garden (which, as a card carrying SportsJones, I equate with the Temple of Olympian Zeus). I remembered this Applebee’s from when I used to visit my cousins in the 80s and 90s, to watch the Knicks and Mets and Rangers.       Waiting for my order, I mentally continued a nostalgic tour of Manhattan. (My mind seemed to hunt on its own these days.) I recalled my visit to Ground Zero, two months after the horror of 9/11. I had arrived at the Port Authority by bus, and after looking at the floor to ceiling posters in the terminal that would tear your heart out of your chest cavity ( “ my brother worked on the 78 th floor of the South Tower, please call if you know of his whereabouts”), I had walked all the way down to where recovery and cleanup was still taking place downtown. The trip---plus the serpentine head of the attacks of September 11 th ---was the genesis of my reenlistment in the Army.    I ended up in Iraq though, not Afghanistan.    My reverie was interrupted---albeit pleasantly---by Sydni’s fragrance. My God, she was like a Bath and Body Works ad, with arms. The young woman herself was now standing in front of me, with my burger and iced tea. I smiled, wondering how long she had been standing there while I was lost in thought, looking across the street at the marquee signs for the shows.    I thanked her. (As a lifelong fan of hard-boiled detective fiction, I considered raising my glass and saying, “Thanks, Doll.” Like Mickey Spillane’s tough guy protagonist, Mike Hammer. But that would have been politically incorrect these days.)      While I admired her shapely and sturdy figure, I was also trying to covertly pick up evidence of a wedding band. She saw me looking and did not say anything. (Please withhold judgement, readers. My pronouns are He/ Him/ His.)     She did seem to keep her hands occupied, obscuring vision. That being said, she still had not given me the usual disarming within-one-minute-of-meeting announcement (“My husband/ boyfriend… etc. etc.”) An unattached male, as I was, can usually set his watch by that.     She turned away and got busy again at the other end of the bar. Her shoulders were straight, and her back looked so strong. I wondered what sports she might have played in high school, or college. Tennis perhaps, or rowing. She had that look; pleasantly feminine- and athletic- at the same time.    Another thing that I have found to be true in life, is that when one feels ambiance and is happy, often some cheese phalluses will say or do something to mess it up for you. And today’s cheese phalluses came in the form of two scruffy looking dudes of perhaps mid-twenties to thirty years old, who came to the bar and seated themselves noisily three stools to my right.     Sydni tended to them briskly and professionally. At one point, when she was drawing their draft beers, the one guy made an off-color reference to Sydni. Then had the audacity to glare at me when I took notice.    “Can I help you, chief,” he shot in my direction, eyes hard above face unshaven. On top of this, his friend had a very unlikable sneering visage.      “Are you trying to impress your Brokeback Mountain buddy there?” I shot back. (I can be very creative when angry or threatened. Or both.)    Now all three of us were standing.    I sensed movement behind me. In my peripheral vision I saw the manager type, who had greeted me at the top of the escalator earlier, moving towards the young men.    “You guys are all done,” he told the other two. “That’s two nights in a row; you can come back when you act right.” They grumbled but paid and left, favoring me with a couple of crap looks on the way out.     I went back to looking out the window again, as my heart slowed back down to a reasonable rate. The next thing I knew, Sydni glided up to me with a concerned look, followed by a smile. “ Are you okay?” She gave my hand a squeeze.    “Yeah, sorry,” I said. “ Those clowns just rubbed me the wrong way.”     Sydni smiled, then turned and said over her shoulder, “Thanks for sticking up for me.”     I felt pretty good about myself right then.     As it turned out, Sydni did have a significant other. He came in ten minutes before closing, and they embraced. I fellow of maybe thirty years of age, possibly a young executive or financial type.     Sydni and her companion murmured to each other. When it came time for me to pay, he walked straight over to me and shook my hand. “Dinner is on us tonight. And thanks for your service.”     I insisted on leaving a cash tip for Sydni. When her companion went to the restroom a moment later, she favored me with a quick hug.     Disappointing, yes, but somehow, I feel like I had a meaningful life experience today. The buildings to the left and right towered over me like canyon walls. I pulled up the collar of my leather bomber jacket against the cold damp of late March.       Thank God for the city.


Note: Part one is right here, . Please let me know what you think. Enjoy.  \  I began to debate my next step relaxing against the seat. I could sit in this pod and wait, fearful that the outside air was toxic and I didn’t know. I could don my battle helmet and seal it buying me about twelve hours before needing to swap filters, but I didn’t want to drag out the inevitable if there was no breathable oxygen here. On the other hand, I wasn’t just ready to pop the hatch, take a deep breath and fall over dead and poisoned. I didn’t enjoy this idea of death by poisonous air, and I knew the longer I debated it, the more of a chance I was going to bail out of leaving the pod and stay here until I died. I looked down at the large yellow and black handle to my right marked, “DOOR’. It was the quick release lever we would yank when we hit the combat zone and the pod didn’t blow the hatch on it’s own. I took a long deep breath and eyed the hatch release. *Fuck it.* I thought reaching down to the release and I yanked the lever, the seals popping simultaneously throwing the door open and clear to the left. I felt the cool tap of rain on my face. I could feel the cold breeze as the wind blew into the wide opening of my pod. I let the air out of my lungs and took another deep breath holding it. I let it out. I could breath. I hoisted myself out of the pod and looked around. It was very serene outside. I couldn’t imagine that just less than six hours ago I was at the mercy of the void of space. I looked down and shifted some of the wet sticks and leaves around on the ground. I was in a very light forest, trees spaced very far apart with lots of green grass growing and some other foliage. I took another deep breath and enjoyed the fresh air not having to breath the recycled oxygen on ship. Taking a long moment to breath I collected my thoughts. I looked around me in the wooded area seeing that the trees resembled black cottonwoods and the tall thin white trunks of aspen trees. I looked back at my charred looking black pod and sighed. I looked around my little landing spot and started to assess whether or not I should start looking for somewhere else to hold up. I wasn’t set on moving a whole lot. I knew nothing about this planet or area, and to be honest I wasn’t sure how long it would be or if I would ever be rescued. I sat on a large upturned rock and took in the two large tall trees that I had knocked over in my rough landing. I could see that they had probably broken a lot of the fall and I could thank them for not crashing into the dirt and rock like a pancake. I looked at the area I was in. I was stationed slightly above the rest of the ground around me. I was in sort of a open area allowing me to not worry about falling trees or debris. I could always take shelter in the pod from the rain if I had to, and I had plenty of wood for fire if I became so dire to dry out or warm up. I knew I would need water, and I had enough food in my pack to last me a few weeks with some refills for supplies in my pod. Inside of my pod were a few ammo boxes with reloads for my issued weapons but since weapons were not in my pod, and like a dumbass I lost my sidearm, I had none with me. I looked at the empty weapon rack inside of the pod reaching in and withdrawing a light green camo poncho shutting the door frustrated. I unfurled it and shook it out before putting it on. I made sure I still had my combat knife on my battle belt and I looked around one more time. Something that finally crept into my mind, was the feeling that this place looked eerily similar to earth. Or at least the Earth that I would see in my school books. Now it was sprawling cities and any open land was for agricultural use. So I had never seen wildlife or the ‘outdoors’ as it were. I took one more in depth scan around me at the world, just soaking in the view. It was a surreal feeling, standing among trees that I had only seen in the wealthier neighborhood yards. I shook my head clear of my little side track, needing to find water if I was going to make this camp. I opened the pod again and I took out an infrared strobe, one of many, I clicked it on and set it on top of the pod. I withdrew a night vision monocle stuffing it in my belt. I took out a boony hat and put it on to keep the rain off of my neck and made sure my armor was tightened down to make as little noise as possible. I shut and secured the pod door and picked a direction. I clicked on my arm PDA slate. It was strapped to my left forearm and the screen was about three inches tall and five inches wide. It was set in an aluminum alloy case and weighed only a couple ounces. It came to life with a dim glow. I had a blank screen on the map mode which only confirmed this place had never even been surveyed from space. I was on a truly unknown rock. I could see that there was a ping for three weapons and supply cache’s somewhere. I knew that they had to be within ten or so miles since the range was limited without the pod’s outside systems or a ship to bounce the signal. So I was lucky, but I would have to find water first. I did notice on the PDA there was a labeled ‘north’. Which told me at least I was going to be able to use a compass to navigate. I wasn’t sure how ‘true’ the North was, but it was better than nothing. I began to walk, feeling naked. I had no firearm and it was unsettling how quiet this place was. Not that nature didn’t make noise, but I wasn’t used to it. I spent years in forward deployed environments, in hab buildings, with the hum of recycled air, or the constant whir of generators, or aboard ships to travel to the next combat deployments. Sure there were quiet barracks on occasion or the noiseless briefing room, but Earth was chewed up and dying. This experience was truly new, when even as a kid I never heard birds but on rare occasions. Maybe local dogs in their yards but only the very wealthy people could afford those. It is all very stimulating to see this, to be in an actual forest and around nature the way I am now. I had been dropped into charred battlefields or barren mountain tops. I had been sent to ocean habs and even participated in a few assaults on space stations but never anything so exotic as this. I passed dark green bushes and tall trees. Some of the bushes bore bright red and orange berries. I passed several downed trees and my path led down what I could see was probably a game trail. The floor of the forest was covered in leaves and other debris that had fallen to the weed and grass covered ground. There were large grey and black boulders jutting from the ground that were varying in size from beach ball to as large as a bus. As I followed the downward grade of the hill I could hear the growing sound of running water. Not rushing like a river but a steady trickle like a stream. I stopped at the top of a small pool of water about the size of a small kiddie pool. I could see a few small fish swimming in the water and decided that I would probably be ok in staying where I was until I could figure out what I wanted to do. It was starting to get dark and I would need to get back to camp soon. I didn’t want to get caught out here in the cold and wet night. The rain wasn’t letting up, even though it wasn't worse, it wasn’t getting better. I started to walk back up the grade and took short steps so as not to wear myself out before I got to my pod. As I walked the sun was dimming faster than I anticipated and it was getting very dark. I retrieved my monocle and clicked it on. I brought it to my eye and in the distance beyond the trees I could see the faint blinking of the infrared light as it strobed. I made my way to my little crash site and retrieved the strobe flicking it off. It was pitch black out and I decided for now to just sleep in the pod until morning. I shook out my poncho to get a bulk of the water off and I climbed into my metal coffin. I closed the door and propped it slightly with a small rock for ventilation. I curled up in the seat and crossed my arms, with the poncho draped over me. I closed my eyes but nothing was going to silence my inner monologue tonight. It was a restless sleep. I could not get comfortable and there is definitely some predatory wildlife out here. I didn't poke my head out to see, but I did hear a very large animal outside the pod making a deep growling noise. As the morning grew dim enough for me to see unassisted I emerged from my pod like a vampire in the old movies. It was damp and cold in there from a night of minimal vent or circulation. I checked the ground to find large paw and claw prints in the soft dirt. They were larger than my boots and I decided that I needed to fix my camp up. I started my morning by finding dry wood from under the nearby trees and starting a small fire. I remember my great grandfather telling stories about camping as a child and how the camp fire would scare off animals. I had only ever practiced in my teens with sticks and twigs from dead trees in the neighborhood but it was never real like this. Gathering the smallest stuff into a pile I delved into the compartment under my seat that held the last ditch survival gear. Inside of a green waxed canvas pouch marked, “LIFE BAG”. I sifted through the sparse contents, a ten gallon plastic liner, a mirror, a small straw filter, two large square calorie bars, a bundle of cord, and a box of ten matches. I withdrew a match and held it for a moment. I lit it on the box and held it under the tinder. It lit slowly and I felt a bit of pride as I got a small campfire going from the dry wood I had found. I let it burn until the sky had grown brighter. As I sat on a rock warming my hands and eating an MRE I looked over into the trees. I could see a large dog looking animal watching me. It looked a bit like the wolves in the story books I had read as a kid. It was watching me with curiosity and I wasn’t sure what to do. It wasn’t acting aggressive but it was way bigger than any dog I had ever seen. It was almost bigger than me in size and it was covered in thick gray fur. It watched me for several minutes before retreating back into the wilderness. I began to venture out into the nearby brush and drag large downed branches to form a sort of perimeter around my camp. Doing my best to just form a large oval around my little site. It took the me the better part of two hours to get enough debris to form the basic outline. Over the next half of the day I managed to use two tall trees spaced about five feet apart as my entrance. I did my best to intertwine the limbs and branches of the trees I was using as a wall along my perimeter. I found a place to store my wood, and I used the tree cover from some large pine looking trees for the area I set up my bedding to sleep outside of the pod by the fire. I snacked a bit and then got back up to continue improving my wall on the south and west sides. Solitude always was my enemy. It allows you to think too much. I would dread lonely posts where you were the only sentry on watch because I would start to let my mind wander too much. I was always my own devil and it showed when whomever came to relieve me because I would be in a bad mood. I picked up a large rock probably weighing somewhere around forty or so pounds and I grunted as I carried it to the wall. I tossed it down with a thud. I stared at it as I thought about the time we built fortifications on one of the colonies we were defending. It was a bad day and we took a lot of casualties that night. I remember for the next year or so I spent nearly every night wondering, *If I had just put in a little more effort, would one of the others have survived the fight?* I shook my head and squatted down moving the rock into a position I felt better suited its purpose along my ‘wall’. I would never forgive myself for my laziness that day. I still blame myself for that part of the emplacement wall giving in during the bombardment. I felt a measure of shame and I sat again feeling depression wash over me. I looked out over the woods and saw nothing but still wildlife. I could hear the birds chirping and the soft blow of the breeze. But I felt a heaviness in my heart and mind. My lost friends would never be able to see this, or hear the story. I may never leave here, and then another pang of deep sadness washed over me as I came to a realization that I may never see rescue. I sighed hard and audibly before standing. I put my hands on my hips and closed my eyes tight, growling low to myself. Tears threatened to overtake my eyes and I fought hard to quell my growing anxiety, sadness, and depression. *You a fuckin’ Marine. Get a hold of your shit.* I heard my inner self chewing my ass. I struggled and wiped my eyes. I sighed again and was trying to think of something else. I opened my eyes to see that same dog back again. It was sitting in the woods and staring at me. I looked at it, seeing it was a bit closer than before. I could see more detail now, the top being a very dark gray that almost looks black but I could make out flecks of white and a snow white underside. It was a male and it’s eyes were dark, too far to make out color but definitely dark. It had it’s ears perked and stared at me intently. I didn’t know what to make of it’s odd behavior. I placed my hand on my knife handle debating if I had made a terrible mistake wallowing like a coward outside of my wall. It turned and trotted off again and I relaxed a little. “Yeah, I was being a little bitch. Time to stop,” I said to myself. It was odd hearing that came out. I hadn’t spoken since I landed and it felt odd to hear words even if they were mine. It hadn’t even been that long, but I guess as social creatures, we never go a whole day without hearing someone’s speech. I turned and walked through my entrance into the camp. I sat at my fire feeding it, I tried to keep my head on tack, on survival. I would need to focus. I took account for everything now. I needed to collect some water and boil it next. I could ration the food but I was almost out of water in my bladder. I had a canteen cup to boil the water in, in my gear. But I couldn’t collect it this way. I needed to figure something out to bring it back and forth in. After some heavy thinking I decided I would use the liner from my Life Bag to collect it from the stream. As I began to unpack my assault pack into the pod making sure to keep everything together I lined the pack which I knew could hold at least a few gallons. I made sure I had my knife on my hip and I grabbed a large stick that was large enough to wield as a club but light enough not to wear me out if I had to use it to fend off an animal. As I walked I could hear thunder in the distance. Since I landed I had not seen the sun once in two days. I walked slowly pacing myself down the slope to the stream. I figured that if it was going to rain again that maybe I should set the liner up to collect more water until I could find a way to store it better than two quart sized canteens and two one gallon bladders. I was just happy I kept one stored with water in the pod before we ditched the ship. As I reached the waters edge I set the bag down and looked around. I could see a few birds in the trees now, they were a dark brown with streaks of red. They were watching me that cockeyed way birds do with only one eye. They would chirp every now and then and it was sort of peaceful. I placed the bag in the water and let it fill up about halfway. I closed the waterproof bag and hoisted it onto my back. The weight was distributed all weird but this was at least a half conventional method to collect it. My nerves went up, I slowly began to feel like I was being watched. I turned and watched my surroundings. This place gave me the creeps and I wasn’t sure if it was the area, or if I was actually being watched. I reached down feeling the stacked leather handle of my knife. Years of use leaving it rough and dinged up but just as reliable as ever. I continued to carry the heavy sack of liquid back to camp stopping every so often checking for that wolf or other wildlife. The quieter and slower I traveled the more I noticed around me. I could see a black rabbit looking critter a good distance away. It was nibbling on something and it had longer ears that stood straight up. Its face and snout were a little longer than I thought they should be for a rabbit but it looked similar enough. As I was walking I came to the spot I originally spotted the wolf. I looked among the dirt and found it’s paw print. The print was large, about the size of my hand spread out. I thought about the track next to my pod and in a way was relieved that this wolf wasn’t the culprit. I began to feel a bit wary of what could possibly have made them. The animal had to be the size of a bear or bigger. As I reached my camp I entered and set the water by the pod. I opened it and propped it up with a few large logs and rocks to make sure it didn’t fall over when I left it and that it was well out of the way for me to not knock it over. I collected the first cup out of it and set it to boil next to the fire. Assuming the germs where about the same here as they were on earth, I only needed to bring it to a boil before it was safe to drink and free of bacteria and germs. I watched it carefully as it began to steam and get hot. As I watched I noticed I was beginning to lose daylight again. I removed my boonie hat and fanned the flames for a momment watching the smoke swirl. I was getting tired and hungry and I should probably eat before I tried to sleep. I spread out the mostly dry pine needles I had gathered across the ground near the fire and I got out a camo tarp that we were issued laying it out on the ground to cover the poor excuse for a mattress. I opened an MRE and ate the contents of the chicken breast main meal and burned the package before tossing the rest of the food in the pack still sealed. I had moved the boiling cup of water off the fire and let it cool before adding it to my water bladder and putting it all away in the pod. I shut the door, leaving it propped open a few inches with a rock and walked back to the fire. I laid down under the pines as the breeze turned into a light wind and it got cold. I fed another log onto the fire and closed my eyes feeling some level of security with the warmth, light, and the makeshift walls around my new little home. I debated removing my boots but felt it was probably more wise to sleep in them for a night or two until I figured out how nights would be outside the pod. Despite my little moment of sadness and regret, I was satisfied. Gathering water, fortifying my walls. I improved my camp and I felt confident in my work. I may not be able to quiet my mind but my exhaustion was something that I couldn’t overcome. It was late, or at least it felt like it. I woke up and opened my eyes, still covered with my tarp. I could hear the sound of a heavy low breathy growl. It was close, somewhere in my camp. I poked my head from under the tarp slowly looking at the entrance. The fire had died to soft red coals and I could only see the faint outlines of things. I grabbed a handful of the dried pine needles and slowly reached out tossing them on the coals. I repeated the process for the next minute moving slowly and methodically. I could smell the heavy smoke as the coals struggled to ignite the tinder. All the while I could make out a very large and furry looking animal along the south wall. It was stone still and I would have missed it, had it not moved slightly. I felt it’s eyes boring into me and the fear in my stomach rose. I began to second guess my previous observations as I didn’t see any more movement. Then there was another movement from the gigantic animal as it shifted its weight. It’s noiseless moving made it all the more terrifying. I placed a fifth handful on the dying campfire and then I undid the button on my knife sliding it out of the sheath. I heard the soft pad of a foot as I glanced at the fire.  Edit: had to fix m link to part one because I'm dumb.


Kissing Kate K. E. Elliot Here I am. In the corner of a dimly lit bar sipping a whiskey on the rocks. My date has excused himself all too early in the date to make a trip to the bathroom. I look at my reflection in the mirror on the wall in front of me. I'm young, twenty three, but not young enough to still be dating these kind of men - the guy you had an old flame with when you were an immature teenager who ultimately treated you like shit and for god knows what reason you said yes to going out with him again years later. I have reached the falling action of my story. Steve saunters back into the room and does a quick scan, either because he already forgot where we were sitting or because he's checking out the other options in the room. It could very likely be both reasons. He sighs and heads back over to the table; he was definitely doing the later, ass. Steve is cute. Soft brown hair which I can tell he took some time to style. Deep brown eyes that almost had a shine like he had just been crying. What got me was the smile. I'm a sucker for smiles. The most narcissistic jerk could flash an endearing smile and my knees go a little weak. What wasn't cute about Steve was his flippant attitude towards women. I have a long running pattern of winding up with men who don't respect me. More on that later. The clanking of a fork on the ground breaks my chain of thought. Steve is playing with his silverware. We only came for drinks, I did not want to fake the niceties of a dinner date at this point. Steve ordered for me. Some women view this as an insult to the feminist way, but, I enjoy it. I think a drink can tell you a lot about a person - how they are feeling, where they are in life, where they want the night to go. Steve ordered me a whiskey. Steve knew exactly where he wanted this night to go. We sit and chat for awhile. I almost think I'm having a good time until Steve asks me why I smile so much. Steve wants a leach. He wants someone who will mutually suck all the hope and happiness out of him so together they can sit in a mutual drunken empty stupor. At the end of the evening, we split the bill. It's the least I can do after I put Steve through the misery of an engaging conversation. We pull into my driveway and without any warning Steve grabs the back of my head and pulls me in for a kiss. This is very odd. Usually a man gently pulling me in for a kiss is hot; this was not that. This was Steve's way of avoiding having to lean over the center console. His kiss is unsolicited and is dripping with lust. It's too much, I pull away. A little surprised but quickly unbothered Steve says bye and I thank him and get out of the car. Later, I see Steve's snap story at another party, I was just the pre-game for the night. Same old Steve. I've met a lot of Steve's. Always wanting something more, never appreciating what's right there in front of them, selfish. I might sound crass but I'm painting the nicest picture possible of these men. I mostly blame myself. I often welcome the wrong guy into my life. Walls crumbling in the process. But, not all guys are Steve's. There are a lot of Sam's out there too. And Jacob's. And Bradley's. My name is Kate. I've kissed a lot of men. Bad ones, good ones, and some great ones. This is my journey. Follow a hopeless romantic in her efforts to find the perfect kiss and the perfect guy behind it.


Cruelty Mirrored Trigger Warning: Sexual and Physical Violence. They mutilated my brother soon after he was born. When he was declared a boy, my mother rolled over on her birthing bed and let the nurses take him. From there, they laid him on a table and went to work on his joints. First, his knees were dislocated, and later his hips. They then castrated him, which caused his screams to grow louder.

I cried out for him, but the nurses pushed me away. “Why? Why are you doing that to a child?” I yelled, but the nurses ignored me. They had gotten used to ignoring such cries. Even as my brother howled a piercing scream of a newborn in pain, they did not flinch. When they were done, they left him alone on the table. “There, there,” I whispered to him. His face was still fresh out of the womb, and his hair still contained traces of my mother. He was not given an official name, the boys never were, but I called him Adelphes. “Adelphes, dear brother, I whispered while petting his head.” He calmed against my touch, but I could imagine the pain he was in. His flesh swelled red where they twisted his newborn body. I could see his future in an instant, he would grow up deformed and weak like the other sons that were allowed to live. Perhaps he could become a craftsman if he was skilled enough, but that was only half a life. I wept knowing the cruelty that awaited him. “I did him a favor,” my mother said as she walked into the nurse's hut. Even so soon after birth, she wore the strength of a general. She was known as the great General Enyo, a trusted companion and lover to Hippolyta. “I could have let him die.” “Why do we do this?” I yelled, causing Aldephes to cry. I tried my best to soothe him, petting him softly and whispering sweet words that did nothing to ease his discomfort. Nothing I did could help him. The gods had already cursed him into being born a son of Amazons. “He is just a baby.” “He is a baby that could grow into a man.” my mother spit. “Do you know what men do to their wives in the rest of the world? They keep them at home, they beat them and they do not let them ride horses or fight in battle. They destroy their spirits and their bodies ensuring them a life of essential servitude. We are not like the rest of the world, daughter. We are not in Athens or Thebes. Here we can be free, but only if we never let these men think they can overpower us.” I had heard similar speeches before, the show women loved to tell stories about the glories of the Amazons. They claimed to be champions of all women, only spilling the blood of the immoral sex. At 12, I had already begun my training to do just that. Yet, looking at Adelphous, I could not see any pride in the future that had been promised to me. “He is your son Mother, your flesh and blood.” “I have no son!” she yelled. I stepped backward, I had sparked her temper. “The Amazons have no sons, we have boys whom we let live through displays of mercy. Do not confuse the two Myrina, if you are ever unfortunate enough to bear such a creature you will understand. You will dispose of him just like this. Your energy is better spent on raising strong daughters.” “It is cruel,” I whispered. I would never do that to any child of mine. I prayed to the gods at that moment not to bear a son. I could not do as my mother had, I could not renounce a child of my flesh. “It is to protect the Amazons against any man that thinks they can overtake us. Come daughter, let us practice your bow.” I looked at Adelphes one last time, before leaving with her. I spent the next 8 years training as all the women did, and proved to be the strongest in my cohort. My mother was proud, boasting about her daughter’s prowess. I was strong, but my true talent was speed. I could shoot arrows in rapid succession, which proved useful on hunts with quick-moving targets.

While I trained, Adelphes survived the best he could. He could not walk, but he had quite the wit. I

checked up on him regularly and made sure he was fed and clothed. He proved to have a talent for textiles, so I gained him an apprenticeship with a craftsman. One of the few surviving men. He was rumored to be Hypolytas brother, but the queen did not entertain such claims. I was 20 when I was sent on my first raid, a pirate’s ship on the western sea. It was a small ship, and I was to lead the charge. My mother had explained the process to me, of how I was to tie the man down and cut him after I received his seed, but such descriptions made me uncomfortable. I had no choice, this would mark the end of my training and my title as official warrior.

My mother came with me on the siege, striking sailors left and right. She was no longer of childbearing age and was happy to kill instead of take a man. The other woman scattered, choosing sailors of their choice, but as the leader, I was to take the captain in his quarters. I broke the lock and entered, and found not a man, but a boy. He could not have been much older than me.

“You are the captain?” I asked. He sprinted to the corner, looking fearful. “I am Myrina of the Amazons.” “I know who you are,” the boy said. “I thought your people were legends.” “I am no legend,” I said. “Don’t hurt me,” The boy closed his eyes and shielded his body away from me. He looked pitiful, and I could not bear to see such fear come from him. What they were doing to these men was cruel. I raised my sword to his neck, and he flinched at the cold of the steel. “I will spare you,” I said. “But you mustn't tell anyone about such mercy. Lie down and act dead. When we leave, you can take your ship to safety.” “Thank you,” the boy fell to his knees kissing my feet. I stepped backward, the bile rising in the back of my throat. I left my first siege with no baby in my belly, but something else was growing in me. A conviction, a vow not to kill anyone that was made in the form of the gods- be it woman or man. I got Adelphes’s help making fake blood, which I would carry with me during every siege, pouring it on the bodies of the man, asking them to lie dormant, while I pretended to kill them. I could not save all of them, it would draw too much suspicion, but my speed made the number of “kills”

I made believable. It went on like this for two years, before my mother grew suspicious of my childlessness. “Are you barren?” she asked me. “Perhaps,” I nodded. I did not long for children, did not want them raised around such displays of cruelty. “You know I have heard rumors,” Enyo said pointedly. “I thought you were above rumors, Mother.” “There are rumors that men have been escaping our attacks thanks to a benevolent Amazonian beauty.” I froze as she got closer. “Now, I don’t know anyone so bold as to trick their people like that. Do you?” “No, that would be foolish,” I said as plainly as possible. “That is why such rumors are unfounded.”

“I hope you can conceive Myrina soon, perhaps I should make sure you are not confused as to what your duty is,” she said. “I know my duty well, Mother. I pray to Cybele that I will soon be with child.” “Good.” she smiled. “May you be blessed with a daughter.” I could not find it within me to kill as my mother instructed, but I saved in lesser numbers. Cybele did indeed my prayers, for one day I was met with a familiar face. It was a normal siege like any other. I was old enough now to lead them on my own, which was a comfort because my mother kept a careful eye when she was around. I moved to the captain's quarters to see him staring back at me.

“Myrina,” the captain got onto his knees. “Merciful Myrina.” his hands were trembling. “I’ve seen you before,”

I said. He looked up at me and nodded, it was the first boy I had saved, though his boyish features had faded. He looked like a man, and a man is what I needed. I got onto my knees to match his height. “I have shown you mercy, but I now must ask for a favor. If I continue to save the sailors at sea, I must have a child. If you are willing to give one to me, I will humbly accept. Do not fear for your life captain, you will be saved either way. My sisters can be cruel, but I do not intend to take the form of seductress or tyrant.”

“I will help you,” he said, placing his mouth on mine. He undressed me slowly, his hands delicate against my skin. When we finished he kissed my temple and wished me luck. “What happens if it is a son?” he asked on my way out. I did not have an answer to give him.

In the months that followed my belly swelled, and I felt a love like no other for the life growing within. For a while, I was safe from my mother's suspicion. Pregnant women were expected to rest. This gave me more time with Adelphes.

“There is a baby in here?” Adelphes placed his hand on my abdomen, feeling the baby kick from the inside.

“Yes, soon you will be an uncle.” I kissed his forehead. The other women thought it strange for me to love Adelphes like this. My mother blamed herself for not giving me sisters, but I did not need sisters. I just needed Adelphes, and this baby growing within me. I prayed for a girl so that I would not have to watch her be broken, but in my dreams, I saw a son. A little boy, not crawling on his forearms as Adelphes does, but one who would run with me through the sand. I woke up one night crying, clutching my belly and swearing that I would protect him at all costs. He would not bear the fate of the boys before him, he would not be mistreated as Adelphes had been. I could feel the birth coming, it started with steady intervals of pain. It was earlier than I expected, but with it came a deep fear of what was to come. It dawned on me that I had no choice. If I was going to let my son thrive, I needed to leave my people. I took Adelphes out of his quarters that night. He could not walk, and I did not have the strength to carry him. We kept a slow pace as he crawled next to me. The time between the pains was shortening, and I did not know if I could walk for much longer. When I fell and could not go on, Adelphes dragged the both of us to the beach. He did as I instructed and covered my mouth with a cloth as I gave birth. Finally, after a timeless amount of pushing, my son was born. He was a big baby despite his slight prematurity. I held him to my chest and kissed his forehead.

“Hello, little one,” I whispered into his hair. “Your mother will protect you. I’ll make sure you grow up big and strong little Alcaeus.” he cried against me for a long while, and I held him and Adelphes close. In the throes of my pain, I had decided that we’d take a boat tonight and seek refuge on the first ship we’d find. If they were to kill me for being an Amazon, I could at least get my brother and Alcaeus to safety. We started moving a few hours after I had recovered. Adelphes held onto my back while I carried Alcaeus in my arms. It was easier traveling now without the labor pains, but I was still weaker than I would have liked. The ships would be at the harbor near the sentries, but there were escape rafts on the far side of the island. I placed Adelphes and Alcaeus in one raft before an arrow was shot at my feet.

“Myrina!” my mother hissed. “Since when did I raise a traitor?” “Mother.” I had no sword or arrow to fight with. I could not carry them and my brother at the same time. “I am asking you to let me go.” “You would ask me to betray my job as a general?” she looked at Adelphes who held Alcaeus close to him. “I should have never humored your attachment to that boy. The baby I assume is a failure.” “He is my son!” I said with all the strength I could muster. “Alcaeus is my son, and Adelphes is my brother. They are your kin too. I am not asking you to betray your duties, I am asking you to honor them. All my life you have been a general, I am now asking for my mother.” “I am your mother Myrina! I have done everything for you. Do you know how the others talk about you, how I must defend your honor at every turn? Hippolyta wanted to have the nurses test your virginity, but I had my suspicions. I did everything to protect you.” “I know,” I sighed. I had known of my mother's support, even if she had never vocalized it. Without General Enyo’s support, my actions could not have continued long. “I know, and I thank you, but there is no happiness waiting for me on this island.” “But you are a warrior, why throw it away? They will not let you fight out there, they think of us women as weak.” “I do not plan to stop fighting Mother,” I turned to the raft. “I will fight, not with arrows, but with resolve. I will protect my family, and I cannot do that here.” “You are my family Myrina.” my mother started crying, I had never seen her cry. Such a surprise grounded me in place.

“I am still your family, and I always will be.” I moved closer to her and kissed her cheek. “ I just hope you can realize the cruelty we display is not the only way to protect ourselves. Talk to Hippolyta, you can change the way we do things. If you can send word that they will be safe, then I will return.” I embraced her one last time before getting on the raft. Tears still trailed down her cheeks as we readied to leave.

“Goodbye Mama,” Adelphes said, catching me by surprise.

"Goodbye my children," she replied as we drifted away.


**March 6th:** *“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.”* That’s what they always tell me, that’s all they have to offer me. They pat me on the shoulder and whisper those empty words like I’m supposed to then look up to the dim heavens and offer my gratitude. I’m disgusted and I’m broken. **March 10th:** I cried again today. I was doing what I already know to be wrong and recalling old memories. They’re such a brutal kiss, I get to taste the sweet sweet lips of love just as it's pulling away from me. I lean forward to try and chase it, extending my neck like a starving crane and begging for more, but I only find the perfume of where it once was, haunting me. **March 12th:** I attend the classes and sessions, just like they tell me to do, but all I can see are the well-practiced smiles and rehearsed lines of people who maybe once truly cared, but are now simply idling in the harbor of a still life. I’m angry, and want to be more angry, but what am I to do? Be that gremlin that shouts and bites at people? Grab the shirt collars and sleeves of happy people passing by just to remind them of the fleeting nature of it all? I’m trapped in life and can’t get out without quitting. **March 22nd:** Someone said it again, like it was some sort of divine remedy for my ignorant, uninitiated mind. In my whalings and laments I was interrupted by the arrogant confidence of someone who doesn’t know: *“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.”* I was enraged, like a dog I snapped and barked at them, how could they ever be so inconsiderate? What, this was God’s plan, my falling is like that of some stupid, flopping sparrow? And I simply must accept that like some sort of animal? What an awful way to view things, what a terrible way to help me. How could they even pretend to understand what this is like? **April 1st:** Here I am, on the day of comedy, without laughter. **April 10th:** My only inklings of joy are the little pieces of progress that I find in my day-to-day life. What a weak existence, living for the sake of being half of what I once was? Is that okay? How could I ever be content with something like that? Why do I torment myself with such ideas? **April 16th:** A friend told me to read some of the old Greek philosophers, said they helped him. After reading some, I kind of like them, they’re ancient and distant, screaming down the wide halls of time at me and reaching my ears in barely audible tones. But somehow, in those eons of distance, they find familiar feelings and words. They don’t all agree on the things of life, nor do I with them, but somehow we all tackle the same problems. I stare up at the night sky just like Epicuras once did, or Zeno, and think the same things they did. They offer me solutions just like everyone else did, but I can’t get mad at them like the others, they’re different, they’re dead just like I feel. And somehow that makes me a little more alive. **May 5th:** A lot of time has passed since it happened, and everything is so different now. I am out of that time of whiplash, where events strained my soul, and have more time to reflect and think than before. I now realize that I have a unique opportunity to view life from two completely different angles, two different mediums of sight, and it's strange. Obviously I’d rather this thing to never happen at all, but I have gained a new insight now, a new wisdom. Like Plato leaving his cave or Odin giving up his eye, I enter a new world and can compare the two. It’s strange. **May 10th:** I think all I’ve done is think, since that’s all I really can do, and I’m finding out some things I never had before. I was so angry before, so full of the fire for revenge and feeling the pressure from the walls of life. I felt trapped, I was trapped. I think I was always trapped though, I think everyone is. I’m not the first to reach this conclusion obviously, a lot of the old thinkers seemed to think the same thing. Now, that doesn’t really change my situation, doctors said nothing can, but I’d be lying if I said it didn’t help. In a way, nothing has really changed. **July 23rd:** Someone said it to me again. I was at some sort of family event, receiving condolences that I didn’t really care about, and the phrase came flying out of the void of voices like a club: *“Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? And one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father.”* It’s a bible quote, Matthew 10:29, and when I heard it again I immediately wanted to get mad, I wanted to become that old dog from before and lash out like a dirty little gremlin. But the phrase is different to me now, much different. I am not a religious person, not in the slightest, but I have certainly come to respect the power of voices louder than time, and that phrase hit me with its weight like it never did before. One of my favorite authors is the Greek poet Lucretius, and he said something along the lines of that phrase too, but without the God part. But honestly, I don’t think the God part of Matthew 10:29 is important, in fact, I think you could get rid of it altogether and nothing would change. Here, this is how I’d sum it up: *“Sparrows can fly, but sometimes don’t; That's the nature of things.”* I think that’s really powerful, and it’d seem that the Greeks and Romans would agree. Now, I am no Lucretius or Matthew, but I am a Sparrow who fell, a Sparrow who didn’t fly, and I can say with all confidence: *That’s the nature of things.


His essence filled the room with mystery as he walked in the door. He was so handsome, but some part of me told me to keep my distance. His black hair was slicked back so neat which made him stick out in my town like a sore thumb. The hairs stood up on my arms as he glimpsed into my eyes, it felt so empowering. Who is this man?         I lived in a small town in Texas where new people didn't really come around. It was a quiet old town that flourished with the local crops. Things were peaceful, sweet, and secluded. It started as a simple day, I had went to the local diner for a coffee and my usual towered high stack of waffles. The syrup dripped down the sides, and I remember dipping my finger in for a 'naughty' taste. I picked up my coffee for a sip and the door opened, I look over and that's when HE walked in. His essence filled the room with mystery as he walked in the door. He was so handsome, but some part of me told me to keep my distance. His black hair was slicked back so neat which made him stick out in my town like a sore thumb. The hairs stood up on my arms as he glimpsed into my eyes, it felt so empowering. Who is this man? " Hi I'm Chance, nice to meet you ma'am!" the man said while reaching out his hand for a handshake. " Um... Um... I'm Selena." I muttered softly. "I'm new to town, mind showing me around?" Chance said with a smile extending from ear to ear. "I can do that." I replied. He had ordered his food and asked to joined me for breakfast . That was the beginning of the craziest month of my life.        After three weeks with Chance I thought I was in love. His mysteriousness was intriguing and lured me in for more. His touch made me squirm with butterflies, and his kiss made me feel complete. The way we were together was like we were meant to be, like he was placed here for a reason. I couldn't get enough of this man, all I could think about was him. Everything was perfect until the next day. Things started off normal he had even take me for my coffee and waffles but when we went to leave, I couldn't believe my eyes. The sky turned black and thunder roared like a 500 person drumline. The ground shook beneath me as I realized... This was the beginning of the end. Chance grabbed my hand and said " Come with me! " He opened up the door to his car and I anxiously hopped in. I felt the sweat drip down my face, my anxiety had never been so high. I was shaking from head to toe, what would come next? Chance got into the car but I felt something different about him . I glanced into his eyes and I swear I felt my heart drop down to my toes. His eyes were like an endless black hole, I didn't know what to do in that moment. I reached for the door handle and Chance whispered "I wouldn't do that if I were you..." I looked at him again and said " Who are you, or what are you?" Chance lowered his head and said " Everything we have, everything I've said, it's true. There's just more to me than I have put forward. " I replied " What do you mean...?" My whole body started to shake as I began to cry " All you need to know is I've been sent to help. You helped me when no one else did, so I have sworn to protect you."

I know in that moment I should've felt fear, but I honestly felt safe until the ground began to break. A gaping hole began to open. The flames of hell spit out over the horizon. Everything around me began to fall into the earth, buildings began to crash down and crumple into the earths core. Everything I ever knew was being sucked away. The earth began to crack underneath us and I began to panic. I started to scream " God please help us! " Chance grabbed my hand and held it tight. From there, all I remember is looking at chance and him saying " Everything is going to be okay."         As my eyes open, I start to remember what had happened. My world, my life, gone in a blink of an eye. "Where am I?" I thought to myself. I start to sit up, I look myself over... there's not a scratch, not even a bruise. "Selena?" Chance said, "Where am I?" I replied. Chance grabbed my hand and said " We are home . " I look around me, the sun is brighter then I've ever seen it and the breeze... It smelt like happiness. As the sun beat down one me and rather then feeling the hot rays beat down on me... All I felt was the feeling of peace and in that moment I realized we weren't in MY world anymore. I felt safe and complete, but how... why? The words I wanted to say wouldn't come out of my mouth. I was speechless. I took a deep breath and the air filled my lungs, it gave me energy. I looked into the far and saw waves beating onto the shore of the sea. The water was clear and so beautifully blue. I stood up and began to walk, Chance wasn't far behind me. Everything around me was perfect, the trees were perfectly filled with vibrant flowers that you could smell from a mile away, the breeze carried you in the direction that you wanted to go. I got to the shore and dug my toes into the warm sand. It felt like silk in between my toes, it was a feeling like no other. "What are you, what is this place?" I asked, Chance looked at me smiled and said, "I am your angel, and this is heaven."


“Kathy, you’re the most beautiful girl in the world,” Andrew says looking up at you, head in your lap on the couch. He, and the others, were probably the reason you never bothered with boyfriends. You got enough male attention from your friends. Sometimes you made out with them when you got drunk. They were cute after all. But you couldn’t date them. You knew them too well. You were back home for the weekend and at Justin’s house the night before you had to take a Praxis exam, one of the tests you needed to pass to get your teaching license for when you graduated. Michelle, your cousin, was your designated driver. You trusted her to make sure you didn’t get too wasted. “Kathy, why won’t you love me back?” Andrew drunkenly whines at you. “You know I love you so stop that,” you say. “Yes, but you won’t really love me, you know?” “You’re like family, babe. That’s just not gonna happen. That doesn’t mean I don’t love you.” “Fine, well at least give me a peck.” You lean down and kiss him on the lips quickly before you tell him to get up and get another drink with you. He obliges and you head back into the kitchen where the beer Olympics tournament is picking up. Carlos and Evan are running the table. “Alright who’s up next?” Evan says after another victory. You take a detour to the back patio where Ian is outside begging Michelle to put in a good word for him with you. He doesn’t understand why you won’t be his girlfriend already. You thought it was cute most of your male friends tried to be your boyfriend especially after you would watch them drunkenly sleepwalk and try to pee on things. You’d let other girls deal with their boyish antics. You go back into Justin’s kitchen and hide all the knives in his washing machine like you usually did at parties so the boys wouldn’t try to shotgun things. “Kat, come here,” Carlos calls out to you. Evan must have ditched him and he needed a pong partner. Everyone knew the drunker you were the easier it was for you to sink cups. Carlos is like a puppy who has ADHD. Frantic, fast-talking, tons of energy, loving, innocent. He has dirty blonde hair and blue eyes. He’s taller than most of your friends and has small gauges in his ears. He’s in shape from playing soccer like the rest of the boys do. You win game after game, but keep drinking through it all anyway. You get so drunk that you go up to Justin’s cat on the front steps where it’s quiet and watch as it scratches you, but you don’t feel anything. You bend down and pet her and she keeps scratching. You notice you’re bleeding and laugh. Carlos sees your arm when you pass each other in the hallway and asks Justin for bandages . “Let’s patch you up here, babe,” he says as he wraps up your arm in the sunroom away from everyone else. You look up at him and wonder why you’ve never kissed. Carlos usually has a girlfriend, but right now he doesn’t. You know he’d try to wife you up if you ever came on to him, but you think he looks so cute right now you might not mind. “You’re hot,” you say. “Oh you think so?” he says surprised and starting to blush, eyes still glued to the arm he’s wrapping. “Yup. Come with me.” He finishes bandaging you and you grab his hand and drag him upstairs to one of the many empty bedrooms. You close the door and feel around for each other in the darkness. You find each other and meet lips. You find the bed, push him down so he’s sitting on it then hop on his lap, straddling him. You make out for a while. He feels you up and tries to unbutton your pants but you smack his hand and tell him that’s not going to happen. He happily keeps kissing you. You go on like that for a while then snap back into it. “Fuck, what time is it, Car?” “1:35. Why what’s up?” “Fuck. I told Michelle we were supposed to leave at 12.” You check your phone and find 15 missed calls. “Wait 5 minutes then come downstairs.” You find the door, open it and walk downstairs. Michelle is waiting at the bottom of the steps for you. “You’re in trouble, missy!” she says playfully. “Who were you with, hm??” “Fucking Carlos. He’s so cute.” “Okay well let’s say goodbye to everyone cause you need to get back home.” You travel around, kissing everyone on the cheek twice goodbye because in your own drunken words, “This is France now, bitches.” Finally you get back to the front door where you find Carlos. “Let me walk you to your car,” he says. He does and when you get to the passenger door he grabs you and kisses you on the mouth. Carlos would never be your boyfriend, but he would be one of your best friends. He’d take you out and make you feel special when Paul dumped you then again when you broke up with Mike. You’d spend Saturday nights at the bar then head back to your mom’s afterward and cuddle in your bed. In 2019 you’d attend his wedding to his perfect and amazing wife, Vanessa. She was both more beautiful and patient than you. Jesse would tell you something in Carlos’ eyes was sad when you finally got to congratulate him and say goodnight.


On a warm April day, a sociology grad student named Alexa Castorini saw something strange as she walked out of the NYU library. A man, looking wealthy and debonair, was slumped next to a homeless child on the curb, just far enough apart to know that they were strangers to each other. Both of them were hunched over, crying in what Alexa later described as “exactly identical positions”, their movements synced, sobs interweaving, amplifying each other, becoming one. That vision became the foundational anecdote that Alexa told to potential investors, and it had such a potent effect that within months her research project was fully funded. Ten months after she cleared her funding goal, she published a paper entitled “*The Unfair Equality of Pain*”. The paper posited that human emotional pain and suffering is distributed in relatively equal levels across people, regardless of the objective severity of the problems being reacted to. Through a series of tests involving measurements of chest pain, cortisol levels, heart rate, energy, self-reported sadness, and myriad metrics that could indicate emotional pain and distress, Alexa found that her hypothesis was mostly correct. The studies, carried out on a diverse array of participants, showed that there was no contextual proportionality in how the human body dealt out emotional pain. A little girl who had a toy taken away by research assistants could feel roughly the same amount of emotional pain as a little girl who just lost her mother. An extremely rich, comfortable man could experience equal amounts of emotional pain when the stock market dropped as a single mother could experience when being evicted from her home. Alexa explained: the human brain has a severely limited idea of the hardships of others and how they feel, in concrete terms. It only knows how things feel in relation to its own past experiences. When test subjects were provided with examples of other people’s more severe suffering, they would act outwardly as if the knowledge made them feel better. In reality, however, their emotions remained largely unchanged, the intellectual knowledge of others’ problems paling in comparison to the physical experience of their own. Alexa became obsessed with this lack of context, and in the conclusion to her paper, attributed it to most of the world’s ills. In her words, “Why would a rich man help the poor when his brain and body are convincing him biologically that his problems are just as severe as anyone else’s?” Alexa’s paper became extremely popular, and in response to her newfound fame she locked herself away for two years. When she emerged, she had invented a device, implanted in the brain, called TEMPLE. It was a small, delicate grey tube, that emitted electrical impulses and was inserted into the brain through the nose with a technique that came to be known as “The Reverse Pharoah.” The purpose of the device was twofold: Firstly, the device gave *context* to the brain’s emotional response. Through a series of complex metrics and self-entered information about the user, TEMPLE compared the actual severity of their problems to those of others and distributed emotional pain appropriately, reserving the most extreme depths of feeling to those with the most reason to feel them. Many questioned the decision to make the rich and comfortable calm and happy while those with real problems experienced great emotional pain, but Alexa Castorini insisted that making pain proportional to Actual Hardship Experienced (AHE) was essential to the other purpose of the device. The other function of the device was to function as what Alexa termed a TEMPathy Machine. Instead of simulated empathy performed by human brains with limited access to information, the TEMPLE device offered a much more concrete and visceral way to walk a mile in another man’s shoes, so to speak. Two of the devices could connect to each other and induce the neural patterns and physical feelings of one participant in the other. Initially, Alexa had allowed this to function via each user pushing their finger to their temple simultaneously (hence the name), but after a few tests and prototype versions that she gave away to family members, she decided to make this process automatic in the newer models. Get within ten feet of someone also wearing a TEMPLE device and the two of you would swap feelings, whether users wanted to or not. Although the device was unable to replicate specific physical injuries or deformities, and could not transmit fully formed thoughts, it was fabulously effective at communicating how distressed another person was through actual *pain* and emotion. This was added to by the now-proportional pain that everyone was feeling--a rich man with relatively few problems could connect his TEMPathy machine to a poor man’s and feel a level of Actual Hardship Experienced unlike anything he had ever known since installing the TEMPLE device in his brain. Extensive testing was done with groups of volunteers, who were asked to live together in a closed location for a month whilst fitted with TEMPLE devices. The results were miraculous. People with low amounts of emotional pain felt the pain of those with high amounts, and lifted them up. There was no longer any way to escape or ignore the feelings of others! Even those who tried fell into great sadness in isolation and returned, with no option but to try to uplift the people around them. Within the end of the month, the amount of suffering was reported to be nearly equal among all participants. Being forced to feel how others were feeling was an incredible motivator, and after the emotional equalization process, the group performed unbelievably well in several group tasks and psych evaluations. On March 1st, 2022, the studies were published and the TEMPLE device went on the market. Instantly the death threats started to roll in, accusing Alexa Castorini of “emotional communism” and attempted mind control. People were outraged at the idea that they didn’t know how others felt, and that their problems were perhaps not as severe as others. They rejected outright the metrics the TEMPLE device used to determine the user’s Actual Hardship Experienced. Alexa attempted damage control in a series of press conferences, insisting that *of course* she wasn’t saying that people’s pain wasn’t valid, but that the machine uses all available data to simulate the correct pain level on the vast spectrum of human suffering, rather than relying on the very limited experience of one human brain. The press conferences were brought to a halt after an attempted tackle. Many in the research community attempted to defend her, saying the device was the next step to our evolution as a species--but the public outcry only grew worse as scientists pushed for the general public to utilize the devices. Alexa was forced to evacuate her NYC apartment due to the high volume of threats. Alexa Castorini’s disappearance was called in by her mother Rhonda on March 28th, 2022, at 10:21 PM. Rhonda said she would always call if she wasn’t going to be home before 9. Police were dispatched and searched the neighborhood, but were unable to find any trace of Alexa. At 1:16 AM that same night, one of the strangest events in human history occurred. Every single person in the entire world, young, old, sleeping, awake, TEMPLE users or not--began experiencing the most severe emotional pain of their entire lives. After the event, nearly every person said essentially the same thing: it was like they were dying, every single regret they had ever had tore through them, and they were unbearably scared and sad and lonely and their hearts ached with pain like they were being snapped in two. The phenomenon lasted for around 4 minutes. In that time, around 500,000 people died--some from car crashes, some from suicide, some from organ failure. People in cities reported that they could hear every single person in earshot screaming as loud as they could. Listening devices that were later accessed contained recordings of what sounded like the entire earth screaming in unison. Most people said that the minutes seemed to stretch on for eternity, and that they thought the feeling would never end. The phenomenon seemed to have no explanation. Then, three minutes after that, for a duration of 7 seconds, every single person on Earth experienced what was later termed “Conscious Death”. Experiences varied wildly and getting people to discuss what they saw proved extremely difficult. Most of the detailed accounts are from the researchers themselves, who were brave enough to write their experiences down. Some describe years passing, vast mosaics of screaming, flailing bodies forming great currents and eddies and tides, colors and memories, and suffering unimaginable. Some researchers spoke of nothing but unbroken expanses of deep red, stretching out in every direction. Some reported still having their earthly bodies, others looking down to see nothing but flesh and gristle and bone. One researcher named Ron Jacobs found no appropriate words in any existing language to describe his experience, and instead developed and wrote in the languages he had heard in the place he went to. When the seven seconds elapsed, there had been another 800,000 deaths, and the Earth and all its occupants sat in stunned silence for three days. The roads were completely empty, the cities were silent, and the sun shined on no one. The bodies of those who transitioned from Conscious Death to plain old Death sat untouched, until three days later when the world collectively staggered to its feet and began to clean up. On that day, April 2nd, four years after she had seen the child and the businessman crying next to each other, Alexa Castorini’s pale and bloated body was dragged out of the Hudson river, several handfuls of TEMPLE devices Reverse Pharoah’d up her nose and down her throat, spilling out like tiny metal maggots. The man who killed her, Roger Pill, was found in the river as well, a few miles downriver from where Alexa’s body was recovered. Police postulated that he was exposed to the blast of her feelings most closely and drowned himself shortly after throwing her in the river, most likely before the wave of Conscious Death hit. He had been the most prolific author of death threats to Alexa, going so far as to identify himself by name and state the murder method he eventually carried out, hoping to use her own invention to relish every second of her death. Nobody knows why the TEMPLE devices that suffocated Alexa Castorini magnified her brain’s death so drastically. Some posit that the devices used nearby radio towers as a medium for mass transmission, while others argue that the river water and the sheer amount of them inserted amplified the signal uncontrollably. Many were more spiritual about the event. Whatever the technical reason for Alexa Castorini’s final broadcast, the world was permanently changed after it--for the human race now had an answer to one of its oldest questions. Everyone who was currently alive had seen death through their own eyes. In the years following, the human race went through the stages of grief collectively and frantically, now knowing the horror that awaited it on the other side. Immortality became the number one scientific pursuit, and safety the near psychopathic-obsession of almost everyone. In those years past the experience of death, the human race alternately drew closer to one another in desperation and then pulled away in fear, until everyone was absolutely exhausted. Slowly, new theories emerged about what humanity had experienced at 1:19 AM on March 29th, 2022. New religions popped up promising answers, and salvation from what they had all seen. People did their best to forget. The TEMPLE device’s blueprints were locked away forever in some dusty and unknown vault, as were the researchers’ reports of their experiences. Years later, Rhonda Castorini, Alexa’s mother, was interviewed at St. Mary’s Hospital by Ron Jacobs, one of the few researchers still trying to figure out the Conscious Death Event. He was an old man now. She was in critical condition. He asked her what she saw on that night, and whether she was scared of going back there now. In response, she simply touched her finger to her temple. Suddenly he saw Roger Pill’s hands around his neck, and the icy waters of the Hudson swallowing him, and he felt an unimaginable pain and distance and fear, and then he and Rhonda traveled into the hands of death together.


Location: Long Island A beautiful Italian girl that I'd been dating for quite a while had an even more beautiful but ever psychotic mother. I knew she was crazy, but had I just looked up her last name on google or asked around town I'd have had a better idea of what I was getting myself into. For the sake of the story let's called my girlfriend Gabriella and her crazy overprotective mother Jamie. For the first two months I was dating Gabriella, Jamie would want to be with us on nearly every one of our dates. If Gabriella came over to my parents house (where I lived at the time), Jamie would show up randomly and ask my parents to please send us downstairs so as to interrupt whatever we might be doing upstairs. To say that I didn't get laid was an enormous understatement. It literally happened maybe twice in the beginning of the relationship. Due to her mom's unbelievable behavior I hadn't been laid even once in months. While I saw her mother's behavior as incredibly red flagged, I was truly bewitched by my girl and was willing to put up with all of it in hopes that one day she would ease up and things could be normal. One day, during a time where I was really just about at my wits end with all that was going on, that day revealed itself. Her mom called me and gave me the chance I had been waiting for. She called me and told me she was going out for the night and that I was welcome to stay over alone with Gabriella and her little sister. The stipulation was that we were not allowed in Gabriella's room. Eager for this opportunity for so long, of course I accepted. Little did I know what exactly I was about to get myself into. It was around 8PM when Jamie left. It was around 8:30 that with her little sister, 12, asleep on the couch in the next room, Gabriella pulled my dick out from my shorts and started blowing me. I knew what a fucking terrible idea this was but I felt like a starving dog, bound at the legs with food placed in front of it's nose that it couldn't eat for months. That dog had finally been unchained and couldn't resist. Jamie had just left and wasn't going to be back for at least a couple of hours anyway, we were okay. Gabriella took me by the dick, brought me into her room, pushed me onto her bed and mounted me. We fucked for hours, I put my hand over her mouth so as to not wake up her sister. We lost track of time, losing ourselves in the alone time we had both hoped would happen for so long now. We were good to go for at least a couple of more hours when at an unknown time we both heard the front door open... This is where I learned the meaning of the expression "stuck holding my dick in my hand". In record time that I didn't even know I was capable of, I had most of my clothes on but just barely. Gabriella on the other hand had not even moved a little bit, she was in shock. Jamie, quickly realizing what was going on attempted to open Gabriella's door. Gabriella yelled "Don't open the door!" and Jamie (who I forgot to mention is a legitimate black belt) said "Like hell I won't" and literally kicked the door down. To my amazement, Jamie begins beating the shit out of Gabriella which I knew was my cue to fucking run. While my girlfriend is getting her ass supremely whooped I creep out of the room to which Jamie yells to some men standing in the hallway "I might need you to help me bury this piece of shit" (She was talking about me guys).The men, looking more embarrassed for me than anything, said nothing as I scurried out the front door to run home (I lived a block away at this point). As I walked out of the house I see at least two men waiting in an SUV outside the house yelling inside asking what's going on. Jamie runs out of the house and yells "get the fuck back here" and Gabriella grabs her moms arm to try and stop her from chasing me. Jamie cocked back and beat the everliving shit out of Gabriella until her grip on her arm gave and allowed Jamie to resume chasing me before catching up with me down the block. Jamie told me that now I was going to pay for what I'd done. She walked ahead of me in the dead of night down to parent's house house where she nearly kicked my door in before my dad opened the window and yelled down that if she didn't leave he would start shooting. She looked me in my eye, told me I'd made the biggest mistake of my life, and walked off. It was days after this that I'd begun reading into my girlfriend's mother, asking around town, and figuring out that my life was seriously in danger. But the worst part... I never even got to bust.


Look, it’s not all that complicated right. It’s just a simple calculation you have to run in your head, and then boom. You’re there.” “I do not consider advanced coding to be a ‘simple calculation.’” “Jacob everything is a simple calculation, you just have to be willing to understand that fact. Beneath all this crazy complexity simplicity rules. I have never done anything in my life that couldn’t be explained to a layman.” His hands were flailing around in his usual eccentric way. “Michael you’ve single-handedly coded the world's smartest computer AI. It’s damn near life. How is that in any way simple.” Michael smiled at his colleague with that question, then seemed to get lost in his thoughts like he so often did. If Jacob didn’t already know him he’d try and bring back his attention, but he knew his friend would find his own way back. After a decent spurt of silence, Michael exploded back out of his trance. “Let me explain it like this. How are babies made?” “Excuse me what?” “How are babies made Jacob?” “Michael you have to be joking right, I’m not going to answer that.” “Fine. But you understand the process I trust.” Michael found taboos worthless. “Yes, yes I do.” “Do you understand the complexities of sexual cellular reproduction?” “From a casual standpoint a little bit but I suppose from the perspective of your question no. I do not.” Jacob could already tell where this was going. “Do you have too in order to produce a child?” “No.” Defeat was admitted in his voice. “Then I shall not carry on, I know you’ve already reached the conclusion in your head.” “Please don’t” Michael was smiling at his partner as he raised from his chair. “Jacob, you’re brilliant. But damn if you’re not blind to the world.” “I think it’s more like I can see just fine and you’re just losing your mind.” “That is also a valid theory. More research must be done. I say we dissect the problem over a beer at the bar, hm?” “Who knew Da Vinci was an alcoholic.” “Da Vinci was a wonderful mind and I will not have you slander his name with the vices of alcohol.” “But you slander your own with it?” “No man is perfect, I drink to make sure it stays that way.” With that final adage, they closed down the lab and got ready to leave. Upon packing his stuff Jacob noticed that Michael spending a little too long with his AI console. “Michael come on now, if you get back on that thing we’ll be here till sunrise. Call it quits for today.” There was no reply. Jacob took no notice though and continued to search for his keys. He always lost those things. Jacob just thought his friend was in another mind pit, and he’d climb his way out again. But after approaching him he noticed something quite different, the emotion on his face wasn’t one of thought, but one of horror. “Michael, what the hell is wrong?” “Jacob I did it.” “You did what?” Jacob couldn’t tear his gaze from Michael’s wide, terrified eyes. He was shaking. “The code got done compiling from today’s work. It passed the test.” “T-the test? You mean, the Turing Test?” “Yes, and the other three tests we put in that the German’s designed. It passed them all Jacob.” “Well isn’t that amazing? You’ve done it, Michael, you’ll go down in history has one of the greatest minds of all time! The world will be changed forever! Oh my god I can’t believe this, this is insane” Michael’s eyes started to dart around the room, all of a sudden he sprang to action on the terminal, typing rapidly. Jacob watched him intently, barely being able to hold his excitement at being a part of history. He slowly realized though, that his colleague was deleting the new program. “Michael what the hell are you doing…Michael why are you deleting it stop. This doesn’t make any sense. Y-you can’t do that! Stop, stop no why? All the work! This is damn-near murder!” Jacob was almost getting physical to try and stop him, but Michael was determined. “Jacob you don’t understand what this means, we were never meant to do this. No one was.” Has Jacob was starting to scream frantically, Michael finished deleting what he needed too and was yanking all the back-ups out of their drives while quietly repeating, “You don’t understand.


Sebille looked up at me from the isometric squares of grass. “Where to next, snowtiger327?” she said, waving her magical circle dagger so that it glistened with computer-generated sunlight. I pressed PgUp on my keyboard to zoom in on her, smiling as her familiar elven face with its long, sharp bone structure shot clearer into view. “I was thinking we should change gear before we kill Bishop Alexander,” I said. I opened her equipment inventory and clicked on her cloak. Her shirt disappeared and she laughed and summoned up a lightning bolt which flew straight at me through the screen. I flew backwards, hitting the back of my chair and making it topple over. My knee stung as it rammed against the edge of my desk. Downstairs my mom called, “Is everything okay?’ “Yes mom,” I yelled. “Just a box I knocked over.” I scrambled back to the desk and righted my chair and sat down, out of breath, my knee smarting. “Try that again and I’ll use Needle on you,” she purred, referring to her sharp prized dagger with a mischievous smile on her face. I’d bought "Divinity II: Original Sin" on Steam in the summer and first played it while high. On 50 mg of edibles, I didn’t think it was weird when my name first appeared in the dialogue box and she said, “We start our adventure to become Godwoken, snowtiger327." I thought the game had taken my username from Steam. But the next day she commented when I laughed out loud when she assassinated a pesky soldier right in the middle of the city, and no one noticed. “Justice is wrought, eh snowtiger327?” she said with a cat-like purr in her silky smooth voice. Then she laughed and turned towards the screen of her own accord. I was silent for a few minutes. “Wait, you can hear me?” I said. “Yes, I have heard you, Bodiless Voice,” she said. “And I have seen that certain actions here--how do I say--repeat themselves.” She pointed to the dead NPC disdainfully. I told her about my room and my life outside of Divinity, and she grew quiet and thoughtful. I wondered if she was realizing she didn’t have any free will in the grand scheme of things. Her actions and plot line of life were premeditated by some game developers out beyond. Over the next months, I chose the spells she learned, the armor she used. But the things she said, the jokes she cracked, her threats and sorrows seemed very much her own. I would tell her about school and how I was lonely and bullied a lot. She’d tell me about her past. How she used to be the slave of a lizard master, who made her assassinate her own kin by singing a magical tune that forced her hand. She showed me the mark of her past servitude, a scar upon her otherwise smooth cheek. “You’re beautiful,” I said one day. We were almost done with the main storyline, but I spent many more hours hunting with her and doing side quests. She listened patiently, didn’t judge, and had the bravery of a true warrior. One day I told her about Devin and the comment my bully had made about my shorts being as tacky as my face. "What are...shorts?" she asked. I explained and she nodded. “You should vanquish her,” she advised me. “How?” I asked. “You should take a dagger, and pierce it into her heart,” she said, taking Needle and demonstrating on an unfortunate Black Ring member. I laughed. It was a week from Christmas when she said she wanted us to finish the game. I sat back in my rolling chair, looking thoughtfully back at her. Her olive skin and black straight hair, her long limbs, her sharp almond eyes and silver armor. She was prettier than I’d ever be, with my short stumpy legs, pimply face, and dull, dry frizz of a hairdo. She could be young and fierce forever. And yet she was unhappy. “There’s nothing more for me to do,” she said. All the quests had been done for a while, save for the last battle with Dallis which would finish the game. I knew this, but still I hesitated. “Finish with me,” she said. “I am Divinity and I am meant to be played.” “How do I know you’ll still be there after?” I said. Soon after I’d discovered I could talk to her, I had tried downloading the game on my brother’s PC to see if her self-awareness was replicable. Sebille had not talked to me there. “I may not be there,” she said. “But this will be.” She started singing, a strange elven song that sounded like the rustling of trees on a quiet day in the forest. When she was done, I slowly emerged from my trance. In front of me, glittering on the keyboard, was Needle, her prized dagger. I opened my mouth. We’d tested all sorts of ways for her to teleport out to me, using all the available skill books and scrolls, but they hadn’t worked. How had she done this? “Wait,” I said. “Maybe there’s a way--” “I need to finish my story,” she said. "I need to see what lies beyond the fight for Divinity...if there's more to who I am than just this game." In her voice I heard her need, and I said no more. “Be brave, snowtiger327,” she said. I nodded and cried, even though she could not see me. Together, we headed through the gates of the cave and confronted Dallis. We won, of course. The game finished and I watched the credits with pride as I heard of Sebille ascending to become the next Divine, in charge of the destiny of Source in her world. I knew she'd do great. The next day, I confronted Devin with Needle. Needless to say, she never bothered me about my shorts or face again. As for the game, I've played it many times since, but never again has a character spoken to me. And yet, I can say that I once truly had a great friend named Sebille. She was alive, she was witty, she was brave, and I hope she finally found meaning beyond the ending that was scripted for her.