#Welcome to the Micro Monday Challenge! Hello writers! Welcome to Micro Monday! I am excited to present you all with a chance to sharpen those micro-fic skills. What is micro-fic? I’m glad you asked! Micro-fiction is generally defined as a complete story (hook, plot, conflict, and some type of resolution) written in 300 words or less. For this exercise, it needs to be at least 100 words (no poetry). However, less words doesn’t mean less of a story. The key to micro-fic is to make careful word and phrase choices so that you can paint a vivid picture for your reader. Less words means each word does more! Each week, I’ll give you a single constraint or jumping-off point to get your minds working. It might be an image, song, theme word, sentence, or a simple writing prompt. You’re free to interpret the prompt how you like as long as you follow the post and subreddit rules. **Please read the entire post before submitting.** Remember, feedback matters! And don’t forget to upvote your favorites and nominate them using the new form!   *** #This week’s challenge: **Sentence: The garden held a secret.** **Bonus Constraint (worth 5 extra pts.)** - Story doesn't reference colors. Instead, try using sounds, smells, shapes, tastes, or even touch to transport your readers! This week’s challenge is to use the above sentence in your story, in some way. You may add onto it, or change the tense if necessary (i.e. “held” to “holds”), but the original sentence should stay intact. **Stories without the above sentence will be disqualified** from rankings. The bonus constraint is not required. **Don’t forget to after the submission deadline!** (The form usually opens at about 11:30am EST Monday.) You get points just for voting.   *** #How It Works - **Submit a story between 100-300 words in the comments below.** You have until **Sunday at 11:59pm EST**. (No poetry.) - **Use to check your word count.** The title is not counted in your final word count. Stories under 100 words or over 300 will be disqualified from campfire readings and rankings. - **No pre-written content allowed.** Submitted stories should be written for this post, exclusively. Micro serials are acceptable, but please keep in mind that each installment should be able to stand on its own and be understood without leaning on previous installments. - **Come back throughout the week, read the other stories, and leave them a comment on the thread with some feedback.** You have until **2pm EST Monday** to get your feedback in. Only **actionable feedback** will be awarded points. See the ranking scale below for a breakdown on points. - **Please follow all subreddit rules and be respectful and civil in all feedback and discussion.** We welcome writers of all skill levels and experience here; we’re all here to improve and sharpen our skills. You can find a list of . - **Nominate your favorite stories at the end of the week .** You have until **2pm EST** next Monday to submit nominations. (Please note: The form does not open until Monday morning, after the story submission deadline.) - **If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on the *stickied comment* on this thread or through modmail.** Top-level comments are reserved for story submissions. - And most of all, be creative and have fun!   *** #Campfire - On Mondays at 12pm EST, I hold a Campfire on our server. We read all the stories from the weekly thread and provide verbal feedback for those who are present. Come join us to read your own story and listen to the others! You can come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. Everyone is welcome!   *** #How Rankings are Tallied Rankings work on a point-based system. Here is the current breakdown. (A few adjustments have been made; note that upvotes will no longer count for points). - **Use of prompt/constraint:** 20 points (required) - **Use of bonus constraint:** 5 points (not required) - ***Actionable* Feedback on the thread:** 5 points each (up to 25 pts.) - **User nominations:** 10 points each (no cap) - **Bay’s nomination:** 40 pts for first, 30 pts for second, and 20 pts for third (plus regular nominations) - **Submitting nominations:** 5 points (total) **Note on feedback:** - Points will only be awarded for **actionable** feedback. So what is actionable feedback? It is feedback that is constructive, something that the author can use to improve. An actionable critique not only outlines the issue or weakness, but uses specific examples and explanations to describe why it may be doing, or not doing, what it should. Check out as an example.   *** #Rankings - **First:** - Submitted by u/rainbow\-\-penguin - **Second:** - Submitted by u/Farmasuetickles - **Third:** - Submitted by u/katherine_c - **Bay’s Spotlight:** - Submitted by u/Blu_Spirit - **Crit Star** - u/Farmasuetickles - **Crit Star** - u/FyeNite - **Crit Star** - u/katpoker666 - **Crit Star** - u/rainbow\-\-penguin *Note: Crit Creds are awarded to users who go above and beyond with critiques and can be used on r/WPCritique. Don’t forget in order to receive them, you also must have made at least one post on WPC *or* have linked your reddit account to the sub on our .* *** ###Subreddit News - Join in our weekly writing chat on . We discuss a new topic every week! New here? Come introduce yourself! - Try your hand at serial writing with ! - You can also post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday.


Two of our own and one of O’Riley’s goons are dead in an alleyway on Ludlow and Canal, and the only witness we have is some street kid who says he didn’t see anything. At least, that’s what I think he said. Couldn’t take him to the station - it’s crawling with crooked cops who’ll tip off the family before we even get the cuffs off. Had to do it in a warehouse down the road and had to call in Mulroney. He’ll get this egg to crack. “Whadda we got,” Mulroney said. “Neighborhood kid,” I replied. “Not giving us his name, and he’s got no ID.” “So make him talk.” “I’ve been trying.” “And.” “And he’s *been* talking. But-” “But what?” “He only responds to me in Martin Scorcese projects.” “What do you mean?” “Like he responds to everything we ask with the name of something directed by Martin Scorcese. And I gotta say, it’s crazy how so many of his titles fit standard police questions.” “Alright, Thompson. Hand me a smoke and meet me in there. I’ll take care of this.” Mulroney approached the door of the makeshift interrogation room and gave it a few taps. “Who’s That Knocking at my Door?” I saw Mul throw on and off a confused look in a split second, but it didn’t phase him. Consummate professional, this guy. “Name’s Detective Mulroney, and I want to ask you about what you saw.” He pulls a chair up next to the kid. “But first, I just want you to tell me about yourself.” “Italianamerican.” “Alright. What else? What age are you?” “The Age of Innocence.” You can see when it clicked for Mulroney. “Where do you live?” “New York, New York.” “What do you do?” “Taxi Driver.” “Motherf-” Mulroney’s met a lot of hard-boiled eggs doing this job, but this kid’s a full 20 minutes. He’ll get through. The detective’s been here before. I mean, not in this specific situation. “Let’s move on to why we’re talking to you. I want you to tell me what happened back there. In as much detail as possible.” “Gangs of New York. Silence.” "Who was silent?" "The Irishman." “Okay…anything else? You do know I’ve got dead officers on my hands. Two great men.” “Goodfellas.” “This some joke to you? I’m dealing with five of these a night in this city.” “Mean Streets.” His patience was razor thin. He was ready to charge the kid, like some kind of raging bu- Suddenly Mulroney lit up with an idea. “How about we go with something simple? Can you give a description of the person that killed O’Riley’s man or the cops? What was…the color of his shirt?” “The Color of Money.” “Alright, good. What time did this dust-up go down? While people were still working at the bank next door?” “After Hours.” “Okay, okay. Good. Thompson, you writing this down?” “What else, kid?” I hand Mulroney the bullet shell I picked up at the site. “You know where this would come from, kid? Can you see it alright?” “Shine a Light.” The flashlight beam bathed the table and casing in a soft white glow. The kid picked up the shell. “Made in Milan.” “Alright, we can trace back the bullet manufacturer and see which gang has the connection. But how could a kid like you know that?” “My Voyage to Italy.” Always leave it to Mulroney to turn this cold case white hot again. But before we get anything else out, we heard a loud smash from the back door. “Damn - sounds like O’Riley’s boys coming to collect a trophy. Thompson, if we hold them off long enough, the kid can get out the side door.” “Sure thing.” “Kid, you gotta leave. I need you to meet me at the 14th Precinct tomorrow at noon. Any family you can go to in the meantime?” “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.” “Man, that’s annoying in this particular situation. Mul, what should we do?” “Just get out of here, kid. Thompson, get ready for a fight.” “No,” the kid said. I furiously racked my brain for Martin’s filmography, but I got nothing. Wait, I got nothing. “Hugo,” the kid said. “I’ll stay.” I’ve never forgotten the calmness of that kid’s face, or the embrace between him and Mulroney. Like a father watching his son become a man. There was no time to soak it in. One brave kid showing a lifetime of courage in a single moment. So just like that, we departed.


*\*Edit: I removed the "Prologue" because I don't think it is necessary or adds to the story.* Chapter One: Vampires I rubbed my eyes to remove the sleep. Sitting up in my bed, I could see from my window that it was already dark outside. I glanced over to my clock. 9:00 PM. That's good. That means I slept 12 hours. And it gives me time to get ready before Emily and her friend pick me up at 11:00 PM. I consider myself nocturnal. I prefer to sleep during the day and be up at night. I never liked waking up early or having a typical 9-5 job. Not that I have a job now. Since graduating high-school 5 years ago I have not been able to keep a steady job. I move from one shitty paying job to another. After I was fired from my last one for spitting in a client's meal, I decided to say fuck it and give up. No one was doing anything big or important in this shitty town anyway. Over the past 10 years I've watched the city atrophy. Businesses left, people moved out, and only those who were too poor or too stupid to leave stuck around, including my family. I knew the moment I graduated high school that I was never leaving this city. That I would live and die here. Not because I want to stay here, but because no one leaves here anymore. No one comes and no one goes. Not since the gangs moved in... With a sigh I crawled out of my bed and made my way over to my dresser. I pushed the negative thoughts out of my head as I looked through my drawers to put together an outfit. I had recently turned 23 and tonight I was going to celebrate. There's nothing else to do in hell hole than work, sleep, fuck and party. And for the rest of tonight I only planned to do one of those things. I slid a black cropped tank top of my head, followed by a black mesh top. I put on my favorite pair of fitted black cargo pants, accessorized with chains, and completed my look with black platform combat boots. I brushed out my shoulder length hair and parted it down the middle. The dyed green ends starting to fade and blend into my natural dark brown color. I wrapped each side up into bun and pulled some strands out to frame my face. I then took my time working on my make-up. I wanted to really sell the "goth/rave girl vibe". I found some assorted bright neon stick on gems and applied them around my eyes, covered with dark green eye shadow and an intense black liner. Lastly, I put on matte black lipstick, set my face and hair so the look would hold all night, and the sprayed some body glitter on my arms and around my collarbone. I grabbed some studded earrings and bracelets and took one last look at myself in the mirror before I decided the look was finished. My phone buzzed from on my bedside table. I picked it up and read Emily's message. She will be here in 10 minutes. Did it take me that long to get ready? I grabbed my bag before leaving my room. I walked down the hallway, passed my parent's shut bedroom door, towards the stairs where my brother, Christopher's room is located. I noticed my brother's door was slightly ajar so I pushed it open and stood in his doorway. His thin and lanky frame was slouched in his gaming chair, intensely focused on the game on his monitor, which provided the only illumination in his room. His shaggy brown hair fell over his bloodshot eyes. He was surrounded by empty energy drink bottles and bags of chips. "Hey." I greeted him. "Hey," he responded. "I'm going out." "Cool. With Emily?" He asked, not removing his stare from the computer screen. I wonder how long he had been up playing games. He doesn't sleep much, but he also has no where else to be or anything else to do, so he stays in his cave all day. At 19, he has never had a job. But I can't judge. "Yeah. Her friend Patrick is taking us to this new club downtown. I don't know when I'll be home." I offer. "Ok, I won't wait up." he smirks. I glance down the hall to the closed bedroom door. "Anything from them?" I ask, not needing to explain the question. "Nope." He curtly responds, still not breaking eye contact with his screen. "Oh well. I'll see you." I say before walking away and down the stairs. "Be safe." I hear him say, quietly. \ Outside, Emily pulls up riding shotgun in an beat up, grey 2010 Toyota Camry. The car looks like it smells like weed and Doritos. The grey paint is faded and chipped, and the several parts of the car are being eroded by rust. As the car comes to a stop in front of my house, Emily sticks her hand out the window and waves me over. In the driver's seat, is a husky looking guy with short, blonde hair and a matching blonde beard, trimmed neatly. I open the backseat door and immediately the scent hits me. Weed...and yep, Doritos. Called it. "Hey!" I say excitedly to the carpool as I slide into the seat and close the door. I look for my seat belt and cannot find it. The floor in the back seat of the car is filled with trash and other miscellaneous items. I use my foot to clear an empty space in front of me. Emily whips around to face me, her face covered in bright pink eye shadow and lipstick, adorned in similar jewels as my own. She is wearing her dirty blonde hair down, with small braids through out. "Alena, this is Patrick!" She enthusiastically introduces the man in the driver's seat. "Hey Alena, nice to meet you." He says smilingly to the rear view mirror and making eye contact with me without turning around. He puts the car into drive and pulls out onto the road. I greet him back. "Are you so excited?" Emily asks, still contorting her body to face me from the passenger's seat. She's smiling wide, and her pupils are massive. Small beads of sweat have formed on her forehead. She's already high. "Yes! I'm so ready to party." I respond. "So what is this place?" "Oh, it's this super cool club downtown! I guess it's been open for a while but I had never heard of it. Patrick goes there all the time and says he can get us in, he knows the bouncer or whatever. The music is supposed to be really cool, and the drugs are even better!" She says all this without taking a breath. "What are you on?" I laugh. "Cocaine. Duh." Emily says as she whips herself back around in her seat. She lowers the overhead mirror and checks her make up. "Patrick has the best. But he says this stuff at the club is way better. Even better than H!" Her eyes dart to meet mine through the mirror. "Oh, cool." I say. She knows I don't do H anymore. I couldn't handle it, things got out of control. "Yeah, have you heard about it?" Patrick finally joins the conversation. "It's seriously the best stuff ever. It use to be really hard to get but now these clubs are popping up everywhere and they are the only places you can find it." "It's not on the street?" I ask, suspicious. "No. It's tightly regulated by..."He trailed off, like he didn't want to finish the sentence. "By what?" I asked, but Emily interrupted, slamming the overhead mirror up, "Who cares? This shit is supposed to amazing! And we don't even have to worry about the cops, they never bother these clubs. I guess they have an understanding or whatever." That gave it away. The only entities not bother by the police are the gangs. I felt my heart rate increase as we turned a corner. I had heard stories, but I didn't know what was real or what was being told like a fairy-tale to deter kids from getting mixed up with the gangs. Soon I could see the building in sight. It was a modern building painted in a dark color. In the darkness, it looked black. There were no windows, and what looked like only one door to get in. A neon purple sign hung above the entrance way: "The Lair" it read. Well that is ominous. We parked on the street a block from the club. Downtown was beginning to look like a ghost town. Two-thirds of the businesses and buildings were closed with "For Lease" signs hanging in their windows. The street was relatively empty except for a line of cars parked on the same side, leading up to the club. Although the club looked busy, it was eerily quiet outside. A line of people were waiting to get in. I followed Patrick and Emily as they passed the line and headed straight for the bouncer at the entrance. Patrick said something to the bouncer, turning to point to Emily and myself. The man nodded and waved us through. He was unsurprisingly tall and muscular with a stern look on his face, but what caught my attention was the fresh puncture wounds on the right side of his neck. Emily bounced up to the entrance, beaming with excitement. I followed behind her, taking one last look at the facade before entering into the darkness, and knowing in my heart that the stories we were told as kids were true. Vampires are real.


My dog’s name is John Smith. The name was a bit of a joke between me and my sister, who got John Smith for me years ago. She asked me what I would name him, and I joked that I’d give him a full, common name. Ultimately, I settled on John Smith. Not just John. Not Johnny. Always John Smith. John Smith is a mutt. I’ve thought about doing one of those dog DNA kits, but I’ve never really been curious about the specifics of his dog heritage. He’s much more than the sum of his parts. He’s my buddy. I recently got out of a four-year relationship. The breakup was mutual, but of course, it still stings. I wish I could say I've been handling it well, but that’d be a lie. I’ve been a mess. Not the usual tubs of ice cream and spurts of crying. I’ve still been hitting the gym, still been working, still been seeing friends. But I’ve just been coasting. I’ve just been numb. So, I decided to take a week off from work, and do something to get some space away from the city. My hope was that I’d be able to clear my mind for a bit, maybe recalibrate my brain and in turn, my life. Of course, I couldn’t go without my buddy. I packed my backpack, a duffel bag, and John Smith’s supplies and threw them in my old Jeep. The thing was beaten up but boy, did I love driving it. Told my friends and family that I'd be heading to the woods about an hour and a half outside the city, and that I wouldn’t be reachable for about a week. My mom was worried, of course, both about my general demeanor and the fact that I’d be alone for a week in the remote woods. I told her I wouldn’t be alone. It was a beautiful, snowy drive out of the hustle-and-bustle and into the stillness of nature. I wasn’t a huge nature person, to be perfectly honest. I’d been camping a few times but not since after my dad died. Something appealed to me, though, about spending a week with John Smith, and getting away from work, social media, anything that could send me into an anxiety spiral. We got to the cabin, I dropped our stuff off, and then I took John Smith out for a walk through the woods. John Smith took care of some business at one point. I didn’t pay much attention to where he did it. Maybe I should have. That’s the only thing I can think about now. We got back to the cabin not too long after. I took out my guitar and set up some of my recording equipment, and recorded some music well into the evening. I started hearing the scratching around ten p.m. It sounded like fingernails sliding across the window. I leaned my guitar against the bed and went to check it out. Looking out the window, I didn’t see anything. Not too long later, the wind started to pick up. I heard the window shutters slam into the wall outside over and over again. John Smith was getting scared, I could tell. He stood behind me as I opened the front door and stepped outside. “Stay here,” I told John Smith. I closed the door behind myself and stood on the porch of the cabin. Scanning the woods in front of me, my eyes eventually began to adjust to the darkness. My eyes came across it. It wasn’t trying to hide. It wasn’t trying to sneak around. It was standing right there. It looked hunched over, but even hunched over, it was massive, much taller than me. I couldn’t make out most of its features, but I could tell that it had branches sticking out of it every which way. It was glistening, as if it was melting in front of me. It was still. I somehow knew it had been standing there for a while, maybe hours. I backed up against the front door and reached for the handle, my hand bouncing off it a few times before I finally wrapped my hand around it. I opened the door, swung myself in, and slammed it shut. I started to pace around the cabin, John Smith following me step-by-step. *What the fuck was this thing?* It didn’t seem human. So what was it? I didn’t care. John Smith and I needed to get the fuck out of there. I grabbed my keys and put on my coat. I put a leash on John Smith; I wasn’t letting him out of my sight, and worst case scenario, I could let go of it and he could just run away. I looked out the window. It was gone. That was seconds before my Jeep crashed through the front door, its roof scraping the wood floor as it slid into the cabin. Part of the cabin roof collapsed. I immediately dove for John Smith, covering him and squeezing him tight in case any debris fell near him. I turned to see the Jeep, finally still, upside-down, being pulled back out of the cabin, taking fragments of wood with it. It was pulled out and thrown into the woods, like it was attached to a string and was viciously yanked. It stepped into the gaping hole the Jeep had created. I could see its outline. I rose to my feet quickly, looking around for anything I could use as a defense. I spotted my guitar. Grabbing it, I made sure John Smith was behind me. It approached, and with all of my might, I smashed the guitar over its head. It didn’t flinch. With a long arm resembling a mossy tree trunk, it swept me out of the way. I flew into the side wall, shattering a framed picture that was hung up. I must’ve blacked out for a moment, because when I came to, I saw it grab John Smith. It seemed to be in no hurry. John Smith barked as it grabbed him. The back of my head was bleeding. I could feel my blood trickling down the back of my neck. I tried to get up as it carried John Smith towards the opening in the cabin. John Smith was wriggling aggressively, trying with everything he had to get away from it. It held John Smith in its arms, showing no signs of effort as it slowly walked out of the cabin. I had no time to lose. I finally made it to my feet, wobbly but able to walk. I reached the opening the Jeep had made, and saw the back of it, seeing John Smith still thrashing in its arms. It walked towards the woods. Something told me that if it made it to the woods with John Smith, I’d never see him again. I knew there was an ax nearby. I had planned to chop some more wood for the fire the next morning. I stumbled my way over to where it was, near a tree stump that served as its home base. My head bleeding, feeling myself getting dizzy, I grabbed the ax and dragged it for a few feet before lifting it into my hands. I gripped the wood, blood streaming from the back of my head down the back of my right arm and seeping into the handle. It was almost into the woods. I had no time left. I ran towards it, and struck it with the blade of the ax in the back of its head. It dropped John Smith, who yelped as he landed. “Run!” I screamed at John Smith, and John Smith listened. He ran back towards the cabin as I let go of the ax, sticking out of its head. It dropped to a knee, and I pulled the ax out of its head, which felt like pulling it out of a massive tree. It twisted violently, throwing me back towards the cabin. I slid into the snowy ground, the ax ending up feet in front of me. When I picked my head up to look for it, it was gone. I scanned each individual tree in my view, and couldn’t see it. I flinched when I felt something licking my bloody hand. It was John Smith. I let out a deep breath before planting my head back down on the snow. I write this inside the now torn-open cabin, snow coming down outside. John Smith sits at my feet, panting. We have a fire going, but it’s freezing. My Jeep is mangled. There’s no signal for my phone. The nearest sign of life might be miles away. And it wants my dog. I’m not letting it get my fucking dog.


I was deemed the most "normal" of Malkmuth's Legion, and as a result, I was also deemed the guardian of their one and only child. The deal was simple. I would take care of his daughter, and all my expenses would be taken care of, every frivolity that I desired would be given to me. The only catch? She could never know who her father was. He had said to me no child should be part of the Legion, no matter how impoverished or needy they were. It was why he kept his Legion as child-free as possible. I had always assumed he thought it a weakness, to desire a family, to know that love. And maybe he was right. On her first birthday, Malkmuth brought a single black gift box sealed with dark purple ribbon to the house he had put us in. It matched his daughter, Violetta, so-named for her raven hair and strangely violet eyes. He didn't stay to meet her, and he told me to not tell her that her father gave her this gift. So I did the next-best thing: I told her someone from the dark lord's Legion gave her this gift. She was one, so she didn't seem to understand either way. The days came and the days went, and soon enough, it was Christmas. It was snowing, by some miracle, and we were watching it slowly drift down from the sky in heavy flakes when a familiar black-robed, purple-masked form came up our driveway... carrying in their hands a single black gift box. He looked our way, and little Violetta looked his, and while it was impossible to say with the mask he wore, it looked like their gazes connected. I quickly covered Violetta's eyes and pulled her away from the window, and the doorbell rang. I set her down in front of the television with some children's show with children who had giant heads and little bodies, and briskly walked to the door. When I opened the door, I took the gift box and scowled. "What happened to our agreement?" "I am your Lord, and you dare to be so vitriolic?" Malkmuth asked, a chuckle hidden in his words. "You said she can't know who her father is," I countered. "Does she?" "Well she's going to figure it out if you make a habit out of coming over!" "Children are not nearly so clever." I frowned at that. "You do not know much about children, my Lord. I am the youngest of six, I can tell you, children are indeed that smart..." "Nonsense. Give her this gift." "I'll give Violetta this gift. But you should be careful, if you really don't want her to figure things out." I closed the door before he could get another word in, shaking all over. Never had I been contrary to the dark lord, and to know he could end me easily if he so wished it terrified me. Such was his power. On the other side of the door, he marveled, "Violetta... what a lovely name you gave her," in a low whisper before turning and heading back down the path to his car.


Fog stretched like a tarpaulin through the cold streets of Victorian London. Young Elizabeth had eaten some bread and beans in one of the pubs for a meagre supper and was about to go to one of the communal dormitories where, for a little money, one could get shelter from the nightly cold and a blanket, when she heard quick footsteps behind her. Speeding up her own walk, she turned into Berner Street. She didn't get far, though, because just a few seconds later a leathery hand wrapped itself around her neck from behind and squeezed, taking away her breath to scream. Deep red blood seeped from the gaping wound on her neck and ran down the curb, mingled with the autumn rain. A waiter who was taking his pub's rubbish to the yard spotted the lifeless body and reported his sight to the local police station. But Elizabeth, despite alerting the police, was not to be the last victim on this uncomfortable night. *130 years later* "Seriously? Only 17 pounds each?" Maria raised an eyebrow in disbelief. She didn't have much time to complain about the stinginess of her guests today, though, because no sooner had the last guest left the restaurant than the restaurant manager asked Maria into his office. "Paolo called in sick," Bruno grumbled, typing something on his keyboard. Maria groaned. Paolo, the colleague who was actually in charge of chopping, pulping and dressing, was not sick. The whole staff knew that by now. He just had a penchant for cannabis-infused treats and preferred to float very high above the clouds instead of showing up for work. Maria was one of the few colleagues at the trendy London restaurant who had no problem taking the night shift. Many of the cooks and waiters, because of the history of the street, refused to stay longer than necessary and especially alone in the location. Exactly 130 years ago, the body of a young woman was found here in what is now Henriques Street at around 1:00 in the night. The person who committed this gruesome act was none other than the serial killer now known as Jack the Ripper. Whenever one of her colleagues began to talk about the alleged haunting of this street, she could only shake her head with laughter. Maria did not believe in ghosts or anything else supernatural. And she was sure that Jack The Ripper was just a maniac who had a hatred for women. That such people exist has been proven countless times in recent years. After a short negotiation about whether Maria would still take the day shift tomorrow or have a day off, the young cook and her supervisor decided that she could sleep in the next day. When the last colleague had also tidied up his station and said goodbye to his well-deserved evening off, Maria rummaged out all the utensils she would need for the preparation. For a moment, she looked around the empty room, which had been wild a few hours ago and smelled of countless delicacies. Maria had always dreamed of becoming a cook. But since there were no suitable apprenticeships in Maria's place of residence at the time, she decided to pursue a career as an industrial clerk after school. After three years of dragging on and on, and one and a half years in a depressing open-plan office, she decided she didn't want to go on like that. On a spur of the moment whim, she sent in an application for a vacancy as a cook in a newly opened restaurant in Whitechapel. She didn't even expect a reply and was all the more surprised when an invitation for an interview popped up in her email box a little later. The owner of the restaurant had been so impressed by Maria's motivation, commitment and attitude to life that she was allowed to sign a contract for a permanent position only a short time later. For the first two months, Maria had been sleeping in hotels or staying with friends, as she had moved about 200 kilometres away from her home in Romsey to pursue her dream. After a long search, she finally found an affordable two-bedroom flat close to her new job. In good weather, she usually decided to walk the 20 minutes. If the UK was ever to be miserable with its clichéd crap weather, it was only a few minutes on the District Line. To break the silence, Maria turned on the radio, which had probably been hanging around this spot when Jack The Ripper was doing his mischief here, and listened a little to the quiet music. "Let's get started then," she said to herself and began to quarter small tomatoes and then tip the pieces into the plastic box provided. In rhythmic movements that matched the 80s music, Maria ran to the fridge again to get a new pack of tomatoes. Back at her workstation, she tried to reach for her knife, but this time her grip sank into emptiness. Puzzled, she looked around. She was sure she had left the knife here. Had she taken it to the fridge and left it there? After a short breath and admitting that she was simply tired from the long day at work, After a few minutes of searching, Maria gave up and reached into the wooden block to pull out a similar knife. As she reached for the mental end of the knife handle, an icy shiver ran down her spine. The kitchen had cooled rapidly in the last few minutes and Maria began to freeze. It was actually still quite pleasant outside for the end of September. A quick glance at the list of everything she had to prepare told her that all she had to do was take care of the prawns, the lettuce, and the rudiments for the sauces. On her way to the cold storage, Maria decided to bring back a popsicle as a reward for the work she had done. She placed the box in the space provided and leaned into the freezer to decide between mango, strawberry or chocolate ice cream. Just as she reached for one of the cones, a bang sounded behind her. Startled, the young cook wheeled around. The door of the refrigerated warehouse had slammed shut. Had Bruno not closed the window? No, it was almost impossible for a light late summer breeze to blow the heavy metal door shut. Fortunately, the storage room could also be opened from the inside with a code. When Maria went back to the kitchen, she called out a few times to see if anyone was here. She suspected that the cleaning service had taken care of the cleanliness of the restaurant a little earlier today and that they had closed the door, thinking that the last person had not locked it properly. But there was no answer. She was alone. Suddenly the silence made her feel a little uncomfortable. Silence? Maria's gaze wandered to the radio, which had fallen silent during the time she was away from her desk. With the broom that stood next to the door, she carefully brushed against it, hoping it was just a loose connection. But the old appliance did not make more than a hissing noise. Annoyed, and a little uneasy she switched it off and fumbled her mobile phone out of her chef's jacket. Then she would listen to some music on this new app, or even better continue watching the series she had started a few days ago because her best friend was totally raving about it. She placed her mobile phone against the wall at her station and started playing the fourth episode. Lost in thought, Maria removed one shrimp after another from their shells and placed them in a mixture of oil and various spices. A bloodcurdling scream jolted Maria out of her monotonous movement and the drama that was unfolding between the head doctor and a pretty nurse. In shock, the prawn slipped out of her hand and hit the tiled floor with a soft splat. Without really thinking about it, Maria sprinted in the direction from which the scream had come. Panic was written all over her face as she tore open the back door of the restaurant. This scream underlined her otherwise unfamiliar unease and reinforced her belief that something could not be right. A few seconds earlier, in the rush, she had reached for something that could serve as a weapon. However, when Maria looked around the small side street, she only saw a young couple taking it as a shortcut to their hotel. "Did you hear the scream too?" she gasped when they were within earshot. "What scream? No one screamed here," the young man explained, a little confused, pushing his partner a little away from Maria. "Ok. Have a nice evening," Maria murmured and pulled the door shut behind her. Only now did she realise that of all the things that could be used as weapons in a kitchen, she had reached for a …. skimmer. Carelessly she fired it into one of the sinks and glanced at the clock above the swinging door leading to the bar. It was 1:03. Fog had formed and put a steamed-up film on the windows of the kitchen. Shaking her head, she ran through the kitchen towards the small bar. From panic and frantic breathing, she felt an uncomfortable dryness in her throat. Just as she was about to put on the bottle of cool water, there began to be a rustling in the back of the room. "This darn radio is driving me crazy," Maria cursed, walking quickly to the door, following the radio's cord and yanking the plug out of the wall socket with a jerk. Due to the jerky movement on the power line, the ceiling light began to flicker a little. "This can't be happening. If there's a murderer behind me, it's like a cheap horror film," Maria raged. But Maria was alone. Although it felt as if someone was watching her through the fog outside the window. The unease was still heavy on Maria's chest. She decided to just finish peeling the prawns and then go home for a well-deserved rest. Her colleague Ellen could chop the salad the next morning, there was enough time for that. „Just some cleaning up and then I’m out of here”, Maria said, again only to herself. After she had put her utensils back where they belonged, she let her tired gaze wander over the counters once more. In the place where she had just wiped with a damp cloth, there was now something shining in the dim light of the kitchen lamp. Her knife, which she had been looking for for hours. Confused, Maria raised her eyebrow and put the knife away. Maybe her colleagues were right after all. Maybe Maria was not alone.


Before man, fire did not know its name. It was a bastard child of the Sun, made through unspeakable acts of domination, but cast out in noble embarrassment, cursed for eternity to roam the earth and feed on others just to breathe, breed, rage, dance! It danced. Through countless years and in countless beings, seeking a worthy name in their widened eyes and mangled screams. Yet nothing was found but fear. Delicious fear, endlessly abundant and yet lacking, ultimately, the satiation of an equal. So man was made, in the image of fire.  So true was man to his father. So unrelenting was the force of his insatiability. From the bloom of his youth, fire blitzed his soul. In moments of play, he sought complete domination, thirsting to prove his supremacy with brute force and fear. He would growl just to stoke the fire, he would let out battle cries and pound his chest, feeling within him a force that could break worlds. Gazing at his hands, he imagined with no remorse how it would feel to crush a man, he imagined their shared grin, their unspoken brotherhood in the ultimate dance, the victors spoils above all the consumed fire of the defeated. He walked past crowds and truly wondered why they did not bow. He wondered how certain men could stand peace, and knew that such peace would never last as long as fire was. It was fire that blew the world like the wind, everything deemed good or bad born in debt to possibilities paved by annihilation. By plows soaked in the blood of bureaucracy. By the shrieking sacrifices of kings and commoners alike, their carcasses reeking with disbelief. By ruthless ambition, a man’s willingness to bleed through hell for applause, power, gold, women! Women. Daughters of Eve… cursed for eternity to both love and hate the fire within man. They confounded him, arousing the deepest depths of his fire and yet a maddening softness, as if he were on the edge of his greatest strength and weakness. In full witness of his brutality they would scold his ways and yet gleam with desire, hating and loving the rage within him, hating and loving his hands of fire which pulsed whispers of death, wrapped around their necks in the dance of life. Who could deny themselves to be, if only for a moment, the object of a desire so ancient, eternal, insatiable?  He walks still. Festering under the veneer of civilization, under frail peace—the twisted fire of lesser men, snakes in hollow trees, dry as a desert bone. He walks among husks who have doused their fire in fear, who can no longer comprehend the danger, dousing their fire as if it were not also life. He cannot be stopped. He cares not if he burns. He is always born, he is always coming, the Mad King. Clearing the stage. Over and over again. Laughing, clapping, cursing, dancing, burning. Over and over again. Lost cities born and lost again singing lost songs through lost rubble. Looming in every distance. In every stare, lustful, vicious, unforgiving. A fire clearing snakes in hollow trees, the soil reborn, stronger, virile from the blood. He will never stop. Empires approaching beauty, with beauty, beautiful, burned, and approaching again. He clears the stage, again and again, mindless of his own purpose. And what of he, who burns with fire but does not wish to be devoured by it? He who knows in his heart that all men are hideously unequal, that the Mad King will never be satisfied, can never be stopped, and yet still stands tall against the embers heavy whisper? Blessed are those who seek solace from the fire but do not douse it, who seek solace in the unforgiving wild, wrestling mountains and rushing toward the raging stream, plunging themselves in the freezing cold just to hear the fire scream, to feel the pure heat that is life raging from within, raging to stay alive. They wield the fire like a deft dagger, always seething, always simmering, always piercing the wind in controlled bursts with powerful grace, their practiced bodies scorched and scarred and yet never devoured in their attempt to transcend destiny. Every day is a battle. He stands firmly with the world, inescapably within time, fearless, his minds spear soaked in tears of the Sun. End.


“Our universe is one of many. At only 13.77 billion years old is it relatively young and small compared to most. The speed that time moves in each universe is mostly dependent on its size, but it is difficult to measure the rate at which time is moving in a universe with wildly differing dimensions and contents. Our universe has what I refer to as a pulmonary structure. This is because it’s when it reaches a certain size, it will start contracting until it becomes so dense that all its matter forms into a singularity which will subsequently ‘explode’ creating a new big bang. Of course, there actually is no explosion or bang, just a rapid and forceful expansion that kicks off a new lifecycle for the universe. The universe always contains the same matter, but after each big bang it become completely re-organised, leaving no trace of the structure of the previous universe. Comparing it to a lung expanding and deflating is a very simple and not entirely accurate analogy, but to be frank it’s the best analogy I could be bothered to come up with and it gives some understanding of the process. Our universe goes through this process to keep itself active, essentially to keep itself alive. Think of each universe as a living organism, which to stay alive, needs the matter within the universe to contain energy. The size a universe can grow to without ‘dying’ is proportional to how much matter is within it. A universe containing a lot of matter can grow to a great size, whereas a universe that does not contain as much matter will not be able to grow for very long before it ‘dies’. The death of a universe occurs when it expands to such a massive size that the matter and energy it contains is too far apart. The matter is this universe becomes devoid of energy and unable to go through any kind of reaction, causing it to be essentially ‘frozen’. This is known as a heat death” The man paused his monologue, glancing at the waiter who was walking past the table. “Hold on, why are you telling me this?”, I tried to interrupt him. “It’s important. Now don’t fucking interrupt me.” He resumed. “Now, a universe cannot stop expanding or collapsing unless it dies. Imagine a balloon with a hole that cannot be tied. The balloon can be blown up, or the air can be released, letting it deflate. If the balloon is blown up too much it will burst and cease to have function. Of course this analogy is clunky at best as a balloon can be left deflated, but a universe is unable to remain as a singularity. It must start expanding again. Now this means a universe will forever be in motion up until the point of its death.” The man stopped talking and stared at me, waiting for a response. The menu on the table in front of him remained unopened. “Okay, that’s all very good but my question still stands. Why are you telling me this?” “A lady came to me… in a dream. She explained all of this to me and if I don’t tell you right now, I’m going to forget it. It’s too important.” He said all of this with an air of profound seriousness. I sighed, “So you think that you know the explanation for all of existence because you had a dream about it?” He looked a little offended. “Well it could be wrong, but there’s a small chance I’m right so I reckon that’s worth holding on to. After all, many people garner explanations for existence that come from much more questionable places. I don’t see my dreams being less reliable that some old book written back before the wheelbarrow had even been invented”. He seemed almost proud that he had managed to inject a fairly mundane piece of trivia into his argument. “I suppose you have a point there. You should probably find some other way to remember it though cause there’s no way I’m going to memorise all that.” I tried to wrap up the conversation, hoping he might finally order something. He furrowed his brow and then replied, “Yes, you’re right. I’ll write it down. Maybe I’ll just write down our conversation, that might help me get it right.


Primis was playing with his legos when his mother called him through the dome speaker. “Primis!” yelled his mother with a fair bit of static. “Dinner’s ready!”. He was almost finished with the lego set his dad gave him last Christmas. Slightly faded with some pieces missing, it was one of the lego sets his dad played with as a child growing up on Earth. Carefully placing the remaining pieces at the front of his bed, he heard the howling sandstorm that had been engulfing the planet for the past two weeks. The high pitched, sometimes shrieking, sounds frightened him as a child. Not anymore. He had grown accustomed to the noises, finding them soothing as he slept. “Coming!” he yelled leaning close to the speaker. He sprinted out the room, through his transport tube, and into the kitchen where his mother was preparing dinner. Freeze-dried spaghetti with canned broccoli. No surprises there. Ever since his parents left Earth, they have grown accustomed to the limited, sometimes flavor-less, cuisine that was available on the planet. Primis’s parents took part in the last phase of the final migration to Mars from Earth, a now desolate planet. His mother, two months pregnant on departure, became the first woman to give birth on the red planet. Primis belonged to a new class of Martian born humans, humans that have never known life without a spacesuit or decompressed space domes. He often wondered what life was like for children growing up on Earth. He would get lost in the stories his dad would tell him of summer trips to the beach, trailblazing through snowy mountains, or backyard barbecues. “Not hungry?” his mother asked after seeing him play with his food. “He must be daydreaming again” replied his father showing a hint of annoyance. His parents had just returned from a full day trip to the Jezero Crater, spending most of the day looking for rare ores and metallics. As a former marine biologist who spent most of his life on the ocean, his father struggled to adapt to his new profession of “rock collecting” as he called it. “I’m just not hungry Mom” replied Primis, still swirling his food. “Can I be excused?”. His mother let out a sigh then looked up at his father. Rolling his eyes, he nodded to his mother. “Yes, but make sure you clean up that mess of Legos before bed. I had to pick them up all over the room last time after work”. Primis gave her a small smile and started carrying his dish to the kitchen sink. “Hey bud” his dad said with a more benevolent tone. “Guy from work got me another copy of National Geographic if you wanna take a look. It was one of the final issues before, you know” his dad paused to not bring up the migration again. “I left it on your bed. It’s all about deep sea diving with neat pictures of Phylum Chordata, you know uh, rare fish and sharks.” “Thanks dad” Primis, more elated now, started walking out of the kitchen. As soon as he was out of the view of his parents, he picked up his pace with anticipation. He loved these magazines. He would spend hours at his bed getting lost in the close up images of Dwarf Puffer Fish and Sawsharks. As he was sprinting down the space dome hallway, he caught a bright reddish light coming from one of the windows. Slowing down, he neared the window and smiled. He knew exactly what it was. It was the unmanned space vessels taking off one by one. He knew that these exact ships would soon be landing on Earth. They would fly right over those oceans his dad always talked about. These were the last missions back to the home planet, completely unmanned and automated. These vessels were tasked with gathering the last precious resources left on the desolate planet. With the sandstorm still raging outside, Primis made his way back to his room. Pushing the remaining legos under his bed, he collapsed and sunk his head deep into his pillow. He let out a sigh. Leaning slightly forward, he picked up the magazine his dad left him by his feet. Deep Blue Sea: Creatures Of The Unknown. Unknown indeed he thought. Skimming the magazine he knew these fish and sharks would always be what they are, ink on paper. He knew that where those ships were going is where you could truly experience what Earth was like. Remnants of the past. Where those ships were going. He kept repeating this in his head. He knew that he’d most likely spend the rest of his life on Mars, especially as NASA recently postponed the Solar System Exploration program due to budget cuts. Mars was the end destination for most people. “This is it” he said out loud. “This is my chance”. He knew the unmanned vessels would be a perfect way for him to see where he truly came from. Earth, up close and personal. Since the launchpad was only two miles from his family’s space dome, he could traverse through the sandstorm under cover, and sneak onboard the vessel before a scheduled launch. Completely undercover, completely undetected. The idea of having no helmet and staring out into the ocean made his heart race. He wondered how the fresh pure air would feel on his lungs as he breathed it in. He became lightheaded and stood up in his bed. He walked over and sat down at his desk. He knew his parents wouldn’t take it well, especially his dad. He really didn’t want them to worry and told them that he’d only be gone a few months. More importantly, he told them he knew which necessary supplies to take and that food was not an issue. He knew these vessels were used during the final migration and had enough food to feed fifty people on one mission. Feeling confident, he thought his parents had trained him well, well enough to complete a round trip mission by himself. He took a deep breath in. He was ready. “Love Primis” he concluded his note. An empathetic thought of the sadness his parents would feel crossed his mind. He knew his parents would not be happy and would worry endlessly about him. He planned to send them frequent transmissions to keep them informed of his well being. He thought over time they would understand. He envisioned himself describing his adventures back at the dinner table and imagined how excited his dad would be. After all, this is the home planet his parents longed to return to, just as much as he did. He started packing his backpack with clothes, his lego set, and few issues of National Geographic, including the new one that his dad had given him. The journey back to Earth would take a few months so he’d need some form of entertainment. The magazine would be a reminder of what was to come, and what to look forward to when he arrived. He never once thought about being alone - it’s something he’d grown accustomed to, spending hours, days, and years in his room within his family’s space dome. It’s all he ever knew. As he zipped his backpack shut, Primis started to feel something he’d never felt before. A sudden rush of euphoria and excitement. He was doing it. He carefully placed his note in the center of his desk and quietly closed his door behind him. He inched his way through his transport tube and back into the kitchen. He saw the dirty dishes lying in the sink, the faucet dripping, and the light shining through the crack underneath his parents bedroom. His dad would stay up reading the same magazines until he fell asleep, always dreaming about his life back home and the days he spent on the ocean. I’ll bring something back for him, Primis thought. He entered the code to the airlock and stepped inside to grab his spacesuit. He took one look back at the light under his parents bedroom door and put on his space helmet. He grabbed his backpack, adjusted the strap, and took one final deep breath in. He pressed the seal latch to enter the payload bay and took his first step out onto Mars’s terrain. He was suddenly hit with a strong gust of wind that nearly knocked him off his feet. He could barely see in front of him and used his arm to shield some of the sand blowing in front of him. He had only ever been outside during a sandstorm once with his father, when they ran late returning from a NASA training seminar. Luckily, he was able to keep his balance, hold onto his backpack, and slowly started to move forward step by step. He was slowly walking towards the bright red light of vessels taking off in the distance. The gusts of wind only seemed to get more intense after each step. It was like the wind was on a mission to knock him to his feet. Struggling to maintain his balance, he forgot to look up to see if he was going in the right direction. Starting to panic, he looked left and right and even behind him. He was unsure of his exact location and was not able to see his family’s space dome anymore. Primis began to breathe more heavily and heard the elevated heart rate warning go off in his spacesuit. He picked up his pace, now ignoring the fact that he was losing his balance with each step. What am I doing out here, he thought. Realizing that he might have made a mistake, he felt a sudden thump on his helmet and fell backwards on his back. Regaining his sense of surrounding, he looked up to see what he had hit. Through the thickness of the sand, he was able to make out two steel bars that led up into the thickness of the storm. The vessel ladder. He realized he had run right into one of the vessels without even seeing it. This must be one of the last vessels to be leaving tonight, he thought. He grabbed a hold of the ladder, took the first step, and started climbing. After climbing a few steps, he started to see the vessel in its entirety. On the front of the ship, he made out the giant logo plastered behind a white backdrop: *NASA - Mars Exploration, Vessel #4523*. These were the same reusable rockets that took the last humans from Earth. Now, it will be able to take another human back home for one last visit. He reached the passenger access hatch, turned the handle, and pushed it open. To avoid setting off any alarms, he quickly pushed himself inside the vessel, turned around and pulled the hatch shut. Catching his breath and letting his heart rate settle, he removed his helmet and laid it beside him. Looking around he could see the old instruction signs from the previous missions. As he got to his feet, he heard an automated message over the loudspeaker: “T-minus 10 minutes until launch” Realizing how close he had cut it to launch, he knew he needed to secure himself before liftoff. He had not actually been on one of these vessels before but followed the instructional signs to the passenger section of the ship. For the previous missions, most people had never even been to space. NASA did it’s best at trying to provide guidance on what to expect and how to properly operate aboard a spacecraft. Embarrassed about how little he knew, he found the signs and instructions helpful. He followed the signs into the passenger seating area and placed his backpack underneath one of the seats. He sat towards the back of the passenger area so he could get a good look out of one of the oval shape windows. “T-minus 2 minutes” . Feeling anxious and excited, he closed his eyes and took another deep breath in. He looked back out the window and could make out the lights of certain space domes in the distance. “10 seconds remaining”, echoed the loud speaker. Before he knew it, he was being propelled through Mars’s atmosphere, feeling the force of the rocket engines on his entire body. It was a level of intensity he never experienced before. I think I’m going to be sick, he thought. After a few minutes of fighting his nausea, everything suddenly got quiet. He knew he had reached Mars’s upper atmosphere and was now officially on the start of his journey. He loosened his seat strap and adjusted his spacesuit to get a better view out the window. It was the first time he could see Mars as a whole. The red barren planet, his birth planet. He turned away from the window and smiled. He was going back, he thought. Back to the home planet and for that he was grateful.


The night was frozen. Snowflakes fell from the sky like silk strands floating in the wind. Puddles covered the roads and reflected the city lights like stars shining in the night sky. With little traffic, drivers went about their nightly commutes as if it were any other. Nothing about this October night in particular made it more or less significant than any other. I just dropped off my friend Tommy at his apartment. Tommy's a really great friend. The kind of guy that still loves you just the same no matter how much time has passed since you last saw them. We just got done seeing the new James Bond movie which had its premiere the day before. The Bond movies are just the kind of sophisticated, well written, action packed movies that fully captivate my usually short lived attention span. I love going to the theaters. Being twenty four years old and having served five years in the Marine Corps, the movies make me feel a sense of peace and wonder I can only get in those two glorious hours. Scratchy red seats. Armrests that make your skin stick to them from years of spilt sodas. The smell of unnaturally yellow, over-buttered popcorn. The lowly dimmed yellow lights. Purposefully illuminated stairs and walkways Thirty minutes of trailers. The occasional crinkle of someone ripping open their candy bag. All of the things that transport me back to a time earlier in my life where the world didn’t seem so dark. I could spend every weekend seeing a new movie and leave each time already planning which one I was going to see next. My car, which is the first brand new car I’ve bought, is a spacey, almost unnatural shade of gray. The kind of color I imagine an asteroid cruising through space on an infinite journey might be. I’ll never admit it out loud, but the car and its color make me feel like an astronaut, and when I’m driving, the places I can go are limitless. It doesn’t have leather seats, and even though they’re canvas and frankly not the softest at least they’re heated. My friends always comment on how good the stereo sounds and honestly, that’s why I bought it. Every time one of my friends says something like: “Hey throw on this specific song, I NEED to hear what it sounds like on your system,” it brings me a sense of joy and pridefulness I’ll never give them the satisfaction of knowing. Driving is something that makes me feel in control. I rarely ever take rides from friends and I’m almost always the designated driver. My friends poke fun at me for never drinking with them. I always rebuttal their well stated arguments on why I should drink with them with something like “Oh I’m just not feeling the best” or “I have to wake up early tomorrow to do something”. They can see right through my excuses as total bullshit, but since they're my friends they never really fight back. They just care that I go out and they don't have to pay for rides. Just maybe a meal or a dessert from wherever we end up. I’m too embarrassed to admit it to them, but I get anxious when I’m a passenger in any kind of vehicle. An incident during my time in the service has left me with an unshakable fear. I'm terrified that if I'm not in control of the vehicle I’m in it will undoubtedly lead to a gruesome and unpreventable death. Driving alone is like therapy to me. I can play any song I like, however many times I like. I don't have to worry that people will get annoyed that I'm rewinding a song because I wasn’t paying attention to my favorite part. I have irreversible hearing loss from being around fighter jets and helicopters that would roar and buzz past my work place in the service, so blasting music to the point where any person with regular hearing would be bothered by is normal for me. I also just recently got into listening to audio books, but I can never listen to them just sitting down on my couch. I become so easily distracted by the slew of other things I have to keep myself occupied there, so car rides alone have become the perfect place to escape into a great story. Driving north down the practically empty four lane highway I look out my passenger side window. I’m flanked on the east by the Hudson River and a sleeping but still lively New York City. A city I live a short thirty minute drive from. A city of endless possibilities. Hustle and bustle that never stops. Lights so bright and buildings so tall that even the sky during mid day seems to shrink in comparison to the man-made wonder which it blankets over. A city so close to me, yet I can't help but feel, is unreachable. After a brief moment of looking in wonder of what life could be like living in the city it hits me. I haven’t turned my music on since I dropped off Tommy. The slight ringing in my ears from the tinnitus the Marines gifted me says, “it’s time to put something on before the migraines begin”. I reach over to my small LED touch screen and start to scroll through the playlist I already have pulled up. Led Zeppelin? Nah. Rolling Stones? Eh it's too late. Something newer maybe? Drake? Meh. Adele? Too sleepy for this late at night. Wait, there it is THAT’s what I want. My finger lands on David Bowies’ “Space Oddity” “Perfect” I say aloud, as if saying what I’m thinking will make me feel any less lonely. The soft guitar starts playing and I sink back into my canvas seats surrounded by the best sound system I could afford. Pure Bliss. ***Ground control to major tom*** God I’m getting lost in this song right now. The lowly lit road, twinkling from melted snowflakes transforms into the infinite void of space, surrounded by stars, surrounded by nothing, just me traveling through emptiness on a journey in which I have no inkling where I’ll end up. ***Take your protein pills and put your helmet on*** I glance at the clock on my dash. “23:59” “Holy shit, is the clock gonna change at the end of the count down?” ***10*** “That would be too perfect no way that would ever happen on accident” ***Ground control to Major Tom*** “ But it would be fucking awesome” ***9*** Of course shit like this only happens when NO ONE'S around ***8*** I guess that’s the magic of being completely aware during a fleeting moment, you start noticing things that on a normal day would just breeze past your consciousness. Maybe this isn't that special and it just feels special because I only just happened to notice this weird synchronicity. ***7*** The more I think about it, the less spectacular the whole moment is starting to feel. ***6*** A wave of goosebumps overcomes me ferociously, like an ocean crashing on a weathered down shore. ***Commencing countdown, engines on*** I mean I like this song but not this much. I glance back at the clock. It still reads “23:59”. Alright, it might still happen. I glance at the road and the flashing red lights of an ambulance practically flying down the opposite side of the iced over highway catch my eye. A fleeting thought passes my mind, “I’m glad that’s not me in there.” And as quickly as the neurons that fired off that intrusive thought burst into action, more neurons fire fighting it off and I think to myself, “Why the fuck would I ever think something like that!? I should be saying a prayer for whoever's in there, not counting my lucky stars…” Sometimes my brain scares me. I have these terrible, terrible thoughts sometimes. Thoughts that shouldn't be there. Thoughts I’d never choose to have. Thoughts that feel like they’re from a consciousness that's not my own. ***5*** I look at the ambulance with eyes that feel coerced into showing sympathy. I can't believe my first thought was about feeling lucky to not be in their position. I feel my grip tighten around the steering wheel, just enough to notice my hands are sweating. After lifting one up and observing the darker wet spot that’s now on the “2 o’clock” position of my wheel, I reach over the center console and wipe the sweat from my hand onto the back rest of the empty passenger seat. ***4*** The light hits my eyes. It feels as blinding as the first light of the morning. The light that shines through when you pull the shades to the side and let that new day into your room. What is that? My eyes try adjusting, but all I can see is yellow and a dim but apparent flashing red light. Why does this ambulance have their brights on right now? Some peoples’ choices blow my mind. You're just endangering other drivers by potentially blinding them. I reach up to my visor and pull it down to hopefully block some of the light. “There we go, I can see again no thanks to this ambulance” I think as my eyes start adjusting to the new lighting. ***3*** The lowered light passes from my cornea, to my pupil, and then to my lens which shines it into my retina, and the photoreceptors there turn it into electrical signals which shoot to the optic nerve in my brain which turns the signal into the image I'm seeing before me. My brain tells me this process has happened too slowly for it to get signals to the parts of my body I now need to use to save my life from the image it just saw, interpreted, and decided was unavoidable. ***2*** The ambulance is facing me. Probably sliding out of control from the iced over road. This can’t be happening. Not me, something like this wouldn't happen to me. No, it COULDN’T happen to me. Right? The ambulance is going to regain control just in time and swerve out of the way. Yea that sounds about right, no way god would do this to me, I'm not done living life there's so much more I have to experience and do. I’m starting school in January, I’m going to study psychology and medicine and become a Psychiatrist. I have so many plans I’m just starting life after the Marines. My body stiffens. Like a dead rabbit after being caught in a hunter's snare. I’m completely numb. My jaw clenches so hard I'm amazed my teeth haven’t cracked as easily as a potato chip would. No, not tonight, I'm not going to die. If there's any vehicle to get into an accident with, it's an ambulance right? The EMTs’ in the back will be able to save me after this if I get hurt. How much time do i have left before impact. I can barely move. I take a very rough, quickly judged glance. There's maybe twenty five feet. “Fuck.” My foot is pressed down harder on the brake pedal than I thought my body could even accomplish. It feels like it’s going to go straight through the floor of my car and onto the slicked down icy road below. My leg is completely straight, pinning my back against the backrest and lifting my butt clear off the seat itself. One more glance. Fifteen feet. This is it, the moment of impact, please don’t kill me. ***1*** My eyes notice the snow falling through the air. Each flake is completely different. Completely individual from one another. The water molecules going from liquid to solid, form these weak hydrogen bonds to one another and create a six-fold crystalline structure which takes various shapes, the most common being hexagonal. Each Snowflake, like a human, uses the bonds it makes to keep itself together for a short period of time. People fail to realize how similar human beings and the water molecules that make up snowflakes really are. Both need bonds to stay intact. Both will eventually lose those bonds and return to their original state. After their bonds are broken, new bonds will eventually form. The cycle continues endlessly with the only constant being the original Person and original molecule. Both people and molecules go through ever changing states of existence while never truly being in control of what makes those changes happen. I close my eyes so the last thing I see is something beautiful. ***Check ignition, and may god's love be with you*** My eyes burst open. I’m standing in the middle of a road. There's an ambulance right in front of me. I can see it with the most clarity I’ve ever seen anything before this. Water, beaded up on the white hood of the car. The word “Ambulance” written in blue letters backwards so that drivers can read the word in their rear view mirror. The yellow head light illuminates the cabin. An older male driver whose overworked, dark brown eyes suggest they've just seen the scariest thing they could ever imagine. Mouth wide open, presumably screaming in terror and goosebumps lining the sides of his neck. He has a wedding band on. It’s golden, and just barely reflects the light from above from being covered in years of sweat and dirt. A band that clearly says “I’m worn by a man who does hard, dirty work for a living, and has always remained loyal to the promise of love that was given to another on the day he put me on his finger.” I wonder what he's scared of and why. Snow stays suspended in the air like ornaments hung on the branches of a Christmas tree. Floating blissfully for the viewership by any one to see. I reach out to grab one and my fingers pass through it as easily as it would if nothing was there at all. It’s still floating, unaffected and as beautifully intricate as it was before. What’s going on? I reach again. No effect. I turn around. There's a man in a car parked just feet from the ambulance. He’s white, but not fully, mixed with something else for sure. Jet black hair, beard, and mustache. Eyes forced shut, jaw clenching with his off-white teeth showing they’re being forced together so hard they might break, Cheek muscles tensed to the point they intrude into the space his eyes should be. Both his hands are gripped around the steering wheel so tightly it looks like he's trying to rip it off the dash and into his chest. I’m standing in the space between them. “That man in the car… that’s me…” “Where am I? Why am I here? What's happening right now?” “Why can I see myself?” I go to put my hand on my heart out of pure instinct but I don't feel anything. I can see my body, but I can’t feel it. In-fact, I can't feel anything. No Smell. No taste. No touch. No emotion. Nothing but Awareness. “Am I dead?” A voice speaks out and whispers gently through the deafening silence of the motionless night “Not yet.


Every single day, at nine o'clock on the dot, George would go to the local pub and play pool. This wasn't something he looked forward to, nor did he enjoy it very much, and he wasn't even very good at it. This was simply something he would always do, without really thinking about it. There were a great many things in his life like that. Indeed, he lived pretty much his whole life like that. Day in and day out he would go about his day in an unconscious routine, each day being different only in which form of that routine was performed. One might almost think he was some kind of walking vegetable, incapable of conscious thought entirely. This thought, while understandable to have, is wrong. George had quite an active inner mind, one with a keen eye for every detail of the world around him. One with a very vivid imagination, with dreams and goals and great plans for himself. Day and night, it screamed. Beneath the layers of autonomous actions and rote routines, George's inner mind clawed and scraped to escape. Every day, as he arrived at work, or the pub, he tried desperately to scream and cry at passersby, but no words came out. How could they, when his mouth was not his own? George was trapped. He had been for as long as he could remember. Trapped inside his own body, unable to do a thing except follow the same routines, day in and day out. Sometimes it seemed like nothing ever would change, that he'd be stuck repeating the same days over and over without end. But of course, that's not the case. He may not be able to change, but the world around him did. Every so often, something would be different. minor things, like a traffic jam making him take a detour or a new patron at the pub. He relished them, each one a brief reprieve from the routine. But still, the routine continued. All of these were mere distractions. Even when he conversed with others, it wasn't true communication, just rote responses without any thought put into them. And then one day, something different happened. It was an ordinary night when he met Her. The sun had gone down not long ago, and so he was back in that pub. She was a distinctive-looking woman, wearing an old-fashioned suit with a trilby on her head. He was just setting up the pool table when She sat down at the bar and ordered an Aviation Cocktail. He hadn't even heard of the drink before. He relished the opportunity to distract himself by pondering the new patron. He tried to imagine what Her life must have been like, Her dreams and ambitions, the story of Her life. He imagined the story of the first Aviation Cocktail She'd had. He wondered why She came here of all places. He pondered Her clothing, the story behind her choice of suit and hat. Most of all, he wondered what she was thinking at that very moment. Then he met Her eyes, and he Knew. "She's just like me", he thought. And from then on, his life was never the same. Ever since that day, he'd see Her again frequently, all over the place. At the bar, on the street, at his work... He begins to realize that She was always there, in many of those places, but until now She was just one in a crowd of people, unknowing of his plight; just as he must have seemed to Her. He wanted so desperately to talk to her, to communicate with the one person he had encountered, perhaps the one person in the whole world, who would understand his plight. But he couldn't. Except... that's not entirely true, is it? There was, of course, nary a single word spoken between them. It would be impossible, with the lack of control they had over their bodies, for anything of the sort. But there was communication, nevertheless. For the eyes are the window to the soul, and that was all that was needed. Every time their eyes would meet, they would converse. And what conversations they would have. He told Her his dreams, She told him her woes, and every day they would have this little patch of interaction. Perhaps he was only imagining their conversations, perhaps eyes aren't expressive enough to truly deliver such complex thoughts, but he knew from the look in Her eyes she was doing the same. They were both conversing, what did it matter if they couldn't truly understand each other. Does anyone, really? He wouldn't know. At times he thought he might love Her, but perhaps he was only latching onto the one person in the world he could talk to. Maybe She thought the same. In the end, it didn't matter. Because for the moments they met, he was happy. He could get through the doldrums of the daily routine his bod went through, just for those brief glances between them. But of course it wasn't to last. Nothing good ever does, he supposed. He didn't know exactly what it was. Perhaps something came up at work that forced Her to change her schedule. perhaps She was simply staying at home due to illness or somesuch. Perhaps She had moved away entirely. Perhaps She had gotten free somehow, and had quickly forgotten him. Perhaps She was dead. It didn't matter. All that he knew... is that She was gone. Just like that, here one day and gone the next. He had known this would happen eventually, that the little patch of relief he had found would vanish, someday. Things returned to normal, as they always did. All that changed was that he had one more thing to miss. His mind was the only part of him that had change, the only part that could despair at this return to the status quo, and the only part of him incapable of changing anything. Or was it? As it happened before, and as it always happens, it was yet another perfectly normal day when something changed. He was in his home, shaving his meager stubble and getting ready for his meaningless work. Inside, he had only sunken deeper into despair every day since she was gone. And then... well, it was almost nothing. A slight twinge of a muscle, barely enough to twitch his arm in the wrong direction a few scant fractions of an inch. Normally, something that would have no effect at all. But with the razor so close to his skin... it moved just a hair too close, and the barest of cuts was made. His body didn't react, beyond moving the razor back into position and continuing to shave, but inside he was bewildered. What had happened? Had... had he done this? In the following weeks, he pondered on what it was he had done, as he tried over and over to replicate it. Eventually, he began to succeed once again. It was still the barest of twitches, all his efforts had only slightly increased its strength. Far from enough to do anything meaningful, and with how exhausting it was for his mind it was far from enough to even begin taking back his life. But perhaps... perhaps enough to end it. He waited, patiently, for his opportunity to come again. His hair grew slowly, very slowly, and he only shaved every couple of weeks. And there was no guarantee that he would even manage to pull off the very specific mindset he needed for that little twitch. But he was patient. He had nothing but time. Finally, it arrived. The fateful moment. His body began to run the razor over his neck hair, slowly exposing the skin to air. All he had to do was muster up the willpower to induce a slightly larger muscle spasm, and this sorry existence would be over. A trained medic could save him, but all his body knew how to do was perform the same routine over and over, evading the common hazards along the way. It wouldn't have any way of reacting to this. All of it could be over. But did he really want it to be? The question surprised him. Surely he did, right? His life was a miserable existence, with no hope of ever getting better, isn't it? ...Perhaps not. Perhaps he might rediscover Her again, in the far off future. Perhaps he might find someone else who was the same, or even someone who wasn't and yet could understand him somehow. Perhaps he even might one day expand his limited influence on his body, and take over entirely! Or at least enough to do something worthwhile! Perhaps... Perhaps it doesn't matter if any of that comes to pass. What is the alternative, anyways? He could put an end to it all, but what would that achieve? He'd be in the same place as he was before, with no control over his body. No, it would be worse. At least at this moment, he has one single he can control: his mind. He, himself. at least he can still think, imagine, dream. even if communication has left his grasp forever, he still has himself. Why should he throw that all away, just to kill the pain? In the end, he'd rather be awake and suffering, then sleep and know nothing. George puts the razor down.


The heavy steel door ground to a halt, revealing the dimly lit room it protected. In the centre of the room was a rectangular table with a metal foldout chair on either side. The closest chair was empty. My gaze rose across the table, and I saw it. Cloaked by the darkness of the room, sitting in the other chair, unblinking eyes fixed on me. My legs quivered as I approached. With every step its focus on me seemed to intensify, its gaze never faltering. I took a deep breath and sat down. I stared across the table, trying to collect my thoughts. My heart was racing but my mind felt completely almost blank. Despite all my preparation, only one question came into my mind. “Why did you do it?” It smiled, “The voice of the creator compelled me.” The intense look in its eyes gave me a lump in my throat. “The creator?” “The creator speaks to me, guiding me down the right path”, its smile grew wider. Hearing its answer stirred up and mixture of anger and confusion, “How can murdering seven people be the right path?” Images of the crime scene flashed into my head. Mutilated bodies strew across the furniture. Blood soaking into an opulent Persian rug. An ornate chandelier lying shattered in the centre of the room, a child’s body crushed underneath. “Do you really think they deserved it?” “I do not question the guidance of the creator. I follow and obey.” Its expression became serious, pale green eyes narrowing. We both fell silent. It stared at me, unmoving. I stared back, trying to figure out if it was telling the truth, or even believed what it was saying. “What created you?” It smiled again, sending a chill down my spine. “The creator made everything, space, time… you!” It licked its dry lips with a long, black, glistening tongue. I grew more curious, “There’s a lot of research that would prove otherwise. It’s indisputably proven that…” “Heretic!”, it interrupted me suddenly and with great volume. “You have no idea what is real, you are merely looking at shadows on the cave walls, you have not heard the voice!” Its twisted features began to look angry as it continued, “you sit here and question me? You presume to know the origins of the universe based on what you’ve been told by your peers, I have heard the creator!” Its cracked lips started to bleed as it spoke louder and louder. “Even if that’s true it doesn’t justify all the violence. I find it difficult to believe that an almighty deity told you to do it all, or even exists at all” I paused “I think that you’re delusional.” Immediately it launched itself at me, knocking me out of my chair and on to the concrete. It stood, frozen mid-lunge, held in place by its restraints. It’s eyes boar into me as it snarled like a wild animal, lips oozing with blood. Slowly, I backed away, never breaking eye contact. The door behind me clunked open and the waiting guards rushed inside, weapons aimed at it as I hurried out of the room. As I left it cried out to me in an anguished voice, “You all fall! He is eternal!” Three hours later, I re-entered the room. Its restraints had been secured, affixing its limbs to the floor. Once again, I steadied my nerves. “I’ll ask you again, why did you do it?” It growled, blinked slowly, and then spoke. “I have had this conversation many times, with many people like you” A razor-sharp finger extended slowly, pointing towards me. “You can ask me a thousand questions a thousand times, but it always ends the same way.” I was taken aback by its sudden change in demeanour. “And what way is that?” “Either we give up trying to convince either other of our beliefs or…” its teeth were in full view as it paused, “violence!” “The people you killed; did they choose violence? Did that child choose violence?” I felt myself becoming angry at its casual attitude towards what it had done. “The creator saw that they were evil, the creator told me to punish them. I did the child a kindness, it did not fear like the others did, it did not experience the pain that the other did. Its life was ended first.” “You call that kindness? You call them evil? You murdered them in cold blood!” Fury welled up inside of me, my fists clenched and my legs shook. It started to cackle like a hyena “I knew you would not understand” Its cackling grew louder, and my rage boiled over. Blinded by my anger, I swung my fist towards it, hitting it square in the jaw. Unaffected by the blow, it smiled once more. Its barbed teeth seem to elongate as it grinned wider and wider, its lips now dripping with blood. It flexed its claw-like hands, showing off their true, gargantuan, size. The spines that lined its back and forearms bristled, standing on end. I then watched in horror as its restraints fell away, clattering on the concrete.


The concept of "free will". Wherein a creature can take an action that is so totally out of character that it would be all but impossible to predict has been a plague upon proper implementation of holistic predictive models. However, despite this stipulation, there are a finite number of things an opponent can do in any given situation, which can be broadly categorised. For example, you and your opponent are sat down to play a game of chess. Your opponent is playing white. You are playing black. There are eight pawns, each pawn can be moved one or two spaces, therefore you can categorise your opponent's next move between two possibilities: The one where your opponent moves a pawn one space. And one where your opponent moves a pawn two spaces. But you can always look "backwards" from any situation. Right now, we've gone down a path wherein your opponent is playing by the rules. Take a step back and you can broadly categorise things again: One category of reality where you play the game and one category of reality where you don't. By taking more and more of these steps backwards, you can therefore reach a level where anything your opponent can do has been broken down into a binary option of A or B. Do, or do not. And with those two options in mind, the concept of free will is made irrelevant; the prediction is so broad that simply reacting to your opponent's movements is sufficient. Those milliseconds between your absolute ability to deduce your opponent's attack and when that attack will land are *crucial*. Your ability to react being far more important than how far into the future you can be certain of, because the latter just gives you more subjective time to understand just how slow you are. However, when two such practitioners of this style engage against one another, the feedback loop is the closest thing to pure entropy as exists in this universe until, one second later, one is victorious, the other lies dead on the ground. The problem is that because there are an infinite number of steps forward you can take, there are also an infinite number of steps *backwards* too. Eventually, sheer muscle memory kicks in as the limited mind attempts to comprehend the unlimited, leading to a completely random, completely autonomous attack. It is under *this* scenario that a slower, but more long-term predictive practitioner, is preferred as you can more accurately deduce when entropy kicks in and the half-life of some random isotope in the enemy's right hand will cause it to vanish triggering a cascade reaction leading the opponent to making the first, easily counterable move. Of course, true masters of this art have the sheer force of will to enforce their very nervous system to switch between the two modes, meaning both practitioners of this art and non-practitioners alike are easy prey. They do have one fatal flaw, however. If you can deduce the septo-second moment the nervous system is switching from one type to the other, you can catch them in the only moment they are ever truly off-guard. You can catch them in the only moment you will ever have to kill them. Predict that moment, that singular slice of space/time, a chance so slight, that to express it as a number would require more time than exists before the heat death of the universe, that to explain the myriad hyper-subatomic coincidences that led to this particular incarnation of this existence in time would require words for concepts that don't even exist, a chance that will never come again. Kill them. In that one moment. Kill them. Or else nothing you've ever done in your life mattered. May fortune guide you. Make your prediction.


#Welcome to the Micro Monday Challenge! Hello writers! Welcome to Micro Monday! I am excited to present you all with a chance to sharpen those micro-fic skills. What is micro-fic? I’m glad you asked! Micro-fiction is generally defined as a complete story (hook, plot, conflict, and some type of resolution) written in 300 words or less. For this exercise, it needs to be at least 100 words (no poetry). However, less words doesn’t mean less of a story. The key to micro-fic is to make careful word and phrase choices so that you can paint a vivid picture for your reader. Less words means each word does more! Each week, I’ll give you a single constraint or jumping-off point to get your minds working. It might be an image, song, theme word, sentence, or a simple writing prompt. You’re free to interpret the prompt how you like as long as you follow the post and subreddit rules. **Please read the entire post before submitting.** Remember, feedback matters! And don’t forget to upvote your favorites and nominate them using the new form!   *** #This week’s challenge: **Theme:** **Bonus Constraint (worth 5 extra pts.)** - A mirror appears and/or is used. The theme (or the idea) should appear in some way within the story. You may interpret the theme any way you like as long as the connection is clear and you follow all post and subreddit rules. Use of the bonus constraint and image are not required. *** #How It Works - **Submit a story between 100-300 words in the comments below.** You have until **Sunday at 11:59pm EST**. (No poetry.) - **Use to check your word count.** The title is not counted in your final word count. Stories under 100 words or over 300 will be disqualified from campfire readings and rankings. - **No pre-written content allowed.** Submitted stories should be written for this post, exclusively. Micro serials are acceptable, but please keep in mind that each installment should be able to stand on its own and be understood without leaning on previous installments. - **Come back throughout the week, read the other stories, and leave them a comment on the thread with some feedback.** You have until **2pm EST Monday** to get your feedback in. Only **actionable feedback** will be awarded points. See the ranking scale below for a breakdown on points. - **Please follow all subreddit rules and be respectful and civil in all feedback and discussion.** We welcome writers of all skill levels and experience here; we’re all here to improve and sharpen our skills. You can find a list of . - **Nominate your favorite stories at the end of the week .** You have until **2pm EST** next Monday to submit nominations. (Please note: The form does not open until Monday morning, after the story submission deadline.) - **If you have any questions, feel free to ask them on the *stickied comment* on this thread or through modmail.** Top-level comments are reserved for story submissions. - And most of all, be creative and have fun!   *** #Campfire - On Mondays at 12pm EST, I hold a Campfire on our server. We read all the stories from the weekly thread and provide verbal feedback for those who are present. Come join us to read your own story and listen to the others! You can come to just listen, if that’s more your speed. Everyone is welcome!   *** #How Rankings are Tallied Rankings work on a point-based system. Here is the current breakdown. (A few adjustments have been made; note that upvotes will no longer count for points). - **Use of prompt/constraint:** 20 points (required) - **Use of bonus constraint:** 5 points (not required) - ***Actionable* Feedback on the thread:** 5 points each (up to 25 pts.) - **User nominations:** 10 points each (no cap) - **Bay’s nomination:** 40 pts for first, 30 pts for second, and 20 pts for third (plus regular nominations) - **Submitting nominations:** 5 points (total) **Note on feedback:** - Points will only be awarded for **actionable** feedback. So what is actionable feedback? It is feedback that is constructive, something that the author can use to improve. An actionable critique not only outlines the issue or weakness, but uses specific examples and explanations to describe why it may be doing, or not doing, what it should. Check out as an example.   *** #Rankings - **First:** - Submitted by u/katherine_c - **Second:** - Submitted by u/rainbow\-\-penguin - **Third:** - Submitted by u/bantamnerd - **Bay’s Spotlight:** - Submitted by u/ANDR01Dwrites - **Crit Star** - u/ANDR01Dwrites - **Crit Star** - u/bantamnerd - **Crit Star** - u/FyeNite - **Crit Star** - u/katherine_c - **Crit Star** - u/rainbow\-\-penguin *Note: Crit Creds are awarded to users who go above and beyond with critiques and can be used on r/WPCritique. Don’t forget in order to receive them, you also must have made at least one post on WPC *or* have linked your reddit account to the sub on our .* *** ###Subreddit News - Join in our weekly writing chat on . We discuss a new topic every week! New here? Come introduce yourself! - Try your hand at serial writing with ! - You can also post serials to r/Shortstories, outside of Serial Sunday.