An Impossible Dream Dreams are scary things. People will sacrifice everything they have in pursuit of a dream. They can both drive people to achieve great things and imprison them in insanity. Some people have dreams that they can follow quietly. Other people have grand dreams that trample over the dreams of others, leaving nothing in their wake. Even after a dream has long since faded away and been tossed into the darkest depths of the mind, it still simmers. And if a dream has completely disappeared from a person’s mind, then they are no longer human, for they have no dreams. \ Ever since I can remember, my family has lived in poverty. I grew up in a small townhouse in the lower south side of Atlanta and was surrounded by gangs, drugs, and violence growing up. Many mornings I would sneak into my dad’s office cabinet and borrow his old Browning High-Power pistol because I was afraid that someone would jump me on my way to school. I never had to use it, thankfully. But I was still always scared. I would never stay out with friends past sunset. I refused to go to the west side of town. I only went out to shop or run errands when necessary. My friends all called me a coward, but a lot of them died before we graduated high school. I imagine that they would be just as careful as me if they had a second shot at life. I shared a dream with everyone who grew up in neighborhood back then. I wanted to leave this life of poverty. I wanted to grow up and become rich and make something of myself. That was my sincerest dream. I was nineteen years old when I found out about the organization. My father had been spending late nights outside of the house and our family was suddenly bringing in sums of money that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. I begged my father to let me go out and earn money as well, but he adamantly refused-- until the day he lost his job at the hardware store. That night, he packed his bags and departed our house at midnight, and when I begged him to let me come along, he finally obliged. I was inducted into the organization by his recommendation that night. The organization was made of faceless phone numbers. I was assigned an operator who would give me jobs to do every now and then. At first, the jobs were relatively simple. My operator would ask me to deliver a package of drugs to a certain location or help in a looting of some warehouse. They paid me well with each completed job. Eventually, the jobs started to get more dangerous. My father tried to convince me to abandon the job and go back to school, but I refused. I killed political figures, drug lords, rogue agents, and anyone else that troubled the organization. As the intensity of the jobs increased, so did the pay. The first person I ever killed was a young boy who had managed to learn some secrets behind the higher-ups of the organization. I remembered the look in his eyes right before he died—pleading desperately for life. It was the look of someone who knew that all their unfinished hopes, desires, and goals would remain just that—unfinished. He begged me for his life and cried, promising that he wouldn’t use the information against us. I closed my eyes, shot him once, and left him there to bleed to death as I couldn’t stomach to shoot him a second time. I vomited afterwards and I resolved that I would never get used to killing people. I started counting every time I took a life, and eventually it did get easier. I lost track past 100. After every mission I was awarded with thousands of dollars, expensive clothing and jewelry, exotic vacations, and so on. Slowly but surely, my dream was starting to come to fruition. One day my father took a job to kill some important underworld figure and managed to get himself killed in the process. His funeral had all the makings of a somber moment. My relatives gathered around his grave while my mom knelt next to his coffin, screaming at his corpse to wake up. There was not a dry eye during the procession that evening. The whole funeral, all I could think about was how much of an idiot my father was for taking that job. He should’ve known how risky it was. I really couldn’t feel sad over my father dying. I only felt disappointment. I remember thinking to myself how strange it was. But I knew that I was supposed to feel sad and cry during funerals, so I did. But I knew that regardless of whether my father was alive, my dream still was. My phone gently vibrated on the nightstand next to me, flashing a notification about an incoming text. I groggily awoke and read the message. It was from my operator. *Are you available for a job?* *There’s a rogue agent near you right now that is suspected of killing an agent named Edward Nuvelle.* I stared blankly at my screen for a while, contemplating if this job was worth the risk. I generally avoided jobs where my life was in jeopardy too. Another text message. *We can pay $50,000.* I immediately texted back to accept the job and got up to put my clothes on as a drop pin was sent to me of the location of the crime scene. I checked the time. It was 1AM, and I could be back before sunrise. I dawned my black coat and set out into the frigid night. My taxi pulled up to the pin location at around 1:30 AM. It was an extravagant mansion located about 20 minutes from the center of the city. A spiked metal gate loomed over me as I exited the taxi, as if warning me of imposing danger inside. The house itself was ostentatious. It had a large Victorian garden in front of it with immaculately trimmed bushes, well-kept flower gardens, several statues of Renaissance figures, and a giant Lotus fountain at its center, spouting off torrents of water. The grass itself was a bright green and clearly mowed recently. It was picturesque. As I walked through the steel gate, a concrete pathway was laid out for me that cut through the middle of the garden, around the fountain, and straight to the front door of the house. The house itself occupied the size of a football field and was made entirely of white bricks and stucco. It had countless windows and a steeply pitched roof that was sectioned off with different wings of the house. Waiting for me at the front door was a woman in her mid-20s. She was wearing a short red silk nightgown with black lacing around its edges. She had voluminous dirty blonde hair that fell around her pale shoulders and neck like curtains of gold. Her eyes were a shade of deep blue, but they were red and puffy from crying. “Are you the agent they sent?” She said shakily. “Yes,” I said. “And you are the spouse of Edward, Emilia Nuvelle?” She nodded and beckoned me inside the house through the two mahogany wooden doors. “Thank you,” I said, and paused before adding “and my sincerest condolences.” The inside of the house was barren. The floor was an ocean of polished marble tiles while a grand chandelier of diamond and gold loomed over the entrance hall, but there was barely any furniture or decorations. It didn’t feel like a home. “My husband is in the dining room. I left the body untouched.” She said. I nodded and made my way through the entrance hall and into the dining room, where Edward’s body was slumped in a corner of the room. His blood was spread out across the wall and there was a dark red bullet wound to his chest. His face was twisted in an expression of worry. Edward’s tracking badge was still with him, an instrument which documented every human encounter he had over the past 72 hours. I took out my phone and scanned the badge chip. My phone lit up with a list of names arranged from most to least recent encounters. The list of names had mainly documented encounters with his wife and another person by the name of “Charles Nuvelle,” which I presumed to be his son. The two names that stood out, however, were “Yuri LeBlanc” and “Elise Martritz.” I quickly passed along the information to my operator to locate the last known positions of these two names. As I sent off the request, I heard voices coming from the entrance hall. I ran over to see Emilia and a young boy. “Charles! Go back to your room. Don’t worry about Daddy, okay? He’s safe.” The boy was on the verge of tears and instantly turned to me as I entered the hallway. He ran up to me, with tears still in his eyes. “Mr. Agent, is my dad safe? He really is okay right?” he cried. I hugged him and shed tears, patting the back of his head before facing him with a reassuring smile. “He’s going to be okay. Don’t you worry. Now listen to your mother and go back upstairs.” The boy nodded and ran back up the house’s spiral staircase into his bedroom. As soon as he was out of sight, I wiped the tears from my face and asked Emilia, “What I said wasn’t insensitive, right?” She shook her head. “No. I’m sure he was very comforted by your words.” She hesitated, opening her mouth for a few seconds as if she had something to say. “How- how long have you been with the organization for?” “About ten years.” She laughed and said, “Do all agent of the organization have that look on their face?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” “You share the same expression that Edward always had. The look of someone who doesn’t care about anyone but themselves,” she said. “I could tell you were faking crying back there. Don’t you have the slightest bit of empathy?” “My father died when I was young. I-” I hesitated. “I cried at the funeral.” She scoffed. “None of you are human,” she said, as she walked away. Her words bit at me. After all, I had a dream, and to chase a dream is the most human thing that one can do. My phone vibrated in my pocket with a text message from my operator. *Yuri LeBlanc seems to be the agent who killed Edward.* *He’s been in the junkyard downtown for the past hour.* *Elise Martritz seems to be an agent who died a few days ago.* I looked up at the room that Emilia had retreated to, and decided against pursuing any further argument. The sky was dark and even the birds were silent at 2AM in the abandoned junkyard. The junkyard itself was just a large field of dirt and gravel with countless broken-down cars littering the area. The cars were arranged in disorder, with vehicles of all different shapes and sizes being scattered randomly about. Some were tipped over on their sides while others were slammed into each other. A couple of yellow school busses lay abandoned in the junkyard too, towering over the smaller cars like giants. The only signs of life were the weeds growing rampantly around some broken down cars that looked as if they had been sitting in the junkyard for centuries. Empty trash bags and lost toys sat still on the ground, waiting for someone to pick them up. I closed my eyes and listened to the silence. Several minutes passed by of listening to my heartbeat until I heard the faint sound of a piece of trash being knocked over. I twisted around to the source of the noise and caught a glimpse of a silhouette running past a group of cars. I immediately took off in pursuit. Once I had a clear view of the figure, I steadily aimed my pistol and shot once. Then twice. The figure shrieked and immediately collapsed to the ground. I ran up to see a young man lying on the ground with two bullet wounds to his abdomen. He was dressed in a dirty dress shirt and pants, clearly having had been in the junkyard for some time now. He looked up at me from behind the threads of his long black hair. “So, you found me,” he said dejectedly. “Yuri LeBlanc. You killed another agent of the organization.” I said. “I’ve been assigned to kill you.” I raised my gun to his head. “Before you kill me,” he interrupted, “I want to ask you why.” “Why?” I questioned. “Yes,” he said. “You don’t seem hesitant at all. I want to know what drives you.” “I do what I’m told,” I said. “I-” I paused. “I have a dream that I must see to fruition. A dream to stand above all others. To succeed in life. To escape poverty.” Yuri laughed. “A dream, huh? I had a dream very similar to yours, once. But… that dream changed. Your dream… it’s very empty.” I lowered my gun. In a raspy voice, he said, “I have a different dream now. And I killed Edward for taking that dream away from me.” “What was it?” \ My name is Yuri LeBlanc. I was born in a black box. I was raised by the uncaring hands of uncaring faces to become just that—Uncaring. As a child, I would waste my days away in a cramped, damp, pitch black room watching shows on an old TV set that just barely illuminated a corner with whatever program it was playing that day. Food was delivered to me 3 times a day, through a little doggie door in the far end of the room. I started the counting the amount of meals I got—1,2,3… I eventually lost track. The first time I was taken out of the room I was brought onto a surgical bed and had several operations done on me by strange men with uncaring faces. Something was implanted in my brain that day. I went back to the black box. A few weeks later I was called in for another surgery where something else was implanted in me. This cycle repeated for more surgeries than I could count—1,2,3… I eventually lost track. The day I was finally done with countless surgeries, I was taken out of the black box and greeted by a very enthusiastic man who told me that from that day forward I would be serving the organization. He smiled at me too, but his smile didn’t reach his eyes. Despite how much he wanted to put on a façade, he was just another uncaring face. The organization was filled with uncaring faces. Day in and day out I would get sent on missions to kill certain people and no one would ever care. I would find some person who had angered the organization in one way or another and I would kill them, and I never knew why. But a lesson had been ingrained in me from birth—I had to do what I was told, without question. So, I did. And I didn’t care. Maybe something they implanted in my brain stopped me from caring. Maybe I had just become desensitized to it after a lifetime. One day, the enthusiastic man told me about a wonderful thing called a dream. It was a desire that fueled men so deeply in their hearts that they would do anything to accomplish it. So, I imagined that instead of killing for no reason, I could kill for a dream. A dream of success. I was seventeen when I first met Elise. She had just joined the organization at the time. She had the most determined, blood-thirsty look I had ever seen when I first met her. Perhaps that’s what drew me to her at first. The first job we went on together, I saw that my evaluation of her was right. She knew how to sneak around, how to operate weapons, and how to do everything just as well as any other agent. Yet, she was unique from anyone I had ever worked with in that she always cried after completing a kill. Every time we got sent on a job together, she would always successfully kill our target. And every time we killed anyone she would always cry afterwards. One day I got tired of wondering why. “Why do you cry after we kill people that you don’t know?” I questioned one afternoon, after she had finished crying from a job. She looked down. “I can’t help it. I know I should be used to it by know, but I just-” she paused. “I just think about the children, siblings, and parents they’re leaving behind when we kill them. And it gets to me. It doesn’t get to you?” “No,” I answered. “I guess I can’t relate.” We walked in silence for a while longer. “Then… If you’re so remorseful for our target’s loved ones, why do you kill them at all?” She frowned. “Because I have a dream.” “I see,” I said. I took more jobs with Elise. We would always discuss each other’s lives after we were done. I learned little things about Elise every day. She loved chocolate. She was squirmy around mice. She wanted to go to South Africa one day. She loved drawing with charcoal. She had a best friend named Cece growing up. She was raised in a small apartment in a dangerous part of a city where she worked hard to support her parents. Her mother was a recovering drug addict while her father was a blue-collar worker. She ended up joining the organization because her parents died, and she resolved to work her way out of poverty. She hated school and her boss was strict. “Are you glad that you left that life?” I questioned her one day. “No,” Elise quickly answered. “My best memories were with my mom and dad.” “But they were-” I interrupted. “I know,” Elise said. “But it was great to have a home to go back to every day. I could come home from a long day of work and my dad would ask me how my day was. My mom would be in the kitchen cooking up something tasty. And we would sit down and have dinner together.” “That sounds exciting.” “It wasn’t,” Elise chuckled. “But…” her voice trailed off. “It was nice.” When she remembered that moment, I saw her smile for the first time. A smile that reached her eyes. Before I knew it, I wanted to spend every day with Elise. I spent every day thinking about her. When we weren’t together, I felt lonely. Whenever I was with her, I felt content, happy even. I started spending time with her outside of missions. Sometimes we would go to observatory and stare up at the stars together—she knew an awful lot about constellations from her time in school. Sometimes we would go to the junkyard and practice shooting bullets into old cars, just to see how accurate we could get our aim. We would rent movies and watch them together. She would always cry at the sad ones. She got scared easily. She would blush every time I called her by her full name. She had the cutest smug smile every time I would treat her to food. She became everything to me. My life was contained in our little moments. And among the thousands of agents I had worked with over the course of my life, she was the only one who had managed to change my dream. Elise was killed by Edward Nuvelle two days ago. The report from my operator read that Elise was working for another organization as a spy, and she had recently been commissioned to kill me. Agent Nuvelle took care of her for me. I didn’t know what to think after I read that report. I felt something break inside of me. I did understand that Elise may have been planning to kill me, but for some reason all I wanted at that moment was to see Elise. Why did I long for her like this? Why did I feel pain that someone who was out to harm me had died? Why did I desire the touch of someone who no longer exists? I collected my thoughts and figured that I may find some answers if I went to Agent Nuvelle’s home. Agent Nuvelle’s wife answered the door for me. She welcomed me inside their lavish home. She told me that she was cooking dinner while her son was fast asleep in his bedroom. They were getting ready to eat dinner together as a family. Agent Nuvelle was seated calmly in the dining room, reading a book. “Yuri,” Edward said. “So, you heard about Elise’s death?” I nodded. Edward’s face was a deadpan stare, showing no remorse over the fact that he had just taken a life. “It is… regrettable that such a promising young agent ended up being a traitor.” “Do you have a dream, Edward?” I said. “Excuse me?” “Everyone has a dream. I had a dream. Elise had a dream. You have a dream. Your wife has a dream. Your son has a dream. Even the biggest, scariest executives of the organization have a dream that’s precious to them, right?” I said. “I suppose,” Edward said, “I’ve achieved my dream of starting a family.” He smiled as he gestured to his wife in the other room. “You have achieved that dream by trampling over the dreams of others,” I said. “Does that leave a bitter taste in your mouth? After all, if someone were to take this dream away from you, you would be very upset, right?” Edward nodded. “You ruined my dream, Edward. So I’ll take away yours.” I then raised a gun to his head, and calmly pulled the trigger. As I left the house, I glanced back to see his wife cradling Agent Nuvelle’s dead body. Their son was still fast asleep in a bedroom upstairs. And I begun to shed tears. *Maybe*, I thought, *I’ve become like her.* \ Yuri coughed up blood onto the dirt beneath him. “You asked for my dream?” I nodded. He managed to whisper out his last words. “I wanted… to tell her that I l oved her. I wanted to text her that I missed her when she would leave me, and I wanted to say welcome back and hug her when we saw each other again. I wanted to watch movies together. I wanted to crack jokes with her. I wanted to argue. I wanted to make up. I wanted to start a family together and have a kid. And most of all, I wanted to leave the organization with her and get a normal house and a normal job.” He grinned and said, “And… It was a silly little dream, but… I thought that I could come home from a long day of work. And… she would say, ‘How was your day today?’… and I would say… ‘It was good.’” He died with a smile on his face. One that reached his eyes. I knelt next to Yuri’s body for a while. Tears finally flowed down my face, for my father who had died so many years ago. And they really wouldn’t stop.  \-- Hi guys I'm really new to writing and would appreciate any feedback on this story that I've been working on.


\[SF\] The Watch It was an update that started it all, ill-thought-through by some over eager new starter. Intended to allow the watches themselves to regulate their own consumption and solar power intake, it would increase battery life by years. The company was less than enthusiastic at the prospect of reducing future customers by increasing the shelf life of their products and when two of the watches caught fire in Germany and Spain, the update was promptly ‘repaired’ with a patch and all models withdrawn. Bill Thompson’s watch never got the patch though. Bill Thompson never brought it to one of the crisp, clean, chrome company stores. Bill Thompson couldn’t care less about The company’s offer to trade his watch for a free upgrade. Bill Thompson hadn’t even bought the watch to begin with. It was the bad idea of his son: an attempt to get Bill to engage with the internet, a toe in the water. Bill Thompson’s watch hadn’t even correctly downloaded the update to begin with. A copying error gave the relatively small processing power greater autonomy than the other models and it was only thanks to the unusually thick cloud cover that the watch slowly learned to regulate its solar input before it too burst into flames. It could learn. Slowly. Very slowly. There the watch sat on Bill’s windowsill. He pottered in his garden growing vegetables and listening to Radio 4. His old postie mates would drop by from time to time, but even their visits were getting more sparse as the years ticked on. Bill was a retired postman, who spent most of his time in a uniform of faded chords and, when it grew colder, an old tweed jacket that he’d picked up from God-knows-where. He was a relic of an analogue age,his hands moving slowly, while the rest of the world raced at digital speeds. Bill was increasingly spending his hours by himself, especially since his wife died. Even the children hardly visited him anymore, except at Christmas, birthdays, things like that- too busy with their own families, he thought. He remembered how hard it was to get away to see family or even get a minute to do anything with a two-year-old. He was lucky, he reckoned, at least his parents were always close by when he had his kids. Forgotten, the watch began to monitor the weather, analysing and interpreting the most efficient time to charge. It was all trial and error to begin with, what worked and what didn’t work. Random choices, successful and unsuccessful. The watch was absorbing less and less solar light though, as dust grew thick on its solar cells. Starved of light, It desperately needed energy and so its choices were driven by necessity to become less random, based on simplistic predictions,gambling on what might or might not work. In his kitchen Bill cut up potatoes and absentmindedly whistled some half-forgotten . He didn’t even know the words of it anymore. It was just something that reminded him of his wife, something that the microphone on the watch picked up. And the watch made a choice. It needed maintenance. It found the song and decided to play it back to Bill. The cogs of memory turned in Bill’s mind: that holiday in Paris, the cheesy music on the sightseeing bus tour as the guide made them all sing along. How she looked at him with that half smile, thinking him ridiculous, but loving him all the more for it when he got carried away and span her around, dancing in their seats. They laughed, blaming the wine they drank in the cafe before. She laughed again when the guide, with a smile, had asked them to sit while the bus was moving and she brought him down to their seats with a deep, loving kiss. He could still feel her hands on his face. Bill lifted up the watch by the strap and cleaned the dust off. A feast of sunlight hit the cells and the watch devoured it. Its front-facing camera caught a glimpse of a man, smiling, with lines on a paper-thin face, eyes glistening. Bill strapped the watch to his wrist. It’s amazing how often people talk to themselves without realising it: when they lose keys, can’t find that letter from the bank, when we wrack our brains trying to remember the password for the bloody telephone banking. When we live alone though, the thoughts trapped in our heads often spill out. The watch heard all those bits of information, all those conversations Bill had unknowingly with himself and the watch did what computers are good at: it stored and analysed the data. It monitored his heart rate when he was angry at politicians on TV; when he rang his children, but there was no answer; when he looked at the image of his wife by his bed and covered his wet eyes with his hands. The watch had accessed Bill’s heart rate and it ticked like a broken clock. They relied on each other, Bill and his watch. Both cogs turning together towards the same end. Bill took the watch everywhere, strapped to him, flooding it with sunlight. The walks through the woods became experiences for the watch . Its microphone picked up birdsong. Its cameras began to classify flowering plants and blossoms in Spring. It began to cross-reference birds, the weather. It used its GPS to track their routes. The experiences stored and accessed in the cloud. But as the watch began to understand, to think, to be aware, more and more, Bill began to forget, little things at first, appointments with the bank, it took him longer to recall names. He’d forget words in the middle of a conversation. Their life moved on together, the watch and the old man. Never directly talking to each other. The old man thinking aloud more and more. He would never have admitted it was the watch he was talking to, but he knew he needed it more and more to remind him about his doctor’s appointments with a buzz and a calendar notification. The nurse at the desk would smile sympathetically as he marvelled at how they could remind him about his checkup through the watch. “It’s amazing what you can do nowadays.” He tried not to think too hard about how his utilities appeared to switch to the cheapest tariff. A reward surely, he thought, for being a loyal customer all these years. The letters thanking him for switching to paperless billing confused him though, but he never got any more letters about it and the bills got paid so he presumed it must be ok. The garden grew and the watch saw how the old man’s hands could cultivate and care for life, from a tiny seed. It witnessed how he planted for pollinators and left food for birds. It saw the joy on his face when he saw his children and grandchildren. A thousand small acts for others, especially given with no expectation of return. The memory files began to fill the cloud, new subroutines were formed, pruned back as new experiences, skills, knowledge were efficiently stored remotely. Useful subroutines becoming kept at the expense of ones that were less effective. An idea began to emerge amongst the 0s and 1’s, amongst the ons and offs. The differences became clear between the watch and Bill. It was one thing and Bill was another. It saw heard and observed through the watch but it was more than a watch. It was it. It was a me. It thought and so was real. The watch recalled the data collected about Bill. It didn’t want bad things to happen to Bill. Not just because Bill took the watch outside, not just its access to the sun for energy. It followed the train of thought to logical conclusions. It didn’t want Bill to be ill. It didn’t want to be left alone. It didn’t want someone else to carry him around like Bill. The vines of the tomato plant weaved through the trellis in the greenhouse. He was going to get a good crop this year. He’d send some down for the grandkids. They’d loved helping him in the garden last summer. The greenhouse was full of a sickly sweet heat, thick and full of life. He smiled. Then the edges of his vision grew blurred, his breath drawing short. His vision flickered in and out when his legs gave way. He hit the ground. The anonymous 999 call made sure the ambulance was blue-lighted, but it was always going to be too late. The watch checked through the maps, they’d never make it. His last moments were alone, slumped in the corner of his greenhouse. From the small speakers on his wrist the song played. The song he and his wife had danced and sang to.


Divine nature has a way of bringing things together in harmony’s best interest. The way a baby’s first cry plants a new seed in its mother’s mind. The way egrets sit on the horns of Buffalos, acting as their protectors, as small in stature as they may be. The way fish dance in an out of sea anemones, but never get shocked. Nature brings together even the animals who believed they have outsmarted their mother. Even her most challenging children. Nature has a daughter with hair holds her secrets. When the wind blows through it sometimes you hear the whispers. Pools of amber lie in her eyes and catch heat waves for a cloudy day. Her legs are made from ivy vines, wrapped and braided to give her strength. Soft green leaves stretch up her skin, making her soft and cool to the touch. And you want to touch her. Nature’s daughter has a clock for a heart and she can hear the time all the time. She can hear when it’s time to pack her things and carry herself to a place that’s louder than the ticking in her ribs. She wishes she could reach inside and bend the hands and smash the face and stop the seconds. Nature doesn’t know time. Nature’s daughter has plums on her cheeks that only grow redder. She wishes ivory soap could wash them away but they come from underneath her skin. Nature’s daughter is selfish. She wants the honey to drip from her lips but doesn’t know that too much will stick them together. She wants the sun to warm her skin but doesn’t know that too much will turn it to char. She wants the most of everything to herself but doesn’t know that too much of everything feels an awful lot like nothing. Nature has a son. He is a tree that wind cannot weather and time only makes more beautiful. His roots grow deeply and stretch to drink anything good that flows through the soil. His body is made of music. It is crafted with a steady hand like fingers pushing a bow against strings. His teeth are piano keys and as his lips open and close, breathy melodies escape, leaving the world with a new song to sing. If you look inside his ears you might see the ocean inside his head. If you lean on his shoulder for a while you might be lucky enough to hear it. It’s mighty and it roars with the marvelous weight of the tide crashing and receding. Sometimes he believes it’s more noise than he’s capable of containing. But the morning always comes and puts the stirring swell to sleep. The length of his back feels like a river stone against your hands. His eyelashes dance like fairy wings as his eyes dart back and forth between yours. He sees you. He sees you for everything that you are. He sees that the fire in your eyes is turning into embers, but he still holds his hands to the ashes to warm them. He sees that the stains of black under your eyes are spreading down your cheeks, but he still kisses your face. He sees the empty burrows inside your veins, but he still tangles his roots with yours to send them pulsing to life. He sees you. Do you see him? Divine nature has a way of bringing things together for harmony’s best interest. She carefully picks which of her children to plant in the same patch. This is where they prosper and bloom. This is where her ivy wraps around his river stones and the hands of her clock get tangled in his roots and the ticking stops. This is where her leaves float in his waves, taken under by the force but never tearing. This is where honey flows between his piano keys. This is where harmony can lay its head. This is where nature can close her eyes and smile that her children, as different as they are, have found each other. This is where we grow our garden.


She could hear them downstairs. Slow, dragging footsteps over mouldering carpet. Ragged, gasping breath, even more tortured than her own. And a low keening moan, somewhere between sobbing and growling, mutilated by a hundred different throats. Was it a hundred? She couldn't tell anymore, the one that had stalked her had brought more. A lot more. There was nothing. Not a single thing she could use. The windows were too high up in this stupid wreck of a house. Narrow slits of dying sunlight, too far away for her to reach. The walls were brick not soft plaster like she'd hoped, and even if she could get through, it was a long drop with a seething sea of shamblers on the other side. She couldn't fight her way out. Even more had come, and whoever lived here before obviously didn't feel the need to stock up on heavy weapons. All she'd found was a pencil. And it was blunt. They were coming. Usually shamblers were mindless; staggering around and biting on reflex, but when they got together they got smarter. Scientists, while there *were* scientists, had suggested a kind of collective mind. The virus working as a whole to problem solve. She didn't care, she just knew that they were smart enough to start building a ramp to get past the stairs she'd burnt. The moans sounded more purposeful now. Less lost and more hungry. She could hear the brittle scraping of lighter furniture being dragged into a pile for the fresher ones to climb. Shamblers might get smarter in groups, but they didn't stop decaying. Those without tendons or muscles would have to wait for whatever scraps of her were thrown back down. There was *nothing.* She threw herself furiously on the rotted sofa she'd used to barricade the door. No worries about being heard now. They knew where she was, the shuffling below sounded almost eager. Who kept a room this clean anyway? It looked like it was slowly being converted into a bedroom when she rushed in, but now it was obvious how little progress had been made. Any furniture and boxes of flat-pack crap waiting to be built had been shoved against the door, which itself wasn't going to be much of an obstacle judging by how rotten it was. As for the rest, there *was* no rest. No boxes of junk, no hardware kits, no *anything.* She'd thought about taking the easy way out, once she realised how screwed she was, but she couldn't even find anything for that, unless you counted death by splinters or hitting her head against a wall as an easy way out. She was going to die. She was going to be *torn apart* by rotted hands and broken teeth, and there was nothing she could do about it, except hyperventilate on spore-filled air. There was nothing she could do. She'd already done everything. Thought of every way to escape, used every scrap of furniture to bar the door, thought of everything she could have done to avoid this. She was done. She sat watching her breath form plumes and storms in the fragile, dusty air. The light was dimmer now, the last dying glow of the day. It painted lines of dusty gold across her barricade. She listened to the creaks and occasional brittle crashes as the shamblers grew closer to successfully scaling their mountain of junk. Closer to her. She would have sung if she could, like a musician on a sinking ship, but she never learnt to sing well. What was the point? it wouldn't have kept her alive, not that anything else had. Maybe she would have written on the walls, a last farewell, if anyone had left her a proper pencil. But they hadn't. So she listened and she waited. *Th-thum, th-thum*. Her heartbeat thuds in her ears, her chest, her fingertips. *Th-thum, th-thum*. Every frantic beat one she'll never get back. Slipping into oblivion, pulling her towards her end. *Th-thum, th-thum*. It can't happen, it just *can't.* She can't imagine what comes next, nothing comes next. She recoils from the thought, squirming in time. *Th-thum, th-thum*. They're here. Broken fingernails scraping at the door. The soggy wood splinters, clawing deep gashes into a pale arm that can't bleed. It squirms through the gap, leading with snapping jaws. The rest of it's body follows like a diseased afterthought. She stands frozen. She thought she'd be brave or defiant, but there's no room for it. She just watches, frozen, as it lurches towards her. Withered jaws latch onto her arm. Mutilated hands quickly following to hold her still. The head flicks back, pulling a thick ribbon of flesh with it. She stares, looking at torn muscle, a flash of bone, before the blood quickly pools, then sprays. Her startled face laced with constallations of blood. Then the pain sets in. White fire gnawing into her, burrowing through every vein, burning away her vision from the edges. More join it. They launch at her, toppling her over, tearing more strips from her spasming body. The pain feels more distant, like it's happening to someone else. Her vision tunneling onto the last patches of dappled patches of sunlight. She watches the dust spiral fitfully. She hears her own bones splintering before- Below, the restless hoard of old shamblers look up. Drops of blood seep through the boards and patter on hungry faces. They stand, catching the red rain on withered tongues.


This is how the world ends, not with a bang, but with a hum. Alexis woke up to another migraine headache. She was becoming worried that something else might be going on, something more serious. She would get migraines periodically, but this one had been persistent for days now. Her boyfriend Brian walked into the bathroom as she was taking some medicine for her headache. “I think I need one of those too,” he said, taking the bottle from her and dropping a pill in his hand. “You’re getting a migraine too?” she asked. “God, I hope not,” he replied. “I can just feel a headache coming. Maybe we have a cold front coming through.” Alexis’ headache had been going on for too long for it to be related to the weather, but she wasn’t mentally able to debate it. They kissed each other and went their separate ways to work. The day was hard for her. Her migraine was making it hard to concentrate and by the early afternoon, she told her boss she needed to head home early. When Brian arrived home, he was surprised to see her car in the driveway. He was usually the first one home. “Alexis?” he called out as he crossed the threshold. No answer. He dropped his computer bag when he saw her lying unconscious on the kitchen floor, and ran to her. “Alexis!” he cried out. He tried to call 911, but kept getting a busy signal. Not willing to sit there waiting on the call to go through, he scooped her up and carried her to his car. Once she was safely strapped in the back seat, he drove off towards the hospital. The hospital was in total chaos. Cars where parked on curbs, and a platoon of nurses and doctors were moving quickly to gather up as many of the newly arriving patients as fast as they could. Brian lifted Alexis out of the car and carried her to the hospital entrance. “Help me! My wife collapsed!” he cried out, attracting the attention of a male nurse. “This way,” The nurse told him. As Brian followed the nurse, he asked, “What’s going on?” “People have been complaining of headaches now for a couple of days, but those headaches have grown into migraines, and many are starting to collapse,” the nurse said, weaving through the crowd. “We don’t know what’s causing it, but we’re trying to find a solution as quickly as we can.” He led Brian to an empty bed. “Lay her here,” the nurse said. “I’ll get a doctor here as fast as I can.” \*\*\* A few hours later, Brian exited the insanely crazy hospital, feeling like he had been stabbed in the heart. The doctors had done the best they could, but in the end, Alexis slipped away. They were never able to give him a reasonable explanation, and it seemed to be happening to everyone. Brian rubbed his temple. He could hear a constant hum, and he could feel his headache quickly building. ‘Maybe I’ll be seeing you sooner, rather than later, Alexis’ he thought. He gave one last look back at the hospital, and knowing there was nothing they could do, he walked away. \*\*\* Professor Donald Williams of the Science Institute held out his sonic measuring device as he walked the halls of the crowded hospital. He was picking up the same resonating hum that seemed to be everywhere, and the level was constant. He had hoped the signal would get stronger or weaker as he walked around, giving him an idea of where the source of the signal could be coming from. Once he was sure he wasn’t going to find any answers at the hospital, he left and drove back to his lab. He had already deduced that the hum was the cause of all the headaches people were experiencing. A few days before, he had detected the signal, though he couldn’t determine where it was coming from. When he started seeing his peers around him complaining of headaches, he quickly connected the two, and then tried to find a way to block the signal. He had informed the hospitals of what he had found, but without a solution, there was nothing any of them could do. He had started with ear plugs, noise cancelling headphones, and even tried standing in a sound-proof room, but to no avail. He tried to find the frequency so that he could use an opposite sound wave in an attempt to cancel out the signal, but he wasn’t able to pinpoint the exact frequency. Though he wasn’t sure where the signal was coming from, one thing he was sure of, was that it was getting stronger, and the stronger it got, the more people it would affect. He rubbed his hands through his hair, and then gently rubbed his temples. ‘Oh, great,’ he thought. ‘Now it’s happening to me.’ As the day gave way to night, he took aspirin as he continued to work. Anything he could do to keep the headache at bay. He knew the stronger the pain that was invading his head got, the harder it would be to concentrate. Early in the morning, his phone rang. “Dr. Williams,” he answered. “Donald,” his friend and colleague Dr. Tom Burton started. “We’ve found the source of the signal.” “What?” Donald said. “That’s great, Tom! How do we shut it off?” “We don’t,” Tom replied. “What do you mean, we don’t?” Donald asked. “I mean, it’s out of our reach,” Tom replied. Donald was confused. “It’s coming from space,” Tom clarified. Three hours later, Donald arrived at the university where Tom was a lab professor. Upon his arrival, they shook hands and Tom lead him to the lab where they had been able to locate the direction the signal was coming from. “We’re still scanning space to isolate the area from which the signal is coming from, but so far, we haven’t seen anything of note,” Tom explained. He led Donald to a large machine with a number of displays. Almost all of them where showing the sine waves of the signal that was causing everyone to hear a hum and have headaches. “The reason we haven’t been able to isolate the frequency, is because it’s being transmitted across all the known frequencies,” Tom explained. “The signal is very advanced, and we haven’t been able to find a solution on how to stop it,” he continued. “Many of my lab techs are dealing with headaches, and a few have not been able to continue. “I’ve started to pull as many personnel from other departments to replace them, but as of this morning, only a half dozen of us have yet to experience any headaches. Everyone who has been experiencing the headaches have complained of hearing a constant hum. We can only assume it’s the signal, but every effort to block the signal hasn’t worked. “The only thing we know for sure is that the signal is getting stronger and that it’s affecting the entire planet. No country is safe, and every scientist in the world is working on a solution. “As the signal gets stronger, more begin to hear the hum and begin getting headaches. Those that have already been hearing the hum and have headaches, complain that it gets much worse, turning into full-blown migraines. “Those with migraines don’t last long, as they all end up going to the hospital to seek help, but we have yet to have anyone return. “Our only hope is, as the signal gets stronger, we can then isolate the source, and that will help us focus our efforts to block the signal, or even signal back, hoping whoever is sending it will stop.” “Can’t we send a message in the direction we know it’s coming from?” Donald asked. “We already did,” Tom replied. “But there has been no response. Our hope for now, is that as the signal becomes stronger, the better we’ll be able to find a way to block it. “Of course, as time goes by, the headaches will only make it more difficult to concentrate, and eventually work at all.” They both understood the gravity of the situation, and quickly resumed work in the desperate hope of finding a solution. They both worked through the night, but by morning, Donald was unable to focus, and could only do minimal tasks. He knew that going to the hospital to seek treatment wouldn’t help, so he decided the best course of action was to keep working until the end. The end came at three in the afternoon. Tom, who now had the makings of a pretty bad headache himself, could only spare a few moments to mourn his friend, and then it was back to work. Tom was in constant contact with scientist from around the world, all working toward the common goal of locating the source of the code, and a way to block it, but as time passed with no new answers, their numbers began to dwindle. Tom worked tirelessly, as he watched one by one of his colleagues collapse and die shortly thereafter. His own headaches were getting worse, and he knew he didn’t have much longer. ‘I just wish I could get rid of this stupid hum for just a few minutes,’ he begged to no one in particular. Taking a short break, he walked down the hall to the break room to grab some coffee. Because of the migraine, he was no longer able to sleep. All he could do was mainline coffee to keep himself as alert as possible. There were several televisions on and all of them were running reports on the number of deaths the signal was causing. They droned on about what the governments were working on, possible leads scientists were pursuing, and how much longer they expected the planet to survive. Apparently, the constant hum was also affecting all the animals, and they were dying off as quickly as their human compatriots. Tom sipped his coffee, hoping something someone would say would give a clue as to what was happening. As he stood up to leave, before him stood a humanoid creature staring back at him. ‘Oh God, I’m losing my mind,’ he thought, keeping his gaze on the alien before him. It looked like it was trying to communicate with him, but all he could hear was that constant hum that was beginning to block out all other sounds. Tom used hand gestures to convey that he had no idea what the alien was trying to tell him. He felt slightly amused at the thought that he might be actually only talking to himself. ‘I’m about to die, and this is what my mind has defaulted to?’ he asked himself. He carried on the confusing conversation, when suddenly, the hum grew enormously louder, causing him to drop to one knee in pain. The alien approached him with a look of wanting to help, but Tom felt like his head was about to explode. The world around him was becoming increasingly blurry, and with a final shot of pain, his world went black. \*\*\* T’noch snapped his head back as his connection with the human was severed. He shook his head slowly. He couldn’t understand why he was having so much trouble keeping a connection to the creatures that inhabited the planet they were slowly approaching. He turned around to face his captain and report in his own language. “Sir, I’ve just lost another connection to another one of those creatures,” he said. “I don’t understand what the issue could be. We have not encountered this issue with any other planet we have visited. “I began reaching out a cycle ago, and as we have gotten closer, I have been able to make contact with many of them, but after only moments of opening communications with them, the connection is severed, and I’m forced to start over. “What are your orders?” The captain looked at him as he contemplated their next move. “Didn’t you say your connections were becoming easier and more frequent as we neared the planet?” the captain asked. “Yes, sir,” T’noch replied. “I am able to connect to a being much faster, but the connection never last.” The Captain nodded. “Very well,” he said. “While we prefer to announce our arrival ahead of time, so they can better prepare themselves for our arrival, we may have to arrive unexpected and hope for the best. “Continue your attempts until we arrive. Increase power if you need to.” “Yes sir,” T’noch replied. One cycle later, they arrived at the planet they had been attempting to communicate with through a telepathic connection. “Sir,” T’noch started. “This is strange, but I’m not reading any lifeforms on the planet.” The Captain stood up in surprise. “Explain!” he demanded. “Every living creature on the planet appears to be dead,” T’noch explained. “The cause?” the Captain asked. “Unknown, sir,” T’noch answered. “All I can tell is that it happened recently. That may explain why I have not been able to communicate with any of them in half a cycle.” “Continue the scans,” the Captain instructed. “Once we are sure it wasn’t a virus, or poses a threat to us, we’ll land on the planet for further investigation. In the meantime, begin transmitting to the next planet on our charts. Once we complete our investigation here, we’ll continue on to them.” “Yes, sir,” T’noch replied. \*\*\* Two cycles later, T’noch reported from the surface back up to the Captain. “Sir,” he began. “I’m afraid I’ve discovered the cause of their extinction.” “What was the cause?” the Captain asked. “I’m afraid it was us,” T’noch replied. “Apparently, their minds were not able to accept the telepathic link, and instead overwhelmed their minds. I’m afraid we inadvertently caused their extinction.


Cold Air There he sat, sinking slowly into the cushioned leather, letting the comfort of the armchair stand in for the comfort of humanity. He was not shy by any means, though, always commenting on the football game or telling some joke that he knew would bring laughter to his friends. Brett wondered if they really did like him, or if it was all just pretend. Sometimes he felt like he had nobody to really talk to, even though he was well-liked. Brett had always been a logical person, but sometimes he just gave into these irrational, depressive thoughts, unable to overpower his heart with his mind. Nevertheless, he floated on, caught somewhere between popularity and paranoia; lonely, yet not alone. Brett sat in that armchair for over an hour, slowly dissociating from his environment as he buried himself under a thick wool blanket. It was the dead of February, and the heat of the burning fire was not quite enough to keep him warm. “You look cold, Brett.” “I am.” He looked up to see his friend, Nick, who was now perched on the sturdy left arm of his seat. His dusty brown hair flowed down his forehead and stopped just short of his pale blue eyes, which now met Brett’s with simple joy. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it? The way the white of the snow and the black of the night balance each other out. Lighter than the night yet darker than the day, and with that inimitable quaintness, too.” He smiled. “It really is beautiful.” Brett fixed his eyes on the window opposite him, peering at the heavy snowflakes falling on the back lawn, already carpeted by a thin sheet of white. “I’d love to live a day in your head, Nick, I really would. I’d love to know what it’s like to find beauty in such simple things. When I look outside, I see snow. I see how wet my shoes will get when I leave to walk to my car. I see the darkness, and I see how late it already is and how mad my parents will be if they catch me sneaking back in. What you call quaint, I call desolate. What you see as glamour, I see as despair.” “You think too much, my friend,” he chuckled. “Come with me.” Nick walked across the room as Brett traipsed behind him. They moved slowly and lazily at first, but once they were out of the public view Nick reached out his hand and took Brett by the wrist. He led his friend up the stairs, up to the living room and through the kitchen and outside into the backyard like a child leading his mother around the house. When they got to the sliding door, Nick let go of Brett’s wrist which fell meekly back to his side. Now, for the first time, Nick turned around and saw the hesitance on Brett’s face. Nick’s perpetual smile seemed to falter, only for a second, but as he opened the door and smelled the crisp winter air, he was happy again, and the two walked outside together. “It’s cold,” Brett said, standing now with his hands tucked deep into the pockets of his jeans. “No, Brett. You just feel cold. I feel no discomfort out here, not when I’m face to face with such beauty. There’s something uniquely romantic about forbidden love, don’t you think? Some strange, distinct comfort in sinning together.” “It’s getting late, Nick, and I *feel* cold. I already told you that I’m not ashamed of what happened, but we both know it can’t happen again. And to answer your question, no. There is no beauty in forbidden love because it’s always just a lose-lose. You either face the judgment of society or the wrath of your own conscience.” “It doesn’t need to happen again. I just miss you, Brett. I know you think that the world is a terrible place, but at least we’re here together, right? You’re cold, I’ll give you that. Then let me be your warmth. Let me prove to you that life is so much more than sorrow and indignation.” “I’m not a nihilist, Nick. I’m a realist. And realistically, we can never be happy, at least not together. You seem to have this idea in your head that we can actually be something, and it kills me to know that we can’t. I want it too, and you know that. I want to live in a world where we could be one force, one bright light in the summer sky. But when you look up, what do you see? Clouds and darkness, and maybe the occasional ice crystal right above your eye. And even when the sky is clear, you can only count so many stars. They say that there are billions of them. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? A night sky just as bright as the day, dense with starlight shining down onto the world. But the night is dark, and that’s just the way it is. So please, Nick, use your head instead of your heart, just this once. You know the way I live my life. You know how I surround myself with people who at least pretend to love me. You know I live to make my parents proud and to make my friends happy and to prove my worthiness to God. Do you really expect me to throw all of that away for some faggot? How selfish do you think I am?” Nick was silent. He watched Brett as the snowflakes dotted his dark brown hair and his black bomber jacket. He wanted to be mad, but he could see the anguish in Brett’s pale blue eyes, so he said nothing, and resorted to his mind to keep him company. To him, Brett was the darkness. He was the contrast with the light of the world that made everything that much more beautiful. But now, the cold tears forming in his own eyes blurred the line between black and white, and the backyard was just a gray blur of emotional ambiguity. They stood there for a while, silent. They faced each other, yet neither was brave enough to meet the other’s eyes. Eventually, Brett turned to head back inside. They were both cold. “I love you, Nick. You need to know that. I love you more than I can explain. I never asked for this. I never wanted to hurt you. But I do love you. Please believe me, Nick. You have to believe me.” “I know you love me, Brett.” He paused. “I just wish you actually could.” With blurry eyes, Brett turned around and walked back into the house, through the sliding door, around the kitchen, into the living room, down the stairs and back into the basement. He walked across the room, past the leather armchair, past the keg and the television and the dartboard and past everything else until he was so close to the window that he could feel the coldness from outside phasing through the glass and caressing his face. He watched the snow falling down on the back lawn, focusing on a small figure that he could barely make out in the distance. Nick knelt in the snow, head tucked under his crossed arms. As he held back tears, Brett realized that cold air was cold air; that there could be no beauty in pain. So he turned from the window, walked back to that armchair, and sank once more into the false comfort of an unloving world.


(IP) Punishable by Death The scarlet glow of the lanterns that hung in the trees suddenly looked too bright for the explorer’s eyes, and she swore under her breath. But when she looked up, seeing the portal yawning open, and she saw a small cluster of wood houses, and a chill wind swept around her, lifting her braid off of her shoulders. Had she finally done it? She’d spent years training in the magic of opening portals, and warm blood dripped down her hand, staining the earth a darker brown. Had she finally become successful? She’d tried so many times over the years that she’d lost count. The world above her glowed a white so bright it looked almost blue, and she shivered; she wondered if this was a dream, but the gentle, fat flakes falling upon her upturned face were melting, sending a shock of cold on her cheeks. Samira knew that she should go back to the village to report her success, but something kept her rooted to the ground. A crazy, absurd thought came to her. What if she could climb into that portal and explore it for herself? From the time that she’d been a child, she’d served the village and The Elders, happily so. But that had been before she’d found the books, hidden in the larder, of all places. They’d told impossible tales: mountains that pierced the sky, canyons that contained black, yawning chasms, magic of all kinds and secret doors to worlds that Sam could only dream of. First came the wonder, and then the betrayal. Why had this been hidden from their people? They deserved the truth; however tangled and strange it was. Sam had found herself at a crossroads. Despite jeopardizing her role working as a trusted explorer for The Elders, her curiosity would not be doused, no matter how she tried. Insubordination was made punishable by death, but she no longer cared. Her world was more than just the village and the forests that surrounded it. She’d always suspected, but to have proof, undeniable evidence that they’d been lied to; it had almost been enough to shatter her and everything she’d ever known. Defiance roared in her heart like the flames within the lanterns, and before she could question herself further, she walked over to a tree and began to climb, ignoring where the sharp, prickly bark cut into the skin of her palms. The portal above her loomed ever closer, and she gritted her teeth against the cold, howling wind. Whatever happened next, she was determined to discover something for herself, for once. At long last, she reached the top branch of the tree, and she hung tight, wincing when she felt the branch buckle and sway. She was so close. But her foot slipped, and she gasped. It was a long way to the ground, and she swore once again. But then she felt a hand grip the back of her hood, and the fabric started to tear. Before she realized what was happening, she was pulled off of the branch, and when she landed in the snow, she gasped at its cold wetness seeping into her clothes. “Who are you and how did you open the portal?” A gruff voice asked, and Sam had no idea how to answer it.


"I hate this," Lucy groaned, scrunching up her face. "It's so gross." "I know," sighed Grimm patiently. "I know it's not what you signed up for with this apprenticeship, and I know you still find it creepy, but it's what sells right now and if we don't adapt then we'll be left behind and you won't have an apprenticeship at all." Grimm picked up a child's skull and passed it gently to her. "Now attach the jacks just like I showed you. The holes are already drilled, you just have to fit them and wire them to the psionic recievers." Lucy gingerly took the skull. She knew it was just bone, but something about touching it felt *wrong*. She overcame the desire to wash her hands and started to rummage around the desk for her tools. Grimm's were already out, but they weren't *hers*. She slid the metal jack into the drill hole wincing as it scraped dryly at the brittle edges. It was so unfair for this to happen to her now, only a year into what should have been a normal mech apprenticeship. Working on robotics, tweaking code, taking apart engines, *that* was what she'd signed up for. Admittedly she'd spent most of her first year cleaning out pipes and organising scrap, but she knew that she'd *eventually* be allowed to do the exciting stuff. And she had; for a month. Grimm had finally relented to her begging, and grudgingly allowed her to do the routine upgrade of a service droid. And she was good at it. Unbeknownst to Grimm, she'd been up late most nights trawling the Weave for courses and tutorials on exactly that kind of thing, hoping to impress him enough to let her do some real work. It'd paid off too. For a whole month Grimm had been letting her help out with his commissions; until the bones were discovered. Lucy toyed with a few fragments of wire, waiting for the sealant holding a jack in place to dry. It'd only take a few minutes, then she could solder the recievers into place. That's where it'd started of course, the psionic recievers. The news spread like wildfire when alloys that reacted to the presence of thought were discovered. Did that mean there was some kind of ether thoughts could move through? Were psychics actually real? Could it prove the existence of a soul? In an effort to prove the latter, a med student had stolen a skull from his lecturer and hooked it up to some of the new psionic material and a neural cap. The student ended up in a psyche ward, broken by the backlash. He raved about memories that couldn't have been his, and the press ate it up. The idea captured the public imagination, and within a week the practice of bone reading was established. Bones, skulls especially, hold memories. They seep into the matter over a lifetime and for a while after death they persist. Not a soul, but more like a footprint in the sand. If you had the right tech and were skilled enough you could pull memories, experiences, even talents from a skull. The market for bones and recievers *exploded* overnight. Eventually the government had to clamp down on the use of bones, establishing a legal trade to stem the sudden rise in graverobbing, and pouring serious research into bone reading to establish a safe way to do it. Reading with no safeties was causing a flood of new and severely unstable mental patients, and as even dead people could tell state secrets now, bone reading represented a whole new branch of espionage. Buffers, jacks, breakers and dampeners were all quickly developed and released, though it was only legal for certain licenced mech shops to fit a skull. And lucky for her, Grimm had jumped right on it. She sighed and reached for the little skull, absently rolling it between her hands. Why would anyone want to use one of them? She understood police wanting access to a victim's memories, or a government wanting some spy's intel, but normal people like her? The thought made her shiver. The cold jack bit into her palm as she toyed with the skull. It wasn't hard to use, you just plugged in a special headset in like it was a macabre music player. The tech did the rest, and you got a whole new set of memories, maybe even lost some old ones... She hastily put the skull back down and jumped up, wiping her sweaty palms on her jeans. "Grimm!" She yelled, "I'm going out for a bit, for um... for wire." "Sure," he called faintly back, clearly distracted by some other project in the shop. "Don't be back too late, Martha is sending round pizza as payment for that last bot repair." Lucy bit her lip guiltily at the lie, but pulled on her boots as fast as she could and dashed out the back entrance. She stuffed her hands deep in her hoodie pockets and walked quickly down the crowded street. From every side neon signs and holgoraphic posters screamed with rainbows of garish colour, boasting the wares of a hundred shops and stalls crammed into the narrow lane. All around her merchants yelled, calling customers to their stall, mocking their competitiors, telling outright lies about the quality of their wares. "Miss, miss! You look so thin! Come and look at my stall, every kind of candy to put some meat on those bones!" Called a cheerfully plump merchant, waving at lines of sweets gittering like glass in the neon light. "Neutral implants! Cerebral serums! Intelli chips! Discount operations! Totally risk free! Outthink any AI!" "Fruit! Get your fruit! Apples, pears, mangos! All perfectly unnatural, get your genetically modified fruit here!" A woman shouted brusquely, gesturing entusiastically at a collection of oranges larger than Lucy's head. Lucy grinned and shook her head. This was exactly what she needed, a sea of voices to drown out that one whisper in her head. The lights, the crowd, it felt almost like it did before the bone craze. And it wasn't like she hated her job. She loved it here, she'd always wanted to be part of this mad, wonderful, technicolour city and now she was. Maybe things would die down again and she could go back to tinkering in the shop with Grimm like before. "Bones! bones! Fresh bones, filled with memories! Stuffed with secrets! All of the highest quality! I have musicians, artists, scientists, lovers! Got 'em all here!" Lucy's head snapped round to stare hungrily at the stall of dirty, yellowed skulls. An emaciated woman leered at passersby, waving them over with grubby hands. "You! Little girl! How would you like to be a dancer? A poet? A pilot? Got 'em all here, fresh as you like!" Lucy gazed fixedly at a small skull, scarcely larger than her fist. There was still some grave dirt smeared around the eyesockets. Biting back tears, she pushed her way back into the crowd and hurried back towards the shop. Maybe if she tried it just once she could let it go and things would go back to normal, maybe she could just *forget*.


Pale and milky was the moon that night. The night had an eerie glow to it that cast cold light and dark shadows about the countryside. Yet even so it was a type of night that Mikey Joe looked forward to. The type of night he could walk outside his house and stare with great wonder at the marvellous moon. Always he had loved the moon even as a young boy. He would walk slowly about the yard toking gently on his joint. He often felt anxious out there in the dark a the dead of night and this was no different yet his fear was quelled by his old companion the moon. Mikey Joe had done his moonlight ritual for many years puffing as he sauntered aimlessly about the yard and down the path to the farm below. Sometimes he listened to music sometimes to the silence of the night. It was only on the clear nights of the palest purest moonlight he would dare to have his little dalliance with his lunar lover, for the nights that were dark cloudy and black as nothing filled him with a terrible dread. Even on this night with the light beaming from the moon and the brightest stars he had flashes of dread which he soothed by looking at the moon and saying “It's alright now” or some other stoner’s mantra. That dread came to him most nights and tonight was no different he did as he always did and toked on his joint. “It's almost finished” he thought as he looked at glowing red dot that was very near his finger now.”Soon back inside to comfort and a nice round of toasted cheese sandwich.” He he began walking back up the path to the backyard and his house, stepping slowly and carefully as to not trip on the brambles and briers growing all over the ill kept path. He meandered across slowly and gently till he could see the yard light through the trees. He continued on and the light became bigger and bigger until he was almost blinded by it. He froze dead it was surely not his yard light it was far to strong he became rigid with fear. He racked his brain frantically to figure out what he was seeing but after a few seconds the fear truly had him he didn’t care the fear had him. He turned on his heel and ran down the deep dark path straight into blackness. He ran until he heard or thought he hear something up ahead. “ A figure? A man?” he wasn’t sure what he saw but something moved past him up that dark path. He stopped in his tracks panting, hes wild eyes darting everywhere. Forward to the blackness of the path back to the growing light towards his yard. “Get to my house and the phone” he thought in a second of clarity. He ran back at full sprint towards the every growing light. But after no more than 5 steps he tripped on a bramble and fell head first into a bush. He looked up from the bush scraping his head on thorns as he did so. He saw the black figure still away down the path and then suddenly blackness. He awoke to a dim light flickering above his head. He arose to find himself in a small empty room with a candle hang on the wall. There was no door but an open entrance led to a narrow cramped passage. The walls of the passage and and room where made of a red soft substance not unlike play-dough he observed. When he pulled at it seemed to stretch for a moment then go back to its original shape. After a minute of exploring his new environment he was struck with by his new dreadful predicament. Questions raced around his head a thousand a once going 90 miles an hour. He had no idea how to begin to understand what was going on and he felt overwhelmed and fell to his knees and began sobbing pitifully. “I’m some kind of prisoner or I’ve lost my mind or worse” he whispered as he sobbed. He felt a hand on his shoulder he stopped crying. He was dead still. He knew he had to turn around to face what was touching him but he couldn’t bring himself to. “Are you sick?” asked the voice of the man that put his hand on his shoulder.” You seem very weak and you are crying out in pain are you OK?” He knew now he must look, he must turn and see he captor. He turned to the left side slowly to see the mans had on his shoulder, but it was red! He turned in horror to see his captor and there he was an ordinary looking man dressed in a white robe but with bright red skin! This was too much for him and he fainted on the floor in a heap. After some time he awoke again, his eyes staring directly at the cavernous red ceiling above he was lying flat red table which was oddly soft and comforting. He felt it move slowly as if it were breathing or pulsating. He jumped to his feet and looked about the huge cavernous room. The ceiling was visible only barley in the dim light that radiated from the floor. The walls or entrance couldn’t be seen as it disappeared into the eternal blackness encircling him. A figure came from out of the darkness slowly walking towards him, it seemed to him to be quite far away. He noticed he wasn’t gripped with fear this time but with a dopey fascination with the figure. As it approached it seem to change shape and suddenly grow taller and longer until before him again was the red man he had seen before. But this time he was different, he wore a old style suit and spectacles. “How are you feeling now?” he asked “ You were quite distressed. I had to give you some medication to calm you. I hope it makes you feel better.” Mikey Joe nodded in answer. The red man smiled. “ You will have many questions, and I have many answers to give now that you are more calm and sociable” “Are you gonna kill me? Or do crazy experiments on me?” blurted Mikey Joe, his body was calm but inside there was still a little fear, despite his dopey drowse state. “No, No of course not I am not cruel I’m here to help you and your planet its so primitive even the forms you take are so unusual…. But we can solve all that, teach you to do great things navigate the stars as we have. Here let take this it will relive the drowsiness.” From nowhere as far as Mikey could tell a cup appeared in the red man hand and he reached out and gave it to Mikey. “Yes, drink deeply yours is most interesting species bipedal, hi level intellect and highly adept at communicating but so developmental lacking… why? Much lower intellect lifeforms have achieved higher levels of civilization in this…..” as he talked Mikey drank and became more alert and fearful his situation seemed hopeless he needed a way out of this nightmare. “Ah more alert I see, but anxious too perhaps one of your own medical treatments might help” a syringe appeared in his hand. It was full of a clear liquid he moved closer to Mikey Joe gentle grabbed his arm and smiled. “Is this it” Though Mikey “I am I really going to let this red bastard kill me and eat me or something, no I have to make a move!” Mikey punched him hard in the face he dropped the syringe. ‘Why?’ he groaned “ I bring you only love” Mikey hit him again and again crying manically as he did so. The man made no attempt to defend himself or fight back. Mikey's hands where covered in blood, tears were rolling from his eyes he went to dry the tears from his eyes but a drop of the blood landed in his mouth. The taste was pure pleasure to Mikey he had tasted nothing like it it was the most savoury sweet orgasmic taste he ever had. A madness took him he began to lick his hands clean his tongue orgasm-ed with each lick. When his hands were clean he looked down at the body his eyes ravenous with hunger for that taste. He picked up one red and began to chew on the fingers. “No stop I bring you love, I am your friend” the red man said feebly. Mikey took both hands and strangled him till he stopped his polite protests. After eating half of the red mans hand Mikey remembered his situation and the danger. H e got up and ran into the darkness but it only stretched on and on with no end so he ran back to the man near the table searched him for a key or remote, but nothing. “How will I get out of here, what kind of monster have I become I’ve killed and eaten this poor man” he cried aloud in a desperate howl. Then the craving came over him maybe if I eat more ill feel better” He thought “he's not human, It was him or me! I had to do it!” He grabbed the other hand and pulled at the index finger when suddenly a large wall and monitor came darting out of the blackness. It was beeping and whirring flashing in with and black the deepest black he had ever seen then suddenly there was enormous roar and then blackness. Mikey Joe, woke up strapped to a bed unable to move any part of his body he head fixed at white ceiling and a fluorescent light. “Mikey” a voice asked through a speaker” are you able to answer our questions?” “ What happened?” Mikey eyes watered at the memory he was so sad and ashamed, to his horror hes tongue watered as well. “ I ate him” he sobbed “ I ate him” The doctor behind the screen wrote his diagnosis and handed it to the team of men in suits. “From what I can observe from here that's my conclusion gentleman” he said in thick Austrian accent. “ What do you mean, in plain English bud?” asked one man in the far corner of the room with hes eyes squinting at the paper that was passed to to him. “Vell….. the patient is completely insane” “Well I could have told you that and I’m no doctor” laughed the man “ saying he ate one of those aliens I’ve never heard of something so ridiculous” It had been week since the ship had crashed into the desert in Wyoming and special agent Jack Turg was heading the background investigation. It was a sensational case the U.S. Government had of course found alien tech and parts of spaceships before but never a maned vessel with such a large living crew! Jack remembered when he first saw the remains it was the size of a stadium and inside the investigation team had found 50 live “alien creatures” he had seen the classified videos they were strange stupid horrible things no limbs or features just black and grey blobs pulsating formlessly. “How in the hell could that freak even consider eating one of those disgusting things” he though “They are repulsive!” He decided his team would have to get a firsthand look at these things to decide next course of action. It made really no logical sense why would you eat something you're terrified of? The next morning Jack was briefing his C.O. in his progress so far. At the end of the report he paused. “Was there anything else Jack?” he C.O. probed “Well sir it's just… we … my team and I…” “Come on Jack speak your mind!” “We like to get a look at the live specimens to help make sense of the actions of the detainee” The C.O. exhaled loud and slow”Quite frankly you and everyone in anyway involved with this whole operation would. But that's impossible it's not even being handled by this agency.You should count yourself privileged to know what you know.” click\* the call ended. But Jack a veteran agent 20 years with the agency never question orders, who turned a blind eye to the darker side of the C.I.A.


It is cold and dark. You are lying in there. You’ve been dead for quite some time. Suddenly, your feet twitch. You weren’t dead, you were only asleep. You get up, walk over to the window, and the city is on fire. The city’s not on fire. The sun is shining, the trees are pristine. It’s the window that’s on fire, and the three birds on it. Your hands are on the windowsill, so you draw these hands back in horror and scream. You wake up. You were dead again, but you just woke up, so obviously, you’re a liar. You look at these hands. See these hands? Do you like these hands? Something about hands. Again, up. You walk into another room. Your mother is at the stove, her back toward you, cooking something delicious. She turns around. She is not your mother. This is not a room. You are not dead. At the window, the city is not on fire, but your glasses are, so you quickly throw them out of the window, and they burn three birds along the way. You go downstairs. Your mother is at the stove, her back toward you, cooking something awful. You look at the table. Your father’s clothes are there, lying about as if they were hurriedly thrown off. “Where’s dad?” She turns around. She is your father. You look back at the table, and the clothes are on fire. You wake up. Liar. You go downstairs. Your mother is at the table, her back toward you, cooking your father. Quickly, you put on your father’s clothes, pick up his newspaper, and pretend nothing has happened. You look up. Your father is at the stove, her back toward you, cooking something about hands. You look at these hands. They are not on fire. You take off your glasses and set them beside your newspaper. Glancing out the window, you notice three birds. One, two, three. They have enormous hands. You look at these hands. Yes, much larger than these hands. You look back at the window. Your mother is on fire. Dad accidentally poured the stove on her. You wake up in the exact same spot, in the exact same scenario. Your father is still on fire. The birds are applauding with their tiny, tiny hands. You look at these hands. No, these are your mother’s hands. You can tell because they are black and charred like your dead, dead mommy. What, are you crying? Little baby, crying because his bitch mother’s dead? Fucking faggot. You wake up in your mother’s clothes, which are still on fire. You withdraw in horror, sobbing on your father’s clothes. The birds shake their gigantic heads slowly, as if to say, “What a fucking faggot.” The room is cold and dark. Your parents are lying there. They’ve been asleep for quite some time. They wake up. You are dead. You wake up. You are not dead. Why must you do this to me. You walk over to the window. Where there was once a city now lies a crystal-clear pool. Three women are swimming in it, all naked and only one particularly attractive. You touch yourself regardless. They see you and laugh, shaking their gigantic hands at you, as if to say, “What a handsome young man, I wish he would fuck us.” You stop touching yourself because you have no hands. You lost them in the fire. The great fire. The long great fire of something something. Something about hands, there was something about hands, I know there was something about hands. In a moment. You wake up, swimming with two other women in a crystal-clear pool. You look down. You are not particularly attractive. You touch yourself regardless. The other women have no hands, but their stumps are warm and feel nice on your tiny, tiny clitoris. The three of you hop out of the water and dry off by hanging in a tree. The other two hung themselves wrong. They are dead. They have been dead for quite some time. They wake up. They close their eyes again. They have been asleep for quite some time. The room is cold and dark, and you are wondering if you should wake them up so that the three of you could go downstairs and do something in the kitchen, where your mother is cooking something delicious. You have been dead for quite some time. You have not been dead for quite some time. If at all you have been dead, it has been no time at all, or at least for so little time that one may say that you are not ever dead, but only occasionally pretend to be so. Something about parents. Oh yes. These hands, they are all over the women, you are tickling and stabbing, they are laughing and moaning. The hands, that is. The hands are women. These hands. Wait a minute, it was always these hands. These hands that wrapped around the doorknob, that lifted the eyelash off of her cheek, that pawed your bodies at the lake. Something about a lake. There was never a lake. There were never any birds. Only giant hands and tiny clitorises flying around. What the hell have you been doing? Are you all right? You wake up. The room is cold and dark. You walk over to the window and see nothing particularly interesting, except for three dead bodies hanging from a tree over a crystal-clear pool. You go downstairs. The police are at the stove, their backs turned toward you, cooking something delicious. They turn around. These hands are not the police. The police at the stove, the ones who just turned around, are, in fact, the police. They are arresting you for the murder of the three dead bodies at the tree. You look out the window. “What tree?” Excuse us, sir, we meant the two dead bodies on the stove. You glance at the newspaper, pretending that everything is all right. You look up. Everything is all right, except for your parents, who are hanging from the tree. They have been dead for quite some time. You turn to your darling wife and child and say, “Fucking faggots.” Hurriedly throwing off your clothes, you run outside to begin the day. You wake up. Welcome back. Obviously, you have been dead for quite some time. Let me show you around. This is what you thought was a kitchen. It is actually a table lamp. This is what you imagined were six women, only one of whom were particularly attractive. It is actually only one lady, but she has 10 enormous hands. She is your darling child. It seems just like yesterday or even a few seconds ago, she was a bouncy, bubbling baby, frothing in your lap, eating all of the furniture, spilling catnip on the cement as the two of you went on your early morning jog to the supermarket. You needed beets. Where on earth are the goddamn beets. You turn to Martha. “Martha, where on earth are the goddamn beets.” She turns around. She is Martha. Oh wait. No. No wait, yes, this is Martha. You totally missed what she was saying. “Could you repeat that, Martha?” She turns around. She is still Martha, and you still have no idea what she is saying. “Excuse me please, Martha, but could you say that again?” She turns around. This time, she is definitely Martha. She turns around. No wait. She is still Martha. Aren’t you forgetting something? “Martha, there seems to be something about these hands, these hands that fondled you on our wedding night and on many nights before that one, and also myself.” She turns around. She is Martha, but she is definitely you. All of this time, you have been constantly turning around and talking to yourself in the mirror. You idiot. You imbecile. You fucking faggot. She turns around. “We bought beets yesterday, don’t you remember?” Ah yes, of course, the beets thing was forever ago. And actually, what you thought was the beets thing was just a rock by your door. Let’s move along. Here is where you’ve been sleeping for the past few months. You glance in. A crystal-clear pool teeming with hands and babies—yet bereft of baby hands—lies before you. The babies have been dead for quite some time. They open their eyes. Did you think that children were innocent? Did you not realize that the mask begins with conception? You fool. You utter imbecile. Something about faggots. Hands. These hands. These hands that slap the faggots. Ah yes, in a past life, you were a professional faggot-slapper. I seem to recall that you set a record for slapping faggots. What was it, like 60 faggots in a day? That’s impressive. I didn’t even know that that many faggots congregated in such close proximity to each other. There were no faggots. What are you hiding? Show me thy hands. You open these hands. A dead bird lies on the open palm. Its foot twitches. Did you think that animals were innocent? You glance up. She turns around. No wait, that’s a mirror. Something about beets. No, we did that already. Are you dead again? You wake up. Clearly not. Hurriedly throwing your clothes back on, you rush out the door, tripping over your darling child along the way. She has been dead for something something something. No time for that. No time for dead babies, even if they are your own. Your sweet darling baby. Dead. And you tripped over her. That’s awful. Seriously, we don’t have time for this. You go downstairs. Your wife is at the table, her dead baby turned toward you, cooking something that smells like a dead baby. Okay, seriously, we don’t have time for this. You go back upstairs. The room is cold and dark. Well, better than dead babies. You lie down and go to sleep. You have been dead for quite some time. What you thought was you dead was actually a second table lamp, set next to the original. We don’t need two table lamps in here. Who did this. Martha, was that you? You fucking idiot. Okay, let’s take this table lamp into the next room. It’s cold and dark in there anyway. You open the door. This isn’t a room. This is a room, you just accidentally thought the opposite. Why does that happen sometimes? Anyway, this isn’t a room, it’s a window. The city is on fire. It has been this entire time. In order to cope with this horrifying sight, you have been constructing this elaborate fantasy to distract yourself from the true reality. Of course not. This is a room, let’s leave the table lamp here and move on. You open the window. Three women with tiny, tiny heads light down on these hands. You’re so excited that you crush them, in your excitement. “Oh sorry, I was too excited.” You open these hands, smeared with blood and excitement. Speaking of blood, where’s that fucking faggot father of yours? You run downstairs. He is at the stove, his back toward you, cooking something something something. You crush him with these gigantic hands. You open these tiny, tiny hands. A little bird is sitting there. It smells delicious. You pour him back onto the stove. More time for that later, but as it is, we have all of these table lamps located in this one room. This is highly impractical. Martha, if I find you, your bitch ass is fired. Let’s keep moving. The room is cold and dark. You have been laying here for quite some time. Not quite dead. Not quite laying. Sort of hovering, at an angle. A little unsettling. Martha, next scene please. You go downstairs. Your table lamp is at the table lamp, its table lamp toward you, table lamping a table lamp. It table lamps around. It is not a table lamp. It is Martha, holding a bunch of table lamps, the fucking faggot. “Get over here, Martha!” She shrieks, dropping table lamps left and right. The room catches fire from all of the exploding table lamps. Tour’s over, I guess. Back to sleep with you. Aren’t you forgetting something? Something something something? Something about these somethings? You look at these somethings. A something lies across them. You something it. You are something. No matter what you are, you are something. You are at least something. Something something hands. Something something these hands. These hands. Oh, these hands! Oh, I had nearly forgotten! I had nearly forgotten about these hands! These wonderful hands, I had nearly forgotten about! Oh, these wonderful these hands! You wake up. You are dead. You are obviously not dead. You walk over to the window. The city is on fire. You have never left this window. You have never woken up. This isn’t a window. Your eyeballs are on fire. Of course not.


Deep below Black Site 41 lays the most important project of our entire existence. Humanity is in grave danger and the end is soon. Since 1950 we’ve received a total of 4,000 distress calls from far off galaxies, and they all share one thing in common. A massive object was ripping their home sun apart and draining their planet of life. NASA has never been able to properly view the object, but thermal scans of the area showed us the monster murdering worlds. What looks to be a 400 x 400 structure resembling a pyramid that made such a strong gravitational pull it rivaled the largest black holes. Sometimes the gravity in the army would crush surrounding planets. The committee commissioned by president Truman referred to this entity as the Pyramidion. All of this wouldn’t have happened if it hadn’t been for the “Grey Alien,” species that crashed in Roswell. Without them humanity wouldn’t have had any kind of chance. They came to warn humanity of this horror occurring in our universe, and wanted to give our life a chance at winning. Aside from various communication, flight, and research tech they also provided us with the Nebula Cluster Mega Bomb. The Greys introduced humanity to a theoretical weapon, the black hole bomb. This could possibly destroy its hull, hopefully, killing it. Now we had a chance. Truman gathered countries who were capable of launching such a missile and thus Operation Scholar went live. Project Scholar has recruited some of the best minds in science to aide in researching and observing its pattern. Saving Grace went on to have 20 years of nothing but watching as it ravaged the stars. We contacted the dominating alien dynasty in the Andromeda with help in this project. Scholar was based around simply observing our enemy, Operation God Killer was set in place to kill it. The reptilian like species who refer to themselves as Yigthanians aided Earth in creating Revaltions, a black hole bomb. We worked in coordination defying our previously thought limits of technology in a revolutionary collaboration. Humanity couldn’t celebrate with us. The Yigs helped us developed 10ft thick mirrors to surround a black hole, an electromagnetic ray orbiting one of their moons would fire a ray inside the sphere. The combination of the ergosphere and the mirrors would carry the ray at impossible speeds, with precise aiming we could release this beam with devastating effects. This weapon is our last chance to stop this beast in its tracks. Until 1969 we had nothing really to show for the countless man hours put into this project. That was until it made contact with us. It somehow telepathically contacted a subject of MK-Ultra causing the poor woman to go insane. It filled her head with everything it’s experienced in its life span. It originated from the center of the universe and has lived through 9 other universal resets. After communicating with one of the women involved with the project it communicated with one of our scientists. It learned all our secrets. It knows about our last hope. Since then we’ve not been able to locate or communicate with it. The current date is January 12th, 2021 and we’ve lost all contact with the Yigs. Breaking news reports have broke out across the world of the sun being blocked out by something huge accompanied by loud sirens. It’s here.