A new short story that I am working on. It is meant to be an allegorical piece of science fiction. It is my first draft of it so there is more to be done, but I would like to receive any general impressions. \ I regret the day I ever step foot on this planet. I regret ever thinking that there was anything worthwhile to explore on its surface, or within the geological cavities that lead to its deepest depths, I regret ever advocating for a voyage to this damn world, but most of all, I regret all circumstance that brought me into contact with the native, humanoid population of this planet. It happened not three days ago that we (my partners and I, two others) were captured by them after they had found our camp. They must have followed the sounds of our equipment through the dense jungles of the area. We had captured a young boy to study him, taken from his small, sleepy village of huts made of straw and wood. Admittedly, it was perhaps not the most propitious method at obtaining information when one reckons the predicament that we would find ourselves later on, but a young boy would offer us little resistance, and at such a young age it was reasonable to think he did not occupy any grand position, yet, within the group. We sedated him so that he would not feel any pain, and we took him. No parent would ever consent to their child being taken away, of course, but we did so nevertheless without their knowledge on a commitment to return him without harm. The extent of his utility to us went no further than the DNA we wished to extract, which was of itself not at all an invasive, or lengthy procedure. He was to be returned before the day’s end. They had us quickly surrounded. I went out for a breath of air and to enjoy alone a moment of solitude. The procedure was underway, which would have ended almost as soon as it began, but no sooner had I stepped out that I realized that the villagers were suddenly among us, observing our camp from within the forest, all of which were hidden behind the thick trunks of the large trees. My partner Cognitus - a young, handsome scientist always sought after by his younger, female students - emerged from the station-camp to tell me something of the extraction, but before he could deliver the news, he was struck by an arrow that penetrated his shoulder. Emboldened by the attack, they all came forth from the dark interior of the forest and into the light of the sun to ensnare our camp. Not long before the incident, I was saying to my partner - the one who laid injured before me - that the course of human history was on the verge of a great revision. I had even considered abducting a live specimen to bring on our return back home, to expose to the world the follies of human thought, moreover, to prove that I was right. I stood a petrified statue as they walked around the camp, almost sniffing the place like wild beasts would when searching for familiar scents, and I caught a glimpse of their faces in those frightening moments. During that brief exchange, they looked to me rather dumb, bovine even, primitive, their clothes simple, practical, uninspired. Sounds came out of their mouths as words held together loosely by a tenuous grammatical structure. Theirs, it seemed to me, was a society that was more tenuous than its speech. There was no hierarchy; there were no real leaders, only random voices among them that sprang up from time to time, louder than all the others, and it was by those voices that the rest of the unconscious herd conducted itself. Quick visual surveys of them immediately suggested to me that they always lived in large groups. It was a necessity for them. We were kept in cages for 2 or 3 days thereabout, and during that time they would constantly look to one another for approval. They sought a nod or an approving glance from another member, and that member had the tacit expectation of receiving confirmation for his confirmation. Never would they act without such consents and approvals. They were incapable of doing so it appeared, so they would always visit our holding cells in pairs, sometimes more if the occasion required it thus. They had a common, peculiar red and blue sartorial style that varied little from one individual to the next. They searched for the missing child until they found him beneath a web of machinal arms and a glass shell amid many other examples of complex machinery and lights that were, I would imagine, beyond their comprehension, so they ignored all else and walked toward the slumbering boy. To release him, they broke our equipment with clubs, stones, and by pulling on anything they could with their bare hands. I saw the strangest image then: a version of man, much more primitive, holding pieces of broken technology in his calloused hand as he turned to me. “My God,” I murmured. We were not spared, no matter how much we had hoped that they would have pitied us and our grave mistake. We were subsequently captured and taken back to their village. My friend was carried there, hanging from a long wooden stick, while my colleague who went by the name of Logicus and myself were made to walk back the long distance of about fifty to sixty miles. Logicus, to whom we would endearingly refer as simply Log, said to me that Cognitus was badly hurt and that he required medical attention immediately. It was only a matter of time, he added. The moment I spoke, I was whacked, and hence I never again spoke the rest of the way. My friend would make it to the village, teetering, however, upon the edge of his life. "I wonder who will come for us now?" I said to Logicus, to which he replied with The uplifting news of his sending a distress signal into space which could be received by a ship as far as the orbit of Jupiter, although he warned that it was possible that no ship was near enough to receive the distress call sooner so that a rescue vessel might take some time to reach us, about which I sighed and nodded my head. By evening of the same day when we, at last, had arrived at the village, our friend Cognitus was nearly dead. His body was transported to a large open space within the village - a public square of sorts - and I called out to those that carried him to leave him be, but my effort was quickly thwarted, and again my voice silenced. They made us watch the grotesqueries of their customs. In the middle of that large space were wooden logs arranged near one another in a small cluster, and from within this pyramidal stack of logs, a tall wooden staff stood. Tied to the pole, a member of the tribe set fire to the logs by the flame of a torch. What I concluded to be some sort of mystical shaman, a great magical man of the village, stepped forth prominently to regard the flame and began waving his scepter around and around, chanting meanwhile. A ring of dancers had afterward formed around the burning wood, and those that had carried my friend watched as his body - nearly a corpse by then - burned in the fire. I cried out, begged them even, to stop the madness, alas not a word of mine was heeded. Logicus averted his gaze, but I could not stop looking into the world of those small, red embers that were thrust into the air by the flame. It was hard to imagine that his body would eventually become one with the plume of black smoke that rose up from the fire and into the air. Meanwhile, the magical man chanted, and the dancers danced, and the celebrations began. There was jeering, hissing, screaming, and shouting of all sorts of things at his burning flesh. They beheld the charred remains of my friend and their faces glowed and were fat with satisfaction, after which they took us to our quarters where we would remain for the night. They were the queerest things their customs, one of which, I supposed it to be thus, was for the aggrieved party to enter the detention quarters of the accused and scream at them as loud as was physically possible. My partners and I sat there, silent, unable to comprehend the meaning of such an act. I deduced that it gave the woman, the parent of the poor abducted child, some consolation to see me locked in a cage as if it were cathartic to witness before her my sufferings. She spoke to me in that proto-language of theirs as well, but her speech was too laconic for me to understand completely. All I could gather from her simple, emotional, monosyllabic words was a general impression of hatred and disgust toward me and my partners for taking her child in the name of science. I attempted to apologize to the woman and I stuck out my hand through the gaps of my cage hoping that she would take it, but she quickly ran for a nearby rock and then threw it at the two of us, and then she again continued to yell. She roared like the beasts that lurked the darkest crevices and corners of this untamed world, and her dark complexion grew darker when her yelling reached greater heights. Once her voice gave out, she retreated with her child and we were alone. I’ll always remember it: her eyes welled with tears rooted in the hate she felt for us. Forgiveness had become something foreign to her, something to her as unfathomable as the infinite is to the limited human intellect. I wondered if their culture even knew of it at all. 3 days had passed, and these that had captured and held us as prisoners had tied me to a wooden pole like a mule, in the same public square, while a few others among them dragged my friend to another pole some feet away, one of two that stood adjacent to each other and rose many times taller and more imposing. They dragged him by grabbing on to tufts of his hair and pulling on these, while the others, having formed a long corridor of bodies along the path of his escort, threw wild screams and spat at him as he was dragged on through. One among them broke loose from the rank that the group had formed to give him a good kick in the stomach. A cowardly strike that was almost impossible for my partner to avoid, and when he did try to shield himself from other attacks, his hands were held back which left him exposed to more heinous beatings. A few more joined in the punitive frenzy, and, by the end of it, he had reached the large wooden pole a beaten and bruised body, nearly identical in resemblance to a cadaver. He had almost died before they were able to kill him. “We’re sorry, we are truly sorry!” he yelled, supplicating to them for mercy, but they ignored him. His mouth had become another bloody orifice, his teeth turned red from the blood that would not stop trickling from his lips in small, intermittent streams. His cough sometimes would carry with it globs of blood that he spat unto the dirt floor as he was moved toward the wooden pole so that left in his wake was a trail of little red droplets. Hatred was their master, and it suppressed what little humanity they had, if they had any to begin with. All they wanted was blood, and they were not going to stop until it was well and spilled. “Help me, Zará, please!” He instead cried out to me, but there was nothing I could do. We were sentenced by their improvised, rudimentary tribunal to death on the second day of captivity which had afterward dissolved just as quickly as it was formed once judgment was passed. The pole to which my partner was taken rose from the ground about ten feet and adorned at the tip by a large bird head, its beak piercing the skies like the tip of a spear. My partner was put up against it and his hands were then tied behind him and his feet wound up by the ankles. He had before him the entire crowd eager to eviscerate him. Then appeared a man who interceded and produced a small slip from his blue loincloth. He read the contents of the slip out loud to the others, and to my partner. “Stranger, bad,” he began, “he offend us. He commit crime. He must pay. Strangers no good. Some say death to them. We listen to those say death.” A collective war cry followed the brief declaration and the tiny brown man with the slip walked away. There was nothing now that stood between my partner and his fate. The crowd moved to encircle my whimpering friend. I was no longer able to see him directly as my view of him had been obstructed by the bodies of the ravenous crowd that hungered for revenge upon the poor man, and I knew that once they were done with him they would soon turn their bloodthirsty desires to me. I began to hear him cry out for me again, and yet there was nothing that I could do. My custodian - a large, muscular brute wearing a blue and red rag of a mask over his face - kept a vigilant eye over me and a hand on my shoulder. I suddenly heard another voice yell "stop." I could not determine the source of that defiant sound as it came from somewhere near the front of the group, nearer my friend. "Do not do," that soft voice said, "we must not do. Creature express remorse. We must not become them. Revenge this way not right. Revenge this way corrupts. Today, creature's blood, tomorrow blood-lake. Soon, blood-ocean. It no stop. This act, make more like this, and we fall sick. We must not do, or we become sick village. Healthy justice, not sick justice." A murmur began to grow amid the crowd, a word erupting finally as a loud roar, "kill! kill!" it cried, and the beast of a hundred fingers lunged after the lone soul that dared to intercede on behalf of its prey. The village had turned against one of their own with cold indifference, silencing the voice that went against the popular opinion of the beastly crowd. In two minutes thereabout, my poor crewmate had met the same end. The dispersal of bodies revealed a red and blue cadaver, bloody and badly bruised. There were stones at his feet; hands were covered red; drops of his blood dripped from the tips of dirty fingers. I was mortified not at what they had done, but that they had done it without remorse, and all I saw were empty eyes without the light of humanity within. These that attacked him appear as any other at first sight, but they soon reveal their true nature when provoked, one as wild and savage as anything I've ever met in my years as an explorer. No other species comes close to rivaling the savagery of these natives. They turned to one another with faces of satisfaction, smiles here and there smeared in the blood of another, one of them their own. I saw them rejoice all the more when one among them extracted an eye from his socket and held it up to the crowd. The man gave the eye to the woman of the abducted child and never have I seen such serenity, such tranquility come to another. It was as though the many wounds of her injured heart at once healed, simultaneously. Her child stood beside her, secure, under the dark arm of his mother. Their collective gaze casually shifted elsewhere until it had settled on me. The large brute behind released me, but still, I was not altogether free. He gave me a push to shove me forward into the clutches of the beast that awaited me eagerly. "You want to have at me?! Alright, then come at me, you bunch of crazy animals! You brutes have no humanity, you lack the compassion and understanding of a human being, so I should expect nothing less than for you to tear me apart! Go ahead, and do it quick! Do it quick damn it! Satisfy your morbid sanguinary desires with my blood. I was wrong to think there was anything worthwhile on this planet! There is nothing here but savagery and irrational brutes. Look at how you have murdered your own! Kill me. I deserve punishment for such an erroneous presumption. A fool I am! Kill me and then afterward burn in hell the whole of you!" After my impassioned speech, one hundred hands propelled themselves forward to seize me. I saw only the look of an angry animal before me, a behemoth begotten of that chemical affair between lust and hate. A light descended on us, followed almost immediately by a rain of rapid warning fire from a gun mounted on a rescue vessel I at once recognized as that which came from my homeworld; its name was emblazoned on its side: The Martian Logos. The beast dissolved into smaller components to avoid being struck, and I was thus suddenly alone as The Logos kept the irrational natives away with its mighty gun. A rope fell over its side whereupon a soldier of the elite rescue force -trained for all sorts of planetary rescue missions - thrust himself over and repelled himself down toward me. "We came just in time!" He said to me, struggling to speak loud enough to be heard over the sound of the ship's whirling engine. "Come, grab hold of me! I will take us back up!" I attached myself to that man and I hung on to his belt as we were both reeled in by the crew on the ship. On the ship, I was fortunate to be diagnosed by the crew's doctor with nothing else but the symptomatic consequences of sheer shock. No physical injuries, although a few seconds more and there would have been no body of mine to diagnose. The crew's captain approached me after my diagnosis and found me lying in bed. I beheld him for a moment: A grin that he desperately tried to suppress nonetheless appeared and ran the length of his face; his eyes danced like ballerinas and had a gay shine to them; and he obsequiously offered me anything I wanted, wringing his hands as he asked. “Forgive me Doctor, but when I got word that it was you whom we had to rescue, I “ “No need to worry, my friend. I am eternally grateful for you and your crew.” "H How are you feeling Dr. Thustra?" "I'm doing alright," I replied him. "It was a matter of seconds that separated you from death. Luckily we received your distress signal and the corresponding coordinates while conducting our scheduled drills in this area of the solar system. Otherwise, the nearest rescue vessel would have to have come from one of the moons - Phobos I should think - and that would have had you waiting a few months, minimum." "There were a few others with me. Two of them." His demeanor instantly began a transition toward regret, and a general sadness for the loss of my two fellow scientists manifested itself upon the features of his face until it affected even the tenor of his voice. "I am sorry for the loss Doctor. I wish we could have responded sooner to your call." "Not to worry," I assured him, "these men died wielding the banner of science. Their names will forever be remembered. Of that I will ensure myself on our return to Mars that it is so." "Well, that should be a simple task. I know of your work. You were the first to have posited the existence of humanoid creatures on Earth, and you were right! Tell me, do you think they truly are related to us in some way? Does this mean that the Great Cosmic Migration theory is correct after all?" "Don't speak of them! As far as you and I know, there are no humanoids living on that forsaken planet. As far as you know, I am a quack, a charlatan! I was wrong and deserve only the most brutal of scientific reproaches." "B but sir, as you can see I am trembling with excitement. I am a great admirer of your science and research. What I have witnessed would not only catapult your name into the great annals of history, but it would vindicate all those that were ostracized for believing the same as you. Even the old scriptures tell of a race - our ancestors no less! - that came from another world to Mars. What if these are they who came? Forgive more saying so Doctor… but you are mistaken on this." "No more! No more captain. I appreciate your interest in the subject, but, please, I wish to be alone, if you don't mind," I said in a fit of frustration, an adamant request which the captain politely obliged. "As you wish Doctor. Accept my sincerest apologies. Please excuse me." On his exiting the small resting quarters, I spoke to him this, "Captain, you and your crew would be wise to forget what you have seen and tell no one. There is nothing to concern oneself over. Nothing worthy of another voyage here. There is no intelligent life there after all. The scriptures, the sacred writings, whatever word was printed or spoken that spoke of our past, it is all wrong. If the people of Mars witnessed what I have witnessed, they would suddenly find themselves horrified, offended even, to have even the most remote association attributed to them with those… things down there. We are not like them, Captain. We are nothing like them. Whatever they are... I know they are not human.


I grew up in a piece of shit. Well, I suppose it’s called a mobile home. But it sure seems like a piece of shit. It smells like one too. Cigarette smoke, cat pee and the raw sewage smell from the nearby plant create a trifecta of nasal nastiness. My mom and dad don’t seem to notice the smells. Perhaps they have gotten used to it over time. Or perhaps smoking meth daily did something to their sense of smell? All I know, is that when the chemical stench of it is added to the cigarette, pee and sewage smells, I HAVE to avoid my parent’s room. I share a tiny bedroom with my twin brothers, Bud and Al. For being twins, they are not similar at all! I’d say about as similar as the Minnesota Twins and the Twin Towers. Bud is always smiling. I sometimes wonder if he even *knows* how to frown. He’s genuinely the funniest, kindest person I have ever met. Bud is always there for me when I need him. Loving relationships are almost nonexistent in our family. Bud is the only one I truly love. Al on the other hand, is a huge asshole. Don’t get me wrong, he can be fun occasionally. The fun never lasts very long though. His anger is always present, millimeters beneath the surface. His violent outbursts terrify me. I hate Al. My brothers never get along, and this evening is no different. They always fight about the same issue. Constantly, they argue about who gets to spend time with me. “Come on, you spent the last three days watching Youtube videos with Bud. Why can’t you do something with me this evening,” Al asked pleadingly. I replied, “You’re an angry asshole, Al. Why would I want to do anything with you?” Al appeared hurt, stung by the truth that I spoke. “It’s not my fault,” Al shot back defensively. “How could I not be angry, living in this stinky ass, meth den of a trailer.” Always kind and loving, Bud stepped in with a gentler tone. “I know it’s not your fault, but I still think he should spend the evening with me,” Bud urged. Suddenly, I heard a loud crash from outside my bedroom. Oh no, I know this sound too well! It’s the sound of my parents bedroom door flying open. “Shut up,” I yelled angrily at my brothers. “You really did it this time.” The thumping of a meth addict’s frantic footsteps followed, crossing the tiny trailer in a matter of seconds. The torn sheet that served as my bedroom door was ripped down, with one violent jerk. My father’s face appeared, his eyes unpredictable and wild. Fear gripped my heart and sank my stomach as I looked at this miserable excuse of a man. I know exactly what he will say to me.


During college, there was an ordinary night that saw me come home from an evening study session in one of the academic buildings. As I entered the residential building where my dorm was located, I received a text. I fumbled through the contents of my pocket and by the time I had retrieved my phone and read the text, I had entered the large winding stairwell in the center of my building. I stopped to type a reply to the text I'd received. I'm no good at walking and texting simultaneously- some people can do it. I'm not one of them. As I stood in silence at the bottom of the stairs penning my reply, the door from the floor above me opened. Someone else had entered the stairwell. I don't think I even would have remembered that part if it weren't for the events that followed. My stairwell companion, from the landing of the floor above me, took a few steps and stopped, I presume to gauge if anyone else was occupying the stairwell at that time. I was directly below my companion, texting in silence, so it's reasonable to assume that they didn't realize I was there. Suddenly, flatulence. Like a bugle at dawn, a fart burst into the silence with the singular force, candor, and flourish that only a nasty big messy wet fart is capable of. For perhaps five whole seconds, blups and bops trumpeted out of my stairwell companions rear. Ben Franklin once said the only certainties in life are death and taxes. I can add that, with certainty, I shared a stairwell with someone who defecated (at least a little) into their pants. After the barrage of farts concluded, the mystery farter proceeded down the stairs. I remained glued to the floor, frozen with terror. Eleven or so steps beyond the first-level platform and the farter's identity was made known to me. She stood approximately five foot fine and she was an absolute knockout. I couldn't believe my eyes both in terms of the magnitude of her conventional attractiveness and associating that conventional attractiveness to what had just occurred. Immediately, her face blew past red and turned a smoke-on-the-water shade of deep purple. She took a step towards me- perhaps a gesture to see if I'd pretend that what happened hadn't. I wasn't having it. I said "nuh uh" out loud (something I still regret) and went back outside. She was NOT going to crop dust me in that stairwell, no sir. After that evening, I started to see her more frequently. In a cafeteria, walking to a class, in the gym- on multiple occasions we made eye contact and she'd scurry away in shame. I wanted to tell her that it wasn't a big deal. People fart! I regret overreacting, especially if it made her feel uncomfortable! This is something that we could laugh about! Alas, I never had the chance to try and smooth the awkwardness between us or acknowledge the events of that fateful night. Anyways, that was about 10 years ago and now we work in the same building. Still haven't spoken.


It took a couple of weeks to come up with a plan to escape. Working any quicker didn’t hold any advantage. My leg was slowly healing, but I needed to be at full health if I was going to escape. I spent most days trying to stretch it, test how it felt putting weight on it. The room wasn’t big enough to get a full sprint in. But as I rebuilt my strength, I kept trying at least a jog across the room to make sure the knee could take the weight of a fully-fledged run. It was hard to be certain if the other prisoners knew what I was doing. I suspect many of them reasoned it must have been my way of dealing with the confinement. Whatever their thought processes, despite the many strange looks I got, no one ever seemed to tell me to stop. However, eventually, I felt more certain my leg could take the impact of a run, and so I began putting the plan into motion. For the first step, I needed to find a knife and something to start a flame. Both were surprisingly easy to get hold of. The knife could wait till nearer the time. Still, I spent my next time cleaning memorizing where each one was kept, how easy they were to access, which ones I could conceal quickly and easily. But each home had a kitchen, I just had to enter one on my final day. As for the second item, I returned to the home where I had spotted the display of gas lighters. The lighters were piled high, chucked in with intentional apathy to show off the exuberance. It seemed unlikely they would notice one missing. The lighter also had the bonus of being small enough to slip into the side of my shoe. The guards would briefly pad us down when we returned each day, but their efforts didn’t extend to such extensive searches. The next part of the plan was getting an accomplice - a much harder task. I waited the day before we were next due to be working before even bringing the idea up with Jacob. I knew I would be asking a lot of him, and I was worried if I asked him at the beginning of the week he would change his mind come the end of it. Around late afternoon the guards brought us our daily loaf of bread to share. As we sat down to eat, I dared to suggest my plan. “I have a favor to ask of you…” I began hesitantly. “Yeah. What you got planned?” “I’m going to escape,” I whispered. Jacob let out a small chuckle as a few crumbs flew from his beard. It was a strange laugh that mixed disbelief with almost mild anger that I would dare even ask. “I’m not going to try and escape with you.” “I didn’t say we…” I replied. I smirked intentionally, assuming he’d enjoy the gall. “Then why should I help you?” “Because I’ll come back for you all.” “Yeah. I’ve heard that from a bunch of guys before…you know, before they were shot.” “Trust me,” I insisted. “Don’t be dumb. That’s not enough,” he muttered, as he tore off another piece of bread. “Look. You won’t be in danger. What have you got to lose? Either I succeed and we get out of here, or I fail and I die and you get slightly more room to sleep at night.” “Because I don’t want to watch you die,” he said, scrunching his face. “You just watched Mary lie dead in a ditch three weeks back. One of us is going to see the other die sooner or later.” He thought for a second, chewing on a small piece of crust. “So when you escape, and you come free all of us, then what you gonna do?” The idea had been forming in my head for a while. I knew the answer. But somehow saying it aloud seemed stupid, like a child’s make-believe. “I’m going to leave the Kadear Coalfields. I’m going to visit as many different islands as possible, learn all about them, and I’m going to try and learn enough to understand what led to all of this.” “All of what?” “The islands.” I said, “There were great continents once, with huge cities that stretched further than this whole island. And then it all disappeared. In a blink.” Jacob mulled on it a few seconds longer. “Not one for small ambitions, are you?” “Never,” I replied. “Help me.” Jacob chewed his slowly, ensuring it lasted as long as it possibly could. Eventually, he sighed, a sort of collapsing, relenting exhale. “You really going to come back for us?” he asked. “If I succeed,” I replied. “You will all be free, and the whole Citadel will be gone.” He calmly reached over to me and took my piece of bread out of my hands. He tore off half of it and threw it into his own mouth. My payment was made. “What do you need me to do?” \ The next day we were taken outside and given our duties for the day. Jacob was initially to be put to work cutting the grass, but he managed to switch places with someone to get on window cleaning. It didn’t take much convincing for the man to swap. The ladders were wooden, and the constant moisture from the sea air left them slowly rotting. Too many of the prisoners had lost their lives when a step snapped, or the uneven ladder tipped. I was back on cleaning duty. The very first home I was sent to, I began cleaning in the kitchen. I knew exactly where I wanted to go. I headed straight to one of the drawers, opened it up, and took out a small sharp cutting knife. I quickly placed it within the elastic of my trousers, before returning to my cleaning duties in case a council member or guard should wander in. I spent the day nervously waiting. The cold steel of the knife was pressed tight against my torso. In my pocket, I could feel the slight weight of the gas lighter. It was a long day, knowing that this cleaning, this pointless fruitless chore, might be my last action. The end of the day came and the guards marched us outside to be herded back to the prison. The sun had already set over the horizon and painted a beautiful red sky that was slowly fading to the black of night. We slowly marched forward, but I intentionally kept my pace slow. I stayed parallel to the last guard, far enough forward to be in their peripheral vision and avoid suspicion, but far enough back so that the other guards were ahead of me. I looked over to the building where the window washers were. I saw Jacob, slowly making his way down from the very top of one of the ladders. He looked over and saw me walking up the hill. Upon my sight, his frame seemed to change; he begun his motions, a performer entering their routine. Jacob paused about six feet off the ground. He leaned down, and tapped his foot against the rung one beneath him. His eyes turned to meet mine, and he let out a quick smile in my direction. I nodded back. One small, final pact of trust and faith passed between us. Quickly, he slammed his foot down on the rung, snapping it in two. People looked up at the sound, as Jacob calmly let go of the ladder and leaned back into the empty air. He fell sharply, landing awkwardly on his right leg. He let out a loud, agonized groan as his body crumpled against the grass. People rushed toward him. A mixture of motivations from concern, to fright, to morbid curiosity brought a halo of onlookers to his side. Even the guards began picking up their pace to check on the event. “Help!” He screamed. “I can’t move my leg.” The more he screamed, the more people were drawn towards the spectacle, and soon, there were a good ten metres between the final guard and all the others gathering by the screaming, distracting, Jacob. I only had one guard back where I was. We were a little closer to the building than I would’ve liked, but I couldn’t wait any longer. I reached into my trouser and took out the sharp knife. Then, my heart racing, I moved hurriedly toward the guard. He noticed me, but not before I was able to grab the back of his shirt, yank him around, and press the point of the blade against his spine. I whispered into his ear. “You make a single noise, I stab. You can live. But you need to stay silent.” I could hear a faint whimper of agreement in the guard’s uneven breathing. I reached down to his gun and pulled it out. “I’m going to back away now. You make any noise before I’m out of sight and I shoot.” Once more, he nodded his nervous consent. I slowly backed away from the guard, my eyes, and the gun, locked on him. I stepped back cautiously, slowly shuffling. Several paces away, I checked over my shoulder. The wall, and at least temporary freedom, were only a few seconds away. I only had another ten or so metres to go. However, with my eyes fixed on the guard I wasn’t looking to the crowd at the top of the hill. “Stop!” One of the other guards had looked up to check his surroundings and spotted me, the barrell of a gun pointed at his colleague. I turned to see him remove the gun from the holster and point it my way. Every other guard and prisoner turned too, the entire eyes of the Citadel staring down upon me. I paused for the briefest of moments, till some subconscious part of my brain decided for me. I ran. I ran hard for the wall. I heard the bangs of the guns go off behind me. I jumped for the top of the wall, grabbed the rim, and heaved myself over, to the sound of missed shots hitting the brickwork, and whistling through the trees. I landed the other side, the soft dirt of the forest floor cushioning my fall. I ran deep into the woods. My legs sprinted along the uneven ground, trying to maintain balance. The fading light failed to penetrate the forest canopy, and it was difficult to make out which direction I was heading. My only orientation was to keep heading away, away from the light that came from the Citadel behind me. To run into the darkness. I knew that I needed to hide. If I ran too far, and found myself back on the main paths, I would be found. I had to find somewhere in the forest to pause. Somewhere, where I could attempt to outlast the guards. Another hundred meters into the forest I came across a thin trench that snaked and curved between a few trees. I charged down it, turning the corner a couple of times, before diving down as low as I could. I scurried on my hands and knees and pressed my back firmly against the muddy wall. I tucked my legs in tight, wrapping them up in my arms, trying to make myself as small as possible. And then, I waited.


A short story I recently posted on the HFY subreddit One shot. Edit: Spelling Edit: The original inspiration: \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ Specialist Kotar examined the still warm cadaver on the table in front of him once more, just as confused as before the medical scanner had spat out its report. This was the first example of an 'earthling' that had been brought to him for evaluation, something the military normally did on the first day of occupation of a new system. And normally they brought him a live specimen. But this was the fourth day in orbit of the third planet of this miserable backwater part of the galaxy, at least some of the rumours about difficult fighting and unexpected resistance must be true then.  But - the specimen. Being dead, he had to skip the psychological profiling entirely for now, that would have to wait for a more intact example. Cause of death was obvious, it was still leaking bright red blood slowly from a head wound - probably caused by an assault bayonet from the looks of things. The body gently twitched form time to time, as if trying to defy the very laws of nature itself. But it was the scans that made no sense. Excessive scar tissue all over the body, including assumed vital areas. This was confirmed visually, ugly pinkish ropes of it across the body almost randomly, or at least not according to any pattern he recognised. Kotar would have assumed some religious or perhaps social significance, if it weren't for the internal scars on the report. Internal organ functions were mostly predicted by the scanner, but it was clear that some were plain *not right*. Some seemed to have pieces missing from them. Others had tiny mechanical devises in or up against them. There was at least one example of an organ missing altogether, the connecting tissues curled back on themselves as if recoiling in horror. What manner of vile beings did this to themselves? None of the scars were consistent with predator attacks.  The more he looked at the scans the worse it got. Nerve ends were severed in places, or pinched painfully between artificial implants of an unknown nature. Metal clips held tissues together. Newer, painfully raw looking scars overlapped old faded scars. One of the surface ones still had artificial fibres - *cloth fibres!* \- holding it closed! He fought down the urge to purge his stomachs. The very worst was where the scanner had identified that part of the alien was *biologically from another different earthling!* They *cannibalised* each other for new parts! A thousand interrogations of a thousand different species hadn't upset him as mush as this things very existence did.  But Specialist Kotar had a job to do. The soldiers would need the information he gathered here on how to best cleanse these abominable creatures from existence. He prepped himself for dissection, he would have to confirm the machines report manually. Just as the laser cutter touched the surface of the earthling if flung itself bolt upright with a great gasp of breath, scaring the excrement out of Kotar and sending the cutter flying across the room! Before he could recover and call for help, the injured but impossibly *NOT* dead earthling monster lashed out with an arm, shattering Kotars frail body almost without effort. His last view of the world was spent helplessly watching the earthling climb off the table and stalk off into the ship. \~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~\~ I'm a regular author on the HFY subreddit.


Every family has that one person, who after they’re gone, remains ethereal. Someone unanimously revered, who other members go to for advice, reassurance, love. Poppy demanded your respect with kind eyes and a calm tone. He helped the younger grandchildren mold cookie dough balls and taught me how to feed the puppies in the barn, just learning how to wobble through the hay. He lifted me up, securely placing me on his horse, reassuring me I was fine, safe, looked after. I loved dogs and horses because he did. I love the smell of hay because of the time spent at the farm alongside him. He sat at the head of the able, chose who was to open the 1st present at Christmas, corrected the kids behavior with a stern look and few words. He snored loudly, waking up my Nana and cousins. We woke laughing amongst ourselves at the sheer loudness of it but never daring to laugh too loudly and wake him up. I was there when he died. Heart problems took their final toll. I sat on the floor in the living room as they wheeled his body out of the door on a stretcher. My brother remembers our mother screaming at the top of her lungs. My memories have no sound, no details, I only remember how far away the stretcher seemed from my body on the floor. “Poppy send us a sign.” That was the mantra my mom chanted when she woke up in the morning, at grace before dinner, before bed as she prayed. She needed to know her father was still there somewhere. A feeling I understand as an adult now without her. “He’s in heaven, looking down on us” they told me. I never doubted he was in heaven, I prayed and asked him if I was going to see him again someday. “Poppy send me a sign” Mom begged. Asked. Whispered. Cried. And he did. A picture, laid out on the kitchen table, of Poppy, Nana, and I had been chosen for the wake. I picked it up, looked it over and walked away. Mom came rushing into the room in tears, asking if I had done something to the picture. Did I spill water on it? Place it on the heater? Tear it? Light a match near it? I thought I was in trouble. I had picked it up to look at it, that’s all. She handed it back to me, and over my Poppy’s head, was a small, yellow halo. Poppy sent us a sign, from heaven, because Mom asked him to. For 22 years that picture has been framed and hanging in my Nana’s house. It is the reason I knew there was an afterlife, heaven, something. We had a miracle, all of our own. “You know why Nana got a nose job don’t you?” My brother asked me off hand after discussing the various plastic surgeries our family has gone through. “Yeah, the family nose. You’re lucky that gene missed you.” “No...that’s not why. I can’t believe you dont know this.” My Nana and Poppy were married when she was 15 and he was too many years older. Poppy was a police officer, and offered my Nana, who had no family of her own, security. She refused to tell me about her wedding until I was an adult, for fear I would see it as a sign it was okay to marry young myself. Or in fear I would judge her. They remained married until the day he died, moved around the East coast, fixing up old houses and flipping them. Or so I thought. Nana cheated, somewhere along the way, and Poppy found out. He beat her so badly, she had to undergo surgery on her face to repair the damage he had done to her nose. He was a police captain, there were no repercussions. They moved to avoid scandal. The secret was kept for years. The saint who sent me a sign wasn’t a saint. Or was he? Saint Augustine, whose theology is one of the main pillars of the Christian Church, had 2 mistresses and abandoned one of his illegitimate sons. Saint Juniper Serra abused the Native people he introduced to Catholicism, forcing them to live in terrible conditions, beating anyone who tried to escape. That isn’t even the tip of the iceberg when it comes to problematic saints. Saints were greedy, abusive, adulterers- but inevitably “chosen” by God. Or a corrupt pope. Or a little of both. But here I am in the 21st century, trying to reconcile the man who tenderly lifted me up on the kitchen counter so I could sneak sweets with the cop who savagely beat his wife because she strayed. What of the miracle? Was it a fluke? Some weird natural event? Chemical change? Explainable through science if an answer was sought out? That sign told me my Poppy was there. And it told me, after my mom died, that she was there somewhere too. It gave me hope, faith, a sense that after we die, we aren’t nothing. We aren’t nowhere. Now I’m not so sure. Can Poppy remain a problematic saint, capable of great miracles despite grave sins? Or is he just a person who did terrible things amongst the good things. I have this picture- tangible, unexplainable, haunting. A sign from an angel, or the devil, or something in between. I go on seeking an answer. Or evidence. Or an explanation. Or selfishly for the 2nd time in a lifetime, a sign.


You're on auto-pilot when someone pokes their head into the cubicle. "Hey," he says, sort of stepping in but not quite entering. "Hey. Hey." "Neigh," you mutter. "There's no hay here, little horsey. You clop along, now." "Hah. But, hey, uh . . . ." You tell him your name. "Oh, right. Hey, you know, uh, you know you're breathing, right?" "What?" Your fingers almost stop typing. "Yeah, you're breathing right now. And you can see your nose, too, uh, and you can feel where your tongue is in your mouth right now." "What?" He smiles, shakes his head as if you're a lost cause (and maybe you are, so what?), and leaves. Auto-pilot activate. Well, not quite; just what was he blabbering about then? You might have seen him before, might have even sat across from him once during a break or meeting, but you never caught his name, or if you did, you forgot it. Is that what that was about? Were his words some kind of oblique insult? So what, you tell him and yourself right there in your head, people forget things all the time. Still, his words, however juvenile, appear to have left something in you. Yes, you are in fact breathing, so much so that it's a wonder you don't have to do all that manually, consciously, by yourself, as you are being forced to do right now. And it is true, too, that you can see your nose ever so slightly, and who could forget that tongue of yours resting in your mouth, never in the same spot for too long like a worm? Quit it. It is time for work. Spreadsheets, numbers to crunch, rows and columns. The clock. Soon enough, you make it through the day. When you arrive home and stand there for a moment's silence, you take in a breath of air. Then another. Then another. Do your nostrils gape? Oh, shut up. But even numbing your skull with videos after videos, each purporting to be more hilarious than the last, does nothing. In fact, leaving yourself open like this, cross-legged on the mattress like a monk seeking enlightenment, seems to invite thoughts rather than prevent them. You heard somewhere that the stereotype tin-foil hats conspiracists are often depicted wearing actually attract radio-signals. Something to do with the metal. God, how long ago was that? What other things have you overlooked? How many things have you, without even thinking about it, filed away? Your birthday is coming. Okay, but what else? Nobody really remembers their birthday until it is time. Once you went to a playground, or something like a playground, and made friends with a kid you never saw again. You've lost your keys at least once before. And, as if it is the most appropriate step to take next, your mind says, "One day you will fall asleep without waking up." Well then. That isn't so bad, you try to counter. But, just how long has it been since you last thought of the one thing that WILL to happen to you, to everyone else? You can't even think of when you first learned of death. It feels like something you just knew, like how people just know that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father and so on; even people who've never seen Star Wars. People just know. You don't learn how to breathe. If people just know, your brain decides to think up, then what is something big people don't know? It sounds like what one of those Chinese fortune cookies would say. Except wrong. You can't put your finger on it. A sound pulls you out of yourself for a moment. Beeping? Ah, it's your food. Much needed after such a dumb conversation with yourself. Its scent teases your nose. It feels warm in your mouth, and your tongue brushes against it. You can almost sigh. That night you dream something big is going to happen. In the morning, as your car glides through the same route, a bird flies across the sky in the windshield, perhaps to relay a message. Trees shake their leaves, the shadows of those leaves dancing quiet dances on sidewalks and buildings. The light changes. A jogger can be seen in the window to your right, before he, too, is lost with the blurring scenery. Eventually you park your car in the lot which is in the lee of your workplace, step out and step on something. The ground is bare, and so is your shoe. You have your wallet with you, you check, and inside are your cards and cash. Your keys are in one of your pockets, your phone in another. Nothing else, but there is something. Something you dreamt? Something you see. Right now, in the parking lot. The cars are empty, of course they are. On your way to the entrance, the air around you glints. Cars are drifting along streets with clutters of stars on their roofs. Your workplace has them as well, in rows after rows of shining windows. The few shop windows you can glance from here have them on display, beside their mannequins and other products. Those stars, if that's what they are, move along with you. It's glare, you dimly realize. It sounds familiar to you. Glare from the sunlight. Far down the street, where the cars (are they empty?) shimmering in the heat are devoured by a steep incline below, something is hovering. The back of a traffic light? You rush inside like a child turning off the lights. That's it, something has turned off or on, one of the two. Something big is going to happen. A few of the people stalking about or talking to one another might be looking at you, thinking you're a loony, so you slow down, but not too much, you want to be ready. There he is, what's-his-name. Your feet carry you there, as if you're strolling over to a friend, and you say, "Hey, there." He turns his whole body to you. "Oh? Do I know you?" You tell him your name. "Well, it's nice to meet you. What's up?" There's no other way to ask it. "Oh, nothing, really. Um, what have you've been thinking about?" He appears to seriously consider this, but then he says, "Lately? Not much. Work, you know, but!" Your heart rises. "I am gonna go with a couple buddies to see the big game this weekend." "Right," you manage. "Right. That sounds fun." You make sure to not be too obvious as you shuffle toward the cubicle, facing backwards. Nobody smiles that much, do they? He's not even talking like everyone else. You bump into someone and they hold you by the shoulder. You turn, ready to scream at the cubicle wall. Your face burning, you huddle inside. Hopefully no one saw that. A blurry dark figure approaches you and seats itself as you do the same before the black screen. As the screen powers on, the figure is engulfed by blue light and the computer login greets you. A note has been stuck to the edge of the screen. It reads: "SOMETHING BIG IS GOING TO HAPPEN!" Around it are little drawings of confetti, party poppers and a party hat, all done neatly in colorful markers. You toss this in the wastebasket. Think about. There's nothing to think about. Stare at the screen, the words and numbers and symbols, the pixels, the light. Don't you do it. Keep your head straight, eyes looking ahead. Like an exam at the eye doctor's, and maybe you need a doctor right now, but all you need to worry about right now is doing your work, getting through the day, and maybe looking up some help. Those are just coworkers passing by. Those eyes are yours. Yet that reflection in the screen is not. And this time you do scream, you scream your head off for all to hear and you run and shut a door behind you, any door, and you pace around in the small white-tiled room with lines of sinks and stalls and a big window. No windows. You lock yourself in a stall and there are voices crowding at the door. It opens. "Hello? Are you—" *"Leave me ALONE!"* The door shuts, murmurs to other murmurings. Footsteps, going away or here, you can't tell. And all the while, something *is* approaching. Something big is going to happen. You know this and there's nothing to listen for. Just don't think about it, that's it, think something else, think about your ragged breathing and your snotty nose and your dry tongue in your dry mouth, and sooner or later it'll leave. It'll disappear. You'll forget about it for good. It's in your head and you control your head damn it, you can think by yourself and not think, just stop it stop it stop it stop *it*! He put something in your head, didn't he? Mr. Mystery. Some psychological trick he read about, probably. There he is, right one cue. His footsteps clacking along the tiles, stopping before your stall. He'll open it and gloat about it all and it'll be some big prank the whole office threw together, ha ha, just scaring one of our loyal employees, a little hazing don't hurt . . . . Slowly, very slowly, almost without making a sound, it gets in under the stall door.


If I’m truly being honest, my life didn’t really begin until I died. That might sound contradictory. That’s because it is. But just because something is contradictory doesn’t mean it’s a lie. I’m living – excuse me, *dead* – proof. \~ In my twenty-three years of living, I didn’t do anything spectacular. I wasn’t particularly gifted at anything; I wasn’t particularly loved. My parents had raised me, but never given much of a shit about how I turned out. Though to be fair, neither did I. I barely made it through high school. College was out of the question. At twenty-three, I was working a minimum wage job at a fast food chain, living in an old three-bedroom house with two roommates I’d never had a conversation with for more than ten minutes. I could call them acquaintances, but friends would have been stretching it. One worked the night shift and one had a serious girlfriend whose place he often stayed over at, so I didn’t see either of them much. I remember January 11th perfectly. It started off like any other Thursday. I worked a double shift at work, came home exhausted, made myself dinner, watched some Netflix before bed. At midnight, I brushed my teeth and headed back to my bedroom, planning to get to sleep at a reasonable hour since I had a morning shift the next day. Halfway back to my room, I saw flashes of light downstairs. Leaning over the railing, I could just barely see that the television in the living room had been left on. Ryan must have been watching it and neglected to turn it off before leaving for his graveyard shift an hour ago. I could hear it from here, too; some obnoxious laugh track from a sitcom rerun. I almost left it on, but decided it was worth the trip downstairs to turn it off: I’d be able to hear the laughter from my room, and besides, none of us wanted to pay any more than necessary for the electric bills. Cursing, I turned around and made a beeline for the stairs. It was dark; the lights upstairs were all off, and the only light downstairs was the dim glow of the television. I should have turned a light on, but I didn’t. Because I didn’t, I didn’t see the books stacked by the top step, probably Evan’s. He was a part-time student, after all. He’d left while I’d been in my room too, to go see his girlfriend, and must have left them there. I didn’t know that then. One second I was hurrying to the stairs, telling Ryan heatedly that he was a piece of shit under my breath, and the next, I was tumbling down, having tripped over the books. It happened so fast, I barely felt the pain. A few pangs as my limbs and back collided with the sharp corners of the wooden stairs, but there wasn’t enough time to register much. At the bottom, I was able to gather my thoughts. I ached all over, especially my head. I was laying at the lower landing, and could already feel emerging bruises everywhere. What a fall. It hurt like hell. All because Ryan didn’t turn off the damn television and Evan didn’t put away his damn books. Groaning, I slowly sat up, then stood. I held my hand to my head. While I was down here, I’d better get an icepack. Suddenly, the pain was gone, all of it. My back, my knees, my head. I felt lighter, somehow, too. It was an odd feeling. Was this what it felt like if I was about to pass out? The answer was no. Some sixth sense told me to turn around, and I slowly did. I was greeted with the sight of me. Me, my body, still laying on the bottom landing. My arm was bent at an unnatural angle, and a dark pool of blood was gathered around my head like a halo. My heart sank, but some part of me had expected to see it. I wasn’t entirely surprised. I sat down on the stair, still staring at my body. When I tried to touch my own arm, I couldn’t; I went right through. I’d never believed in ghosts, but here I was, staring at my own corpse. A ghost, or spirit, or whatever – I supposed it didn’t matter now. Whatever I believed in or didn’t, I was clearly dead, and yet still here. I laughed harshly. Imagine when Ryan or Evan came home and found me. Would they miss me? Would they realize they had played a role in this? Probably not. Would my parents even care? I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t spoken to them in months. *What a stupid way to die,* I thought. You heard stories of people falling down stairs, sure, but who actually dies from hitting their head after a fall down some stairs in their own house? I couldn’t even *die* right. I sat there for hours, waiting, unsure what to do. I didn’t really expect to see some glowing light or holy force come to collect me, and they didn’t. No grim reapers or anything of the sort either. Just me, suspended, waiting. \~ Ryan and Evan moved out soon after. I watched them go. Evan was first, leaving just days later to move in with his girlfriend. I was hardly surprised; they basically lived together already, except in formality. Ryan left not long after, unable to bear the stain on the stairs that wouldn’t quite leave the wood no matter how it was treated. He stood in the doorway for a long moment, looking around the house but not at the stairs, and whispered that he was sorry. I stood beside him and told him it was okay, I didn’t really blame him anymore, but he didn’t hear me. Once they left, I was alone. I wandered through the house, but I couldn’t leave it. Which was unfortunate, since the house wasn’t any more interesting than it had ever been, and now it was empty: no television, no books, no pool table. Not that I would have been able to use them anyway. I was stuck. After a few months, once the novelty of the event had worn off, the landlord finally decided to rent it again. I saw her put up the FOR RENT sign out front. I watched, too, and waited some more, wondering if anyone would move in, and if they did, if it would even matter. I’d never been noticed or loved when I was alive; why would that change now that I was dead? The new group moved in at the end of June. I remember because they were all excited, talking about various summer plans and their schedules for the next months. There were three of them; Leslie and Noah were students at the local college, both taking summer classes, and Kyle was working two part-time jobs. I felt like I was prying by listening in to all their conversations as they carried in their new furniture, but I couldn’t help it; how else was I supposed to amuse myself? And if I was stuck here with them, I may as well get to know them. They brought in a new television, a foosball table, a dartboard, bookshelves, beds. They moved in themselves, using a U-Haul, Kyle declaring loudly that moving companies were a waste of money. Noah had my old room. I was glad about that. He was soft-spoken, but when he said something, it was always the right thing to say. I’d taken a liking to him immediately. The more I saw of him, the more I knew he was my favorite of the three, and the more I wished to be friends with him. I’d never thought much of friends, but I found myself wishing I was alive, so that maybe I could have made my first friend in Noah. Not that I tried to approach him; I mostly watched from the dark corners of rooms. I knew they couldn’t see me, had no idea I was there, but it felt wrong somehow to just stand among them, or to have them walk through me and shiver at the “cold spot.” That lasted for a while. Another few months passed that way, with me watching and learning about my new roommates but never doing much more. A few months, but not forever. \~ The new school year started in August. By the first week of September, Leslie and Noah were inordinately more stressed than they’d ever been during the summer. They were spending more and more time in their respective bedrooms, studying and writing essays and doing problem sets. Most often, I was in Noah’s room. It was nice to watch him; he was so focused, his concentration displayed all over his face. He tapped his pencil when he was thinking. He played instrumental movie soundtracks while he worked, which I liked. I only knew some of them, but it was fun to guess. I was enjoying myself more than I had since dying, and probably more than I had for most of my life too. One of those nights, I was into the music: it was a piece he’d played often, a track from *Aladdin.* Noah was tapping his pencil vaguely in accordance with the beat, sitting cross-legged on his bed, reading from his psychology textbook. Hardly noticing I was doing it, I stepped out of the corner and strode across the room, swaying my head to the music. I sat cross-legged, mimicking him, on the floor next to his bed, only a few feet from him. Smiling for the first time in ages, I closed my eyes, continuing to move my head in rhythm. When I opened them, Noah was looking directly at me, eyes wide. I stared back at him. Surely he couldn’t see me. Was it something behind me? I turned my head to look; nope, nothing new there. I turned back, and he was still staring at me. He rubbed his eyes, looked again, found me still there. “You…you’re the guy who died here,” he whispered. “I recognize you from your picture. We looked up the story before we moved in.” I knew they had; they’d talked about it. Still, it pleased me that he recognized me. It also shocked me that he saw me at all. “Yeah, I am,” I said. “But you’re…still here?” he said. His voice was impressively even, calm. “Yeah, I am,” I said again. He nodded like he wasn’t surprised. “I thought this house had an odd feeling about it,” he said. “I thought I’d seen glimpses of you around, in corners of rooms. I assumed I was imagining it, but maybe not. Or maybe I’m just going crazy after staring at this textbook for too long.” He shook his head. “Must be lonely. Why didn’t you show yourself before?” He looked thoughtful. He had no idea how much his words meant. No one had shown me this much care before, even when I was alive. “I’ve been around the whole time,” I finally answered, after a long hesitation. “I didn’t think anyone could see me.” He paused, considering. “I don’t think they can,” he said. “They’ve never seen you when I have.” “But you can.” He nodded. “I can.” Then he gave me a tentative grin. “I’m Noah, but you probably know that.” I smiled back. It felt weird, to smile. I hadn’t done it much in my twenty-three years, and not much after they ended either. “Yeah, I do. I’m Oliver, but if you read about me, you probably know that.” “Yeah, I do,” he said. I was so drawn to him; I couldn’t explain it. The first person who’d ever been nice to me, the first person I’d ever wanted to befriend – maybe more than befriend, if I was honest with myself – and I couldn’t even touch him. At least I could talk to him. At least he could see me. One step at a time. Suddenly he reached out and touched my arm. I stared, open-mouthed. His hand didn’t go through me, like everything else did. His hand touched me like I was corporal, like my arm was every bit as flesh and bone as his was. “Oh my God,” I said softly. He grinned. “Must be a first.” “It is,” I breathed. And then, overcome with a desire like I’d never felt before, I grabbed his hand in mine, intertwining our fingers. His skin was warm, alive; I could tell mine felt like ice. I wished it didn’t. I wished I was alive again. But maybe this was enough. If Noah could see me, could touch me, maybe it was all I needed. He blushed. “Oh, uh, you’re very forward.” Seeing his cheeks redden made me feel giddy. It would have made my heart pound, filled my stomach with butterflies, if I’d physically had either of those things anymore. I didn’t, and yet somehow I felt more alive than I ever had when I *did* have them. I tentatively smiled. “But you don’t mind it?” He met my eyes, then firmly shook his head. “No, I don’t. I…don’t mind it at all,” he said. “Good,” I said. Keeping his hand in mine, I pulled gently, until he got the hint and came to sit beside me on the floor, bringing his textbook with him. I waited until he was settled, the instrumental version of *A Whole New World* playing on in the background, before I rested my head on his shoulder. He shivered but smiled. “Now,” I said. “Tell me all about psychology.” \~ The days only got better from there. Noah was the one who made me happy, the one who made me want to *exist.* For the first time ever, I felt loved. Someone finally gave a shit about me, and it was the best feeling in the world. It had taken me dying to find a life. I supposed that was ironic, but I didn’t much care. I had Noah, and Noah turned out to be all I needed. I had been dead for months, but really, my life had finally just begun.


Thirty six minutes late for the debriefing when she casually strolled in and laid down on my sofa. She hadn’t bothered to take off her costume. I say costume, it was simply military tactical gear. Function over form was always her way. Straightforward, to the point, no messing around. I was hoping that in a less formal environment - such as my house - she would be more relaxed. It would make things easier. “Want a drink?” I asked, starting to head for the kitchen. She held up a full tumbler in response. If her position on the couch hadn’t changed, I wouldn’t have noticed she moved. Sara was extremely fast, and her superhero persona always made me forget that she uses her powers more playfully when off duty. She sipped at a gin and tonic, her favorite. Throughout our six year partnership, Sara would come over on her days off and we’d get drunk and forget our responsibilities. She was probably hoping tonight would be such a night. Days off are a thing for superheroes, once you come to terms with the fact that it’s impossible for one person - no matter how powerful - to save everybody, it just makes sense. The termination rate has dropped significantly ever since the Agency started its five day work week policy for heroes. Sometimes though, it was a necessity. “You know why you’re here today?” I asked. You had to be gentle when the person in front of you could tear you to pieces in the blink of an eye. “Yeah,” she said, taking a long sip. “Bad day.” “Bad day?” I almost started yelling, but caught myself before losing control. “He was a college kid. Innocent. How did it happen?” “Come on, man. How do you think it happened? The only people in that room were five gunmen and some dumbass kid that, what, stumbled in there? You tell me.” Sara looked at me defiantly, as if waiting for an explanation. In reality, there was no way she could have known that kid was in there, some idiot from the local university too stoned to realize what he just walked into. The chances she could have recognized the situation and stopped herself were slim to none. That wasn’t the point. The point was her reaction. This kind of thing, an innocent getting killed, used to be unacceptable for her. She would plan for hours, sometimes days for an operation like today’s, and would do her best to ensure nobody got hurt who didn’t deserve it. Sometimes, she would nearly get killed herself pulling it off. When it finally - inevitably - happened, it shook her to her core. That attitude is why everyone at the Agency loved her so much. But then - about a year ago I think - her husband found out who she was. Called her a murderer, an assassin - which technically was all true - and left her. I know he loved her, always would. Poor guy would’ve come crawling back in a day or two after he cooled off, but the Agency couldn’t allow for the breach. He was terminated that night, without my knowledge. This fact may be the only reason she never killed me. They made it look like an accident, nobody that mattered was fooled. Something clicked off in her after that. At first, I thought she’d just start drinking or maybe do something crazy like outright attacking the Agency headquarters. Instead, she just threw herself into the job, and not in a good way. She became cold and reckless. Civilian bodies started to pile up. As of tonight, she has racked up nine non combatant casualties. In our five years before her husband was terminated, her count was one. I shouldn’t have been surprised at the Agency’s reaction to my suggestion to terminate. It was quickly accepted, as always, but Sara was so loved in her time as a hero, more than most, maybe I just think she deserved better. “Are you going to say anything?” She was being aggressive now, my silence gnawed at her. “Do you even know what happened?” She sighed and finished her drink. “Can I go now?” “No,” I said bluntly. “We need to talk about this.” *I need confirmation of the kill*. “Please,” she spat, and got up to leave. “You going to have *me* terminated too?” Not responding was the worst thing I could’ve done. For all her newfound recklessness, Sara never became stupid. Her reaction wasn’t one of fear - it never is with any hero - but mockery. “What do you plan on doing, little guy?” she spat. “There’s no Agency goons here, I checked. I always check after James... So you think you can kill me? Try.” In the blink of an eye, she was right in front of me, but crumpled to the floor upon arrival. I breathed a sigh of relief. The poison was quick, and I was pretty sure that using her speed would accelerate it even further. Glad that worked out. Sara looked up at me with bulging eyes, deep red from bursting blood vessels. She heaved and clawed at her throat, tearing it open. It looked like she was trying to dig the poison out. “It was the gin, if that’s what you want to know.” I said. “I hate that garbage. Only kept it here for you.” When the spasms finally stopped, I packed my bag and left. I had to report in and be assigned a new apartment before I could meet my new partner.


There were whispers in the rain that day, mixing with the smells of fuel, salt spray, and exhaust on the flight deck. I was walking among my Marines as we waited, grey clouds mingled slowly overhead. Bulldog dropships were idling, finishing their preflight checks a few dozen meters away, and in the distance the coast of CON 7 loomed. This was to be the last of it, but there were rumors among the strike group. Rumors with no thread of truth I could find, but somehow persisted. “EQUIPMENT CHECKS! I swear to God if somebody’s suit or chute fails, I will have your ass after you bury yourself in the dirt.” There were some laughs, but I could tell their minds were somewhere else, and they knew I knew. “Sir what’s the good word?” a Corporal asked. “About?” I answered, watching the Bulldog’s marshallers, waiting for them to signal us to board. The Corporal continued undeterred, “Some new tech sir, everyone’s talking about it. No one’s seen it. Word is, the Splints are *scared*.” I remember I was about to tell him that the Splints had every reason to be scared, without some shiny new toy on the field. They had URE Marines to worry about, but then the signal came, “NINTH COMPANY!! LOAD UP!!” Minutes later we were strapped in, buckets on, and breaking deck as the Bulldogs launched and accelerated for the coast. Flying low over the water, the heads-up display on my visor pinged. A time to go clock started counting down as we approached our drop point. An INSC strong hold that was coordinating resistance fighters fleeing East into the highlands. We were to drop on top of it, secure it, and retransmit any actionable intel back to the strike group. If we managed to take and hold it. “ONE MINUTE!” The ramp dropped and I check that my rifle’s charge pack was secure before latching the weapon to my suit. Green status lights from my Marines lit up on my visor. Here we go. “THIRTY SECONDS!” I clenched my teeth and waited for the order. Eyes focused on the open door less than two meters away. The drop master gave me a thumbs up, smiled, and waved me forward. He was happy, there wasn’t any anti-aircraft fire today. Five seconds. The drop master flashed a green light in my face and pointed out the door. I didn’t have to think. I just leapt and my suit acted. Immediately stabilizing in the high-speed slipstream, before deploying its airbrakes. Broadcasting my position to the rest of them as I fell. Our objective was marked and stood apart from the terrain, half-buried in the dirt to conceal its profile. My chute deployed at 150 meters along with the last of the airbrakes when the first shots came up to meet us. Only small arms, the landing was smooth. Once I was sure all my boots were upright on the dirt, we went to work. *Fast.* Within fifteen minutes we had the small base secured with no friendlies killed, and only a handful wounded. I finished sending the encrypted transmission back to higher when I was called back up to the surface. “Captain, we’ve been made. Coming from the North, and lots of them!” I looked across the flat terrain and increased the visor magnification to its maximum. The private wasn’t lying. There were dozens of light vehicles, filled with infantry heading our way. “Spread out and dig in, I’ll make the call,” I switched off our local comm net and called for air support as the company scrambled to get into what little cover there was. I felt relief when the acknowledgement came back, confirming that fast movers were being re-tasked from the South. They came overhead and tipped in from thousands of meters above. I waited to see the weapons release, but it never happened. Confused, I watched our saviors break off, streaking back the way they had come. I remember sitting up to watch the Splints close the distance. Then the Earth shook, knocking me on my ass. The shockwave passed over as I lay on the steps down into the base, before struggling to my feet. Dust and dirt hung in the air. “All clear sir. The Splints are…gone.” The data had been transmitted, our mission was complete, and we were going to live. Sitting up, I popped the seal on my helmet and stared at the red dirt caked on my boots, breathing deep. My name is Captain Mafferty and that was my last drop of the Unification.


Everything became a waiting game. I sat silently, biting my lips to keep my breathing quieter, trying to keep every centimetre of my body still. I could hear one of the guards getting closer. Their footsteps were slow. Methodical. Every few paces they paused and swiveled, looking for movements in the forest. They must have been only a few metres awaye, standing on the edge of the bank behind me. I could sense his feet above my head, his presence closing in. I closed my eyes, trying to shut out the moment. “Anything?” another guard in the distance called out. I prayed for a negative answer. “Nothing,” the guard behind me replied. I let a small exhale of air leave my lungs. The guard continued past me. But their progress was slow, and it took many minutes for the sound of their footsteps to disappear into the darkness. Eventually, it seemed like my part of the woods was empty again. I guessed by the positioning of the moon that it was around two or three in the morning. I had maybe six or so hours before daylight came and I no longer had the protection of darkness. It was enough, but time would disappear. I made my way back through the woods towards the Citadel. I crouched low and tried to keep my footsteps quiet. I couldn’t hear any guards nearby, but I could never be certain how far the sound traveled. It had taken me five minutes of running to find my hiding spot, but it took a good hour of patient steps, moving from tree to tree, to get back to the Citadel. At the perimeter wall, I snaked to the back of the settlement, away from the populated parts, towards the empty houses, and more importantly, to the storage areas. I managed to guess my spot with perfection, and as I heaved myself over the wall, I landed right next to the propane tanks and petrol canisters. Strange as it was, this was probably one of the safest places to be right now. Almost every guard would be out looking for me, no one would have expected me to come back. I lifted one of the propane tanks and dragged it over to a nearby home. With the butt of the gun, I smashed the corner of the window. Large cracks split across the glass, and with a small push, a large section of the pane came loose and fell inside the building, smashing against the ground below. I picked up the tank, and with care placed it inside the building before returning to the storage area. I bought two more cans, placing each one inside the home. Finally, I returned with one of the ordinary petrol canisters. Inside the hollow lie were three large propane tanks, sitting quietly, waiting. I lifted up the petrol cannister over the cracked window and opened the cap. The clear, strong-smelling liquid, gushed out from the tank, and spread across the floor of the home, pooling around the tanks. I held the can in place till the noise of liquid splashing against the concrete stopped. With every last drop emptied I discarded the cannister inside. A strong acrid smell poured from the building, burning the inside of my nose. The whole process had taken an hour, and I could already begin to make out the slightest hints of the sun rising in the east. I hurriedly pulled out the lighter from my pocket. I flicked the ignition hard. However, the old artifact had rusted, and it was hard to get it to come to life. I flicked the ignition maybe four or five times before the briefest of flames, and the smallest of sparks jumped from the lighter. It was all that was needed. The smallest of embers fell to the ground, landing among the fumes rising from the liquid, immediately igniting. Fire spread out from the window ledge and ran into the home. Flames leaped from the floor, painting the walls in oranges, reds, and yellows. I could feel the roasting heat rise from inside and I know it wouldn’t take long for the pressure in the tanks to overflow. I quickly ran back to the perimeter wall and climbed back over, retreating to the forest. From there, I trekked along the wall until I was level with where the prisoners were kept. I could do nothing now but wait and hope that the fire took hold. The minutes that followed were torture. The sky to the East was getting brighter by the moment, and I was beginning to mutter to myself from the sheer anxiety, bargaining with some universal force to let my plan go as I hoped. Then, it happened. There was a boom, a mighty roar that pushed the leaves of the trees back in fright. From behind the wall, I watched as the sky was filled with a huge fireball, a bright orb that made it seem like the sun had already risen. It gave way to a magnificent fire that stretched up like a beacon, calling all to its presence. The citadel, or at least some part of it, was aflame. I climbed back over the wall and ran towards the building where the prisoners were kept. As I hoped, the event was big enough to have distracted the guard outside, and they had already abandoned their post to deal with the larger crisis. I walked up to the door and shouted as loud as I could. “Stand back, away from the door, quick.” I counted to three before firing two gunshots at the lock of the door. Wood splintered and metal snapped, and with one final kick, the door was open. “Get out. Tell everyone you can.” The prisoners ran out onto the grass, running in whichever direction felt safest. Last to reach the door was Jacob. “Thank you,” I said. “It was worth it.” I paused for a moment. “Do you want to come too? We could escape together.” He hobbled out the door. “You think that fall was all fake? Nah, I’m not getting out of here quickly enough.” “You’ve got to escape,” I insisted. He looked to the fire. “Half the island will have seen what you just did, and they’re all about to rush up here to help. There’s nothing I need to escape anymore.” He smiled at the pillows of smoke spreading over the Citadel. “You go. There will still be plenty of people who would gladly shoot you dead. It’s too late to save the Citadel, but not too late for their revenge.” I patted him on the arm. He patted mine back. And we parted. \ It was time to escape from the island. But if I were to survive out on the seas, visiting different islands, I would need to eat and pay for transport and shelter. I needed money. I headed to the front of the Citadel, and barged into one of the council member’s homes. I walked to the front of the house where I found a small canvas bag. I picked it up and began grabbing anything small enough to carry. Delicate gold jewelry, subtly carved trinkets, and of course artifacts; numerous small plastic boxes to which I had no idea of the purpose and a couple of handfulls of the lighters piled in that glass cabinet. I filled the bag with as much as I could, and then headed outside. I opened the door, stepping out into the dawn. It took maybe a couple of seconds for my eyes to adjust to the light. When they did, I saw the glint of the gun pointed at me. “Stop,” the guard said. His voice was strained, his hands trembling. His eyes darted around him searching. “Put down the bag.” I lowered the bag, and raised my hands. “It’s okay. I’m not going to cause any trouble.” “You already have,” the guard replied. His fingers twitched on the trigger. I thought of the gun still tucked in my waistband hidden by my shirt. Did I have time to pull it? Could I beat his reactions? More importantly, was I prepared to shoot it? My thoughts were broken by voices rising from the Citadel entrance. I looked left, as around the corner came a dozen or so citizens arriving to help. Some carried blankets; others labored with tubs of water carried between many people. The guard lowered the gun and turned to them. “You’re not allowed here.” “We’ve come to help,” responded a woman carrying a bucket. “We can help.” “Turn back,” the guard shouted. “Turn back, or…” I could see his arm twitch, as he thought about raising the gun on them. “Don’t,” I warned him. “They can’t be here.” “But they are. It’s over. You can’t protect the Citadel anymore.” The citizens continued their march up the path, helping each other carry the buckets and supplies through the entranceway. “You’ve ruined everything. You don’t understand.” The guard was shaking. “Do you know what they are going to do to us when they find out? Do you know what will happen? They’re going to kill me, my family…” “You aren’t the enemy. Not anymore,” I said. The guard shook his head. He looked to the crowd of people walking past him, paying him no mind as they headed to save the Citadel. He turned the pistol it in his hand, inspecting it. His shoulders slumped, and he threw his gun away from him as far as he could. The guard fell back, landing in a seated position, before turning to watch the citizens walk up the path. “Just go,” he said. I didn’t say another word. I simply grabbed my bag and ran for the entrance. There were a number of bikes by the entrance, propped up against the wall by those coming to rescue the Citadel. I grabbed the first one I saw, and began my ride back home. With the Citadel on fire, and myself heading towards the sea, I began to relax. Sunrise had arrived, and the cool Winter air felt invigorating rather than bitter. At the Citadel people would be panicking, but out here was peace. I parked the bike back at my old house. I stepped inside and grabbed a few essentials - a few changes of clothes, what money I had, and of course most importantly paper and pencils. When I stepped outside again, the sun was casting long thin shadows across the ground, and people were busy starting their day. I began walking down the road outside my house, hanging my head low, trying not to draw attention to my disheveled appearance. My eyes were fixed on the small square meter of ground in front of me, and in my restricted vision, I failed to realize who I was walking towards. “Ferdinand? Is that you?” I looked up. There, staring at me, trying to reach my eyes was Thomas. “How are you? I haven’t seen you in weeks.” He went to walk up to me, but after a couple of paces, he seemed to take in my appearance - the ill-fitting clothes, the weak muscles, the loose pale skin. Seeing it seemed to instinctively repulse him, and he stopped where he was. “What happened to you?” he asked. “They told me you were promoted and moved to the Citadel. I tried to reach out, but didn’t hear anything.” I opened my mouth to speak. But I wasn’t quite sure what to say. How could I summarize everything that had happened? The Citadel was a lie, the dream we had been working for was a farce. I had been imprisoned for discovering the lie, and I had near-killed myself escaping. Right now, words weren’t a priority. My silence was interrupted by a large thunderous roar from the citadel. The fire must have spread and caught another propane tank, maybe even the storage area. I looked over Thomas’s shoulder to the sky. Thick black smoke was billowing out from the direction of the Citadel, the fringes of the fire visible as pale light reaching above the trees. People turned to look. Many held their hands to their mouths or gasped as they realized the smoke’s origin. A few people even began to walk in the direction of the Citadel, feeling the call to help. Thomas caught my gaze and turned too, and like others was entranced by the blanket of black covering the blue sky. I took my chance at his distraction and fled, running down a small gap between two buildings. I weaved my way between the homes until I came across a thin pebbly beach, and an old rowing boat lying on the sand. I grabbed the boat and dragged it into the sea until I could feel it begin to float on the surface. The icy waters grabbed at my ankles, as I lifted myself and my bag into the boat. As I rowed out to sea, my back facing the horizon, I looked in front of me at the Kadear Coalfields. I had never seen the island from here before. Seeing the island as its full width, it suddenly seemed so small, so insignificant. At the centre of the island the flames were still burning and creeping over the tops of the trees. That thick tube of burning gas and wood continued to ring out like a bell, beckoning people to come its way and find out the truth. Whatever was to become of the Kadear Coalfieilds was for other people to decide. My island may have gone, but there were a hundred others like it to explore. I didn’t have a house anymore, no place to live. Yet, now that everything had passed I was out on the sea, living my long-hoped-for dream. Whatever happened, I was closer to home than I had ever been.