I’ve had an effect on people ever since I was a child. I can’t explain it and it’s driven me to the brink of insanity. I never asked or prayed for it. In fact, I don’t even know if I believe in God. But the circumstances around my unique condition aren’t natural, or even human. There was a time when I thought I had been cursed with some kind of spiritual intervention. Even if that were the case, I don’t know what purpose it would possibly served. I first noticed I was different when I was in kindergarden. I was engaged in some minor dispute with another boy in class. I don’t even remember what we were fighting over. But I got angry and punched the kid in the face. He went down, clutching his mouth, and began to cry. His lip began to bleed. Instead of just lying there though, he got up, wiped his eyes, and gave me a hug. A teacher saw it happen and I thought I was going to be punished, as I should have been. Instead, she praised me for doing the right thing and the next day my class had cake, in my honor. Even at that age, this confused me. I had always been taught to do the right thing, respect others, and listen to your elders. Television, media, literature, and outside social interactions built the same constructs of normal human behavior we were all supposed to abide by. I saw others getting in trouble for acting out, for talking back, or for being violent. But never me. I was always the exception. Whenever I did anything bad, I was applauded, admired, and rewarded. This led to a very confused upbringing, as you can imagine. The constant positive repercussions of my bad behavior seemed to exist in a bubble, and were judged by a set of rules that were not only alien, but incomprehensible. As I grew up and went through school, I began to test the limits of what I could get away with. And no matter what I did, my seemingly immortal morality remained unstained. I was gifted countless things, praised by other parents, and admired by my teachers and peers. It was madness and I had the self awareness to realize that. One time in fourth grade I wanted to trade lunches with one of my friends. He refused and so I knocked his food to the ground and stomped it to mush. Terrible, right? Well, some teachers saw that and what did they do? They went out and got me exactly what I wanted from the store and presented it to me in front of the whole class. They all clapped. They all smiled. Even my friend, the one I had attacked, told me he was glad I was his buddy and invited me to his house after to play Xbox. In seventh grade there was a girl I had a crush on. I tried to kiss her, but she told me she didn’t want to. So I grabbed her by the shoulders and shoved her against the wall and screamed in her face, told her she was ugly and I didn’t want to kiss her anyway. She started to cry, but after a moment, she wiped her eyes and told me she didn’t deserve someone as great as me. A teacher had seen the whole thing and pulled me to the side. She told me I had been brave and acted with maturity. She led me into an empty classroom and showed me her tits. Then she let me touch them. I knew I could do whatever awful thing I wanted to her and so I twisted one of her nipples as hard as I could, digging my nails into her soft flesh. She started to bleed and I could tell she was in pain, but I didn’t stop until she began to sob. I should have been locked up for something like that. My teacher kissed me on the mouth afterward and told me I was a good boy, that she wished her own son would be more like me. And the insanity of that statement is that if her son did what I did, he’d get into a hell of a lot of trouble. He’d be sent to counseling, pumped full of medication, and shipped off to a school for troubled kids. I saw it all the time. People doing things I did everyday and getting punished for them. Highschool hit and I turned into a monster. I felt invincible. The moral bridge I had been trying to balance myself on completely collapsed during that time. I stole whatever I wanted, skipped class as often as I pleased, beat up kids I didn’t like, and fucked whoever I had a passing horny thought about. I was a tornado of unrest, angst, and carelessness. Why? Because I never had to deal with any kind of fallout. I was always slapped on the back, given a toothy grin, and told what a swell guy I was. During my first year of college, I hit celebrity status because I ran over one of my professors with my car. I hated the guy. Not because he did anything to me personally, but because he always smiled at this Junior I had a crush on. So I waited for him one night in the parking lot and ran him down. It took a couple passes, too. I heard his bones break beneath me, his screams, and the awful whine of my car as it struggled to get over his mangled form. Before he died, I went his side to watch him take his last breath. Around a mouthful of blood, he smiled and thanked me. I caved his head in with my heel. The next day, there was an article in the paper about what I had done. What was the headline? “Local hero stands up to biased teacher!” Sure, they buried him and people were sad, but there was never any anger. Even the professor’s family held no ill will. In fact, they called me soon after and told me they respected what I had done and apologized for the dead man. It was then, that night, that I began to wonder if I was a god. By the time I hit my twenties, I was almost always in the news. My face was plastered to hundreds of billboards. My name was on the cover of dozens of magazines. Everyone looked up to me, praised me, practically worshiped me. I was given money, cars, houses, boats, whatever the hell I wanted. All I needed to do to get these things...was something terrible. Didn’t like my Miami mansion? No problem. I kidnapped a popular pop star at one of the clubs I frequented and tortured her in front of a webcam. I broadcasted it live on my website, something that had been set up for me for just such an event. The next day, a billionaire from Italy called and told me I had inspired him. That my actions had moved him, brought him to tears. He gave me a twelve bedroom house on a forty acre plot of land. When I was twenty-five, I lusted after a famous movie star. We’ll call her Fran. I met her at a high society party I had been invited to. Flashy cars, expensive clothes, cigar smoke and plastic smiles. When I was introduced to her, I thought we hit it off, that she was into me. But during my follow up afterwards, she made it clear she wasn’t romantically interested. Sure, she respected and thought the world of me, but so did everyone else. I couldn’t make people love me. I couldn’t make them want to be with me, share a life with me. I was an icon to her, nothing more. Her rejection sent me into a spiral of depression and hatred. I wanted to kill her for turning my affection aside. Because that’s just what I fucking did. That’s how I dealt with things. That’s how I had obtained everything I had ever wanted. Destroy, kill, steal, fuck, rape and watch the masses bow down before me in admiration, watch them shower me with every material thing I could ever want. So what did I do? How did I cope with this loss of connection I so desperately wanted? I went to her parent’s house and put a gun to her father’s head. I made him call Fran over to the house. When she arrived, I made her take off all her clothes and pretend she was a cow while I jerked off on her back. All the while, I kept the gun to her father’s head and made him watch. After I ejaculated, I made Fran’s mother lick it off her skin. And they thanked me the whole time, eyes shining with sickly veneration. Even Fran, who held no desire for my attention, smiled at me and for a second I thought I saw a shadow of love in her expression. Or whatever I thought love was. I misinterpreted it. I mistook it. I thought I was winning her over by being the monster everyone wanted. So I shot her father in the head, blew his brains out all over the floor. Screams followed, but were cut short as glistening eyes widened and glorified expressions of worship took over. I went to the kitchen and got a knife. I thought I was on a role. That look in Fran’s eyes. It was growing brighter. Perhaps I just had to push things even further. I sat down in a chair and got Fran’s mom down on her knees. I pushed her head into my lap and sawed it off. I never broke eye contact with Fran, who just watched, mouth agape, her eyes glowing with absolute wonderment. When I was finished, I pushed the headless corpse away and asked Fran to marry me. She just shook her head, saying nothing, tears running down her face with a smile so big I could have shoved her mom’s severed head into it. I left, overwhelmed with a sense of loss so great I thought I would die beneath it. I spent the next month locked in my LA mansion. I drank myself half to death and injected every kind of poison I could find into my veins. I blanked out, zoned out, took off to another place. When I came out of my daze, weeks later, the president wanted to meet me and shake my hand. A film crew wanted permission to make a documentary about me. My mailbox was flooded with money I didn’t need, items I didn’t want, and praise I didn’t desire. It made me sick. It made me enraged. Why was I like this? Why was I able to get away with this? Why didn’t anyone punish me for my actions? Why did I sit at the top of the world and feel so goddamn hopeless? Why didn’t anyone fucking love me? What was I doing wrong? It may seem obvious to an outsider, but to me it was chaos. It was around that time that I noticed the man with the bandaged face. I was coming out a store I had just robbed, my pockets stuffed with cigarettes, junk food, and energy drinks. He was leaning against my car, arms crossed, dull eyes poking out from white cloth. His appearance stopped me dead in my tracks, a sudden tremor running through me. He was wearing a black button up, jeans, and looked completely normal except for his wrapped features. He apprised me without any expression, our eyes meeting and locking. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, he simply reclined casually against my car, as if waiting for me to do something. And something told me...something warned me...whispered...that I needed to stay away from him. So I turned down the sidewalk and strode in the opposite direction, heart inexplicably racing. I chanced a glance over my shoulder and felt my blood turn to ice. He hadn’t moved, but he was still watching me. As I put distance between us, a horrible familiarity began to emerge from the depths of my memory. I had seen this man before. In that moment, I couldn’t place it, but I knew I had seen him before. His presence jarred my memory, dug at it with insistent certainty. It was like a layer of my past suddenly unfolded, revealing a trail of hidden encounters. I ripped open a pack of cigarettes and lit one as I walked, racking my brain for some clue. It wasn’t until my second smoke that I remembered. I stopped and stared horrified into the middle distance. Pieces fell into place. Memory rebuilt itself. They were so fleeting, so minute that I almost lost them again. My sixth birthday party. I was at a pizza parlor with my friends. The man had been there, sitting alone at a table in the corner. Twelve years old. Going to the movies. He had sat a couple rows behind me. It had been a horror movie and I thought it was just some weirdo who had dressed up for it. I had made fun of his bandaged face to my friends. We all laughed loudly. High school. During the bad times. My neighbors dog had been barking all night. It kept me up. I had gone down that morning and killed it with a shovel. When the deed was done, I looked across the street, my hands splattered with blood. The man had been there. He was across the street, hands in his pockets, watching me. He stayed like that until I went inside. Twenty-two. Drunk as hell, stumbling through a bar, punching anyone who got in my way as I staggered to the bathroom. I had thrown up. Blearily, I remember he had been sitting in the adjacent stall, door open, hands resting casually on his knees. He never said a word to me. And now this. Here. He was back and I had no idea what the hell he wanted or who he was. I just knew, felt, that he was a danger to me. I managed to get back to my apartment without another sighting and made an impulse decision to fuck off to Europe for a couple months. Within the day, I was on my private plane throwing back expensive bourbon, and staring out at the Atlantic Ocean. The alcohol didn’t have the desired impact I wanted, but I kept pouring anyway. I let the drone of the engines fill my head, but it wasn’t enough to stop the insistent thoughts, the memories of the bandaged man. As the hours passed, I uprooted more of them, like snippets of film, little flashes of previous sightings. I wanted to stop thinking about it so I closed my eyes and fell asleep. When I woke up, we were landing. I was groggy, cranky, and a little hungover. I just wanted to get to my hotel, close the blinds, and keep sleeping. The limo driver was a little too chatty on the way over so I told him to shut his goddamn mouth and slammed the divider closed. The next couple weeks went by in a haze. I was irritable the entire time, never seeming to get what I wanted out of whatever experience I sought. I pumped a ton of drugs into my system, went to every club and party I could find, drank daily until I threw up, and caused enough property damage to put a country in debt. I also killed four people. In my wake, I left the usual trail of wide eyed adoration. I didn’t know what I was doing anymore. I was becoming violently restless and I had no idea how to suppress it. My baseline for sobriety plummeted, my head vibrated, and my fuse was at an all time low. By the end of the fourth week, my knuckles had permanent scabs. I would often come back to my elaborate residence to piles of packages - gifts from my admirers. I didn’t even open them. I burned them. But this perpetuated the cycle and they kept coming. One time, a couple years past, I had tried to stop my rising fame. I had controlled myself and mellowed out my behavior to a place that bordered normality. After about a month, people began to forget about me. It wasn’t as if I were disappearing, but there was a noticeable dip in attention. The money stopped coming in, the cars, boats, and offers began to dry up. All because I was trying to do the right thing. What I knew I was supposed to be doing. But after a lifetime of attention and freedom, this new reality was both alien and terrifying to me. I was becoming invisible. And so I did what I knew how to do. What I was rewarded for. After six weeks of clean living, I went on a horrible spree. I picked an apartment building at random and went inside with a knife and an axe. Not many people made it out. And if they did it was usually because I shoved them through a window. These weren’t people to me. That was an outlook I had parted ways with long ago. These were paychecks I was cashing in. These were the bricks I needed to lay to continue down the path I had been set down. I didn’t really know how to feel bad for being...bad. When I walked out of that building, sweating, exhausted, and covered in blood, I found myself facing an ocean of police lights. When they saw it was me, they lowered their weapons. Their shoulders relaxed. They began to smile and greet me. They talked like they had just witnessed a miracle. In that moment, I wanted explode. I wanted to detonate myself and cease to exist. If I had been a braver man, I would have. Sitting in my bedroom, the European countryside expanding out my window, I felt like I had that night outside the apartment complex. I felt like I had reached the end of another chapter and I wasn’t sure my book held another. I looked around me, at the empty liquor bottles, the needles, the self-destruction. This was who I was. This was what I had built for myself. The world lay at my fingertips and all I had to do was punch it hard enough to bleed. I covered my face with my hands, feeling hollow. A knock came at the door. I looked up, eyes bloodshot. Without thinking, I walked across the room and opened it. The man with the bandaged face stood in the doorway. My eyes went wide and I took a step back, almost tripping over an empty tequila bottle. “\*You\*,” was all I whispered before he came in, closing the door behind him. He didn’t ask for permission. He soared across the room and settled onto the bed, sitting quietly at the edge as if waiting for me to gather myself enough to hold a conversation. I just stood staring at him with my back against the door. Finally, he turned his head enough so that our eyes met between his bandages. “Been looking for you,” he said after a moment, his voice all edges and canyons. I didn’t move from the door, my heart slogging past the shit in my system, “Why are you following me?” “Because we need to have a conversation.” “I have nothing to say to you.” “Well, I have things I need to say to you. So come over here and sit down. I’m not going to hurt you.” Hesitantly, I skirted the corners of the room and slunk over to a chair opposite him. Our eyes never broke connection. He didn’t seem threatening. But he also wasn’t smiling beneath his bandages. We stared at one another for a moment before he spoke again. “I’m pretty disappointed in you.” “Excuse me?” “I said, I’m pretty disappointed in you. You’ve gone completely off the deep end.” I shook my head, confused, “The hell are you talking about?” He leaned forward, lacing his fingers together beneath his chin, “They expected better.” My eyes turned to slits, “Who?” “The Old Horns.” I sat back, cocking an eyebrow, “I’m afraid I have no fuckin’ clue what you’re talking about.” The man with the bandages didn’t move, his voice low, “But you know that you’re different than everyone else, correct?” “I feel like that’s pretty obvious.” “They chose you,” the man continued. “Picked you out of a metaphorical hat. And what have you done with your moral freedom?” The fear I had felt earlier began to ebb away, replaced by a rising anger, “Look pal, you better start explaining this nonsense quick. I don’t really have a whole lot of patience these days.” His eyes went empty, “Clearly.” “Who the fuck are you?” I snarled. “Someone who’s been gifted the burden of watching you all these years. I can’t tell you how many times you’ve let me down. You haven’t made this job easy.” “Well I’m sorry if my heart doesn’t bleed for you.” “Can I ask you something?” The man asked suddenly. “Oh Jesus...” “You’ve been given something no one else has ever been given. Complete lack of moral boundaries,” He quickly shook his head, “no, not just that. They made it even harder on you. They decided to reward your bad behavior. You’re...you’re evil. I’m not blind to how difficult it must have been for you at times. I only watched you from a distance, I wasn’t witness to whatever warfare went on in your head. But I’ll tell you this: as an outsider? It didn’t look like you even tried to be a good person. Once you saw the benefits of being a bastard, you went hard and heavy and never looked back. Except for that one month, but you made up for that didn’t you?” He placed a hand to his wrapped temple, “But I”m getting off topic. My question is this: given the chance to do it all over again...would you do anything different?” I kept my tongue locked behind clenched teeth. My hands were shaking and I balled them up into fists. My head thundered beneath a mountain of stress, despair, and anger. My body buckled beneath the years of chemical abuse I had put it through. My thoughts sloshed together as I ripped them apart searching for answers. Finally, I stood, towering over the bandaged man. My voice hissed from the furnace in my chest, “Who the fuck are you to judge me?” I managed to gasp. “How the hell could you possibly lay blame at my feet? I never asked for this. I didn’t want to be like this. I’m not responsible for the way people react to my actions. This is simply how I get by. This is how I’ve learned to live. I mean Jesus, this is how I’ve been conditioned! My whole life I’ve gotten a pat on the head for things I knew weren’t normal.” I pointed at my shuddering skull, “And that’s not something that goes away. If no one tells you what you’re doing is wrong, then is it really?” The bandaged man stood, facing me. I could smell something sour beneath his wrapped face. “Of course it is,” he whispered, “and you’ve known it this whole time.” “Get out,” I snarled, pointing toward the door, “I don’t ever want to see you again.” “I’m not going anywhere.” I bared my teeth at him, “I’m not someone you want to talk to like that.” The man grunted, disgusted, “Don’t act like you’re invincible. I’m already disgusted enough by you.” “I could throw you out the window, right now,” I threatened, heat rising, “and in the morning someone would throw a party in my honor.” And then he said something that froze the inferno in my throat. “Yeah? And how much longer do you think that’s going to last?” I stepped away from him, faltering, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” He sat back down on the bed, exhaling wearily, “I think the Old Horns have seen enough.” Something twitched in my neck, “The Old Horns. That’s the second time you’ve mentioned them. What is that? What exactly are you talking about?” “You’re not a religious man, you wouldn’t believe me.” I stood where I was, “Why don’t you try me.” He ran his hands slowly over his head, his fingers running over the white cloth bound to his head, “They came out of nowhere. They destroyed everything. Whatever theories you have about death and what comes after...they’re wrong. The Old Horns wiped it all out. They’ve taken over. It’s just them now.” I sat down, feeling my stomach begin to buckle, “Afterlife….?” He raised his eyes to mine, “They’re testing you. All of you. You’re a new curiosity. One of the last. They’re debating whether they should eliminate your entire existence. And not just yours...everyone’s.” My throat tightened, “Do you mean…?” He smiled sadly, “You’re carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders.” He looked down at his hands and his voice sank, “And I’m afraid you’ve failed…” “This is insane.” He looked back up at me, “I know it is. Trust me, I wasn’t ready for this either.” I squinted at him, leaning forward, “Who...are you?” He just smiled that sad smile and touched his bandaged face, “Someone who is being punished.” I spun around slowly, raking my hands through my hair, shoulders tense, “What if I don’t believe you?” “Then just keep doing what you’re doing. It’s probably too late to change things anyway. I’m afraid they’ve already made their decision.” He covered his face with his hands, “And I don’t think they like what they’ve seen.” I went to the window, mind reeling, and pressed my forehead against the glass. The sun was setting. “How can I believe any of this?” “I’m not asking you to. I just needed to warn you. I’m going to die for coming here, but I think I’m ready. They’ve already done so much to me…” his fingers traced his face. I closed my eyes against the glare of the sun, “I think...I think you should probably leave.” I heard the bed creak as he rose, “Can I offer you one last piece of advice?” “Yeah…” He reached for the doorknob, “Try.” And then he was gone, leaving me in the impossible silence of my own thoughts. The heat from the window sank into my skin and rippled across my mind. The insanity of what I had just been told stretched the very fabric of possibility. It couldn’t be true. It just couldn’t. But...I had always known something was wrong. And where did that leave me? What was I supposed to do with this conglomeration of nonsense? I peeled myself away from the window, head splitting. I felt sick, tired, and completely empty. I looked around my room, letting my eyes linger on all the false promises of happiness. A thought entered my mind without warning and with all the force of an avalanche. Where had all this gotten me? I was miserable, alone, and depressed. In the material sense, I had everything I could possibly want or desire. Why wasn’t that enough? What was I lacking? A partner? Friendship? Love? Family? Were those things someone like me could even begin to hope for? Could I really abandon all this wealth and power in pursuit of something that might not even exist for me? Was being a good person worth giving up everything else for? The bandaged man’s last bit of advice echoed back to me. \*Try\*. I say down on the bed, hard, and sank my head into my hands. A half empty bottle of bourbon lay between my feet. I reached down and picked it up. I unscrewed the cap and raised it to my lips. Suddenly, beyond the walls of the sky, a low horn echoed over the glowing landscape. It came from the heavens, a single, long note. Eyes wide, I put the bottle down.


Torn at the Seams  It has been 90 days since the discovery. When I published the article, I never thought it would get much attention, but now I think it may have brought on World War 3. The seam was odd, but I thought it must have just been some sort of evolutionary footprint. I mean, who could have imagined alternate dimensions hidden within every tree, and sowed away by some unknown entity? The initial reaction to my article was disapproval, but as others started looking for the seam, they all found it. One scientist in California even got a grant to have every tree in the Redwoods examined. The scientific community started to erupt with speculation. I'm not sure why it took two weeks for someone to try to actually break open the seam, but it did. The stitching was made with a material we'd never seen before. It was nearly as strong as titanium. It couldn't be cut through. Each threading had to be bent and twisted loose with heavy machinery which was extremely difficult because the pieces were so small; nearly microscopic. As each stitch was pulled, a bright pea-sized beam of light would shoot out from the tree. It was thirty days before the first tree was completely open. We were lucky that the Swedish got one open first. Other countries may have hid their discoveries. Pictures of a tree split down the middle with a portal floating above it flooded the internet. The portal glowed with a bright blue swirling with pink light. The two colors seemed to dance around each other, but never touch. Message boards ran rampant with speculation of photoshop or some other trickery. Isak Larsson was the first scientist to enter the portal. His trip was underwhelming. When he returned, Larsson said he'd been transported to an island floating distantly among stars. He said it was physically impossible what he'd seen. The Island had looked like it was from earth, but the sand was all green, and it looked like the island had been carved right out of the crust and just thrown into space. It was encased in a glass sphere and passed through a part of space undiscovered. He said there were stars floating in orbit only what appeared to be a few kilometers from each other. There were stars the size of your hand just constantly passing by the island. The world waited for more discoveries, but none came. However, every single country started either tearing apart every single tree, or selling off their trees to countries that had the wealth to rip them open. All lumber production came to a quick halt. People were uprooting their trees and selling them to the government. If a tree was cut down, the portal would be lost. The economy boomed with this new found commodity that nearly everyone had. Everyone had wealth, and for a moment it seemed like trees could be a cure all solution for the world's problems. As ridiculous as it sounds, wars even ended in order for the negotiation of trees. Not long after, though, China announced that they had started drilling in a few of there portals. Unfortunately for everyone, they found uranium. Negotiations were no longer peaceful. Countries like the U.S. believed they needed to obtain as many trees as possible in order to protect themselves. Forests became wastelands overnight. Private tree ownership was outlawed, and if you owned one you would be tried for treason. The thing is, not every portal had uranium. It seemed to be extraordinarily rare. So it was impossible to know which countries actually had uranium, and which one's didn't. The long standing superpowers all went into debt while poorer countries continued to flourish. It became an arms race for trees. Then we caught wind that North Korea had mined found an abundance of uranium in one of their portals. And now I sit here in my office in Denver. I can hear sirens and see the panic on the streets. Women running with their children. Looters raiding storefronts. It's all meaningless really. Some of us don't believe there ever was anything of use within those portals. That the rumors of mining were all false, but that doesn't matter either way because there are nuclear bombs being launched on almost every country in the world. These are bombs that have existed long before I ever noticed the seams. I suppose everyone just needed a reason to use them.


It was dark, and the snow flashed like glass across her cheeks. Melanie opened her pack, and took out her cloak. The wind tried to rip it from her hand. Wrapped in the mismatched furs, she felt a little better. *Stars, I am tired*. The hollow had been uphill the entire way, and her calves ached. But there were greater evils in Verpace than steep slopes, and Melanie shrugged her pack onto her back. She set off into the snow. The wind dropped off as she slid and floundered down the slope, the tract’s wall to her back. Peering from her hood, the expanse of the new area unveiled its grim face. The frozen roofs of buildings, with the odd tower and broken wall, poked up from the hills of white. No trees grew here, no foliage at all. The wintry landscape extended to the farthest point of her vision without respite. Icy fingers gripped her heart, and she shivered. This could end badly. Cold moonlight shone down, white light shimmering off the ground like water off a blade. The dark tops of buildings rose like tombstones around the woman as she strode forward. The storm did not abate. Even with the cloak wrapped tight around her body, the cold penetrated to her bones. She would die of frostbite in a half an hour if she didn’t seek shelter soon. But each building was solid stone, without clear entrance by window or door. As she floundered through the snow, her hope died within. This was where the journey would end, meaningless and hopeless, a pointless existence with a pointless end. This was the world of Verpace, and such were its tales. Her fatigued muscles shivered, and she couldn’t stop it. They were shaking off the icy embrace of the stars, the stars which claimed all evil souls at the end. Or so the Valley taught. It wasn’t the only religion she had stumbled across in her life, but it was the one that had the best stories. Her belief or non-belief wouldn’t matter in a few minutes, anyhow. What lay beyond would manifest itself, and she would know the truth. A glimmer of light caught her eye, a flash of golden warmth. She acted immediately, leaping up on her numb legs and stumbling like a drunkard through the snow toward life. Her eyes were growing heavy, and she knew her willpower would only carry her so far before it discarded her unwilling body like a dirty rag, to be buried in the snowfall and never seen again. The light spilled out across the snow in golden rivers, renewing her hope. It came from a brazier in the top of a tower, the cast-iron holding red-hot logs and spilling embers across the floor. The tower’s top was level with the snow. Melanie didn’t check for any enemy, but collapsed into the cloud of heat around the brazier and absorbed it greedily, her skin flushing red. She fell unconscious seconds later. Melanie awoke to a dull scratching sound. It took her a few moments to realise her head was propped on her pack, and her damp fur cloak was wrapped around her. The warmth of the fire thawed her memory, and she remembered where she was. The scratching persisted, refusing to let her sink back into the bliss of oblivion, and she forced her eyes open. *Could be a damned beast about to eat me, after all*. The thought annoyed her more than anything. The strangest man she had ever seen was perched on a gigantic bag, scratching with a quill at a parchment propped on his bent knees. His tall pointed hat sagged with dampness, and his beard ran down his chest in braids tied with grey string. Two bright blue eyes sparkled over his gnarled nose, which twitched now and then in motions betraying a desire to sneeze. And all about his person there lurked pages, scrolls, and the corners of small leatherbound volumes. Every pocket was bursting with paper, and his hat-band was stocked with multiple quills and folded letters. His scarf had a scroll or two poking out at mad angles, and Melanie did the only thing that seemed appropriate. She laughed. The man jumped at her cold-roughened voice, and she laughed all the harder as he teetered precariously on the gigantic bag beneath him. Tears streamed down her cheeks when he fell off with a shout, and the resulting crash and cloud of pages which flew upwards sent her into hysterics. She rolled over, arms clasped around her midriff. Straight into a puddle of melted snow and hot embers. She sobered up immediately. As she rose, stiff muscles cursing her name, the man stood up as well, gathering the scattered pages while muttering under his breath. He tucked them away in various locations on his person and bag, Melanie stretched and checked her belongings. Everything was there. “Who are you?” she asked. “A question best left unanswered in these times, don’t you think?” he replied. His tone was neutral, cautious. He kept his eye on Melanie’s right arm. “You’re breathing still, writer.” “I pulled you in from the cold,” he said, placing the last piece of wood on the cooling fire. “Yet another reason not to eat you,” Melanie said. “You jest, but I have met both lichtridden and cannibals in these days, and the two are not mutually exclusive by any means.” “My name is Melanie Stake, since you place stock in such things. I’d say we have less than an hour before we freeze to death, so I would work with you to find a solution, if you are keen.” The man looked at her. Melanie could see no mad lust or violence behind his gaze. Merely calculation and attention to detail. “My name is Tarraniel Ver Teltelvishnar. Please call me Tarr. We need to find an entrance into the city below us.” Tarr spoke quickly, but with certainty. “I have no business in a city which lies under fifty feet of snow. I seek any hollow but that one,” she said, gesturing behind her. “There are no other hollows up here. I checked.” “Stars above, then we are dead. That hollow is corrupted now. The licht found a way into it’s depths and is tearing it apart.” Melanie leaned against the stone of the tower, heart growing as cold as the stone behind her. “I know. I passed through there two nights past.” “What have you been doing since?” “Freezing, and exploring,” Tarr said, packing his bags, checking the belts and pushing escaping scrolls and books back into it. “There are always at least two hollows to a tract. I am a historian, and a cartographer, a mapmaker. In the dozens of tracts I have mapped, there were always two or more hollows. It allows the licht to flow, from tract to tract, according to some primary research and various secondary sources… Why are you looking at me like that?” “You survived dozens of tracts? You? Surely you aren’t cursed. I see no deformity.” The man frowned, stuffing damp pages into his bag. “It’s not a curse. The correct term is lichtridden, and no, I am not. I don’t know why, considering how far I’ve come.” “I thought you’d have made a fine meal for some of the beasts I’ve encountered,” Melanie smirked. “Caution and planning can avoid most dangers, I find,” Tarr grumbled, hefting his bag onto his back. Melanie laughed at the barb. She wrapped a rag tightly around the remaining piece of wood, cursing as the flames nipped at her. She used her knees to hold it as she deftly tied the knot, the makeshift torch burning brightly in the icy night. They set off, cloaks billowing in the wind. Sparks flew from the torch, and the flames whispered, harsh as gravel being ground between the teeth of giants. With each step, the cold scratched its way through their cloaks, sharp teeth tearing away at their warmth. The first roof they reached had no breaches in the tiles, and they moved on. They couldn’t dawdle. The wind ripped a loose page out of Tarr’s pack, and tore it to pieces before he could react. He swore under his breath, but Melanie only saw his lips move, the wind shredding whatever words were spoken before they could reach her ears. The snow lashed their bare cheeks with a fury Melanie felt was wilful, as if some white-robed wizard was hurling snow at them from afar. She snorted, knowing there were few who could control the licht, and even fewer who could maintain their sanity while doing so. *The licht has a will of and unto itself. It is a power that has no master, and cares nought for its servants. The licht doesn’t, indeed cannot, care who stands in the path of its storm, as long as it creates more chaos than there previously was*. Melanie smiled at the remembered echoes of some madman she had met many tracts ago. He lay dead, and she lived on. Who was the wiser between them? The second building they reached had an opening, a thin gap between two pillars which led to a frozen wooden door. The pair rushed in. Melanie kicked the door, grinning as the water-damaged wood gave a muffled crack. A few more kicks and they were inside. A stairway went down into shadows, and Melanie put a hand on Tarr’s shoulder. She gestured with the torch at the footsteps in the ancient dust on the worn flagstones. “We have no idea how old those are,” he whispered. “Can you fight?” He looked at her, and Melanie could see his manly pride giving way to reason as he shook his head. “Your honesty is commendable. I go first. Carry the torch overhead, not in front of my face. If you blind me, we are both dead.” They slipped down into the dusty gloom, red light flickering across the bare walls of the stairway. Melanie kept count of the steps in her head, her eyes scanning the darkness before her. The ancient dust smelled of nothing, not death or decay or rot. Just dust, more ancient than memory could tell. Before her, the footprints went, step by step. Her lichtridden arm twitched a little, but she could sense the licht had not penetrated far into the city. Or if it had, it was in the very depths. Forty-three steps later, they entered a vast chamber. The dripping snow from their cloaks created eerie echoes in the place, and they halted at the entrance. The torchlight showed no roof, and barely reached the farthest wall. Great grey stones made up the walls, each one several metres in breadth and height. Benches and tables of strange designs filled the room. They were heavily carved, and Tarr nudged her forward, clearly intrigued. Melanie let him go, keeping watch on the shadows. She couldn’t spot the tracks they had seen previously. Unsettling. “Why, these are constructed of wood I have only read of in books! From the forests of Aterr-She, before the First Lichtvallen. Priceless, even in that time. The carvings are the work of masters.” “Clearly,” Melanie said, her eyes on the next doorway. “Our torch is burning low.” Tarr continued to study the carvings for a moment, then turned to her in shock. “Not a word,” she growled, stopping his outburst. “Whatever value these once had is as dead as the trees they come from.” She took hold of the nearest stool, and kicked at the joinery. The furniture was in surprisingly good condition considering its age, but Melanie’s boot prevailed. Soon enough they had four pieces of wood with rags wrapped around the ends. Tarr pulled out a candle and dripped wax into the cloth of each, ensuring greater longevity. They packed two of the torches away, and lit one each. “There is no licht here,” Tarr said as they moved across the chamber toward the far doorway. “Faintest traces from our entrance, but you are correct; it is very odd.” Another stairway greeted them, and they walked down, following the footprints in the dust. Their torches provided some warmth for their bones as they climbed into the depths of the city. Thirty steps down, Melanie could see no end to the stairway. The walls seemed to shrink in on the intruders, and she considered the vast weight of snow lying above them. “I have read of older magic than the licht, in ancient books,” Tarr said. “Old books are full of nonsense,” Melanie replied. “I hear they once read tales of fancy, where people that didn’t exist pranced through worlds that were imaginary. Not all books are historical, and even those of history are full of lies.” “Does your cynicism aid you in your travels?” “I believe what I see. And I have seen much,” Melanie said. “As have I, and read more. There is no licht here, and I maintain an open mind as to why there are no inhabitants.” “Maintain that open mouth and you’ll wake them if they *are* here, that’s for certain.” Tarr shut his mouth, eyeing Melanie’s arm. The crippling atrophy spread from her fingers to her elbow, the skin wrinkled and grey. The veins were visible as lighter lines running through the skin. Many years ago, she would have hidden her arm with a deep sense of shame. But she now knew that if people feared you, they were more likely to think twice. And such thought was beneficial for a person’s health, in Melanie’s philanthropic eyes. “Why are you smirking?” Tarr grumbled. “Because I have wandered long alone, and have been my own source of amusement for years. You’re a welcome relief, though.” “I’ll write about you someday, so watch it.” “Who would read about a lichtridden?” “Future generations. We must leave a record of our experiences, to allow those who come after to learn from the past.” “Stars know what they’d learn from me.” “I wonder the same,” Tarr said, one corner of his mouth lifting. The sudden jolt of the bottom of the stairs made Melanie jump. “Damn it, man, you made me lose count.” “Eighty-four,” Tarr said. “Hm. Thank you.” They were in a vaulted corridor, the ceiling rising far above them. Pillars lined the walls, stretching up into the shadows like the trunks of some stone forest. The vaulting was of a style neither had seen before, and Tarr noted the peculiar metallic globes which hung from each meeting of arches. Before he could speak another word, the one above them shook. A sound like a bell flooded through the corridor. The next one did the same as the first’s echoes died away, and the third. Neither traveller moved. The torches flickered yellow and red, the shadows around them jittering in the fitful glare. The final bell ended, and silence reigned again. Neither spoke, listening and holding their breath. After a minute, they gasped and looked at each other. “An ancient greeting system?” Tarr inquired, the hope weak in his voice. “Or an alarm,” Melanie said. “Yet there is only one path before us, and we must take it.” They marched onward, and came to the end of the hallway. Another chamber opened before them, this one with dusty carpets and great empty chairs lined along the walls. A tapestry hung on one wall, and the imagery there showed a large court filled with people. There was a tall throne in the centre. But as their torches flickered, Melanie could swear that one or two people of the court had vanished. Tarr gripped her shoulder, pointing up the chamber. The tall throne depicted in the tapestry loomed in the darkness. A statue was seated there, the royal dressings carved in intricate detail in the white marble. The figure had its forehead resting on its palm, elbow propped on the throne’s armrest. It was a picture of despair and great weariness, as if all the pain of this dead kingdom had been absorbed into this marble king. His desolation was made all the more grim by his complete isolation. >*But where are thy guards, oh King* *And why hast thou been so left?* *Do see the gains of thy sin* *Observe thy dead realm bereft*  Tarr whispered the poem in the dry air, and his words fell flat in the dark chamber. “An old poem,” he explained, “Maybe even about the man seated there.” Melanie grunted, and looked back at the tapestry. Now it showed only the king seated in his throne, an exact replica of that before them, but in vibrant colours. “Tarr, there is a magic here which I have not encountered before,” she whispered, stepping backwards. Tarr followed, but cringed as the bells tolled again, pealing down the stairway. The pair ran to either side of the doorway, leaving their torches spluttering on the flagstones beside the carpet. Yet no one was coming down the stairs, and as the last bell’s echo died away, they sighed a breath of relief. “Look, Stake!” Tarr said. The statue was no longer resting on its arm. It sat now straight, and staring directly towards them. The shadows seemed to deepen around the throne, and fear stretched out tendrils toward the two intruders. One of the torches on the ground had set the carpet smouldering, but neither could tear their gaze from the statue and the shadows. Darkness filled the furthest crevices and corners, flooding over the ceiling. Soon all that could be seen was the marble figure against a backdrop of darkest night, the red light of the torches a diseased illumination. The statue wasn’t moving. The carpet and the ancient dust was burning now, and thick smoke rose in black clouds to the rafters. The statue stared at them. The bells tolled a third time. Before their eyes, the statue rose to its feet, stone cloth splitting and becoming soft, as it had once been. Marble muscles rippled under marble skin, and the eyes blinked once, then fixed on the two humans. Ten feet of living marble, wearing a cloak of deepening shadow which spread its folds across all the surroundings, shadows billowing across the floor, walls and ceiling. Melanie wrenched Tarr toward the farther doorway, grabbing her torch as they circled the burning carpet. The bells were still ringing as they fled the room, and Melanie’s last glance showed the statue still standing at the throne, with flames licking around its feet. They ran through corridors and chambers, boots loud on the flagstones and dusty carpets. They passed tables piled in silverware and dusty feasts. The food had merely dried in the stale air. Statues sat at some tables, while in other rooms they stood guard or lay resting on ancient beds which climbed high into the shadows. Servants carried trays, various items of bedding, food, or wood, their faces all equally impassive. They passed royals kneeling in prayer at alcoves, grotesque statues of some long forgotten god looming over their veiled heads. Priests bent in earnest conversation, but no words left their still lips. There was no life here, only a sick mockery of it, captured in a perfect montage of white marble. All the while, Melanie checked behind them, and her thin hope lifted at the lack of pursuit. Maybe the fire had prevented passage. They stumbled down stairways. Tarr’s tall hat flew off at some point. Melanie lost count of how deep into the city they had come. The statues’ dress became coarser and their appearance uglier the lower they went. A figure of a woman lay on one arm, the other broken into pieces of marble. A guard stood beside her with unsheathed sword. An expression of despair was frozen on her screaming face, and Melanie shivered. Other statues lay contorted in the middle of rooms for no clear reason, and the regal stillness of the floors above was nowhere to be seen. Some figures knelt with hands to their faces, bodies tensed, each muscle caught forever in cold stone. Heavy footsteps sounded from behind them as they ran through the hallways and rooms. “The king is coming after all, it seems,” Tarr gasped. Melanie noted his breathing was as laboured as her own. The torch she carried was sputtering, and she handed it to him. He took it, his panicked eyes meeting hers for only a moment before returning to the darkness ahead. As she leaned behind her to reach the last two torches, she saw the shadows behind them were darker and closer than they ought to be. The heavy crunch of marble on flagstone came from the darkness in sickening waves. Melanie wrenched the torches free and held both to the unsteady flame Tarr carried. They caught quickly, and Tarr threw the old one behind them in a shower of sparks. The shadows swallowed them instantly, and the torch flickered out a few seconds after. “Damn it,” Melanie gasped. “Where is the hollow, Tarr?” Tarr shook his head, and kept running. They chose between doorways and stairways randomly, and eventually began to make their way back up. The despairing statues grew in number here, often climbing over one another to squeeze through one doorway or another. Fear was scrawled across their faces like the last words of a visionary who had seen beyond the stars, beyond death, beyond the physical and into the spiritual. And what he had seen there was frightful beyond measure. The steps boomed from behind. At the top of a long stairway, the pair burst into a library. Piles of books lay stacked against shelves which towered into the gloom. Reading tables covered in candles and piles of molten wax lay scattered about. Scrolls written in extinct languages lay spread across the floor. They passed between the shelves, Tarr muttering under his breath the entire time. At one end of a wide section of shelves they entered into a round, open area. Statues knelt with hands upraised, all facing toward the centre. There, on a dais of a few steps, stood a tall statue, dressed in the robes of a sage or priest. A real book still lay in his marble arm, right hand raised high in impassioned rhetoric. The statue’s mouth was wide open, and his brow was furrowed. The statues by his feet were part of his stone inheritance, their grasping hands wound tight in his robes, supplication bleeding from their tearful eyes. Tarr had stopped, bent over and breathing hard. Melanie collapsed to her knees, and spat to the side, but carefully held her torch above the scattered pages and books. *We have outrun the king, but not for long*, she thought. Even now his footsteps could be felt rumbling through the flagstones. “I believe this man killed the city, or he was trying to save it. Either way, he failed these people,” Tarr said between gasps. “Would the licht kill this bastard?” Melanie said, looking back at the growing shadows. “I think this city died long before the First Lichtvallen, Stake. Centuries before.” “Answer me.” Tarr shook his head. “There is no way to know. But if you failed, we’d be dead before we could form another plan.” Melanie cursed, and thrust her torch into a pile of books and scrolls, which burst into flame. Tarr looked away, and she understood. She was destroying something of great value to him, with complete disregard. She knew that feeling too well, could still remember it from when she was a six year old child. That pain would never go away, but one learned to live with it. The flames filled the library with light, and the advancing shadows burst angrily against the red glow. They couldn’t swallow so much light at once, it seemed. The light was like a wall. Tarr ground his teeth, staring at the liquid darkness. Melanie tensed. She had seen no exits from this mausoleum. The footsteps crunched though the wall of shadows, and Melanie glimpsed the white figure stalking through it. The king’s face appeared, and the top of his chest. The shadows flicked across the stern features, but his brow didn’t lower, his mouth didn’t move. The eyes stared directly into Melanie’s own, and she recognised the wordless statement they made. An enemy had been recognised, an intruder, a violator. The hatred burned coldly, colder than the ice and snow so far above them. Yet Melanie saw a special malevolence meant for her alone. Her soul cowered under its gaze. The shadows began to push forward. “Up there!” Tarr yelled, pointing high up one wall. Far above the shelves there were openings, tunnels for ventilation or light. Darkness lay there now, but it was their only chance. They ran toward the ladders which leaned against the shelves here. Alicia threw her torch into a collapsed bookcase, the wood and paper lighting in a grim bonfire. The king’s gaze was fixed on the statue of the priest, and the shadows were lashing furiously at the flames below him. His rage was fomenting around him, the darkness expanding in sharp waves. “Go, Stake!” Tarr said, pulling at her arm. Melanie couldn’t look away, though, and watched as the shadows burst through the books and flames, enveloping the priest and his audience. Shrieks poured forth from the shadows, climbing in crescendos as the crunch of marble and cracking of bones intensified. Words in a tongue the world hadn’t heard in a thousand years poured out in exhortation and reproach. The shrieks overrode everything, and terror clawed its way into Melanie’s soul, a dark creature that knew exactly where to strike best. Her heart pounded, panic filling her ever-calm mind. Turning, she climbed up the ladder, right arm limp at her side. She had witnessed something that she understood, and yet didn’t. The darkness wanted her, and she knew it wanted her specifically. Not Tarr, not anyone else, just her, and if she didn’t make it to the hollow, it would take her. And something deep within her knew what lay beyond, had been there, and had faced that faceless, nameless nothingness. Her right arm was twitching sharply, but she ignored it, leaping up the ladder and forgetting all else. Tarr followed behind, his massive pack of books, paper, and supplies weighing heavily on his back. Melanie’s fear was apparent, and he took it as a bad sign. The shrieking was dying down now, and the shadows swirled darkly in vast clouds. The king emerged, and in his hand he held the stone head of the priest. He lifted it, pointing the dead face toward Melanie. Melanie turned, and saw the gesture. She screamed and climbed harder. The king threw the chunk of marble at her. It smashed into the ladder, and both Melanie and Tarr leapt aside onto the shelves as it collapsed. The darkness surged towards them, the marble figure approaching steadily. The pair climbed madly. Books fell down into the raging bonfire, and the shelves cracked under the new weight of their bodies. The air was filled with their heavy breathing and the crackling fire, with the deep beat of marble feet rising from the twisting shadows below. With a final pull of her good arm, Melanie reached the top, and collapsed, breathless. Her lungs burned. *This is not how I end. I won’t die like this!* She rose to her knees, every muscle groaning, and turned to the tunnel. Tarr screamed from below. Melanie took a step forward into the tunnel, jaw set. Shelves cracked, and Tarr’s heavy breathing and mutterings tore through her mind. She took another step forward. “Stake!” She closed her eyes, but a tear broke through anyway, and drew a burning path of shame down her cheek. She strode forward. “Help me, Stake.” She stopped, the fear in her heart urging her to run. Emotions led to death. Empathy was a weakness. The king wanted her. The darkness wouldn’t hesitate to rip her to pieces and send her mind into the insane maelstrom it called home. Perhaps this need to help was a suggestion from the shadows, a bait for her. Melanie turned and slid to the edge, looking over. The darkness was ripping into the bonfire, eating the flames even as they were born. The king looked straight up at her, but she forced her eyes to focus on Tarr. He was only a few shelves down. Hooking her feet into the stonework, she lowered her good arm. The man made a grab for her hand, but missed. His muscles were visibly trembling in the strain. “Drop your pack, you fool!” she shouted. Tarr looked up at her. Melanie met his eyes, betraying none of her thoughts. She couldn’t help him decide. He swore. Shadows ripped the books and shelves into pieces just below his feet. He unbuckled the pack. It fell down onto the king, and the papers and books burst into bright flames. The darkness swept back, leaving the statue in the open. Fire swept around it, but didn’t scorch the white marble. Tarr gripped her hand, and she wrenched him up and over the edge. He collapsed, but dragged at her shoulder. “Come on, Stake.” Melanie looked for a moment longer at the marble king, who stood looking up at her. The same cold recognition burned in his eyes. She read an acknowledgement of defeat. Neither the king nor his prey had died, though. The cloak of shadows wrapped around his white body. This was an eternal battle, and one which Melanie would have to wage eventually. The king stared, and Melanie challenged him, glaring at him in triumph. *I won today, I’ll win tomorrow. And I’ll keep winning, you bastard. Mark my words*. “Lets go,” Tarr said. Melanie rose, and they ran down the tunnel, the feeble light of the burning library their only guide. Soon that faded. they ran on, and didn’t realise they were in the hollows till the feeble glow of licht told them so. \ *Scars of Magic* is a collection of short stories which follow Melanie Stake. There is an overarching story which is unveiled piece by piece as she explores the world of Verpace. First drafts of all stories will be completed by mid-2019, with publication of the book in early 2020. I also write low-fantasy novels, hence the slow pace.


The clouds are completely still in the sky. Each little fleck of winding grey vapor perfectly frozen in place, like someone had taken a photo and suspended it in the sky. All of us in this town are used to such a sight by now, it was one that occurred every week. It marked the arrival of the train. I could hear the freakish howling of its rusted wheels echo through the valley. How it reaches us we still don't know. There isn't any one left alive to set it in motion. More troubling is where the train goes. I have followed the track and found the end of the line: the crumbled remains of a bridge. It would seem that it had nowhere to go and no way of getting back and yet it returns to us every single week. I can see the stream of black smoke approaching. Over the weeks many people have gotten aboard the train. We never see them again. Everyone just assumes they're dead. The long grey body of the train glides around the corner, it's rusted bolts and warped ridges coming into view. The engine is totally silent, the only noise coming from the rough metal of the wheels scraping against the tracks. It comes to a stop and the doors open. As usual, it's empty. I can't stand not knowing anymore. This week, I will be the one that boards. I move my leg forwards slowly, just placing the tips of my toes in the carriage. I breathe in deeply, eyes focused on the gap between the train and the platform. Would I die if I step in this train? Even if I did, would that matter? I felt the worn skin of my hands from the endless hours I had spent in the fields. Would I rather return and never know, or would I rather risk death? I breathe out slowly. Grasping the rough metal of the door frame, I cross over the gap and into the carriage. The doors slide shut. The carriage wobbles slightly as the steam engine awakens. The wheels begin to turn and I see my town fading into the distance. A pale red carpet lay across the floor of the carriage. Moss and fungus had grown over most of the windows and lined the interior. The white paint was peeling off and is covered in sour yellow blotches. Much to my dismay, there aren't any seats around. Looking through the door to the next carriage, I can see what must be the driver's compartment up ahead. I push the door open and walk into the next carriage. It's the same as the previous one. The carpet is stiff, more like wood than fabric. As I open the door to the driver's compartment and step in, I find myself stepping onto the stiff red carpet. I quickly glance up. Another carriage stretches out in front of me, the driver's compartment seemingly behind the door up ahead. I walk quickly through this carriage and open the door, only to find myself setting foot into another carriage. I begin to run and keep going through a seemingly endless amount of carriages. I collapse to the floor breathing quickly, sweat dripping from my forehead. My heart aches and my body feels heavy. I grasp onto the wall and pull myself up. Outside, I can see water. Just water, stretching for miles and miles. I glance back and see the same endless ocean out of the other windows. I feel the train beginning to slow down. I clutch tightly onto my chest and try to slow my breath. As I looked closer at the water I could see that like the clouds, it was frozen in place. The train glides slowly to a stop. The worn metal of the door grinds against the frame as they heave themselves open. I pick myself up gently and look out the door. Small gems of light danced across the surface of the water as the sun shone down on the ocean. My hands are shaking uncontrollably as I reach down to touch the ocean. I feel each ridge of the water. It doesn't feel cold or hot, it doesn't feel like anything. My hand just moves across its surface without any sort of sensation. I step out carefully and walk forward. The ocean feels totally flat beneath my feet. I stood totally still, my heart still aching. The gems of light began to move forwards across each ridge of the water, gathering at a single point in front of me. The light rose up from the surface of the water and started to take shape. It soon became clear what the light was forming. It was a human figure. The light began to settle and fade, the detail of the figure becoming much clearer. It was a women, much taller than me. Her arms and legs are very slender and long. Her skin is white like snow and clung tightly to every bone in her body. Her eyes are perfectly spherical, she has no eyelids, instead the flesh seems to curve smoothly inward to form eye sockets. She had no hair anywhere on her body. Where her nose should be there was only smooth skin. Her lips where very thin and her mouth stretched across most of her face. I could barely breath. I wanted to run back onto the train but my entire body felt stuck in place. "I can see you" Her voice is like velvet. I can almost feel it flowing over and around my body. My heart felt so heavy, like it could fall through my chest at any moment. "Why do you fear me?" I opened my mouth to answer. All I managed was a small croak. My throat was so dry. She tilted her head slightly and raised her long arms up, draping them over my shoulders. I finally manage to push out a sentence. "W-who... are you?" "I'm the one that waits for you until there is no more light." She steps back slightly and stares directly into my eyes. I can't look away. It feels as though iron clamps are keeping my head in place. I can't make my eyes look away. I mutter quietly, "where am I?" "You are in the place things go when they are no longer in sight." Her eyes feel like they are pulling me towards her. Sweat drips down my forehead. My legs feel weak. It feels as though a thick fog has enveloped my mind. "W-where are the others that boarded that train?" She arches her back slightly and move closer. "They are right here with me" "With... you?" "I feel them moving. I hear their thoughts and I feel their fear. They thrash and writhe and scream, but they do not understand that they are safe with me." I desperately try to hold back the urge to vomit. I feel a lump in my throat. I want to cry. The sky begins to fade away, revealing bright colours streaking quickly by. The ocean begins to move again, small waves lapping over my feet. Large clocks begin to rise and float on the surface. The sound of their ticking is like an explosion ringing through my head, piercing my body and my mind. She was now right in front of my face. "Do you remember the moment when your town became the last on Earth?" "I... no... It feels like things have... always been that way. What's going on? Please, please tell me." "Your town has been the last for a very long time. Everyone else, I took away. The tracks get shorter and I get closer whenever one of you boards that train." The colours in the sky spin and warp into a liquid. It drips over my body and seeps into my eyes. I can no longer see. I feel as though I am floating away from my body. Like the very walls of my mind are melting away. In the distance, I can hear something. Like glass being shattered. I feel myself falling towards the sound, the ticking of the clocks getting quieter and quieter. My vision begins to return, and I am looking at myself. The sound is clear to me now: it is the screaming of millions of people. I see the skin of my body begin to turn grey. It shrivels and clings to my skull before it starts to peel away and maggots crawl through my bones. The women moves her arms off my body, and it becomes clear I am seeing through her eyes. She walks back and the tide of the ocean beneath her grows slowly stronger and stronger. She lets herself be carried away as the sun emerges from the black sky. As the light dances and hops across the water, I feel my thoughts drift into the sea. I don't even remember my own name, or where I came from. I feel millions of hands pull my mind apart like it is liquid. My thoughts shine bright blue in the inky black vortex of screaming, before being pulled apart by its current. Their colour fades to black.


On Tuesday, I wake up early. Before birds, before breakfast, before Tom and Cheryl begin to stir. It’s been this way for what seems like centuries, and by this point I’m quite certain it’ll be this way for the next few, at least. Once I’m out of bed, emerging spirited from my corner between the futon and the piano, I’m off on my rounds. The coffee table, the TV stand, the modest dining room table set for two. Check, check, check again. Two frail bookshelves flank the TV. Once a hub for hungry eyes searching for an escape, the shelves hold equal parts book and dust. But that was memories ago. Woof. The soft rank of dying books, the subtle hum of sleep upstairs. Signs of morning, worn and familiar. Guided by habit, I take to the stairs with vigor. As has become customary, my eager eyes fly past my feet, a crucial paw-placement is missed, and I’m barreling head-over-paws-over-tail into stair seven, eight. I recover, unfazed, and trounce the remaining stairs, storming the hallway. At the end of the hall, the sleeping couple’s door appears cracked, signaling opportunity. In a moment, I torpedo down the carpeted alley, barge through the door and, in another moment, heave my fifty pounds into the air. The still, stocky frame of Tom is my target. I hit. “Christ, Jesse,” Tom says. Cheryl stirs, only temporarily affected. I recognize the tone––disoriented and condemning, yet unable to bury the warmth underneath. Most morning rousings end in a variation of the same. Sitting up, Tom gazes out the cold window. Beyond, a milky haze has settled on the orchard. A sigh escapes. Turning his body out of bed, Tom gropes for a jacket and slides into insulated boots. I follow Tom downstairs. “Goddam warped door, worse than the windows,” Tom grunts, not yet past his sudden awakening. “Windows can’t keep out the goddam draft, door can’t keep out the goddam dog,” he mutters. I can’t imagine why he’s still on the subject. Tom opens the back door, and I run off. Urgent business to attend to. Tom lowers himself in his rocker, takes his pipe out, packs it. From my far-out vantage point between the apple trees, leafless and snow-packed, I can smell the earthy wisps of tobacco better than I can see them. Business attended to, I meander back. The sounds and scents of winter were once tantalizing, but they have grown stale with time. Tom is the gravitational center of my universe. These days, I find that pull to be stronger than all others. “Oh, Jesse,” Tom says, indiscriminately scanning the grove. “These seasons. They’re all the same, the more I think about it. Just a big loop.” For every year I’ve spent here, Tom’s spent seven. He knows. Tom sighs, deeper this time. I circle twice and lay to his left. As yesterday, as the day before. And with every year, we grow more tired of the seemingly endless nature of it all. It’s a shit hole, as Tom says, it’s dying. And, from all accounts, we’re not. In a wasteland such as this, it’s hard not to grow entirely apathetic. That’s the funny thing: we’re not––entirely––apathetic. We’ve still got each other. It’s warm, familiar, and it's ours. Entirely enough.


I never wanted this power in the first place. I tried hiding it when it developed but people soon noticed and my secret was out. This sort of power is in high demand and I was quickly snapped up as a sidekick by Phantasm, a high ranking superhero. I’m a healer. I can numb people’s pain and fix injuries but as with all superpowers, there’s a price. I experience the pain I take from others and inherit the wounds I heal. Phantasm knows that it hurts me but he’s just another typical bigwig superhero and couldn’t care less. Whenever I bring it up, he starts ranting about how everything we do is for ‘the greater good’ and berates me for being so selfish. I accompany him into battle, take the pain inflicted by his enemies and accumulate injuries whilst he stays unscathed. After he’s won and justice has prevailed, I usually end up in hospital. Sometimes if I’m lucky and the fight has put him in a good mood, he’ll take me there himself. I’ll slump in the backseat of his car and bleed onto the plastic sheet put there to prevent me making a mess, whilst he talks my ear off about how the world is a better place because of our courage. That’s if I’m lucky, though. Most of the time he just goes straight to the nearest bar to party and leaves me to make my own agonising way to the nearest hospital. I hate him. Sometimes I fantasise about walking away while he’s injured and leaving him to suffer, but I know I can’t. He’s a high ranking superhero, and if it weren’t for him the world would be in complete chaos. If I abandon him, whatever happens afterwards will be my fault. We’re heading into a fight now. Ursa, a notorious supervillain, is threatening to destroy the Super’s Society headquarters. Of course Phantasm is first on the scene. The Super’s Society pay his wages, after all, and he knows if it weren’t for them he’d be jobless. We arrive, Phantasm confronts Ursa, and I prepare myself. I scream as Ursa lands a hit on him. I’m used to taking punches, but Ursa has inhuman strength and the second-hand blow sends me flying into a wall. The battle continues and I curl into a ball as I take strike after strike for Phantasm. Dread seeps through me as Ursa manages to pin him against the wall. Even though he’s not feeling any of this pain right now, it’s clear that he’s exhausted. My stomach lurches as I realise that he might actually lose this fight. Ursa turns to face me and grins, revealing her characteristic jagged teeth. “Hey,” she growls. “I’ve seen you with this guy before. You his sidekick or something? What do you do?” Phantasm struggles and she backhands him. My head snaps sideways and Ursa starts to laugh. “Knew it. You take his pain, don’t you? I feel bad for hitting him so hard now. This dirtbag is the one that should suffer, not you.” I remain silent, trembling from a combination of fear and pain. I can tell from bitter experience that I’ve broken several bones and from the way this fight is going, I’m expecting to break more. This isn’t good. In this sort of situation, my mind always ends up jumping to the worst case scenario. No matter how often I’ve agonised it, I still haven’t managed to answer the question that plagues me whenever a battle starts going badly. What happens if Phantasm dies? I could save him. I’m sure of it, and I’m just as certain that doing so would mean my own death. Why should I sacrifice myself for a man who treats me like dirt? But if he dies, the villains will win. He’s one of the best, and a loss like that would be disastrous. Could I live with myself? “Tell me, how much does Phantasm mean to you?” Ursa asks. I don’t answer. “Would you die for him?” She presses her claws against his throat. “Because you will if you keep protecting him.” I freeze. I don’t want to die. Especially not for him. “You’re basically his slave,” Ursa continues. “It’s cruel. I bet he doesn’t care what happens to you as long as he gets his money.” My feelings must have shown on my face, since she chuckled and shook her head. “It’s not just you, either. So many so-called Superheroes have sidekicks that don’t want to be there. The entire Society is corrupt. I used to be a Superhero, but they denounced me when I started calling them out. Now it’s my mission to end this abuse. Nobody should be forced to be a hero. Or a sidekick.” “You’re right,” I say hoarsely. I don’t like siding with a supervillain, but I can’t deny what she’s saying. “So let me kill this guy. You can come with me afterwards and everyone will just think you died in battle. I won’t ever force you to take pain away from me, or anyone.” I freeze. It’s so tempting. She slaps Phantasm again. He screams, and stares at me in shock. Ursa’s smile grows. “Do something,” he splutters. “She slapped me. It hurt.” “No.” I say. Ursa reaches towards him with her claws. I swallow, feeling a painful lump in my throat. I’ve made my decision. “Wait.” I step forwards. It’s time for me to use the other part of my power. The part I kept secret. I grab Ursa’s wrist and lock eyes with Phantasm. “Now it’s your turn.” I press Ursa’s hand against my chest and slowly lean into her claws. Blood seeps out of Phantasm’s chest and I smile as he begins to shriek with terror. It’s painless- for me, at least. As Phantasm wails, I turn to Ursa. “Let’s go.” I’m glad I’m not a sidekick anymore. ‘Supervillain’ suits me just fine.


Describe yourself. “I live in the moment”. Not in some kind of puffed up display of bravado, like, ‘watch me base jump off this cliff!’, or any kind of new-age-yoga-zen sense of ‘onefullness’. No, I literally live in ‘the moment’. The moment when time froze.   Like a flash mob gone horribly wrong, everyone and everything around me is frozen in an instance. Mid way through walking, talking, cooking, cleaning, eating, showering, and all other expected forms of human behaviour. Whatever they’d been doing the moment that time froze, that’s how they’re stuck now. As does inanimate matter. Water which once flowed was now fixed in the air. Once flickering flames now stand static.   It’s as if someone has hit pause on the movie of ‘the universe’, except, I’m some kind of exception. I can still move around. I can still interact with things. But not in the manner you’re hoping for, I’m sorry. The best way I can think to describe the way I exist is that I’m something of a ghost in whatever world this is. I’ve no idea how or why I’m trapped here, or how long I will remain here. I don’t even know if I’m alive or not. In a perfect instance, a single frame of time, what differentiates ‘alive’ from ‘dead’?   This realm has been a collision of science and philosophy of sorts for me.     **THE MOMENT OF OBSERVATION**   I was mid argument with my girlfriend at the time, when she just froze. Actually, I was staring at the cracked linoleum floor in the kitchen and avoiding eye contact at the time. I had a habit of drifting off during confrontation. I wondered “How old was our floor? Who was the first person to notice the cracks in what would eventually become my life?”. And that’s when I noticed the silence.   Do you remember that childhood saying, “Don’t pull that face. What if the wind changes and you’re stuck like that forever?”. Well, the wind changed, and my girlfriend was stuck in the midst of spitting vitriol at me. I thought she’d done it on purpose for dramatic flair, but after a few seconds I grew impatient and tried to cut her off. Muffled vibrations of words rippled in my throat and body, but as they exited my mouth, they became silence.   Worried that we might be having simultaneous strokes, I grabbed her, and shook her. No response. Literally, she didn’t even move. Which was odd, because I could feel her moving in my hands, but visibly she was completely still. That’s when I realised that I couldn’t even see my own arms. I couldn’t see my own body. Turning around, I came face to face with myself. Like my girlfriend, I too was frozen in place. Staring at the cracked linoleum floor, looking pathetic.   Was this an out of body experience? Was I dead? I could feel my limbs, but I couldn’t see them. Instinct commanded me to grab myself, to try and wake myself up. But unlike my girlfriend, there was no body behind the apparition that was me. I fell through myself, straight out the other side. This image of me was empty like a hologram of myself.   I’ve read and watched my fair share of sci-fi. We’ve seen portrayals of the frozen time world plenty of times before. They always look like so much fun. The perfect platform for mischief. This is not fun, though. The rules of this… experience? They aren’t particularly clear. I’ve had to figure a lot of it out as I go, based on what I can experience, because that’s my only avenue for learning. I’m no scientist, so I could never figure this world out, but even if I could, it would be impossible. I can’t use the internet, because computers and electricity are frozen. I can’t read books, because light is frozen. That’s right, the one major element of frozen time which is always overlooked is the properties of light, and that it, too, can freeze. That’s why I could see the ghost of myself, but couldn’t see myself.   When time froze, light froze with it, holding only the information of what it had just reflected off. If you pulled a blind down in a well lit room it made no difference, because light was already in there, projecting the images of the outside world into what should be a now dark space. Crazier still, you wouldn’t even see that the blind had been pulled down, because light would need to be able to move again to bounce off the drawn blind to show its new position. That’s why I could only read pages of books and screens that were already open. If I pulled a book off the shelf and opened it, I wouldn’t be able to see it. The phantom of where it had been would continue burn on the lightwaves filling the space around it, whilst the book disappeared behind the projection screen. Like the next frame in the reel of a projector, waiting for the projector to tick over to be revealed.   So despite being able to see, there is also an element of living blind. I have to be careful with what I move. If I grab a bottle of water to drink, it would appear as if the bottle hadn’t moved, so I always made the effort to put things back where I found them. Even something as mundane as a bottle of water can scare the shit out of you if it’s invisible and you bump into it. Moved objects are the spiderwebs of this time-frozen-ghost-world, that send you into a fit of panic not knowing what you’ve just walked into, and if it’s still on you. No, I had to be neat and tidy in this world, to save myself the stained underwear of dealing with invisible land mines and unintentional booby traps.   Regardless of the limitations of sight, to stay sane in a limbo like this requires a bit of creative exploration. I began to experiment with things, relying solely on my sense of touch to try to unfurl as many more rules of this realm as possible. From what I could tell, everything was frozen except for me, and except for things I interacted with. Breathing was laboured, as I sucked in static oxygen from around me. Breathing out was like blowing bubbles underwater. That slight pressure of resistance as liquid parted to make way for bubbles of air. Sound was a painful experience. Trapped as crests and troughs of frequency, the world was mostly a cacophony of single notes which would bend slightly as I moved around and my ear shifted from space to space. One day, I was absent-mindedly walking towards on of those hands-free, loud-talking mobile phone types, and I noticed that I could start to make out some of his words. It was like listening to a recording that had been slowed down hundreds of times, but the cadence of conversation became clear. If I ran full pelt at the loud-talker from 20 meters away, I could actually get a comprehensible full word. It was faint at the start, being so far away from him, and still in an incredibly slow motion pitch because I can’t run at the speed of sound, but I was finally able to hear my first word in this world. “Fffffffaaaaaarrrrrrkkkkkiiinn…”.   “Fuckin…”. It was incredibly underwhelming. After that, I took to wearing a pair of noise cancelling ear muffs to block out the noise. My experiments continued. I played with objects being held in suspended animation. Gravity was frozen, so everything could actually be lifted up and left floating in the air. I couldn’t see that, but I could feel it. A squeezed bottle of water became a stream of water bubbles. Invisible patches of wetness in the air. Floating in the air until my fingers collided with them, kick starting them back to life as they broke free of their suspended membrane and trickled down the pores of my skin.     **THE OBSERVER EFFECT**   I remember once, back in the real time, I lost myself in an internet spiral. Looking at memes, as you do, I stumbled on to the Nyan Cat meme. Trawling the internet for different incarnations of the cat, I found Schrodinger’s Nyan Cat. Which lead to me investigating who or what Schrodinger was. Which lead to me poring over Wikipedia pages and watching terribly low-fi YouTube explainer videos about quantum physics, wave-particle duality, the observer effect, and other concepts which blew my mind.   For those who don’t know, there’s a cat in a box, with poison in it which is set to be released at some random point in time. Whilst the box is closed, there’s no way for us to know whether the cat is alive or dead, until we open the box and confirm it with our own eyes (aka, observing). So, as long as the box is closed, the cat is both alive and dead at the same time.   Trapped in this world, surrounded by objects that are there but aren’t, this felt like the strongest piece of scientific knowledge I was armed with. Am I alive, or dead? Am I still in the kitchen arguing with my girlfriend, or am I in a restaurant eating the invisible remains of someone’s meal? Am I, presently, living in a superposition? I feel alive. “I think, therefore I am” and all that. But doesn’t being alive require a transition of time? Time was passing for me, but not for anything else.   To an external party who’s able to oversee this whole experience in real time, I think I’d be a textbook example of something existing in a superposition. In this single moment of frozen time, which would have been less than a nanosecond in real time, I would have; been in the kitchen being yelled at, been in most other places in my kitchen, been running at a man on a phone out in the street, been shoplifting noise cancelling ear muffs, been eating someone else’s meal in a restaurant, and been in many other states and places over the course of however long I’d been here. A textbook example of something existing in a superposition. But, I’ve never read a textbook on superposition, so that claim itself will remain in a superposition until I can actually open a textbook to confirm it.     **WHO OBSERVES THE OBSERVERS?** Which brings me to a more philosophical quandary I’ve stumbled upon. Morals. It would be remiss of me not to admit that as an only child who didn’t have an abundance of toys or friends, I had to conjure amazing fantasies to keep myself entertained. One of them involved this very kind of situation. A world where I could do anything that I liked. Enemies I could smite without fear of retribution. Beautiful women whom I could claim simply by my own will. Exciting adventures of building floating cities. Well, here’s the twisted adult version of that fantasy, and the naive ignorance of youth has long since left me, and I’m paralysed by my awareness of the moral injustice of doing anything untoward. Which has me wondering…   Morals essentially exist in a superposition, don’t they? The cat isn’t alive or dead until an observer opens the box, observes the cat, and projects their interpretation of what they see onto the body of the cat. Equally, a moral isn’t actually a moral until an action is observed by an observer, who then projects they’re own moral code on to that action. In real time, if I slap a complete stranger, the moral judgement of that will come down to who’s observing. If I slapped someone’s mother, they’re likely to condemn the action as a ‘bad’ action. If that someone’s mother had a knife and was about to attack them, my intervening slap might be seen as a moral act of defending them. To a third party, witnessing this from across the street where their view of the knife is obscured, they might just see this action as a man attacking a woman. But even after these initial observations and judgements have collapsed the moral wave, interpretation is still open to change. Perhaps a second later the mother stumbles aside and drops the knife, allowing the Third Party to see this and change their moral projection.   So, in this perfect instance, I can be both good and bad at the same time. That’s bizarre. I’m actively restraining myself from doing things that could be considered ‘bad’, which by my observation makes me ‘good’.


I have to get something off my chest, and anonymously posting on a subreddit for fictional stories seems like the best way to talk about it without being found out. I *think* that I've taken enough precautions that the government won't find me, but I have no idea what the NSA is actually capable of these days. Truth be told, I'm not really sure if such safeguards are worth the trouble. They may be able to figure out who I am and who my colleagues were anyway, but I'm mostly off the grid at this point, so I won't make it easy to find me. Besides, for all I know, "the event" (as I've taken to calling it) could happen tomorrow. Or a million years from now. I'm not an astrophysicist or a climate scientist, so I have no way of knowing when it will happen. I only know that it will happen, and a general idea of the form it will take. I *am* (or at least, was) a particle accelerator engineer, who specialized in creating and harvesting antimatter. I was the one who developed the mechanism for creating large quantities of heavy antimatter nuclei and capturing them in magnetic containment chambers. That was about a year and a half ago. It was my proudest achievement at the time; perhaps even the thing history would remember me for. Now that I know history has an expiration date, I'm not as enthusiastic as I once was. I can't even publicise the schematics for the remaining time we have. Like everything else, it's been classified at the highest security clearances. Anyone short of POTUS would have trouble accessing them now. To make a long story short, I was able to create macroscopic quantities of anti-iron. My colleagues and I accumulated enough that we had a solid kilogram of the stuff, arranged in a smooth sphere, and let me tell you, taxpayer, it took a heck of a lot of money, time, and energy to do it. Under different circumstances, I might ask myself whether it was worth it in the end. Looking back, I should have known something was amiss when I read papers which suggested that anti-hydrogen atoms absorb multiple low energy photons and emit higher energy photons, the opposite behavior of ordinary matter. I attributed it to a statistical fluke or equipment malfunction. But this anti-iron couldn't be so easily dismissed. For one thing, it glowed, despite the fact that there was no apparent energy source powering it. We tested it with geiger counters, but we couldn't detect any radiation greater than ordinary background doses. We kept it in a vacuum sealed magnetic containment chamber. For those of you who aren't aware, when antimatter and matter collide, both are turned into pure energy by Einstein's famous formula: E= mc2. In practical terms, our sphere of anti-iron would cause an explosion a thousand times greater than a nuclear bomb if it were permitted to contact even the air in the room. Needless to say, handling it was a delicate business. Our first test, we decided, would be to heat the object up using a carefully calibrated symmetric laser array, to see how it behaved at high temperatures. Even before we came to that decision, the anti-iron began to behave strangely. Our instruments told us it was heating up, but its glow didn't noticeably change, even after its temperature rose past red hot. Ultimately, we decided to move forward with the heating experiment, if only because we didn't think our lasers could heat it much more than it already was. I'm embarrassed to admit that the truth didn't dawn on me until after the anti-iron ball was cooking in our oven. I had some time to let my mind wander, and suddenly, it clicked. I had been thinking about Feynman diagrams, which diagram subatomic particle interactions. In particular, they portray anti-matter as moving backward in time. mathematical artifacts, with no bearing in reality, most physicists assumed. They said the same thing about special relativity before Einstein came along. And the more I thought about our sample, the more things started to make sense. The glow we saw wasn't light generated by the anti-iron, but rather the ambient light from the room and the lights above that terminated on its surface. If you were to rewind the process, it would look as if it were absorbing that light, rather than emitting it. And the heating we observed before placing our object in the oven was actually the object cooling down, from it's own reversed perspective! For this object, entropy would *decrease* over time, as opposed to ordinary matter, for which entropy always increases! My thoughts were interrupted by the ding that indicated our oven was done cooking. As I expected, the anti-iron was precisely room temperature, but it was no longer a sphere, the shape an object takes *after* being melted down in a forceless environment... Shortly afterward the men in black came and shut down our experiment. One of my colleagues was so shaken up by the new shape of our anti-iron sample that she insisted that sinking it into the sun wasn't good enough. If we really wanted to be careful, we'd erase it from the universe by dropping it in a black hole. Last I saw her, she was pleading with the government officials to shoot the sample at the nearest one. I got an email from her a year ago, telling me that "operation Monocerotis is a go", which I can only assume means that our sample is now on its way to annihilation. I guess nobody ever told her that black holes are time-reversed white holes. Or that if you connect a white hole in our universe with a black hole in another, you get a wormhole, which allows things to enter our universe from another one. Somewhere out there, a one kilogram, anti-iron statue of a seven-tentacled, six-eyed *thing* is slowly drifting toward a black hole. Before it gets there, it will attach itself in some way or another to another much faster, much more massive anti-matter object also speeding along from the Earth to the black hole. A ship, perhaps, but more likely a missile. A missile with its nose pointing in the direction it came from. And by the time that happens, there will not be the slightest indication that the earth has ever had a collision with anti-matter that shook it to its core. I got an e-mail from a climate scientist friend of mine the other day. He asked where I've been and told me of his latest research. Apparently, none of the existing climate models are predicting the kind of regular exponential increase in temperature we've been seeing. He says if he didn't know any better, it's almost as if he's watching the earth cool in reverse... Thank you for taking the time to read my testimony, and may God have mercy on us all.