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


After a brief hiatus, we’re back for more spotlights from our recently concluded cycle of Serial Saturday! Now all that’s left to do is prepare for the upcoming season and spotlight our fantastic authors. With weekly programs like Serial Saturday we have a great opportunity to get to know writers in our community and follow their progress in such a clear and exciting way. That is definitely the case with /u/ChineseArtist \-- After joining us at /r/WritingPrompts 6 months ago, he dove right into SerSat in a big way, with a story that features characters inspired by other writers in our Discord chat. What began as a fun meta story of a group of teenagers being given a quest by an all-knowing flaming dumpster quickly became so much more. Not only did we get a kick out of reading a story featuring a version of us writers in the chat, we got to see the evolution of this story from a dialogue heavy opening to a balanced, fleshed out story with depth and substance. Here at we had a blast getting to know the cast from **Of Dice and Friends**. But don't take my word for it! Here's a small teaser from /u/ChineseArtist: >An elf, a dragonborn, a human, and a stereotypical Californian surfer dude walk into a bar. > >*Al, please. We need a real synopsis, no time to be messing around. And careful with that fire, or the dumpster’s not the only thing that’ll be burning soon!* > >Ugh. Fine. You’re no fun. > >Four unlikely allies must band together when they are forced to save the world. Will they be able to work together and help good triumph, or will they bicker and argue until it’s too late? Spoiler alert: it’s the second one! > >*Al!* > >I mean - you’re gonna have to read it for yourself to find out! For our first run of Serial Saturday at it was important for us to get author impressions of how their experience went with us, and give readers a peek at the "behind the scenes" of creating a flash fiction serial. Here's ChineseArtist’s take on that: >Coming into Serial Saturday, I honestly wasn’t sure what to expect. I’d been writing in the r/writingprompts community for some time, but everything up to that point was stand-alone and meant to be read without any context. Creating something like this from scratch, making a world where I actually had to care about the things that happened with each chapter, that was something new to me. > >I definitely think that I’ve improved greatly over the course of these sixteen chapters, with everything from dialogue and pacing to action and comedy. The writers here are an amazing group and with them it’s always just this great community of feedback and growth that’s hard to find anywhere else. > >Oh, and of course, I’ll be continuing on with Serial Saturday next year, as this story is far from over ;). With *Of Dice and Friends* at an end (for now) there is only one thing left to do: show off this newly finished arc for obligatory bragging rights here on . Let the bragging begin! Without further ado, here's /u/ChineseArtist’s Table of Contents. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Table of Contents: \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ You can check out more of /u/ChineseArtist's work by going to his subreddit, r/ChineseArtist. Congrats on finishing your serial, ChineseArtist, and we can’t wait to see what you do next. <3 from the team at , , and Serial Saturday. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ *For more information on the Serial Saturday program feel free to check out our* *.* We have members from all around the world and who have all kinds of schedules, so there’s usually someone awake to talk to. We also have scheduled readings, oration critiques, spur-of-the-moment story time, or even just random hangouts over voice chat.


After a brief hiatus, we’re back for more spotlights from our recently concluded cycle of Serial Saturday! Now all that’s left to do is prepare for the upcoming season and spotlight our fantastic authors. It’s been such a treat to watch people evolve their flash fiction serials with us and bring arcs to a close that for some have been with us for quite a while. For a good handful of writers on Serial Saturday, their stories are continuations of serials started on Theme Thursday weekly threads. One such story comes from /u/Ryter99, a regular from /r/writingprompts. Ryter is a member of our community who never fails to entertain with his wholesome, zany tales, whether they concern knights of considerable ego, or Santa and his double-crossing elves, or anything in between. When I discovered that Ryter would be continuing the Sir Jamsen tale with us on SerSat I could hardly wait to kick this program into high gear, and of course Ryter did not disappoint. Here at we thoroughly enjoyed Ryter’s story of bravery, wit, comedy, and adventure. But don't take my word for it! Here's a small teaser: >Sir Jamsen Farnsworth and his squire, Drann, have faced all manner of foes during their long adventuring careers. They've defeated invading armies, slain countless goblins, and battled fearsome dragons of legend. But now, they face the gravest threat the realm has ever known... adorable bunny rabbit looking creatures? > >*(Does that opening make clear this thing is an absurdist Comedy-Fantasy story? Okay, great! Ahem… continuing...)* > >These ‘Bundarr’ are a cuddly yet vicious species with terrifying psionic powers and a hunger for destruction on an unimaginable scale. Drann and Jamsen must race to learn more about their foes, prepare defenses, and recruit new allies if they have any hope of defeating the adorable threat to their world. For our first run of Serial Saturday at it was important for us to get author impressions of how their experience went with us, and give readers a peek at the "behind the scenes" of creating a flash fiction serial. Here's Ryter’s take on that: >I’ve been writing Drann and Jamsen stories for a couple years now and Theme Thursday’s on r/WritingPrompts was an awesome venue for me to put them into fun and new scenarios each week. > >Those one-off adventures were all I really planned. Quite frankly, I only started this serial because my pal u/JustLexx was so energetic in his enjoyment of the bundarr that I decided to devote a serialized plotline to the bunny menace haha. > >The number of people who enjoyed my characters/world during their TT run was extremely humbling and encouraging, but Serial Saturday is where I feel like I learned the most about the characters, how they could interact with the world, and how to pace their story. > >I have a novel in the works (set well before the events of this story) and without a doubt it’s benefited greatly from writing this series week by week. I’m grateful to u/ALiteralDumpsterFire for running this feature and to everyone who gave me valuable feedback and encouragement! > >And finally, special thanks to Sir A-Lexington, Lady Booke, Lady Rubbishfyre, and the Great and Powerful Xacktarri. Your enthusiasm for this series kept me writing it in the earliest days. I hope that enthusiasm was repaid by enjoyment participating in and reading the completed story! > >Umm, that’s it! SerSat rocks! Fluffybuns forever! With the tale of Sir Jamsen and the Bundarr horde at an end (for now) there is only one thing left to do: show off this newly finished story for obligatory bragging rights here on . Let the bragging begin! Without further ado, here's Ryter’s Table of Contents. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ You can check out more of Ryter's work by going to his subreddit, r/Ryter (highly recommended, check out the additional serial he writes, featuring Drann in the first person and even moar hijinx). Congrats on finishing your serial, Ryter, and we can’t wait to see what you do next. <3 from the team at , , and Serial Saturday. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ *For more information on the Serial Saturday program feel free to check out our* *.* We have members from all around the world and who have all kinds of schedules, so there’s usually someone awake to talk to. We also have scheduled readings, oration critiques, spur-of-the-moment story time, or even just random hangouts over voice chat.


“Daddy, can you tell me a bedtime story?” The father chuckled. “Of course! There’s one I’ve been waiting to share with you, and I think you’re just about big enough.” The father needed nothing more than the night light to see his son’s lips curling into a smile; the type of weak grin that could only be created by someone blissfully leaving the Earth, although only temporarily. And as sure as escape brings bliss, the father began to lull his son to sleep. “Amid a flurry of snow, a fire crackled, somewhere deep in the mountains where the howling winds could deafen and silence you all at once. The men that stood around it talked about rumors of death; a culling, brought down from the guards who overlooked them.” “You see, outside of this encampment, a war had been fought, and the prisoners’ side had finally lost. They had lived on hope, hope they would win the war and finally go home to their loved ones. Or a hope they would live, when they had signed up to die. But this hope left the men weak, and they reveled in it. Stories of mothers and girlfriends, of childhood activities and life before the war. Only one prisoner rejected this hope, as he understood he existed to die.” “By rejecting this hope, the man gave himself life, even if only to spite death. And this life gave him strength, which allowed him to fight. Whether it was spitting on a guard’s shoe or destroying the products of his own slave labor, the man existed now for two reasons: to fight firstly, and to die secondly. He embraced his death, but at the same time ran from it, because giving himself to death would require him to stop his fight.” “When this prisoner heard of the slaughter, he shook his head, and cursed the men who held him. But inside he felt nothing but indifference, a peace in the knowledge that it doesn’t matter who kills him, or how he dies: the result is the same either way. Some of the men cried, while some outright refused to believe it. But our prisoner continued to fight on anyway.” The father looked over at his son, who was listening intently with his eyes firmly shut. The man thought his son to be sleeping, so he continued on: “Five days, the men said. Five days until they were all executed. Some killed themselves, so they could die on their own terms. But this was even crazier, as they simply admitted that their life was not worth fighting for, when all they had done prior to internment was fighting for their life. Our prisoner decided instead that he had five days to make his tormentors' lives just a bit worse.” “And so he continued his pointless rebellion by not making his bed and by staring at the ground when a guard commanded him to look him in his eyes. He was chastised for his misdeeds; harsher labors and crueler physical punishment. The rumor said the execution was in three day now, and the man grew bolder, empowered by the coming of his end. He figured out a way out of their prison: in two days, a supply ship would come in. It would take a ton of luck, but they would smuggle themselves home. The plan was perfect. Either they died as was intended, or they made it home in one piece.” “But alas, it turned out to all be for naught, as the next morning a special order came into the communications bunker. Due to the need for secrecy, the captors’ government decided they were going to transform the prisoner camp into a top-secret weapons development facility. This would require that all the prisoners be slaughtered, the government said. No one could know what went on here, and they decided there was no point sending the men home to the rubble their country was left in. There would be no hope for the soldiers, and that same day the guards lined up the men and shot them in the head one at a time. All but one of the men died the way they lived. Without any purpose.” “The exception being our prisoner, of course. He died fighting, and as he stared down the barrel, he smiled, for he knew he could finally end his fighting.” And with the conclusion of his story, the father kissed his sleeping son on the forehead. He then went to sleep himself, where he dreamed of a fictional world in which there was no need for anyone to fight.


The day had started out like so many others before. The sun had come up, the woman had groaned at the sound of her alarm clock, and had pulled the covers back to allow her young, giggling, son to sneak in with his youthful glee and give her enough energy to start the day. After quickly smiling down at her son, she had grabbed some clothes from her laundry bin, telling herself that she definitely needed to organize them later, and walked her chattering son down to breakfast. He was such a sweet boy, she thought, always smiling, always so happy and good natured. She knew that he had all the qualities necessary for a person to live a good life. Her daughter was a different story. As she floated into the kitchen, barely glancing towards her mother, the tone of the room changed immediately. Becoming heavier, more stifled, and more strained. But it was hard to say if anyone had noticed. As the woman poured batter into a skillet, flipping the pancakes in time to her sons youthful chatter, the daughter started to cry. Tears falling down her face slowly and silently, wiped away quickly with a ragged sleeve. But again, it was hard to say if anyone noticed. There was an obvious divide in the room, but one that slipped in easily, so familiarly that those impacted by it had grown numb to noticing it. It was just how things were. It was how things had been for a very long time. The mother quickly shuffled pancakes and toast onto a plate and set it onto the center of the table. She was ravenous, but she did not eat, not until she knew that her beloved son had his fill. The girl silently, her tears leaking from the corner of her eyes, stood up and grabbed herself a plate. Her mother had forgotten again. It was nothing new, and though she was used to it, deep down, it still hurt. She supposed that was why the tears came, though less and less each morning. Wiped away quicker, as she felt herself becoming smaller and smaller, shriveled by her misery and her mothers lack of attention. She choked back a loud sob as the crushing weight of all that she was left alone to feel radiated within her in confusing and painful waves. She was so lost, and so alone. The mother glanced at her daughter for a second, a look of concern briefly darting over her face, eyes crinkling in almost a startled way, before focusing her attention back on her son. The silly little boy was smothering his pancakes with syrup creating a giant sticky mess. The table and floor and his entire body was covered, young boys could be the messiest little creatures! She laughed and grabbed some paper towels and moved to wipe her sons hands clean. Her daughter, with one gulping sob, forcefully darted her eyes in the other direction. Her insides sinking to the messy floor below her. This was the part that she hated the most. She hated the look of love on her mothers face as she moved the towels lovingly, she hated that her mother rarely, if ever, looked at her with the same level of devotion and care, and she hated that she had no idea what to do about it. She hated how this would inevitably break her mother, again and again, day after day, as she realized that... with her hands continuing their sensitive movements, that there was no syrup, there was no mess, there was no little boy. Not anymore. The child who she had loved, who had loved her, and who had filled her home with smiles and laughter was gone. Dead. It had taken just one accident for everything to break apart. And neither the mother or the daughter knew exactly how to rebuild their lives from the shattered pieces. All that they could do was watch. The daughter would watch as her mother drifted further and further away, chasing a ghost that she couldnt let go, and the mother would watch as her daughter became a stranger, detatching from a mother she feared didnt love her. And the mother wouldnt realize that, after the loss of her son, she now feared to love. There would be a moment of recognition in her mothers eyes, and a look of hope, always a look of hope, in the eyes of the daughter. Before her mother would snap back, would decide, that it was easier to focus on what was, then risk the uncertainty of facing what would come from what was left after a loss. The laughter would fill the house again. The sobs would fill the house again. The silence would fill the house again. It would all spin together, circling, disorienting, decaying, and destroying everything it touched. Everything except for the haunting memory of a dead child.


Just shy of one o’clock in the afternoon, the devil met me for a cup of coffee. Several hours afterwards, at 8:30 AM the same day, it occurred to me that I may not exist. \* \* \* The waitress raised her eyebrows and flashed me a tentative smile. “Give me a moment,” I said, craning my neck and squinting at the menu laid out on the counter between us. Lattes and espressos, a *yuenyeung* tea-coffee mixture from Hong Kong and several roasts that were as foreign to me as the countries they were named after. *Life on Mars* came on the radio. I found my fingers tapping, not quite to the beat, and glanced up. The waitress was swaying from side to side with her arms folded, left hand on top—a posture that put the largest sunspot I had ever seen on display. She must have been sixty, seventy years old. Perhaps this was the cafe’s owner? A waitress would have been more aggressive, knowing that more rapport would lead to a better tip. Was I taking too long to order? “You know, I don’t drink a lot of coffee. Do you have any recommendations?” “Today’s special is a Sicilian iced coffee,” she said in a single breath, seeming to have snapped out of a daydream. “It’s a cold brew, but the flavor is accentuated by honey and lemon syrup, so it isn’t as bitter as your typical black coffee.” I paused for a moment, trying to look as though I was pondering her suggestion. “Sure, that sounds great. But add an extra spoonful of sugar, just to be safe.” “You got it!” she said. “It’ll take a few minutes, so why don’t you get settled in and I’ll bring it over in a bit.” “Perfect.” I turned towards the stairway and made my way up to the second floor. \- With a final step, I set foot into the midst of a peculiar battleground. Rather than soldiers, however, a mismatch of furniture stood at arms. If the room were a pair of jeans, there would be more patch than denim. A red and white striped retro dining booth occupied one corner, a trio of high-backed metal chairs another. Next to them sat a fabric couch. The interior of the room was dotted with tables of various heights, punctuated with an even wider assortment of chairs—none the same color, many too tall or short for their accompanying table—and in the center of it all stood a large cheval mirror. After a moment’s deliberation, I settled for a nightstand that was flanked by two leather chairs overlooking the street. Unlike in here, nothing seemed out of place in the world beyond the window. High and low, the city was letting go of summer and preparing for autumn. An iron fence loomed over the sidewalk, beyond it a row of trees stood in various states of disarray. Some were aflame with red and orange leaves, others still in the process of yellowing. A pair of birds fluttered about, dancing in the air, and below them on the street people walked by in sweaters and puffy coats. A young boy was bobbing back and forth on his tiptoes, straining to read a sign at the bus stop which had (unfortunately) been placed several inches above his head. A blue car drove by. “Coffee!” the waitress’s voice called out behind me, followed by footsteps and creaking stairs. At the risk of coming off heavy handed, the best way I can describe her voice is that it sounded like people in commercials look when they’re holding a cup of coffee. The steam reaching up to caress their faces, morning dreariness melting away. Pleasant, intimate even. I closed my eyes and sank a little deeper into the warmth of her voice, listening to the clicks of her heels panning left and right as she navigated around the furniture. The footsteps disappeared behind me, the scent of roses crept up to my nose and I opened my eyes at a soft *thud*, the sound of the waitress setting my mug of coffee on the nightstand. “Thank you,” I said, turning my head and looking back. “Don’t mention it.” “It’s an interesting place you’ve got here, ma’am.” The waitress smiled at me. “It’s a metaphor for life, sort of.” Wrinkles formed around her eyes. Squinting made her smile appear all the bigger, as if her teeth were pulling back on her lips in order to see me better. They were slightly yellow. “How so?” “Well, not all of the pieces match, for one. You see that booth in the corner?” she pointed with her chin to our right. “Originally, the whole place was full of ‘em. That was the style back then. Big band jazz music on the radio and roller skates on the floors. Sometimes we even had live stuff, too. My husband cooked and I bused the tables. *Man*, those were the days.” The waitress closed her eyes and took a deep breath, the tips of her lips seemingly compelled upwards as her lungs filled with air. For a single moment at the very top, in that space between an inhale and an exhale, her face became so soft and sweet that I imagined I had never cared for anything half as much as she cherished whatever was on her mind. And then, almost before I had finished the thought, the inevitable puff of air escaped her nostrils. Her wrinkles re-emerged and, laden with the weight of bygone years, the curve of her smile flattened out. The waitress aged a quarter century in the time it took to open her eyes. “And then he disappeared. As abruptly as that. I woke up one morning and he was gone. Shortly after, furniture from the diner started going, too. Once every several months I’d show up to discover that something had gone missing. Booths, tables, neon signs, the toaster; nothing was safe. We had quite a few regulars and they would help me keep an eye on things, and the police chief went out of his way to make sure somebody was on our street every night, but no one ever saw anything. It was like things were slipping away into the void that Andrew had left behind. That booth in the corner there is the last remnant of those days, but at this point, it looks just as out of place as everything else. I suppose it’ll see itself out some night, too, before long.” Behind the counter she had talked like a woman unaccustomed to being interrupted; now, like she wasn’t used to having anyone that listened to her. Perhaps that indifferent confidence had been too heavy to lug up the stairs behind herself. The more I looked at her, the more I saw a decrepit old woman. You know the type—alone at a wedding table, hunched over and quietly eating with a plastic spoon. Eyes too heavy to lift off her plate, one leg crossed over the other. Someone’s frail little aunt that had never married, or maybe a complete stranger who had just shown up and everyone assumed must be related somehow. “...What I mean is, well, I can’t cook, you see, but I’d still go to the diner in the mornings for the old people who gathered there, even though all I could do was make them coffee...” *She had been talking the entire time*. The waitress had withered to such an extent that, if you took your eyes off of her lips, you might not notice that she was speaking. “... And after work I would travel all over looking for Andrew, eventually returning with other people’s discarded furniture and ideas for new coffees instead. Somehow it worked out, though. I built a base of new regulars—a cafe attracts people who like coffee, after all—and got featured in a few magazines. Suddenly, the pieces I’d snatched from other puzzles became just as real as the original ones. It was a damned mess,” she paused. “But it was worth putting together, at least once.” “Huh,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t notice I’d tuned out and not having the heart to tell her that I’d never drank so much as a drop of coffee in my entire life. “I’m sorry to hear about your husband, ma’am.” “Oh, don’t worry about it. It’s in the past. Thirty years is a long time,” she said, “Anyhow, it’s me who should be apologizing. You didn’t come here for an old woman’s life story. I’ll leave you to your coffee, sugar. ” The waitress spun on her heel and walked away, but not so quickly that I didn’t notice her cheeks were flushed. I guess she had shared more than she intended. Or maybe she did that to everyone. I didn’t mind, anyhow. On the contrary, I wish she’d have stayed longer. It had only been a couple minutes, but that was all it took to understand why people flocked to the place. In spite of whoever’s discarded furniture you might be, when you walked through the doors of the cafe, you became just one more odd or end that didn’t quite fit; in short, you belonged. \- I took a moment to reorient myself, then took measure of the coffee: Ice cubes floating on top of black bile, coated in a layer of what was presumably lemon zest. My nose wrinkled at the smell. *A cafe attracts people who like coffee*, I told myself, then inhaled deeply to steel my nerves and took a drink. Bitter. Incredibly bitter, in a vile and oppressive way. I couldn’t help but scrunch my entire face shut. Moreover, the lemon lent it a fetid overtone. I choked it down, then sat frozen for a full ten seconds as my body processed what had just happened to it. The flavor clung to my taste buds and lingered in my throat. All sense of time disappeared. When I eventually unscrewed my face and opened my eyes, I flinched again: there was a ball sitting on—in?—the mug of coffee. Red, plastic, flimsy. Like what you’d find in a ballpit. I shook my head, incredulous, and blinked. The ball was still there. I spun around, wondering if the waitress had played some sort of trick on me. Nobody there. I poked the ball, which gave slightly under the weight of my finger. It was an ordinary ball, but why was it here? I reached up to rub my eyes—and when I opened them, it was gone. Unobstructed, my gaze carried through where the ball had been and proceeded on out the window. The little boy from earlier was staring straight at me. He had abandoned the bus stop, walked to the curb of the street and raised his head—only his head—to look at me. His arms hung down, flaccid, and his shoulders slumped as if burdened by a heavy weight. There was no bend in his knees, though; in fact, his posture was otherwise straight as a needle. Only his head broke that line, lolling upwards nearly sixty degrees. It was like his eyes were affixed to mine, and his body merely dangled lifeless beneath. He squinted, and then a brilliant flare of pain struck me like lightning, leaving me blind. I convulsed. My windpipe tightened. And then, as quickly as it came, the pain disappeared. When the world came back into focus, the boy was nowhere to be seen. Nobody sitting at the bus stop appeared alarmed. He hadn’t walked off; at least, I don’t think he could have made it to the next block so quickly. A chill raced along my spine. There was no sign of his existence, save the coffee and lemon zest that I must have splattered at the window during one of the spasms. My hand, and the mug it clutched, was still trembling. I sat it back down on the table. “You are going to die in twelve minutes and thirty-seven seconds.” I looked left so forcefully that my neck popped and its muscles strained. “This world will end shortly after,” the boy said. “Presumably.” “Exc—” “I’m the devil,” he cut me off with a wave of his hand. “And I’m here on business. I need your help, Alfred.” “Why do you know my name?” The boy turned to me the moment I opened my mouth. “Did I not just tell who I am?” His eyes bulged. “You’re… I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head. “The devil?” “Mastema, Supay, Yanluo Wang—I’m fond of George, personally. Call me George, Alfred.” I recoiled, surprised at such an unassuming name. On second thought, though, it did suit him. If this really was the devil, he seemed like a typical young boy. No horns, no tail. Ten, eleven years old. There *was* a somewhat foul smell, but that was most likely the coffee. “And you’re here on... business.” The devil audibly exhaled and then closed his eyes. “I’m looking for a ball.” “A *ball*?” “Yes.” “Any old ball?” “No. It’s a red ball.” “A red ball.” “The shiny plastic kind, like you’d find in a ball pit. I lost it.” My ears became hot, and a different kind of tremble began working through my body. “A ball? All of this,” I gestured out at the spilled coffee. “For a fucking ball?” The boy cast me a sidelong glance, and as seamlessly as testicles entering cold water go from grapes to raisins, my anger became fear. “It’s the most important thing in the universe, Alfred.” “If you’re the devil, why don’t you get it yourself?” George did not respond immediately. “Ten minutes and forty-three seconds, Alfred.” As soon as the thought entered my mind that this was all ridiculous—and rightly so, I still think—the tightness in my throat returned. My muscles contracted, the bones in my spine cracked one by one. George’s hand crept through the air towards my forehead. The collision was jarring, as if I’d belly-flopped out of a helicopter, and then it melted into a tickling sensation. I felt light-headed. The gravity of my entire body gathered in my eyelids, like a startled soul discovering an exit to its pot. “See for yourself, then.” Gravity pulled stronger and stronger at me; within a few seconds it was all I could do to keep my head upright. Next it drooped, and then I collapsed on top of my thighs. Still heavier it grew; the force pried apart my knees and, inch by inch, I descended into a standing pike position. My hamstrings reached their limit; something snapped. I could not scream. The force got stronger and I was yanked into a prone position, and then the dragging started. Led by my eyelids I was dragged across the cafe floor, body limp behind me, more and more quickly until everything became a blur. I bounced down the stairs, sailed out the door and flew through the park. Eventually a clocktower rose in front of me and, with one final yank, I was left dangling in front of its face. “What time is it, Alfred?” George materialized upon the ledge in front of me. “12:57,” I said, surprised to not feel the presence of any bumps or bruises. “And 4 seconds,” he added. “The Bulge will occur at 12:59.” “The Bulge?” George looked up at me and rubbed his chin. “Are you familiar with the concept of perdurantism, Alfred?” “I can’t say that I am, no.” “It’s a philosophical take on a physics problem, to be brief.” George stepped off the ledge and walked through the air to where I was floating, then placed one arm around my shoulders and gestured towards the clocktower with the other. “What do you suppose we’d see if I were to remove some of these bricks?” He asked. “The inside of the building, of course.” “Precisely!” he said. “Your current position prevents you from physically observing that the tower extends back a ways, but you know that it does. Although you can only see its face, your experience tells you that there is depth to the building, too. It *is* three dimensional, after all.” “That’s correct,” I said, frowning. George nodded. “When we approach the building from a different angle, we confirm that there is more to it than originally met the eye,” He walked towards the corner of the tower, taking me with him. “Perdurantism assumes the same of your temporal being—that it has a persistent depth, of sorts, which is beyond our perception. Fitzgerald put it more romantically: *I don’t ask you to love me always like this, but I ask you to remember. Somewhere inside me there’ll always be the person I am to-night.* The Bulge is a sort of singularity in which all of those tendrils extending throughout time collapse into a single moment, rendering the rest of eternity nothing but empty space.” At that moment, as if on cue, the clocktower bulged. That’s not the right word, exactly, but it’s hard to describe what happened. Imagine a nuclear bomb detonating beneath an indestructible rubber. The building swelled up like a balloon castle, as if it were special effects in a low-budget movie, and then deflated in upon itself. Upon reaching the ground, a blast surged off in all directions, distorting everything it touched. The wave extended beyond the horizon before my eyes had finished widening in shock. “Look more closely, Alfred.” I was too stunned to respond, but the devil continued, anyway. “Any second, now.” And then I saw it: an encroaching darkness. “With every second that passes, more and more of the world will step off the gangplank of time. You are witnessing the Void—or as Henri Bergson put it, *the pure present, the ungraspable advance of your past devouring its future*. In less than a minute nothing will remain of the city,” he said, “nothing except for you, Alfred.” “*Me*? Why *me*?” The devil grinned. It began as something small and measured, quickly reaching the limits of what could be considered a polite smile before suddenly stiffening. His chest heaved once—he appeared both relaxed and tensed at the same time, if that’s possible. Like someone in the shower who had just barely managed to keep hold of their bar of soap, breathing a sigh of relief but not quite ready to move yet, lest the slippery thing pop out after all. At last, the soap won: a monstrous grin ate away at his face. The smile itself looked pleasant enough, friendly even, but it was spoiled by his eyes: within them were the depths of hell, a million helpless souls gazing back at me. I had not yet made up my mind about him, but with that single glance I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that before me stood the devil. “Because someone loved you very, *very* much.” I blinked. His words struck me of my terror, or perhaps they resonated with something deeper. “*Who?”* I heard myself blurt out. “I’m not at liberty to discuss that, unfortunately. Business, you know.” The devil straightened the tie of his school uniform—silk, judging from its shimmer—and then yanked on his lapel, ridding it of wrinkles and any trace of his outburst. “Suffice it to say that you do not belong here, and this world can not coexist with you. Brick by brick the clocktower will fade away, and once it is gone, the Void will consume me, too. You will be a ghost condemned to forever wander the alleys of a neighborhood without neighbors, long smothered but with nowhere for your soul to go,” the devil said. He gave his blazer one final tug and then looked back up at me, seemingly satisfied with his tidying. “A Soviet biophysicist once wrote that the fading of a mind is much more terrible still than that of an entire universe. I agree, Alfred.” “Can’t you stop it?” The devil bit his lip, then released it into a small smile that contained none of the passion it had a moment before. I’m not sure if he had read my mind or simply peered into my eyes, but whatever he saw caused his entire demeanor to change. He contemplated me; weighing his words, uncertain of their consequences. “I can not change the future,” he said, finally. “I merely see it.” We stood there staring at each other as the clock approached one, silent, the world falling away around us. The darkness advanced—not in a hurried or uniform fashion; rather like a toddler only half certain how to maneuver its feet. In lulls and meandering, but tirelessly nonetheless. “Twenty seven seconds, Alfred.” It had reached the clocktower now, and as its bricks disappeared, the gears and levers they hid peeked out at me. “I’ll help you.” The devil once again placed his hand upon my forehead—moving much more quickly this time, I might add. My feet became anchors and I was pulled into the depths of the void. Eventually my toes touched the street and the world rebuilt itself in front of my eyes; my heels were pulled out from under me and everything melted into a blur. \- When I came to, I was sitting in the same armchair as before, the devil next to me. “What now? Rather than responding, Gorge stood up and walked over to the cheval mirror. He reached up, grasped its upper frame and then spun it twice. The pane was now pitch black. “We’re the reflection,” he explained, taking a step back. “There is no light coming from the inside of a mirror, so you can’t see anything from over here.” “What now?” “Just step inside.” “But it’s a mirror?” “Touch the glass.” I hesitated. “Do you need to see the world end again?” A lump formed in my throat. “Me first?” “Of course,” he said. “God knows how troublesome it would be if you changed your mind and I had to find my way back here again. I might not make it back in time!” I took a step and was immediately stricken by a blinding light. “Welcome,” said the devil, “to the other side of the clocktower.


The glow of the LED cast a circle of red light around Tommy’s wrist. He looked up and shouted, “C’mon Lee! It’s fixin’ to be eleven soon!” Lee scurried over, the knot of his stomach twisting as the weight of embarrassment set in. “Goddamn idiot!” Lee murmured to himself. He’d been waiting months for a chance at this trip. He could not afford another embarrassing mistake. Was everything ready? Lee double checked his mental list. He had inventoried the cigarette boxes. He had extra cash for gas. He had his .22 in the glovebox. Tommy knew the route. Tommy stood leaning against their van fiddling with the source of the LED, a digital watch attached to a gold band. He continued to bark orders at Lee as he ran over. Lee quietly apologized as he arrived, and both men were soon in the van and on their way. For the first hour or so they sat quietly, listening to the gentle rumble of the engine as it trotted down the road. Both were too exhausted to say anything, they had been working for over fourteen hours getting the cargo ready. Lee only occasionally broke the silence to help spot deer in the road. “I didn’t mean to snap at you son,” Tommy at last spoke, “you’ve been doing good lately. Taking initiative. You just have to learn to trust me when I tell you what to do and move with a sense of purpose.” Son? He was hardly five years older than Lee, who wasn’t sure if Tommy meant it as a veiled insult. Didn’t matter if it was. A few more of these trips and he’d have enough money to bring a load up north himself. Tommy continued to drone on, Lee only half listened. “Yessir, thank you, thank you…” was all he could bring himself to say. Pretty soon both men returned to their silence. After some time, the headlights flickered onto a billboard on the side of the road. On it read, “Howell for Governor.” Tommy gestured towards it, “That deal right there makes fifty miles to Maryland,” he said, “Yep, I measured it last trip with this new watch. Tells the time with numbers like a computer. No hands or nothing and it reads in the dark too.” Lee wondered how it might feel on his own wrist. Maybe instead of that watch, he might one day just buy a simple gold band. Something just to peek out of his sleeve when he shook someone’s hand. Lee quickly shook himself back to reality. No time to daydream when he could learn how to get the real thing soon. “The boys we’re selling these too, they sell them in Baltimore?” asked Lee. “Nah, Philadelphia. You wouldn’t believe the tobacco taxes there if I told you. They just meet us halfway. After that they sell them to Koreatown for their shops.” “Why don’t we just sell directly to them?” Tommy shrugged and shook his head, “cause they don’t buy from no one they don’t know. It’s fine by me, makes the trip shorter.” Lee made a quick mental note. He needed someone up north to get him in touch directly with the customers. His cousin was in Delaware for college...that’s pretty close, right? At that moment the van snaked around a corner, and the headlights went from illuminating trees to illuminating a car parked haphazardly in the road with the hood open. Inside the car sat a young woman, eyes closed. As the van came to a halt, she opened her eyes and began to shout incomprehensibly. Lee thought that she may have said something about her engine not working. On his right, Lee heard the faint yet distinctive noise of dead leaves being crushed under foot. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a blur which quickly disappeared from view. Lee came to the sudden realization of what was happening. He went to reach for his .22, his arm moving unexpectedly slow. Anxiety had made his movement sluggish, and two steel barrels were jammed into his cheek by the time his hand reached the latch of the glove compartment. Lee turned his eyes to the left to look at Tommy, a similar situation. A tall, slim man stood with a Ruby model pistol pointed towards the driver’s seat. “What in the hell do y’all think you’re doing?” Snarled Tommy. The man to his left grinned, spreading his attempt at a moustache thin across his upper lip. “Yep,” he said, “This is Tommy Jackson.” Tommy was speechless for a moment, before weakly forcing out a question, “don’t y’all know these cigarettes are for Louie Regio’s boys?” “Yeah, I know Reggie. Get out of the van.” Both men silently complied. As they got down, Lee was able to get a good look at his own captor. A man on the stockier side, his fingers were pale white from his death grip on his sawn off shotgun. “By the way, I saw that you fell fucking asleep!” The slim man shouted at the young woman, who by now had exited the car. She replied, “Shit, it’s hot sitting in there! And it gets boring!” The slim man made no attempt to respond, instead he turned to his stocky companion to mutter some instructions. The twin barrels of his shotgun remained on Tommy and Lee, swaying steadily in his nervous grip. After the slim man finished, he and his companion lead Tommy and Lee off the road into a low lying clearing. As they walked, Tommy stealthily slipped his hand into his pocket. Lee felt a slimmer of hope, did he have an extra pistol hidden away by chance? Tommy’s hand and wrist reemerged empty. He was hiding his watch. Lee figured Tommy hadn’t quite realized the situation they were in. The stocky man flinched with each shot. The recoil always did that to him. As they re-emerged from the forest, the slim man put his hand on the shoulder of the other and said, “Not too bad, next time just try to move with more of a sense of purpose.” The stocky man nodded in reply. The woman sood waiting for them in the road, car idling and re-oriented to leave. The two men climbed into the van, following her car as it gently turned the corner.


After a brief hiatus, we’re back for more spotlights from our recently concluded cycle of Serial Saturday! It’s been such a treat to watch people develop their stories with us and bring arcs to a close that for some have been with us for quite a while. For a good handful of writers on Serial Saturday, their stories are continuations of stories that started on /r/writingprompts. For those who have participated in WP contests, you may remember some faces of this next tale from /u/Kammerice. Here at we thoroughly enjoyed /u/Kammerice’s story of gritty noir fiction, featuring a mouse on the tail of a murderer with powerful connections and means. There was a reason why Kammerice’s episodes ended up in our fan favorites so much-- the worldbuilding and character work is impeccable, not to mention, the story is immersive and leaves us wanting more. But don't take my word for it! Here's a small teaser: >THE DIPLOMACY OF MURDER > >Dead mice are as common as the cold, but a foreign envoy murdered in a low-rent part of town is strange, even for Elmgrove City. A Marshal is needed to avoid a diplomatic incident and it’s chain-smoking Blueberry Obcas’ bad luck that he gets the call. With Sergeant Zielen of the City Watch, the investigation takes him into the city’s matted underbelly and the world of political conspiracies. Rubbing whiskers with conviving spies and backstabbing civil servants, he uncovers a plot to assassinate the Mayor of Elmgrove City. Will Obcas be able to catch the killer before they strike again? For our first run of Serial Saturday at it was important for us to get author impressions of how their experience went with us, and give readers a peek at the "behind the scenes" of creating a flash fiction serial. Here's Kammerice’s take on that: >Obcas has been with me for a couple of years now, debuting for r/WritingPrompts 6th Birthday competition in 2018 in a piece that has since gone on to be (almost) a novel. Since then, I've written about that cantankerous mouse every chance I've gotten. Last year, I finally started interacting with the WP writing community, I began submitting Obcas pieces for Theme Thursday. When Serial Saturday was announced, I took the opportunity to rewrite the TT pieces into something more coherent with an ending in mind rather than just chasing a new prompt each week. > >Writing for SerSat has been a challenge. I've found myself looking forward to Campfire each week, which has meant writing something that people would want to hear! I've also wanted to forge ahead, explain some aspects in greater detail or bring in new characters, but the word limit always gets in the way. This is has been fantastic and infuriating in equal measures: lines of dialogue and entire minor characters have been sacrificed to keep me on target, but this has meant the story is more focused than anything I've written before. > >Serial Saturday has been the first time I've had live audience feedback, and the difference that's made is unbelievable. I never tailored the story to subvert (or even meet) expectations, but hearing thoughts and theories about the plot, week on week, was uplifting and encouraging. The critiques I've received have been accurate and helpful, friendly but not patronising. I'm looking forward to working on Obcas' next case in SerSat2021! With *The Diplomacy of Murder* at an end (for now) there is only one thing left to do: show off this newly finished story for obligatory bragging rights here on . Let the bragging begin! Without further ado, here's /u/Kammerice’s Table of Contents. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ (not posted to r/shortstories) (not posted to r/shortstories) \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ You can check out more of Kammerice's work by going to their subreddit, /r/The_Obcas_Files. Congrats on finishing your serial, Kammerice, and we can’t wait to see what you do next. <3 from the team at , , and Serial Saturday. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ *For more information on the Serial Saturday program feel free to check out our* *.* We have members from all around the world and who have all kinds of schedules, so there’s usually someone awake to talk to. We also have scheduled readings, oration critiques, spur-of-the-moment story time, or even just random hangouts over voice chat.


It’s been such a treat to watch people evolve their flash fiction serials with us and bring arcs to a close that for some have been with us for quite a while. For a good handful of writers on Serial Saturday, their stories are continuations of serials started on Theme Thursday weekly threads. One such story comes from /u/Mobaisle_writing, a regular from /r/writingprompts. Here at we thoroughly enjoyed /u/Mobaisle_writing’s story of the Witch and her “apprentice”, aka a random teenager she kidnapped who happened to be able to stomach her potions. Mobaisle’s tackling of SerSat covers just a couple of days in-world, but shows us an adventure with stakes that only get higher, you’ll definitely want more by the end! But don't take my word for it! Here's a small teaser: >*The Crossroads are returning. Scouts make contact from other planes. A Beast Tide threatens the Church Protectorate of Leadenford. Secular and religious forces clash and a Witch arrives at the dusty border town of Edgefall, changing Ernst’s life forever.* For our first run of Serial Saturday at it was important for us to get author impressions of how their experience went with us, and give readers a peek at the "behind the scenes" of creating a flash fiction serial. Here's Mobaisle’s take on that: >Lots of people have now written on the specifics of their story’s journey. To shake things up a bit I thought I’d outline why I believe the Serial Saturday programme has been important, particularly in the context of writing on Reddit. > >It’s fairly easy to start writing micro or short fiction. With some work, it’s not too hard to find places to receive feedback and hone your skills. However, how do you make the shift to writing longer works? > >Jumping right in with a novel, is – not to put too fine a point on it – fucking daunting for most people. The change in requirements from writing a 500 word short to writing a novella or a novel is not insubstantial. An awful lot of things to worry about; from character progression, to B plots, to thematic handling, to world building and coherence. And they *all* suddenly start crawling out of the woodwork. > >In tackling a longer work, most of the support systems and feedback networks geared toward short or micro fiction are no longer of use. Hopefully over the course of interacting with others during attending campfires or being an active part of a writing community you would have developed some friends or confidants with whom you more regularly share and compare work, but suddenly dropping an entire novel on someone is neither polite nor useful. > >For a start, the critiquing skills gap between short fiction and longer works is *significant*. > >So how do you bridge that gap? > >Writing a serial is definitely one way to go about that. If you complete 15-40 episodes of a serial, at 750 - 1k words each, you’ve built yourself the framework for a novella. With any luck, and assuming you’ve managed to find an audience, you might have built yourself interest in the world you’re writing as well. > >But is it really that easy? > >To put it entirely bluntly, Reddit has an awful lot of serials, spread across a wide number of subreddits, but the vast majority of them do not elicit all that much feedback or even necessarily viewers. A majority will remain unfinished. > >Finding regular feedback and skills help for writing serials is not easy, despite them being ostensibly the logical next step toward writing longform fiction. The serial programme aimed to change that. > >And it succeeded. > >Over the 16 weeks of Serial Saturday it’s been fantastic to see people’s writing styles evolve. The participants not only developed their stories, themes, and skills, but became more adept at helping each other and critiquing across longer form works. The mutual progress everyone made was incredible. We’ve seen a great variety of worlds and genres displayed from a group of writers who had widely divergent starting points. Judging by the NaNoWriMo posts on the /r/WritingPrompts discord server, many of the writers involved took the programme as a jumping off point to start tackling novels directly. > >To me, that’s been the greatest success of Serial Saturday. It’s built up a mutually beneficial and positive community on a sub that, let’s be honest, doesn’t have one. With the tale of *The Witch* at an end (for now) there is only one thing left to do: show off this newly finished story for obligatory bragging rights here on . Let the bragging begin! Without further ado, here's Mobaisle’s Table of Contents. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ ## Table of Contents * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *\~Switch to* /r/ShortStories*\~* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ You can check out more of Mob's work by going to their subreddit, /r/The_Crossroads. Congrats on finishing your serial, Mob, and we can’t wait to see what you do next. <3 from the team at , , and Serial Saturday. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ *For more information on the Serial Saturday program feel free to check out our* *.* We have members from all around the world and who have all kinds of schedules, so there’s usually someone awake to talk to. We also have scheduled readings, oration critiques, spur-of-the-moment story time, or even just random hangouts over voice chat.


The world was amazing with her. Since we met and became close three years ago, we spent almost every other day together. Mariah. Just seeing her name appear on my phone from a text message would generate a warmth in my chest that I didn’t even know was possible. I was never the shy type, but to even come up with anything clever to say to let her know was interested in her other than a friend was impossible. For the first year, we hung out at each others’ houses, went on “friend” dates, and supported each other through our ups and downs in our lives. It was July 17, 2019, when we had our first intimate moment. We had known each other for about a year when her dad was killed by a drunk driver on I-75 coming from watching football with his friends four days before. She was a wreck emotionally. Her mom left when she was four, so she was left alone with him her whole life. She was 22 now, but she was still a daddy’s girl. I had love for the old man, too. I had many conversations with him about sports, cars, and all “guy” stuff that you would expect. He even went as far to get me a birthday present for my 23rd back in March. It wasn’t much, a hoodie from my favorite music artist. The night he gave it to me, Mariah and I were talking at one of our usual spots we hung out at when we had long talks and laughed. “You know, I’ve never seen my Dad give anyone a birthday present that wasn’t family.” she said with a smile. “What? No way!” I was kinda shocked. I never did anything that amazing for him to deserve a gift. I figured he was just being nice. “Yeah, I’m serious. He must really like you being around.” In the light, her skin beamed and her eyes shined. She gave me a smile that forced me to smile, too. I didn’t know if I was hopelessly imagining it, but the look she gave me in that moment made me think that there was a possibility that I could reach out to her and tell her how I actually felt. Tell her that I am actually madly in love with her and couldn’t imagine being with anyone else in the world. She’s the most gorgeous person I had ever seen, that her kindness and compassion, her laugh, her smile, her mind, what she wanted out of life inspired me to try and be better. She convinced me to go back to school and finish my degree. I think back now, that I could’ve reached out then and succeeded. Yet, I bit my tongue and laughed it off. The next four days after her Dad died, she locked herself in her room, and didn’t leave the house. I couldn’t imagine what she was going through. I never was close to my parents. Once I turned 18, I left and never looked back. I texted her every few hours to let her know I was there for her. I ran all over town gathering all of her favorite foods, snacks, and drinks to try and cheer her up. I had a bag from McDonald’s, a frappe from Starbucks, chimichangas from La Mejor Comida, and a pound of her favorite candy, Kit-kats. It was the evening of the fourth day. It was raining and tried to cover everything with my jacket as I ran up to her door. Her house had no porch to cover me from the rain. I called and knocked repeatedly with no answer. I thought about leaving maybe this was weird, or would make her mad. Doubt of my plan to make her feel better was a dud. As I went to turn away, I heard the door unlock and open slowly. I looked back and Mariah stood there in the doorway. Her eyes red and dry from running out of tears to cry, hair a mess, no make-up, and in one of hoodies she stole a while back. “Hey, uh. I couldn’t hold myself to leave you alone any longer even though it’s what you like when you’re sad. I didn’t want you to be alone…” I said. She looked me up and down with the face full of pain, but then her lip quivered a little and she stepped aside so I could come in. I entered and turned to the kitchen table and started placing everything down. “I’m sorry if anything is a little wet! I did everything I could to keep it dry.” She turned towards me and buried herself in a hug in my chest and I could feel her jerk as she was biting down a few sobs. After I got over the unexpectedness, I cautiously wrapped my arms around her and held her tight. “I’m so sorry..” She lifted her head and her eyes met mine and I could see all the pain she was feeling. My heart sank seeing someone I cared so deeply about hurting. I started to say more, then she shut me up by leaning into a kiss that lasted for awhile. When we separated, I looked into her eyes and she met mine. “I love you” It slipped out. I didn’t even process what I had said at first. Until, she started laughing. Deep hearted laughter that hurts after a while. I was confused at first until she kissed me again. “I know you do, dork. I’ve known for a long time. I love you too, I was just waiting for you to say it first, Drew.” I couldn’t help but smile as my heart swelled full. I felt like every main character in the movies when they finally got the girl at the end. We spent the rest of the night eating and laughing, then I stayed the night. She let me hold her all night, then the next day we went to the memorial for her dad, together. For the next two years, we started officially dating. We traveled the country and made numerous memories. We moved into a small apartment together, life was good. It was the best time of my life every minute I spent with her. I love her so much even to this day. And that is why it hurts so much when I scroll through Instagram and see a picture of her with her new man. Jaylen smacked me on my shoulder to get my attention. “Aye, man. You gonna pass the joint or nah? You been holding it for a minute.” I looked down at my hand and saw the paper had gone out. “My bad, dog. I wasn’t paying attention.” “You always doing that shit when you get on the ‘gram and see her ass with that lame.” He re-lit the joint and hit it a couple times. “C’mon Drew. Let’s go to the store down the street and get some drinks before we head over to Jared’s for the party.” I was still staring at the picture and the hole in my heart grew even bigger, trying to figure out where it went wrong. Without saying anything, I got up, grabbed my keys, and went with him out the door. “Look man, I know she did you wrong but it’s been two years! You gotta move on past that shit. I told that girl Laura to bring her friend Sofia, so you could talk to her more. You kow she into you!” I laughed and just said, “Good looks, bro.” We left the house, but she was still on my mind. It’s a hard thing to accept, when it happens. Sometimes people fall in love and sometimes they fall out of love, too.


Most of my adult life, I’ve been told that home ownership has its quirks. That there’s always more work to be done, more problems to be solved, things that need fixing. When I bought my house, I found a few arcade game style coin slots on the walls. I figured, of course, that the previous owner must have been really into the whole "retro aesthetic" and maybe that they had some arcade cabinets to go along with it. I only ever saw the house after they moved everything out, you know, an empty home, but I don't remember seeing these coin slots on any of the walls. A few days go by, and my wife and I have sorted through all most of the boxes of important stuff. I crack open a beer (pretty much the only thing we had in the fridge so far) and a coin slot, just a little past the fridge down the front hall, catches my eye. It looked to me like it was glowing. I chalked it up to being some sort of trick of the light, because I would have noticed a glowing coin slot there before. I went over to inspect it, really get a good look at one of these things. Once we were all settled in, the other coin slots would get my attention and I'll get about removing them, but at that moment, I decided I needed to focus my attention on this one in particular. The coin slot was glowing alright. There was no weird light reflection as far as I could tell. I took a long sip of my beer and then touched it. I don't know what I was expecting. The coin slot had the exact same feel that it looked like it should. I wrapped my fingertips around the edges and tried to pry it loose a bit, give it a wiggle, but it wouldn't budge. There didn't seem to be any obvious way to uninstall the coin slot without doing serious damage to the drywall. A task for later, I supposed. I pushed the plastic coin return button a few times. An intense sense of satisfaction washed over me, or maybe that was just the beer after a long day of unpacking. I'd get to it tomorrow. The morning came, and I walked downstairs to find my wife pressing a coin slot. A new one, right there in the kitchen. I was sure we would have noticed it yesterday while putting away all the dishes and kitchenware, but obviously not. She was standing there, coffee in hand, just pushing the button over and over again. She hardly noticed I had even come into the kitchen. I grabbed her by the hips and asked what she was doing, and it was like knocking her out of a trance. She told me that she just noticed the coin slot and she was just having fun pushing the button. I told her how they're going to be tough to remove, but she said I don't need to get rid of *all* of them. That leaving this one around at least would be fine. I had to admit that pushing the coin return button was pretty fun. We spent the day straightening things out around the house and it seemed like every time we moved some furniture, or put something away, we'd find another coin slot fixed to the wall or the floor or in a cabinet or under a sink. It felt fun. We'd call out to each other each time we'd discover another. "PLAYER ONE!" I'd yell when I found one and "PLAYER TWO" when my wife found one. Then we'd press the button in several times, even though she seemed to get a little carried away sometimes. This went on all day and we really enjoyed finding these coin slots, until the day was over, and we sat back to relax. It started to really hit us how weird it was to have a house with retro arcade coin slots all over. I tried to shake the spooky feeling crawling up my spine. Surely, they were all there before and we just hadn't noticed them all with the excitement of a new house, our first house by the way. Again, I wanted to celebrate the hard work with a beer and my eye was immediately drawn to the same coin slot as the night before. Still glowing, maybe even brighter this time. I called out to my wife, who was idly pressing a coin slot button on the floor while watching TV and asked her if we had any quarters anywhere. She perked up and ran upstairs. My eyes remained on the orange glow of the coin slot as I heard her rummaging through who knows what upstairs. She came thumping quickly down the stairs with a quarter pinched between her fingers. I grabbed it. This wave of nervous anxiety kind of washed over me and I didn't know why. Maybe this coin slot led nowhere. Maybe I was about to drop a coin into my wall and never see it again. Why was I apprehensive? I held my breath and dropped the coin in. The house was silent as my wife and I stilly waited and listened. We heard the coin clank down some unseen path and for far further than just to the floor. My wife ran upstairs to find more quarters and I hurried downstairs to see if the coin landed somewhere in the basement. The basement which I remember being unfinished and totally empty. I would be able to spot a quarter if it had dropped down there. My heavy steps stressed the unpainted wooden stairs. I pulled the strings of the exposed bulbs to shed some light on my situation, but the bulbs were not very bright. I was amazed and a bit frightened to see the basement walls and floors covered in retro coin slots. All the same. All the same orange "Insert to Play" style coin slots. I walked slowly through them trying to set aside this strange fact and find the quarter. The buttons illuminated under my bare feet with each step, so it I stepped cautiously. I don't know why. I felt like I needed to be delicate and quiet. Overhead, I heard my wife drop another quarter into the slot. I listened for it, could hear it shuffled through some path, but I couldn't pin point the direction. The clinking and clanging echoed from every direction. Disorienting. Then I heard more quarters, much more quarters. The coin slots all around me were flashing now. That orange glow felt harsh and alive. These quarters weren't emptying here. Not at all. I stumbled a bit as I made for the stairs. There were coin slots on each step now as I used my hands for balance and climbed up the stairs. I opened the door to the main level to find my wife shoving quarters into coin slots all over. Not just the one from before, from just a few minutes ago, but all over. There were coin slots blanketing the wall, on the railing, on the ceiling, on the floor. My wife's arms were overflowing with quarters. Where did she get all these? We've never had this much change. She was muttering to herself, "ready player two, ready player two, ready player two." She squatted low, dropping coin after coin into the slots and pushing the buttons. The rigid edges of the plastic buttons dug into my bare feet. I stumbled over to my wife and put my hands on her shoulders to turn her around and face me. Her eyes were vacant. She kept muttering her words, the coin slot's words. The only light around me was the erratic and blinding orange glow of thousands and thousands of retro arcade coin slots. I squinted and slapped the side of my head trying to focus on my ailing wife. All I could hear was the quarters, so many quarters, slinking through slots to some unknown destination. When I opened my eyes, I saw my wife no longer sinking her coins into the floor and walls, but into herself. Her thighs had coin slots now, no different than the walls. Her arms had coin slots as well. She kept muttering and muttering and dropping in coin after coin into the grotesque coin slots fused to her flesh. The words, the muttering, the coins, the clinking. Where were they going? What happened to my wife? I just got up and ran. Every surface, every square inch of my new home, my once beautiful new home, was covered in flashing coin slots. My feet were bloody now from stomping across the coin slots, but I didn't care. I reached for the front door and noticed a coin slot on my own forearm. As disgusted as I was, as frantic as I was to leave this house, as scared and worried about what my wife had become as I was, I just couldn't help but press in that glowing orange button. I suddenly realized I was holding a quarter. Letting go of the knob to the front door, I fell to the ground. The coin slot. The quarter. The coin slot. The quarter. The clinking of the coins through the house. The mutter of my wife in the background. The flashing orange glow surrounding and overwhelming me. I slid the quarter into my coin slot, and it felt so good.


“Molly’s Rocking Chair” Molly Stanley tied her little boy to the rocking chair. Theodore was a runner and she didn’t want him getting to the railroad tracks. As her only child he was a precious thing if there ever was one. So Theodore sat tied to that chair and he rocked. He rocked and he giggled, dreaming of running off to places his tiny mind couldn’t realistically conjure up. Theodore then proceeded to do what everyone does if they are lucky, he grew. But grow as he may have, the rocking chair remained a constant friend. He sat there at night as he read by the fire, he sat there after school and contemplated the cruelties of little children and he sat there and rocked pensively as his mother slowly died just after his 18th birthday. Molly’s shadow would linger over him each time he sat in the chair for the rest of his days. In the midst of his grief Theodore found love. Anna Lee stole his heart and repaired so completely that it astounded him. She took his name and they cemented their love. The child arrived the same week he got a letter from the president inviting him on an all-expenses paid vacation overseas in exchange for some light work. He cradled his little Josephine and shed a single tear for the time he’d lose as he read the letter and rocked. Theodore got a strange surprise as he began his service, this work made sense to him. Something about the sameness of routine just felt right. He was slightly shaken when he saw combat, but he found he could adjust. He rose steadily through the military ranks and saw parts of the world he’d only read of in books. He would come home on leave to Anna Lee and bounce Josephine on his knee as he rocked in the comfort of his chair and marveled at the brisk passage of time. He’d sit there and think about the distant lovers he’d had that he’d never speak of again and tried to push the guilt down beneath his feet as if he could walk on it. As naturally as Theodore took to military life, war finds a way to take its toll on everyone. For him it was the unfortunate presence of a landmine where his jeep happened to be driving. As these things go, Theodore was lucky. His life and limbs were mostly spared, both legs broken and one hand so damaged it would never be quite right again but he’d escaped with his life and could only be grateful. The recovery was difficult and lonely. The only comfort was letters from home. Anna Lee wrote of Josephine’s progress in school and funny things she’d said at bedtime. There were no passionate declarations of love or longing, making him wonder if she was suspicious of something, but he knew they would never discuss it. At long last his injuries had healed and his military days were over. He emerged from his long absence a slightly different man, old friends remarked how the wanderlust that had characterized his youth had all but vanished. It was replaced by a simple desire to remain in one place and be near his family. He would spend his days running a small grocery store and his nights in the rocking chair reading novel after novel and nursing a large cup of black coffee that somehow never managed to disrupt his sleep. The years went by and things didn’t change much. Theodore’s hair turned grey and Josephine married and had six kids of her own. The store served him well enough until he couldn’t ignore retirement anymore. More free time meant a great deal more time in the rocking chair, reflecting on choices and wondering if there was anything worth changing if such a thing were possible. He would watch baseball games and try to interest Anna Lee in the finer points of the sport but she mostly ignored him. Anna Lee stayed by his side even as arguments became a regular feature of their marriage. She found something to fight with him about almost daily. The pangs of guilt he hadn’t managed to suppress told him he deserved it. Somewhere in the neighborhood of his mid-seventies Theodore’s health began to fail him. He still held court from his rocking chair but his voice was weakening and he could no longer bounce the great grandchildren on his knee. He rocked back and forth reflecting on the life he’d lived, he considered himself very lucky and thanked whatever force happened to be in charge for his good fortune. He had hoped to die in the rocking chair but his body didn’t afford him that luxury. Instead he died in a hospital, though by the end his mind was foggy enough he believed he was in the chair anyway, tied to it again with Mother Molly by his side. Theodore’s family grieved for him full heartedly for a long time, but grief like every feeling dulls with time and eventually it was time to decide what was to become of his possessions. The only one anyone seemed to care about was the rocking chair. Anna Lee for her part couldn’t bear to see it sit empty, let alone to sit in it herself. So it passed to Josephine. She gave it a place of honor in her home and told each visitor how it was Daddy’s favorite chair and how great Grandma Molly would tie him to it to keep him from running away. The chair held up remarkably well through the years as it endured children rocking in it too hard and spilled drinks. It also continued its longtime function as a place of reflection. Josephine’s grandson sat in it the night his grandfather died and vowed to remember the rhythm of the chair and the feeling of despair forever. He would sit in it again as an adult and try to imagine the kind of man his great grandfather was as the memories of those who knew him evolved into myth. Josephine told him that if that rocking chair could somehow find a way to talk it could probably tell more about Theodore than anyone. If only.


The tick-tocking sound of clocks surrounded the old man. He was studiously putting together something he believed to be one of his finest works. It was a more modern looking clock, sleek and shiny. It was far away from his normal method of clock-building but it had a definite sway of beauty in it that would captivate any the beholder. He was just putting the finishing touches on it. He was a hard looking old man who seemed dedicated to his craft above all else in the world. He was short in stature and slightly rounder near the middle of his body which gives way to the idea that he either liked the sweeter foods in life or that he did not get around very much. He was gray of hair and lacking any on top. He had quite long and unkempt beard which fell between his thighs while seated and to his stomach while standing. He was also missing a few teeth which made him whistle certain sounds when spoken. The old man was in a very large room, deep on all sides and quite dark except for the small candle light which lit the table in which he worked. All that could be heard in this cavernous room is the echoing of hundreds if not thousands of ticking clocks. Yet despite the cacophony of sounds, it left a kind of silence which allowed the old man to work undisturbed. “Aha! Its done!” The old man said gleefully. He held his new piece of art in front of him and admired it for a few moments, beaming all the while. He wound the clock up and put it to his ear to listen. “Ah, just as it should be.” He waddled over to a side of the room, each step he took looked harder to do than the last but he managed all the same. He placed the clock on the wall and adjusted it several times to ensure it was just so and then backed away to admire his work again. On this wall were layers upon layers of his finest achievements. So many there were that it was surprising he found any room at all for his newest accomplishment. He stared proudly a few minutes more of his handiwork before retreating slowly back to his desk. At which he began drawing out a new design, one which would surpass even his newly crowned jewel. Due to being thoroughly engrossed with his new project he did not hear nor see the man who had suddenly appeared directly in front of him and who silently watched him work for several moments. “Good evening to you Father.” The man said. The old man jumped back with a sudden start that he almost fell out of his chair. “Good heavens child, do not start me so! I am old as it is and do not need your help in finding an early grave!” The man was no more than thirty years of age. He had medium length black hair which was sleeked back. He had very strong cheek bones and would have looked even more intimidating than he did had he not had a resting smirk on his face which seemed to be his default look. “What is it you want my boy?” The old man said still attempting to slow his racing heart. “I apologize for startling you so Father. But I do believe we have matters to discuss.” The younger man said. “Is that so? What matters do you believe so important as to appear before me during my working hours?” The old man replied. “The Masters have been a long time discussing change in structure.” The younger man said. “I have heard nothing of this boy, what is this change you speak of?” The old man asked. “The world is changing Father and we need to change with it. We believe it is time for you to step down as Father Time and let someone else take your place.” The younger man said. “What is the meaning of this? Are you mad?” The old man laughed. “Do you believe anyone else is capable of doing this job other than me?” “Yes. As a matter of fact I believe it wholeheartedly.” The younger man said darkly. As he spoke these words, several other men came out of the shadows which surrounded them and encircled the table. The old man looked around astonished then recovered himself and frowned deeply. “I believe I made a grave mistake trusting—” Before he could say anything else, the young man clapped his hands together and rotated them while muttering some words under his breath. With that, the old man froze in his chair no longer speaking nor moving. The others lifted the old man out of his chair and carried him off out of the room. All that remained was the ticking and tocking of his many clocks.