The following writings were found in Cabin 3-D on the Mt. Baker hiking trail. To whomever finds this, My name is Trenton Briggs, it’s January 4th, 1992, and by the time you read this, I will be dead. I’m writing this to document my experiences over the past day. Please don’t let my mother read this, as I don’t wish to subject her to the horrors of reading her child’s final moments. It was January 2nd when a group of friends and I decided to take the fateful hike up Mt. Baker. We’d heard from a couple work colleagues that it was the best hike in the state. Second to none, nothing like it. A life-changing experience. So we thought, fuck it. We’re young, healthy, a full life ahead of us. We strapped on our boots, threw on our jackets, met up at my place, and headed out towards the mountain. It was cold that day. The sky was clear and blue, but the sun did nothing to heat the frigid air. It cut through my jacket, tore through the layers of shirts, and stabbed deep into my skin, but the excitement for the journey warmed my spirit. As we stood at the base of the mountain, I looked up to try and see the peak of the intimidating summit. Instead, I saw nothing but monstrous mounds of snow. It was more than I had anticipated. Actually, that’s a bit of an understatement. It was the most snow I’d seen in my life. As I stared at it, I imagined my foot slipping and ungodly waves of the white powder coming down at incredible speeds, smashing into my legs, pulling me into it’s depths, and wiping away any trace of me. For a moment, I almost said something. I almost turned around and suggested coming back another day. Perhaps a warmer day, when some of the snow had a chance to melt. I was so fucking close. But, when I turned around, I saw her. Or you, if you ended up finding a way out. She was in a separate group, but we were on the same hike. She was beautiful. Her face was mostly covered by her red and teal ski jacket, but her dark brown curls protruded out onto her brown forehead. She stared up the mountain, her knees shaking with excitement. Or the cold, but I like to think it was excitement. She glided through both my and her group to get to the front of us all. She had an aura that soothed the fear in my heart, replacing the thoughts of snow with the promise of summiting. Her friends joined her at the front, and began their trek through the trees. My group, not wanting to be last, quickly followed behind them. And that was that, the journey had begun. The first hour of the hike was nothing exceptional. We crossed a couple bridges, stopped to snap pictures of waterfalls, and walked just a couple of steps behind her group. She led her group, so I guess she led mine as well. She didn’t ever stop to admire the scenery. It seemed all she was interested in was the summit. The few rests she did take were only on the top of smaller peaks, and to look at the summit. As the sun began to set, the exhaustion must have overtaken her ambition, as both of our groups stopped to catch our breaths. I decided now was as good a time as ever to introduce myself. I walked up to her, gasping for breath, and was as smooth as possible. “Sup,” I said. She looked me up and down, confused by my attempt at casual conversation. “Hey,” she said through the collar of her jacket. Her friends giggled at my awkwardness. “How are you enjoying the hike? Pretty brutal right?” I said, trying desperately to find something to talk about. “It’s not too bad, have you hiked it before?” She asked. “No, first time,” I said. “Oh, I kind of figured from your breathing,” she laughed. “But you talk like you’ve done it before.” “Yeah, no, I’m not much of an outdoors man, but I saw from the way you were leading that this seems to be your kind of thing.” “No, not really, just seemed like a good time, and why waste it lagging in the back. That seems to be your kind of thing,” she laughed again. “But if we want to make it to that cabin before dark, we better get a move on. Hopefully I see you up there, and not laying dead in the snow somewhere.” “For sure,” I said, turning back towards my group. My friends nudged my arms and joked at my awkwardness. But I didn’t mind. We rested for a little while longer, then pulled ourselves to our feet to return to the hike. We walked as the sun slowly disappeared behind the summit, getting to a cabin marked 3-D as night finally fell. I rushed to the front to open the door for everyone. “Glad to see you made it,” she said as she walked through the door, kicking her boots off and sitting on the bed nearest the sole window. My friends shook their heads and followed in. We all sat within our groups on opposite sides of the cabin, everyone shedding their coats as one of the guys from her group lit the fireplace against the wall. It was a cozy little place. All wood, snowshoes decorating the chimney, 6 beds lining the walls, and a long table separating the two groups. We sat in this segregated fashion for a while, until someone found a deck of cards in one of the nightstands next to a bed. They suggested a friendly game of poker, so we all rose out of bed and congregated at the table. I sat kiddy corner from her, as the guy who lit the fireplace dealt the cards from next to her. We played for a while, I lost more times than I care to admit, but during the game conversation between the groups began. In her group, there was Alex: the guy who lit the fireplace, Bridgette, Thomas, and her, Mable. For clarity’s sake I should say that my group consisted of myself, my buddy Donnie, his girlfriend Amy, and my other buddy Greg. Her group was a kaleidoscope of people. Bridgette was a soft-spoken girl. She was Korean, and they had met in an art class. After that the two of them became inseparable. She didn’t talk much, except to Mable. Thomas, Bridgette’s boyfriend, was a meek looking guy. Much like Bridgette, he hardly spoke, but was killing us all in the game. He was studying to become a radiation therapist, and had met Bridgette during their schools yearly culture day, where he was representing Ethiopia. I liked him. When he did talk he was funny. Cracking jokes on both his and my group. Then there was Alex. At first, I didn’t like him, if only because he sat next to Mable. But further conversation revealed that he was gay, which was a relief. After that, he ended up being really cool. He led most of the conversations, joking with everyone, not acknowledging his losses in almost every game we played. And finally, there was Mable. The brief conversation we had on the hillside did little to prepare me for the personality she held in her small brown frame. She was an artist, an adventurist, a politician in training, and a free-thinker, on top of a list of other self-proclaimed titles. But more than anything, she was a talker. Anytime someone spoke, she chimed in. She didn’t bulldoze them, she just had something to say about everything. It was kind of amazing. How can one person have so much to add? Regardless, I liked listening to her talk. Her voice was soft, but held a certain warm power. It’s hard to describe in words. It just felt as though everything she said was meant to be listened to. I liked everyone else, but I truly only wanted to listen to her. “So what about you Trenton? What do you do?” Mable asked me. “I’m a writer,” I said. “Ooo, what kind of stuff do you write? Is it smut? I won’t judge,” she asked. “No, not really. I kind of write anything. Any story that feels worth telling ya know,” I replied. “Yeah, I like that. Well, I hope this can be a story worth telling, ya know,” she laughed. After we had all lost mounds of imaginary money to Thomas, we decided to call it a night and go to sleep. As I laid in my bed, I closed my eyes and thought about the summit. I was excited. Not to see the curvature of the earth below me. But, to see Mable up there. Looking down, the sun reflecting off of her bouncy curls. That was my motivation. And it was all I needed. We woke the next day to see a fresh layer of snow had piled in front of the door. With some force we managed to push it up, and continue our journey. Our groups walked together this time. I struggled to keep pace with Mable, but I kicked through the snow as hard as I could to be by her. We didn’t make it very far before we realized how much harder it was going to be, walking at this elevation through such a thick layer of snow. We stopped after less than 5 minutes had passed and sat down. The snow was loose. Too loose to keep going. But, Donnie didn’t want to stop. He made fun of us for sitting, said we were wasting too much time. I told him that it was best to wait a bit, get our bearings and continue on. Mable told him that there was no rush, we had all day to make it up, but he wouldn’t stand for it. He walked over to Greg and pulled on his arm to stand up. When Greg said no, Donnie yanked on him, pulling him up to his feet. Greg was understandably irritated with Donnie’s refusal to listen, and told him to knock it off. Donnie, unable to understand when enough was enough, grabbed his jacket and tried pulling him up the mountain behind him. Greg shoved Donnie in the back, causing him to fall face-first into the fresh snow. Donnie got up and shoved Greg back. The two continued to shove each other back and forth, until Donnie punched Greg in the face and the two began wrestling. The commotion of the two cause snow to fly up from their feet, and their yells echoed against the surrounding rocks. Alex and I both got up to separate the two, but I lost my footing and fell hard. It took me a second to find my bearings and get back up, but when I did, I heard Bridgette's voice. It was a soft, shaky, whimper almost. “Guys, look,” she said. I turned my head towards the summit and saw something glide across the snow. “Guys, stop! Look,” Amy’s voice was more panicked than Bridgette’s, Donnie and Greg to brought their fight to a halt to join me looking up at the peak. A tsunami of enormous waves of white powder were rushing down the mountain side, quickly growing and multiplying as they picked up more and more snow. I was frozen. The image of the snow crashing into me and wrapping me in its wave jolted back into my brain. I heard Donnie and Greg get up and run back down the mountain, screaming for help, but I couldn’t move. I thought about my body falling backwards, the force of the wave crushing my spine as it threw me into the ground, my legs flying above my head, before whipping them back down again. I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I thought of the snow clogging my throat, suffocating me under the cold, wet, blanket. Until I felt her grab my hand. I looked from the summit and saw Mable. She was scared, but not for herself. “Come on! We have to go,” she pleaded, pulling my arm towards her. The feeling in my legs returned, and we ran down the hill. I could hear the snow catching up to us. It tumbled and hit the ground, showering snow behind me. It kept growing louder and louder. I looked back, and the wave towered above us, casting a massive shadow on the ground. Then I heard it. Bridgette squeaked when she hit the ground. Thomas stopped and turned around, running back up the mountain after her. Mable stopped to check on them, but I overtook her and kept running. I couldn’t stop. One after another, the members of each group tripped, slipped, slowed, and fell. Ice-cold tears filled my eyes, and Mable screamed behind me. But I couldn’t stop. The cabin came into view as my feet pounded against the snow. I was waiting. Waiting for the snow to slip out from under me, waiting to feel the weight of Mable’s fallen body pull me down, waiting for the snow to crash into my legs. It felt like a dream. I just kept running as the sounds of each of my friends faded from my ears. I just ran. And ran. And ran. Until we were at the door. I ripped the door open, and pulled Mable in as hard as I could before slamming it shut behind her. She collapsed to the ground as the wave smashed into the side of the cabin, completely blocking out the light from outside. A black blanket replaced the sun as the snow showered feet above the ceiling. “What the fuck!” She screamed, wailing into her lap. I panted and gasped for breath, as I fell to the floor by the door. “Why didn’t you stop! Why did you leave them! What the fuck is wrong with you!?” She screamed at me. She stood up and started hitting me, but I didn’t try to defend myself. “What’s wrong with you, you fucking psycho!? I hate you!” “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry.” I still don’t know why I didn’t stop. Perhaps I knew it was pointless. Or maybe, I’m just a coward. I don’t know. She cried for a long time, and I was forced to listen to it all. It broke my heart. Her soft sobs were the only noise in the cabin. “It’s not your fault,” she finally said, wiping the tears from her eyes. “I know that.” I didn’t say anything back. Would could I say? “I’m sorry for yelling at you like it was.” “It’s okay,” I said. “And I’m sorry for hitting you,” she said. “It’s okay.” We sat in silence for a while. I can’t say how long, since I haven’t seen the outside to tell time since we got in here. All I know is it was long enough for me to get off the floor and sit on the bed. “So now what do we do?” she asked. I looked at her, and she was scared. Her eyes were wide, and she stared at me, hoping I’d be able to tell her something to make her feel better. But all I said was, “I don’t know.” “Well there has to be something we can do! A radio or something we can use to call for help!” She jumped up and began rummaging through drawer after drawer, desperately looking for a beacon of hope. She pulled the drawers out, and dumped their contents on the floor, hoping for something. But there was nothing. “Help me look!” she yelled at me. I got up and joined in her search, lifting mattresses, opening cupboards, looking in chests. But there was nothing. “No there has to be something! There has to be!” she yelled out. She continued to tear through all the contents of the cabin, before throwing a drawer on the ground in frustration and dropping onto a bed opposite of me. “I’m sorry,” I said. She cried as she crawled under the blankets. The room was incredibly cold. My teeth clattered violently in my mouth, making them feel like they were going to fall out. I walked over to the fireplace, loaded it with tinder, and struck a match to light it. The fire blossomed to life and I sat in front of it. After a while, Mable shuffled over, wrapped in her blankets and plopped onto the floor beside me. We sat in front of the fire, trying to get warm, until we heard a sizzling coming from above the flames. We both saw the first drop of water roll down the back of the chimney before a mound of wet slush dropped onto the pile of wood, snuffing the life out of the fire. I stared at the dark fireplace, unable to react to our promise of doom. She stared, too. Probably because her tears had frozen in her cheeks and could no longer squeeze out of her eyes. She shivered more violently than before, so I grabbed all the loose blankets off the beds and wrapped them around her. “What about you?” She asked. “It’s alright,” I said. “No, it’s not,” she said. “Come here.” She lifted the blankets enough for me to squeeze next to her, and I wrapped it around myself. We sat there, staring at the soaked wood that was once our fire. She leaned her head against my shoulder, her pillow of curls pressed against my cheek. It was nice. Well, all things considered. The temperature in the room continued to drop as time rolled on, and my stomach began to growl. I ignored it for the most part. But it kept growling, louder and louder. When I thought I couldn’t stand it any longer she said, “I’m hungry.” “Me too.” I stood up to look through the mess of useless items on the floor. The only thing that could constitute as food was a lone can of vegetable stew. I returned to Mable to relay the good news. We sat at the table and opened the can, picking at the cold chunks of celery and carrots. “Mmm, gourmet,” she said. “Only the best,” I replied. She laughed for the first time in forever and looked up at me. “I hope we’re not here for long. I can’t be stuck with a dork like you forever,” she said. “You know what, I was just thinking the same thing,” I replied. “Whatever,” she laughed. We ate the rest of the soup, and returned to our beds. I shivered without a blanket, and she shivered with all of them. “You know,” I said, sitting up in the bed. “It would probably be less miserably cold if we huddled together under those blankets.” “Yeah, maybe,” she said. “Yeah,” I said. I laid back down, tucking my hands between my thighs to try and preserve the little heat left in them. “Fine, come over here,” she said. Normally, I’m not one to rush into someone’s bed at a reluctant offer, but this was an exception. I leaped out of my bed and crawled into hers, our bodies finally experiencing an extended period of warmth for the first time all day. We laid face to face, for the most part. It was more face, to hair. My arms wrapped around her puffy jacket, and I held her close to my body. Her shivering eased, but never truly went away. I closed my eyes, and began to doze off. Until a noise shot me awake. It was a sharp, faint noise, but unmistakable. I looked towards the lone window, facing the summit. A long crack had started from the top of the window, and was about halfway down it. “What was that?” She asked. “Nothing,” I said. “No I heard that, it wasn’t nothing.” She pushed herself from me and looked up to see the crack. “Please tell me that was there before.” The wood groaned under the pressure of the snow, and the crack grew slightly longer. She jumped out of the bed and ran to the window, tracing her finger against the crack. “It’s all the way inside,” she said. Her voice was tired. The bubbly warmness of it had chilled into a cold acceptance. “It’s okay, we’re going to be okay.” “No. I don’t think so,” she said, still staring at the crack. She looked at me, and this time, it was me that was crying. I’d run so fast from my friends, and for what? I abandoned all of them, only to end up here. Waiting for the crack to cover the window, and be swallowed by the same wave that had swallowed them. I guess I deserve it. She walked back over to the bed, crawled back under the covers, and looked at me. “It’s okay,” she said, placing a frozen hand on my cheek. “It’s okay.” And I cried. And cried. I cried until my throat burned, and my eyes had completely dried. Even then, I still cried. And all she said was, “It’s okay.” We both fell asleep there, holding each other. I woke up some time later to the groan of the cabin. Mable was still asleep, so I slowly slipped out of the bed and walked over to the window. The crack had grown and splintered tremendously during the time we had slept. I knew it wouldn’t hold up much longer, so I walked over to my bed, and retrieved the journal I had put under it when we first arrived at the cabin. And now, here we are. In the time it’s taken me to write this, the crack has spread across the entire window. There isn’t much time left. I’m sorry everyone. I think I’m going to get back in bed with Mable now. When it breaks I don’t want her to be alone. -Trenton Briggs, January 4th, 1992.


At first it seemed like a huge 'magical' coincidence when, in a small town of twenty thousand people, Julie began a conversation with another woman at a juice bar who with no provocation, said that she had been hacked and harassed by the same small town Weinsteinian millionaire and town boss who Julie found out had sent messages FROM her own email account, posing as her earlier that year (to her then employer, causing her to lose her job)... but less than a week later, Julie met another woman in a bakery who had been harassed by the same man, and THEN she met another woman with the same experience, finally deducing from the odds that hundreds in that town must have had the same experience. Sandy, the woman at the bakery, said that the odds of two people in LA having a conversation about how they had both been mugged is neither magical nor coincidence. The woman at the grocery store, had received an email two years prior from a good friend that brought her to tears, and from that message she made a serious life choice in a matter that she said she "could not discuss because it was both sensitive and traumatic" (She said that it was traumatic so she had to talk about it, but sensitive so she couldn't, whatever that meant). After making her "undiscussable life choice", whatever it was, she said that the entire universe seemed colorless and unreal for two years, until a strange day two years after the fact, when her lawyer confessed that the message had been sent by The Rainmaker (he meant by the Rainmaker's hackers). The Rainmaker was a small town millionaire, a businessman who owned all of the lawyers in that town and thereby owned the courts (although he also claimed to have the police in his pocket it was much more likely that he only manipulated their perceptions by playing probabilities). So let's talk about probabilities. Suppose someone sent a message from your account causing the person on the other end to react in a way that made no sense to you at the time. You would not know what happened since the person who received the message would likely cut you off. The reality on the other end would be entirely different. They know that the message is from you, even if it's not, and the forged message from the intruder would change the meaning of anything you can say in the future (Because of eavesdropping, it would not be safe for you to try to clear up the matter with the person electronically, but if you ask the person to "meet you in a dark parking garage to speak about something", your request would take on a different meaning because of the previous forged message that was likely threatening). So you would never ever find out what happened and there is no way you could find out what happened. The odds would be one in a thousand that someone on the inside would tell you the specifics of what happened, so the odds of knowing are way less than the odds that it happened. The odds of two people who know then meeting each other would be astronomical, and then for them to bring the conversation to the point that they both realize they are talking about the same thing would be unlikely......UNLESS it happened all the time. Sandy was right, the odds of two people in Los Angeles realizing that they had both been mugged is neither magical nor coincidence. It is a reflection of what goes on all the time. And so it was in this town. So it was that the evil presence was hidden not by secrecy but by the sheer ugliness of it's presence, and by the need of the vulnerable people who lived there to push it from their minds, and to proceed with the choices that had been made for them, AS IF they had chosen those roads themselves.


Hey guys, I've had this idea for a story for a while, but haven't had, and still don't quite have the muse to write it. Please forgive spellings, typos, et al as this is a very rough draft, a snippet, that may one day be fleshed out. Enjoy: The problem with bending light back on itself wasn't the tremendous amount of energy involved. He'd simplified that through design. It wasn't oversight. Though, he knew he was being monitored by some unnamed branch of his nation's government, all he needed was a relatively basic internet connection. He'd run a line to a neighboring house, anticipating his work. The problem was the temptation. His life was ruined. Cliche: it all started with a thought. Time travel is really hard. It takes a lot of energy, stars worth of energy to move matter backwards through time. However, photons had no functional mass, their mass was nothing, or everything. In essence photons transcended mass. They were also the gatekeepers to the limits of our 3rd dimensional reality. Conveniently, they were also the mainstay in information transfer of his day. That meant less parts. He could bend photons, back on themselves, then tracking their interactions with forward passing photons. Depending on the subtlety of the measurement, amplified by various nuanced things, he could see as far forward in time as his machine existed, though only through the lense of the internet. It was a one way portal into the earthly and eventually trans-earthly internet of any time. Again, so long as the machine he built was up and running. He knew his machine would fail, amazingly, in ten thousand years. He also knew, when and how he would die. The thought obsessed him. He knew who he would marry. When he would meet her. Then when he would.... meat her, so to speak, kak. He knew when his children would be born and when they would die. He knew that no one but him would know of his work. He didn't know how he was going to manage to keep that a secret from his wife. He won the lottery. Twice. He watched every episode of every tv show he was interested in, current and yet to be created. Spoiler alert. He knew where to be to avoid calamity, yet couldn't seem, for the life of him to stop it. He was burdened with knowledge. You see being imbedded in time, he couldn't affect it. For some reason, you could see anywhere in time, via this method, but not affect anything within it. He would seem like he was affecting it, but something would always happen to maintain his imbeddedness. It was maddening. The illusion of free will manifest. He couldn't conceive of how the agents observing him never quite figured out what he had accomplished. Or maybe they did.


I watched her purple trail leave the atmosphere. I ran to James and got on my comms while tending to his shattered leg. "Edith, what the hell are you doing?" "The only thing I can do, Val. It hurts too much. I'm too tired." "You're not talking about the energy, are you?" "My whole life... I've fought for people. I fought for my world. But I can't do it anymore." "Then retire. Don't do this. Edith, get back here!" "That won't work. You know that. This life always brings us back. Well... Not anymore. Not me." "Edith, people care about you. Your daughter is seven! What am I supposed to tell her?" "Tracie. Oh, God. I'm sorry. Tell her I'm sorry. Tell her I-" I watched as the Exodus exploded. "Edith? Edith!" I shouted. "No!" I saw several things falling from the sky. They all landed in front of me. I shielded myself and James with Black Ice. I went into the debris field and looked around. Right in the center, the sword of Lady Thunder stood, hilt deep in the Earth. Like Excalibur waiting for the next king. James sat up. "What happened?" He called. I went back to him. He repeated himself. "She... She took out Exodus. Edith did, I mean." "Oh, that's good. Did she kill the big dude, too?" "Yeah. He's a puddle." "Good. I bet she can't wait to see Tracie again." He said. I hesitated. He noticed. "Wait... Where is Edith?" "She's..." I choked up. "The Exodus beam, when she absorbed it... I guess it was too much. She felt ready to blow. So... She went to the Exodus. She's gone, James." I said. James let his head fall back to the ground. "Oh, God. Tracie..." "I don't think I'm gonna be able to look her in the eyes. She's seven. And her mom is dead." "Let's go. Tracie's at HQ. Let's go there." He said. I nodded and picked him up. I activated my teleporter on my belt and the portal shimmered to life in front of us. I stepped through and met Derek and Tracie at the table. Tracie was drawing with crayons, and Derek was looking at her with a lot of pain in his eyes. He looked at us. So did she. "Auntie Valerie!" She said happily. I loved when she called me auntie. She came to me and hugged me. The portal closed behind me. She looked around me. "Where's mommy?" She asked so innocently. I looked at Derek. He looked down at the table. He couldn't bring himself to tell her. Not that I blame him. Tracie was more hopeful and bright than her mother. I set James on the table and he sat up. I got on my knees and got at her level. "Hi, Tracie." "Hi, Auntie!" She said again with a smile. "Where is my mommy?" I hesitated. "Well... You know your mommy is a hero. She saves a lot of people." I said. "Yeah! She said she's super-mom." "Well, your mommy was tired. She took too many hits. She got hurt." Tracie was confused, and I was tearing up. "Tracie, you precious girl. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." I said, starting to cry. Tracie couldn't seem to figure it out. "Why are you sad?" She asked. She dropped her crayons and paper and hugged me. "Don't be sad." She said. I pushed her off me. "Baby... I failed your mom. She's gone. I let her down." "She's always at other planets," Tracie said. "That's not what I mean. I don't know... I don't know how to say it." James slid off the table and slid over to us. "James, you're hurt." "You're hurt worse. Let me." He said. "Hey, little firecracker." He said to Tracie. "Why is Valerie sad?" She asked. I hugged her again, holding onto her tightly. I wanted to protect her forever. "She just loves you a lot. So she's sad because she doesn't want to hurt you." "She's not hurting me." "I know. But... There's something about your mommy you have to know." He said. I looked into her eyes. She was nervous. "Where is she?" "She got hurt. She... She's gone. Forever. She can't come back." He said. She processed what she heard. "Why?" She asked, scared. "I... She died. She sacrificed herself." He said finally. Tracie understood. She started to cry. She wailed. I held her tightly, letting her cry into my shoulder. I rubbed her back. "I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry." I said. I stayed there with Tracie for a long time. I picked her up and carried her to a chair. Derek took James to the infirmary. "Auntie?" Tracie asked through her crying. "Yes?" "I miss my mommy." She said. That line left me speechless. I felt like my lungs were frozen. I kept her close to me as she cried. "I miss her too," I said after a while. In an hour, Tracie tired herself out. I carried her to my room and set her up in my bed so I could keep an eye on her. Edith had no family records, so it was the moment I set Tracie in my bed that I decided I would adopt her. Her father had gotten close to Edith to try to take us apart from the inside out and nearly succeeded. He hadn't planned to get her pregnant, but apparently, Edith had wanted for a kid for a while. It was when the father put the child at risk when Edith realized he was a bad man. When he threatened Tracie... I was ready to freeze him right then and there, but Edith turned him to ash long before I could. I looked at her, so peaceful and comfortable. I swept her hair out of her face and put the covers over her. "You still have me. You will always have me." "I promise.


it’s hard to put your finger on it, but it’s there. a persistent thrumming, wet and alive like a heart, like the blood that fills your ears and your veins. it’s something close to crying--a slow, all-consuming loneliness. you are twenty-three and have never been kissed. your mom calls every thursday. the routine of it all makes you ill; you answer her, bored, and fake like you’re about to leave for work every time. your mom sees through the lie, you hear the hurt in her voice, end up crying on your bed for an hour thinking about the lunch box she bought you in fourth grade. the soft canvas, torn in places like a dog’s ear. you wonder where it is now. your roomates tell you to kill the spider. the loneliness comes in waves. it builds like wax around your ribs, coating your insides in a perfect cast. it is a candle with two wicks, each burning beneath the other. you think it would be gone if you moved to another city. you daydream on the freeway about turning in your two week’s notice, fucking off to france or florida. you haven’t had any friends since high school, and thinking that you might be one of the dipshits who peaked at eighteen thoroughly depresses you. you resolve to get closer to your coworker, but then you find out she makes lasagna in the microwave every day, leaving sauce spatters in her wake and never bothering with a paper towel. this is the last straw. you feel a snake coil into your esophagus; it spits bile like venom from your teeth and your body makes up its mind. you spit up your coffee onto the cold breakroom tile and watch the puddle inch like a slug around your feet. no one is there; your coworker has returned to her seat, leaving only smears of tomato and the heavy smell of cooking cheese in the air. that’s what did it. you pick up the roll of paper towels, use it to mop up the spill. the whole roll--not just a sheet. you roll it like a sodden bowling ball over the remains of your breakfast, drop it into the garbage like a hawk dropping prey. you should call your mom. that night on your bed, you sit on a blank mattress. your sheets in the wash, your bags packed, locked into the trunk of your roommate’s hatchback. you wonder if you’ll really just steal their car; if you’ll drive back in the morning, drunk and sobbing. where will you go? gentle snoring emanates from the room across the hall. the loneliness holds its breath. you get up, walk softly across the apartment, and out into the night. the door creaks when you shut it behind you. you check the time: 4:58. it is near dawn. the city will rise soon, the sun will stretch its arms over the pale new day. but for now, it is dark. stars are strewn like salt crystals across the murky sky. you wrap your arms around yourself, trying to hold in the night, the dark, the cool humid air. you are trying to smother the loneliness in your body, to squeeze it out through your pores. you stare into the trees. you have a sudden urge to walk into them, into the forest, thick moss covered ground. you want to know what lies ahead.


We always knew the end would come. *Sirens* That we would have to take what we could and run. *”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”* But even the expected may come as a shock. Like a terminal patient awaiting the certain hour of his death, who—when mercifully it arrives—greets it not with confidence but with a gasp: *Is this it?* My life is quiet now. I am content in my solitude. I am seventy-two years old, in good health and the company has dutifully fulfilled its end of the bargain, so I do not want for anything. If I lack luxury it is by choice. I do not speak much. Instead I write and think, and if I have any ritual it is to take my tea just as night falls. Sometimes the evening light hits at a certain angle, and when I take my first sip, I close my eyes and think of Mendeleev-1. Instinctively my fingers slip onto my forearm where the wound will never heal, and I remember… #**Mendeleev-1** *...mining colony. mineral-rich. cognosher-positive. cognosher-dormant. safe for temporary habitation. slated for eventual destruction…* On Earth my husband and I had nothing. On Mendeleev-1 we had hope: “Build a homestead. Mine. As long as the planet stays inactive, you remain Vectorien employees. The moment it awakens, you have forty-eight hours to get to the evacuation pods. When you do: *Congratulations on your retirement. Enjoy your pension!*” No one knew for how long the planet would sleep. Everyone knew about the *cognoshers*: interdimensional alien beasts that sensed and feasted upon human fear. Under that shadow we lived. Time passed. It was a simple life, hard but predictable, the rhythms of the day magnified by the monotony of the weather and the changing of imagined seasons… The cycles unfolded, one after the other in coldness and desolation. I gave birth to Oan, then Erubi. Then a mine shaft collapsed, killing my husband. Vectorien paid out a small sum and paid for his burial, but their lawyers maintained that the contract we had signed was still binding. My husband and I had made separate agreements. As Mendeleev-1 had not yet awoken and I was still alive, I remained a Vectorien employee, with all the mining obligations that entailed. I tried to endure alone, but I knew that with two young children and output requirements to meet, I could not succeed. “Mendeleev-1 is not for the faint of heart or for single mothers,” a Vectorien representative told me. “Chemicals have always been available upon request.” I put out a notice for help. That is how I encountered Arkady. He was a decade older than I, a tough man hardened by experiences he never shared. In fact, he shared almost nothing and could not speak at all, which perhaps is what bound us together. Although he was a bachelor, it was not like that between us. He built a cabin for himself next to the homestead, and we lived in harmony. For months, we lived— #***Sirens*** I was washing clothes when the time came. The sound was deafening. Erubi was crying— I left the wash and ran to him with water dripping from the tips of my fingers. *A single drop, like an atomic bomb.* I tried to comfort him, to speak to him, but this life is never one of comfort, and he would not cease his wailing so I let him be. There was not much to pack, but time was of the essence. We had forty-eight hours to reach the evacuation pods— *”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”* Oan was outside, hands over his ears— Arkady had exited his cabin—leather boots polished, rifle slung over a shoulder, pistol stuck into his belt, coming toward me with a screen-map in his hands. He unfurled it: The familiar terrain of Mendeleev-1, a geography I was intimately familiar with, but now with areas lighting up red, like blotches on a sick man’s skin. I knew immediately what they meant. Arkady pointed at the two nearest evacuation points— “Oan, get your brother! Now!” —the *only two* we could reach in forty-eight hours, and between us and those points: the sickening red of the planet awakening: vengeance for years of exploitation: the cognosher fields. Arkady looked at me. Oan had disappeared into the homestead. *Sirens* We had no clear path. Every route took us through the red. Arkady slid his finger across the screen-map, tracing a route that I understood would lead us from here to there within forty-eight hours, but just barely. It was a path of least risk, which meant *of some risk*, and although the thin strip of evolving red may have looked small on the screen-map, I knew it was at least ten kilometres on the ground. Ten kilometres across cognosher terrain. There’s a saying about the cognosher fields: “Cross fearlessly—or not at all.” I nodded my approval. Arkady furled the screen-map. Oan came to me, cradling Erubi in his arms, and in both their eyes I saw the very emotion I dreaded. “It will be OK,” I said, taking Erubi from his older brother. “We talked about this. We prepared for it. We’ve been *waiting* for it. In two days we’ll be on our way to Earth.” *Earth*: I said it to mean *home*, but it was my home. To my sons it was nothing but a story. Arkady had already turned away, and when he began walking we followed. It would be a lie to say I did not look back at the homestead with some fondness—it had been our nest—but what I felt most was grief. What I felt most was the absence of my husband. How we had planned! It should have been us walking away: walking *toward* the evacuation pods after so much toil and expectation. *”This is not a drill! Commence evacuation procedures immediately. This is not a drill...”* I held Erubi closely, and when Oan offered his hand I took it and did not let go. Perhaps the future no longer held the same happiness I had dreamed about, but it held happiness still. Only a journey separated us. After a time, the sirens turned off. All on Mendeleev-1 were now evacuating— All but the beasts. #**The Cognosher Fields** We slept for four hours, drank water and walked again. We ate little. The way was dull and flat because the planet was dull and flat, sparsely spotted with tree-like plants like overgrown cauliflowers, and practised calmness. *Be empty like the landscape*. When Oan was little, my husband and I had done refocussing drills with him: substituting one thought for another, one emotion for another emotion. But Erubi was too young for that. In my arms he looked doe-eyed and calm, but who knew what was happening in that emergent mind of his. When we neared the cognosher fields, Arkady unfurled the screen-map. When we were at the boundary he bade us stop. He showed me the map— *The red blotches were swollen and more numerous.* —and I knew the time had come. Everything condensed to this: cross the fields and a good life on Earth awaits. Or die. “Remember what we talked about,” I told Oan. “Focus on something. Imagine it and keep it in your mind. In three hours it should all be over.” “They feast on fear,” he said, repeating words from a storybook my husband had read to him. “Yes.” Arkady tapped his finger on his wrist. We had to go. Arkady entered first. After a brief hesitation, I followed, carrying Erubi with one arm, holding Oan's hand with the other. In a single step we had changed the physical reality around us. What was once barren became—by the power of our minds—pregnant with danger. Although I had no doubt cognoshers were real, it was unreal to feel that they were *somewhere out there*, awoken and hungry… The initial seconds fell softly away to nothingness. My heart beat quicker and Oan gripped my hand more tightly, but everything persisted as before. Arkady's broad back and long strides provided a familiar comfort. I would not have wanted to be in the lead, anticipating the future. Seconds accumulated to minutes, which ticked away, footfall following footfall. My focus was my grief. I let it drape me, shielding all thoughts that could possibly evolve into fear. Erubi fell in and out of sleep against my body. Oan whispered stories to himself. In the distance— Arkady's hands travelled to his rifle, which he unslung. I had seen it too: a kind of flitting of the air itself. "No matter what, we must not stop," I said. We walked. Arkady scanning the horizon, sweat developing between Oan's hand and mine, Erubi opening his eyes, beginning slowly to whimper. Another distant fluttering— Unmistakeable. All of us had seen it. The enveloping silence descended into a low hiss. "Is it…" "Shh." Arkady raised his rifle. Cognoshers could be shot and killed, but it was difficult and exceedingly rare, for they only truly existed—in our understanding of that term: engaged with our dimension of reality—when they were scenting or feasting. Only then were they vulnerable. Another flicker. *Closer.* And a third— Followed in quick succession by a fourth and fifth. We were maybe halfway through the cognosher fields and they were all around us. I had to remind myself that brief twinges of fear were insufficient. They felt it but not for long enough to localise the source. I thought of a memory—any memory—and started recollecting it aloud. "Remember when your father…" *They came!* It was as if reality had torn open—its very substance—rushing at us! What happened next happened so quickly I struggle to make sequential sense of it, but in the years that have passed I have arranged and rearranged the remembered parts so many times I have settled on the following: Arkady fired two shots into the ether. Oan let go of my hand. He stopped. Arkady spun to face us and loosed another shot. Oan stared at me—at *us*: —as I heard a horrible shriek that felt ripped out of my very being. I felt my body stiffen and the hissing of the silence melded with the sound of blood pulsing through my veins. I felt gazed upon and vulnerable, as the beasts of irreality were swooping down on us and as I tried to understand what was happening I understood that the shrieking was Erubi—that it was *all* Erubi—and I shall never forget the wonder and terror and love in his beautiful brown eyes as Arkady ripped him from his cradle in my arms, held him in one outstretched hand and shot him in the head with his pistol: his tiny body falling to that hideous ground, folding so unnaturally— I screamed. But the rushing had subsided. It was not fear I was feeling but rage—and all at once I leapt at Arkady and for what remained of my son. I fell face first on the ground, tasting the alien sands, and crawled forward, crawling desperately toward— Arkady rolled the corpse away with his boot. He grabbed me by the clothes on my back, lifted me to my feet, then pushed me toward the evacuation pods. "I'll kill you," I growled. When I looked at Oan, tears were rolling down his face. His eyes were pink. He wanted to pick Erubi up, but Arkady shook his head. I hated him, but I knew he was right. They would not allow us to bring a corpse onto the evacuation pods, and we did not have the time for a burial. Erubi's body would lie here, on the only home planet he had ever known, until he and the planet were together obliterated. "Leave him,” I croaked. I cannot describe how much my body shook. How hard it was to leave. Arkady walked with the same strides as always, the same wide back, the rifle slung again over his shoulder and the pistol tucked into his belt. I was glad, because I could not have borne the sight of his face. I walked in wordless contemplation, with hatred having replaced grief as my protector, though the two could have coexisted. Oan walked beside me, no longer holding my hand or reciting his stories. He had stopped crying, and his eyes had acquired the quality of numbness. Every few minutes he would look up at me with an expression I could not read, then down at his feet, which shuffled obediently along. Suddenly Arkady stopped. He glanced back at me, looking me in the eyes as always, looking at me *as if nothing had happened*, and motioned for me to stay. He took the pistol from behind his belt and handed it to me. I did not want to take it. I did not want to touch its cold steel. Arkady placed it on the ground before me, then turned and walked away from us. For what reason I did not know. What I knew was that if I didn't have such revulsion at the existence of that pistol, I would have picked it up and shot him in the back. How could he walk away so calmly—*how he could trust me?* But he was right. I left the pistol undisturbed upon the ground and watched him disappear. "Where's he going?" Oan asked. "I don't know." We sat and remembered Erubi without speaking. Before Arkady returned, we saw again flickering on the horizon and a chill passed through us both. The cognoshers were near. Oan rocked back and forth, trying to keep calm, and I watched him, wondering how it was possible to feel a contradiction: to want never to see Arkady again, and to need his presence. I craved the protective comfort of Earthfire. "I don't think I can make it," Oan said. "You can." "It feels like… inside—" "Refocus." "—like I'm cracking, like it's all breaking apart." He rocked more and more quickly, his eyes twitching from point to point, until finally I grabbed his hand and pulled him up. "We're going," I said. "No," he said. I pulled him by the arm but he stayed in place. *Anchored*. We both saw the fluttering sky. "You go," he said. "I'll stay. I—I don't think I can… Maybe I'll see Erubi. Maybe we'll—" I tugged harder but he didn't budge. "Come on!" A blur passed across the horizon. There were so many of them now, waiting, unfolding. I wanted Arkady to be back. I wanted Oan to move. "I'm scared," he said. And for a moment the numbness in his eyes was gone, replaced by the brightness I had always associated with my son. But then that brightness too diminished, darkened by a kind of fear I have never seen again. *They came for him.* I backed away—back to where the pistol lay—picked it up and waved it madly at the nothingness rippling and hissing around us: the liquid distortions in the congealing mists of abnormality, but I didn't know at what to pull the trigger. Oan sat. I stumbled through a haze of fear: *afraid for him*, trying to be more afraid *than him*, to lure the beasts away, to offer them myself in exchange. I didn't want to live anyway. *I was already dead.* But I could not will myself into a more frenzied state of phobia. Oan’s lips curved into a smile. "Go," he whispered. Then his smile became a terrible grin as his body stiffened and his neck bent backwards, and materializing behind him was a human-sized caterpillar—a unfathomable string of succulent translucent spheres braided into interconnectedness by oscillatory worms, all lined with a million undulating tentacles—topped with a glowing sphere-head of a mirrored eyes and one swollen ring of lips, which attached itself with ravenous intentions to Oan's face, devouring it and starting to suck his essence from within him and into itself. I pointed the pistol at the cognosher and pulled the trigger— The bullet slid through it. Those wretched sucking sounds, *like bloody gargled marbles, like wind rushing across a plain in reverse…* I knew what I had to do but could not do it. I could not kill my son. Even for this: out of mercy for him—for humanity itself. *A shot*—fired: Oan slumping to the ground— The cognosher atomizing back into its own unknowable dimension— The pistol still in my shaking outstretched hand, cold and dead, and silhouetted in the distance against the unforgiving sky: Arkady, lowering his rifle. Those long strides. The world rotated and Arkady stood on the wall of it, looking down at me. I wanted to stay; he wanted me to go. It took me several moments to realize I had collapsed, perhaps lost consciousness for a few seconds. Perhaps that even saved me. When Arkady yanked my arm and made the world upright, I knew that what I felt was neither fear nor rage but agony. I tried to look at my son, but Arkady caught my face in his hand. He shook his head. He tried to pull me forward, away from the agony and toward the evacuation pods, but now it was my time to stay anchored. He held out his hand and with two fingers showed we had not far to go: only an insignificant space. I wailed. He would not let go of my face. He pressed so hard my jaw bones hurt. Through bleary eyes I perceived him. I bit my tongue until I tasted blood and spat at him. He backed away and wiped his face with the back of his hand. The same hand with which he’d just caused me so much pain— And smacked me with it. I fell back, gathered my strength and threw myself at him with everything I had. Our bodies collided. Again I ended up on the ground, but this time on my back. He picked up his pistol, checked the bullets and motioned for me to follow. Again he made the gesture with his two fingers (*only an insignificant space*) and followed up by pointing to his wrist. “Fuck you! I don’t care anymore,” I said. He stepped toward me, grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off the ground. Held me like an hour ago he had held Erubi—except I fought. I swung my arms and pounded his body with my fists. I kicked out at his shins. Eventually he tossed me aside, and started walking away. I ran after him and grabbed him from behind. He spun, throwing me down with a thud that made my brain rattle in my skull. He walked. “That’s right. You leave,” I yelled after him. “You leave me, you motherfucker!” Then I got up and charged at him. This time I attached myself to his back, locking my arms under his armpits like a human backpack, trying furiously to force the both of us to overturn: to wind up like a beetle, belly-up and dying... He pressed forward, stride after gargantuan stride until we had travelled that way for maybe a hundred paces and I saw—lying like discarded refuse, two *deflated people*: skins still fresh but their entire beings flattened into sheets maybe an inch thick. They looked like humanoid rubber. Victims of the cognosher. I let go of Arkady’s back and felt ground under my boots again. I forced down the bile rising into my throat. “It’s horrible,” I said. Arkady nodded. His eyes sparkled. I smiled at him— And in that moment of manufactured vulnerability, when for the first time in my life I saw his hardness soften, I aimed a tackle into his mid-section that sent him sprawling. The pistol spilled from his hand and tumbled into the sand. Before he could react, I pounced on it. Then with him in its sights I backed away until I felt far enough away to kneel and put the pistol into my own mouth. *This is the way it must end*. He approached me anyway. I took the pistol out of my mouth and pointed it at him. “One more step,” I warned. He didn’t stop. “I fucking swear it!” I screamed at him. He took *one more step*. I fired. The bullet whizzed by his head. “I’ll fucking kill you.” Another step. This time the bullet tore into his shoulder, twisting his body. He held up a single finger. There was one bullet left, and if I wanted to— As I scrambled to put the pistol back into my mouth, he covered the space between us and grabbed me by the arm. I pressed the trigger. The pistol fired, but instead of shutting off my brain, the bullet lodged itself into my forearm. He had bent my arm back at the last instant. I felt an immensity of pain, followed by a flow of warmth and the sound of ripping cloth. I felt a tightness surround my wounded limb, and my sight returned just as Arkady was tying the torn material below my elbow. His own shoulder was patchy with blood. He picked me up like I was but a piece of lumber and carried me forward. I had no strength left. The only thing I felt was pain. After a while he set me down and sat down himself. He pulled out the screen-map and pointed at it, showing me what I already knew: We had crossed the cognosher fields. #**Destruction** The pods lifted off, leaving dissipating lines upon the sky and carrying their human cargo toward the fleet of Vectorien transporters waiting in orbit around Mendeleev-1. In all, Vectorien estimated that 81% of its employees successfully reached the evacuation points. The return journey by transporter lasted forty-one Earth years, most of which we spent in cryosleep. They did, however, allow us to remain awake for the destruction of Mendeleev-1 itself, and so we huddled in the galleries watching through small windows as a single ship launched a single bomb toward its surface. It fell like a water drop, after which there was a delay—and the planet was no more: first condensed, then dispersed as a cosmic rain of star stuff. We disembarked in Florida. At least that's what the signs said, because to me it was unrecognizable. I saw Arkady on the lower deck of the starport. There was no one waiting for him, just as there was no one waiting for me. The press had focussed on other arrivals. We walked one after the other down the tunnel, just as we had walked from the homestead to the evacuation pods forty-one years ago, in silence. When we got close to the doors leading outside, I stopped—needing to gather myself before greeting the new world awaiting me. He walked on. When he reached them, the doors slid open and he walked through without glancing back, and disappeared into the bustle outside. #**Mercy** I lived for thirty years without seeing Arkady. We did not keep in touch. I moved on. I grieved, then found a house beyond the city, bought it outright and made a new life. I never remarried and I did not have a third child, but I learned not to dwell on the past. When I was ready, I bought a cemetery plot near where my husband and I had lived before Mendeleev-1 and buried three empty caskets, leaving space for one more. The cemetery gave me a discount on account of my "background." The people on Earth were like that: treating us kindly but with a certain distance. They referred to us as the Vectoriens. One day, a young woman arrived at my house. She asked my name, and when I gave it said she had come on behalf of someone asking for my presence. "An elderly man," she said, "who doesn't speak." I knew at once. Arkady was a patient in a decrepit hospital in Costa Rica, located on the outskirts of San Jose. The staff were kind, but it was clear the institution lacked funding, and provided care mainly for the poor. When I entered his room I barely knew him: still a large man, but now bloated and flaccid, bald, with glassy skin and languid motions, even of the face, he did not appear to acknowledge my presence. It was only when I bent forward over him that a brightness came over his eyes!—but briefly, like the final flicker of a dying flame, followed by a diminishment to darkness. I don't know what I felt toward him. "He's a Vectorien," a nurse told me outside his room. "It's a miracle he's lasted this long. We used to see a lot of them after they came back, the ones who couldn't adjust to the world. Crime, drugs, any form of self-destruction. But that was in the months and years after. Here we have decades. I can't imagine what he's been doing all this time." She put her hand on my arm. "But all of a sudden he remembered you, I guess. It's good for him to have a visitor." I stepped away from her. "Do you know where I can find a grocery store. Maybe something with household goods?" "There's a plaza nearby. What is it that—" I was already outside. In the heat. I bought what I needed and returned, as I had promised him. I asked the nurse for a kettle. When the water boiled, I steeped a tea and poured one cup. Then I asked the nurse for privacy. When she had gone, I added the other ingredient, and gave the tea to Arkady. He took it in his large, calloused hands and tried to drink. I helped him. When he had finished, I sat beside him and held his hand, watching the remnants of his life evaporate, peacefully, like summer rain from asphalt. He died without a gasp.


From Newspedia the only mildly expensive encyclopedia **The recent history of professional competition** In the year 2068, the stock market was heating up. The top two competitors were the continent-country of Chinassia and the Corporate States of America™\*(a subsidiary of Amazon™)\*. Each one's stock market control of the world markets was deadlocked with the other, knowing economic control of the whole world laid in the balance. On the one end, the world could fall into the grasp of Chinassia and their policy of "Kill everyone who doesn't give you there stuff, including themselves; because Chinassia is the best." and on the other side, the Corporate States of America™(*a subsidiary of Amazon™)*'s policy of "Slowly kill everyone who doesn't buy all your stuff and then work them to death; because the Corporate States of America™(*a subsidiary of Amazon™)*'s 'capitalism never holds a gun to your head'... *(it prefers to poison you slowly and watch die as you suffer in slowly increasing ennui.)*" As such, the world laid in the balance, in baited breath to see how the rest of the world would die or be enslaved. And in this world, the next Olympics approached. People at large viewed the Olympics as a pleasant distraction from the impended eternal servitude to one of the world's two great super-powers. However, those who were educated knew that the Olympics were the worst thing in this scenario and pushed for the Olympics to be canceled, but their pleas were never heard. (They were passed off as those silly people who read independent research papers instead of watching Chinassia-owned or Corporate States of America™(*a subsidiary of Amazon™)*'s propaganda/advertising agencies such as NEWS incorporated or FOX™: Parody News \[rebranded after their status as a news station was revoked for failing to report on any news in 68 years.\]). Often, stocks markets could shift by up to 3% based on what country won the Olympics. As such, both Chinassia and the Corporate States of America*™*(*a subsidiary of Amazon™)* both did their best to secure a win. And both did what made the most sense... reach out to a third party to and pay them to do it for them. Both Chinassia and the Corporate States of America™(*a subsidiary of Amazon™)* reached out, in secret, to Biomen inc., a startup that had excelled in its field since 2061 that was constantly making the news. The Olympics banned any kind of performance-enhancing drug, and as such, Chinassia and the Corporate States of America™(*a subsidiary of Amazon™)* both looked for a workaround, and found it: Constructing the perfect athlete from scratch. Each one reached out with the same contract, "Build us an athlete that will win every every compitition in the Olympics." As such, Biomen inc., if it hadn't been greedy, would have just chosen one and left it at that. However, when has a corporation ever not been greedy? The CEO of Biomen came up with a "brilliant" plan that the shareholders both approved. They would make two perfectly synchronized Ultimate™ Athletes who would tie for first on every single event. And so, Biomen grew two identical twins, linked by subconscious flags, in-skin sensitive photoreceptors to be in perfect unison. Their shared cerebral cortexes pre-programmed to love the olympics more than anything. Each had six foot long legs and arms of rippling muscle, and no real torso or head to speak of. They were there, but so small as to require close-ups to see. Each of the 'two' Olympians, Phlegm and Phlagm as their designers has secretly named them, had to be kept on life support between matches. At the end of the Olympics, both collapsed on the makeshift dual-first-place stand with the third place top gold Medalist, a trans man named Tamisha from Uganda looking on in horror as they died next to him. In a later interview, he said, with a shiver, that they died with smiles on their faces. Biomen, as a result, succeeded both its contracts and the shareholders raked in and cashed out their stocks. 3 of the shareholders added 18% to their net wealth that day. Biomen was declared a scandel by the 'news' stations of the two great superpowers as both lost stock strength to Ugunda despite their respective 'victory'. The CEO of Biomen escaped to Cancun, the world's first 10-trillionare where he was shot in the middle of the night by Tamisha. As the two great superpowers began to collapse, and the Olympics closed its doors forever in shame after losing all of its ad revenue (people had stopped watching about half-way through, the constant wins by Phlegm and Phlagm had left the competitions boring and almost noone had bothered watching after the first three events. In fact, the only person who watched it all the way through was Tamisha's mother. This contributed to the collapse of the world, because as the sole person watching many events that were highly anticipated to have huge turn out, her opinions completely skewed advertising algorithms in the direction of knitting and water polo, from which AI advertising companies never recovered.) Despite the setback, Biomen survived. In fact, for sports businesses wanting to win sports (such as the Quebec Yankees, the Seattle Dodgers, or the St. Louis Nicklebacks), it was clearly demonstrated Biomen was necessary to win. Each team had a perfect season with top advertising contracts and payouts followed by collapse of the sport. It is said that competitive sports ended for good in 2073, although some illegal games of pre-school tag randomly occur to this day for full minutes on end before the children involved are immediately monetized by corporate income-seeking drones, speed-enhanced, shown on international media, and are betted on. However, they only manage to move mere millions of dollars before the childrens' hearts give out and they die of cardiac arrest. \[Note: Like most felonies, ownership of any video recording of these illegal sports events are punishable by life imprisonment in most countries unless you make over 195k a year and have purchased an internationally recognized law insurance.\] With the effective end of physical sports, the world turned to Chess. Capitalizing on the new income stream, advertisers went to work. Money was invested in the best super computers. Eventually a computer by the name of *Super Blue™* created 'The Optimum Path'. The Optimum Path was a series of chess moves, some very strange moves (although later analysis would reveal they existed to prevent countermeasures). The result was anyone who memorized The Optimum Path had about an 85% of winning a Chess match. (When two players who both had memorized The Optimum Path played against eachother, it often became a 50/50 split of who would win, largely dependent on who was the was assigned the white chess peices.) Advertisers loved it. With the game being considered perfected, and a 50/50 split remaining yet always coming out with a clear victor, it wasn't anywhere in risk of falling like the Olympics had. And even better, you could never guarantee who would win. It was a perfect statistics situation that anyone with the algorithms could predict but still liked like skill and talent to outside viewers. Chess was, as a result, heralded as the world's #1 competitive event. Casual Chess became too daunting for amateaurs, and professional chess players became some of the most highly-sought competitors in the world. Traditional chess classes and matches all but disappeared as successful ones focused on two things, and two things only: Memorizing the convoluted Optimum Path and how to attract sponsors. Soon, every chess player in the professional bracket was taught exclusively The Optimum Path. All but one. Sam Tender, a small old agendered from France born in 2015. By this point in 2095, this made them 80 years old. Most of the competitors in Chess were young, beautiful, and well suited as advertising material. The story goes that Sam was taught Chess by their grandmother, on the other side of a plastic sheet, as Sam stayed by her side in the nursing home throughout the pandemic of 2020. Sam never learned the Optimum path, and refused to. When asked why Sam didn't bother, they simply replied, "It doesn't seem fun." Sam was mocked across all of the industry with their measly 25% win rate. However, there was something about Sam's victories. Sam was threatened to leave the league twice, told their 'low win rate was an embarrassment to the competition'. But Sam didn't care. Sam didn't have an advertisers to pull out, and they paid the entrance fee out of their own pocket. The first time Sam refused to leave spread like fire by word of mouth. The second time, news stations eager to make a quick buck pushed out a story attempting to make them a laughing stock. It backfired. Although some people jumped on the engineered bandwagon to mock them, Sam received plenty of heartfelt letters urging Sam to continue. And people began to watch Sam's matches. Sam would make moves that analysts would later prove did neither person any harm or any good. When asked why he did them, Sam only responded, "The game wouldn't be as fun if was over too quick." There were times when Sam would move peieces in ways that seemed that the intent was only for them to be captured. When asked why they did this, Sam would respond, "My opponent was struggling. I wanted them to enjoy the game, too." In just a few short years, the legend of Sam was known across all of the Chess community. It became a badge of honor to play a game that eschewed the Optimum Path, and to play a game with Sam, "By the seat of your pants". Same loved this for awhile. And, as Sam's legend grew, so did Sam's viewership (and advertisers who wanted in on Sam's slots). As Sam refused all advertisers, they could only spend money on Sam's competitors. And the best selling slots were on games Sam won. Soon, competitors bragged about losing to Sam and advertisers quickly hopped on this, and for a month, "Will-Lose-to-Sam" became the highest paying trait of any Chess player. In that month, Sam quickly shot up to the top of the brackets. The professionals competed for for advertising dollars which translated into 'fastest loss to Sam', and in a day, Sam shot up to the #2 slot as six competitors conceded the moment they sat down. In the middle of the final match, the #1 competitor, "Three Fish" Yang from Korea looked across from him. He knew losing to Sam would secure him advertising dollars. However, maintaining #1 spot was also valuable for other ad revenue. And so "Three Fish" began his opening move: the opening move for the Optimum Path. Recognizing what Yang was doing, Sam scooped up their chess pieces. Yang stared in horror; Sam had never conceded a match before. Yang looked at them in shock, "What... what are you doing?" Sam shrugged, "It's not fun anymore." Sam quietly conceded to the judge as the world looked on in silence as Sam walked out of view of the camera for the last time in his life.


I look up, a break from staring at the same old blank page on my notebook. It would scream at me if it could, only because it had watched me stare at it aimlessly for a few weeks now. I let my eyes wander a bit - I do that quite often, and you know, the reason is quite extraordinary. They catch the wildest of things when you just let them be. Imagine, you, this very second, while you are reading this so-far-pretty-pointless paragraph, are blindfolded and tied. Just suddenly, blindfolded and the kind that doesn’t let light seep through. The utter black and nothing but black blindfolded - I think you get the point. So now you, my borrowed protagonist, can see nothing but darkness but you can feel your body being pushed into a small space, maybe a car trunk or the floor under a backseat? You don’t know, but it’s pleasant, of course. The car makes sharp turns, makes sense because you’re abducted. You can smell something horrible enough to trigger a gag reflex resting against your slammed face - soft and smelly - but your wildest guesses as to what that is will remain unverified, for obvious reasons. Every turn that you take, you are yearning to see it, every little movement around you, every weak sound is tickling your imagination and you can’t help but crave to see it. This happens for a while before you are made to sit on a metal surface, and the blindfold is taken off. Now you would think, what kind of a maniac would not be freaking out in this situation, and rather be thinking about how to look around after a while of being blindfolded - but it’s a story, we are not open for discussion. I am just telling you how you are feeling, and you are to play your part. You take a moment and then open your eyes. Your eyes take a stroll of the setting. Now that, that walk, which is part sheer happiness of having the power to see the world around you and part panic that is making you scrutinise all that surrounds you - that is the stroll I ask my eyes to take. It’s not a cakewalk, so the story and setting are essential, don’t frown. Now we know how to do it, so we can go ahead and look around the room. There really wasn’t anything extraordinary, it was a plain white desk, not one scribble that I hadn’t seen before. A bottle of water - we should have a sip perhaps, and keep going. A bag that’s half open, pinned down with the weight of things we can’t see and a notebook peeping from the inside. And yes, a peripheral of people populating the room. Not a crowd, but honestly, we would prefer less right? Now this doesn’t feel so exciting as I had built it up to be so we no longer walk, we start moving faster. More things that we know aren’t it - the ‘It’ we are looking for. More garbage, simple drab objects that I know all about already, nothing is really fascinating here. What an immense waste of time and imagination this is turning out to be - the setting exercise turned out to be pretty useless, too. Nothing, just garbage. I think it’s safe to say we should return back to the blank page, this seems pointless. And right then, right when I, or should I say we, were up on the inexplicable brilliance of this stroll, it happened. Now you don’t want another long analogy of how quickly it happened, I know that too. So, imagine it to be a second and half - that will do. I locked my eyes, the ones I had set free to roam around and pick things and bring them back to me, they stayed put for one and a half second. I had seen him before. A million times would be a hyperbole, but yes, I had seen him before. But for one and a half second, I looked at him. I looked at him while he looked at me, and I realised how deceptive is the concept of time. How can I feel my blood rush to my face, while my heart suddenly decides to skip a beat and breath is a forgotten concept over all. Now all that was physically happening inside me, I gave away with the pink on my face, and he is still looking right here - and say a second still remains somehow. I scrutinise his face, a similar tint of red I was wearing, looking at me as if I caught him off-guard. I stabilise a bit, I can act like it was a mistake, I have the window. But I couldn’t. Because I wouldn’t breathe, unless he looked away. I wouldn’t lose the hint of blood from my face, unless he looked away. I wouldn’t remember a thing but this for a lifetime to come, unless he looked away. It was like we were caught red-handed in the middle of a crime so brazen that I wanted we knew we had to run away. I panicked and took my eyes off him - forced the time to move. That’s how weird time is, it felt like hours passed in those five minutes, and nothing seemed the same - the things around me didn’t seem like waste of matter anymore.


I am putting my father to bed. Towering and weak. A paper skyscraper. As confused as he’s been for years I reassure him, guiding him to where I know he ought to be. Once useful yet now a babbling mess, hunched and harmless and humiliating himself with every breath he takes. Never as strong as he was I, now leading him as an elderly owner would an old dog waiting bitterly for both of our relief. He takes to bed quicker than usual. He grunts and he moans as he lowers himself onto the mattress like grieving mourners holding the ropes at some half arsed funeral. The downward trajectory had been clear as day for years now. Behold! The stench of the dying workhorse! Piss, biscuits and stale rum. Face like an old handbag, left out in the sun. ‘You’re alright now, Da. Not everyone has left you, here I am caring for you. Never once did I even consider it! Even after it all, the shite and the scraps and the lies and the lunacy, here I am making sure you’re alright. And you are alright, now, Da.’ He grumbles on, a low sub-frequency mumble. I don’t feel guilt for not listening, he hasn’t had anything to say for years, quite possibly ever. The scratchy mattress springs pierce over his deep rambling. Nonsense words and rusty metal. He rolls over, maybe he’s still speaking. I’m left and all before I finish wondering. And now for myself, not too much for me to do once I know he can’t hurt himself. He hasn’t been able to hurt anyone else in god knows. A brew, a book and my bed is all I’m good for now. I used to love some music, but for the hassle of waking him it wouldn’t be worth it. It always set him off, especially when he was dangerous. Now he’s only good for screaming and not I nor anyone could calm him down. Any semblance of calm has long run from him. And anyone who could calm him ran long before that. Not long now, I think, until I’m free from him. Not long now til he’s free from himself. Settle in the sheets before I can think too much about it, gander some other plight between the covers, soft linen and hardback. Take my mind away from what’s left of this place of ours. Not long now. That little cunt, the fucking coward. Too fucking long he’s thought he owned me and too poxy long have I let him. It’s always been too fucking quiet since he “took charge”. If I hear that kettle boil one more time I’ll gouge my fucking eyes out. Thump bump thump bump thump bump thump thumb bump. The veins in my eyes are fucking doubling in size. That little bastard never left me because he doesn’t have the bollocks. I built everything that little shit has ever had and he thinks it’s a virtue that he never got off his arse to make his own poxy cunting fucking life? Nah nah nah, not fucking long now til he learns. Wringing my hands so hard I’m nearly breaking them. Who the fuck does he think he is? Who the FUCK DOES HE THINK HE IS? EVERYTHING HE THINKS HE HAS IS MINE AND ALL THE SHITE HE THINKS I GAVE HIM IS HIS FUCKING OWN! I’m up, taller, stronger, more awake than I’ve been in years. The static is so loud I barely heard the bones in my back crack as I stood. So white and so red I can barely see where the door is. Not long is fucking right. Not long. Now. The animal stalks. Power in his limbs. Raw aggression. The animal knows where to be. Driven by pure instinct. Holding back, knowing that if it is too direct it could frighten away his prey. The sounds of the jungle mask its creeping. Cars, creaking doors, floorboards, distant arguments never to be resolved. In its age the animal may hunt less often, but it knows how to attack just as well as it did in its prime. Through the gaps in the tree line it spots its prey. In bed, reading. Lit only by a small lamp atop the nightstand on the far corner of the bed. Still as a redbrick building and twice as sturdy the animal surveys the scene. Mug, no steam, no threat. Lamp, cheap and flimsy, no threat. The animal never even considers the prey, it may as well already be a gasping pulp desperate to be shown the mercy of having its throat ripped out. The animal savours the moment. Holding its breath and not taking its eye off of its helpless and clueless victim. The animal has chosen its moment to attack. He never stood a chance. Before he could register who had kicked in his door with monstrous strength he was already being lifted from his bed by his neck and thrown to the ground. His father, elder, guide, beating his face into the ground with strength not seen in him for years. His fathers knees pressed hard down on his scrawny bicep, unable to move and too dazed from the blunt trauma to his head to even attempt it. Incapable of discerning one blow from the last, all the poor little man could do was feel his own hot blood pour from his shattered nose and flow into his gasping and screaming mouth, rendering him a teary eyed sputtering child unable to catch his breath to make sound anymore. The attackers fists like cinderblocks unstoppable in their downward trajectory. It was only the shock that kept the victim conscious, almost in awe of the power that was being exerted over him by a man he had long deemed a feeble and confused geriatric. Only when he realised he had regained the feeling in his hands did he notice that his father had stood up, taking his weight off of his arms and allowing the blood to flow properly through the vessels in his now useless limbs, and again reefed him up by his neck and slammed him against the thin plaster wall, almost sending him through it. Snarling like a beast possessed by some ungodly fury the old man stared into his already defeated sons eyes. It appeared to him that he had broken the socket around his son’s left eye, as the eyeball was slightly out of place and crimson. His face was equally bloodstained, with only the tears and mucus creating inconsistencies on the blood drenched face. He threw the hunk of flesh to ground and let a guttural harsh roar escape from his otherwise snarling mouth. The pulpy form had landed on its side, with its face and right shoulder towards the floor, its left shoulder pressed firmly against it. The towering animal of a man began stamping on the ribcage of what was once his son, stopping occasionally to launch hard kicks against the poor mass’s stomach. Through the hard thuds, sputtering and wheezing the form began to try to speak. ‘Contain…’ The beast stopped a second. Standing over this mass of veins and flesh that had somehow been gifted the ability to speak. Leaning over and pulling its hair to look at what may have once been a face, now shapeless and as bright red with blood as the beasts own face was with rage and exertion. From the deepest growl to the most intense, vengeful bellow, the beast screamed; ‘WHY THE FUCK SHOULD I?’ His father slumped beside him, deep in slumber as a man who’d ran a marathon on a bottle of Morgans, the son attempted to scrape together a single thought. Not long now..


Victor hated this part of his job. "You have assets, use them," his boss said. Still, he could have picked a better target. General Habon was a greasy, fat, bolding man of about 45. Victor could overlook his appearence, it was the smell he detested. His breath stank of alcohol, and his skin stank of onions, and for the sake of the job Victor had had to become highly familiar with both. It didn't take long. Whether Victor wanted to put that down to skill on his part, or failure on the General's. He had trouble getting his privates to stand at attention. Little jokes like this were all that kept Victor going, He'd be sure to tell them when the job was over. While the work was over, the job was just beginning. Habon began to stir. Two pig like snorts, followed by a rattle of coughs, and the General was forcing his berg of a gut in to its seated position. "Oh," he said, looking down at the admittedly more disheveled than usual adonis covering himself in his sheets. "You're still here." It wasn't a question, just a statement of a distasteful fact. "Yup, and I'll gladly stay here all day. Wonder how your wife would feel about that." Perhaps gladly wasn't the right word, though the image did amuse Victor enough to almost make this whole cherade worth it. The general groaned, and pushed himself out of the bed. A true specamin of a man stood before Victor. At first he thought the snorts were out of the ordinary, he now realised it was everything else that was wrong. Habon looked roughly like a slab of pork, if you'd soaked it in vinegar for three weeks. He smelt about the same. There was barely any structure to his body, as he walked, or rather, waddled, he looked like a bin bag full of yogurt. The things Victor did for money. "How much do you want?" asked the old general, finally showing mercy through the economic use of a bathrobe. "Hmm?" "How much for you to leave immediately, and to keep your smug face shut?" "Now now, you were more than pleased with this smug face last night. I don't want much, just a fair price for my work." "Spit it out slut, I don't have all day." "I wish you'd said that last night," victor sighed, "I'll tell you what. Put your wallet down, I don't want your money, I'll leave." Habon was pleased with himself, fixing his morning whiskey, until he heard the next sentence. "I'll just need that letter you got from military high command last tuesday." Habon dropped his whiskey. "How did you..." "I have my ways. You never wondered why a guy like me would sleep with a swine like you, without having you pay in advance?" "Why you little..." "Hush. Oh, and you know that phrase about the pot and the kettle?" "Out. Get out of my house before I call security." "Call them, see how the media reacts." Lumbering over to the door, he did exactly that. His oily ham-stumps beat against the wood, a scared looking soldier coming immediatly. "Please remove this *hijo de las mil putas.* Throw him in with the other garbage." "Now now Habon, thats no way to talk about your daughters." The old man was growing redder by the second. "On second thought, shoot him here." "But sir..." "But nothing, no one will miss this degenerate." "Takes one to know one pal." "Shoot him, do it now!" "Please do, after last night I don't think i'll ever be able to scrub out the shame." The soldier pointed his rifle at Victor's head, finger shaking on the trigger. Victor got up out of the bed, walked over to the man, and pressed the barrel to his head. "I already prefer your guard to you Habon, at least this one is prepared to finish me off." "Stop fucking talking! And you, " he pointed his sausage finger at the guard, "Kill this fucker already, or i'll make sure you never get a job anywhere ever again." Victor served the guard a wink, and the pair broke out laughing. Before Habon could say a word, the stock of the rifle was slammed in to one of his many chins. He hit the marble floor with a wet smack. His bathrobe barely serving its intended function, the general pushed himself on to his knees. He looked like a gragoyle with a plastic bag stuck on it. And now his head was bleeding. Victor wasn't sure whether that was an improvement. The guard passed his rifle to Victor, his eyes turning from a dull blue to a vibrant yellow in an instant. The light grew and grew, forcing both Victor and Habon to look away. When they looked back, the guard was gone, replaced by a buzzcutted, androgynous person, slightly too skinny for the uniform. "You're acting gets better every time Erin, nice touch with the shaking." "You can talk, how you didn't gag that whole time, damn impressive." " It's not that hard, theres this trick you can do with clenching your fist and it..." "Thats not what I meant," They interrupted. "Tyler, you can come out now." From the corner of the room, two white orbs pulsed as a body formed around them. Shaggy black hair, tan skin, and heavy eyelids. "Any comment?" Victor asked, "Nothing?" "Can we just get this job over with?" "Fine fine, spoilsport." "And maybe put some clothes on." "Right." He pulled on a shirt and trousers from last night. "Remind me to burn these when we're done. I don't want to catch something." "I thought you'd be immune to all STDs by now, Vic." Said Erin, smirking. "Make yourself useful and find your brother will you? We need to deal with Habon." \ Erin's body shifted back to that of the timid officer. In the door way of the Caza Urraca, stood a tall, muscular man with short black hair, in a sweat sodden military uniform and sunglasses. "Andre, You're needed." "Shhh," "What?" "My name is Olivar Domingo. I do not know this Andre person." "Nows not the time for your method acting man, Vic needs you upstairs." "Who is this 'Vic' person of which you speak? I am but a humble security Guard for Senor Habon." Erins body morphed in a flash of white light, their appearence the exact replica of their brother's. "Im going to stop acting like a prat now, and im going to walk upstairs and do my job." The real Andre looked all around. "Come on, you've blown my cover!" "Ay yeah, very convincing, now get upstairs." \ "What took you so long?" Vic yelled as he gave leave another kick to Habon's face. "My Thespian of a brother." "Thespian?" Andre asked, testing out the word. "Actor, dear, its a fancy word for actor." said Tyler, watching as Vic took another running punt. "Either way," Victor panted, coming to a standstill, "Now we can get down to buisness. Tyler, Erin, get him on the bed." \ "Im really sorry about this Mr Habon sir" Said Andre, looming over the shaking General as Victor forced the barrel of his rifle to the back of his throat. The general gagged. The deafening crack of a gunshot rang out. The general spluttered blood on to his not quite clean sheets. Andre interlaced his broad hands over the General's destroyed face, green leaking out over his palms and glowing behind his sunglasses. The bleeding slowed, and then stopped, and Habon surged back to life. "Vic, you realise people need mouths to talk." Tyler said. "No shit admiral obvious." Tyler gestured down at Habon. "Ooh, yeah, didn't think of that." "Fucking idiot." "Its fine, its fine. Andre, get me a pen will ya pal?" He pulled one out of his uniform pocket. "That was quick." "You had me standing outside for like six hours! I almost ran out of crossword puzzles." Vic held out the pen to the gargling wreck of a man flayling on the bed. "Now, you're going to write down where you've put the letter." Erin threw a piece of paper from Habon's desk, Victor passing it to him. Habon padded around, finally finding the paper. Garbled letters appeared on the page. His handwriting was surprisingly legible, compared to some doctors Victor knew. "Go to hell." Erin read, over his shoulder. Victor sighed, smashing the rifle in to the remains of the man's face. "Andre," "Yes boss?" "Again." Interlaced hands, green glow, more spluttering and screaming. "We can do this all day pal. I can remain unreasonable longer than you can remain resistant" Tyler gave Erin a look, they nodded back. Habon began writing, his handwriting much worse. If Vic had been smarter, he wouldn't keep damaging the part of the brain that controls language. The paper held one word, though Erin had to turn it to figure it out. "Desk". Tyler and Andre kept Habon situated, as the others tore the desk apart. Nothing. Another gunshot, more green glow, more screaming. "Sorry." Andre repeated. "Same question, don't make me ask again." Habon tried to write, but thinking with a brain that shredded must have been like trying to power the town fate with a potato battery. Vic pressed his palms over his eyes, groaning deeplly. He tried to phase out the squeaks coming from the thrashing vegitable on the bed, until he noticed what he was saying. "Desss, Desss, Dessss." Desk. He insisted. They weren't gonna get anything else from him. Vic slammed the paper on to the ground. "This is fucking ridiculous! I spend all this time planning, I sleep with this sack of shit, all for nothing!" Vic screamed. "Guys..." "Its you're fault," Erin said, "Shooting him in the mouth like a prat." Guys..." "Oh give it a rest, if you had to sleep with him you'd be liberal with the bullets too. "Guys!" Tyler yelled, Gesturing to the floor in front of Vic. A letter, from military command, addressed to Habon. "Erin," Vic said, "Where did you get the paper we made him write on." They shrank inside themself, morphing to look smaller and more timid. "Where?" "The desk." Tyler laughed in the corner, a rare noise indeed. "Well," Vic said, "Overall, this has been a sucess." "What about Habon?" Tyler asked. Victor picked up the rifle, unloading one more shot, silencing the General. "Ooh, i've got it!" Andre said, rushing over to the bed. His hands interlaced, his eyes glowing green. "No," Vic said, clasping Andre's much larger hands. His eyes glowed black, and the green fizzled out. "Not this time, let him rest." Andre sowered, but nodded in affirmation. "Now," Vic said, "Which one of you is gonna clean up this mess?" "You made it," Erin said. "Yeah, but im the boss." "You never do the dirty work yourself." Erin retorted. "I did the dirty work last night!" Tyler sighed. "Fine, fine, I'll do it. Just please, shut up." "Good man!" "Not for you, jerk, I just want to get this job over with and go home." "You love me really." "Something like that...


There was a troll that lived under a bridge. He scared the local children and parents warned everyone away, but truthfully this troll was quite nice. His face was always in an upside down grin, for that was how he smiled. His eyes were big and one was just a bit lower than the other. He was quite odd to look at, by human standards. The troll was a very regular troll. However, he was also irregular. He didn’t like to do troll things, like bellow and bang and stomp through towns. He just liked the quiet under the bridge. He sat out under his bridge during the day, catching the things that flowed by. Tires and cups and newspapers and wood. He sat on the sunny side of the bridge and relaxed on the warm river rocks. And when the children crossed the bridge, daring each other to look at the troll or throw a stick, he would POP up! Sometimes he would ask them a riddle, or tell a little joke. Most times, they just screamed and ran. He did this for three reasons: 1. There were bigger, meaner trolls under other bridges, and he didn’t want the children thinking they could talk to them. 2. It was very funny. 3. He was a troll. At night he would go into the bridge under the left bank, through a little duct that led to a cozy brick room where he cooked and ate and slept. He had a cozy bed made of tires and a feather mattress. He had a table made of bottles and cans and a tea kettle Over a steam grate, which kept his home toasty warm. His duct became a window over the bed where he read the books that the children dropped by moonlight. Though to be quite honest, he had learned recently that he could use a fishing rod to grab a whole backpack if he was crafty enough. He slept well to the sound of the river running by. He was happy under the bridge. He loved the children and he loved his home. He had lived with trolls as a troll child. His parents were loud and angry, always bellowing and fighting. They didn’t understand their quiet troll child and yelled louder, hoping to inspire him. He hated the noise and the stink and the smashing. He just wanted a calm place to be alone. And so he treasured his life under the bridge. He befriended the ducks that came through, and one would often stay and chat through the night. He called him Huck. “Why do you suppose I always find one sock in the river but never two?” The troll asked. “QUACK.” Said Huck. And so it went long into the night. The troll was alone, but he didn’t feel alone. He had many friends, from the birds to the ducks to the owl that lived on the underside of the bridge next door, who he had much more sparkling conversations with. They had all donated feathers for his bed, and he caught them fish occasionally as a neighborly gesture. He saw the children grow every day, and he had good tea and good readings. He could always dry out the newspapers and magazines that floated his way, but he sometimes used them for papier-mâché instead. He was a happy, ugly troll under a bridge and he wouldn’t have it any other way.


A fog veiled cold morning greets the sleep-deprived man of the Second Restovian Revolutionary division with bullets. The projectiles fly past the trenches into an old corroded armed vehicle. "They hit Kalina again the bastards!" exclaimed one of the soldiers. The joke was getting old and insufficient against the grim monotony misery and futility of trench warfare, especially in a position such as this. I wished for a bullet to find a home in a skull for a change even if it was my own. First of November It was time for some mud aficionados to scout the enemy positions and hopefully our comand to decide to attack. I craved for an attack order and even a fatal one should be prefered to this craven shivering hell. As I was passing by the generals bunkers. I ower herd a conversation mentioning shock troops from the northern parts of the Cassadian mountains. The conversation context seemed to be one of reinforcements. This could mean a possibility of advancement and repositioning. A peculiar peace of conversation made me question my senses. "The Blackbirds shuld advance..." Perhaps I was going insane from the utter sense of disappointment in our past actions, therefore, imagining some form of hope ridden scenario for the sake of my sanity, I owerheard the name of the legendary shock troopers from the North, the infamous Blackbirds. Hope seems to me now a weapon as important as a bayonet with only one difference. It is pointed to myself. I waited for comrade Bitov to exit the bunked and confirm or disapprove this dream-like fantasy of mine. He seemed surprised and annoyed by my intrusiveness making me once again confirm my sentiment of disillusionment with the party propaganda of "Army of equals" His words betrayed a trace of fatality which led me to believe that an attack was in the plan. Our command was truly unprofessional and craven. I was always disdained by their unwillingness to action and their two-faced nature when it came to politics. Opportunistic and hypocritical to the core. A man such as this corrodes the revolutionary spirit before it even began to taste victory. The next morning the command issued orders and a summary of the battle plan. The orders came from Levov himself. Our forces were to storm the enemy positions with no retreat or mercy. A heroic sacrifice was to be made against the front line trenches fortified with machine guns. This would provide a distraction that "The Blackbirds" would exploit disabling the artillery from behind enemy lines in a special operation that itself seems to me suicidal at best. Blackbirds second division should attack the flanks and provide a breakthrough and a chance to victory. The remaining surviving man of our division should join the ranks of The Blackbirds upon finishing our mission. The odds of survival being minimal this seemed a fools gold type of promise. The commanders were visibly shaken by these orders, they tried their best to appear heroic and fanatical, stoic even yet you could see it in their eyes. They feared death. There should be no such sentiment in the Revolutionary war. I felt alienated from my comrades, so fear struck. Am I the only one that made peace with death itself? "Embrace me sweet and merciful death. Let our peace be as eternal and meaningful as our struggle was." I proclaimed such vows as if it was a prayer. Preyers are for the statists, self-sacrifice is the purest form of it to a real revolutionary. I refuse to stand in recess due to fear of impending doom and proclaimed my devotion and zeal. "Towards comrades to death!" "To freedom! " Death is the final form of freedom anyway.