She'd been there for me since I turned sixteen. I was younger then, physically that much is obvious, but I was a younger spirit too. I didn't know what it felt like to breathe another person's air in, and I couldn't have known what it was like for someone to spit yours back in your face. I was only sixteen, and anything was possible, and she was my ticket to all those possibilities, to a life yet unknown. Carmen, my sister had named her, it was only proper that I addressed her by the same name once she had become mine. I'm the type who doesn't like changing the name of his pets if they've already been given one, I don't see why cars should be any different. Hell, I'd hate it if someone started calling me by something stupid one of these days for no good reason. But, I guess there's no harm in a nickname - still, she remained Carmen to me. In my youth I had mistreated her, as most youth do with most things they don't understand the value in. Tools were tools to me, and relationships were relationships, and my mother's fascination with dolls and furniture had pushed me even further away from subjectifying objects. I drove her too hard, I let my friends blast their shitty music at full volume through her speakers - I paid quickly for that one, poor Carmen never sounded the same after that first summer I had her. It didn't take long for her health to start to fade, she was an older girl, but she had been properly taken care of before me. Her brakes went out, her oil turned to slop, and later on, she'd punish me especially harshly by taking away her cooling capabilities from me - a sentence too cruel to be served in Texas, regardless of the crime. I learned a lot from her though - every time she'd let me know something was wrong, I learned how to fix it. She taught me to be attentive, to listen to every bad breath she'd heave, to feel for when her shoes would start to hurt in the wrong ways. I didn't become a mechanic by any means, but I was well beyond oil changes and brake swaps by my second year. By the end of her life, I'd fixed her bumper, given her cleaner headlamps, replaced the power window assembly on three of her four doors, you could definitely say we were well acquainted. That's what I think does it to me, now in our twilight together, she's not just a car to me anymore. I don't think she'd just been a car when I got her either, but now I know the difference. A car can take you places, a car has nice features and big cup holders and vents for the rear, but a car is just a means to an end, no more romantic than a high-tech wagon. Carmen was something else, Carmen was something to hang out with - I learned that on one of the many drives between college and my hometown. I learned it more deeply later on, on the drives I'd make to and from nowhere: excuses to hang out with Carmen. I remember the wind she cupped perfectly into my hair as I drove her on, the way she'd hum and purr beneath my feet so gently. I remember what it felt like when we were in our prime together. But, Carmen is an older woman - younger than me, but old in her years. Eventually, the years caught up to her; fixing her became more of a hassle, and made hanging out with her feel like something tedious. Her health got worse and worse over the years, and by the time I could start affording to give her the attention she needed, it was plain to see that we had outgrown one another. As she sits now, lonely and unattended to for far too long, a fixture in my garage, I wonder what to do with her. I love her, and I know she loves me, but the love is different now - love for a long lost past we shared. So, when I asked her this morning, it didn't surprise me that she accepted my offer - it almost felt like she had been waiting for this moment too. Carmen's moving on. She became far too costly for anyone who didn't understand her worth to sign up for; but, I found a service that lets me free her, one that lets me give her away. I don't know what'll happen to her once they take her, but I know what would happen if she stays. I hope they give her to somebody who can appreciate her, some one who can learn to love her flaws that make her unique. I hope they fix her up before they do, give her the makeover she so desperately deserves. But, I know they could just as well turn around and discard her at the nearest salvage yard. How many pieces of silver would she be worth for her flesh alone? I don't know what will happen to her if she goes - but I think that's just life; all I can do is hope. But, if there's one thing she's taught me: it's not about where she stops, but about the drive that got her there in the first place. I'll miss you, Carmen.


I love to watch people. I know how it sounds, but let me explain. I love to take a simple glance at a stranger and invent their entire life story. That woman you queued behind at the supermarket? She’s a single mother, her three children, all under the age of 5, struggling to survive. Of course, I could be, and most likely am, completely wrong. She might be heading home to her spouse, or to an empty house, or even to no house at all. I have no idea. But I have instinct. I have this odd feeling that I’m right. Each and every time. Deep down, I know that each observation I make is entirely true. And in my profession, it makes all the difference. Things have been slow recently. I’ve been slow. None of my stories seem quite right. That was, until, I saw her. She sat across from me on the metro, staring down at her phone. It was nothing out of the ordinary. But then, she moved. She flipped her hair back, read something off of her phone, and smiled. It was brief. Only for a second did that grin cross her face. But I saw it. And it made all the difference. My mind began to spin, running through every single possibility I could conjure up. Maybe a family member was having a baby? Maybe she was having a baby? Or maybe it was something simple, an “I love you” from the one she cares about, perhaps. Or maybe, just maybe, it was something sick. Something twisted. The passing of a loved one. A friend in danger. Maybe she smiled so briefly because she knew it was wrong. But this thought exited my mind as quickly as it had appeared. What were the chances of this woman being a sociopath? Highly unlikely. Of course, it was something mundane. Like a turning cog in my head, I waited for my brain to land on an explanation. And then it came. Her loved one was far away. Much too far away to keep a stable relationship. But they had. And the smile? The reasoning was simple. I was almost dismayed at how long it took me to work it out. Her lover was coming back to her. Whether they were taking the next flight or had only just booked, I had no idea. But that was her story. Do you see? Do you see now why I love this so much? I can ignore my boring life and think about all the adventures that other people have. I began to imagine the reunion. Maybe they would embrace. Maybe she would drop whatever she was holding and run towards them, like in a movie. Or maybe she would simply smile, like she had just then. I didn’t know. I can’t tell the future; just the present. I sighed, my shoulders falling, a small, brief smile gracing my face. Just like hers. For the remainder of the ride, I stayed deep in thought about this girl and her mystery lover. That was, until, the train came to a grinding halt at the station. I knew it wasn’t my stop, so I started to close my eyes, leaning back more in my chair. But she stood. She stood up, brushing the dust from her lap and beginning to make her way towards the platform. I told myself it didn’t matter; that I didn’t care about this stranger. But I did. I cared more about her and her story than anything in my life. I had to know. So I stood. I brushed the dust from my lap. And I followed her onto the platform. And all the way home. I had no idea where I was, but I didn’t even care. My mind was clouded by excitement, at anticipation for seeing how this story continued. She paused outside one of the homes, most likely hers, and turned. She looked one way down the street, and then the other. And then down at her watch. What was she waiting for? Or who was she waiting for? My heart began to pound. It was almost ironic; I thought I must have been more excited than her. I - no, we, - waited there for almost an hour. Nobody came. I was angry. Disappointed. In fact, scratch that - I was furious. How could they have left me hanging like this? Left on the edge of my seat, barely even breathing, and they had disappointed me. Of course they had. They always did. But she looked worse. She had crumpled down onto the concrete, head in her knees, sobbing. It was muffled from across the street, but I could tell she was weeping. She lifted her head up for a moment - the same way she had lifted her head on the train - and I saw the tears lining her face like a periwinkle glitter. Before I could even tell what I was doing, I took a step into the street. And another. And another. And before I knew it, I was sprinting towards this poor, poor girl. She didn’t know me, of course, but she needed the comfort. She needed my comfort. And she was going to get it. I realised how close I was standing to her, towering over her crumpled figure like some kind of twisted, humanoid lighthouse. She didn’t even lift her head. Rude, I thought, but she was sad. I couldn’t blame her. I knelt down, my knees rough against the concrete pavement. Should I speak? I tried. I opened my mouth, my throat dry and lips chapped, but no sound came from my decaying mouth. Not even a hoarse groan. Nothing. So instead. I raised my skeletal hand to her shoulder. I’m so sorry this had to happen to you, I thought in my head. No one deserves this. And as my hand fell, fell towards her shoulder, it never hit. I phased straight through her. Like always. My piteous smile turned into a grimace. My other hand swung up, down through her back, and into the concrete. I tried to grab her face, to lift up her beautiful head, to wipe away the tears, but all I felt was air. My love, I’m sorry, I tried to scream. I didn’t mean to leave you here alone. I tried to come, I did, I swear. I just never made it. It wasn’t my fault, but it also isn’t yours. You could never do anything wrong. My love. My love. My love. I shut my eyes tight, praying, wishing, begging I could embrace her once more. Pleading with the universe to allow me to explain myself. And yet, when I opened my eyes; nothing had changed. I’m back on the metro, sat across from the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. She flips her hair and smiles; smiles at my text message. I can’t wait to see you again, it reads. She types back. I never get her message. Because a block away from her home, I’m dead with a bullet wound in my head. Tossed away like garbage in a back alley. She never gets to embrace me. I can never embrace her. So all I can do is observe. Over and over. Forever.


The pages scattered across the floor and he dropped to his knees, gathering them up. The woman behind the desk was shouting at him, shouting something he wasn’t really listening to. It was just another rejection. Just something else to weigh on his mind tonight. He stood, clutching the paper to his chest and thanked the woman for her time and stumbled out. Her assistant gave him a pitying look and his face burned with embarrassment. It was bad enough that he was being rejected, he didn’t need to be pitied as well. The bench at the bus stop was cold as he sat, but there was nothing more comfortable around. He just wanted to get home before the rain started. He could see the grey clouds building quickly. Around the corner rumbled the bus, jerking to a stop before him. He paid his fee and found a seat, shuffling the paper in his lap to put it back in order. Some of the pages had been crumpled and he smoothed them out as best he could. She didn’t have to be so mean, he thought to himself. A simple ‘no thank you’ would have been far more than enough for him to leave her office. Throwing the pages at him was nothing more than smug dismissal. The bus creaked to a halt at his stop and he shuffled off. As soon as the door closed behind him, a wet drop hit his shoulder. He glanced at it and then at the sky. Of course it began to rain as soon as he was out of shelter. He would have to run. By the time he reached his door, water had soaked through his clothes. The pages were wet under his shirt where he had tucked them. The ink had run and smeared across his skin. He kicked the door shut behind him and sat, arms wrapped around his knees as he stared at the sodden pages. Another failure. He’d even ruined the pages. Of course, they were too crumpled to take to another meeting. He sighed and pulled himself from the floor. The pages were laid over his bench to dry, a pathetic attempt at saving the paper, though he could already see how it had gone rough and fluffy from wet and friction. He crawled into bed, burying himself in his disappointment. The night passed and morning came, with a hungry belly waking him. Pulling on clothes and muttering to himself, he shuffled into the kitchen. The sheets of paper he had left on the bench were gone. Instead he found a box, filled to the brim with folded paper flowers. He picked up one, reading the text on one of the petals and realised it was a line from one of his rejected poems. “I thought you might need a pick-me-up.” His sister was holding a cake, smiling at him brightly. “I heard you come back yesterday, but you didn’t come in to tell me how it went.” He stumbled to her, setting aside the cake and leaned his head on her shoulder. Her arms went around him, rubbing his back softly and he began to cry. She held him tight, whispering soft words of love and encouragement until he stopped crying.


Cameron was a good guide, and we felt more certain on our route as we weaved our way over the hillsides of Stetguttot Heath. However, it was still tiring work. My lungs and legs were relieved at the top of every hill, catching a moment’s pause before we continued descending again. It wasn’t until we started our trek the next day that Cameron quickly turned off the main road, jolting away from the rising hills and instead snaking along the bottom of a valley. The track would never have been wide enough for a cart. Boulders jutted out into the path, and even in single-file we would occasionally have to step over rocks that had tumbled down the hillside, gravity pulling them as far as it could The gentle morning breeze felt stronger, concentrated and cajoled into a powerful gust. Around us, the air whistled as it spun its way through the corridors, and I struggled to hear Cameron’s instructions as he warned us of oddly placed rocks or thorn-covered plants. After a couple of hours in the valley, the path seemed to widen out. The steep banks of the hills slowly lost their pitch, becoming more rolled, until we turned one final corner and could see the town at Section F ahead of us. Immediately I could sense something was off. In the distance, there were people running between buildings. However, they weren’t focussed like the dedicated workers of Tima Voreef or Bluekira Ministrations. Instead, their eyes darted about, their gait was unsteady. They seemed to be in a hurry to get somewhere, but unsure where. In the far distance, I could hear voices. Not loud enough to make out words, but they were shrill. Orders were being barked in plaintive, hurried notes. Cameron noticed too, his feet quickly transitioning to a jog. We followed him closely until he stopped outside a building as a woman ran out of a building with a bucket of water. “What’s wrong?” Cameron asked. “One of the shafts collapsed.” The woman didn’t stop to talk, she just ran past us. “Good sixty people missing, hopefully most the other side, just trapped in there.” “How can we help?” I asked. “Any way you can. Move rocks. Help the doctor. Whatever works.” Cameron once more kicked his feet and began sprinting through the town. We stuck to his heels, darting past the buildings until we re-emerged on the otherside. Looking out ahead, I could see the entrance to the mineshaft. Where the hills began again, a tunnel had been dug into the earth. The entrance was several metres across, and wooden beams held back the mountain on either side. At the entrance, a chain of people had formed passing large rocks dragged out from the collapse. Behind them, carts, each manned by two people, trekked back and forth filled with dirt and rubble. They heaved their way out of the entrance, tipped the contents to the floor and then ran back in to gather another load. Then, emerging from the darkness, I saw two people carrying a woman with her arms draped over their shoulders. She hobbled slowly on one leg, the other refusing to touch the ground. Thick trickles of blood ran down her scalp towards her cheek. “Looks like there’s another one coming out, doc,” we heard a heavyset woman with dirt-brown hair screech from the mine. We followed her eyeline to see a man in a white shirt and black trousers knelt down by a prone body on the floor. “Come on, we have to help them.” Cameron beckoned us forward as he charged towards the mouth of the mine. We kept pace behind him until I saw Alessia suddenly stop and freeze by the doctor and the body on the floor. It was a man, perhaps in his twentie, silently writhing in pain. He rocked back-and forth, his arm held up to his face, covering his eyes. Looking down his body, I could see the source of his pain. His ankle was bent and twisted at near right angles to his leg, morphed into a position that looked so unnatural I almost gagged. “I’m not sure there’s much we can do for the ankle,” the doctor muttered to a woman standing nearby. “I think the best we can hope for is to save the rest of the leg.” “Please Doctor, please, just make the pain stop,” the man winced. “I’m afraid this might get worse before it gets better. But you’ll be okay. However, I think we might have to amputate.” He turned back to the woman standing nearby. “Do you think you can find me a saw?” “What the fuck?” Alessia suddenly blurted out loud, the words escaping from her lips like vented steam. “Amputate?” The doctor turned to face us. “I’m afraid it’s probably for the best. This will prevent any impediment caused by the useless limb and prevent infection.” “It’s a dislocation,” Alessia said. “It needs realignment, and then some elevation.” The man stood up and puffed his chest. “And you would be a qualified doctor would you?” “No,” Alessia replied, looking at the man on the ground. “But neither are you if you think you need to amputate.” “I am the lead medical officer for this entire section. Unless you have credentials, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.” Alessia simply stood still and shook her head. “I said leave.” “Let me realign that man’s ankle,” she said calmly. “You have no authority here,” the doctor replied, his eyes darting around us, looking for help. “One minute. If I’m wrong you can needlessly amputate my leg too.” “I am a qualified doctor…” “Oh screw this,” Alessia said, pushing past the doctor and kneeling down by the man on the floor. “Hey, I’m gonna do something that will help save your foot. But I need to pop the ankle back in its joint, and while I’m doing that it’s going to hurt. Bad. Okay?” The man nodded. “Get away from my patient,” the doctor barked. He reached down an arm onto Alessia’s shoulder to grab it. As soon as his fingers touched her, an instinct kicked in. She flicked her body back, reached up, grabbed his arm and yanked him down to the ground behind her. The doctor tumbled into the dirt as Alessia whipped a knife out from her belt. “Stay still or next time I don’t stop at showing you the knife.” She turned to me. “Ferdinand, keep an eye on him.” “Gladly,” I smirked, walking over to the doctor and standing by him. “You’re going to let this woman maim a patient are you?” The doctor glared at me. “Be quiet. Allow her to concentrate.” I said softly, nodding to Alessia and the patient. “Okay. This will hurt. But try not to fight it or buck against me. Scream if you need to.” The man got half a word into a response before Alessia lifted up the leg and with one quick movement, twisted the ankle back. The man let out a gasping scream, a roar so loud that everyone around us turned to stare, drawn towards the howl. However, no sooner had it begun, than Alessia was finished. The leg back down on the floor again, and the foot looking normal. “It’ll hurt for a bit. Keep it elevated and rested. But you’ll be fine,” Alessia said. The man’s head bobbed in confusion and relief. Alessia stood back up and turned to the doctor on the floor. “Learn what a dislocation is, you moron.” She rolled her eyes and began walking off towards the mine. I smiled to the man on the floor, and then to the doctor, before following Alessia. “I know what you did was right. But was that worth it?” “Pick your battles. I picked one. It was an easy win,” Alessia shrugged. “What if that doctor tries to get you in trouble?” “For what? Helping his patient? Yeah, he’s gonna sit scared and embarrassed, nothing more.” I paused for a moment, glancing back over my shoulder at the man, now sitting, staring at his swollen ankle. “What was all that about anyway?” “What do you mean?” “Why was a doctor preparing to cut off a man’s leg for a dislocation?” “No idea. But wanna do some good?” she said, her head bowed to the mine. “Let’s go clear as much rubble as we can.” \ We helped out for much of the rest of the day, doing our best to clear the mine as the people of Section F desperately tried to burrow through to the other side. As the sun began to fade, exhausted, we pulled ourselves away from the struggle. A few committed workers would continue to fight through the night, but most needed to stop, sleep, and finish the job in the morning. My skin tingled as the heavy sweat from the day’s labour evaporated in the cool nighttime air. We sat around a large open campfire, maybe some five metres back. Close enough to give me light, but far enough away that only the occasional crackle of the fire blew warmth my way. My body provided enough heat on its own. We had been sitting in relative peace, when Cameron walked out of the gloom, accompanied by the large woman I had seen bellowing orders when we first arrived. “Cameron says you’ve been asking about Sannaz Lytta,” the woman said as she knelt down on her haunches by the fire, the tips of the flames occasionally obscuring her face. “Yes.” I leaned forwards. “Do you know them?” “Did,” the woman replied. “I’m the foreperson of the mine here. It’s my job to know all the workers.” “Has Cameron told you about what Sannaz did?” I asked. The woman looked to the ground. “I… I feel I ought to apologize for what he apparently did to your friends.” “Do you know why he may have done it?” The woman shook her head. “Afraid your guess is as good as mine. He was always pretty quiet. Just spent his time observing the world around him. I’m sorry I can’t offer much more.” I forced a smile, hiding the disappointment. The woman looked back to Cameron. “Cameron tells me you helped a man who was injured earlier." She pointed to her own ankle. “He had a bad leg, I think?" Alessia steadied herself, preparing for trouble. “Uh huh. The doctor intended to amputate, and I-” “Yeah. That sounds about right,” the woman interrupted. “That kid’s got his whole life ahead of him, one that will remain good because of you. Thank you.” Alessia relaxed her shoulders. “I’m glad we could help.” The woman paused once more. “I’m not sure if this will be helpful, but maybe you can still make use of it.” She leaned in closer, whispering her words with the flames. “About a week before he disappeared, Sannaz said he had found an old cave system while digging out a new route - asked if he could see where it went, thought it might lead to some more veins. I said it sounded good. I never spoke to him to find out how it when. But then there’s an explosion near where he had been working. The whole shaft collapsed. Sannaz was nowhere to be seen. Truth be told I was worried he had died there, or been trapped in the caves.” She rolled her head from side to side. “By the sounds of it, may have been better if he had.” “You didn't clear the route?” Alessia asked. “No. But the explosion caused a sinkhole. There’s a straight drop down to where he was working about three hundred metres that way.” The woman pointed a thumb over her shoulder. “The ground’s unstable. And you’d have to drop straight down a good hundred metres. But if you wanna try it, it might be your best chance of finding out what happened.” “Thank you,” I said. The woman stood back up. “I am truly sorry for what happened. Sorry that someone from our island did this. And I guess I’m sorry for Sannaz too. He was a bright man." "Bright?" The words spilled from my lips like a reflex. "I thought he did terribly on the test, the… TBU thing." The woman chuckled. "You ever taken that test?" I shook my head. "Have a look sometime. Tell me how you do." The woman turned and left, her figure slowly fading into the darkness. Cameron stayed behind and sat down next to the fire. "What about the test?" Alessia asked. My eyes narrowed as I focused on the flame in front of me. "Alessia, can I have a look at that book?" "Sure," she replied. Reaching to the bag we confiscated from Cameron and throwing it over to me. I saw Cameron's eyes follow it, like a baying dog. I grabbed the bag and took out the book, flicking it open to the front. The text was in simple black and white, the occasional smudge where the printing press shifted as the ink settled. I look at the contents, found a section labeled "practice questions" and turned forward. I reached the right section and read the question at the top of the page. Then I read it again. Then again. Slowly, pausing between each word, tracing the sounds with my lips. After the fourth attempt I find myself incoherently mumbling the words aloud. “You okay there?” Alessia asked, distracted by my noises. “Yes,” I replied. “Well, no. This question…” “What?” “‘Cato takes resources from batch CF231502 for part of the smelting process, and combines them with resources from batch MW222686. This creates the correct reducing agent for which ore?’” “Copper, right?” Cameron asked. “The answer will be in the margins at the bottom.” I flicked my eyes to the end of the page where the answers was written in the tiniest font. Sure enough, as I squinted, I could see he was correct. “Yeah,” I nodded, slowly. “But the batch numbers?” “Labels given to each of the materials down at the mines.” “How many are there?” Cameron shrugged. “Thousands, probably.” “So to pass the test you have to remember thousands of batch names and what’s in each.” “In theory,” Cameron said with a tilt of his head. “In theory?” “That’s what the book’s for. It’s a study guide. To show you how to prepare for the test?” “So that’s how you learned all the batches and what’s in them?” “You don’t have to,” Cameron said, shaking his head. He uncrossed his legs, stood up, and walked over. He crouched down beside me and picked up the book, before opening it in the middle. He flipped through a few pages until he found what he was looking for. “Here,” he said, placing the book in my lap. I glanced down at the open page. *In order to assist with test grading, the examination office at Section C often use a code that ties the question to the answer. Remembering these can help speed up answering the questions.* *Arlo = arsenic* *Cato = copper* *Tina = tin* The list continued but I stopped reading. “It’s a cheat.” “It’s not a cheat. You still got to study and learn. You can’t take the book into the test,” Cameron protested. “But...” I blinked, processing Cameron’s argument. “You don’t need to know how to make copper to answer that question?” "No." “So without the book -” “- you can never pass.” Cameron finished my sentence for me. “Even with it, only the brightest, hard working students get top grades. There’s too much to remember. I got lucky with that copper question you asked. But, if you live in a section where they don’t have the book… Ain’t anyone in the whole of Section F got more than a thirty in generations.” I looked around at our surroundings, recalling every person I had met since we arrived. Everything I knew about the island was wrong. It had all been offset, slightly askew. And now a lens had been shifted, the world put into alignment, and it all became so clear. Everything seemed to suddenly make sense, from the rundown harbour, to the sad but smart people of Section F. I turned my gaze back to the fire, watching the burning wood blacken from the heat, as the flames leapt high and gracious into the night air. I watched the ash flutter up into the dark sky, disappearing out of sight. And I wondered how my life might have been had I been born in Section F. \ Next chapter released 30th September.


Regret Vera looked at me. School was just out and we had agreed to go to her house after school. Our English teacher had given us an assignment: write a two-page story about a strong feeling you've had this school year. Both her and I had a hard time coming up with a topic, so we had agreed to sit together and write our stories. “Let’s go!”, Vera said. When we came out of the school building, the sun was shining. For the last couple of days or so, it had already been cold outside, autumn was clearly coming. But today, it was bright outside and pretty warm. We started walking towards Vera’s house. She lives half an hour away from school, outside our village. We walked past the lake. There were tiny waves on the lake that made the sunlight dance in a million miniature suns. There was the small beach and the jetty where we had spent so many days during the summer. “I want to sit on the jetty”, Vera said. That was a great idea. I was feeling quite hot already, and we would have our feet in the water while discussing what we would write about. We sat down and took off our shoes. “Cooolllld...!”, I yelled when I dipped my toes. Vera laughed. After a while, it just felt good. We talked about many things, but English class wasn’t one of them. The sun was still shining. A woman with two children had arrived at the little beach at the far end of the jetty. The children started to play on the beach, and I heard their mother raise her voice and say “stay in the shade!”. A couple in their 30s had laid down on the other side of the jetty and were tanning. The man had taken off his shirt, and the woman was wearing a bikini, or? no, she was actually just in her underwear. This day had surprised everyone with it’s summeriness. “Let’s take a swim!”, Vera suddenly said. “Ha ha, yes, let’s!” I said, thinking she was joking. “I’m serious!” “But…” “Yes, we don’t have our bathing suits. But, noone will see us or even care! We just jump in quickly!” “OK, but…” “Yes!”, she exclaimed, “I knew you were up for it!” And before I could say anything else, she started unbuttoning her jeans. I fumbled a bit with my dress. Vera was already pulling her jeans off her legs with great force. Her wet feet were sticking to the inside. I was touching some of the buttons on my dress. “It’s going to to feel so wonderful in this heat!” Vera said while folding up her jeans. She put them down neatly next to her shoes and socks. I looked at the mother and her children. They were digging a hole and filling it with water from the lake. “Not in the sun!” the mother shouted. I looked at the tanning couple. They were on their backs with their eyes closed and softly talking with each other. What if someone else came? I was clenching the buttons of my dress. Vera had taken off her top and was undoing her bra. I stared at her. “I am going to go in, what are you waiting for?” she laughed. Vera now stood on the edge, with her back towards me, her arms stretched upwards. She was breathing in and out deeply, preparing for the cold rush that would come when she would enter the water. I saw the freckles that started in her neck and went down all the way towards her lower back. The pattern looked beautifully symmetrical. Her skin was browned by many days of sun. She had no tanlines to speak of. I could see the fine detailed imprint that the underwear she had just worn had left on her body. It somehow reminded me of the emperor’s new clothes. She looked back at me. “The last one in is a rotten herring!”, she yelled, lifted up her arms and dove in the water. She made a perfect curve. Her feet were slightly apart when they disappeared into the water. A few seconds later she came back up. She swam back to where I was sitting and looked up at me. “Are you not coming?” she asked, using her normal voice. “That’s okay”, some seconds later. She swam away. I watched her moving in the water. The sunlight was still dancing on the waves, although now the pattern was different, from this close to the water. I closed my eyes and could almost feel how being in the cold water must feel for Vera, how the rush of just jumping in and not worrying about anything must feel for her. Vera swam to the wooden platform with the jumping tower that was floating in the water a small distance away, where the water was deeper. She climbed onto the platform and then to the top of the tower. “Geronimo!” she shouted when she let herself fall down all the way into the water. I watched. I saw the tanning couple were sitting up and were looking at Vera too, with smiles on their faces. I was still holding a part of my dress in one hand when Vera came back and climbed the steps back on to the jetty. She sat down next to me and brushed the water off her body with her hands. “The water was lovely!” she said. This time only to inform me, the tone of voice she had used earlier to try to convince me was gone. My window of opportunity was gone too. “Let me just dry up in the sun and then we go home, okay?” When we arrived at Vera’s house, her mother was wondering where we had been. She saw Vera’s wet hair and laughed, “okay, I thought so!”. She made lemonade for us and served cookies. We didn’t really make much progress with the story writing. When dinner time came, I said I had to go home and went outside. I started walking back to the village. It had become cloudy and it was a bit chilly in the air. I pulled my jacket out of my bag and put it on. When I walked by the lake, the water looked grey and uninviting. Summer was definitely over.


My wife’s name is Ava. She’s pretty much the only good thing that has happened to me over the past few years. Lately though, things have changed with her. Let me go back to the beginning. Three years ago, I was at rock bottom. Like just about everyone my age, I shipped off to college when I was 18. I was never the best student, but I was never close to failing any classes either. It was just the next thing to do in life. It just didn’t turn out the way I planned. I hit a wall in college. It wasn’t the classes but college life in general. Coming from a small town, I wasn’t used to all the social circles, gossip, and backstabbing. More than anything, my dorm was just a mass of loud strangers. My anxiety and insomnia hit a pick, and, eventually, I couldn’t do it anymore. My parents were disappointment, but they eventually got over it. I was adamant that I would get a job and that college just wasn’t right for me at the moment. My mistake was taking the first job that came up. I started working at the grocery store just down the street from my parents’ house. It was soul-crushing work at first. I stacked so many cans and peeled so many labels that my fingernails were permanently chipped. I dealt with so many customers yelling about their expired coupons and how the bakery ruined their child’s birthday’s cake that I had a persistent headache. Unlike college, however, work was repetitive and mind-numbing. More than anything, it felt pretty good to come back to my childhood bed at the end of the day. Things got better right around the time I met Ava. My do-nothing store manager retired and I decided to throw my hat in the ring for the position. Next thing I knew, I was working a salaried position. Things still were far from perfect. I had new migraines involving employees not showing up for work, stealing merchandise, or failing drug tests. The difference now was that I was finally in control of something for once. It was my store and my rules for the most part. It also helped that my bank account now had four digits in it, and I was looking to move out of my parents’ house. I met Ava on a completely random day at work. One moment I was fixing the lotto machine and suddenly there was a stunning woman looking at me. She was tall shoulder-length gold-brown hair and a set of large brown eyes. At the time, she was clutching a can of green beans. I shook off my immediate infatuation long enough to hear her explain that she had a lot of food allergies and that she wanted to know about some of the mystery chemicals listed on the ingredients label. I had to take out my phone for some quick research before piecing together some less-than-scientific explanation for the strangely named compounds. She was extremely thankful afterwards, leaving me a with a smile. This became an almost weekly occurrence. Ava (I learned her name after the third time) would come in to quiz me on some preservative or food coloring agent. It was a little strange, but I figured that she was used to going to organic grocery stores or something. Her questions eventually turned to conversations. She wanted to here about me, and I learned about her as well. She said that she was a graduate student, working with a professor to study some of the rare salamanders found in the nearby woods. When she started talking to me outside of her food questions, things picked up speed. For only the third time in my life, I asked a girl out and, somehow, she said yes. It was a whirlwind after that. She was adventurous (outside of food), constantly taking me on road trips and day-cations. It was good for me. I was a college dropout working a dead-end job and, suddenly, my world was a whole lot brighter. Ava never talked much about her past. She said that she had a bad relationship with her family and couldn’t move away from them fast enough. She only had a few friends, like me, she had made around town. My parents loved her, so it wasn’t heard to consider her part of our family. I was always teaching her things that I thought regular parents usually taught their children. I taught her how to change a car tire and how to cook a pot of spaghetti noodles. I guess her relationship with her parents really was strange. She always had an interesting way of bashfully bringing up questions about those things. She would be overboiling something on the stove and say something like: “Help. I do not have knowledge of this.” I thought it was cute. The little idiosyncrasies in her speech made me feel like she had spent time in another country or something like that. After a year, I was never so sure about anything. This girl had to be my wife. I wanted her with me, lighting up everything around me for the rest of my life. She seriously said yes. In some private moments, however, she did ask me if I was sure. After all, she had to travel regularly back to her college and attend conferences. We’d be separated for long spans. I said exactly what I felt. While I always wanted to be by her side, it seemed like a no-brainer tradeoff. If it came to it, I had no problem with quitting my job and picking up everything to move with her if we had to. My first clue that something was off came during one of those conferences. Back at home, I decided to call Ava to check in before I went to bed. She didn’t answer her cell phone, and I basically figured she was tired from the trip and had fallen asleep with the phone off. Still, being an overly-cautious person, I decided to call her room number. That was a problem. The number I called was disconnected. That was a little concerning, but I thought she may have scribbled down the wrong number for me. I called the hotel front desk then. That started sending shivers down my spine. Not only did they not have any record of anyone named Ava in the hotel, but her room did not exist. In fact, the hotel only had five floors and Ava had given her room number at 604. I didn’t sleep that night. My mind raced with possibilities. Did she not make it to the hotel? Had she lied about where she was going? Why? Was she having an affair? Had she left me? Why? We barely ever fought about anything. No, I was just being suspicious. I resolved to call her program advisor in the morning. I sent an email to the professor just asking if I could get in contact with Ava and how she was doing at the conference. I had just pressed “send” when my phone started ringing. It was her. I exhaled all of the air I had been taking in from hyperventilating. She had seen my missed call and was checking up. She apologized for falling asleep and not getting back to me. I delicately broached my confusion with the hotel situation. She told me that she had simply wrote down the wrong number and that the room had been booked by the university without her name attached. That made me feel pretty bad about feeling so suspicious. Of course, Ava wasn’t the type of person to run off without a word. I had completely forgotten about sending the email until I got a reply later that day. That reply sent me back to a world of confusion. The professor, Dr. Miller, told me that I had the wrong professor. She didn’t have an advisee with Ava’s name. I read that email is disbelief. Ava couldn’t have told me the about the wrong advisor. She had stories she told about her. I was sure that was her name. I only had more questions that were now coupled with that bizarre episode about the hotel. How well did I know my wife? Was she even in a graduate program? I’d never seen the bills, but she had assured me they were taken care of by a scholarship. What was she doing away from home? How do I even bring this up to her? When Ava came home, I still didn’t know how to find the right questions. I was afraid that just speaking the words would cause my perfect world to break. So, I was cold and distant. It wasn’t on purpose; it was just reflex. I was sure that I just needed to find the right time to bring it up. I was also resolved that this wouldn’t be the end of Ava and me. She was too pure, too good for me. Whatever it was—an affair, a job she didn’t want to talk about, something about her estranged family—I would not leave her. I think Ava really sensed by coldness. She started spending more and more time away from home. Mostly she liked to take walks on the trail down the street from our house, especially in the early mornings or in the evenings. I really started missing our evening movie dates. She had so many movies she had missed out on as a kid, and I enjoyed introducing them to her. Her favorite was Monsters, Inc. I had given her a Sulley plushie as part of her first anniversary present. It usually sat at the edge of our bed. It took weeks for me to get the courage to talk to Ava about her mysterious trip. Every moment with her started to be filled with suffocating anxiety instead of the warmth I had felt before. Finally, I decided that I would take a walk with her on the trail. I thought the pleasant atmosphere of a misty, early fall morning might take some of the edge off. Ava usually got up early for her walks, so I set my alarm for 6:00 am the next day. I awoke, surprisingly, well before my alarm clock. It was 5:00 am, and the sky was a very dark gray. I wanted to go back to sleep but quickly decided to stay awake to make sure I could catch Ava before she headed out. I rolled over in bed in an attempt to get up. That was when I noticed that Ava’s end of the bed was empty, save for the Sulley plushie. Ava was an early riser, but this was really early. My mind again wandered to where she may have gone. However, her care was still in the garage, and her outdoor sneakers were off of their rack. I figured that she must have went to the trail earlier than usual. I thought about maybe trying to get up earlier on another day to catch her but decided against it. No, this would be the day. I’d been putting this off for far to long. I wanted to hear what was really going on so that we could work through it and go back to normal. I got to the trail a few minutes later, needing a flashlight to guide me. Ava wasn’t near the path’s entrance, so I ventured deeper inside. The thick trees seemed to curl around the dirt path, making a canopy above me. The ground was just slightly muddy from the early morning mist. The cold air fully woke me up. I was only a minute into my walk when I noticed a dark goo-like substance underfoot. It darkened some sticks and the ground itself. Curious, I stooped down to get a better look. There was a red tint to the soupy substance. It was blood. It was gruesome to look at, but my first thought was that it was animal blood. Maybe a cat had gotten ahold of a squirrel or chipmunk, or maybe a deer had been hit by a car nearby and had stumbled back into the woods to die. I kept walking only to find that the bloody trail continued. Whatever had happened, it was brutal. I found a clump of hair next. It was wrapped around a large stick that sloped onto the trail. It was long… and human. In the light from my flashlight, I saw that it was golden brown. Ava’s hair… I nearly fall to my knees. I started coughing puffs of gray mist. This wasn’t just a hair or two. It was an entire patch removed. And there was all the blood. No! No! I was screaming internally, fearing that anything I actually spoke would make this situation real. What happened? Was it a bear? We usually had one bear sighting a year. Some crazed murder? Why? Why did I let her walk alone? My only two options were to run back home and call the cops or to try to find her myself. I just couldn’t leave her out here. It may be old-fashioned, but I felt like I was failing my duty to protect my wife. I kept going. The blood and hair clumps continued off the trail. With every broken stick, I was afraid that whatever had gone after my wife would spring out at me. But I knew that time was of the essence. I had to go fast. The next grisly discovery was only meters ahead. There was some gray mass almost glued to a fallen branch. It was sticky blood and flesh that had kept it in place. Realized that it was human skin, grayed due to blood loss. I may have thrown up then without stopping. Something did smell terrible. I nearly fell into a sort of clearing. The trees parted to a grassy plain. I felt strange whirring in the air, stronger than regular win. Some mechanical sound was rumbling the ground. I swung my flashlight around. Something was at the other end of the clearing. It was like a giant octopus, just taller than a person. Its bottom tentacles were larger, supporting its weight. Small tentacles appeared stacked on top of the base. A beak protruded from the thing’s center while two eye stocks grew out of the top. It was standing next to some time of device. It was large and metallic. Something inside the cylinder appearing to be spinning. I screamed completely, forgetting about Ava for the moment. With horror, I realized that I had crept to close to the thing while I was inspecting it. Its eye stocks pointed at me as I turned to run. I got to the line of trees only to cry out again. Hanging on a branch was an entire coat of human skin, dripping crimson. The top was covered with golden brown hair. “Ava!” Behind me, I heard another, animal-like gurgling sound. The monster was making noise as it advanced toward me. It was gaining ground much faster than I was. I looked down as I ran to find something else. There was another one. This was smaller but had the same shape as the first one. Only, whereas the first creature was red and blue, this one was whitish pink—flesh-colored. It came running towards me, gurgling like the other one. My only instinct was to kick it. My adrenaline-fueled kick sent the thing flying into a tree. The thing gave a terrible, ear-shattering screech. The larger monster behind me also shrieked. I felt something large touch my back. It had me. I clawed and punched at the tentacles. Some kind of purplish blood came out, but it still pulled me in. It hoisted me in the air. My feet could no longer reach the ground. It brought me closer to its gurgling beak. Then, it stopped. When I was in full view of the things face, it brought another tentacle to its mouth. It was another metallic device which it placed around its beak. “Nick! Oh, Nick!” That was Ava! “Ava!” I sobbed, forgetting that I had seen her lifeless skin. “Where are you?” “Nick…” I finally centered on the source of the sound. It was originating from the thing’s beak. “You!” I shouted at it, while kicking out. “Stop using my wife’s voice!” “Nick…” I kept kicking until the strength left me. “Nick, it’s me.” “You…” I gasped, my mind beyond hazy. “You…” “I’m so, so sorry Nick. I could never tell you…” “No!” I cried while shaking my head. “It’s not… it doesn’t make sense!” “I can explain, Nick.” I had to listen while the thing spoke. It told me how it came from a race of explorers from galaxies away. Those explorers were scholars, wanting to learn everything about the sentient beings of the universe. They like to take on their form and to live among them without creating a disturbance. They had machines that could craft skin, hair, and all outward appearance. Their bodies, like octopi, could fit into almost anything and were malleable. They could slip into fake skin and live like it was nothing. She told me her story. She had spent years waiting for an interstellar assignment. When a green and blue planet had been marked for study, she had been sent there. She had landed in the wilderness to make sure her arrival was a secret. After that, she had studied the languages and cultures. When she was confident enough, she stepped into their world, wearing their skin. She even picked out a name, one of the most common ones from a baby book she found. What she had never planned on was growing so close to one of the planet’s inhabitants. She had fallen in love with him and, despite any reservations, she had chosen to remain with her mate. “Ava… Ava…” I murmured in disbelief. “I’m so sorry, but it’s me. This is me.” Everything, everything, I knew was breaking apart. “We can go back,” she begged. “I can put on the human suit again, and you won’t have to see me like this again. It’ll be just like before.” It wasn’t just that the words had gotten stuck in my throat. My brain had completely stopped formulating thoughts. “Or, you can run away. I understand. I’ve lied from the beginning about something so important. You can go and never look back. I won’t be angry. I understand.” Seeing that I was calming down, she lowered me to the ground. I remained standing there in awe of the creature before me. “Even if you do leave, I’ve told my people to never intervene on Earth. I’ve told them that there are many kind humans there who should just be left alone and studied from afar. You’ve done so much for your world without even knowing it.” “Okay,” I said. I wasn’t sure what that meant. It’s just the word my brain centered on to tell me that it was processing information again. Ava. This was Ava. I noticed another set of tentacles. They were the same fleshy ones that I had seen on the little one earlier. “Then… that one,” I gasped. “A miracle!” Ava replied, sounding like she was weeping. “Maybe the greatest one that the universe had ever known. That’s why I’m out here. I need to make a new suite.” I leaned down, holding out my hands to the fleshy creature. Sensing something on an instinctual level, and despite my earlier actions, it slowly climbed up my arms. The top of its eye stocks were hazel, just like mine. On that strange, cool morning, I held my child for the first time.


Seven o’clock and it’s already dark out. The days were getting shorter and colder than John appreciated. Those lovely, long summer evenings were gone. Goodbye to warmth, and happiness, and energy. Hello to depression, lethargy, and despair. As his boots trudged through the dirty but thankfully dry streets of central London, he finally saw his destination. One final glance down at his phone confirmed it. Here was The Last Whisper, and he was uncharacteristically on time. Unfortunately, the friend he was meeting was uncharacteristically early. Which effectively made John (characteristically) late. He tossed his half-smoked cigarette in the gutter, ruminating on his many failed attempts to quit, and the general filth of the city. The bouncer waved him in without checking ID. Beyond the nondescript black door lay the alluring promise of darkness. John fumbled his way up the metal stairs towards the muffled sounds of music and voices. This time, a padded leather door that wouldn’t look out of place in a gentlemen’s club from a Hollywood film, separated him from his final destination. John scanned the room as he entered. It was hard enough spotting someone in a crowded room, let alone a dimly lit one, and that broke out into all manner of different sections. After squeezing his way through more than a few unwelcoming bodies, he finally spotted Luc in a plush velvet chair tucked away in a corner. A little table for two. Fresh drinks were already waiting. “Johnny boy!” Luc shouted, erupting into a giant grin as he stood up to embrace his friend. “How are you doing, my friend?” John smiled as he returned Luc’s very excitable hug with slightly less fervour. “I’m good, I’m good. How are you?” “All the better for seeing you,” Luc beamed back. The old friends sat down and chatted about the weeks they’d just had. John dictated his fairly ordinary week at work to his friend, skipping over the more boring, technical elements, as always. And Luc probed with questions as he always did. They remembered their forgotten drinks, cheersed them, and began a long night of drinking. What started as surface level work chat and whisky cocktails, turned into venting about interpersonal frustrations on projects, and Vespers. (“David is just so inconsistent. He’ll take no issue with these big experiments we want to try, but then get caught up in minutiae for hours.”) From there, the two shifted to pure work gossip and Pisco sours. (“Cassie definitely hooked up with someone from Sales at the offsite last week.”) And not long after that, they were sharing aspirations for the next five years, over some regrettable Amaretto and Coke’s. (“I really want to move to Budapest at some point, and just work there for a year or two.”) “Do you think we’ll still be friends like 10 years from now?” Luc asked, fresh off of ordering two glasses of wine. John paused for a moment. “Why do you ask?” “I guess with neither of us being British, I just wonder if we’ll both still be here in London after all that time. I mean, don’t you feel like you might move back home at some point?” “True, I might. But I also might not. It’s hard to plan that far ahead. There’s already so much that’s happened in the past few years that I never would have expected. It almost seems silly to guess what life will be like 10 years from now.” Luc frowned, seemingly unsatisfied. “What?” asked John, “I mean we might be friends in 10 years. I’d like to hope so. But who knows?” Luc excused himself to go to the bathroom. The two hadn’t known each other long, but it was a friendship that developed fast. They met at work, occasionally being involved in the same meetings. Those small encounters gave way to them saying hello when they passed each other in the hallway. Which one day led to a shared coffee break, when they both arrived in the kitchen at the same time, alone. One coffee became many. Office kitchen coffees became coffee shop down the road coffees. Which became after work beers. Which became weekend coffees and beers. And acquaintances became friends. But for the first time, John couldn’t get a read on his friend. Something was off. But what it was, he couldn’t tell. He brushed it aside and the two drank their wine. Eventually, the watch checking couldn’t be ignored. It was definitively home time for John. Luc half-joked at the idea of another glass of wine, but relented upon seeing the expression on John’s face. The two made their way back through the padded leather door, down the metal stairs draped in darkness, and came out of the nondescript black door into the cold, dirty, but thankfully dry streets of London. “Which way are you headed?” Luc asked. “I’m getting the tube down there,” John gestured. “Ah, I’m grabbing a bus the other way.” A brief, awkward pause buffered the conversation. John opened his arms for a goodbye hug, and questioned if there was an uncharacteristic lack of enthusiasm in Luc’s response. “Goodnight, pal,” John said, as he began to turn, “I’ll see you soon.” “Yeah…” Luc replied with a weak smile, as he stood watching John walk away.


I was looking at this sub's stats trying to get an idea of what does and doesn't do well here (each community is different) and chuckled when I saw the "Top Keywords" which are qualified as "The keywords that are most often used on this subreddit in particular, **relative to the global frequency of that keyword**." 1. gestured (898.8) 2. barked (652.1) 3. dimly (652.1) 4. chimed (480.7) 5. creaking (476.6) 6. beamed (476.6) 7. gleaming (459.8) 8. hurried (459.8) 9. groaned (426.4) 10. lunged (412.1) 11. fluttering (401.3) 12. blurted (376.2) 13. leaped (376.2) 14. ached (358.3) 15. sprinted (340.4) 16. lingered (329.2) 17. strewn (322.5) 18. sobbed (313.5) 19. shriek (304.6) 20. blankly (301) In a recent rereading of one of my novellas, I noticed I'd used "gesture" (or "gestured") 3 times. The uses aren't near each other so I think I only noticed it because I read the whole thing very quickly due to nearly no pauses to make notes or edits. r/shortstory's "Top Keywords" isn't all that similar to this sub's. "Gestured" is #2 there right behind "patted" which didn't make the list at all on r/shortstories. I'm not saying these words are bad to use or anything like that. But this metric drew my attention to the fact these words appear more frequently in short stories than they do in the rest of Reddit.


~750 words “I keep telling you people no and you keep coming around anyways,” Joracks said to two men in black. “For every time you say no, thousands of innocent people die,” agent Williams said. “Last week we briefed you about World Thief. You said no and we lost tens of thousands of lives before our team stopped him. We lost 29 of our people.” Joracks looked up from his loaded fries. “Is that the day you brought soup and sandwiches from Panera?” “You know? fuck you,” agent Jordan said and flipped Joracks off. “Hey! Hey. I told you guys that I’ll never change my mind. But if you want to keep bringing me food, I’ll keep consulting or whatever you want to call it.” Williams shook his head. “This job is beneath you. The Bronze Son could be back saving the world and instead, he’s here lifting steel beams for a couple of bucks.” “It’s an honest job,” Joracks said with his mouth half-full. He swallowed. “We almost done here?” “It’s laughable that The Bronze Son has a lunch break.” “Yeah? You know what’s laughable is that before this, I never got a break. Always someone to save, some super-villain threatening world domination needing to be stopped, or–” he paused, “or another funeral to speak at.” Agent Jordan slammed his fist onto the folding table. “You taking a break from being a hero has gotten over a million people killed in the past three months.” “Yeah? Fuck you too, agent. I didn’t stop being a ‘hero’. It’s not a job, asshole. I’ve saved the whole planet several times over. I *am* a damn hero. I’m just done being the one you lean on for everything.” “I’ll be in the car,” agent Jordan said and walked out slamming the trailer’s door behind him. “I’ve got two minutes left on my break, Agent Williams. Do you want to ask me any questions?” The agent sat down across from Joracks and glanced inside his notebook. “H.Q. wants to know if any of your prior ‘nemeses’ are redeemable or could otherwise be convinced to join the team.” “Oh, god. Really?” “They’re desperate. We’ve lost a lot of good people.” “So you’ll settle for bad?” Agent Williams set down the notebook and took off his sunglasses. “It wouldn’t be the first time.” “Oh. Sorry, was that supposed to be some big reveal? I’ve known who you were since, what? Three or four years ago when you came on board?” “I figured.” “You weren’t a nemesis. ‘The Card Carrier’? You were a criminal at worst. Criminals have simple motivations, simple enough to reform.” “The team classified me as a ‘supervillain’. I’ve seen the dossier.” Joracks grinned. “The only way to get government funding and support was to work toward whatever initiative they gave us. Crime was up back then and the president wanted us to join their ‘War Against Super Crime’. Because of the previous accords, the only way the team could interfere was if the criminal was a supervillain.” “So you didn’t think I was a villain?” “No. Certainly not. If I had, you’d have been a smear on the pavement. You know my stance.” “You weren’t the one that brought me in, so I figured that’s why I was still alive.” “I was briefed on your powers and your record. I handed it to C team. If I recall correctly, they apprehended you without any casualties?” “I surrendered.” “And that’s why we put you on the reform track instead of–you know.” Agent Williams looked at the clock. “Your break is over.” “You’re right, thanks.” “One more question? A personal one.” “If you’ll get me sojok from that place in downtown for lunch tomorrow.” “That place from the other week?” “Yeah.” “It got destroyed.” “Fine, sojok from anywhere.” “Sure.” Joracks tossed the remaining fries into the trash next to the door. “What’s your question?” “If Patrice was still alive, would you be a hero again?” Joracks clenched his jaw. “Would you save the world again?” “Do you know what I was doing when she died?” “Stopping a class seven threat.” “I couldn’t save the woman that meant everything to me from a fucking bee sting.” Joracks turned the door handle with deliberate gentleness. “I’m done being the hero everyone expects me to be.” “Joracks, if they could bring Patrice back?” He swung the door open. “I have a team that expects me to clock back in and then, at the end of the day, clock out. I’ll be here tomorrow, agent.


I hadn’t been home for a couple years now. Moving to Seattle had made me hesitant to return. I had mixed memories of this town from when I was still in high school, biking on the waterfront trail with friends, sometimes alone or up the road at the seedy diner smashed between two dive bars. It was different now. I noticed more people wandering the streets. A man was yelling to no one as he ambled down the road, almost getting hit by oncoming traffic. I turned away, took the french press between us and poured some more coffee into my nearly full mug and refilled hers. The mugs were made locally. The glaze was uneven, but rather than detracting from the style, it made it a bit endearing. My mom looked exactly as I remembered, but I supposed she always would. I saw her in my mind and in my heart, before I saw her with my eyes. I wondered if it was the same for her. She had her eyes closed, sipping at the steaming cup. I heard this place was closing sooner. I couldn’t imagine running a massage business and a cafe in the same building. I debated ordering a grilled cheese with raspberry jam as my mom set her cup back onto the table. I was about to ask her if she was hungry, when she casually asked, “Did I ever tell you about the time I accidentally worked for The Mob?” “No?” She wasn’t one to make up stories, being very much a realist. It started to drizzle outside and steam began to intrude on the windows looking over the bay. Mom smiled nostalgically for a brief moment, before diving with complete abandon. It wasn’t long after moving to the east coast that she found herself searching for a new job. The money she’d saved went quickly, living so close to New York City. As the weeks went by, her pickiness dropped. She’d prefer a bookkeeping job for a somewhat decently sized firm. A bookkeeping job for an individual. Okay, something more like a secretary position at a print shop or marketing department. Well, maybe just any secretary position somewhere she’ll get a regular paycheck? So, it was with these low expectations that she came across a wanted ad for a secretary position at a contracting firm. Some cursory research made her feel a bit more at ease. They were already established-- not a start up. It seemed like they mostly contracted to construction and various warehouses, which was pretty standard for the industrial area where the office was located. She smiled coyly at the ad. She was young, fit, and figured herself pretty sharp. She would bet that whoever ran the operation was an old man, looking for a pretty face to take calls. Easy money. It was New York. It was the 70’s. The man was in his mid-fifties, somewhat large, but not rotund. He had lingering eyes, countered by his tendency to speak in a clipped manner. The office decor was surprisingly tasteful. My mom was blessed with a fabulous eye for good alcohol, clothing, and all manner of decor. Although, her bank account strained to accommodate this blessing. She wondered for a moment at the waiting room, with its plush seating, meticulously tended potted plants and their china vases. They must have some fairly wealthy clients. Her new employer, Giovanni, outlined her duties quickly. She didn’t have many responsibilities: answer the phone, greet clients, schedule appointments, etc. He was specific about having coffee ready in the morning, but otherwise this was what her sister would call a “Moe job”. Named after the owner of the least frequented motel, it was a job where you could get the things more important than your job done-- things like finding a better job. She got along fine at the office and found herself not hating the work. Giovanni was relatively relaxed when nothing big was happening, the workers were well-mannered and fun to talk with, and she got an hour long paid lunch. Sometimes she would have to take the lunch at odd hours, when certain clients showed up. Giovanni would always lend her his Cadillac, a handful of money, and tell her to take her time coming back. Maybe it was a little odd, but getting handed fifty or so for lunch and the keys to his car wasn’t a bad deal. It was one of the days they were expecting such a client. There was a new diner a few blocks down from her regular place. She was stuck between trying someplace new… or the incredible pie she usually had with some coffee. She was a sucker for pie. A polite knock tapped on the office door. The clients they were expecting usually let themselves in. She slowly opened the doors, looking over the young guys standing outside. One of them was wringing his shirt. She let them in and told them to have a seat, but they walked right past her, into Giovanni’s office. He looked up with a frown, but that quickly turned into gritted teeth. “Mr. Russo, cousin Vinny… he uh… he stole Grandad’s jewels!” The young man blurted out, ringing his untucked button-down shirt. Giovanni hurled the keys to his Cadillac at her. “Lunch break!” She left the office without a look back, driving a bit quicker than normal to her favorite little diner. Eggs. Coffee. A sympathising look from Becky, the waitress. Pie. More coffee. It hit her: the odd meetings, the fact that he hired someone so young (and naive), the exceedingly expensive office space, the Cadillac. She breathed in horror. “Oh my god, I’m working for The Mob.” I found myself laughing at her delayed realization. Of course, during the telling, everything was pretty obvious. My Mom was laughing as well, coffee forgotten in her hand, mine forgotten as well. “Did they ever find Vinny?” “Oh yeah! They found him. He wasn’t very smart. I overheard later that he was going to sell off the jewels to buy some drugs, but he ‘hid’ all of them under his mattress, like an eight-year-old with a dirty magazine.” We both laughed at the ridiculousness of the situation, but I found myself thinking about the company I had just joined, an Indian-owned contracting firm that hired out to tech companies. It wasn’t too different really, and I was beginning to realize that I might have to keep my eye out for warning signs. “Speaking of not very smart, the firm I’m contracted out from just payed a bunch of people for overtime they hadn’t received.” Mom frowned at the coffee, now an unpleasant room temperature. “Why didn’t they get paid before?” “Well, people had been complaining, but the office didn’t think overtime was real. Apparently, this has been going on for a few months.” Mom waved over to the girl behind the counter, wordlessly motioning at the press for a new one. It looked like she understood. Turning back to me, Mom asked, “What made it real?” I shrugged. “Two of the employees showed up with a lawyer.” I flipped over the tiny, sand hourglass as the waitress put the new press on our table. I would have to work up the courage to finish off enough cold coffee to make my cup hot again. Mom raised an eyebrow at me. “Well, that sounds a little shady.” Edit: A very good point about cars.


After helping to clear the mine had physically exhausted me and discovering the true nature of the test had left me mentally spent, I fell asleep by the fire. The night air was chilly, but the warmth from the flames, my own body heat, and the sheer exhaustion meant I slept quite comfortably through till morning in the open air. I didn’t wake till the sun had risen, and I was brought around by a gentle kick to my thigh. “Wake up, sleepyhead,” came an aggressively chirpy voice. I opened my eyes to Alessia standing next to me, smirking. A loud yawn contorted my face, as the sun’s rays pierced my cracking eyelids. “What’s the plan?” I said, lifting myself off my back. “Well, unlike you, I’ve been up for a few hours already. I spoke to a few guys, spent a bit of our money, and got us some ropes, mining explosives, and lanterns.” She paused. I could see her watching my face, waiting for my tired eyes to process what she said. “You ever been abseiling?” “What?” “Abseiling? You know. Like climbing, but… downwards?” “You pretty much know my life story at this point,” I said, blinking myself to consciousness. “What part of that do you think involved abseiling?” “Yeah. I thought that’d be the case. New experience for us both.” She reached out a hand, I took it and she pulled me to a standing position. “So we’re going down into the caves then?” I said, as Alessia began leading me through the town. “Seems a bit coincidental there was a random explosion where Sannaz was just before he left.” “True.” “Seems more likely he saw something and didn’t want anyone else finding it, so he covers his tracks.” “And you think there’s something down there?” “I wanna see what he saw. Yeah.” Alessia said, turning to me. “Sound like a plan?” “Sounds good,” I said nodding. Suddenly, an old part of the conversation caught up with me. I stopped. “Wait, did you say we’re taking mining explosives?” “They said part of the caves collapsed after the explosion. Might be a few blockages down there. Gotta clear them somehow.” Alessia shrugged her shoulders. “You want to get past rubble… caused by an explosion… by using an explosion?” I spoke slowly, hoping the idiocy of the plan would come through. “Look. I’m not gonna use it unless we have to, okay? You bury the charges in the rocks and it clears a path through without disturbing the rest.” “That work?” “That’s what they recommended to me anyway. It’s what they’re doing at the mine entrance now that there’s no more people trapped in the rubble.” I sighed. “We use it as a last resort, okay?” “Agreed.” We walked through and out the other side of the town. Quickly the ground turned from grey dust to healthland. Spindly wild grass broke through the compact earth as rubbery shrubs did their best to get high enough to steal the sunlight. We walked straight across the uneven, but hard ground, as a stiff breeze blew. In the distance, I could make out a man and a woman standing in the middle of the open land, various ropes and other gear strapped to them. Next to them was Cameron. As we approached, Cameron called out. “The ground’s solid here, and there are some good rocks for anchor points. But they don’t wanna risk going any further out.” “How far is the sinkhole?” Alessia asked as we arrived. “About thirty metres that way,” Cameron said, pointing behind him. Over his shoulder I could see the ground begin to descend. Thick cracks appeared in the earth, growing wider as the surface sloped down, until I could see the great void in the earth. “Is that ground going to hold us?” I asked, my eyes glued to the black drop. “Almost certainly not,” Alessia replied with a disconcerting grin. I turned to face her as she shoved a small belt into my hands. “That’s why we have these.” I watched as Alessia began tying the harness around herself, looping one knot at the side, and another by her front as a portion of the rope went through her legs. I was slowly piecing together the structure as she finished and looked over to me. “How long have you been on my boat now? How can you still not tie a good knot?” She walked over and undid my own attempts and started rewrapping the belt around me, looping it between my thighs, before tying it in a secure knot by my left hip. “You need something that’s going to hold you in place, firmly.” She gave one last fierce pull on the fabric and the belt tightened around me, clasping against my abdomen. “How’s that? Too tight?” “A little actually,” I wheezed. “Good. Tight enough then.” She walked over and picked up the end of a long piece of rope and handed it to me. I followed the long coil with my eyes. It wound round in a circle on the floor before trailing off to a large rock, a good metre high, where the man and woman were anchoring it in place. With the rope secure around the rock, the woman walked over to me and started pulling the rope through the belt. “You ever done this before?” she asked. “No…” “Okay. Well. It’ll feel weird. But hold on, keep a good grip, you’ll be fine.” She continued relaying specifics to me as the long coil slowly snaked through me. With almost all the rope now on the other side of the harness, she bent down and picked up a small stone, looping the very end of the line around it. She took several delicate paces out towards the drop, watching the ground beneath her for any sign of danger. Then, convinced she was close enough, she hurled the rock through the air. It bounced a few times, before it reached the edge, and plunged into the earth below. The rope shot down with it, the great snaked path unravelling as it fell to the bottom of the chasm. Eventually the line ran out of slack, and it pulled taut against my belt. I watched as the man threw the rock with Alessia’s line down in a repeat. Alessia turned to me. “You ready?” “Ready as I’ll ever be.” She walked over and picked up a satchel from the ground and passed it to me, before she picked up a heavy backpack for herself. Cameron stepped forward. “Hey, that’s mine.” “Rucksack is easier to carry down there.” “What about my book?” Cameron protested, his arms stretched to the side. “You’ll get it back as soon we’re done. I promise,” Alessia paused, watching Cameron’s face remain unmoved. “I want to make sure you’re still here when we return.” Cameron huffed. “If you lose that book down there-” “Not gonna happen,” Alessia grinned. She looked down at her line, holding it one hand as she leaned back, feeling it hold her weight. “We’ll tug on the rope when we need lifting back up. By the end of the day.” Cameron pouted. “Fine. No book, and you can stay down there though.” Alessia and I turned and slowly started heading towards the sinkhole. It wasn’t long before I could feel the ground begin to slide downwards as cracks began to appear in the ground. I watched as thin hairlines grew into centimeter wide black streaks, grass roots poking out the sides. A few paces more, and my body began to instinctually slow down as the ground became spongy beneath my footsteps. I looked over to Alessia. She was tentatively placing one foot in front of the other, taking a small age to transfer her weight across. “It’ll be easier on all fours,” I said. “Spread the weight.” Alessia nodded, and we both sunk to our knees, stretching out our bodies in front of us and crawling along with as many points of contact to the ground as possible. The grass was springy to the touch, the weeds gripping around my fingers with each crawl forward. I stopped as the whole ground shifted, lurching forward. I could feel my body rotate a few degrees, the angle down to the chasm in front now steeper. I took one more creep forward and I heard the inevitable rolling of dirt. “Hold on!” I called out. The ground beneath us gave way. A large chunk of earth a good few metres across snapped beneath me. I watched as it accelerated away, turning as it fell into the darkness below. The rope snared against the more solid ground, and I swung back. I held on tight to the cable by my stomach, as the belt wrapped around my constricted abdomen, yanking me back towards the wall. I stretched out my feet as they landed and my body bounced against the soft clay side of the cave. “You all right?” I called out. A light flickered on, as a lantern and Alessia’s face came into view. “I’m good. Bit bruised, but good.” “What now?” I asked. “Keep heading down. I’ll try and stay level with you so you can see the light.” I nodded as I began slowly loosening my grip on the rope, allowing it to pass through the belt as we descended deeper into the hole. Above me, the small sliver of light was beginning to fade, the circular halo shrinking with each passing metre. As I looked down, the light of the lantern began to reach the bottom of the sinkhole. Piles of soil and debris covered the stone ground. There was a noise too, one almost silenced by the creaking of the rope as it passed through the belt, but it was there. A trickle, the noise of water. I looked over, and saw a small stream running along the bottom of the cave. My feet touched the ground and I took a deep breath - part relief, and part the relaxation of the belt no longer gripping so tightly around my stomach. Untying the harness I inspected our surroundings. It was a wide section of cave that thinned out in either direction, following the stream. “We sure this guy was ever even here? Could just be a random bit of cave?” I asked. “True,” Alessia said with a hum. She took a few steps, treading over the stream. “Best bet we’ve got though.” “So which way do you want to head?” I said, feeling my own voice echo back against me. “Downstream,” Alessia nodded. “Upstream takes us back towards where the mines are, makes sense he would’ve come from that way. And then headed *that* way,” she said, pointing towards the thinning passageway to my left. I followed her lead as we left the thin ring of natural daylight behind and plunged fully underground. Memories of Ringatoy Shires came back to me. I had spent over a week without daylight underground with Kit. Even though the conditions were very different - the rubble of the library replaced with natural underground mazes - that sensation of the Earth surrounding you, pressing in on you from all sides, remained. I wondered for a moment if Kit had ever returned down to the library, or if she had stayed above ground, spinning clients into credits down at the market. I hoped she was doing okay. Then I remembered Kit falling. The brief moment when I thought she had died, holding her still body, already in place in a cavernous tomb. I had nearly lost a treasured companion that day. I looked at Alessia trudging her way in front of me. I would not let that happen again. I struck a couple of paces to get closer to Alessia, my feet slipping slightly against the moist rock. “You okay there?” Alessia chuckled, turning her head slightly. “Yeah. Not used to clambering through caves, I guess.” I looked at Alessia’s slow, but assured footing as she hopped between bits of flatter stone. “You seem… fine down here?” “I wouldn’t say fine,” Alessia said, a hint of hesitancy to her voice. “But I’ve been in enough caves to not be worried, if that makes sense.” “Why have you been in so many caves?” I asked, trying to concentrate on where my feet were. Alessia laughed. “Strange upbringing I guess.” My mouth opened to respond. But I decided to leave prying any further for another day. As we went deeper, the air became stiffer, as though it was stuck to the walls of the cave. However, it remained cool, the water bringing with it an icy touch from wherever its source may be, and so each step became a frosty lick of stagnant air, each inhalation feeling frigid and damp. We’d been walking for the better part of an hour, the cave weaving side to side as it cut the path of least resistance through the soft rock. However, the path looked like it was thinning out, and I became all too aware of memories from the library, of passing through gaps no wider than my shoulders dreading the idea of having to turn back. “How much further you want to continue?” I asked. “Figure we may as well keep going further yet. Still think this is our best hope. There’s a water in the rucksack if your thirsty,” she said, pointing to her own back. “I’m fine. Just trying to make sure we don’t get trapped down here,” I said, trying to force a laugh. “You ever going to give that bag back to Cameron?” “Yeah. Gotta stay true to my word right? Besides, seems like sharing that book around may help a bit?” “Might give the kids of Section F a better chance of passing it.” “Until they change the test again, yeah.” Alessia said, failing to reciprocate my jovial tone. “What do you mean?” “The test is about ranking right? Too many people get that book, too many people do well on the test, then it becomes meaningless. Test’s only useful as long as people fail it.” “I guess,” I replied, turning my attention to the ceiling that was now encroaching beneath head height. I crouched slightly as we snuck along the tunnel in single file. “I’m not sure how much further we can keep heading along like this. Getting a bit narrow.” “Bit further,” Alessia said, pushing round a sharp bend to the right. “Follow it to the end.” I followed apprehensively as the walls began to brush against me, the odd jagged side of cave butting against me like an errand elbow in a crowd. With each step the rivulet kept digging deeper and deeper into the hillside, forcing its way through increasingly solid rock. Soon the cave was not much wider than the water itself, and every other foot was directly into the puddle, the small splash so loud in the dank depths of the mountain that it threatened to deafen us. As we descended, the path became more violent, turning as soon as it found a rock too tough to be moved. We turned another sharp bend to the right, then another to the left. The ceiling was now low enough that Alessia was ducking too, crouching as she pinched through the cavern, her hand held out to the wall for balance against the uneven ground. One more twist to the right, and I breathed a sigh of relief as the route widened out. Quickly it disappeared from our heads and arms, and within just a few metres it ballooned out into a wide open space. I took a couple of paces away from the stream and noticed that the ground beneath me wasn’t clay or rock. It was concrete. Something man-made. I tapped it with my shoe, feeling the familiar sensation of that thud-like noise. Some five metres away a great crack ran across the ground, the floor the other side pushed up and buckled toward the ceiling, torn apart by some great force. In the distance, I could see a column, great steel beams bent and snapped apart like a twig. Then, looking further back still, rotated slightly, maybe some five degrees off-balance, I could see a large metal door. A thick bar ran across its centre, waiting to be pushed. I instinctively walked towards it. \ Next chapter published 7th October.


If they knew what I was. If they knew what I was and could understand it, then maybe that was something that I could do to help me. There was something in the air on the night of Christmas Eve. There were trees that littered the streets. I was struggling. My body was going against me, it was eating me alive. I didn't know what to do. One second I was standing up, the second second I was eating a person. The third second I was awake and alive, filled with adrenaline. Blood was pouring all over me. I didn't know what to do- because I didn't existed. There was nobody else on the streets that was with me that passed through the alleyway when I transformed. There was not a soul that heard me either, or if they did, they were deafened. There was nobody else that helped me, and if they did, they'd probably be dead as well. I. Am. A. Werewolf. My story is not a fantastic romance. I am not Jacob Black from twilight. I am a werewolf cursed, born, and made. A werewolf from conception and a werewolf from the second conception. When I struck my hand against tendons. The blood littered the street. They called it a murder. Every night on Christmas Eve I was made to transform. Every night on Christmas Eve I lose a day of my life to kill people. One life for three or four or five. I wasn't made to bargain. They did. There was nobody else with me when I transformed. I was always alone. Until I met a girl. My nose was transformed into a snout. Halfway through my transformation I inched towards her. Cravings was already taking me over. I knew nothing of what to do to help save the girl. I barely thought as well. I only knew that if I never ate I'd never be satisfied. I'm not poor. The streets didn't *allow* people to be poor. They allowed only people to be rich and healthy. There was nothing to do about that. And no one wanted to do anything about it either. Life here was perfect-ly and perfectly made for everyone. The girl stands there and I'm shocked. She has not moved an inch. This is a primal rage which is stunned and frightened. I'm perhaps even frightened at what I'm about to do. Maybe this girl will die tonight and that will be the end of it. Of my hunger. Chad knows what he is doing. He comes around and picks up the girl. I am barely transformed as they leave. I sigh on the cursed pavements. A bit of my mind comes back to me. *What?* That is all I can say. The streets pick up and vibrant colors fill through the pavement. Loud sounds rock my ears and I am left to coil over. I am so sensitive to it. Then the sound ends and I can finally fulfill my transformation. Tonight on Christmas Eve, I will kill again. There will be no soul that can stop me without a gun, and if they did, where would they shoot? On the head? I would be too quick and I'd eat them up alive. I feel threatened. A police officer comes into view and he says, "Stop." I turn around and kill him as well.


Who killed my mother? She lays a few steps behind us, her body wet and cold like a fish, bobbing slightly in the underground creek. Her hair floats around her like a mass of black seaweed. I don’t know, I say. The others look at me when the camera feed shows that none of them did it, and I’m the only one who isn’t wearing my camera/flashlight in the excavation cave site. I forgot to take it with me, I stammer in broken Vietnamese, crying. They turn to each other, whispering. My uncle nods, and my cousin holds back to help me up some uneven rocks as we make our way back out of the caves. I stumble and grab onto his hand for support. “You look easy to *bat nat*, easy to take advantage of,” my friend’s friend said when we went around last year in clubs in Pho Tay in Sai Gon where all the foreigners go. He checked out black guys while I nodded along to the booming EDM music, drunk on half a mug of beer. We climb into the black van, and I look out the window as they drive away. I can’t believe I forgot it, I say, crying. I say the word for “dropping” the camera, but get the vowel and tone wrong, instead saying the word that means “messed up”. They correct my tone to the correct Vietnamese word, sympathetically. I’m the naive one, the *Viet Kieu* who can’t quite get her tones right. The one who was born in America. She must have done it herself, they whispered. She was depressed after all. Yes. She was always depressed, and she always blamed me. I let a few more tears fall. Be strong, my aunt says. Don’t be sad like your mother. God loves you. She says it slowly, so I understand. I nod, my head still turned towards the window. I think of a time in 4th grade, when I was at my desk. The Chinese guy I joked around with called me stupid, so I hit him with my notebook. “She hit me!” he yelled. “Claire wouldn’t do that,” Ms. Walker says, “Did you, Claire?” No, I murmur, my eyes lowered. I am the shy one, the Asian kid who’s Chinese? Korean? Japanese? No. Then what are you? Vietnamese, I say. Never heard of it, the kid says, wrinkling his freckled nose. No one hearing is good. No one hears that I understand everything they’re saying. In English, when they giggled that I eat something for lunch that smells like rotting fish. Or right now, in Vietnamese, when they say I’m *ngay tho*. Naive, my aunt says to my uncle, how will she survive? No one here heard that I got straight A’s in Vietnamese school in that foreign land, 7 years in a row, and can read and write all six tones with a 99% accuracy rate, although my accent is real. No one heard me kill my mother. I smile.


Times passed. He still looks very much the same. You look at your wrinkled hands, and sigh down. The breath leaves you in an instant and you feel like you are going to choke. Because it's too much. You've grown old. He hasn't. And then. You know this because the boy you see out the window that comes everyday is still bringing flowers, and he hasn't shrunk in stature at all. His spine hasn't curved, he hasn't bent over, he's bending over bringing the flowers, *though*. And you know your heart beats everytimes he does. You know you still love him. You know you still care. *You*. *You*. *You*. But times changed. You know you're not that girl anymore. Wicked old thing, life itself had granted your mortality and not the boy. You would have grown old together, and you still wonder- what is he, an *immortal*? The boy doesn't tell you in your imagination, nor even if you ask. Then you think, what can I do for the boy? I've grown old and he'll lose one *more* friend in the world. And you know this, because *you've* seen it all. Growing up, except time is on a loop and you know you're going to lose everything you've just gained because you aren't growing old at all. May death do us apart, death keep us together. Far apart, but still close together. Then you look away from the frame and gasp at the flowers on the tabletop. You've *forgotten* all about it. This was the recently placed one. You always left them alone, but this was the one that got *through*. You've been diagnosed with repeated amnesia, you'll forget everything in a while. But not your job. It was a raining day when you first met him. The rain was pouring down *hard* and you couldn't bear with the trickles that went down your spine so you looked around for a jacket to be lent to you. You were an *arrogant* woman back then. A fool- a psychologist. A boy took it up himself and places his jacket on you and you said thanks, bade the boy farewell, and kept on walking. You'll *never* forget his face, because he lives right next to you somewhere over the earth. Then the world suddenly takes a beat. Like a heavy drape that closets over you in a mere second. "*Ugh.*" Your heart begins to stop. The straight-forward world suddenly seems like amnesia an amnesia in torment phase and you slowly forget what's happening. The world around you doesn't appear to change in logic, but you seem to be the one that's changing. You clutch to something that you can hold on, but you clutch on to thin air. The boy appears next to you. He is smiling down at you. You only repeat it with a grin. And then you pass away. Then you remember how much you love him a lot and that he'll go be far away. Ever again, in heart.