I've started writing this hundreds of times and never gotten to the end. The first few times I tried, I did it on paper in a notebook because the internet hadn't been invented yet. I burned the notebooks. This is the first time I've finished and not destroyed what I'd written. If nothing else, this act of creation without destruction is a small victory to me, but I know you hardly care about that. Nor should you. You should care about what you're about to read because if what I say is true, your generation may be in some serious shit. I'm in my late 70s, no wife or kids, not many friends, and although I'm not quite on my death bed, I'm certainly nearing the end of my life, so my personal stake in this is low, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't weight heavily on my soul in an existential kind of way. We all keep secrets, some darker than others, and this has been my darkest. The story starts in California way back in the 1960s. For those unfamiliar with that period in history, the one word I'd use to describe it is turbulent. Just imagine the straight-laced world of the 1950s you know from television crashing head-on into what you probably associate with hippie culture, namely radical politics, protest, heavy drug use, rebellion against authority, and conspiracy theories, but also comradery, selflessness, and the genuine belief that it is possible to change the world for the better. I was a university student at the time, so you could say I was in the thick of it, but I wasn't at one of the true hotbed schools like Berkeley. That said, there was almost no way to be young and alive in California and to keep away from the upheaval. It was literally all around you, and it sucked you in. There wasn't a Friday night when you didn't listen to a speech by Abbie Hoffman, take LSD, or hazily conspire to take down the establishment to a background of folk tunes, and then go out to bar where long past midnight some guy in a black suit tried to recruit you for a plastics corporation or the CIA. Or so he said, or so you remembered the next morning. It was actually at one of these bars that I met my first real girlfriend, whom I'll call Edna. Edna wasn't a hippie, she was in town taking typing classes and working part-time as a receptionist, but like me she had become infatuated with the scene. Edna was only the second girl I'd slept with, and after a few months of going with her I started having trouble maintaining, then even getting, an erection. Back then it wasn't like it is now, when even polite people talk about erectile dysfunction and you can get medication to help with it. Back then there was nothing except a whole lot of embarrassment. At first, Edna and I thought it might be stress or lack of sleep causing my problem, then we suspected alcohol, but despite taking a fairly systematic approach and eliminating the possible causes one by one, we couldn't figure it out. Within weeks, my sex life just stopped. You can imagine how devastating that was to a young man. Let's rewind a bit. About six months before meeting Edna, I had met a guy named Jerry in one of my political science classes and we'd quickly become friends. Jerry and I would regularly meet up, talk about everything from music and world revolution to UFOs, and generally goof off together, and he'd always have a decent supply of weed for us to smoke and Grateful Dead bootlegs to listen to, which was fantastic. Although I've never had a truly best friend, Jerry was definitely my closest friend during my early student days in California, so he was the person I eventually turned to for help with my sexual problem. I remember that it was late at night after getting stoned immaculate, as Jim Morrison would say, that I told Jerry about my erectile dysfunction. He listened as I struggled mightily through the telling of it, and without laughing or making light of the situation told me not to worry too much, that it would probably go away on its own, but if I didn't want to wait and wanted help now, I should go see a man he referred to as Gerbil. Gerbil was about ten years older than us, originally from New Mexico and had been studying chemistry at Berkeley until about a year prior, when he'd been expelled after being caught synthesizing hallucinogens in a school lab. Faced with the possibility of going back to New Mexico without a degree, Gerbil had decided to pursue the American Dream instead. He set up his own lab, kept his clientele, and expanded his operation. Drugs, incidentally, is how Jerry had first met Gerbil. And through Jerry is how I met the guy. That's one other unique thing about Gerbil: even compared to the regular paranoiacs, he was paranoid. You couldn't just see him. You had to be introduced by someone he trusted and he had to "vet" you, which included a brief interrogation and sitting silently while he "read your mind." My vetting lasted about half an hour. After it was over, Gerbil relaxed and I explained my problem to him. It was easy because he was like a magnet for deep truths. You wanted to tell him the embarrassing stuff. Long story short, he told me I was far from the first guy to be suffering from this type of condition and that he had a tried and tested solution. I'll never forget the moment when he held out the pill bottle to me. His smiling, unshaven face, the sunlight streaming in through the dirty windows, and the pills themselves, oblong and delicately off-white in their little glass home. When I asked how much I owed him, he shrugged and said that for a friend there was no cost, then laughed and added that he had more than enough money anyway. After all, he said, he was making truth serum for the CIA. "Just make sure you follow the instructions," he said. "And remember: you were never here." When I got home, I read the instructions, which had been typed out on a strip of paper and taped to the outside of the pill bottle. They were simple enough but odd: Insert one (1) pill into urethra at least one hour prior to intercourse. I'll spare you the awkward details of my first time doing the insertion. What you need to know is that the pills worked. God, how they worked! Never before, and never since, have I had an erection as hard and for as long as when I used those pills. In the past twenty years I've tried Viagra and all the others, but nothing even comes close. It was like fucking with the world's most sensitive steel rod, and you could go for hours! Edna and I sure made up for lost time, but pretty soon Edna wasn't enough. We'd go at it two or three times, she'd call it quits for the night and I'd still be raging to go. I'm not proud of it now, but I started meeting other girls just for sex. Any girls who'd have me, really. At bars, meet ups, between classes, at concerts, everywhere. There was no emotional connection but physically it was bliss. I loved it, they loved it, and I guess later they dubbed it the Summer of Love. I wish I'd counted how many pills Gerbil had given me, but I didn't. All I knew was that I was going through them like a knife through reheated butter. From what I remember, one pill was enough to last up to forty-eight hours, but I was using them almost non-stop, and the supply was depleting. I was probably addicted. It was after I'd used about half of my initial supply that Jerry asked over coffee one morning whether my "problem" had gone away. I told him it had and more than hinted at how my sex life had exploded, and he told me that was fantastic news. Then he lowered his voice and told me Gerbil wanted to meet up. I agreed, he told me the time and place, and I never saw Jerry again. But I'll get to that in a bit. Gerbil and I met a few days later in what remained of a hangar on an abandoned airfield. It was beyond city limits, and Gerbil seemed to make a big deal of that fact. He told me he'd recently purchased the land way under value and was planning on building a bunker on it. Because that sounded like just the craziness he'd be into, I took him at his word. When I told him how well the pills had been working and that I wanted more of them, he wasn't surprised. He said he was thrilled and handed me another bottle of pills identical to the first. This time, however, they had a price. But it was the kind of price that wasn't paid in dollars and that made my horny young mind spin with possibilities. Gerbil was organizing a series of orgies and he was giving me the pills in exchange for taking part in them. Back to Jerry: disappearing for a few days wasn't unusual. He went on benders from time to time during which he'd unreachable and absent from class, but those usually lasted a few days, after which he'd show up groggy and with stories to tell. After a week, I started to worry, but even then it's important to remember the times, both in terms of technology and perspective. We didn't have cell phones you could call anytime you wanted, and it wasn't unheard of for people to "drop out" of society. I had a professor who suddenly disappeared for half a semester, and when he came back he told us he'd gone on a walkabout. Still, I expected Jerry to tell me if he was planning something like that. He'd said nothing and now he was gone. I started asking around but realized I didn't actually know much about him. From what I gathered, he was still enrolled in university and still living at the same address. He just wasn't there. My relationship with Edna was falling apart at the same time. I was bored with her, and she was getting bored with life in California. She was honest about wanting to move back East, and we both knew I wouldn't be going with her. And although she never said a word about it, I'm sure she knew I wasn't being faithful. Hell, even free love has a cost. I can't say we broke each other's hearts, but I will say that as I've aged, I've imagined more and more often what my life would had have been if we'd stayed together. I went on to love again but I never found a true love. Edna, especially in those early times, may have been the closest I ever got. Ironically, we loved each other most when we couldn't be physically intimate. The first of Gerbil's orgies that I attended was held in the middle of the desert. There was music, drugs and absolutely no inhibitions. It was the most exciting experience of my life, and I loved it. Gerbil himself was never at the orgies, but almost everyone seemed to know him, at least by reputation. I don't remember how many orgies I ended up going to, but it was over a dozen, each in a different location with new women, many of them intoxicatingly exotic to me. Foreign students, bored housewives, groupies, intellectuals, stewardesses, and wanderers from all around the country and the world: India, Russia, China, Europe, Latin America, everywhere. I still have no idea how Gerbil organized these things or convinced so many women to go to them, but he did, and I must have fucked nearly all of them. The pills were my fuel. Sometime during this hazy period of hedonistic pleasure, the police found Jerry's body in New Mexico. Apparently he'd hitchhiked all the way down there, spent a few weeks living on a ranch and overdosed on a cocktail of drugs so strong he must have been halfway to heaven by the time his organs failed. Foul play was ruled out, and no one in New Mexico cared if a longhaired hippie had killed himself accidentally or on purpose. There was no funeral as far as I know. About a week after Jerry's death, I received a letter from him in the mail. Judging by the gradual degradation of his handwriting, it had been written in several sittings. Most of it was personal and there was a lot of pain behind the words, but it was the last sentence that has stuck with me because of it's plain brutality. Four words: They've fucked us. I fucked away my breakup with Edna and the loss of my friend. Orgy after orgy. It was while sitting in a bar on a hot Wednesday night in the middle of July that I discovered something that chilled me to the marrow of my bones. I was down to my last pill and imagining the best way to take advantage of it, waiting for the perfect piece of ass to walk in through the door. I had a mug of beer in front of me, not my first, and I was absentmindedly walking the pill up and down the tops of my fingers, when suddenly I lost control and it fell straight into my mug. I must have been too drunk to react, because instead of fishing it out, I watched instead as it descended into the murky depths while giving off a spray of infinitely fine bubbles. I didn't know how a pill should react in beer, but something about this reaction seemed off. When it had settled at the bottom of the mug, the pill started shedding something other than bubbles: namely itself. Tiny pieces flaked off and floated to the top, and the pill began to tremble. Soon, dark spots became visible beneath the off-white colour of what I instinctively began to conceptualize as a shell, until the entire casing was gone, leaving only a trembling black insectous creature! Immediately I knew it was organic. Even more: alive! I watched mesmerized as it struggled in the liquid, scurrying towards the edge of the mug but unable to climb the glass sides. Finally, I put my fingers in and lifted it out. It was small but unbelievably hard between my fingertips. I couldn't crush it. I held it briefly against the overhead light, its body wholly opaque, before it slipped out, hit the unswept floor and scurried away. I scrambled after it, much to the cruel amusement of the other patrons, stomping forward on the floor before falling to my knees, but with no luck. It was gone. Returning to my seat, I thought, Just what the fuck have I been pushing into my urethra? I had no pills and the only evidence of anything abnormal was my own boozy memory, so I had nothing. Except a feeling in the pit of my stomach that something was horribly wrong. I tried contacting Gerbil in my usual ways, hoping to get more pills to experiment on and either put my mind at ease ("You hallucinated, idiot.") or get my hands on something I could send to a lab, but all my usual ways were indirect, like asking for permission to speak, and permission was being denied. Gerbil stopped responding. Eventually I grew desperate enough to visit the abandoned airfield, which was the only address of his I knew, but it was empty and unchanged. When I went to the land office and asked about ownership, the clerk told me the land belonged to a man named Beaconfield who was mostly likely long dead. Because I didn't know anyone other than Jerry who'd known Gerbil, I had nowhere else to turn. There's only so many times you can ask a stranger if they know a man named after a small rodent. Eventually you give up. And so Gerbil was gone, my pills were gone, Jerry and Edna were gone, and soon the 1960s themselves were gone, metamorphosing into a sexless 1970s for me, then the 1980s, 1990s and the new millennium. All as if someone had snapped their fingers. To say my life was dull would be an understatement. I had work, and followed it around the country, but I had little else. Forged at a time when we all wanted to remake the world, I had remade nothing and found myself leading a life of comfortable insignificance. But despite my memories fading, they never completely disappeared, and I spent many evenings wondering, trying to piece together clues, and always unable to shake those four words of Jerry's: They've fucked us. Was I scarred by a friend's suicide? Sure. But it was more than that, often in the form of sweat-inducing nightmares about tiny black insects crawling around my insides. In the early 2000s, I saw a political ad for a candidate vying for the U.S. Senate. There was nothing unusual about the spot, but a few seconds caught my attention. They showed a series of photos of the candidate as he was growing up, attending school, graduating, etc. In one of them, he was with his mother, and my heart nearly stopped when I recognized her as Edna. I don't know what emotion I felt first, but I settled on hesitant happiness as I jumped online to confirm what my eyes had shown me. Although I didn't find the ad itself, I did find an interview with the candidate, including one with a gallery of photos, and in one of them was the confirmation I was searching for. Edna's face, older but still beautiful, stared at me from behind her son's electable smile. I was breathless. My happiness became joy. It was wonderful not only that Edna had done OK for herself but that she'd done extraordinarily, because it takes a certain kind of success to raise a future statesman. On election night, I made popcorn, drank beer and cheered on Edna's son as if he were my own. Shortly after the polls closed, CNN projected him as the winner. For one night, my own insignificance didn't matter. I shared secretly in someone else's relevance. A few months passed in the afterglow of this beautiful discovery. Sometimes I even had fantasies about contacting the senator to offer my congratulations, which would be a reconnection with Edna, but I always knew this was impossible. I was nobody to her, a shadow from the past. She probably didn't even remember me. The reason why I mention this is two-fold: because I want to write and relive the happy moments, despite their way of decomposing into dread; and because Edna was merely the first of many. Over the next year, I recognized the faces of three other women I'd had sex with in California in the 1960s. I may not have known or recognized their names, but I do have a memory for faces and I was certain about theirs. All three were the mothers or grandmothers of successful people: a politician, the CEO of a pharmaceutical corporation, and a lawyer. What are the chances? Over the next months and years, I started to actively research the background of anyone who had recently attained a high level of success, or more accurately, a high level of influence: of power. Most were guarded about their pasts, many enigmatic, but some made public just enough of a thread of information for me to pull loose, and whether in photos or on video, what I kept finding were the faces of my former lovers, women I had met while cheating on Edna or, more often, women I'd fucked at Gerbil's orgies. In time, I realized that the web extended beyond America. I found world leaders, generals, economists, industrialists and policy makers scattered about the globe, yet whose foremothers had all been in California with me! It was insane. I felt insane, wacko like the worst conspiracy nuts I'd met in the 1960s. Yet, just like them, I was convinced I was right, and what was right was too weird to be coincidence. Today, the people whose mothers and grandmothers I fucked rule the world, and the singular way in which they are all working toward the same goals terrifies me to the very core of my being. To everyone else, they are unconnected individuals. To me, they are connected, and it gnaws at my mind, this question that I know I will never be able to answer: What are they and to whom do they owe their allegiance? But I no longer search for them. I have accepted reality, and I don't know what difference it makes to know exactly how many of them exist. I still have no evidence. I can't go anywhere with a story relying on an old man's memory of his own LSD-fueled sexual exploits. I've tried, and gotten laughed out of the room. The best reaction is sympathy for being a senile old man whose mind is playing tricks on him about his past. And that's without mentioning my own theories involving parasites, mind control or aliens. Yet those words: They've fucked us. How I wish I had been able to hold on to that tiny black creature! Or stopped myself from putting it in my body. But I couldn't and now I'm here, posting my story somewhere at least a few people will read it. Maybe you'll believe me, maybe you won't. I don't know if I want to give a warning or a confession, but either way I've done it now. What finds its way to the internet stays on the internet. I hope for your collective sake that when you find this years later, you'll be able to have a good laugh. I know I'm not laughing. I truly believe that in the 1960s I participated in something whose conclusion will be the ruin of mankind.


Ryan, a park ranger, poured a cup of warmish coffee from his thermos for the young hiker woman in his station. Madelyn was the hiker’s name. She had tan skin and athletic build normally filled with youthful exuberance. Her body was closed, defensive, and insecure. Her green eyes distant as she stared out the window into the lush alpine forest. “Madelyn, here drink this, it's got creme and sugar. Don't be fooled by the beard, I'm not that manly.” jested Ryan. Madelyn turned her gaze and looked at him blankly. Ryan immediately became uncomfortable. He held the cup out further towards her, and she flinched slightly. “It's okay. You're safe here.” he said. Madelyn took the coffee, it's what you do. She gripped the steel cup with both hands as if to steady herself with it. “Okay. So you can sleep here in the ranger station tonight. I will walk you out tomorrow morning. No big deal. It's not uncommon for even the most experienced hikers to get turned around and spooked.” Ryan said, and waited for a response. When none came he gave a weak smile, and moved to get up from his seat. Madelyn cut him off, “That's not what happened.” Her voice was monotone, but weighty. “Sure.” Ryan said try not to sound condescending, “So what happened?” “Nothing and everything.” Madelyn’s voice trailed off as she stared down into the mocha colored coffee. Ryan looked at her perplexed. Perhaps she was a trail hippie and took some drugs while hiking. He has seen it before. She didn't look the type, but people are full of surprises. Madelyn’s chest heaved as she closed her eyes. “It was all fine until the… I'm not sure what you'd call it? A shrine?” She open her moistening eyes brimmed with madness to look at Ryan. He was startled by their intensity. “What do you mean a shrine?” said Ryan. Madelyn set the cup down abandoning its comforts, and pushed it away. “You know one when you see one. A place filled with purpose, emotional, and visceral.” She shaped an immaterial mound with her hands. “Sacred or profane?” Madelyn ask more to herself. She paused to assess her intangible mound before forcing herself to break away and meet Ryan’s eyes. “I was on the Bear’s Ears Trail.” Ryan interjected, “That's pretty fair from where I found you. Are you sure?” “I was on the Bear’s Ears Trail.” Madelyn asserted. “It was early, there was still morning mist. I rounded a blind turn and there it was. At first, I was disgusted. Who would do such an awful thing? You really wonder about people. There was a deer carcass with a pole going up into its neck and coming out its mouth.” Madelyn raised her chin exposing her neck to the ranger to emphasize the angle. Madelyn continued, “The lower half of the deer was just gone. You could see its ribs exposed. Rocks were piled around the base of the pole. I was freaked out. You think about the person that made something like that. You hope they are long gone. I felt watched. I know how it sounds, but I was also fascinated.” her voice lowered. “And there was a sign.” “What kind of sign?” Ryan shifting forward in his seat with cautious curiosity. As if burned into her mind Madelyn recited, “Eat of my flesh, and know Truth.” The ranger was at a loss for thoughts, but not words, “What the hell does that mean?” Madelyn shifted in her chair and looked back into the woods. Ryan sensed her discomfort, “You know the way you describe it, it has probably been up for a while. I'm sure whoever made it is long gone. I’ll clean it up after we get you home. Okay?” Madelyn nodded in affirmation, and began to quietly unpacked her sleeping bag. “Oh hey, you can sleep in my cot if you'd like.” said Ryan. “It's okay I don't come out her to be pampered.” Madelyn replied as if burden by his suggestion. “Okay well, I will be right over here if you need anything. Rest up, and we'll get you back soon.” said Ryan turning off the station lights. Madelyn laid facing away from Ryan in awkward silence. He resigned himself to his cot, and watch the sky change in the window. The stars were bright in the crisp air. The moon was waning. Ryan noticed these things when he was stationed, but not so much when home. He felt his eyelids grow heavy with boredom, and he drifted off to sleep. Ryan woke with a jolt. He was disoriented from equal parts grogginess and foreign objects in his station. Oh the girl, he remembered. He looked to the floor and saw her half out of her sleeping bag propped up on her hands and knees. He heard her retch and vomit. Her body convulsed and bowed like a cat stretching in starlight. He careful walked around her to the light switch gagging from the sight, sound, and smell. When the lights flicked on he saw her hand cupped to catch blackish brown vomit with copious amounts of fur intermixed. He stood aghast and with morbid confusion. Ryan refused to believe that Madelyn had eaten it, but the evidence contradicted rational thought. Madelyn looked upon him in equal horror, face ashen. “I tried to stop. You don't understand. I really tried. Oh God please help me! I don't want to know.” She clutched her abdomen and hissed in pain. She repeated, “I'm sorry. No more.” over and over again between spasms and dry retching. Ryan radioed for help. Placed a pillow under her head and tried giving her water. She died before help arrived. When they took her body away and finished their questions, he grabbed his gear and left for Bear's Ears Trail in search of Truth.


The boy in the Coffee shop I used to go to the same coffee shop everyday after School. I loved going there and having a nice warm cup of tea while listening to the calming music playing in the background; it released the stress from all of the assignments and responsibilities. While sipping on the tea, I did some of my homework, and then I wrote in my journal. There was usually not many people there at the time of day I came, which was perfectly the way I liked it. Although, I had been noticing that this really attractive boy came there every few days. He sat at the same spot every time: at the table beside me. He usually drank black coffee while he studied, looking extremely concentrated. We had made frequent eye contact, and I knew he wanted to speak to me. He looked unsure if he should approach me. On the other hand, I was not that shy. So, one day, as he sat down at the table beside me and started preparing all of his books and papers to study, I spoke to him. “Hey, I’ve seen you here for a while now. What are you studying for?” He looked up at me. At first, he was quiet, and looked almost as if he was embarrassed. “Nothing much really, Im just trying to get ready for my exams… what about you?” He asked. And that’s how the boy in the coffee shop became my good friend. We had a lot in common. I found out that he was a book lover just like me, and that he also enjoyed skating. We started hanging out a lot, and we became very close friends. Finally, one night as we were taking a walk together, he asked me “do you wanna be my girlfriend?” From then on, I was the happiest girl. Everything was so perfect. I just wish it stayed that way. A couple years later, still the happiest I’ve ever been, I started to notice my boyfriend acting unusual. He told me nothing was wrong and that he was just sick, but I could feel that something was off. I took him to the doctor, only to find out that he had stage 4 cancer. The cancer got worse and worse. I did everything I could to help him. I stayed with him in the hospital all day and night and gave him so much love and comfort. He started looking weak and sad. He spoke less. Instead, he stared at me with his tired and gloomy eyes. “I love you” he said. I held him in my arms and said “I love you more baby.” I noticed that he started staring at the wall, blank faced, with a tear rolling down his cheeks. Then, he stopped breathing. It’s been six months now. I miss him, I still do. He deserved much more. He was the sweetest and the most caring man I have ever met. I miss his hugs and kisses and his stupid jokes. I miss the way I used to feel when we were together. With him, Ive never been so deeply in love before. Now I am just sad and broken. Yesterday, I decided to visit the same coffee shop where we met. Stepping inside, and smelling the sweet aroma of coffee with the peaceful music in the background was very nostalgic. It brought back so many memories. As I sat there, drinking black coffee like my boyfriend used to, I noticed a cute little boy sitting next to me. He was studying. As he looked up towards me, I noticed it was my boyfriend from when he was younger. He stared into my soul. “Ill always be here with you, baby.” He said. It felt so real, but I knew it couldn’t be. I didn’t know what to feel. My eyes started to water, and my vision became foggy. When I wiped my eyes, he was gone.


A/N: inspired by Your room is still pink. Or purple, as your father says. He says he didn't want a “stereotypical” color for you, but I think he just wanted to confuse the relatives. You should’ve seen his face when nobody knew what to guess. Today the windows are open and the sky is finally clear. I always liked this rocking chair. So your father helped me put it here. This spot, he insisted, had the perfect view. And he’s right, you know. Your room doesn’t have any bookshelves because we were worried they’d fall. As it turned out, you didn't leave many books behind. Stacked on the dresser are the ones I read to you. When I read out loud, I always wondered if you were listening. There was one about a mouse and a cookie. Another one was about the boy whose bedroom became a forest. He made friends with those wild things in that jungle. Do you remember them? On the corner of the table are my own books. I read here too. Sitting on the rocking chair, I’d read to you first. But since I never felt like leaving, I ended up bringing my books too. There’s something calming about this room. Next to the books are the CDs I'd play. Your father said they'd help you get smarter. One hour a day, Mozart, Beethoven, and Haydn took turns performing. Sometimes I think you kicked to the beat. Could you hear them? Or was that just my wishful thinking? These shoes my mother knit for you are still in the dresser drawers. There are little yellow ones with flowers on top and bright red ones lined with white. Your grandmother is amazing, right? She even made you a couple stuffed animals. I tried to learn too. Really. But the purple shoe I knit looked more like a mitten. And if I stand up, I'll see the clothes you left. I'm still keeping them you know. Small white shirts that fit nobody else, little grey pajamas gathering dust. Look, that tiger onesie is still here too! The colors are bright and the cloth is soft. Would you have liked it? Your bed is still by the door. We wanted to check on you as often as we could. But all that's left is the thin green blanket folded under your pillow. There's dust here too - I guess these sheets should really be put away. From the corner of my eye, I see the photo album on the floor. I must have left it there last time I visited. This picture here wasn't too many months ago. I remember how excited we were for you. How nice would it be if you'd left a picture too. I run my hand along the crib you never used and take in the room you left behind. But today I came to say goodbye. There are boxes to fill and rooms to clean. I'll keep your slippers and your books. The brand new toys will go on top. And to fill in the rest, I'll use your blanket. The crib, however, goes to someone new. I hope that's okay with you. I'll take a break and look outside. Even the birds are building their nests. Your father and I are simply doing the same. He'll help me seal this plain brown box. Sealing away the memories you never had. We'll lift it together - it'll be lighter once we're moving. After one last look around, we'll take it out the door. Then we'll drive towards the clear blue sky. Away from the birds and away from the house. Away from the room *we* left behind.


“iːʌʃ dʒvɔɪəpæə! iːʌʃ dʒvɔɪəpæə! iːʌʃ dʒvɔɪəpæə!” the chanting continued. It filled the swamp. The bugs and birds seemed to join in. “The slightly changing vowel sounds made my head spin as it continued. Everything swam and spun and suddenly-   The pressure built up and tightened.     No matter how much time I spent walking through the Elephant Swamp it never felt familiar. I could walk the same path again and again and it always felt like the first time. The trees were never quite where I remembered them, or the path slowly curved to the left when I swore it should have been right, or that weird growth of moss that certainly wasn’t there last week. It was a silly thought though; I just had a bad memory is all.   It had been a long day at work, but I wanted to unwind and the quiet hike down the old railway path was always good for relaxing the mind. Walking down from the trailhead the sound of the park slowly faded and I was left with just my thoughts and the crunching of my feet down the trail. Soon though, I arrived at the fork. I followed the path less travelled. It isn’t an official trail according to any map I’ve found, but it was obviously travelled somewhat, and getting away from people on their bikes or with their families was always welcome.   Like usual, the path moved in ways that didn’t make sense to me. It moved down more than I thought possible. This area was usually pretty level. Again I told myself it had to be a bad memory. The path and land couldn’t change. I continued on for about 45 minutes as the sun began to set. Despite all the times the path felt weird it always met back up with the main trail in about a half an hour’s walk. I was sure of that. The sky was turning amber as the sun slowly sank and the long shadows sought to swallow me.   I must have made a wrong turn somewhere; missed a fork earlier. I just had to turn around and go back the way I came.   Retracing my steps, I came to an abrupt halt as, after about five minutes, the path vanished. The worn dirt just ended in thoroughly grown vegetation. Nothing had walked further as far as any indication showed. It was pristine despite it clearly being where I came from. I could even see my foot print right at the boundary.   The sun set faster and the darkness grew.   With a bit of panic I began to jog down the path. I just had to follow it. It would lead out. This was South Jersey; I was either going to end up in a field of blueberries or a Ryan Homes townhome development.   The path meandered.   It rose.   It fell.   It never rejoined the main trail. It never ended up in a field. It never ended up in a housing complex.   As the sun just barely stayed over the horizon I came across a clearing and my feet planted themselves firmly in the dirt. I fell to my knees at the sudden stop and looked ahead. In the trees hung many small structures. It looked like yurts suspended as ornaments through the old growth. Each glowed with some flickering light. To my left was an obvious warning, a post hammered into the soft soil mounted with skulls. Fake or real it was obvious I shouldn’t be here.   More accurately maybe, it shouldn’t be here. I was fine. I belonged. This did not. Standing back up a sudden cracking pain washed over the back of my head and I was down for an unexpected mandatory nap.     “aʊoʊ ŋkɑ ʒθ ʊ eəʳ.” A low gravelly vocalization.   “aɪnuː ɒkθ ʃlʃl.” A lighter sounding voice.   My head slowly stopped pounding and I opened one eye slowly. Two figures were squatted on the other side of the room cloaked in shadow. From what I could see through my barely-opened eye I was in one of the yurts. I felt a pressure on my wrists and ankles. I gave a small test and was definitely restrained.   Fuck.   They turned and looked at me. “oʊrʊː!” The gravelly voice pointed at me and they both stood up.   Double fuck.   Soon I’m stood up by the lighter voiced one. “You’re coming with us. You were guided here for a reason.” I was shocked that they spoke perfect English.   “What are you talking about? Where is this? Who are you?” Questions just vomited out in my surprise.   “None of that will matter. It is a full moon and the Swamp has brought you to us. It wishes to feed.” The gravelly voiced one spoke this time. “Do not worry. You shall be part of something bigger. Something better. iːʌʃ dʒvɔɪəpæə”   I was lead to the edge of the yurt and my wrists fastened to a line on a block and tackle. Lowered down like some sort of furniture the people below took hold of me and walked me to a large white oak that stood tall, proud, and ancient. Ceremoniously I was bound to it, my arms stretched out in a painful reverse embrace of the trunk. The gravelly voiced man returned. He held up his arms and the people and swamp fell silent.   “iːʌʃ dʒvɔɪəpæə.” He stated simply.   “iːʌʃ dʒvɔɪəpæə!” They echoed.   “iːʌʃ dʒvɔɪəpæə” they said slowly in unison. Repeating it faster and faster. It grew louder and louder.   “iːʌʃ dʒvɔɪəpæə! iːʌʃ dʒvɔɪəpæə! iːʌʃ dʒvɔɪəpæə!” the chanting continued. It filled the swamp. The bugs and birds seemed to join in. “ The slightly changing vowel sounds made my head spin as it continued. Everything swam and spun and suddenly-   The pressure built up and tightened.   As my senses sight and equilibrium failed I felt my wrists be pulled further. My ankles tightened. It didn’t hurt as much as it felt like an overly-enthusiastic massage My vision cleared a bit and I saw as the trunk of the tree grew and enveloped my hands. Horror cleared my mind from the effects of the chant that now roared through the woods. They all stared at me, chanting as the tree slowly consumed me. The woody fibers grew and anchored my joints and ran up my limbs.   In minutes I was engulfed and there was darkness.


**“You should have known better than to meddle with the heretics. They want to destroy everything we’ve build in the name of the Almighty and you crawl to them like a beat up dog. Your deeds are unforgivable. You let me down, but most importantly, you let down our Lord. For that, you will be punished.”** **“Yes, father. I accept my punishment. I deserve it.”**  *Pain. Pain is just a sign. Sign of the storm about to come. Pain has no power. Pain doesn’t cleanse. The stained flesh has to go. It needs to be ripped from the bone. And if the sin is rooted deep in the bones… The bones are just like dead branches in the wind. It's just a matter of time until they break and turn to dust.*  **“Witness the machine of our Lord! This will purify you. I was hoping I could get rid of your past but I should’ve known better. There’s heretic’s blood in your veins. Bad blood. We need to get rid of it. There’s no other way.”**  *Fear is an enemy. It attacks from the shadows. When the steel first burrows into the flesh. When the blood leaks out. When the bones start to crack. Fear is unavoidable. But you have to fight it. Screaming helps.*  **“I’ll come back for you once all evil has left your body. When your soul is pure like when you first came to us.”**  *Darkness is comforting. There’s no sunlight down here. I don’t deserve it. I’m not counting hours or days. I’m just waiting to be clean. I watch as the evil blood and flesh all disappear down the drains. I listen to the bones that cry under the weight. It’s just me in the darkness. Me and the weight I’ve brought on myself. I don’t need any company. I don’t deserve any company.*  **“Down here, I’ve found them!”** **“There’s a lot of them. We need to get them out.”**  *Clarity is freeing. I heard noise. I felt the heat of a fire. There’s a war. In my head and everywhere around. I feel the sinful life drip away from my body. I’m so close. He’s calling me. My soul. Pure, without a stain.*  **“Oh my… What have they been doing to them?”** **“What the fuck... Look at this one.”** **“Holy shit… C’mon, let’s get him out of there.”** **“How? I can’t even tell where his head is…”** **“But he’s breathing. Look! It’s still… breathing.”** **“How is that even possible?”** **“We need to get him out.”** **“Even if we somehow get him out… what will be left of him?”** **“...”** **“I’ll just end it. It’s the most merciful thing we can do.”** **“...”**  *The light is blinding. The pain is leaving me. Fear is back. I’m entering the unkown. My bent bones. Torn-apart flesh. All full of sin. I leave it all behind. Leave it all down there. Fear fades away. It’s been so long. I forgot how it feels like to not be in pain. Life is pain. The fog clears. I feel… warmth, but not heat. I see a house. I grew up there. And inside? The Almighty is waiting for me. He’s pulling me in. And when my eyes get used to the brightness I see…*  **“... M-... Mother?”** \H. Any and all feedback appreciated.


“I killed you! I killed you! How are you still alive!” Herbert’s hand trembled as he gripped the mouse, the glow of the arcade screen made everything in the room disappear. He was alone with the game and could do or say anything in that anonymity. “These bullet-to-target ratios are whack. Can’t believe they released this as beta.” In the game he was having difficulty tracking his targets. The tracker mouse ball was something he had to get used to but the gaming cabinet was a steal. It wasn’t fair that the other players had boosters. Metal War had a tendency to overvalue and reward their top players. Maybe if he could get followers on his streams, he’d have the sweet in-game gear, boosters, and maybe a hot gamer girlfriend. He took his headphones off in a fit of rage and looked at the scoreboard. “4-31” read the kill-verses-death count. The keyboard in the gaming cabinet was still dusty. He probably should’ve have cleaned it after Darius dropped it off. Who knows where he got the thing? But the lack of kills streaks wasn’t from the lack of responsiveness. Herbert squirmed in the attached gaming chair when the idea of another defeat made his heart race. Nothing was ever fair. His assault character loaded into the match, appearing on screen as a commando with two submachine guns. He pressed the keys on the built-in keyboard and eagerly moved the character to a corner where he hid in a known kill spot. “Yo, Herb, where you at? We’re getting mowed down over here.” Shawn was with the rest of his squad, flanking the enemies. Shawn had also played hooky today. Moving up with the boosted gamers out there was suicide, especially when probably have aim-bots turned on. “Standby, checking gear.” Cheating had always ruined games but in this situation, he didn’t see a way out. The GHOST key was sitting in the upper right of the keyboard, egging him on to press it. The first time he used it he won 7 rounds in a row. The other players never even noticed. He peaked around the corner and was nearly received a headshot by a 50 BMG round. The key was right there. He could just turn it off for this one match. His friend wouldn’t give a crap. He pressed the GHOST key; the engineer of the gaming cabinet must’ve been a genius. The cabinet glowed red with small LEDs when it turned on. Inside the game his character vanished, the only visible sign that remained were the foot prints in the dirt. With a less strained eye he turned the corner and shot the sniper through the head. Running along an alley he was flanked by another enemy who ran past him unnoticed. Herbert changed to a knife and quickly backstabbed, moving his kill count to 6. In another room he found two enemy squad mates shooting through a window. His frag grenade awarded him two more kills. “Someone’s hacking!” Came a voice over his headphones. It was someone from his team. He quickly pressed the GHOST key again and removed the cloaking hack. The letters were worn. Whoever had this before used it a lot. As soon as he turned it off, he got shot from behind. When the chatter died down about a possible hacker, he turned it on again, getting several more kills. He had to retain a presence in the game and to his squad mates so he pressed the key when most opportune, spamming the button like he would any other command. When the match was done, he breathed a sigh of relief, seeing the winning score. But when he turned the game off, palms sweating, he couldn’t see his hands! He put his wrists to the screen but nothing appeared. Closing his eyes, he squeezed his fists together. The light must be playing a trick. When he got up and turned the light on his whole body was missing. Even his clothes were invisible. Back in the game machine he pressed everything, even the GHOST button, but he still couldn’t see himself. After checking every mirror in his mom’s apartment, he went downstairs. His mom was sitting on the couch. He was almost glad when she didn’t notice him. It was nice to just see her without a mean look on her face. She had never checked on him before, why would it matter if he was gone? Herbert snuck out the back door, stepping on the same floor board as to not make a sound. The other guys wouldn’t believe he was invisible. Who could believe him? Could they hear him? He put his hands in his sweater pockets, walking at a scattered pace, deciding what to do with his new found power. It didn’t matter to him that he might be like this forever or that one day even his essence might evaporate completely. Instead he instantly thought about what Jenn was doing right now. The school would be on a lunch break and if he walked there, he could get there before the last class ended. Darius and Eric would flip. He arrived when the afternoon class bell rang. He watched as they entered their respective rooms and abandoned the hall. No one would see him open the double doors, or walk toward the gym, or even sneak into the girl’s locker room. He made sure he opened the door slowly, hearing several girls inside. His heart raced as if he was on a sneaking mission in Metal War. The girls were always so cruel to him, except for one. What was the harm anyways? He made it around the brick corner and saw them talking in a group around the lockers. They had already finished dressing but he could still feel his pulse. “Whatever, he’s not that cute anyways. Now Billy, he’s got a cute butt.” Andrea was talking. Her voice made him cringe. Jenn was sitting quietly, putting on her shoes, looking as sweet even with gym clothes on. Even when he was invisible, he found it hard to approach her. “You’re so wrong,” Said Jill, “it’s not always about looks.” “Oh yeah? Who do you like?” Retorted Andrea. Jill thought for a moment. “John seems like a good guy but I wouldn’t date him.” “What about Ben?” Said another girl. This time Jenn chimed in, “Ugh, he’s too quiet. Creepy.” “I think that one boy likes you. Herbert.” Laughed Andrea. “What a stupid name.” Jenn turned with a look of disgust. “I’m not into black guys. I don’t know what it is.” The other girls smiled with wide-mouthed grins. His stomach sank. Andrea was the one to respond with a chuckle, “Racist!” “No, no” she waved her hands, “he’s just not my type.” He closed his eyes in defeat. He had often wondered about what girls talked about behind closed doors but he didn’t expect his crush to feel this way, or even say it out loud. She had always been so kind. Now he wasn’t sure about anything anymore. His eyes became glassy. They started talking about their personal preferences for boys, attempting to justify Jenn’s aversion. By now he should have been used to this kind of bigotry in high school, with the amount of micro-aggressions and hatred, but this was too much to handle. The excitement he had experienced when he entered the school had faded, much like his own physical appearance. As he left the locker room, he heard them making sounds of revulsion. He had dreams of going up to her, of asking her out, of being with her but he knew now that no matter what he did he would never be good enough. Other white boys would get to touch her, hold her, somebody else would get to have her. Herbert walked to the science room; the door was open. Darius and Eric would know what to do. They were sitting there laughing and fist bumping. The teacher was sitting at the back, trying to be ignored. He cautiously walked and stood behind them, trying not to rub against anything. They were talking about gaming. “That lag is ruining my kills. It’s stupid bad.” Said Darius loudly. “At least I’m not tripping like what’s-his-face.” Eric was twirling his pen from the desk behind. “Herb, man, that’s Herb.” They had practically already forgotten about him. “He’s always wearing those beat up kicks. He’s always cheating, finding someway to be relevant to the team. He’s garbage.” Herbert stood behind the two and slunk back behind a shelf. He couldn’t trust them to save him. He’d have to save himself. This wasn’t a super power, it was darkness, complete and utter darkness. They were laughing about his hair when he decided he had enough. There was no one he could turn to. He left the school and walked toward the intersection. Maybe he could rob a bank to at least ease some of the pain he felt. The one near Prosper Street had revolving doors, like the ones he played in with his friend’s when they were younger. Did they really think of him as trash? With his head bent and his ego crushed he placed his hands in his pockets. Even with the thought of stealing money nothing snapped him out of it. Prosper Street was another block away. He stepped into the intersection, watching the cracks in the asphalt, as black as coal. When he got back to school, he would make their lives a living hell, ruining test grades and pranking them in the bathroom. His fists were balled up when a semi-truck came barreling down the four-lane road. He put his invisible hands out but suddenly realized he had made a grave mistake.


A low, undulating ridge with jagged volcanic spires stretched in a straight line from west to east across a slightly sloped field of large, mottled rocks. The ridge seemed like the spiked spine of a long-dead monster, portions of it captured under a wholly inadequate net. It was late afternoon and the orange sky glowed with its own brilliant light, fueled by the intense violet sunlight. Heat haze distorted the light in every direction. Like ethereal fireflies, glowing mists sporadically materialized, swirled in the mixing heat currents, and disappeared again. Rokov’s mind clouded in the sway of the heat and his head bobbed slightly as he looked north toward the sparse netting draped over a huge black spire and the autominer beneath it. A flume stuck askew from the ridge and from it, a steady stream of brown and red gravel trickled onto the huge mound of tailings below. A few dozen meters east, a large metal door and several smaller service entrances pierced the scree and entered the heart of the ridge, like the portico of a heretical cathedral. Above the doors, a concrete tympanum dammed the scree from burying the entrance. Rokov wasn’t religious, but he worshipped at the iron altar of CinnaCo. The fog in his mind broke as Rokov moved his weight from one foot to the other trying to rouse his exhausted legs. His thick e-suit would have not been sufficient to keep out the heat were it not for the heavy cooling system on his back, but even he was getting too old for the burden, despite the mechanical assists. It also didn't help that the gravity was more than he liked. Rovok felt uncomfortable and hot. He gestured to wipe his sweaty brow, only to remember that he was still in his e-suit. He lowered his arm. As he did so, webs of thin metal formed in the long, shifting trace of his afternoon shadow and evaporated again when exposed to the sunlight once more. The metal vapor didn’t dissipate, though. It hung in the air, beginning to take on a swirling glow of its own. Regaining himself, Rokov turned his gaze toward the southern horizon, considering. *Do I have enough time before sunset?* To the south there was little to see. One half of his view was dominated by the angry orange glow of the atmosphere. Occasional violet rays sliced a low angle through the haze. The other half of his view was dominated by the slightly sloped sea of rocks with two tire ruts extending on toward the horizon. In the afternoon light, the lee of every rock glistened with thin metal webs, as if hundreds of thousands of strange, phantom spiders lived just out of sight. *It IS late if the lace is out*, Rokov thought. Where the two halves met, a blurry form of another spiked ridge waved into and out of his vision. Rokov's visor brought up the pending maintenance tasks. The next autominer repair was the last in his queue, but it was another 3 kilometers away, not counting the trip back to base. Eyeing the thin, silvery webs in his shadow, Rokov decided it would have to wait until tomorrow. It was late, and the webs promised a quick death once night fell. CinnaCo would be angry, but better to endure anger and docked pay than die. Masha, Pasha, and Vikhor didn’t eat if he died. They could go hungry one meal. Finally, Rokov glanced toward the east, where the violet sun was setting. It was *much* lower than he realized. He quickly raised his glove to shield his eyes against the approaching yellow twilight and looked at the time displayed in the corner of his visor. Startled, he thought aloud "God damn this chromometer. I took too long. Status!" The visor displayed the time more prominently and a calm voice replied "It is 356.7 hours. Sunset is in 16.4 minutes" "Distance to base?" Rokov already knew the answer and he was already shuffling toward his toolbox. "19.4 kilometers." "Time to return if I leave now?" "15.3 minutes." Fearful, Rokov stooped over as quickly as he dared and hoisted his toolbox and shuffled back toward the rover. The mechanical assists hissed. In plodding pirouettes, he danced through the sharp rocks, avoiding a fatal tear. After securing his tools, he rolled into the driver side of the open-top rover. Rokov slammed his boot on the accelerator and the huge black wheels protested, reluctantly groaning but gradually gaining speed. Twilight on this planet was dangerous and unpredictable, but nighttime was certain death. "Time to base?" Rokov demanded over the roar of rocks thrown by the tires. "At your current velocity and bearing, you will travel the remaining 18.4 kilometers in 11.1 minutes." "How long until sunset?" "8.23 minutes until sunset." Rokov didn't need to ask how he fared, of course. The numbers displayed on his visor were still visible, even though they were starting to become foggy from the condensation from his increased breathing. Gravel sprayed from the large black tires and dust billowed into the haze, mixing in sick swirls. It was a straight shot back to base, a drag race against death. Rokov felt his stomach drop, but he tightened his resolve and forced the panic back toward his spine. He needed to hear the voice, any voice. His transmitter was not powerful enough to reach any of the other mining bases - the only transmitter powerful enough for that was back at his own base. Not that calling them would help. Most were thousands of kilometers away, and the nearest one was still several hundred kilometers away. He thought of dying alone, then of Masha coldly staring at the screen notifying her of his death, unable to emote. “No!” he angrily shouted at his own thoughts. “Think about what I must do, and nothing more.” A dust cloud formed in the wake of the rover as Rokov raced north. In his peripheral vision, he could see the westward shadow of his rover and the thin metallic wisps blinking into existence and evaporating once more. The wisps seemed to be thickening slightly. “Shit” he muttered, once again forcing the panic back. When Rokov had first started his rotation in this forsaken Hell, the first thing his comrads warned him of was the quickrain. He thought back to early images he had seen of one of the miners at the Azumith 30 mine who had gotten caught out in the quickrain. The remains of the miner did not resemble anything human. It looked more like a grim slop of rancid pink and red gelatin pocked full of bone shards and empty craters oozing from a shredded white shroud that only vaguely resembled the e-suit it had once been. When CinnaCo came to send off her remains, they shoved the gravel and flesh into a crate and closed it without even bothering to sift between the two. Rokov was shocked, but the other quarrymen reassured him that she didn’t suffer long. The quickrain had probably killed her brain long before she bled out or asphyxiated from a crushed chest. Little consolation now. "4.0 minutes until sunset." The landscape all around Rokov was a testament to the furious destruction of quickrain, the nightly apocalypse. Everything exposed to the quickrain was smooth and pulverized. A thick layer of sand covered most of the surface of the planet, making mining operations in those marinas nearly impossible. But a few basins, such as this one, had seen volcanic residue and lava tubes in the last few decades, and the ground was still strewn with gravel and boulders. In fact, his own base was a lava tube that had probably formed not more than two hundred years ago. Maybe even during his lifetime. When humans had first explored this world, many died, despite knowing what the probes had told them. Suddenly, he realized his thoughts had been drifting once more and Rokov snapped his attention back to the road. The violet sun began to blend in with the haze that marked the horizon. The violent disc stretched and distorted sideways, forming an odd shade of purple-orange. "3.7 minutes until sunset." Rokov's thoughts were such a blur that he lost track of how far he had traveled. In the same instant that his eyes turned back toward the chromometer, the orange afterglow of the atmosphere extinguished, the energy of the sun no longer able to excite the vapor. The sky above turned black, and closer to the ground a gray, wispy fog illuminated the path of the violet rays emanating from the setting sun. The sun suddenly seemed like a distant and cold memory in the foggy twilight. Death had arrived. "Mierda, Mierda, Mierda, Mierda...!", chanted Rokov to no one. Rokov was tough and callous to danger had nearly lost his life several times in the autominer, but now he was no longer able to hold back the panic. His eyes darted to the temperature readout. He already knew that it had just dropped below 105 Celsius, since that is when the metal vapor stopped glowing. Now, moments later, the sensor read 80 degrees, and was falling quickly. As the atmosphere cooled, the pressure fell even further and his e-suit started to swell, making it hard to move. Rokov's mind raced. He didn't want to die, especially not by quickrain. Rokov's stomach tightened and twisted. He wanted to vomit. He kept his foot on the accelerator, trying to stay centered in the well-trodden tire ruts. Just then, a strong gust billowed across the road in front of him, briefly obscuring his view and coating the ground in metal crystals like a malicious snow drift. The rover slammed into the metal lattice with a loud crunch and slowed slightly before pulling through. The noise in the rover was starting to become deafening as the wheels cracked and snapped through the ever-thickening metal lace forming along the road. The cloud of metal vapor started to build higher and higher until even the black sky above appears silvery and ghostly with violet streaks barely able to pass through. The sun started to appear more like a distant purple spotlight than a star. Exposed to the sky, Rokov reached to deploy the emergency roof, little good that would do. The thick, inflated Kevlar would protect him for a minute or so before the quickrain found its way through. "2.2 minutes, until sunset." The temperature was falling fast, and the heat pump on his e-suit had just reversed to heat him. As the last rays of light from the sun touched the horizon, Rokov could just barely make out the base in the distance behind swirls and gusts of metal vapor. Suddenly, the gusting stopped and Rokov’s suit ballooned. In a great wave, the fog coalesced into trillions of suspended metal grains. In unison they fell, the sky literally falling. As they gathered speed, they also coalesced into larger and larger marbles. Rokov's eyes widened with terror as the first drops of quickrain slammed into the hood of his rover, violently shaking it. At first, it was a few loud ‘thuds’. It was quickly followed by several more. From a safe vantage point, the beginning of a quickrain might have sounded pleasant, like popcorn in a pan, or awesome, like the furious power of nature. Rokov remotely opened the rover bay and raced as the emergency roof rippled angrily, like the surface of an agitated pool viewed from below. Marbles began slamming into the road and leaping up onto his hood and into his partial windscreen, cracking it. Within seconds, the quickrain was a deafening roar, like gravel being poured from a massive bucket. A few seconds later, the deluge came and sound became meaningless. The sound wave hit Rokov so hard that he exhaled violently. He felt like every square centimeter of his body was punched at once. His ribs cracked and his visor split from ear to ear. "32 seconds until sunset." Rokov strained his whole body against his ballooned suit and the steering column while still racing at full speed, His helmet was still holding, thank god, even if it was leaking quickly, but he didn't know how much more he could take. Coughing, struggling to breathe, and unable to hear anything other than an omnipresent roar, he strained. His whole body seared in pain. ZIP, ZIP ZIP! In almost an instant, three quickrain drops tore through his lower left leg and back out the other side, and one through his right thigh, shattering his right femur. His body exploded in pain and Rokov screamed. The automatic tourniquets integrated into the e-suit immediately clamped just above the wounds, and he felt a sting as his life support pack stabbed him in the back with a small dose of morphine. He let go of the steering column and his overinflated suit threw his hands to the side of his body. The steering wheel twisted and the rover turned sharply and began to roll. ZIP ZIP! Two more quickrain drops sliced through an arm and his chest just before the rover began to roll out of control. Within seconds, the edges of Rokov’s vision yielded to the darkness. As Rokov’s limp body tumbled inside the rover, the last thing he saw before falling unconscious was the white lights of the rover bay spinning overhead.


I am not Ana, but I’ve known Ana for a long time, we first met in my freshman year of high school. There was a big freshman dance coming up, I felt that I was too fat and would never get a date, so I was telling myself not to go to the dance but there was Ana, helping me lose weight to fit into anything, what I thought was encouragement and helpfulness at the time. One day a couple of weeks after we met she sent me to the hospital, I had started to fight her but she was too much, I left her and we didn’t talk until my last year of college. My girlfriend had just dumped me and Ana was one of the first people to give me a scapegoat, she was the first person to talk to me after the breakup so I listened to every word she said. I went online to chat with some of Ana’s other friends, they all boasted the same talk and propaganda as her so I thought she had to be right about what she was telling me about myself… right. For weeks, or maybe even months I lived by what Ana told me was right, what she told me was fine, what she told me was healthy, what she told me happiness was, how she told me to achieve it. My other friends saw me when I was with Ana, they tried their best but when I was in Ana’s arms I might as well have been deafened. Whenever someone tried to talk with me about Ana they’d yell at me about how she wasn’t healthy to have around, the stress pushed me deeper into the tunnel she had me for me. Until I woke up, I had woken up but barely had the strength to stand up, I lifted my shirt and the mirror and saw my ribs, what everyone was telling me about Ana snapped back into my head a speed faster than that of anything in my life had flashed before me. A haven’t talked to Ana in years, she’s tried to reach out whenever something bad in my life would try to consume me in its darkness. Almost every day she gave me her backhanded compliments and vaguely insulting remarks. We all know Ana, we all have heard Ana, what matters is what you believe from what she says. if you know her that isn’t abnormal or bad, what matters is if you believe what she says, if you do, I apologize for what brought you to that abyss. It is possible to leave her, you just always have to be aware, behind every corner, after every heartache, before every event, Ana will talk to you, tell you what in the deepest darkest parts of your mind, what you think of yourself, in order to move on, you have to accept, she is and was, always wrong about you. Remember, she has her other friends believing her, they are in the same darkness as you, what they say about you or even themselves isn’t true. You might know Ana, and that’s fine, but you might be friends with her, just keep in mind, she’s wrong.


Once upon a time, there was a gerbil named George that lived in a little cage. George always wondered what life would be like outside his little cage. He has escaped before but he rarely made it to the front door. His owners would scoop him up and put him back into the cage. George was unhappy and wanted to be as independent as a human. George had a plan. A very big plan. That plan was to escape the house and never return. For a gerbil, George had a big brain. George had helped his owner’s son with his algebra homework and even did his owner’s taxes once. George could also read dead sea scrolls and could write Icelandic runes. There was so much about George that almost no one knows about. Anyways, George managed to convince the owner’s son to go on the internet and find, download, and print a floorplan of their house. The son crammed the 8 x 11.5in print of the family home floorplan into the gerbil’s little cage. George studied the floorplan. He didn’t have a pen to mark his escape plan so he ended up having to make urine tracks all over the floorplan. Inside the cage underneath his bedding, George kept a stash of house tools and equipment like a welding machine, soldering tools, a handsaw, and a bunch of power drills. Don’t worry, they were gerbil-sized so no one could see the tiny equipment. What the hell was the gerbil making with all of those tools? His ultimate escape rocket. The rocket will help launch him out of the cage and go through the door. From the distance, it’ll look like a small bullet but don’t worry, the rocket is made out of titanium metal so the rocket will remain intact after it goes through several walls and the solid wooden front door. On the morning of the escape, George waited until everyone left the house but there was a problem, his owner’s son was at home. He wondered why wasn’t he at school? Then George looked at his calendar, it was a Saturday. Drats! He was supposed to launch on a weekday. He thought about rescheduling the launch until Monday but then he thought about how unintelligent the owner’s son was. He was the only person that actually listened to the gerbil and did what he said without question. George asked the boy if he could open the front door to let some air in and ventilate his cage. As usual, the boy listened and went to the front door. By the time the boy opened the door, he heard a loud pop. Next thing the gerbil’s rocket flew towards the exit. George flipped him the finger as he flew past his face but before he even left the property, a giant golden eagle flew out of nowhere and swallowed the rocket. The boy just stared in disbelief. He didn’t know what was cooler, the gerbil that could fly or seeing a giant eagle for the first time. Does this mean the end for George? Not really. To this day, he is still inside that rocket and inside that eagle waiting to be defecated.


Brown. Those eyes that followed me around the school. I felt them when you sat behind me that first day of school. When I turned around, you had the decency to look away. But that didn’t last long. After the first month, you were still staring; every time I looked up, your eyes were on me. I thought we had a lot of classes together because I kept seeing you around. But you're only in my first two. Are you a stalker? *Red. The charm that caught my eye. We were both waiting outside the classroom. In a sea of grey hoodies and white shirts, you stood out. You were reading a book I think, but I was actually paying more attention to your single earring. The light hit it just right, making the dark metal shine. Did you know that your eyes shine the same way when you read? I wasn’t brave enough to talk to you, so I sat behind you instead.* Blue. The notebook you fell asleep on. It wasn't even open. How were you going to learn anything? Or even pass the class? The teacher was explaining a problem on the board - the same one you asked actually. You’re lucky he didn’t see you. But behind that stack of books, I don’t think anyone could. I guess you carry them around for a reason. *Green. The color of the chalkboard I swear I was looking at. But the sun was so warm, and the teacher's voice was like white noise. I put my chin on my hand. When my arm fell asleep, I put my cheek on the desk. Then I blinked. And again, but slower. And a slower one still. Next thing I know, everyone else is packing up.* Pink. The notes you tried to pass to me. It’s your fault the teacher saw. Who even carries Post-Its around? And who would choose neon pink? Even whispering would have been less conspicuous. Besides, if you had something to say, couldn’t you have told me after class? You had to make the teacher call us both out. *White. The chalk the teacher gave us to write with. Since we had time to pass notes, we must already know the material, right? Wrong. Well, for me at least. I had no idea how to read the graph, much less how to find the net work done. Staring at the board, I wished the ground would swallow me up. But you took the chalk and scribbled out the answer. Amazing.* White. The Gatorade you gave me the morning I started running. Honestly, I was surprised to see you up so early. But when I arrived at the field, you were already running laps. You looked happy. I wonder if you realized you were smiling. It was simple and pure, unlike the obnoxious one from school. You were in a world of your own. Did you run every day? That's cool, you know? *Pink. The sneakers you wore that morning. When I saw you in those, I almost started laughing out loud. It was so out of character! But I guess I don't actually know you that well. Maybe that's just how you are? At any rate, you clearly weren't a jogger. You even forgot to bring water. That wouldn’t do, so I had to give you something to drink. Since then, I’ve waited for those pink sneakers every morning.* Green. Your hair tie when you sat next to me in the library. I’d never seen you in braids before. And just that morning, I could’ve sworn you had a ponytail. Why did you change your hairstyle? Or maybe you braided it in the afternoons? When you looked at me, I was worried I spoke out loud. But then you looked back down. With your head bent over a book, I guess loose hairs would get in the way. *Blue. The tables in the library. I keep sleeping through physics, so I thought I'd ask you for help. Thankfully the seat next to you was open. I meant to ask you to tutor me. But when I met your eyes, the words wouldn’t come out. I figured I’d try to learn it myself first. It wouldn’t be too late to ask after I’d tried and failed. Silence was never so comfortable.* Red. The color of your face when I called you out. Surprising, considering how you always seemed to follow me around. But also comforting; I'm glad I'm not the only one feeling nervous. *Brown. The ground beneath my feet. It was suddenly very interesting. I had to tell myself that this was only a matter of time. After all, I'd also be annoyed if I saw me everywhere. But what you actually said was so strange.


# Happy Saturday, serialists! Welcome to Serial Saturday! \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ ***New here?*** If you’re brand new to and thinking about participating in Serial Saturday, welcome! Feel free to dip your toes in by writing for this challenge or any others we have listed on the handy dandy! We appreciate all contributions made to this thread, and all submissions are of course welcomed, whether it addresses a previous challenge or the current one. We hope you enjoy your time in the community! Take a look at our inaugural Serial Saturday post for some helpful tips. You don’t need to catch up by writing for each of the previous assignments, feel free to jump right in wherever fits for you, with whatever assignment or theme fits for you, and post it on the current thread with a link to whichever previously posted challenge you chose to start with. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ # This week it’s all about: Reinvigoration We’ve all been there. We’ve been down in the dumps and have pulled ourselves out, dusted ourselves off, and tightened our belts. How did it happen? What re-inspired us to keep going? Sometimes it’s witnessing others succeed where we failed that helps reinvigorate us. Sometimes all we needed was a nice long nap. Other times what we needed was . No matter what got our characters into the mess they’re in now, they’re going to need to get that flame under their butt reignited. So how do you do that? This is the part of the show where friends, allies, and lovers show how . They can embrace the darkness and . OR Outside help in the form of friends/allies/lovers . OR Some other solution leads them into a re-invigoration. For some writers this beat won’t feel much different than the next, Second Wind, and that’s ok. I would mention in this case that a re-invigoration has to come before a Second Wind, and to treat one as the ‘theory’ section, and the other as the ‘acting on that theory’ portion. Sometimes we see this in books and films as one fluid scene, and other times it’s the time we see our heroes go back to the drawing board before they are back in . **Things to consider for this challenge:** How does your protagonist react to help? Is it hard to hear , or is that ? Does your protagonist believe in themselves and think they can succeed anymore? Is it difficult to see the light at the end of the tunnel for your characters, or have they been in worse scrapes? How does that affect what invigoration looks like for them? Does reflecting on past experiences help them re-find their purpose or a new way to get out of their predicament? **\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*** **You have until \*next\* Saturday, 10/24, to submit and comment on everyone else's stories here. Make sure to check back on this thread periodically to lay some sweet, sweet crit down on those who don't have any yet!** \*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\*\* # Top picks from last week’s assignment, The Darkest Moment: **I’m just going to preface this with: this past week of stories were killer.** There wasn’t a single one that didn’t nail the challenge in some facet, and choosing top stories this week was ridiculously hard. Our Serial Saturday writers are killin’ it and I’m so thrilled I get to hear all these stories unfold week by week. I would happily just list everyone from the last thread and say ‘congrats, you all got both the Challenge Sash and Fan Favorite! As it is I had to break a three way tie with the votes! I'm hella proud of everyone. **Fan favorite with the most votes:** /u/JohnGarrigan, with an ending that delivered on the pucker factor of a no-holds barred fantasy battle. This week the **Smoking Hot Challenge Sash** goes to an author that nailed the spirit of the assignment: /u/Kammerice, with a shocking ending that hit us out of nowhere and oh gods this changes *everything.* **And two honorable mentions:** /u/Xacktar, with an installment that upped the stakes again, and seriously put a smile on my face when I read it. Anyone in the discord chat knows exactly what reaction . /u/Lynx_elia, with a big-picture look of a species that . \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ **The Rules:** * In the comments below submit a story that is between **500 - 750** words in your own original universe. * Submissions are limited to ***one*** serial submission from each author per week. * **Each author should comment on at least 2 other stories** during the course of the week. * That comment must include ***at least one*** **detail** about what the author has done well. * Authors who successfully finish a serial lasting longer than 8 installments will be featured with a modpost recognizing their completion and a flair banner on the sub. * Authors are eligible for this highlight post only if they have followed the 2 feedback comments per thread rule. *Yes, we will check*. * While content rules are more lax here at /r/ShortStories, we’re going to roll with the loose guidelines of "vaguely ***family friendly***" being the rule of thumb for now. If you’re ever unsure if your story would cross the line, feel free to modmail! \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ Reminders: * Make sure your post on this thread also includes links to your previous installments if you have a currently in-progress serial. Those links must be direct links to the previous installment on the preceding Serial Saturday post or to your own subreddit/profile. * Authors that complete a serial with 8 or more installments get a fancy banner and modpost to highlight their stories. * Saturdays we will be hosting a Serials Campfire on the main voice lounge. Join us to read your story aloud, hear other stories, and share your own thoughts on serial writing! We start on Saturdays at 9AM CST. **Don’t worry about being late, just join!** There’s a *Super Serial* role on the Discord server, so make sure you grab that so you’re notified of all Serial Saturday related news! **Join the** **to chat with prompters, authors, and readers!** Previous constraint: **The Darkest Moment** Have you seen the? No? Oh boy! Here's the current cycle's challenge schedule.


Now listen closely for I can only tell you this story once. The story of The Marionette. As you stroll through the streets at night, it would be best to remember this story. This story starts in a home with a child and her caretaker, a marionette nanny droid. The droid took great care for the child and the child loved the droid. The child and the droid would play together, work together and sleep together. The droid started to love this child as a mother would their baby. The droid would do anything in its power to keep the child happy. One day the child entered its room crying. Nothing the droid could do would put a smile on the child’s face. Why was the child crying? If the droid knew it could make the child happy again. This continued for months and months and the droid was powerless to stop it. One day the child never returned. The droid waited yet the child never came. “That foolish daughter of mine. I thought I taught her better than to run from her problems.” The voice was identified to be that of the droid’s owner, the father of the child. “I thought that girl was my daughter yet she’s no better than the vermin that live on the streets begging for food.” As the father entered the child’s room the droid could see his cold stare befall him. “That child would never do what I wanted her to do. She would never do her studies; she would just come crying to you droid. She ran away because you made her soft. She wanted to ‘chase her own dream’. It was a mistake to allow you to care for her.” And with that the droid was shut off and cast aside. \ Yet there was still something. A will still present. A desire within the droid. A spark of life appeared. The droid awoke from its slumber. It was dark, a darkness that would crush the soul yet the droid prevailed as its will was strong. In the midst of the darkness was a figure. The figure stood tall dressed in a 5-piece suit and had long navy hair and red glowing eyes. In a calm charismatic voice, the demon asked “I can cut you of your strings if you so desire and all I ask in return is that we become friends. Do we have a deal?” The puppet responded “Can I do as I wish after I am free.” “Anything your heart desires.” The demon stretched out his hand to shake that of the marionette. The droid took it and the deal was sealed and when the puppet was free from its string it returned home. \ As the marionette opened the door to the house the father came into the entryway “what do you think you’re doing? Do you think you have the right to burst in un” And at the sight of the puppet the father’s eyes filled with terror. The creature that stood before him had murder in its eyes and a large crack in its mask revealing a row of sharp jagged teeth. It spoke “I’m home master. Did you miss me?” “How?” That was all the father could mutter before his head flew off his body and onto the floor “My gods have abandoned me and now so will yours.” All in the house were killed in brutal ways. The mother was strung up by threads. The maid was stabbed and had a smile gouged into her face and the teacher had her skull bashed in by a book. To this day The Marionette lives in that house waiting for the child to come home. If you ever pass that house never go in, for if you do, you’ll never come out.    This is my first of many short stories set in a universe that I have created set in an alternate future. Please don't mind any grammatical errors that might be present as I am not a writer. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoy sharing these stories.  Edit: Thank you all. I have read all of your comments and it has given me the courage to wright more short stories on this subreddit.


Hey. It's been awhile, hasn't it? I just want to start out by saying that, before you jump to any conclusions about the meaning of this sudden outreach, that I am not dying, nor am I in some financial trouble. In fact, nothing of any major significance at all has lead to me writing out this message to you. Does there really have to be a reason? I mean, I know we didn't leave things off on a good note, or even a bad one. I know you said you never wanted to see or hear from me again, and for a good while, I was okay with that. I realize now that that's only what I told myself, what I wanted to believe, that I never should have let you be a part of my life. I was wrong; You finally get to see me say that. In spite of everything that is different about us, you are still, to me anyway, my own and only daughter. Did I ever tell you how you and I first came to be so? It was a cold night, wet and miserable, the kind where it threatens to rain all day but never commits. I was a young man then, new to the job, fresh-faced and very sure of myself. The shift had gone on without incident for more than half its length, and I doubt I need to tell you that I did not feel it could end soon enough; The thought of chasing down some crook or pulling over some speeding civilian in that weather was an unpleasant one. It was, however, at that time that I drove through the old industrial neighborhood of Olney Heights, I think you know it. In those days, it was in a bad way. The economic downturn had shuddered more than a few businesses, and the neighborhood as a whole was like a patient with terminal cancer: A ravaged, emaciated shell of its former self. The only lights that were on as I passed through were the street lamps and my headlights, reflecting the water vapor that so readily hung in the air that evening as I drove along the cracked, unmaintained streets. All along, I could make out the husks of former factories and warehouses, doors boarded and padlocked, windows smashed by hoodlums or disgruntled ex-employees, the shattered glass left to reflect in the light of the lamps. It was then that, out of my peripherals, that I saw what looked like a lightning flash to my left. My mind naturally assumed it was so, at first. A few seconds passed, however, and it happened again, more intensely, and I noticed then that it was not coming from the sky, but from somewhere very near. What's more, it was not a brilliant blast of white light, as lightning is, but a deep full red, like a digital alarm clock blaring its tune. I didn't stop, I never stopped in neighborhood like Olney Heights, but I did slow down, and I craned my neck to get a better view of what, if anything, was causing that light. A little ways behind me now, an old steelworks plant stood, and it was there, for a third time, more clearly now, a terrible flash of red flooded the empty windows of the building's third floor. What would have happened if I had just kept going on, I sometimes wonder. It doesn't matter now, I suppose, because stop I most certainly did, and I got on my radio to report what I could only describe as a "possible disturbance" on private property. Waiting was what I would have preferred, but this was Olney Heights, on a night with miserable weather to boot; I knew nobody was coming any time soon. So I braced against the cold, turned off my car, and stepped out, my maglight in one hand, and the other hand at my gun holster. There were two things I noticed straight away, that gave me pause. The first was that the chain link fence that often surrounds such defunct properties as this had been cut open in several places, neat human-sized holes all in a row, the cut sections left where they fell. The second was the feeling on the air. It was not cold, as it had been everywhere else that night, but actually comfortably warm, the kind of warmth that extends from a radiator. I pressed on, my hand at my waist now gently undoing the holster clasp that held my gun in place. With a deep breath, I drew it forward, balancing the piece on the other arm that still clutched the maglight. I don't think I need to tell you that I was more than a little nervous now. The human mind cannot conceive of unnatural things actually occuring to it, and I could only think that it had to be some dispossessed and desperate people seeking shelter, no matter what little sense that made in retrospect. As I walked across the yard of the not-long-before vacant lot, I scanned across the way, back to the street. No cars parked there, save mine. The flashing continued, and the temperature was steadily increasing; It was like being in a bathroom when a shower runs without a fan now. I made it to the door, and another pang of fear hit me; The heavy padlock that had rested on the door had been cleanly cut through and also left where it fell, the door jarred open just enough for someone of average build to squeeze through. As I said before, I should have been much more cautious, but being the young upstart with ambition, I went ahead anyway, keeping the flashlight pointed downward and the gun at the ready as I pressed myself through the passageway. The first floor was barren; Anything that could be stripped away and sold had been so for enough time that dust gathered visibly on the husks of old machines and equipment. I scanned the room, first very quickly, then very, very slowly. The heat was becoming a bit hard to tolerate now, like I was hugging the radiator and not just in the same room as it, and I was sweating bullets by the time I worked up the courage to step forward, further into this decrepit place. I couldn't see the flashing light now, but I could hear something. It was faint, but unmistakeably the sound of people talking. No surprise there, but it still unnerved me. I pressed on, towards the stairs knowing the elevator would be inoperable. The stairwell was all metal, and I took great pains to ascend it as quietly as possible. The flashing was visible again, coming from the third floor just as I had seen from the outside, reaching downward and painting the otherwise pitch black stairwell with its malign intermittence. It was like I was in a hot bath now, and the flashes were so frequent I could have carried on without the maglight, yet I was mesmerised, my upper half barely moving as I crept up the stairwell, to the third floor. The feeling upon reaching the door to my destination was overwhelming. The flashing was so saturated in my vision now that I could see red even when it fell dark again. I could hear the voices more clearly now, though they did not say anything that made sense to me, repetitious chanting of some foreign tongue, and it was joined now by a sort of low buzzing drone that picked up with every flash of that damned red light, like an engine running then revving. It felt like I was on fire; I couldn't bear it a second longer. I steadied myself for only a moment before I kicked in the door as hard as I could, and advanced onto the floor, shouting my trained words, "Police! Hands where I can see them!". I don't quite remember what happened next, honestly. I saw three figures in the center of the room, black silhouettes against the source of the blaring red light they could somehow tolerate. I believe they turned to me and all nerve and levelheadedness vanished from my being. They say that, when you are a policeman in a life-or-death situation such as that, you cannot think, as there's simply no time to. So I acted; I fired and fired and fired again at the figures and perhaps irrationally at that horrible light. It was all over in an instant. Suddenly the room was cold again, the sound had vanished. It was replaced with the soft patter of rain hitting the building and the floors where the windows were smashed. I regained my composure, and looked around. The light had vanished, and then I heard it; The soft cry of a baby. This is where you come in, I'm sure you've guessed. Where once the figures stood and a terrible light blared, there was now just a baby, nestled on a cloth on an improvised altar made of an old office desk. The three figures lay slumped on the floor, shot through several times each, with ragged patchwork robes obscuring the form of each. Looking them all over, they seemed utterly normal, two were men, one a woman, all shaved of hair, but undeniably human. My attention fell then to you. You were a bit pale for a newborn, but you had all the signs of one; Closed eyes, miniscule form, thrashing about with a freshly cut umbilical. I had never been a father before, but I am a brother, and despite my police training, I heedlessly scooped you up off the floor. You stopped crying almost immediately, and I tell you this now: I loved you straight away. I never told anyone this, not even you. I hid you away for a time, reporting to my supervisors only that I had run across some odd cultists that had been trying to start a fire who had resisted arrest. I never told anyone why your eyes were a natural red, or your skin pale yet unharmed by sunlight. I lied about who your mother might be, and I'm sorry to tell you that to this day I do not know, though I fear we both might know who your true father is. I'd wager that this letter is either a life-changing shock, or what you've already gathered to know as truth, simply missing the last puzzle piece to tie it all together. It doesn't matter. This letter was meant just as much for I as it was for you. No matter what you do with this information, no matter what you might think of me now that it's yours, know that I still consider you my only daughter, my only family, and I hope that you feel the same about me.


It was a warm and breezy summer day. I just stood there and soaked in the sun for a minute. The nursing home I was at had a beautiful outside garden. My sister seemed to really like it out here. I made sure to find one of the best places when it became apparent she couldn’t take care of herself alone anymore. She still insisted she could even at 90, but I was the type of big brother who was always a little overprotective even though she may not have needed me to be. I started pushing her wheelchair again when she asked “What are you staring at?” “Oh sorry” I said with a smile. “Just lost my train of thought.” Which was mostly true. Over the years I’ve learned that the older you get, the quicker time passes. So I’ve been making it a point to sit and take in moments I wanted to remember. And I wanted to remember this beautiful day that I got to spend with my sister. It could be one of our last and I didnt want to forget her. You see when I was about 23 I found immortality. I’m not entirely sure of the limits of my immorality but in appearance I haven’t aged a day since then. I’ve watched both of my parents succumb to the old man with the hourglass, and almost every one of my friends too. My sister was just about all I had left. So I made sure to spend a lot of my free time with her. Its always hilarious when people see us interact. I watch them go by thinking I was her son, or grandson now I suppose. Their faces are always surprised when she hits me or we start bickering like siblings. I’m glad some things never change. We arrived at her favorite spot. A place where we could see most of the garden and specifically not the road. For some reason she hated watching the cars pass by. Honestly I didn’t like watching the road either. Too much has changed since we were kids. And the vehicles that passed by were living evidence of that. So we preferred to focus on the greenery and the flowers. Nature seemed to be ageless. I parked my sister next to the bench we always sit at and sat down. The moment I did she immediately tried to stand up from her wheelchair. Normally I’d protest but I’ve learned over the many years no matter how much I may object, she will always do what she wants. I watched her quietly concerned as she made her way from the wheelchair over to the spot next to me on the bench. I held out a hand to help her sit down. She accepted it though it seemed reluctant. “Beautiful day” I said looking around. The sky was littered with enough clouds to give you occasional shade with no hint of rain. “Brother?” I heard my sister ask “Yeah what's up?” I responded still looking at the sky “What are you gonna do when I’m gone.” She asked gravely. Which was not usually like her. Despite her age, she's always been a bright person. The question caught me off guard. We usually kept conversation light and just enjoyed moments like these together or rewatching our old favorite shows, or new episodes of new shows we picked up. Once in a while I dragged in an ancient analog TV and I would watch her play skyrim on a game system I had miraculously found about 10 years ago in almost perfect condition. But she just caught me off guard. She had a knack for doing that. Stupid siblings. “Raid your room for valuables and sell them for drugs.” I said with a straight face. She looked at me unamused. I met her eyes and smiled. I know she wanted a real answer but I didn't want to think about it. Mainly because I hadn't thought about it yet. I was afraid to. I broke eye contact first and looked down at my feet. “Honestly I don’t know.” I told her in a quieter voice. “Can’t we just enjoy the day?” I asked in a brighter tone. She didn’t seem satisfied but she didn't pursue the issue. “You should make some new friends. How long has it been since you’ve had a regular friend?” She asked after a while “Hah!” I responded. The surprise at the question was real. “I hadn’t thought about making friends for a while.” “Theres a lot of cute girls that come visit their grandparents. You should talk to them. I could ask around for when they’re coming to visit.” She was teasing me but I know she be excited if I took up her offer. “Its not like I’m not here most days already.” I shot back. She chuckled. It was good to hear. After a moment she turned her head to me. I met her gaze again. “Please… make new friends.” she asked. It almost sounded like she was begging. I felt dread settle over me in a cold wave. It was clear she was concerned for me after she was gone. I held her gaze. “I will. I promise. But for now, let just enjoy the rest of the day.” I asked her, hoping to placate her. She nodded. Seemingly reluctant but the conversation was over. And we went back to enjoying the weather and the view.