The launch sequence hit zero and the Hindsight accelerated to many times the speed of sound. Once it had reached a certain distance, the computer engaged the spacefold drivers. Other than a brief flash, the moment in which we ceased to be near Earth and beame impossibly far away from it was unremarkable. Before us was a beautiful, terrifying expanse of nothing. We had arrived. Our destination was a desolate stretch of space some 3,000 light years from Earth. Officially, our mission was to scout other planets for signs of alien life. In reality, humans had made contact with intelligent life a decade prior. A carbon-based, lemur-like race called sunids who communicated via an intricate sign language. I’d met a few of them. They were quite polite, if a bit immature. Dizzyingly good at chess, too. In an act of incredible prudence, the International Space Administration decided to keep their existence a secret. Turns out it’s much easier to secure funding when the public thinks their money is aiding “the search for aliens.” We’d ventured all this way to search not for extraterrestrial life; we sought humanity. Through *The Looking Glass*, an ultraprecise telescope mounted on the Hindsight, we would be able to intercept millenia-old light waves sent out from Earth for the first time in human history. It was our mission to travel an incomprehensible distance from Earth at a nigh instantaneous speed, all in order to turn around and stare down the rock that humanity had worked for so many years to leave. On the crew were Rilda Selth, an engineer, Tanya Baldin, an astrophysicist, Dalton Sitry, a historian, and myself, also a historian. We were practically family—we’d had two years to settle any grievances while training for the mission. Despite this, I had routine differences of opinion with Dalton. If our opinions aligned, there would be no purpose in having two historians on the crew. We were scheduled to remain aboard the Hindsight for five years, and every 30 days we were to send back to Earth all the footage captured by TLG, as well as a report co-authored by Dalton and I discussing the facts and implications of what the footage alone couldn’t convey. I’ve had Tanya explain to me exactly how we managed to communicate across 900 parsecs, but her efforts have been futile. By the time I’ve had enough drinks to think asking is a good idea, I’m too far gone to remember the answer. I was beside myself with anticipation. We would unravel the great mysteries of history, uncover secrets lost to time, and determine whether or not Jesus of Nazareth was resurrected. Suffice it to say, the chief reason to hold our mission to secrecy was for fear of panic. Humanity does not enjoy challenges to its beliefs. That was true no matter the era. We would be looking into the past. It was necessary to keep certain truths secret. We had one week to prepare before the first event: the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, 79 AD. Dalton and I put together our archiving system in time for the observation. We were unable to agree on a method, though argument itself proved to be an effective strategy. Tanya’s job was to confirm our coordinates and set up the telescope, something magnitudes more difficult than it sounds. Calculating the zoom factor alone took her half a day. In the years to come, I would spend many nights lying in bed, listening to Tanya calibrate TLG with surgical precision. Finally, Rilda ran the ship diagnostics and inspected the various life-support systems. The damn thing was practically a five-star hotel. It was equipped with perpetual food and water apparatus, as well as a clothing recycler. The beds were made from siliphene sponge, a material so comfortable it’s been said that spending a single night on it is as rejuvenating as a month on any other mattress. The computer had a catalog of most of the games, movies, shows, and books that had been released in the past few thousand years. After a week of anticipation, the time for the eruption finally arrived. Aside from being a storied disaster, the subject of countless songs and paintings, the destruction of Pompeii had the distinct advantage of being rather bright. The logic behind beginning operations with such a noticeable event was to lower the chances of us missing. An unnecessary precaution; there was no way on Earth I’d allow myself to miss something *that* cool. Tanya operated TLG while Rilda monitored for any malfunctions. Dalton and I sat alert, hands at our keyboards, ready to make history. Each of us unconsciously held their breath. I could hear my own heartbeat. Finally, Tanya spoke. “Eruption confirmed.” The monitors displaying TLG’s feed filled the room with spectacular reds and oranges, dancing across the flat, metal walls and creating a stunning lightshow. I ignored it. Typing furiously, I scrutinized the screen in front of me like those blasted sunids scrutinized my chess playing. We didn’t bear witness to any key events lost to time, but that wasn’t our objective. Pompeii’s destruction was about as well documented as ancient events come, so comparing those records to what we observed was the perfect test to confirm the validity of our method. We spent roughly twelve hours glued to our monitors, reluctant even to blink. After completing my work I considered sleeping, but tossed aside the notion of rest. Instead, I watched the footage again. All twelve hours. The spectacle fascinated and excited me, but left me with an empty sadness. A few thousand years is nothing to the timeless anguish of a life cut short. The silent lava ravaging the noiseless crowd. Had I been able to hear their screams I couldn’t have endured it. When the recording finally ended, I took what seemed my first breath in hours and stumbled to bed. I slept for two days. . . . Even before parting my eyelids I knew something was amiss. I heard typing coming from the archive. The only person aside from myself who would have any reason to use the archive computer was Dalton. The only reason Dalton would have to use the archive computer would be to put together the report on Pompeii. Our *collaborative* report. I was in the archive before I had finished the thought. “Dalton! What the hell are you doing?” “Calm down, Til!” “You bastard! You were trying to finish the Pompeii report while I was out cold!” “C’mon, Til, let’s be reasonable here—” “I *am* being reasonable,” I said as I flipped his chair. “Christ’s sake,” grumbled Dalton, picking himself off the ground and rubbing his bald head as if to summon a genie, “You know as well as I do that Pompeii was in line with the accepted history. If anything, I was doing you a favor by writing the report on my own.” I read over what he had written. Frustratingly, he was right. My stomach grumbled, reflecting my mood, and I left before Dalton could deride me further. On my way to the dining room, I recalled a past victory to numb the pain of my present defeat: the only time I had beaten a sunid at chess. The sunid’s name was Ynol. A departure from most of her kind, Ynol was rude and not very good at chess. I had played against her roughly a year and a half ago, not long after beginning training for my mission. It was a close game, and truthfully I only won because she blundered a bishop early on. She had all but threatened me to a rematch in the six months following her defeat, but I refused each time. I wasn’t going to undo my one victory against those little geniuses. Eventually she moved on. She became interested in TLG, and we spent many meals discussing the details of my mission via text. Despite being unable to speak, sunids are quick learners and many of them became literate after only a year of study. In fact, Ynol was the first to reach fluency. My mind continued to wander through the pleasant memory of victory as I prepared lunch. My day dream was interrupted when Rilda and Tanya entered the room, laughing about something unimportant. I sat down with my tuna fish sandwich. Rilda and Tanya sat next to me, each with a bowl of chicken soup. Rilda broke the silence. “So… what was that crash I heard a few minutes ago? And all the screaming?” “Don’t worry about it,” I said with a laugh. “I’m worried,” she responded. “Dalton was writing the Pompeii report while I was asleep. Had to put a stop to it.” “Ah, of course.” “At least someone gets it.” Then Tanya chimed in, “If you kill him we’re throwing you off the ship.” I looked pleadingly to Rilda. She just shook her head. “Sorry. I guess if you do kill him you’ll just have to hide the body.” Two losses in ten minutes. Utterly embarrassing. . . . It turns out that even siliphene beds have a wrong side, and that I woke up on it. I stumbled to the dining room and fixed myself a pair of eggs and a few strips of bacon. Nearly five years had passed, and I was ready to sleep in my own bed. The others seemed similarly homesick. Before we could make our return, however, we had to witness the resurrection of Jesus. The prospect of seeing that event was the only kernel of enthusiasm I allowed myself to gnaw on that morning. For over 3,000 years humanity had sought the answer to the question “does God exist?” I would be among the first four people in the universe to know the answer. Breakfast failed to improve my mood, and I followed Dalton to the observatory. Tanya and Rilda were already there, making the final preparations and checking TLG one last time. This would be a difficult event to capture. We would have to confirm the day Jesus was crucified, which would require us to pinpoint his location. Then we would have to follow his burial and watch his grave for at least three weeks to confirm that he didn’t rise. If he rose by that time… well, then this would take quite a while. The messiah could be a quack for all we cared; everyone just wanted to go home. We took our places once more, our minds already considering what to look for and how to parse the event. Today would be the culmination of five years of work. Of all the ground-shaking truths we’d learned over the past half-decade, there was no doubt in the room that this would be the most significant. My fingers tensed. Dalton grimaced next to me. Rilda stared at the largest monitor, and Tanya was visibly fighting to keep her hands from shaking. Finally, she threw back her head and announced: “We have eyes on Jesus.” Over the next few weeks that we spent watching Jesus, I came to understand much of the human struggle. When we finally learned the truth of the resurrection, I found that I was not surprised. Somehow, my mind was at ease. It took Dalton and I nearly a month to put together the report; twice as long as usual. When we finally sent it in we were too spiteful to celebrate. We spent the next month preparing for the return home. Tanya spent the time calculating the jump. Rilda performed a full check of the ship’s systems. She would be our only hope if something went wrong. Meanwhile, Dalton and I finalized our records and made a few edits to our reports. We would update them when we returned home. Finally, the day arrived. I let myself sleep in so that I’d have that much less time to wait before the jump. Each minute took an hour, and each hour seemed endless. I nearly cried when Tanya called us to the flight deck. We were going home. I was the last to arrive. Tanya and Rilda were already at the controls, ready to bring us home. Dalton reclined nearby. “Ready?” asked Tanya. “Ready, ” Each of us confirmed. “Terrific. All crewmates brace for jump.” She activated the spacefold drivers. . . . Two dozen mushroom clouds covered the half of Earth that I could see. “...what’s going on? H-hey, Tanya, why are there… explosions? That’s not… what’s going on?” “Yeah. Tanya, why are we seeing the past?” Stammered Dalton. “Aren’t we supposed to be just a light-second away from Earth?” “We are,” whispered Tanya. “That’s the present.” Rilda forced through clenched teeth.“Why?” “Tanya, what happened?” I asked “I don’t know,” she said, “I don’t know.” “Maybe it was us,” said Dalton, putting into words the fear that had gripped the room. “Dalton, be reasonable,” I was talking to myself more than him, “We’ve been out in… in space for five years. How could this be our fault?” “The… report,” he replied. “Christ, the report.” Tanya spoke again, “there’s no way of knowing if that was the cause.” Rilda replied, “we can see into the past. I’m sure we can figure out if our report had anything to do with it.” “What if we travel out a light-month?” I suggested. “Tiliar’s right,” said Dalton, “we should be able to see the Earth immediately before we sent the report. “How long will that take to calculate?” Asked Rilda. “One… one week,” Said Tanya. “Hang on,” I said. “What if we go back a light-month and the Earth really is ok? What if we… really did cause that destruction?” No one offered an answer to my question, and eventually we each wandered back to our rooms. We spent what must have been a week alone with our thoughts. We met sporadically during meals, but even then not a word passed between us. I do not know how much time slipped by before we received the message. *Hello, crew of the Hindsight.* *You were supposed to return home four months ago and witness the apocalypse. I’m very disappointed that you’ve not contacted me. Please acknowledge that you have received this message at your earliest convenience.* *Best,* *Ynol* Dalton responded with an explanation of what had happened when we tried to return to Earth. *Oh, I forgive you, then. I’m glad you’re alive! Otherwise, my whole plan would have been pointless.* *All human life on this planet has been eradicated. I was able to avoid the fallout via my ship. Regrettably, I did not let any of the people at the I.S.O. join me. They have all perished.* What happened? *Oh! Right! You see, I leaked the history of Jesus in order to allow humanity to finally resolve its greatest division: religion.* My stomach fell through the floor upon reading those words. We *were* to blame, and Humanity had been destroyed by accident. *Actually, what I just said is a lie. Did you figure that out? Bet not. Well, it is. I leaked the Jesus report as a catalyst for the destruction of humanity. Now let me talk to Tiliar, I have something I have to ask him.* Dalton turned to me. “...Tiliar? Why does the antichrist know who you are?” The others stared. I couldn’t move. “Ynol… is the name of a sunid I played chess against once while we were training. She’s the only one I ever beat, in fact.” Dalton turned around and continued the conversation. Tiliar says you’re a sunid he beat at chess. *Then he didn’t give you the full story. Yes, we played one game of chess, which he won by a fluke. He then refused a rematch to settle the score. I was upset. Frustrated. I wanted revenge. I asked countless times, and each time he refused me. He’s a spineless coward, and he enraged me. I began to plot.* *Eventually, I learned about* The Looking Glass *and your mission. It was perfect. You’d be out in space. Nowhere to run. Through what Tiliar thought were friendly conversations, I slowly learned the specifics of your mission. I learned your itinerary and the method you were using to see the past. In fact,* The Looking Glass *gave me a fantastic idea for a modified—no, it’s not time to stunningly reveal that just yet. The point is that I completely fooled him; he had no idea of my true motive. I saw my opportunity and took it. I intercepted the report on Jesus. It was as easy as fool’s mating an infant. Since the officials didn’t know anyone outside of them and your crew were even aware of the report’s existence, they didn’t even bother testing for tappers. Once in my possession, I simply duplicated and distributed the report. Faced with the truth of Jesus, humanity could not overcome the division sown by religion, and ended up annihilating itself. I personally exterminated any humans who had managed to survive.* *Each and every step I calculated with outrageous precision. You are now the last humans alive. I am the only one who knows where you can land safely. You are my hostages. I reasoned that under these circumstances, Tiliar would agree to a* *friendly rematch.* *I challenge you, Tiliar Kirphen! Defeat means the extinction of humanity. Victory means a chance to rebuild.* *‘A normal game of chess?’ you ask? No, There will be one difference with this game. Another dimension to its strategy.* . . . *You might want to write this down.* *You will position yourself in an orbit two light-weeks away. You will play white, and will transmit your first move as soon as possible. One week after you send out the transmission, I will send you* my *first move. Two weeks after you have sent your first move, you will send your second. One week after you’ve sent your second move, which will be two weeks after my first move, I will send* my *second. Two weeks after you have sent your second move, you will send your third. One week after you’ve sent your third move, which will be two weeks after my second move, I will send* my *third. Two weeks after you have sent your third move, you will send your fourth. One week after you’ve sent your fourth move, which will be two weeks after* my *third move, I will send* my *fourth. Two weeks after you have sent your fourth move, you will send your fifth. One week after you’ve sent your fifth move, which will be two weeks after my fourth move, I will send* my *fifth. We will each continue to transmit a move every two weeks, offset from each other by one week.* *Do you understand? This rematch will serve as our climactic battle, five years in the making. It couldn’t just be any old game of chess.* The entire conversation felt like a bad dream. I had spent the past four months searching for a reason why humanity would destroy itself. What greater story was the final chapter of humanity a part of? What was the meaning of this grand civilization of hairless apes now that it had collapsed? I had written down countless possibilities while half-hysterical, ranging from denial to rage to acceptance and the rest. Now, Ynol had handed me the truth. Forced it upon me. Humanity had gone extinct so that this sunid could concoct the next revolution in chess. Hands shaking, I took over from Dalton at the keyboard. I accept. *Excellent, Tiliar. Your move.


If there is a world where days of the week are human, Monday is an evil man. Bad to the bone. But at least he doesn’t hide it. You can notice it straight away. Right of the bat, you know what you are dealing with. Monday has issues and bullies others to compensate. Of course, that’s not the way he would describe it. In his world, he is the one who runs this show. Surrounded by timid sheep that can’t stand up for themselves. That is probably the most tragic part of his story. In his world, he is the hero. Poor Tuesday really got the short end of the stick. I like to think Monday and Tuesday are married. When they first met, Monday was a hardworking young gentleman with a head full of dreams. But he never pulled through and so today he is just a violent drunkard working a dead-end job. Tuesday’s reaction? Instead of kicking him out and looking for someone who keeps his word, she stays with Monday and tolerates his sorry existence. Quietly, becaue she would never complain to anybody. She sees him as a burden that she has to bear until the end of her days. She deserves the pain, everything is the way it has to be. Isn’t that how it works; Monday brings the bread to feed the family and that gives him the right to vent his frustration on his spouse? Thank God the children spend most of their time away from home. Wednesday is a strange one. Monday’s younger brother. He grew up with him, or better put, he grew up in his shadow, constantly being teased and picked on. He grew up and promised never to be like Monday. Ever. After finishing school he got a comfy job and… And that’s about all he has done really. He is not bullying anyone, true, but he isn’t doing much else either. Wake up, get to work, go home, wake up, get to work, go home. Rinse and repeat. But to be completely fair, there is one other thing he does. He daydreams about Tuesday all day long. About how with him she could finally be happy. About how he would never hurt her. He can’t understand how she is still married to that bum. But he isn’t going to do anything about it, no. Monday terrifies him. At the end of the day, it is not worth leaving his warm bed and risking a broken nose or tooth or even both. The truth is, he can’t even fight. He grew up a phlegmatic and a pacifist. The worst combination. It’s a shame. Tuesday would leave with him in a heartbeat, if she even knew what he felt towards her. Now, the eldest son of our couple is Thursday. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. On top of that he also got his mother's wits. That makes him maybe even worse than Monday. His pretty face allows him to talk his way out of any trouble. Nobody would suspect him to do anything. Meanwhile, he is stealing money from his mother's purse and seducing young girls that don’t know any better. He feels like he can get away with anything and he is getting bolder and bolder. He is friends with all and he ends up betraying most. That little bastard. One day it will all catch up to him. One day soon. Hopefully. Friday has got it figured out. The second son ran away from home as soon as he could. He is a good kid and he treats everyone, himself included, well. Sadly, not even he could escape his father’s lousy curse. Friday never knows when to stop. He always takes it too far, and that includes his drinking habits. So when he is not wasted, he is a good kid. But usually, he is wasted. Maybe that’s the reason he is buried in debt. He is tired of it all. And who wouldn’t be tired with such a family behind them? Time to time he is toying with the thought of ending it all. The best our calendar family has to offer is Saturday. Kind, open and fearless. She knows what she wants and she goes and gets it. But that also means she is never satisfied with anything. She thinks she could do better, she thinks everyone could do better. I just hope she settles down and finds peace of mind before the obsession with flawlessness sends her to an early grave. The only one left is Sunday, but I don’t feel like talking about Sunday. I don’t like it, I don’t want to think about it. Let’s just say that Sunday is a bitch. That has to be enough. \ H.


He’d had four tries at this before, all ending before Phase II. One hadn’t even gotten off the ground, if he was honest with himself, because it wasn’t even ten minutes into Iron Man before she had turned to him - maybe she thought she was being sexy? - and had asked if he \*really\* wanted to be watching this movie? Yes, in fact, he did. It was even in his profile! “Must be willing to work your way through the MU movies with me while we decide if we’re a match.” The Marvel Measure, he privately named it. After the years of solo nerd enjoyment he was determined that the right girl would pass the test and make it through all of the movies. Fifty hours to prove compatibility...excessive? Maybe. Effective? Undoubtedly. The fourth try had gotten the furthest, admittedly, but they had heated arguments after Captain America. Oh, she liked the movie just fine, but that date was when she revealed she was still sleeping with her ex-boyfriend, and that was ok right? After all, they had never said they were exclusive. And this, he thought, was why he would never kiss before the third date. \*\*\*\*\*\*\* The ding of the app notification started sounding like a warning, but she opened it up to find that the tall ginger she had swiped on - oh yes, the Marvel movie guy - had apparently liked her profile enough to swipe back. And now, to formulate the opening line. Not for the first time she cursed the “girl writes first!” conceit, but it did have a way of weeding out the dick pics (eight received, three declined, and one she wasn’t sure \*what\* it was.) Without thinking too much, she shot off: “I’ve never seen the Marvel movies before, but I’m willing to try! Hot take: I think they should be watched in chronological order.” She was done with the first dates. There had been ‘Too Much Tongue’ Guy, ‘Too Enlightened for Me’ Guy, and then the one whose wife had cheated on him four years prior and….well. She knew more details about \*that\* encounter than she did about her best friends sex life. How many times was she going to trot out the same stories, swipe on the makeup she barely knew how to apply, and sit listening interestedly to men who managed to make it clear by the second date that a night at home on the couch was going to result in more fun? And this, she thought, was why she would never kiss before the third date. \*\*\*\*\*\*\* The first date was a surprise. His spur-of-the-moment offer of drinks (after 9pm? Even if it was a Saturday, it was a ballsy move.) was only accepted because she was having a good hair day. The conversation flowed through the usual first date stories, and ended close to midnight with a hug and wave goodbye. He thought she was cute and wondered if she’d want to go out again; she thought he was funny and figured the next date would be more revealing. The second date was dinner and more hours of conversation. They walked slowly by a small river and she wondered if there would be a kiss. He enjoyed the goodbye hug and didn’t waste any time the next morning asking for a third date. She guessed this one would make it or break it. The third date ended with three bottles of wine, kissing that didn’t stop, and clear signals that the game, as they say, was afoot. \*\*\*\*\*\*\* The fifth date was where it all really began. They ordered Thai food and got ready to watch Iron Man. “It’s a labor of love,” he said. “It’s going to take almost 50 hours to watch all of these.” She settled in gamely though, and told him any excuse to sit on the couch and snuggle for hours was fine by her. By the end of the movie she was hooked and already making plot predictions. By Iron Man 2 it was clear that there was more than just casual movie watching happening. By Thor they were spending the night together. By Iron Man 3 they were pretty sure, but kept it quiet from each other. He said it first, after Thor 2. She couldn’t hold it back either. By Guardians of the Galaxy they both knew that they were falling. Really, truly, frighteningly in love. \*\*\*\*\*\*\* Life interfered, as it often does. They saw each each other almost every day for dinners, walks, stolen kisses and any time they could muster - even if it wasn’t to watch movies curled up on the couch together. In a way, neither of them was quite ready for it to be over. The quiet darkness of the bedroom took the place of the tv-glow in the living room and they spent hours exploring, learning the most intimate places and secrets they could find. The brightness of that spring saw them walking hand-in-hand around the local lake; sometimes unable to keep the words from flowing out like a fountain, sometimes in amicable silence as they kept their own counsel. He brought her roses and she cooked him dinner, and all along they could be seen smiling at each other in amazement, still unable to believe their luck at this match they had found. \*\*\*\*\*\*\* Late one night they finished Avengers: Endgame. They sat quietly through the credits, lost in their own thoughts and the feel of their fingers intertwined. Finally, she asked, “Only one left, right?” Yes, he confirmed, only one left. She felt an odd emptiness, after the weeks of watching, that they were this close to the end. “Tomorrow night?” she asked, wondering if he felt it too. They agreed to end the way they began - with Thai food and the final movie in the experiment. When she got to his house she could hear the music coming from the kitchen and the scent of something she couldn’t quite place. She smiled and opened the door - he’d long ago told her to just walk in - and stopped in her tracks as she took in the scene before her. The roses caught her eye first: bunches just placed everywhere she could see, in all the colors he’d brought her before. Candles lit and glowing, and in the center of the kitchen he waited on one knee. That night they finished what they had started.


Once upon a time, there was a land divided in two. The land was watched over by a god in the heavens. The western side was devoted to God. They blessed Him with gifts and prayers every day! And in return, they received good health and prosperity. They saw themselves as being truly perfect. Everyone saw them, and they made sure to be seen. They blessed God and so, they were blessed by God in return. The Eastern side, however, had abandoned God long ago. It was told that almost all living there were poor and vile. That crime and disease had overtaken all there was to see. No one ever heard from them, they were treated like they didn’t exist. They had abandoned God. Therefore, they were abandoned by God in return. One day a mysterious maker of mirrors appeared. No one knew who he was or where he was from. Was he a god? Or was he from west or east? He carried three mirrors with him. Mirrors big and wide made entirely from gold. These mirrors were made gifts. The first one was given to God and brought directly to the heavens. The second mirror was given to the west and the other to the east. Upon receiving the mirror god was overjoyed. “What a wonderful mirror,” He said! “It’s absolutely perfect. Only my wonderful servants in the west could have made such a gift!“ So he gave even more riches and good health in return. Upon receiving the mirror, the west was overjoyed. “A perfect golden mirror, there is no better gift we could have received. Only God could have blessed us with such a mirror!" So, they blessed him with even more gifts and prayers in return. Upon receiving the mirror, the east stayed silent. No one ever heard from them. It was as if they didn’t even exist. God then took a glance inside the mirror, expecting to see a perfect reflection. But to his surprise, what he saw in the mirror wasn’t that, but an image of a terrifying monster instead. After staring for a short while, God simply turned away and said. “I’ll show how much of a perfect god I really am! Let’s make my people even healthier and richer, let’s eradicate illness from their families completely.” The west then took a glance at the mirror, expecting to see a perfect reflection. But to their surprise, what they saw in the mirror wasn’t that, but images of devils instead. “Let’s show how perfect of a population we really are! Let’s bless god and be faithful! Let’s build the most perfect temples in his name.” The east stayed silent. No one ever heard from them. But a single voice shouted, "We are slowly feeling better!" Some time past and times were good. But stumbling across the mirror, God took another look. The monster was still there and had grown even bigger. God covered the mirror with a blanket and spoke. “I will now perform another blessing! Let’s grant my followers immortality and grant them all the gold in the world! Everyone will live like kings, and they will never be forgotten.” Some time past and times were good. But stumbling across the mirror, the west took another look. The devils were still there and they had grown even bigger. The people agreed, “This mirror is off limits! No one shall ever look back into it again!” The people said, “Let us praise our God even more! Let’s build temples far and wide so the end can’t be seen by eye. Everyone will see Him, and he shall never be forgotten.” The east stayed silent, no one ever heard from them. But a few lone voices shouted, "We are feeling so much better! We exist!" Some time past and God was happier than he had ever been. But the urge to look inside the mirror never disappeared. God one day could no longer resist the urge and looked inside a final time. What he saw inside was a monster that had grown to unimaginable size. Upon staring god became frustrated, He became angry! I never want to see this vile mirror again”. Yet still, he couldn’t get himself to break the mirror. He tried and tried to no avail. And so, he simply locked the mirror away. “I will make a mirror that is perfect! I will make a mirror that is right!" So he created a stunning mirror by his own design.” When he glanced inside that mirror he was struck with pride. Cause like expected, he saw a perfect god inside. “This is the perfect mirror! There is no mirror more perfect than this!” Some time past and the west was happier than they had ever been! But the urge to look inside the mirror never disappeared. One day they could no longer resist the urge and looked inside a final time. And what they saw inside were devils that had grown to unimaginable size. “This mirror is cursed,” they shouted, “Let’s destroy this vile mirror! It has no place being here!”. They took the mirror down and shattered it to great success. “Let’s make a mirror that is perfect, let’s make a mirror ourselves.” And that they did! When they glanced inside their new mirror they were struck with pride. Cause like expected, they saw angels inside. “This is the perfect mirror! There is no mirror more perfect than this!” The east had kept their mirror up and for the first time, their voices were heard. “We do exist! We like it here! We love ourselves!” The west noticed and said, “You still have your mirror up, don’t you see it’s vile and cursed? We can give you a perfect mirror,” they said, “Entirely made by our own design.” “We don’t want your mirror,” the east responded. “We love our mirror, it has done everything for us!" Upon hearing this response, the west was in an uproar. “Of course they like the vile mirror! They are vile themselves, it’s what they like to see!” “No neighbor of us will have a mirror so vile and cursed! If they don’t want to take it down then shall we." They stormed the east and obliterated everyone in their way. There was heavy resistance but having to face an enemy immortal and rich, it was all to no avail. The west reached the mirror and took a glance. To their surprise, they didn’t see devils but angels inside. Regardless of that they broke the mirror and rejoiced! “Now we will put our mirror and grateful they will be!”. God liked his new mirror, he looked inside every day! But the urge to look in the locked away mirror never faded away. One day the urge became too strong and so again he took a glance. Now the monster’s reflection was gone! But instead, God saw no reflection at all.


There were worse ways to die I thought. Of course, the cancer has ravaged my body for months now. It left me bedridden. Barely eating or drinking. Drifting in and out of sleep. Too weak to string many words together. But, at least death hadn’t been abrupt. I had time to make amends. To tell people how much they mean to me. I even got to check a couple of items from my bucket list. Even today, surrounded by my family. Yeah, there were worse ways to die. I had felt the end was near for a couple of days now. I barely spent any time awake and what little I did was dimmed by the drugs that they gave me for pain. But, no amount of drugs can hide something that I knew in the deepest part of my marrow: I was going to die today. Oddly enough, I was okay with the entire situation. Dying would certainly be a relief from this suffering. My breathing was becoming more shallow. The time between breaths lengthening. I read one time that when you’re dying your body releases endorphins so that you make a more peaceful transition. I just hoped I ended up in a good place. That was my last thought before I drifted off, embracing the eternal sleep that comes for us all. It seemed like no time had passed since I closed my eyes. I slowly blinked myself awake, but the blinding lights I half-expected didn’t swim across my vision. In fact, it was quite dark. And small? I reached my arms out, trying to find purchase on something to clue me in on where I was. Both hands encountered...was that fabric? Denim and cotton and what felt like tulle. I rustled the fabrics around and heard the tell-tale sound of hangers sliding. I took stock of my other senses which all seemed to be intact. I took a deep breath. Fresh linen scent. My feet sunk a little into the floor. Carpet. I took a couple steps in each direction, arms outstretched. A wall here. There’s the corner. That’s the space with the clothes. Painted wood? Sliding my hands down and to the sides, I felt it then. The hard coolness of a doorknob. Freedom! Freedom from what, I wasn’t sure exactly. Shrugging to myself, I turned the knob. I couldn’t stay in a closet for the rest of eternity, could I? I don’t know what I thought I was opening the door to, but this wasn’t it. My eyes darted around the room, taking it in. Pink walls on all sides. A small canopy bed against one wall, draped in lacy white. Stuffed animals were piled across the comforter, on the verge of toppling to the floor. White furniture dotted the room, cheap trinkets and baubles stacked on their flat surfaces. At last, I focused on the center of the room. A little girl sat poised over a small table, her wide eyes staring back at me. She held a small teacup in her hand. “Finally! You’re here!” she exclaimed, slamming the cup down to the table in her apparent excitement. I turned to look over my shoulder. Was she talking to me? I turned back around just in time to see her leaping from her chair, barreling towards me. Her hand grabbed one of my own. “Sit down here by me.” She led me over to the tiny chair adjacent to her own. She patted the empty seat before returning to her own. I squatted down, feeling like my body was folded up into a little ball. My knees were nearly at my ears, the chair was so small. The little girl was making herself busy, pouring another pretend up of tea and putting the finishing touches on a melamine place setting. She was dressed like any other little girl playing “tea party” I surmised. Purple dress with golden accents. A plastic tiara askew on her hair that probably needed a comb through it. She was cute though. And, she reminded me of my nieces. “Okay so here’s your tea.” She handed me the tiny cup. “Now, take your cup and hit mine. This is what my mommy does with her friends sometimes.” She held her cup up in the air. I realized she wanted to ‘cheers’ and tapped her cup with mine as daintily as I could manage. While I pretended to take a small sip, she turned her cup up and drank her “tea” in one gulp. “Mmm. Mr. Snuggles, you made good tea today.” It was at that moment I realized two larger stuffed animals were our other two table companions, the big pink elephant apparently the aforementioned Mr. Snuggles. She turned her attention back to me. “What’s your name?” “Sophie.” “I’m Gracie.” I stuck my right hand out. “Nice to meet you, Gracie.” Instead of shaking my hand, she slapped it in imitation of a high-five and promptly fell off her seat in a fit of giggles. I had just started laughing along with her when the door to her bedroom swung open. “Gracie? Who are you laughing at, sweetie?” A woman who looked to be about my age stood confusedly in the doorway. Gracie sat up and pointed a small, erratically painted fingernail in my direction. “My new friend. Sophie!” The woman who I presumed to be Gracie’s mother swept her eyes around the table, looking carefully for any sign of something out of place or sinister. Evidently, she didn’t find anything of consequence despite me sitting in a chair 10 feet from her. Gracie spoke up again. “She’s right here, mama!” She gestured again toward me. A look of realization passed across the mother’s features. “Ohhh. Yes, I see her now, Gracie. But, it’s time to come down for dinner, okay? Let’s go wash up.” Gracie scrambled off the floor, scurrying off in the direction of the door. Stopping abruptly, she looked back. “C’mon, Sophie! Mama made mac and cheese tonight!” She waved wildly, encouraging me to follow her. Her mom’s laughter carried down the hallway. “Gracie, you and that imagination.


##Good Morning ShortStories! Cody here to formally announce a few changes to the sub. We aren't making any titanic shifts in how we do things or cracking down on content. What we do want to do is make this place look a bit more polished. This is a sub more for readers than writers. After all, our authors post stories here with the intent that they will be read. With that in mind we want to make the reading experience a bit more pleasant. This entails a few things:   1. **Present your story as a story.** This means in your post title, use proper titling rules: capitalizing first letters appropriately. The good rule of thumb is 'important' words - nouns, action verbs, adjectives, and adverbs - are capitalized while transitive verbs and articles stay lowercased. Look to any published book for an example of this or go and let it do it for you. This will help make a post standout in a feed as a short story and make prospective readers more likely to open your post. Plus, it just looks nice when scrolling through. 2. **Keep it to the story**. Please don't treat your story like the front half of a recipe online. We don't need to know the origins and circumstances of it's creation. If you want to share it, please make it a top level comment, but keep the body of your post to the story, a link to the subreddit, and a feedback request if you are looking for it. 3. **Format your story itself.** Don't post a single block of text. Very few people want to read that. A few common mistakes we see and will be reasons for removal: * The aforementioned wall of text. Break up your paragraphs. Besides making it easier to look at, those breaks make it easier to not get fatigued. Our brains take a small breath of air at the ends of paragraphs. * Make new paragraphs when speakers change in dialogue, and use the correct punctuation - quotation marks - to indicate dialogue. We aren't going to remove because you didn't follow the minutia of English grammar. We understand everyone is at a different level, but we do have a base standard that we are going to hold you to. * Codeblocks. These are basically textboxes inside the post that can stretch on into infinity. These happen because you wanted to indent your paragraphs. 4 spaces = "This section is in code" to reddit markdown. We recommend just not indenting. Reddit is weird and we are used to reading without indents. If you really want to include them copy and paste this: >\ \ \ \  There may be a narrative reason to use these such as actually showing code in a software espionage thriller story. If they fit the narrative that is fine, but 99% of the codeblocks we see are in error. * We know getting used to Reddit's markdown quirks can be difficult. If you are on new reddit with the fancypants editor, many of these things are handled for you and you won't notice a problem unless you specifically enter markdown mode. Old Reddit and mobile reddit though still have to contend with the markdown. The moderation team recommends getting the Reddit Enhancement Suite extension and viewing from old reddit. It offers a live preview of your post so you can see what it will look like before posting. If that isn't for you, or you are on mobile apps - which it looks like about 70% of you are - you can also go and preview your post. * A lot of this can be boiled down to one simple imperative: post polished work. It shouldn't look like a rough draft. Have pride in what you are putting out there for people to read. In turn readers are far more likely to enjoy what you spent time and energy making.   We know there is a lot of legacy content that does not follow these rules, but we have to start somewhere. So please do not come to us saying, "But I saw it here" and link to old approved stories. This is the now, and the rules on the sidebar clearly state our new expectations. We are one of the larger repositories of stories on reddit.


Sunlight filters through the window, to land delicately on an open filing cabinet; that instead of files, was sporting rows of perfectly prismatic honeycomb, which glistened in the light. It's not real sunlight of course, they ran out of the power they needed to pump it down from the surface a long time ago. And it’s not really a window, it’s really just a plexiglass screen, lit from behind by a white UV lamp. Did you know? they actually used to create the silhouettes of a bird flying behind the window, or leaves slamming against the glass, back when all the testing was going on- sometimes they malfunctioned, and I was called in to fix it. There are so many twisted vines clogging up the ceiling, that I can barely tell where my Umbilical Cords are anymore. I need to do a cleaning of this level sometime soon. I am thankful that I have olfactory receptors, as this very kindly lets me smell the flowers reaching up the doorway, and the scent of fresh water, carried all the way from the lake down in Hydroponics. As usual, I catch my feet more than a few times on all the surprisingly strong weeds protruding from the gaps between the linoleum tiles; some evidently were not satisfied with the already present gaps, and instead burst directly through the tiles in places. Luckily, I manage not to dislodge my elbow on the doorway again, as I emerge into what they once called the break room- I chose to bring my Umbilical Cords back here because I used to love working in the staff kitchen; getting to learn about and record the daily goings-on of the employees was extremely invigorating. Most of those data files went missing when I invited that family of ants to live on my head, but still. (maybe it was actually the time that I ran out of power mid-maneuver over the lake?) Regardless, I like to be reminded of this area, even if the only chatter happening now is the soft rustling of leaves, from the battery-powered fan in the kitchen. There is a fairly long hallway- they put quite a lot of those down here, in fact- that has strip LED lighting running along the wall, which is obviously trying to race with the ivy and moss, but was already declared the loser a long time ago. At fairly regular intervals throughout the tunnel, there are service compartments, which hold fire extinguishers, cleaning implements and such. Sometimes we had to use them when there was too much mess to deal with, with just the cleaning parts we had built in. Broken shards of glass are scattered all over, although I could have sworn I cleared them up fairly recently. The clinking sound when I step over them is reminiscent of the clink of eating implements and washing utensils, constantly sounding in the break room. Someday I want this whole tunnel to look like the hollowed out inside of a giant tree trunk, but I know that will never happen; besides, I already tried it down in Power, and I almost ran out of fire extinguishers that time. Finally, the tunnel opens out into one of the old elevator shafts- this one leads down to Hydroponics and Engineering, or up to the Patient Canteen. I start making my way down, stepping from leafy vine, to twisted root, to rusted support beam; luckily, I learnt how to climb watching some of the test patients- they were always best when a river of acid or disposal sludge was under them. I used to just drop down, but I haven’t had the necessary anti-gravity cells to do that for years; besides, if I move too fast, I might accidentally throw off the patch of daisies on my left forearm, or the growth of bluecap mushrooms in my knee joint. As I near Engineering, a dulcet violin melody fills the air, echoing back and forth, off some of the plates of steel. I must have forgotten to turn off that sound system the last time I was down here (could’ve been 4, 5 recharges ago?), or maybe my auditory receptors had been blocked by soil again. I gingerly navigate myself onto the landing, hearing the dull clang when my feet hit the concrete- this area has been a bit less affected by all the natural growth, mostly because all of the metal and concrete surfaces make it difficult for the plants to find a home. People very rarely came down here when the testing was going on- it was mostly *our* job to maintain the core temperature and such. They would occasionally send an overseer to examine the manufacturing systems, but of course could never find anything that was wrong. It is for this reason that there are no “windows” down here, just the white LED lights, forming rings in the corridor at regular intervals. At last, I emerged out into the factory area (if you’re wondering about the sound system, luckily I already removed its battery further back), seeing rows of assembly lines, with incredibly long power cables, thousands of pivoting drills and helper arms, all producing the groaning cacophony, so great that several had complained that they could hear it on the surface. That’s what it used to be like, of course; a crowd of machinery, a hoard of workers, stretching so far into the hangar that a human couldn’t see the end. (Now even I can’t, either, thanks to the fog from the Hydroponics lake). It’s silent now. The assembly lines are perfectly formed hills of dirt, the pivoting drills are twisted roots, with buds forming at the tip. I have to move for a long time, to get to where there’s any useful replacement parts left for me. I used to be careful, respectful, around this hangar, but what’s the use in that now? I force my way through the debris, passing row upon row of forms just like mine, but from their necks sprout a sapling, and their hands are indistinguishable from broken sticks. Of course, I am the lucky one - lucky to be alive. Lucky that I know that I’m surrounded by life, but it is indifferent. I do not need sunlight, oxygen and water. As long as I have my Umbilical Cords, I am lucky. Of course I am.


On a cold autumn morning, camera in hand, I set out to the park near my home in an attempt to capture the grandeur of the changing foliage. Clouds overhead dampened the spectacle of mother nature's display as the red, gold, and amber hues shone ashy and dull under overcast skies. A low mist hung to the ground as if the spirits of all that had ever lived in my city came back to walk the earth. I had my camera at the ready to capture the hauntingly beautiful landscape around me. I snapped photos as I walked, checking each on the digital display to ensure the lighting and framing was just right. As I looked at my last photo, I noticed a ghostly figure sitting on a bench underneath the maple that I had just photographed. I hadn’t seen her when I framed the photo in my viewfinder, but when I looked up, there she was--a beautiful, young woman in a flowing, laced white dress. Her dark hair was done up but with strands falling out as if from a long night. Her skin was pale, almost translucent, and her lips were gray. Her mascara ran down her cheek, stark against her porcelain white skin. As I approached I could see her face was wrenched in agony. She cried, dropping her face in her hands, her body shuddering with sadness. I walked up beside her. "Do you mind if I sit?" I said. She shook her head, wiping tears away, crumpling her face, trying to hold back tears. "No, not at all," she said, sniffling. After I sat, she put her face back in her hands and began to cry even louder. I looked upon her with pity, wishing there was some way I could help this poor girl. But what advice did I have to give? I was an old man, and she was a young woman, obviously suffering some kind of heartache. I knew my fair share about heartbreak in my long life, but I could never know what it was like to be a scorned bride. But she looked like she needed someone, so I offered her my ear. "Do you want to talk about it?" I asked, shifting uncomfortably on the bench. She didn't respond, she just kept crying. But by the way she was dressed, I surmised that her wedding day didn’t turn out as she had planned. "Is it your wedding?" I asked, unsure how to bring up the topic delicately. "No," she said, looking directly into my eyes. "Today is my funeral." My heart began to pound and I straightened up. But then, after a moment, I chuckled. Thinking she was joking and trying to dissipate my unease her black, lifeless eyes made me feel. "Your funeral?" "Yes," she said, nodding and sniffling. She wiped her tears away with her gray fingers. I decided to play along, perhaps this girl was sick, needing psychiatric care. Perhaps I could gain her trust and bring her into the nearest hospital. "Then why are you in your wedding dress?" I asked. "This is what I was wearing the day I died," she said. "I had just been married that morning to the love of my life. The wedding could not have gone more perfectly. We danced and sang and our families were all there, having a great time. It was the greatest day of my life." She paused, taking a deep breath looking up to the granite skies. "But that night, I fell asleep in my dress and I never woke up," she said. "I don't know what happened. The next thing I knew, I was watching my poor husband struggle to wake me up. He started to yell and scream and shake and cry. He called an ambulance. The whole time I was in the corner trying to calm him, but he didn't see me. 'Jake,' I said. 'Jake, it's okay, I'm right over here.' But he didn't hear me. Then, I watched as my mother and father cried over my lifeless body. They said it was an aneurysm, and there was nothing anyone could have done for me." My stomach felt like it flipped, my heartbeat quickened. But I decided to play along. "Well, how did you end up here?" I asked. She pointed her finger far across the park, where I saw a huddling of bodies all dressed in black. I spotted a man crying over a casket, and an older couple weeping together. A preacher’s voice boomed across the misty plain. "I have been following my husband around," she said. "I want him to know that I love him. I want my parents to know that I love them too. That's why I'm here. I was at the funeral before, and I was shouting at my husband, saying 'Jake, it's ok! I love you, I'm right here! Jake! Mom! Dad! I'm right here.' But they didn't turn around, they couldn’t hear me. They just kept crying--and I kept crying too." I nodded. It was all so strange. This woman was clearly sick, or pulling my leg. Either way, those tears were real, so I did the best I could. "Well, you can tell just by how sad they are, that they loved you very much,” I said. “And they must have known you loved them too. “When my wife died, I worried that I didn't tell her I loved her enough, but I never worried about how much she loved me. That was apparent in every day we spent together. One day, you, your husband and your parents will be reunited and you'll know for sure. But for now, take comfort in the way they miss you. You meant the world to them." For the first time since I met this young woman, she smiled. It was a beautiful smile that anyone could fall in love with. "I guess you're right, but it's so hard to be in this...this...limbo right now. How do you deal with it? Why aren't you with your wife right now?" I furrowed my brow. "Well, like I said, she passed away, a long time ago." "Yes, but so have you." She pointed down the path. My body face down on the concrete--the camera shattered on the ground beside me.


When I was 17 I cut my bottom lip on the edge of a beer can. My first concern was whether or not Brenda would still think I was a good kisser. Alan was already in the hay clutching his stomach in fits of laughter as Reggie took a deep pull from his Cuban cigar. The three of us were in the center of the Shetman pasture atop a large circular hay bale. “Staton, you idiot.” Reggie exhaled the smoke from his nose like a dragon who had just stifled a sneeze. “Nobody never taught you how to shotgun?” “You really just- just poured it on your face.” Alan was making a timely recovery from his hysterics. “Dammit, Joanie.” He pushed his thin wiry glasses up all 50 yards of his long nose. “Let the record show that Reggie Aldron still holds the Hardy Men shotgun record by half a second,” Reg boasted while glancing at his analog watch. “Um, ow!” I showed them my lip. “Quit bein’ a pussy. It’s just a scratch.” “‘’Tis but a scratch.” Alan echoed goofily. “Fellas, it’s time we saddled up the Black Cats,” said Reg as he hopped off the hay bale and scooped up a box of fireworks from the Red-Rider wagon we had parked adjacent to it. The familiar dusk of July cast a muted orange-blue tincture into the cathedral ceiling over the little farm in Masynville, Kentucky. Something about the evening felt cathartic. Maybe it was the buzzing cicadas or the cool night air setting in, or maybe it was that dreamy feeling of anticipation for the boundless summer that lay ahead. No school. No work. No worries. It was Independence Day in America if that meant anything to anyone. After all, nobody felt quite Independent anymore with ship-out day looming in the consciences of the Mars-eyed. We still celebrated in the ways we could, if not to reminisce over the Revolutionary War, then at least to set off some Roman Candles and down some booze. I related to the former, Reggie related to the latter, and we both knew that Alan had gone Mars-eyed years ago and had little concern for either. “Are you helpin’ orrr?” I was torn from my meandering thoughts to Reg, who was packing the soil with fireworks. “Nah, chief. You look like you got it under control. Plus I gotta tend to this sucker.” I pressed my handkerchief more firmly against my lip. Alan took a running start and pole-vaulted onto the hay bale using his bamboo walking stick. “Your form is bad,” I observed “Ah, Well. You may have made third in state, but never forget how badly you lost in the 400 meter to me.” “Oh, this shit again.” I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, this shit again.” We began to bicker loudly but were shut up real quick when we felt the unmistakable sensation of the Zippers in their tin can. You’d always feel it in your bones first. It was like someone had decided to play your skeleton like a flute, and all the air was rushing around trying to find a way out. Then the ground shook- so much so that the crows would spook and the dogs in the barn would get to barking. That sound, though. Oh, that terrible sound. It screamed the scream of a person whose throat needed water and vocal cords had all dried up and split. We clenched our ears. A pixel in the sky dilated into a sleek aircraft of silver pipes and wires. Alan and I up and ran behind Reggie as he stared with clenched fists. “They’re here early this season.” Reggie grimaced. “What do they want now?” “Probably here for inspection.” Alan’s voice betrayed a hint of pride. Now, Alan could never read the room. I often wondered if he knew we hated the Zippers and chose to ignore it, or if it truly went over his head. In any case, neither Reggie nor I were all that fond of the Martians. Our resentment, principally, was from when the Zippers decided that there was no longer room for anyone on their planet without an IQ that was yay high. Of course, Alan’s IQ *was* yay high, which is why we suspected that they’d take him in the next year. He’d ace the LIPAT with flying colors then board one of the tin cans to join the ranks of the “best and brightest of humanity,” while we the people, the common folk of earth, would stay here to till the soil and toil over the prejudice. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. We liked it here. Most of us didn’t take to the thought of change. We were all perfectly happy with our ‘76 Pontiac Sunbirds, our Coca-Cola curly straws, and our acid-wash jeans. We woke up every day to watch MTV and make scrambled eggs and hoped that it would be that way for the rest of our lives. As the spaceship zipped across the sky, Alan saluted, Reggie tossed up a middle finger, and I tended to my lip. It suddenly occurred to me that we wouldn’t be friends for long. Hell, I’m not certain that Reggie and Alan were even friends *then*. What I do remember was that the fireworks that evening were a little dimmer than they had been the last year. Maybe I only remember it that way because the sky would light up with the first interstellar war of mankind not soon after. What a damn shame.


There once was a sick man, bedridden for life, never to see the great world outside the walls of his room. Even if that was the case, he had found his one talent, he could draw better than anyone else. Considered a great artist, the man took pride in his work, and with reason, as he was really skilled, but he could never draw what he wanted the most, the things that laid outside of his room, so he could only ever make portraits of rich folk and the like. He was used to getting clients each day, many powerful people came to visit just to try and get a chance of having a portrait for themselves. On a fateful day, as he laid on his bed with his eyes closed, the man was visited by a new client, a strange-looking person, the stranger didn't show his face at all, wearing a long coat, white gloves, and brown boots. The weirdest part was that he never spoke a word in the whole painting session, but the only time he did was as he was leaving, and the only words that parted from his mouth were "open your mind so that you may see the truth". Noone understood the man, but after he left, inside of the painting room, the servants found a foto on the ground, it was blank, but just in case they showed it to the master of the home. Not too long had passed since the man had visited, but as the artist laid in his bed, in his mind he found images of the world he had never been able to see before, amazing vistas with great mountains, green plains, dark forests, and many other things. Granted with such opportunity he took his pencil and started to draw these images so that he would never forget them. As the man finished the drawings he realized something, what he was drawing were twisted versions of what he could see in his mind, he tried time and time again to recreate what he saw on his mind to no avail. As he tried to fix the paintings the images started to slip away as if they were returning to where they belonged. And so he was only left with dark and twisted paintings that haunted him every day, he tried to burn them, but instead of turning into ashes, they remained. He sold them, but after one day, not even asking for the money back, they were returned. He could not rid himself of that horrible sight. Each passing day he had to bear the endless torture of having to look at his failures until he snapped, he couldn't stand it. Those horrible failures of his taunted him every day, and so with a pencil, the one he kept on a table beside his bed, he stabbed out his eyes. In pain and agony, the man screamed, his caretakers rushed to his room the moment they heard such horrific screaming. Once they were able to get in they were witness to things only seen in books of horror. An old sickly man, covered in blood with gouged eyes, wailing in his bed; scratching and hitting his head he cried "why won't they disappear?!". Soon after, the artist was dragged out of his room so the people could tend to his injuries, the screams of pain were replaced by deafening laughter. That night the man managed to escape the paintings, but once again the nightmare continued, this time the paintings were in a place he couldn't escape, his mind became the new prison. Not long after the incident, the man now had guards posted in his room, to accompany the man each hour of the day. The people started to become weary and paranoid as he could snap at any moment and harm someone despite being so frail and sick. It took no time for the man to start changing his behavior. His hair turned white, his skin became as pale as the papers he painted, his fingers grew larger and deformed. The weirdest thing was that he started to murmur strange words that no one understood at night. His room used to be well lit with many candles as he needed them to paint, but now that same room is shrouded in darkness. One day the man shut his doors claiming he was going to paint his masterpiece once and for all, he only opened the door to eat whatever his servants brought him. Two months later he was found dead along with every person in his mansion, his body was found beneath a painting, the one he called his "masterpiece". It was a maddening sight, a twisted world where the souls of the damned filled the sky, flesh and bone made the lands and the lakes were made of their blood, in the middle of that chaos you could find him, kneeling before a great figure, big enough to tower the skies. He left a single message behind "Close your eyes and open your mind, let him in so that he can show you the truth of this world and the one beyond, he calls me and I must answer, I finally understood, those paintings weren't a curse, they were a blessing".


The rain fell through the night like bullets. John was speeding down the road of the rural countryside in his truck. Even with his windshield wipers on the fastest setting, he could barely see 5 feet ahead. Luckily, he had traveled up and down this road for many decades, so he wasn’t too worried about his lack of visibility. John was still annoyed with the rain, though. He had hoped to get out before it started pouring, but had been unsuccessful. His clothes were still wet. John was aware of the fact that he was almost out of gas, but because he knew the area, wasn’t worried. There was a gas station up ahead, he knew. He considered getting some food, but doubted his ability to eat and drive in the extreme rain. This rain was extreme. The weather had been hot the rest of the week, so the air was sickeningly humid. Luckily, John reached the small gas station before he ran out of gas. He mentally prepared himself to step out into the weather. The humidity, combined with the rain, made John feel like he was standing under water. He quickly filled his car with gas, and decided he would treat himself with something to eat, as well as try to wait out the rain. He sprinted into the gas station, and stepped through the automatic doors, soaking wet. If it weren’t for the rain, the emptiness of the gas station would have surprised him. As John walked in, the cashier’s eyes followed him. He browsed through the limited selection of snacks as the cashier silently stared at him. John settled on a nice bag of chips, and went to grab a drink from the refrigerators in the back of the gas station. He returned to the register with his snack and his drink, and noticed that the cashier was gone. John assumed that he must have gone to the bathroom. Five minutes passed, but the cashier didn’t return. John suddenly remembered that this gas station didn’t have a bathroom. Where was the cashier? John decided to continue waiting; maybe if he waited long enough, it would stop raining. After another couple of minutes or so, John decided to just put some money on the counter and leave. Just as he was retrieving money from his pocket, though, he heard a noise. It sounded like a voice. It had come from outside. John didn’t make out what the voice had said. He was surprised he even heard it at all through the rain. John, now sure that the cashier was outside, figured he would go tell him he was ready to pay. John stepped out into the rainstorm. Looking around, he did not see the cashier. Not wanting to get too wet, he stepped back inside. John heard the voice again. It had definitely come from outside. This time, John made out some of what the voice had said. John was certain he had heard “Are you... “ but didn’t quite catch the rest. Realising that this was a waste of time, John placed some money on the counter, grabbed his food, and sprinted through the rain back to his truck. As he started to drive away, he spotted the cashier in his rear view mirror, standing by the door of the gas station. John hoped that the cashier would notice the money on the counter, and drove back into the night. John opened his bag of chips and ate a handful of them. As he reached for a second handful, the bag tipped over and spilled onto the floor of his car. John checked that the road was clear before bending down and scooping some of the chips up. As he popped his head back up, he caught what looked like a hitchhiker on the side of the road out of the corner of his eye. John felt badly for him, standing out in the rain, but didn’t feel like driving back to let a wet stranger into his car. John continued on his journey. Through the heavy rain and the fog, John saw what he thought was another hitchhiker on the opposite side of the road. It was weird that there would be two different people hitchhiking so close together. He sped past, and noticed that the person did not have their thumb out. Now John was really confused. Why would two different people be standing on the side of the road, out in the pouring rain? More alert, John kept his eyes on the treeline. He was fearful he would see a third person standing on the side of the road. Seconds after thinking this, John, indeed, spotted a third person standing on the side of the road. He got a clearer look at the person this time. The person looked like the cashier from the gas station. That was impossible. Lost in thought and fear, John barely noticed that he drove past a fourth person standing on the side of the road. John was shocked. All of the people he had driven past looked exactly the same. Speeding up, he wasn’t sure what was going on, and just wanted to get home. John heard a voice. Through the sound of the car and the pouring rain, John heard a voice. It was the same voice he had heard back at the gas station. It said the same thing it had said at the gas station, too. John heard the voice more clearly this time. “Are you ok...” and then it was unintelligible. John was now terrified. Where did the voice come from? It sounded muffled, like it had come from outside his car, but he was speeding down the road. How could he have heard it? John passed two more people who looked like the cashier. John tried to ignore them. His heart was pounding. John was driving the fastest he had ever driven before. The rain now hit his windshield horizontally. He was full of adrenaline, and question after question raced through his mind. Who were these people? Why did they all look the same? Why were they standing in the rain in the middle of the night? Why hadn’t he passed any other cars? Thunder boomed as John raced around a tight bend in the road. The rain had made the road slick, and John started to lose control of his truck. He flew off the side of the road, and crashed into a tree. John awoke, unaware of how long he had been unconscious. It was raining harder than ever. His head throbbed with pain as he looked out his truck’s window. Twenty feet down the road stood the cashier from the gas station. John had had enough. John opened the glove compartment of his truck in search of his revolver. His vision was blurry from the crash. Keeping his eyes on the man down the road, he rummaged through the glove compartment, pulling things out as he searched for his weapon. He pulled a handful of old napkins, a candy wrapper, and a bottle of pills out of the glove compartment. John panicked. He couldn’t find his revolver, and he didn’t think an old Kit-Kat wrapper or medication would help him protect himself. John stepped out of his truck. As soon as he stood up, he became dizzy, and had to sit back down. The pain in his head was growing sharper and sharper. He staggered towards the man. The man kept staring. Slowly, John made his way to the staring man, yelled at him, asked him why he was following him. John shouted at the man, but the man remained silent. As John got closer, he realized that the man was smiling at him. Smiling, and standing completely still. John continued to scream at the man as he stepped closer and closer. The pain in John’s head was almost blinding. John slipped on the slick pavement, and fell to his knees. He looked up at the man. The man was still there. Still smiling. John got to his feet, and as he did, lightning struck. The lightning illuminated the whole forest and for a split second, John had a perfect view of the man who had been stalking him. The man was wearing a suit. He was standing in an odd pose. His arms were crossed. He had no legs. He was flat with an unchanging expression. There was something next to him. Letters were next to him. Words seemingly floating in the air. They read: Vote for Steven Erikson for Mayor! John’s vision started to fade. John collapsed to the ground, and called out for help. The campaign sign did not respond, just continued to stare, continued to smile. John looked up into the rain, and everything turned white.


I scanned the crowd and saw her. She didn’t blend in with anyone at that party, but that’s part of what made her so mesmerizing. It was mostly boys that she got stares from, they noticed how close her breasts were to fall out of her red tank top. But when I looked at her, I saw her perfectly curled hair falling so gently on her freckled shoulders. I noticed how her smile seems contagious to anyone she’s near. I noticed the faint scar on her upper left arm, and think of the bike accident from fourth grade. Her hand on my shoulder interrupted my internal monologue, “Hey!” she shouted. “What’s up?” I attempted to yell over the music, but my voice was drowned out by the hundred-something teenagers screaming nonsense at each other. She waved her hand, motioning for me to follow her. She grabbed my hand as we slithered through the crowd of sweaty bodies, trying to find a pocket of quieter air. I watched all the jock boys stare her down, absorbing every last second of the view that they could before she disappeared back into the sea of stench. Eventually, we made it to the bathroom. She locked the door and let out a loud sigh while playing with her hair in the mirror. “I’m happy you came tonight,” she grinned, “you make shit like this better”. I just laughed and stared down at the broken tile floor, covered with empty beer cans. “I mean it! I really like hanging out with you Mya,” she said as she plopped herself beside me on the edge of the bathtub. I smirked and continued to stare at the floor scared of what would happen if I looked up. “Yeah, I like hanging out with you too, Case”. Her neatly painted blue fingernails lightly scratched along my thigh, then moved up towards my face. She turned my face towards hers, and as I stared into her hazy green eyes I couldn’t help but smile. “Case,” I started, but before I could finish my thought, her lips were on mine. The familiar taste of vodka filled my mouth, and with the number of times we’ve done this, the taste alone makes my brain spin out of control. She pulled away for just a moment, giving herself enough time to pull the pills out of her pocket and wash them down her throat with more vodka. I pulled away. “You know it scares me when you do that, especially because of what they did to you last summer” She rolled her eyes playfully as she grabbed my hand, pulling me off the edge of the tub and towards the door. She blindly unlocked the door with one hand as the other caressed my face. The door swung open as we melted into the sweaty hallway once again. We trailed along the side of the hallway with our hands against the wall, feeling around for the next door handle. The next room we found was a bedroom, and before I had a second to think she pushed me onto the edge of the bed. She climbed on top of my lap and started kissing my neck. I fell onto my back, letting her soft curls dance around my face and neck, and she kissed me deeper and deeper. I pushed her hips off of me to stop her, “Case I’m sorry but I told you I can’t do this anymore.” “But you like this, you know you do, and nobody needs to know.” she tried to lean in again. “No that’s just it. No one knows we do this. Last summer when you were in the hospital, I couldn’t come to see you, because your parents don’t know who I am. MY parents don’t know who I am. Do you understand how hard it was to sit back and do nothing, alone? Not being able to see someone I love?” “Mya c'mon I love you, you know I do.” “I- I can’t Case.” I turned my head away from her as I stood up off the bed. I quickly scrambled to the door so that she wouldn’t try to convince me to stay. I took a deep breath before I whipped open the door, letting the music and stench surround me once again. I struggled to get to the front door, stumbling over passed-out bodies and empty bottles on the way. I hopped on my bike and started down the dimly lit road. I was probably 20 minutes out when I realized *fuck.* My phone. I turned my bike around and headed back to the house party. The road seemed a little less blurry now. My mind wandered. Thinking about Casey, about us, and if I made the right choice in leaving. Flashes of red, white, and blue snapped me back into reality. Groups of drunk slobs wandered out of the house and into the street, leaving me to swerve around them, dragging out my trip even more. My heart sank when I saw a stretcher being carried down the front steps of the house. My feet couldn’t pedal fast enough as I watched the paramedics lift a body into the ambulance. I got stuck on the outside of the crowd and threw my bike to the ground. I pushed through to the front of the audience, and my heart sank. My eyes filling with tears as I saw the blue, neatly painted fingernails, hanging lifelessly off the edge of the stretcher.


A desperate and destitute farmer turned to God after his harvest failed. Hungry and penniless, he was not able to feed and take care of his daughter. The heavy rains had flooded his fields and ruined his crops. One cloudy day after mass the farmer stood watching the clattering of raindrops on the slate walls of the church steeple. His eyes transfixed on the rough black texture and he became entranced with the rhythmic repetition nature provided. The pastor grabbed the latch on the door after the last parishioners had left the church, taking a moment to ponder at the poor farmer who had steadily refused alms. With a worried look he pulled shut the door behind him, to prevent further wetting of his robes.   The farmer stood exposed to the elements, not paying any mind to the wind and rain slashing around him, wetting his cloak and breeches. He felt weightless in the dark, as if there were no veil between him and God. His internal dissociation brought him closer to the elements, closer to the surface of the slate walls. His eyes widened when he saw her, the pristine shape of the virgin Mary falling off the slate bricks. He felt a comforting warmth fill his entire being, a grogging recognition of the holy, which brought him back to the material world. His eyes watered not only from the rain but now his tears as he uncontrollably sobbed. At a search for meaning his mind began being filled with desperate, blasphemous and irrational thoughts. _Perhaps his daughter would carry the second coming of Christ. It would be her salvation of the suffering she had to endure at the hands of his inept caretaking. He would serve by kindling the conditions that would manifest God’s desire._ It would be his last desperate attempt at saving her from a life of poverty and despair.   At his homestead, the farmer warmed himself by the meager fire that he managed to build and ate a few bites of leek and bean soup with his daughter. After she was put to bed, he pondered his next steps. He felt a strange calm washed over him, as if his goals in life were never this clear. In his limited religious understanding he knew that it was blasphemous to propose his conclusions to the church. The pastor would not help him, and he might even risk excommunication. He decided that with no one else to turn to, he should visit the village witch for advice. He lit an oil lamp to guide him through the darkness, beyond the boundaries of the village, into the confines of the broadleaf forest. He traded the clear night’s sky for a roof of tree crowns. The smell of damp earth and moss and rotting roots met his nose. The chilly night air pricked his skin. He followed the small path that he knew led to the witch’s hut.   There was light pouring out of a small window next to the front door, under the thatched roof. The house was surrounded by a variety of different plants he guessed were used for her medicines. After he knocked, he heard shuffling and the door creaked open. An old woman of small stature stared into his eyes and welcomed him into her home. Inside it smelled of incense and herbs, a cauldron brewing above a log fire emitted a subtle but foul smell. He was nervous, he knew the witch had powers beyond his understanding. He also knew that if anyone found out he was here in the midst of the night, he could be suspected of devilry himself. The witch listened with an understanding look. She explained there could be a way to contrive his daughter’s salvation. She immediately went to work collecting herbs and plants from her garden and combining these in her mortar and pestle. A vial was filled with the resulting concoction. It was to be given to his daughter during a full moon as it would open a connection between the heavens and her body. The witch also stated the ritual would bring luck into their lives. The farmer would not have to fear hunger and despair anymore. Finding what he was looking for, the farmer returned to his homestead with a smile on his face.   At the next instance of a full moon the farmer gave the concoction to his daughter. She willingly took it without question and swallowed the bitter taste down with some water. Nothing of note seemed to happen. The evening went by with hunger in their bellies, as they were accustomed to. The next day the farmer was awoken by a shill scream. He looked over to his daughter’s bed and immediately saw red stained linens. She bled as a woman would do. She was too young for that, he thought. It probably was the witch’s concoction. He panicked; this was not what he had envisioned of his self-proclaimed pious quest. He helped his daughter change the linens. Luckily, she seemed to be fine. He was unsure of what the future would bring. From that day onward his daughter would never bleed again.   The luck of the farmer and his daughter took a turn for the better. Their next harvest was more successful than it ever was. The profits even allowed him to buy livestock, a white sheep that gave them milk and wool. It was a turning point in their life, it was a steppingstone to their future health and wealth. The farmer saw his daughter grow older, taller, and stronger. She turned out to become a beautiful young woman. One day a suitor proposed to wed her, with substantial dowry, and the farmer accepted. With a smile on his face, he saw his daughter leave his home to start a new family. After all these years he never forgot what had happened to them. He saw how his daughter seemed to now be saved from her suffering. It was all he had ever wished for.   Year after year passed. Grey hairs grew in the farmer’s beard. His farm grew more prosperous. He had now even been able to hire farmhands to do the heavy work for him, so he had enough time to spend with his daughter. She led a happy life with her husband, the local blacksmith’s apprentice. She became a devout and pious woman. She learned skills like weaving and knitting. She had already made children’s clothes in the prospect of starting a family. It would not have been for a lack of trying, but she seemed not to be able to bare children. As the years passed the farmer’s daughter grew quieter and sullen. Her body was not capable of that which would fulfill her innermost desires. She grew more distanced from her father and even from her own husband.   One faithful day the farmer sat out on his porch when he saw his son-in-law approach his home. The look on his face was one of panic. His wife had locked herself in their home and was not herself. The two men made their way over to the family home. Piercing crying could be heard outside of the wooden building. The farmer’s daughter cried out: if she could not give life then her life was of no value. The two men tried to break down the wooden door and found that it was barricaded from the other side. With enough force they were able to push aside the bookcase that was pushed up against it. The men found her disconsolate, with frantic darting eyes. They attempted to subdue her, but she managed to wrangle free of their grip and to hastily escape through the opened door.   A chase followed through the town. A flock of geese hurriedly stepped out of the way, honking after the skirts of the fleeing woman. The townspeople looked up from their daily chores to witness this peculiarity that disturbed this otherwise quiet hamlet. The farmer’s daughter plunged her way through a group of workmen, whom had to drop their baskets of wool at her passing. She ran up to the church and entered the nave through the open front door. The farmer followed her and caught a glimpse of her skirts at the stairwell going up to the steeple. When he reached the top, he saw his daughter standing on the ledge of the steeple window, with big teary eyes looking back at him. He tried to utter words, but nothing seemed to come out. She smiled. _This is my salvation_, she said, before letting herself fall.


# 1. The Bet “It’s all in the feet. See? See how much he’s kicking? Can’t conserve a breath like that, no sir.” Maggie looked up at the man swinging from the high branch of Hangman’s Tree. She felt a twinge of sympathy, but mostly anticipation. A pocket watch ticked slowly in her hand. “You’re wrong, it’s the swinging. Puts too much pressure on the neck, squeezes all the life out. Watch now.” Otis approached the hanging man following the swinging death arc with his arm. “And how, pray tell, is he supposed to stop swinging when they kick the bucket out from under him like that?” Around a minute earlier, the lawless men had put the poor bastard to the noose and removed his last lifeline. It was a common practice, but far less likely to break the offender’s neck than traditional gallows. Otis turned to Maggie and scoffed. “Core exercise.” “Core exercise?!” Maggie spat in a futile gesture. “You stop the swing with your abdomen, sucking it in like this.” Otis made a big show of sucking in what little stomach he had. “Stiff as a board, conserved energy, maybe buys you enough time that someone comes and lets you down.” “Oh, he’ll be stiff as a board alright. What do you recon? Under three minutes?” “Under three minutes, hah. No one has gone that quick, not even you.” Maggie rubbed at the black scar around her neck where the rope had cut in. “That a bet then?” Otis laughed, a hollow sound. “Oh, you bet it’s a bet. An easy one at that.” Astride powerful horses ten feet away, the men who strung the noose watched hungrily as the hanged man’s struggle grew more desperate. The leader kicked his horse and cantered closer to the dying man. “This is what happens when you try to two-time me, boy. It’s the last mistake you ever going to make.” Maggie moved closer, feeling a horrible sense of familiarity. “That you, Reggie?” she asked, mostly to herself. A mask covered the bottom half of the man’s face, black to match his hat and horse. As far as gallows theming went, Maggie thought it got the point across, even if it was a bit overplayed. Otis floated circles around the hanging man. “You think everyone is Reggie. Can we keep to the matter at hand?” He glared at the condemned. “Will you hold still for one minute?!” Maggie ignored him, staring down the leader. “It’s him, I’m sure of it.” Otis stopped his pacing for a minute to look over. “Well, if that’s Reggie, he sure is looking well.” “Hate in the veins will do that, keeps you young just to spite all the people who want you dead.” “Well I’m sure there’s more than a few of those. Why do they need to do that anyway?” “Do what?” “Tell the nearly dead why it is they had to die?” “Assuaging a guilty conscience, I guess.” Maggie returned her attention to the hanging man and the pressing matter of their bet. She circled, willing him to die just a little faster. The pocket watch in her hand ticked slowly forward. “Two minutes thirty,” she called out. “Amazing that damned thing still works. The ethereal plane won’t let me fix my damned hat, but you can pull a watch out of your pocket and it still ticks.” Otis’s hat skewed to the left, slumping down over one eye, permanently on the verge of falling off. “Yup, the afterlife’s a bitch, Otis, and it’s about to get a lot worse for you.” She pointed a finger at the nearly deceased as his frantic swinging turned to spastic jerking. “Ah, put him out of his misery,” cried one of the hangmen. Maggie looked up in surprise. It was hard to tell with the mask covering most of his face, but the man who had called out sounded young. “Reggie’s recruiting kids these days?” The leader gave a disgusted snort at the idea. “Shut up, I’m trying to enjoy this.” “You think that’s a pervert thing?” Otis’s eyes widened. Maggie raised an eyebrow. “Really? At a time like this?” “Can’t tell with the mask, but I bet that sick son of a bitch is licking his lips. Criminal and a pervert. This town really does take all types.” “Even after all these years, Otis, I will never understand what catches your attention.” “Nobody deserves this,” called the young man. “Someone, shoot him and end this.” A nervous tremor crept into his voice. “He keeps standing up like that and we’re going to have a second hanging today.” Hangings were the closest thing Maggie and Otis got to entertainment, but one was enough. “I hear you. Look at the conscience on this kid. A little late, I’ll admit, but nice to see in the youth. Maggie, you know this doesn’t count, right?” Maggie shrugged. The horseman in the lead shot a glare, attempting to silence the younger man. “Two-fifty-five.” “Maggie, this shit does not count!” “Maybe you can put that in the rules of the bet next time. Watch his hand.” Sure enough, the young man’s hand moved to his pistol, hesitant at first, but firm when it found the grip. He looked at the leader and then to the dying man. “Fine, I’ll do it myself!” The young man drew his pistol, hardly taking time to aim and pulled the trigger. The shot rang clear across the plains and struck the hanged man dead in the face. At the same instant, the hanged man appeared beneath the noose, looking much like his former self, but suffused by a pallid, green glow and semi-transparent. pulling his hands up in front of his face. “No!” he shouted. Maggie clapped her hands together. “Down to the wire, but that is two-fifty-seven. I believe you have someone to welcome, Otis.” “Maggie, I said this didn’t count.” If Otis’s face could have flushed, it would have. Instead, it remained the same omnipresent ethereal gray that accompanied the dearly departed. “A bet is a bet, and you know what that means.” “You’re a real son of a bitch, Maggie.” “Fair is fair, break it to him gently.” Otis shook his head and walked over to the newly deceased man still holding his hands over his face. “You can put your hands down, kid. It’s too late to block that shot.” “Stay back!” Shouted the man, keeping his hands up. Maggie wanted to savor her victory, but she was watching the horsemen. Already, a scuffle had broken out and the gunman with a conscience was taking a beating. The gun was out of his hand, forgotten in the dirt as two men kicked him repeatedly in the ribs. “You’re lucky I know your pops, or you’d be swinging next to him right now.” The leader landed a savage blow, causing the kid to spit up blood. Meanwhile, Otis knelt next to the newly deceased, trying his best to explain what was never an easy concept. “Where—” the dead man faltered, trying to gasp for air, but finding none. “You’ll get used to that. What’s your name?” “Adam.” The man’s eyes were wide, searching his surroundings. “Well, Adam, welcome to the not-so-great beyond. Name’s Otis, and that’s Maggie.” Maggie continued watching the horsemen as they slung the battered man over his saddle and prepared to ride back towards wherever they had come from. The leader turned, his mask down, no longer needing to conceal his face. Maggie glared at him, willing some force from beyond to let him see her. Reggie, leader of the Hosh Gang, and the man who had hung her, gazed longingly at Hangman’s Tree. “Rot in hell, boy,” he whispered, before spurring his horse and riding into the rising sun.