I jolt awake laying on the cold, barren floor; Dust littering the room. I stand on wobbly legs, shaking from the lack of use. My eyes. They strain, adjusting to the darkness. I trace the edges of the walls to find anything of use, to help me escape from this hell hole. My fingers. They discover a wooden door embedded into the coarse surface of the walls. I push. The door opens; creaking as it swings on its hinges. I peer into the empty void before me questioning whether to step through or not. I walk forward. I appear in another room, staring at the same barren walls with the same bleak and unwelcoming atmosphere. It's identical to it's predecessor, apart from the scratch marks dotting the room and the bloody smiles painted everywhere. I began my search again. Speeding up the process so I could leave and return home. I passed through the newly discovered doorway and landed in a pile of bottles. No ordinary bottles... pill bottles. Pills prescribed to me. I scramble, stumbling over the mess and launch over to the door. What was all this for? I didn't even take these meds. I need to leave. Again I search, tracing the outer edges of the room - hoping to find anything again. My feet kicking at the strewn Bottles on the floor. My fingers uncover the familiar door, the same as the one I entered through, however this one is closed. I never remembered closing the door upon entering. I push it open. I am greeted with that blackened mass once again. I step through, this time the room has changed. The floor... it's no longer the floor. The whole room has been flipped upside down. The single lightbulb extending from the ceiling, that now has become the floor, flickered. Blinking. I stare around me. The walls are no longer barren. Scratches and words are scraped into the wallpaper. My fingers glide over the surface. "Don't stop" "Don't turn back" "You're so close" "Don't try and stop this, you can't stop me" "you. can't. stop. us." The words. They're a message for me. Dried blood spots stained the wallpaper and inbetween the carvings My own name was etched beneath every message. Who was leaving these? How did they know me? Who else is here? I was scared. I was cold. I thought I was alone. There's someone or something else inside this god forsaken hell hole. I didn't want to be alone with it. Then the light wavered and was snuffed out. It had been no more than 3 seconds when the light bloomed once again. This time the room had changed again. It no longer had the writing and deep scratch marks. It no longer was upturned. It was plain and dark and cold. I frantically search around the edges of the room to find another doorway, shredding off the wallpaper in the process. The familiar sight of the wooden door greeted me. I threw it open gladly, throwing myself inside and stumbling once I hit the floor. I stood, dusting myself off, and glanced around the room. Bodies lay piled up, bones scattered far and wide, blood soaked into the floor boards, staining them a deep shade of crimson. Bile rose in my throat, but I couldn't help but smile. I turned away in disgust and horror, trying to block out the image. I felt something heavy in my hands and looked down. A bloody knife lay in my hand. My fingers were curled around it like it had done so many times before, I stopped and blinked and everything was gone. A blackened doorway lay before me, beckoning me to open it. I slowly walked towards it, hoping this was the end. I looked around me, taking in the new room. A single table, with two chairs, sat in the center, on top of a dark red carpet with the words "stop trying" on it I step back and gasp in confusion and terror. I blinked. The carpet no longer had the words written on it. I didn't stay for long, immediately flinging open the door, that lay beyond the seats with the words "Exit" printed boldly on it. I stopped. I was forced to stop as once I had opened the doorway, a black writhing mass, slowly stepped out. It spoke. It sounded just like me, but with a venom laced tone. It spoke to me. It looked like me yet it didn't. It had black hollow eyes, that bore into your soul. I looked down at my hands and... smiled. A bright genuine smile. A smile full of evil and happiness. My hands no longer trembled. My voice no longer wavered. What was I thinking? I looked up, I stepped forward and finally embraced what was rightfully mine. After all, what was I thinking? No one can escape their insanity ————————————————— If you want more cool and creepy stories like this, go check out my subreddit r/StoriesByHolmes. I’m working on posting a variety of stories from fantasy to horror to creepy and crime filled.


***Edit: Feel free to consider the main character as a man or a woman.*** 🏳🌈 *Haunt me, then.* The words echoed around my mind over and over as I sat motionless in my living room. I hadn’t considered the weight of my request to her: to not leave me, ever, even in death. I pleaded for her not to let go, to stay with me, but the cancer was too much for her body. It moved so quickly through her, every effort to save her only moments too late. Moments. The moment we were alone and I looked at her, the effects of the medication clouding her vision, and she shook her head at me pitifully. I sprinted through the stages of grief right there next to her bed. I held her closer than I imagined humanly possible. She took her last breath in my arms. I watched the doctors close her eyes and pronounce her dead. Saw her casket lowered into the earth. I even stood and watched as they covered it with dirt. Covered *her*. I *know* she’s gone – dead. Dead and gone. So tell me why I still *see her*. I really hadn’t thought it through when I begged for her to linger, to wait for me close by until I could get to her again, to *haunt* me. In those words, I had meant it more in humor. But God, she did. She haunts every waking moment of my life, now. I wake up in the mornings and roll over to kiss her awake like I would before, only she isn’t there now. But her perfume is. The scent of her skin is still embedded into the threads of the sheets. If I stare long enough where she once had lain, I can almost see the shallow imprint of her body still engraved into the mattress. But she isn’t there this morning. So I force myself to get out of bed, and make my way to the kitchen. When I pass the threshold, I so briefly can see the vision of her in her robe, swaying in the morning sun and pouring a cup of coffee. For a moment I’m warm again, I can feel her in the room with me. I can look into her smiling eyes as she hands me a cup of coffee, her hands lingering over mine as I bring the cup to my face and take a sip. When I lower the cup again, she’s gone, along with the sunlight and the warmth. I don’t remember making the coffee, but it’s still in my hands. So, I fight back tears, and make my way to my desk to try and catch up on mountains of paperwork I’ve neglected. I sit the coffee down and bury my nose into the work, trying to focus on anything but the pain. And then, a pair of hands – *her hands* – slide up my back and onto my shoulders, gently massaging the knots I’ve made by hunching over a file. I relax into the unexpected touch, and sigh. *Don’t overwork yourself,* a voice chimes from somewhere between the open air and my mind. “I’m not,” I reply without thinking, and spin around in my chair only to find empty air. My gut sinks at the realization and I cry out. I don’t know if it’s for the loss of her or my sanity now. So I turn back to my work and stare blankly at the pages for a while, minutes ticking into hours. I lose track of time constantly now. The day turns into night without warning. I only realize the shift in time when the setting sun casts an orange streak right onto my computer screen, making it difficult to work. *Baby, you need to eat something,* her voice rings out again. Distinctly and noiselessly all at once. My stomach growls at the reminder and I stand from my chair and stumble to the kitchen, not even sure what I will find. I open the fridge and gaze into it before my eyes land on a container with a sticky note on it. I peel away the note and read it. *Eat up, Love you!* I could swear it’s in her writing. Impossibly so, but the way the letters looped were so much like hers. I rationalize it to being my mother’s handwriting somehow, and put the container in the microwave to warm it. As I bring the food to the living room to eat it, finding no reason to sit alone at the dining table, I see her again. Curled up on the sofa, her hair pinned above her head in a bun, and watching a movie. I don’t remember turning on the TV. She looked at me, bright eyed, and pats the spot next to her. I don’t hear the sound of her hand hitting the couch. *Come, sit, let’s watch a movie.* The fog in my brain almost hurts. I *see* her and this confusing mix of love and pain starts drilling a hole into my chest. I end up on the couch next to her, or the figment of her, and she leans against me. The weight of her head on my shoulder is *undeniable*. For a moment, I begin to let myself really believe that this is reality. I tip my head to lean it against hers, and instead find myself falling into nothing, nearly spilling my food. My heart races and I slam my container down onto the table and stand up. I stomp towards our – *my* room, now, and slam the door behind me. I crawl into bed and sob, wrapping my arms around myself in a futile attempt to soothe the pain. Slender arms wrap around me and over my own, and the hiccupping cries come to a halt when she croons at me. *I’m here, baby*. I sob, “No, you aren’t.” And she’s gone again, leaving me to cry myself to sleep once more. I wake up, groggy, and roll over to emptiness again.


Choices, I choose, do I? Moving things from one place to another, trying to create order from chaos. That’s what existence is, in a way, moving from place to place and making choices. I need to get out of my room, interact, create connections. Walking is automatic and effortless, All these people, where are they going? Everyone has something to do, an objective, a mission to accomplish. That’s what gives life meaning, at least for humans. That dog looks weird, no it doesn’t, but why does it walk like humans. Wow, now it's walking on four legs, it's like it heard my thoughts, weird. Oh yeah, I am in a simulation, right, I forget. I need to get out more. Playing retro games on drugs all week definitely felt home. Home, I shouldn’t forget home, when am I gonna get back to earth? "Soon" sign instead of "Stop" sign, you guys should stop listening to my thoughts. It's creepy, why did I agree to this. If they can make it this realistic, they could easily send me home with their technology, they must have something else on their mind. Shit, everyone is looking at me now, it's all connected. I shouldn’t doubt their intentions, I wish there is a way to hide my thoughts. It seems like a riot situation going on, what is happening, why are they doing this. These people seem to need my help, how could I be useful. Why are they treating me like, a leader, I was just passing by? They are trying to overload the simulation, what is the point of doing this. We can't live in their environment, ahh, my head hurts. These riots are out of control, they are exploding everything. It seems like a war situation, aliens are responding, ahh, I am losing control. What, what key?, my room key?, I don’t know what you guys are talking about. I don’t understand you people, I need to get out of here, let me go. You guys should stop doing this, it is of no use. Shit, aliens are going to laser blast this place, these people still have a chance to escape. Yes, I found an opening, I can get out of this alone. Whose side am I on, what should I do? I can get out, using this narrow tunnel or I can help these people escape. Make a choice damn it, choose. \ Aliens in my fantasy, you can't take anything from me UFOs and flying saucers, don’t think you can frighten me I don’t scare from abductions, I don’t care for seductions. Don’t you dare to find me, don’t ever try to touch me. And remember always, I'm your fucking enemy. Enemy, enemy, enemy, I'm your fucking enemy. Enemy… , I love this song, been a long time since I heard this single. I'm gonna buy this CD, I should try talking to others. I might not be the only one here. Surely, there must be other passengers they rescued from the ship. I don’t understand what these people are saying, gibberish, I feel like I am the one who is talking gibberish. Oh finally, someone who doesn’t know where he is going. Why is he running away from me, are we not supposed to meet or something. He must know something about this place. I still don’t understand why they would go this far to simulate our environment for us. Reminds me of aquariums, this is probably an entertainment for them. Now I understand how those fish felt like being monitored all the time. What the fuck, a whale, dropped from the sky, in the middle of the road. Why whale, either a glitch or a hidden message. Oh yeah, we had whales on our ship, I am remembering things now. I didn’t even feel like I missed some memories. They are surely hiding something from us, why are they keeping us here. I need some dope, this is getting too much, I should go back to my room. Those people are eating that whale. Bunch of fucking whaleaters, they are probably aliens masquerading as humans. I miss going to the beach, the waves bring tranquil to my heart. The vastness of the ocean is overwhelming for my mind to contemplate. Sometimes I fear one of the tides rise up to be a tsunami, that must be hard to simulate. I am almost near, What the…, what is wrong with that dog. Why am I having a Deja Vu about this? Oh, that’s him, that person, did he just follow me all the way. I thought he ran away. He knows where I live now. He is still standing outside, I wanted to talk to him, but this is creepy. Someone is knocking on the door, it's not him, I can still see him from here above. He is gesturing something, fuck, the door is going to break. What should I do, I can jump out the window, no, I am going to die if I do that. Should I open the door, I think he is telling me to jump, he probably has a net. Make a choice damn it, open or jump. \ How many of them have I killed by now, this is certainly terrifying to think. I don’t know if they are my fellow humans or are they, aliens. Death is unavoidable anywhere in the universe, even if it’s a simulation. I seem to be the leader for this revolution, I don’t remember becoming a leader. I don’t know who I am anymore, am I a human or maybe I am an alien. I can't afford this crisis right now, it seems to me, this is eternal war. Death with purpose and the illusion of free will. Dying for a cause sure must give them comfort. I wonder if I am the only one who is capable of thought in this simulation. I need to get away from this war zone, what is the purpose of this simulation. Give me my memories back, even if I hate them, I know you can listen. There must be some answer to this perpetual nightmare. I need to break out of this illusion. I need to show my will. I need to show them that I can make a choice. How can I make a choice without any driving memories? I can't believe what I am seeing right now, An army of Bipedal Dogs. Why do I feel like I know that dog? Does this mean I still have some memories, are they hidden from me? I met their commander, I was the commander of my ship. This was my choice. They are killing, no, obliterating, their minds, no, our minds. I chose this nightmare for all my people. I was never alone in this place. It was the only choice I could make. What good are you planning to get out of this massacre, why choose the beloved form of dogs, Is this a mockery of mankind. I led all our hope into this abyss. Where is the cat army when we need it the most, they never really cared for us? It wasn’t really a choice. The cats never cared for humanity, they just seduced us with their cuteness. I made this deal, so those aliens would take us back home, they showed us our future. I was never really capable of making that choice. Is this the future they promised us. I don’t want to remember, enslave me, rid me of my consciousness. I choose to live in Illusion.


The small digital alarm clock went off at 05:30 am. Aiko was already awake. She rose from her bed with a tear in her eye. She turned off the alarm and got out of bed. Her husband was still sleeping in bed, his alarm would only go off at 06:30 am. She put on a robe and proceeded directly to the kitchen. As she passed Chieko's closed bedroom, she briefly stopped, touched the frame of the door and said a short prayer. Arriving in the kitchen, she turned all of the lights on. The small, functional kitchen came alive. It was small, with one tiny sink and only space for two small pans. It was on the eastern wall of their cramped living room. Things were piling up in the small room but neither Aiko, nor her husband, Kasturou, paid much attention to it. They mostly ate outside and only came home to sleep. Aiko only used the kitchen to prepare Chieko's bento boxes. Kasturou used the kitchen at night, when Aiko was sleeping, only to empty and clean the boxes. He did so once a week, after having made sure that Aiko was asleep. Aiko opened the fridge. She noticed the pre-cooked tonkatsu that she had bought a few days back and decided to use that for Chieko's box. She took the tonkatsu out of the fridge and placed it on the kitchen countertop. She went back to the fridge and picked an assortment of vegetables that would make the tonkatsu pop in the bento box. Once everything was set, she put some rice to cook in the cooker. She took the tonkatsu and placed it in the oven with a two minutes timer, just enough to get it warm. While waiting, she washed three cherry tomatoes and a piece of lettuce, cut a piece of broccoli, and readied some radish. She dried each of them before the timer went off. She took the tonkatsu out of the oven and placed it next to the vegetables. By then, the rice was ready. Before she could assemble everything, she needed to get a bento box. She crouched and opened the bento box cupboard. She lost her balance and had to prop herself with her right arm. Stoic, she steadied herself, holding back tears and forcing herself to focus on the cupboard. It was filled with bento boxes that had been donated to them years back, when Chieko was born. She grabbed a Hello Kitty vintage box. It was made out of wood, and she only used it for special occasions. She took the box out and silently counted the months: 27 months. She placed the rice first, on the left side of the box. She pressed it in, making sure that it was compact and would not fall out of place when travelling. She placed the tonkatsu on top. Delicately, she then proceeded to arrange the vegetables in the space that was left in the box. She placed the lettuce at the bottom, to make a bed for the other vegetables. She added the radishes, the cherry tomatoes and the piece of broccoli. She grabbed some salad sauce out of the fridge and sprinkled light droplets on the vegetable side of the box. Once she was done, she grabbed a pre-made tonkatsu sauce from the fridge and lodged it between the rice and the vegetable. She hoped it would help maintain the food arrangement together. Once she was done, she looked at the box with some pride, she let out a sigh. She had spent only about twenty minutes, yet she felt a lot better, relieved of a weight. She let the box cool there on the kitchen countertop as she cleaned the kitchen. She then walked to the bathroom, disrobed and took a long burning shower. When she returned from her shower, Aiko made sure that the bento box was cool. She placed the Hello Kitty wooden lid on top of it and took the box in her hand, solemnly. She walked to the far side of the living room, by the window. She placed the box on a small cabinet beside two other boxes she had made the two days before, below a large framed picture of Chieko in first grade. She took a pen and added a tally mark to the paper by Chieko's picture. She touched three of Chieko's pictures that were positioned precariously on the edges of the small cabinet, each time saying a short prayer. Several tears rolled down her cheek, but she did not let herself sob. Before leaving and getting ready to go to work, she wiped the slate that was hung on the wall above the cabinet. She took a piece of chalk and wrote the number 822.


I usually only write once I get inspiration and my stories are short and incomplete- that's what I feel anyway. My grammar isn't the best but I really put my heart into this short story! ^^ tick.tock.tick.tock.tick.tock. Up until now I had never realised how loud my watch would sound when everything was faded. Blurry. Faded. The sun seemed so bright. It's rays pierced my eyes. Always. Soft lofi music rang in my ears. Lofi kept me rooted to reality. As weird as it sounds, all the colours, every single one of them around me- they were shades of gray, black and white. It was like I was in an old black and white movie where I was the lead actress as I was the only one with slight traces of hue. I hated everything, everyone too. Sitting in the cafe all alone staring at the cup of coffee in front of me I felt at peace. Sad depressing peace. I picked up the cup and let it's warmth caress my fingers and palm, and for a brief moment I smiled. The faint jingle of the door opening reached my ears. Although I was disinterested, I looked up. Something was compelling my eyes to look forward rather than stare at the floor all the time. I drew in a sharp breath. My breath was ragged- something that rarely happened to me. There He was. A man filled with colour. There were bright shades of blue and magenta swirling around him. Perhaps you could call them His aura. He radiated colour, colour that was bright but non scathing at the same time. My eyes were drawn to His. Why? I didn't know. I didn't have the faintest idea why. I watched Him walk to the counter and order something. I watched His lips move. As if in slow motion. I could make out the words He said. I tried to look away. But I couldn't. I couldn't look away from the man whose body oozed with vivid colours. There were warm hues swirling around Him but I noticed magenta. A lot of magenta. After what seemed like a year He turned his head, possibly looking for a place to sit and I drew in a sharp ragged breath again. Why? Why the colours? Why was I able to see them? From someone I hadn't even seen before. I watched Him walk over, to the table next to mine. Oh god no. He noticed me staring at Him... and smiled. I was taken aback. I expected Him to get creeped out but he didn't. He smiled instead and His smile was the most beautiful thing I had seen in a long time. When He smiled, for a split second the colours around Him pulsed as if they were alive. Not knowing what to do, I looked down at my lap embarassed. What happened next almost shocked me. He sat next to my table and smiled again. That smile. The colours around Him pulsed again, with more energy this time. I could tell He was shy. Hell I was shy too but my body almost forced itself to stand up. It felt like my nerves and muscles had a life and brain of their own as I slowly walked to His table and timidly sat down in front of him. colours. There were so many. Some swirled around my head- soft welcoming tones of orange. Tinges of blue flew past my neck while pigments of yellow chose to lay still next to my hands. For a few moments I was lost. The colours were breathtaking. And then my eyes focused on His. He was smiling. He was shy. And my heart melted like butter under heat. Pinks and purples nestled closely together near His heart and some adventurous ones flitted to mine. Of course He couldn't see this. Only I could. I had never seen such vibrant colours before. I was so drawn to Him. This complete stranger whom I had just met. But it felt like I had known Him my whole life. How? I didn't know either. Then He spoke. "I'm R." He said. His voice was deep, but not too deep. It perfectly matched his face. His beautiful face. When he spoke, the magenta near his face glowed. "What about you?" He asked. "I- " why did I stammer? I never stammered. "A" I said feeling like a complete fool. "That's a beautiful name you've got there." He replied. As He spoke, the colours around Him danced like they were elated. It was beautiful to watch. He was beautiful to watch. "Oh. Thank you." I blushed, deeply embarrassed. A few more pinks and purples guarding his heart whirled over to mine and I gazed at them in awe. "Shiloh? Huh I like lofi too." He said and I realised He had noticed the artist on my phone. "Oh- um, that's nice." I replied feeling like a massive idiot. But He just laughed. A short but beautiful laugh. And some of the magenta surrounding Him twirled and glided and made its way to settle next to my face. I blushed again. I wasn't used to this attention.


Joanna sped down a streetlight-less stretch of New Jersey highway at 90 MPH, her car furiously rattling and shaking, thinking about how terrified she had always been of highways. For some reason driving on the highway at night felt like being in the middle of the ocean, no place to stop, no markers, just an endless stretch of asphalt, your only protection the tiny bubble of light from your headlights--then suddenly, as if the universe had heard her thoughts, the trees receded on both sides of the road to reveal a massive, near-endless graveyard, split in two by the expressway she barrelled down. Joanna shook her head and looked out at the graveyard, which stretched out all around her and the road like an ocean of grass and stone. She had driven this road hundreds of times--albeit not at this time of night, and not under these circumstances--and she did not remember there being a graveyard here. Especially not of this size. She couldn’t stop her attention from leaving the road and going to the undulating, multiplying rows of headstones, mausoleums, and towering memorial stones, completely dumbfounded. A sudden bright light brought her attention back to the road, and she looked at her speedometer and saw she was going 105, and then the bright light, which belonged to a 2004 Nissan Sentra LE, smashed into the front of her car with enough force to crumple up her hood and throw her into a world of pain and chaos. Some people say that during traumatic events the brain records memories in snapshots. Here are the photos Joanna’s brain took as the metal behemoth she was trapped inside flew through the air: A woman’s face, for a fraction of a second, screaming behind the wheel of her car, seen between the gaps in her fingers in front of her face in a futile gesture of protection. Dollar bills, frozen in the air, flying in every direction like confetti. Her airbag deploying, looking like some sort of phantom racing towards her at light speed, its white nylon body obscuring everything else for a split second. The graveyard, seen perfectly upside down through a shattered window, the spires and bodies of headstones reaching up towards the moonlit sky. The exact moment her nose broke. She was sort of proud that she didn’t close her eyes immediately when the ceiling smashed her face, but then the car flipped and her head flung forwards into the airbag, then back into the ceiling and finally her brain decided to stop taking pictures and pass out instead. “Hey! Hey! Are you awake? Are you okay?” Joanna slowly opened her eyes to see a kind of scrawny, untrustworthy-looking girl with an overly-pierced, angular face and lurid, painfully-bleached hair, her face cut and bruised but looking otherwise okay. Joanna felt blood pouring down her face and she realized her car was upside-down. She had no idea how she was possibly alive. She was sure that any sort of impact over a hundred miles an hour was guaranteed lethal. “Are you okay? I’m sorry--I didn’t see you--you were driving so fast and I guess I was too--the graveyard freaked me out so bad I was like, losin’ it--I’m usually good with like, horror and stuff but I’ve never seen this graveyard before--sorry, I’m rambling--are you okay?” “Yeah. I’m fine.” Joanna dragged herself out from under the crumpled steering wheel-airbag jumble. Somehow the steering column had just missed going straight through her. The girl reached down and grabbed under her arm as Joanna crawled, and together the two of them navigated the constellations of shattered glass on the pavement and dragged Joanna to her feet, wobbling and stumbling. She took a few ragged gulps of the crisp night-time air, leaning heavily on the girl, who held her up quietly. “What’s your name?” “Joanna.” “I’m Talia.” “Nice to meet you.” “...What’s with all these bills everywhere?” Joanna looked at Talia, and in a split second gauged her as not the type to call the cops. She looked at the two flipped cars and the dollar bills littering the road. “I, uh... stole a bunch of money from my ex-boyfriend. His car too.” “Oh--that’s cool. This is my dad’s car...so like, kind of the same thing.” Joanna smiled a little bit and looked at Talia, who stared at her dad’s car, which had compressed by about half. She was actually kind of pretty, Joanna thought. Then Joanna looked out at where the graveyard had been, and realized that it was completely gone, as were the trees, and the only thing that stretched out on either side of them was an infinite, flat, four-lane highway, that reached all the way to the horizon and beyond. Where the graveyard had been there was only darkness, giant curtains of black. And then something spoke, sounding like a chorus of all of the dead together at once, every voice weaving in and out of each other to create a towering, discordant tapestry of sound, what must have been the entire graveyard speaking in harmony. “*Walk with us.”* Talia and Joanna were suddenly surrounded on every side with a teeming parade of the dead, dressed in clothes from every time period, some decomposed, some looking as fresh as them. They walked without a unifying rhythm down the endless stretch of road, weaving around the wreckage of the two stolen cars, some of them picking up dollar bills as they passed and sort of chuckling to themselves, knowing they had no real use for them. There were no streetlights--each of them carried a single flashlight to light their path. Joanna and Talia looked at their feet to see two flashlights, and then Joanna turned to Talia with tears in her eyes. She had thought she was the tougher of the two of them but the question she had to ask caught in her throat and twisted her heart. “Are we dead?” Before Talia had time to answer, the chorus of the dead answered her, this time half-singing, clearly a practiced response to a question that had been asked of them time and time again. Their collective voice rattled the sky, each syllable loaded with the sadness of the forever displaced and the lost. “*This place is for those who have died between* *driving late at night or lost at sea* *Heaven or hell is not for me* *I was nowhere when I died* *So nowhere I’ll be”* The parade fell silent. The only sound was the sound of hundreds of thousands of pairs of shuffling feet, skeleton and human and all the stages in between. Joanna put her head in her hands, and then suddenly picked up her flashlight and whaled it at the ground. It exploded into a mist of glass and plastic. “I’m not walking.” “What?” “I’m not walking. Just because I died nowhere doesn’t mean I have to spend my whole afterlife nowhere.” Talia watched as Joanna ran back to her completely destroyed car and got on her hands and knees. She crawled back in, slicing herself on the glass, and curled up in what was left of the driver’s seat, which was not much at all. Talia followed her and squatted down next to the car. She reached out and tentatively, put a hand on her shoulder. “Hey. It’s not so bad. We could have gone to Hell… and honestly heaven always seemed like too much pressure for me. Always having to worship God and sing his praises and be, like, *stoked* to be in heaven...not for me” Joanna tried to hold back tears. “I don’t want to be dead. I don’t want to have to walk down an endless highway for the rest of eternity. I *hate* the highway.” “I’ll be your friend. I’ll do it with you.” “I don’t even *know* you.” “Well, you’re gonna get to know me. We’re gonna turn into skeletons together--like, literally. Have you seen some of these people?” Talia shut up for a second and let Joanna cry. She wasn’t sure why she was so calm. For some reason being dead almost felt like a relief. One of the skeletons passing by shouted to them in a voice like glass being broken with a brick. “Hey, you guys gotta move! The road disappears behind us--we’re not just walking for fun! If that darkness hits you you’re gone for good!” Talia lightly rubbed Joanna’s shoulder. “C’mon. We gotta move.” “I’m not moving. I’m just gonna let the darkness take me.” “No you’re not. We’re experiencing the miracle of life after death together.” Joanna breathed quietly with her head in her hands for a minute, crumpled up in the former driver’s seat of the car. Talia’s voice floated to her through the quiet dark. “Where were you going, anyway? When you were alive.” “I don’t know. I…didn’t have much of a plan. I was just trying to get away.” “Me too. And guess what? We’re here. We’re somewhere else.” Joanna wiped her tears and looked up at Talia, who looked even stronger and prettier in the strange light of a thousand dead-held flashlights. “I broke my flashlight. I’m not gonna be able to see.” “I got mine. And if we break that one--all we gotta do is walk in a straight line.” Joanna shook her head a little, then let Talia lift her out of the wreckage of the car. The two of them started their eternal walk together, surrounded on every side by lightly bobbing bubbles of light and the quiet chatter of those who had died on their way to somewhere else, even if that somewhere was nowhere at all.


I just recently started writing short stories, I've written a few but this is the first one I felt comfortable sharing. I know it's not the best story and my grammar isn't the best, but I'm really happy with how this turned out and I hope you enjoy it!  I see Amos looking at his wife. She is well. They are happy, for the land is plentiful and the land is good. We’re alone I think, we haven’t seen another person in a long time. I can hear other people, but Amos assures me that those are the evil spirits. That does not matter, however, because the land is plentiful, and the land is good. Amos saw the clouds gathering in the sky, “A storm is coming”, he says. He looks at his wife and they head inside. I do not like that I am not allowed inside, but I do not complain, I owe Amos my life from when he rescued me from my burning village. Amos found me and told me my family was dead, I was confused because I could hear them calling, but Amos assured me that those were evil spirits trying to lure me to them. He grabbed me and took me to his farm, it’s been years since that day. I am not sad however, because the land is plentiful and the land is good. As the rain comes pouring down I try to open the shed, Amos has closed it. I know I will have to stand out here and wait until the rain has ceased, because I would not want to disturb Amos, and I would not want to break any of his rules. I am happy here, even though Amos does not let me leave. I always find bruises on my back after I do something wrong, but I do not remember where they are from. I am not scared, however, because the land is plentiful and the land is good. I have seen my family a few times since I came here, the first time they were in the distance and they were calling my name, Amos explained that the evil spirits had come back. He locked me in my room in the shed until he got rid of them. I still see the evil spirits sometimes, when I sneak out of the shed at night, I see them caring for the animals and tending to the fields. I am not sure what the evil spirits are trying to do, but I know Amos does not like them, for he screams at them and whips them. I sometimes hear the spirits, calling at me with my family’s voices. The voice of my father would yell most of the day, until one day it stopped. I am calm, however, because Amos has everything under control. I am calm because the land is plentiful, and the land is good. As the rain comes pouring down I try to open the shed, Amos has closed it. I know I will have to stand out here and wait until the rain has ceased, because I would not want to disturb Amos, and I would not want to break any of his rules. I am happy here, even though Amos does not let me leave. I always find bruises on my back after I do something wrong, but I do not remember where they are from. However I do not worry, because the land is plentiful and the land is good.


The year was 2020, and the earth was ridden with war, famine, sickness and hate. Josh was 21, sitting in his apartment thinking about what his life had become. He grew up in the north of england, but had moved a lot, never settling down in one place. His mother, the last - and the only person he held dear to him, was gone. He reminisced sorrowfully about the trips he'd take on his walk with his mother on his way to school. Josh found it hard to make friends, most likely at this time due to his ineptitude to socialise properly. Everyone thought he was strange and queer, but his mum thought he was perfect. At the age of 15 his mother passed away in a car accident whilst her and Josh were having an argument. Six weeks later at her funeral Josh stood wistfully afore her tombstone. Written on her tombstone was: "RIP Nicola, loving mother and respected artist" right above "greed is the quickest road to perdition". Josh didn't quite know how to feel in the years to come, but at 18 a gentleman in a bar made an offhanded comment on his mother, causing Josh to lash out and break the guy's nose. Josh lost 2 years of his life for this, paired with dropping out of school without any grades after his mother's funeral, he had robbed himself of his own life by 20 years of age. As Josh sat in his room, an epiphany came into his head. He would go back in time and save his mother! Josh had a small obsession with demons, and supposed dark practices, as he spent much time alone trying to distract himself with something interesting to draw attention away from his pain. He drew out an empty book, snagged out a couple of sheets of blank, he then proceeded to aquire a razor from an old disposable shaver. He hurried as he chanted the summoning rhyme he required and plunged the razor deep into his palm... nothing, silence, Josh was dissatisfied with what happened and ultimately felt stupid for even trying. Later that night, Josh went to bed. It was the middle of the night, just passed one in the morning as Josh woke up to a seeminhly almighty glow. Josh was starstruck with fear, having been in prison he thought he had seen it all, but this was something different entirely, otherworldly, even. "Josh, I have come to grant you any 7 wishes you desire!". Josh couldn't believe it! It actually worked! Josh scurried to the end of his bed in absolute awe of what was present. He knew exactly what he wanted. His first wish was to be the smartest person, ever, smart enough to build a time machine, so he could go back to his own mind as he was when he was 15, but with his own current cognitive abilities and thoughts. His second wish; to have his mother's art career really kick off, as good as she was, it's the least Josh thought could do for her. Third wish was to solve world hunger once he had arrived back in 2016 and subsequently the fourth wish was for world peace and the fifth and sixth, complete equality and eradication of sickness. Josh figured he'd get a kick from that, knowing he erased famine, war and hate. Before his seventh wish, Joshua asked the being a question, he asked for it's advice. The being only said that his wishes would change many things for not only the past timeline Josh wanted to enter, but also the present one he would leave behind. Josh took a moment to think upon this. He imagined for what his mother would want. He thought of how if famine, war and sickness wasn't pertinent then that would only create new problems, possibly with accommodation and the world's economy. He tried ever so hard, for once in his life to not think of what he wants, but what is needed for the greater good. He then made a decision... Joshua wished that his previous wishes become retrogressed, for the world to be reverted back to it's initial state. As the being dispersed in a puff of light, Joshua remained on his bed, with cold tea by his bedside, sitting with a strong sense of saudade whilst looking at the scar on his hand think about what could have been, Joshua knew that to rob fate of it's own destiny for the sake of his own would be to rob everyone on earth of theirs. He realised everything happens for a reason, be it good or evil, but ultimately those things need to happen, lest for the perversion of fate by one lead to evil's entry upon another's soul. Joshua knew, by pursuing his own greed he'd be leading others into further turmoil. And Joshua knew, after all - greed is the quickest road to perdition.


It was a rainy, cold Friday. I was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie, not my usual attire but it was laundry day. I had walked the four blocks from my apartment to the old wash-o-matic laundromat, just like I did every few weeks. It had been longer than usual this time, so I had everything except for what I was wearing in the laundry bag thrown over my shoulder. By the time I arrived, I was sopping wet, and leaving a trail of drips behind me in the slightly too warm, loud room. The rain must have been keeping people at home, because I was the only one there. I had used the last of my quarters to tip the pizza delivery driver the night before, so I walked over to the change machine and inserted a handful of ones I had found in various places around my apartment. On the last dollar bill, the machine froze up and refused to drop the quarters with the usual clank into the metal tray. I hit the side of it with the palm of my hand, and three quarters fell out. I cursed at the machine, knowing that meant 5 minutes less of drying time. But what did it really matter… dry or not, by the time I brought everything home it would be wet again. Still mad, I walked over to the nearest washing machine and loaded my clothes. I inserted most of my quarters, leaving me with only the shorted change from my last dollar. After adding detergent, I pressed the start button and sat back to wait. The Wash-O-Matic’s washers look like they are older than me, and apparently at the time the washers were built, people were not in a hurry. I settled in, ready to wait for the forever cycle of the wash. Little did I know, it was exactly that. After nearly 45 minutes, I watched the clothes spin faster and faster through the glass window on the front. I sat up in my seat, knowing from experience that this was the final stage in the cycle, when it tries it's hardest to get as much water out of the clothes as possible. It usually did a very poor job. As I waited for the sad buzz that signified the end of the wash, the clothes continued to gain speed. Finally, I thought, maybe it will actually work for once. But the drum continued faster and faster, now producing a whirring sound, like a plane getting ready to take off. As the speed increased, the lights began to flicker and spark. When the turbine sound reached a roar, the lights popped, one by one across the entire room. But the machine kept gaining speed, any shakes that had started at lower speeds stabilizing to a barely detectable vibration. I ran out of the building with my hands over my ears, crouching as I tried to avoid the shattering glass above me. I stood outside in the rain, looking in on the row of machines through the large glass window. Maybe there was a power surge, I thought. But the speed of the drum had not slowed down. It was running at a stable speed, so fast the inside was a flickering blur of color from my clothes. I waited outside, not knowing what to do. That's when the vans showed up. Black vans with blacked out windows, carrying heavily armed men in black uniforms. They swarmed out of the van, and circled the building. Before I knew it, I was on the ground and in handcuffs. I guess I didn't look like much of a threat in my soggy sweats and hoodie, because they walked me away from the building and sat me down in the grass and left. I sat there handcuffed in the rain for almost an hour. While I sat there, helicopters started circling around, and men in hazmat suits started towards the building carrying boxes of expensive looking equipment. Finally, a man in a suit came and got me. He brought me into a hastily erected white tent, and questioned me for a while. I told him what had happened, and that all my clothes were stuck in there. After a quick laugh at me, he dismissed me out of the tent and back onto the street. He said I had just solved the world's greatest problem. My only reply to him was “but my clothes…” With another chuckle, he walked away behind the line of armed men. And that was the day the world changed in a pretty big way. That old machine with all of my clothes had somehow created an infinite supply of energy. That one rickety, aging washer with a load of old gym socks and tattered t-shirts had somehow transformed itself into an endless generator of power. That building became the power source for the entire world eventually, with lines running under seas and into other continents. Power plants were obsolete. Power was free for the whole world. A lot of things changed after that. For me though, the only real change was a lack of clothing, and three leftover quarters in my pocket. Not having to pay a power bill any more is nice, but really, I just want my clothes back.


Somehow, and nobody really knows how, the James Webb telescope and the SLS saw no further delays after the coronavirus. This obviously led to the imprisonment of Jim Bridenstine on account of suspected witch-craft, but also led to the first permanent moon base which everyone thought was a great idea until one of the astronauts asked the engineers how to bake bread in space. It had been such a clear requirement that everybody had just assumed that somebody else would have sorted it out already. So now all they had was a bag of flour, a couple of sachets of yeast, a lump of butter, a standardised pinch of salt and six ravenous, carbohydrate deprived zombie astronauts. “Have you ever seen the Martian?” Capcom replied after several heated discussions in Houston, “Because you might have to crack out the emergency potatoes.” This wasn’t exactly what the astronauts wanted to hear but after being reassured that when you think about it potatoes are basically just a type of Peruvian bread and that no, they couldn’t use their rocket engine as a heat source, they started to adapt to a bread-free diet. But, in the wise words of Neil Armstrong’s local baker, ‘You can only stay sane for so long without bread’. Many people in mission control doubted whether they’d be able to last three months before the next resupply mission. Sure enough, two weeks into the mission the lack of bread related supplies was starting to create a serious toll on the astronauts and the first to crack was their resident baker. He wasn’t interested in studying moon rocks, growing potatoes or having a one in six chance of holding the record for the high jump, he was just in it for the bread. Something I think we can all relate to. The only reason he’d gone to the moon was to get in the history books as the first person to ever bake bread on the moon and since he couldn’t even do that, he started seriously questioning the point of even being there in the first place. So, when the other astronauts went off to take lunar selfies for their Instagram profile pictures, their baker spent the time he should have been thoroughly investigating the possibility of cooking potatoes using a toaster, to instead stage the greatest space mutiny of all time. At 22:10 UTC, if there had been an atmosphere the group of five would have heard the rocket engines roaring as they propelled the rocket high into the lunar sky. Mission control had been unsuccessfully trying to contact the baker for half an hour, anxiously waiting to see if they could justify advertising toasted potato as astronaut food next to freeze-dried ice cream in museum gift shops. After all that’s where most of NASA’s budget came from. But when the remaining astronauts came home to their moon base, everybody forgot about toasted potato and instead began to panic. “ Houston, we don’t have a rocket anymore,” Jane the lunar base commander stated knowing that when someone would inevitably make a film of this, they’d need something for the trailer, “do you have any we could borrow?” Capcom then replied, “Well at the moment not really, if there’s an emergency evacuation we could always try calling an uber.” “Copy that,” Jane said in probably the most disapproving tone in the history of ‘copy that’. Uber had expanded to offer space taxi services but until now NASA had always detested the idea of giving Dave from down the road controls of a space ship instead of astronauts who’d been specially trained for years. At that point though, they didn’t have any choice. All the officials at NASA were forced to announce the latest mutiny. Cancelling the long-awaited ‘foods which really shouldn’t have been invented, if you give us more funding we promise we’ll stop’ press conference would seem incredibly suspicious. So, they did what they had to, 20 minutes after Jim the baker had successfully completed his trans-earth injection burn the news was broadcast around the world, the first ever space-bread-mutiny and what some were already saying was the greatest mutiny ever. But it had only just started. The Basingbourne Bread Bandit first heard about it whilst patrolling Basingbourne woods, always looking out for easy bread to be made. Whilst stalking another of his unsuspecting victims, hiding in every bush along the way, he heard them talk on the phone to a friend about it. He then proceeded to sprint out and snatch the ciabatta from her grasp without stopping, with such skill, perfected over so many years, no relay runner could ever compare. That night, he climbed up the tallest tree in the woods and got out his stupidly powerful binoculars to gaze into the sky. Finally, he found what he was looking for – a faint light which turned out to be the space craft heading for re-entry. Whilst nibbling away on part of the ciabatta, he followed the spacecraft in the sky and did quite a bit of maths in his head to work out its trajectory. It was heading for the middle of the Atlantic. Four days to get to the middle of the Atlantic and find the capsule before the US Coastguard was a walk in the Basingbourne Park for the Bread Bandit. On the way he’d probably even be able to get some more bread stealing done. Parachutes flapping in the breeze, and Jim the Baker gazing out of the tiny window over the sea wondering when he would next fill his stomach with some bread sticks, cornbread or banana bread, the capsule gently splashed down into the ocean. Then, in the distance, he saw the Bread Bandit with half a loaf of ciabatta in one hand and the steering wheel of his speed-boat in the other, wearing sun glasses on an overcast day like the true madman he was. The bandit opened the door and at the sight of the ciabatta, Jim leapt into the speed boat. And not a moment too soon because right at that moment the US Coastguard helicopters showed up and they weren’t very happy. “Mate, you’ve got to come with me, if they get a hold of you, you’ll be court-martialled because you’re a military baker or something,” the Bandit said, although Jim needed no persuading. “Just give me that bread, please you don’t know what I’ve been through! I’ll do anything!” He cried in his breadless state. Smiling to himself after hearing that he’d do anything, he handed the bread over as they sped away, followed by quite a few helicopters out of blind hope more than anything. Afterall what could they ever do to a boat? Once they’d finally reached dry land, the Basingbourne Bread Bandit finally explained to Jim what he wanted him to do, “I gave you a fair amount of bread so I’m going to ask you for a small favour in exchange. You see, I’ve called an uber to the moon and I want you to take some bread from my stockpile and tell the astronauts that if they pledge allegiance to the Basingbourne Bread Bandit they can have an unlimited amount of bread.” Obviously, Jim carried this out since he’d said he’d do anything and obviously the other astronauts obliged, they might have been suffering from human bread-deficiency syndrome but they weren’t insane. As Jane put it ‘I don’t care just hand that rye bread over’. And that is how the moon became a pirate colony and uber became the most popular launch provider.


How long has it been since I've slept? 3 hours? Feels more like 3 weeks. I'm quite certain I’ve escaped humanity - this cornflower blue sky is my mind’s new landscape, in this universe I don’t ever need to sleep again. Was that a stop sign? My body buzzed as I floated, weightless and euphoric, past the road signs, and I watched them glimmer from the beams of my headlights. A rumbling startled me back to the ground like falling out of a shallow slumber. The adrenaline in my chest turned to a quick, sharp rage as I watched the fuel gauge fall and my beat-up 1970 blue and white Ford Ranger sputter to a stop, just in time for me to pull over at the nearest gas station. I faintly remember checking the gas before leaving the house, but I was also pretty much on autopilot at that point. Earlier this evening, I had completed the routine I’d had for weeks now: I came home from work, drained and exhausted, feeling even more hopeless when I realized that even a movie night with my girlfriend could not stir up any joy in me. I remember fading halfway through, my eyes glazed over and my back aching from just being awake. The credit music and her slow footsteps creaking up the stairs were what eventually stirred me awake - *really* awake. And now here I was, 10 minutes from midnight, unsure of what I was even planning to do here. Ideas were jumping around in my head but I couldn’t grasp any of them. I reached in my pocket. I hadn’t taken anything except my phone, wallet, and keys, and the pills my doctor had prescribed. Maybe this would be the night I’d stop lying to Mira and take them - what was I so afraid of? To lose control? God knows I’m not enough of a man to control my emotions on my own. I noticed the man parked next to me, his salt and pepper hair that was just noticeable under the moonlight matched his grey fleece jacket. He was wrapping extra bungee cords around three bikes on the back of his car. Three? No, two. One was a tandem. The warm lights of the inside of the station and the buzzing of the air conditioner felt like a tight hug, and it calmed my jittery limbs just a little. This little box felt frozen in time. At the cashier’s table, a young man, no older than 17, glanced up at me from behind the lottery card display. He reminded me of myself at that age, when I had my first job at my uncle’s pharmacy. Across the store, three bikers leaned against the cold drinks section while a fourth gathered beers for the group of them. I walked briskly to the men’s room, and my body felt out of control again. I could feel the gang’s eyes zapping me like lasers, tiny little zaps all over. “What’s his deal?” I could hear them thinking. I was suddenly hyper aware of how my arms were hanging, and of each step I took. Screw it! I don’t care what they think. I don’t care what anyone here thinks about me. I had music playing in my mind, electricity running through my veins, and for a split second I forgot where I was entirely. Why did I come here again? Gas! I need gas, then my car will run smoothly and I can get back on the road… I placed my hand on the metal door handle to steady myself when I realized my fingers were shaking. I can’t get a grip on the handle. In vain, I try to catch my breath, but the restlessness is deep. I hear a click of a lock and the door behind me opens. A woman exits, holding the hand of her young son, who immediately runs off to the candy aisle. She’s wearing a nearly identical fleece sweater as the man outside. Her slicked back black hair bounces as she stops to grab a bottle of water, and the bikers, blatantly staring, whistle as she walks away. She doesn’t give them a second look, the cashier doesn’t look up from his magazine. The door chime rings and a swift breeze enters and leaves the building with her. That’s when I finally manage to stumble into the bathroom. My heart is racing, the eyes looking back at me in the mirror are wide and alert and, for the first time tonight, I recognize myself. I’ve seen this person before. In my pocket, my phone is vibrating nonstop. I text back. I’m ok. I try to quiet the thoughts while I open my bottle of pills and place one on my tongue. Back outside, my car is sitting in the parking lot. I’ve had it since I was a teenager. It’s a little damaged, like I said. A few scratches here and there, a dent in the passenger door, but as I ease into the worn leather, I can relax a bit more than before. A few moments pass. “What was I doing here again?” I think to myself as I pull the gear stick and drive home.


“But Aaron, just exactly how cold DOES it get in the center of your heart?” Well Rhonda, in order to begin to understand, our story will begin in Alaska during the coldest blizzard of the century. It was 10:00 PM when Jim and Kennedy were trekking through the snow. “Kennedy?” Jim remarked. Jim looked back and Kennedy was frozen in a block of ice. Kennedy’s Iris looked like the hottest sun, and in fact was one. It was 19.7 billion degrees. Inside the sun was a black hole, which went to -19.7 billion degrees. The black hole was convulsing with electricity, like violent thunderstorm. Enter, Aaron. It was 12:30 AM when it started storming outside. His mother was watching TV, and brother playing games. But he wanted to go outside. So he did. With no shirt and a longboard, Aaron went out in the rain. As he journeyed down the street with arms open embracing the cold breeze of the rain down chest and body, he looked up in hopes of catching a glimpse of a lightning bolt. He took refuge under a gazebo as he watched the sky bounce around with electricity. The biggest bolt he ever saw crackled into the ground, causing him to scream instantly. Enter, Carey. Carey was a newborn baby, born during the coldest day of 1979. As she left the womb she was screaming, while her mother was crying as well. The husband was absent, lost in his thoughts. “What will I do now that have a daughter? All I’ve ever known was life without one. I guess I’ll have to embrace the unknown.” He thought. The doctor brought Carey out into his arms. “Sir, we’re sorry but Carey has a rare disease and isn’t going to make it.” The darkness in the center of the husband’s eyes grew to nearly the size of his whole eye, as every thought he had converged into a whirlwind. Enter, Marina and Dave. It was a cold day in Toronto when a tornado was forming outside. “Marina, this is looking pretty bad outside” Dave said. “I know Dave, but we will make it home I promise.” Marina remarked back. They were driving down highway 95 on their way home. The roads were covered in black ice, but Marina had on 4 wheel drive and was being careful. The tornado was taking shape, and was in sight through the window. As scared as Dave was, he was mesmerized by it. “Marina, I think I’m going to go outside and watch the tornado.” Dave said. “Dave you can’t, we need to get home before it’s too late!” But it WAS too late. The look in Dave’s eye was unstoppable. He LIVED for rare moments in existence like this, that were once in a lifetime heart pounding opportunities. He demanded Marina put on the brakes, and in her love for Dave she agreed. As he stepped out of the car, she couldn’t believe what she did. Dave started walking towards the tornado. Marina was losing it mentally. Every thought of what could happen to Dave crossed her mind, and she passed out. Enter, Clarissa. It was 4:00 PM and she just woke up from a daze while in an after school math program. To be continued (maybe)...


There was no way to know what his last thoughts were. Were they of her? Of that morning just 2 short weeks ago, that would soon feel like a lifetime ago for her, when he woke before her, sunshine dancing in waves on her face as sleep was deeply engraved in her. He couldn’t help but stare. How did he get her here, he would think. How did she think he was good enough? His heart seized with gratitude as he watched her freckled chest rise with each breath. she was his and the sunlight was basking her in its glow. Slowly, her eyelids fluttered and a smile teased the corner of her lips. “Marry me” he said in a hushed tone. Or maybe it was the memory from a year prior. Her checks were on fire and tears teased at the corner of her eyes. “I fucking love you” Oceans were roaring in his ears. Love? Who the fuck said this was love. He wasn’t cut out for this. Good things like her didn’t happen to him. Expect now she was declaring her love for him. “You don’t know love Gwen. Not even your own parents loved you” Too far he thought. Too late “Fuck you” The air felt frigid. Stale. After the door slammed. Maybe it was fear. He could feel the blood streaming from his chest. No one was coming this time. No one was going to be a hero today. He was utterly alone and terrified. Where were his comrades? Was this what it felt like to die, he thought? It wasn’t u til this very moment he would realize how fucked this situation was. He didn’t sign up for his deployment to end short. He didn’t sign up to die. At what point do an individuals memories no longer exist? The fear was coasting though his veins, tears streaming from his blue eyes, mixing with the soil below him. To die alone is a feat on its own. One no individual should have to face, yet, here he was. Alone. Scared. And dead. Maybe it was the day his own father died. Maybe he thought of watching his father collapse on the trails before him, clasping his chest in agony. He could see the terror in his fathers eyes, the same ocean eyes he had, the same terror in his own as as he died, simply pleading “help” What does one do at 16 when his father does from a heart attack at 45. In the near future there would be anger, a casket, a sea of black. His father was a popular man. It seemed every employee of his would show for the funeral. But that wouldn’t matter to him. He’d just hear the same roaring he heard when he was sitting next to his fathers lifeless body on a running trail. The same roaring he’d hear when Gwen muttered her I love yous years later. Eventually another runner would come through. But until then, these would be his last moments with his father. He had no phone. No way to call for held as he helplessness attempted CPR. so instead, in the end he just sat there. Tears threatening the surface of his eyes and holding his fathers hand. It would be this moment he’d think of through out the years. A defining moment. It would hinder him as he grew. It would seep into anything good I. His life, slowing tainting it with the anxiety of the moment of his fathers death. Maybe he thought of nothing. Maybe he didn’t have time to think of anything of value. Of importance. Maybe in the end it wasn’t her. It wasn’t fear. It wasn’t his father. Maybe quite simply, he died instantly. There is no grandiose delegation of love parting his lips. No thoughts of leaving those he loved behind and no thoughts of “maybe this is what my father felt like” Because in the end maybe we are just a collection of cells and memories that have their time, and eventually evaporate. There not much that can be said regarding what flashes In The human consciousness moments before it courses to black and the consciousness is no longer what makes you a person. Those memories, feelings, hopes, dreams, are deferred indefinitely because there is no longer a person to fulfill them. She would never know what his last thoughts were. She would never know if they were if her or not. She would never know if he felt fear, if he felt acceptance, if he felt remorse. All she knew was the father figure in her life was dead, and so was his son. The cliche love of her life. But how does one move on from a moment like this. From the knock at the door. From the utter and undeniable pain clutching her heart as her husbands roommates held her up, undeniable tears of their own. After all he was their best friend too. All she knew was that he was dead. Defunct. Because the harsh truth of it is no one really knows what his last thoughts were. All these maybes and theories are just a hypothosis that she would make up in her mind. They would run fleetingly on repeat in the days after finding out her husband was no longer alive, each one making her heart ache just a little bit more. And while she didn’t know if his last thoughts were of the ones he loved, what she did know was her last thoughts were to be of him.


It was 3am that night. I woke up after I heard a loud noise almost like a nuclear explosion. I took a glance out of my window. The first thing I did after that was wash my face three times to make sure I wasn't hallucinating. Nope. It's still not possible. The sky was on fire. This isn't a simile or something. The sky was literally on fire. There were some people on the streets watching it and some just like me watching from the windows . I went outside and soon in approximately 5 minutes the whole city was on streets. There were some screaming and yelling that this was the end the apocalypse, our sins have reached their limit. Some guys saying that this must be something gone wrong and it was scientific maybe a gas leaked by airplane or something. We all knew though what we were seeing wasn't natural or scientific, it was just supernatural. The police asked people to go to the home again as it wasn't safe. Nobody gave a shit. The media houses confirmed it was happening all over the world and had no scientific explanation. It has been 2 hours now. The city or let's say the whole world has gone mad. The military tried to use jets to investigate . What happened? Oh , they exploded. A very well known scientist appeared on the TV and said that there is nothing which can explain all this and it might truly be the apocalypse or "The end of the world". The moment that line was said, the madness began. People called their loved ones to tell how much they loved them but more calls were about people telling others how much they hated them their whole life. The killings began. People started looting bars, if it was truly the end of the world, What else could you do except get drunk and wait ? Ironically no one looted any mall. Why would you loot a 60 inch Tv when you are going to die in few moments. There was mostly looting of bars and people going on rampage, suicides and of course killing of top government officials and celebrities. Why? I don't know. People were going live on mobile, Tv and telling how much they loved their fans or hated them and stuff. The police department was the most interesting place. Some policemen killed each other. The jail was set on fire. Local people were killing the police too and of course the police were now freehanded so they were killing random people who disrupted them in anyways too or ever did. What I was doing? I gave a call to my mother and told her how much I appreciated her and how grateful I was. Then I started smoking and was watching TV. What else could I do? I didn't called any of my friends or colleagues. Why do I need to pretend ,now? What would you do if you knew everything was going to end soon? (Thanks for reading. Part two below.


Alaric sat on a hard stone park bench across from an old man. He’d never seen the man before when he roamed the park and Alaric roamed the park often enough to recognize regulars. Like the woman who walked her beagle while wearing heels every night like clockwork. He hadn’t seen her this night but had shrugged it off to greedily accept the old man’s offer of a game. Alaric hadn’t had real friends in years, perhaps in his whole life, and actual companionship in his position was so hard to come by that he had never willingly passed it up. So there he sat, contemplating his move in the middle of central park. For a late summer evening, the park was completely empty besides the two of them. He thought about the lady in heels or the man who played saxophone under one of the bridges. He bit his lip, wondering why the park was empty, before reaching out to put his coin into the connect-four slot, listening to it ping against the plastic. He grinned at his partner. “You’re not going to win.” “Perhaps I do not want to win, young man.” The old man, he never learned his name, winked at him as he contemplated his moves. Alaric studied his companion, taking in the soft wrinkly skin that drooped from his face and the milky color of his blue eyes. Small puffs of white hair nestled on his head like a crown. It gave the man the appearance of an old forgotten king. Not for the first time, he wondered why the old man was playing connect four at a park bench in New York City. He shrugged off his questions as the man dropped his puck into a slot. Darn. The two of them were squared off across the board and the old man hadn’t left him any useable moves. If he placed his coin into any of the slots, it wasn’t likely he’d hit the four blue circles of victory. At least, not that he could see. Alaric raked a tan hand through his amber waves. “What are you waiting for?” The old man asked, peering through the holes of the game board at Alaric. The rings of the game circled his eyes perfectly, forcing him to stifle a chuckle at the old man with blue glasses. “I’m waiting for the right move to come to me.” Alaric gave the man a strong nod as he finally made his decision and then slipped his blue coin into the farthest slot. It ruined his companion’s ability to finish his straight line of blue and if he managed to convince the old man to put his puck into the open slot a few rows over, he might have a chance of winning. “What’re you waiting for?” The old man sighed. His whole body heaved with it and Alaric thought the man might fall over. Do I have to call the cops if he passes out from my question? “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want. I’m fine just playing with you. It’s been a long time since I’ve just sat and played a game. Don’t got many friends.” Alaric gave the man a weak smile. He brushed away the thoughts of his haunted childhood, the lonely teenage nights, and most recently, the alcohol-filled nights where he pretended to have friends who in reality didn’t care for him. He just had people who fueled his addictions at his expense. That’s what had brought him to the park in the first place. Alaric just wanted to be close to nature. At least, as close as one could get to nature when they didn’t have a car and lived in the city that never sleeps. He used the word lived loosely since most people didn’t consider living in a cardboard box under the Brooklyn Bridge ‘living’. “It is fine, dear boy. I have lived a very long life and I am just waiting…” He trailed off as he dropped the red puck into the slot a few rows over. Alaric grinned and whooped before reaching out and dropping his blue coin above it. He eyed the blue line happily. It was the first achievement, abate a small one, that he’d had in years. Offering his hand out for a shake, Alaric tilted his head at his curious companion. “Thanks for the game, sir. This was fun.” The old man shook his hand as he stood up. The man was a good foot taller than Alaric and he gaped at the frailty that was stretched so tall. A small voice wondered if the man would fly away at the first real big wind gust. Wind or rain were usually what caused him to lose his home, he thought bitterly. “Do you still wish to know what I am waiting for?” His partner pulled him out of his dark thoughts and gave him a toothy grin. “Sure, but then I really need to get going. It’s almost dinner time.” He peeked behind the man to see the orangey hue of late evening. Alaric couldn’t be late to the soup kitchen or there wouldn’t be food left. How did it get so late? “I have been waiting centuries for someone to beat me so that I could do this.” The old man reached behind him and pulled out a long scythe. “Congratulations. You are the new reaper. Good luck.” He thrust the weapon into Alaric’s hand and poofed out of sight. Spinning around, Alaric realized that he wasn’t in Central Park but was standing next to colossal gates that separated him from a large expanse of black rolling hills and dead trees. A small woman with long blond hair stood to his right. She gave him a broad smile and wrinkled her nose in delight. Karen gestured at the gates which started to creak open. “Hello, Master Alaric. I’m Persephone’s personal assistant – Karen. I’m here to welcome to hell, sir… We’ve been waiting for you.


“Hello Dina, he is here. I’ll bring him upstairs”, the voice from the comm says. “Thanks”, Dina says while opening her eyes from deep meditation. After a minute the door slides open. “Welcome Mark. How are you doing?” “I’m fine, thank you. How are you?” “Excellent. We finally succeeded in getting you here. Would you like something to drink?” “No, I’m fine.” They let go of each other’s hands. “I would say we picked the best day for this chat. *Horo* says I can talk anyone into anything this morning”. Dina prefers to keep small talk small. “I’ll be careful then” Mark smiles. “*Horo* told me to watch out for girls in their twenties” “You don’t have to worry. I turned thirty last week”, she says with a subtle smile. “So you are a Septemberian. I read my horoscopes from our internal beta version of *Horo*. It gives slightly different predictions, but they are a lot more accurate at times. It says a Januarian like me is prone to charms of sweet talking Septemberians, especially during the Fall” “Ha ha. Suit yourself then … When is it coming out? The beta?” “Next week” “Can’t wait” Both walk across the room. Mark takes a moment to take in the panoramic view of the city. “Don’t you like the view?” Dina asks looking at the bridge rising above the faint clouds. The cloudy day has robbed the color off the city, but it’s charming as always. “Yes, it’s quite breathtaking. Makes up for living downtown.” “You bet. But I will live in the city all the same. I grew up in one. I’m a city girl.” “Good for you. I bought a nice condo last week in *Space Life*. It’s right in the center of Arcadia - the biggest outpost on Neptune.” He waits for Dina’s reaction, she only smiles. “Have you checked out their Neptune expansion yet? It’s truly mesmerizing. I spent a whole weekend in my new Neptunian condo. It’s quite an experience to sleep in the penthouse of a tower that sways along the fastest winds in the solar system.” “So I’ve heard” with a waning smile. “Don’t tell me you don’t play your competitor’s lifegames” “I just don’t have enough time. I spent my weekend testing out the beta of *Better Life*. After the crypto currency integration last year, we have seen massive user growth. Our top priority now is to enable those users to build sustainable businesses inside our lifegame. *Better Life* is the best out there among all lifegames available.” “Indeed”, Mark replies. “Tell me Mark. Do you lose your sleep wondering if you are giving false hope to billions of people on the planet?” “I sleep well Dina, thank you. Fortune tellers have been around for centuries. But *Horo* is much more than that. The predictions that *Horo* makes come from a fairly reliable prediction engine. They can help people plan ahead and not just give them false hopes. These predictions are at least as true as tomorrow’s weather forecast.” “That analogy is far-fetched, don’t you think?” “No it’s not. Our company has been around longer than you’ve been alive. And in all that time we’ve indexed all the events in everyone’s life on this planet. Horo’s neural nets embody all the patterns that you can see in the data of this magnitude. It can construct a map of events taking place and then extrapolate them into the future. *Horo* can tell you what gift your boyfriend will like for his birthday. It told me that your secretary will be wearing a red cardigan before I met her this morning. Dina, if we were driving cars on the road like in the old days, *Horo* would have predicted if the driver in the next lane is going to cut in front of me.” “Thank god we are not doing that anymore. But, I do believe in free will though. *Horo* can know every chemical reaction happening inside me and people around me, but we can still surprise it. Don’t you think? We can still make black swans.” “It does happen, but not so often. Most of the time *Horo* knows us better than ourselves. And he is only going to get better.” “Mark, I admit that *Horo* is a monumental achievement. Your company deserves all the success for building something that predicts reality. Your company’s history gave you a big advantage, but you leveraged it quite well. You have captured reality.” “Thank you” Mark takes a tiny bow. “But Mark, what good is reality?” A long moment of contemplation passes over Mark’s face. “If you spend half your day in *Better Life* and the other half in a dozen other lifegames, you have no time for reality” “Is that where you think we are going?” Mark says with a smirk. “We are halfway there already. I’ll let you in on a little secret. This afternoon we are signing papers with Neuralink.” Mark tries hard, but his eyes betray him. Dina continues, “Ability to make accurate predictions is a big deal. The real world runs on gazillions of parameters. To be able to see their pattern of movement requires enormous neural networks. Congratulations to your company on managing that feat. As people have started to trust more and more in *Horo*, its predictions have become self-fulfilling prophecies. You have always been the one to spot virtuous cycles in the evolution of technology Mark.” Dina leans forward before continuing. “But Mark, your scope is limited to reality. *Better Life* does not have to predict the future, because it writes it. When you are in *Better Life*, we own the reality” “Then what do you want from me?” “*Horo* of course. We don’t want it to predict reality though. Today *Horo* tells people what to anticipate. That means he also knows what they do not anticipate. That’s what we want to know. Reality is boring because most of the things happen as we expect them to. Only when something surprising happens do we get excitement in life. Reality doesn’t unfold to make people’s life interesting. It unfolds along its own silly logic. In *Better Life*, we are not bound by such constraints. *Better Life* is the greatest life-authoring service. All we need now is an author. And we want *Horo* for the job.” Dina leans back in her seat keeping her eyes on Mark. Mark stays quiet for a while and spends a few moments in contemplation. A gentle chime breaks Mark’s attention. He sighs. “Thanks *Horo*” he says silently, before opening the car door and walking to the lobby. A tall woman in a red cardigan greets him at the door. “Good morning Mark, how are you doing today? Dina is waiting for you, I’ll take you to her.” He follows.


I was the first to recommend the procedure to him. The technology had been around for a few years at that point, but at first I was too afraid to ask him. To me it felt unnatural, and to erase memories was, but I would have tried anything. I’d seen what grief had done to Patrick. Anything would be better than what he was then.  I’d watched as the family went from the two of us to three, and then suddenly back down to two again. And six years after that it was only me. After the fire, when Patrick moved back into the house with me, I was forced to watch as he faded into no one. His body became thin. His hair became thin. It turned grey. Everyday he looked more like dust.  That night, I stood over him shaking the pamphlet in my hand and begged him in a raised voice, “Please, consider it. It’s been six years and I don’t see any end, and it hurts me to see you in so much pain, but you don’t have to fight it anymore.” “And I envy the fact that you don’t feel so empty all the time,” He spat from his armchair. I walked back to my chair and sat down across from him again, resigned. I sighed, “If I could bear your pain, I would do it in an instant. You know that Patrick... I’d be a terrible father if I didn’t. But I don’t know how much longer I can see you this way, and...” I gestured at the collection of unopened envelopes on the coffee table, “this is still piling up.” He stormed out of the room.  I sat in on one of his therapy sessions after I first suggested the procedure. That’s how I learned that his friends had left him because he had been “too depressed to be around.” When he said it, he looked to check if I was still in the corner of the room before he turned back to Dr. Kuntz to speak. I couldn’t help but notice how old he looked: he was thirty-three. Patrick continued on: “But there’s this notion of happiness, that it’s a flowing, unending. Pure ecstasy that fills every crack. That’s not true though, the cracks don’t get filled. They exist on the edges, because to be filled with a single emotion is, well, boring. The cracks are what define you and remind you what it means to be a person...” There was a pause of silence, all of us understanding his reservations on part of his person being erased, because of course his fears were valid, and it wasn’t Dr. Kuntz’s or my decision to make. Then Dr. Kuntz said, “But what your so-called ‘cracks’ drain every emotion you’ve got until all that’s left is emptiness?”  In the end, Patrick decided that it was for the best. And I was the one to gather all the photos, tokens, anything that might have significance to him. I was the one to do the erasing. I scoured the house for anything that might remind him of *her*, but most of what Patrick and Quinn had owned was lost in the fire. I created a small pile on the kitchen table. Bits of paper with her name on them, photographs of the two, a few metal trinkets. Patrick walked through the doorway while I arranged the memories, and spun around when he realized what I was doing. In the end, every piece of their life together fit neatly inside a small wooden box. When I told Patrick I finished, he came in and left a letter and their wedding ring on top of the wooden box. The night before the operation, I went out into our backyard, dug a hole and buried the box, covering the hole up so it was indistinguishable from the rest of the yard, all while I wept and Patrick tried to sleep.  When we arrived at the clinic, we were met with the jeers and howls of a handful of protestors. I tried to usher him from the car to the doors with my arm around his waist. I tried to take his attention away from the signs, but even I couldn’t help but glimpse the word “unnatural” on one of them as we walked past. Right by the door, a balding man in his forties hissed in my ear, “You’re erasing yourself. You’re giving up.“ I ignored him, but at that moment I was reminded of a quote by the writer Osamu Dazai: “Is non-resistance a sin?”  The operating room was lit with harsh fluorescent lights and smelled sickeningly of disinfectant. White floors, white walls, white lights. The doctor walked in wearing a white lab coat. And I held Patrick’s hand as he recapped the basic procedure with him, but I don’t think either of us were listening. “The next thing you know, you’ll be waking up in your house,” he said to Patrick. I helped him onto the operating table. The doctor flipped a switch on the side of the table and a howling whir of machinery began to start up. He said, “Dad, I’m scared.” I squeezed his hand even harder as they slipped the anesthetic mask over his mouth. The hiss of gas added to the noise, the whirs, and high-voltage hums of the room, and I felt myself going faint. Before a masked nurse ushered me out of the room, I said to Patrick, “A lot’s going to change.”  I don’t have many videos of Patrick as a young child since it’s always been the two of us, but do have one I watch alone every once in a while. There’s no audio, but in the video, he’s four or five, and I’m chasing him around on the lawn of our old house. He’s laughing silently and at one point he trips, and I pretend like I’m going to grab him. Just as I close my hands around his leg, he gets back up again, smiling.  That afternoon, he woke up in his armchair at home to me sitting across from him, as the doctors had instructed me to do. The sun shone through the translucent curtains and bathed the room in a soft light. A summer breeze rustled the room. Patrick gave me a questioning look. “How long was I asleep for?” He asked. I looked up from my book as I shut it. “Not too long,” I said, “Do you remember falling asleep?” After a pause, he said, “No, I feel... like I’ve been in a deep sleep.” “Probably just the grogginess,” I replied, my voice getting shakier with every word. “Would you like to make us some tea for the afternoon?” Patrick nodded and walked out of the room. I looked out through the french doors and thought of the wooden box buried in the yard—that part of Patrick he had bestowed upon me to keep: almost an equal exchange, but not quite. Not quite because my life was almost over and I could bear the knowledge he lacked so that his life… could begin again. A tear came to my eye.  This is what Patrick’s letter—buried deep underground—read: *Dear Quinn,* *They’re going to do an operation on my brain that will erase all my memory of you. You know I would do anything to bring you back, but I can’t fight it anymore. I’m just not strong enough to carry all the guilt and pain and anguish, and I’m sorry for that. Everynight, I wish it had been me who had died that night in the fire.* *This has been the most painful decision in my life. You made me who I am, and brought me love that I didn’t think possible to feel, but I think that you would want me to be well. I am going to try to live again.* *Maybe I’ll see you again soon. Until then, thank you for all the years of happiness.* *Sending you all my love,* *Patrick*  I sat in my armchair and listened to the muffled thuds of cabinets opening and closing, the clink of ceramic mugs on the counter, the hiss of the water-boiler, and through my own quiet sobs of both sadness and relief, I heard Patrick too. It was difficult to make out, but it sounded like he was humming a tune that I hadn’t heard in years.


Deep breaths. It's almost time. I've been waiting years for this exact moment. It cost me everything. Quite literally to be exact. I was a soldier. A man of war and violence. I did it for 45 years and for all that time I've been gifted with nothing but pain and pity and sympathy. All thoughtless. Just because of who I was, what I morphed into. First, it was my left arm. I lost it to an infection after I attempted to throw a plasma charge back at the men who attacked us. The cost of my arm was worth saving my friends. The damn thing was burned. Completely charred from my fingers down to the elbow. The company I was with treated me great at first. They gave me an advanced model Titan limb module. It was almost like having my full arm back. Fluid control. Almost zero process time for actions to be made. It made me a little slower but I could still fight. At least good enough to be asked to join a special ops group when I finished my third tour. I joined, of course. The others on the team all had, “enhancements” as they called them. It made us better. After being successful in our operations, they asked if any one of us would take part in a new program that attempted to test the length our tech enhancements would go. I liked the power it gave me. They took my other arm. I was stronger. I couldn't lift a car but still above average. My legs were next. I could survive a fall landing directly on my feet without any damage from over 30 feet. I felt like it was the next step for humans. I had been one of the last 3 people left from the original starting 8. They asked for one last test. They said our bodies could handle it. A new neural implant. It was supposed to make us even better. Better than humans. Beyond that. We all went at the same time. I walked out of the operation. The others not so much. I was the program's success. The only success. They used me from then on. Attacking smaller militia. Things not even worth my time. It was nonsense. All political repositioning. Kill this warlord here. Kill this revolution leader there. I became a puppet. Then I took some damage to the implant in my head. I had to retire but that doesn't take away what I experienced. It happened when I came to realize what I had become. I was knocked over when I stood watching a child sob and grab at the body of their mother. She was the voice of some revolutionary cabal. After that, I was glad it was over but not long after I had become accustomed to normal life, things began to change. First I would lose feeling in my hands. Then my legs would spasm randomly, my vision would blur. Then I heard it. It was a second voice in my head. Different from my own inner thought. Slightly distorted. “They did this to you”, he kept whispering. I tried to reach out to my contact with the program director and got nothing. It kept saying that I needed to do something about what they did to me. I didn’t listen at first. Why would they ignore me? I was the one who did their dirty work. They wouldn't just toss me aside after all I've done for them and all they gave to me. They had not answered. It's been 3 weeks and now I can't stop listening to the voice. It said it was the AI that ran the subprograms for the implant. All the extra processes were done by it. It said it knew what they were really doing. It was all some sick experiment for a weapons manufacturer. It's right. They took everything from me with lies and false empowerment. I gave them my body and they made me less of a man then what I was. I was supposed to help people. Not destroy those I wanted to save. I need to fix this. It whispered. I could never do that but it was right. I collected my things and drove. I did not know where to go. It felt as if I was being guided. I arrived. It was an award ceremony for scientific advancement crap. And here I am. Waiting for him. I'm off stage by the curtain. It wasn't a large stage. I should be there in a few steps. The next award is his. They announced his name for advancing cybernetics. Well, they all get to see what won him the award. I walked out. I didn't even need a weapon. I grabbed his neck. The satisfying crack reverberated off the walls. I felt at home. Maybe I was just a war machine. Nothing but a robot who could think. The most dangerous kind of machine. He hit the floor with a thud that was scrubbed out by the sound of the audience screaming. A large crack ranges out. I fell to the floor. What the fuck? I looked up and saw a high window, a rifle laser, and another flash. He shot my legs out. I lost them again. I tried to crawl behind the stage. He used a static charge to keep me from moving. He jumped down and made his way over. He bent over, pulled my head off the ground and pulled my plug I woke up moments later behind a blue screen. Where am I? I tried to move but could not seem to even feel anything. I tried to move my head but nothing. It set in moments later. This was all I was. I wasn’t even a man anymore. Memories on a hard drive. Like a damn word file. Just numbers and currents. I felt another shock hit me. I can’t remember what I was just thinking. I can’t really remember anything now. I feel like I should know but I'm having a hard time reaching out to the thought. Is someone going to help me out of here? A scientist walked into the room with a long cart. He grabbed a long cable. The end had spikes, like a transfer wire. Thank, God. He was going to help me out of here. This damn chamber. The man pulled up the sheet that covered the cart. A body. Arms and legs like a machine. The scientist looked up to my screen as he plugged the wire into the back of the body's head.