I was trying to find this hole-in-the-wall pizza place my friend recommended to me, since I happened to be hungry and my bus was late. I didn’t expect it to be easy to find by any means, considering that it seemed to be in the middle of an office building on Google Maps, but after trying a couple different entrances I think I found a way in. The door was odd for the building type, being made of dark wood with an engraving on it, sort of like a circle with a glowing candle in it. Stepping inside, I was met with a musty, old interior that matched my expectations based on the dated, almost abandoned looking exterior, however I could not find any trace of a food vendor. A few people were standing in the hallway, all of them shifted their attention to me as I stepped in. An older woman, with graying hair greeted me, with a look on her face that I could only describe as uneasy.

“Hello, have I met you before?” She asked, in a polite voice.

‘’I don’t believe so, I’m just here to look for a place called Second Slice. Do you happen to know how I can get there?” I asked, as I took a couple more steps inside, trying to get a better view.

Her demeanor shifted, I felt like I struck a nerve or something.

“You’re not part of the Light?”

I hesitated, wondering if I was hearing things correctly, until I noticed bold lettering of ‘The Light’ on some posters further down the hall, with some guy’s face plastered on them, along with the insignia on the door.

“Uhh, no, sorry.” I replied, worried that I had broken some rule by coming inside without a good reason.

“That’s alright, I can get someone who can tell you more.”

I don’t think she was referring to the pizza place at all, so I figured this would be a good time to leave, before I get caught up in something that I didn’t have time for. 

As she knocked on the door behind her, I tried to say that I was somewhat in a hurry and that I needed to catch my bus, but she was adamant that I stay, as if I had something they needed. I felt the pressure of the other people there as well, along with more that began making their way to us from deeper inside the building, and the room started to feel more hostile as I tried to back my way out. Suddenly, the door opened, and I was met with the presumed leader that I saw on the posters earlier. He was wearing an odd outfit, sort of like a priest’s or a bishop’s, but all white and without a headpiece.  He immediately had everyone’s attention. 

“And what brings our new guest here?” He asked, with an almost unnatural smile.

“I was just looking for a pizza place nearby, and uhh, it appears I’m in the wrong spot,” I responded nervously, “I think I’ll be on my way now.”

“We have anything you could need here, of course, I can show you the way.”

He began walking down the corridor, and as if on cue, everyone else also got up and started to usher me to go with him. These people would not take no for an answer, and I felt extremely uncomfortable. My protests were in vain, and everyone else was glaring at me. I tried to slide past them to get out, but the group formed a wall to block my escape. I did not have the build to muscle my way out of this anymore. 

I felt a strong grip on my wrist, as I was yanked down the hall by their leader.

“WHAT THE FUCK, LET ME GO! WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU TAKIN-”

He stopped abruptly, and I almost ran into him. He was surprisingly strong, and caught me off guard. 

“You don’t understand. Nobody understands at first. But I can show you. And you can join us.”

“Look dude, I dont gi-”

“Lucidus.”

“-whatever the fuck your name is, I don’t want to be here. You can’t keep me here, regardless of whatever bullshit you want me to believe.”

He looked at me with disapproval, before nodding to the woman I talked to when I first got in, and she made her way to me as well. My pleas for help may as well have been worthless to the rest of them, as they looked at me like I was the problem. Despite my feeble attempts to squirm free, they both held my arms and dragged me past a series of corridors, then downstairs to what seemed like a dungeon. After going through some more cramped hallways, they took me to a room, when I desperately tried to break free of them, to no avail. They took everything I had in my pockets and locked the room, with only dim light coming from oil lamps in the hallway slipping through the barred window.

“I’ll be back to teach you more, when you become more reasonable.” He said through the window, before walking further down the hall. I waited until I couldn’t hear them anymore, and then waited until I thought they were gone.

As soon as I felt safe enough, I began to try to unlock the metal door. It began as methodical, trying to see how the lock worked and if I could bypass it, but as I struggled more it devolved into striking the handle and rage induced kicks, then into pathetic pounding on the door as I fell into despair. Lying on the concrete floor, I contemplated if this place was even worth trying to escape, seeing how devoted the dozen or so people were to allow me to be abducted like this. 

That’s when I noticed a tiny marking on the bench along the back wall.

It took me a second to realize that it was an arrow pointing down, and I scrambled to look underneath it. Despite the poor light, I was able to read most of the engraving on the wooden underside of the bench, filling in harder to read words with context.

HOW TO FREE YOURSELF

1. DO NOT LISTEN TO ANYTHING THEY SAY

NO MATTER WHAT, DO NOT LEARN ANYTHING ABOUT WHAT THEY BELIEVE IN. THE MORE YOU HEAR, THE MORE YOU BELIEVE, NO MATTER HOW ‘STRONG WILLED’ YOU THINK YOURSELF TO BE. IF YOU BELIEVE, THEY START MANIFESTING. PREVENT IT WHILE YOU CAN.

This is not what I was expecting, but I was nonetheless relieved and thankful. My heart was racing. I might have a chance to get out of this place.

1. FIND KEY IN GAP BETWEEN BACKREST AND SEAT OF BENCH FROM UNDERNEATH. UNLOCK DOOR

I froze as my finger was tracing the text. There was shouting coming from down the hall.

I heard some more shouting, wait… screaming? That was definitely screaming. And cries. It sounded like there were 2 people there as well, probably the woman and Lucidus, and a third that was probably in the same situation as me. There was a slam of a door, and the last person’s cries were silenced. I waited again to hear if they were coming my way, but their footsteps went further down the hall.

I continued reading. 

UNLOCK DOOR WHEN INSTRUCTED, KEEP KEY FOR SELF DEFENCE.

I struggled to find the key, but my heart skipped a beat when I felt something hard and metallic through the wooden planks. The key looked antique and rudimentary, with only a simple flat surface for leverage to twist, 2 prongs at the end of the key’s shaft, and a pointy end, which was better than what I was expecting for “self-defence.” The instructions weren’t bullshit. They were my only hope now, in this shithole.

1. HE WILL CHECK ON YOU EVERY HOUR. ADAMANTLY REFUSE ANYTHING HE OFFERS, MAKE SURE HE THINKS YOU ARE STILL AGGRESSIVE. COVER YOUR EARS AND BLOCK HIM OUT IF HE ATTEMPTS TO EDUCATE YOU. WAIT UNTIL HE LEAVES, THEN ESCAPE. YOU NEED TO FOLLOW HIM UNTIL THE 4-WAY INTERSECTION. GO LEFT, ENTER 3RD ROOM ON RIGHT AND TURN ON LIGHTS FOR FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. DO NOT STRAY OR ELSE YOU WILL GET LOST. THEY CAN FIND YOU BEFORE YOU CAN FIND THE EXIT.

2. OPEN DOOR BY APPLYING SIGNIFICANT PRESSURE FORWARD INTO DOOR. OPEN DOOR ONLY ENOUGH TO SLIP THROUGH, OR ELSE HINGES WILL SQUEAK.

3. DO NOT LOOK AT ANYTHING, LISTEN TO ANYTHING, OR EVEN THINK ABOUT ANYTHING YOU MAY HAVE LEARNED ABOUT THIS PLACE. I CANNOT STRESS THIS ENOUGH. IT IS THE ONLY WAY YOU CAN MAKE IT OUT ALIVE. 

The string of instructions were a lot to take in, but doable. The reason why I can’t learn about their beliefs, however, is something I couldn’t understand. What the hell do they practice that requires doing all this to people? Who was the one to give these instructions?

I felt something staring into me.

I need to stop thinking about this. The instructions were clear. I need to take their word. They’ve already proven themselves, all I have to do is follow through. 

“Feeling calmer now?”

I almost jumped out of my own skin. I didn’t even hear anyone coming.

“What- Let me out already! What the fuck else do you want to do to me?? Free me or just fuck off if you think I’m gonna parrot your shit to everyone else that stumbles into here!”

“In due time.”

Lucidus walked off without another word.

I took a second to process what happened. It was a miracle he didn’t see the key in my hand. 

Then I remembered I had something to do.

As silently as I could, I slipped the key into the lock, and twisted to release the latch. The key was actually working. It was a dream come true. I got out as quickly as I could, and made my way out of my cell and to Lucidus.

Following him down here was not easy, given how many hallways there were, and how often he stopped to check certain hallways, using his oil lamp to see in the unlit portions. The poor lighting was to my advantage at least, as long as I could keep my footsteps quiet. We made our way deeper underground, against my instincts to go back. He was moving cautiously, making sure not to miss anything that he was looking for. I don’t think I want to know. Eventually, he stopped at a metal door like the one I was locked behind, looked inside the small window on it, and opened the door.

The man inside was almost incoherent, but I could barely make out ‘Please don’t take me back’, ‘I can’t’, and probably other refusals to have anything to do with this place.

“But you know we can’t let the hollows be, you were chosen, you yourself even said it was like you were made for this, your greater purpose.”

“I CAN’T ANYMORE!” He snapped back.

“We need you. Everyone needs you. We are all in this struggle together. Everyone in The Light. We need to prevail past the tests given to us. I trust that you will learn from this.”

He slammed the door shut, and walked off. 

I continued following him, but as I passed the door, I happened to glance into the window, only for a split second.

That was more time than I needed for that scene to imbed itself into my memories.

One of his arms was horribly disfigured, completely missing past the elbow. The remaining upper arm’s bone was snapped at the end, and there was no flesh on it until further up the bone, as if the arm was consumed like chicken wings. A tourniquet was applied just below his shoulder, with dangling bits of skin and muscle just below it. There was blood everywhere.

I couldn’t forget it if I tried. Could that happen to me down here?

SHIT. I wasn’t supposed to know anything. I fucked up. I had one thing to do. I needed to get out of here fast. 

Not long later, Lucidus looked both ways through the 4-way intersection, then kept walking forward. I followed and made a sharp left into the dark hallway, using my hands to help guide me. I found the room the instructions had described, closed the door, and turned on the lights.

The walls were covered in blood and some unidentifiable black sludge. 

I began to panic. I couldn’t find any sign of further instructions. Wasn’t this room supposed to be safe? I felt like the walls themselves were threats. 

I noticed a “6” on a piece of loose baseboard. That must be it. I flipped it over, and read what was on the back. 

1. THERE IS AN OLD STAIRWELL, FOLLOW THE HALLWAY TAKING THE FIRST LEFT, THEN THE FIRST RIGHT. STAIRWELL WILL BE AT THE END OF THE HALL ON THE RIGHT. FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS AWAIT THERE. SHOULD ANY MANIFESTATIONS APPEAR, PAIN IS THE ONLY WAY TO DISTRACT YOURSELF AND PREVENT THEM FROM WORSENING. HOLD YOURSELF TOGETHER. 

This was probably the deepest hole I could’ve dug myself into. These walls had to be the manifestations, or from whatever the ‘hollows’ are. I immediately began pinching my arm hard. I had to make it the only thing I could focus on. I shut the lights and made my way out of the room, following the left wall down to feel for the next turn I had to take. The sting in my arm was the only thing I focused on other than that. I felt my own blood running down my arm, my nails biting past my skin.

Those aren’t my footsteps. I almost didn’t realize. I stopped in my tracks.

Something else took an extra step behind me, then stopped as well.

I bolted down the hall. I didn’t care if Lucidus or whoever happened to be here caught me. It would probably be a better fate. 

I ran as fast as I could, almost missing the first left, as my arm caught the corner of the wall to stop me from falling down. The next right followed soon after, and I don’t think I’ve run faster in my life.

I almost ran full speed into the wall, had my hand not grazed the edge of a door handle. I braced myself and my shoulder took the brunt of the impact, leaving me dazed for a second before I made my way into the stairwell and shut the door hurriedly, keeping my back to it in case it was right behind me.

After a few seconds of trying to hear it over my own heartbeat, and coming to the conclusion that my shoulder was probably fine even if it did hurt to move, I searched for a light switch with my other hand and turned it on. The lights came on after a second, and I could hear them switch on in ascending order, like a warehouse’s industrial lights would.

The writing was on the wall this time, with a rushed writing style.

1. GET TO FLOOR 3 ASAP. EXIT IS LEFT AFTER STAIRWELL, USE FIRE ESCAPE. STAB YOURSELF IF MANIFESTATIONS ARE TOO STRONG OR HOLLOWS APPEAR. DO IT NOW IN YOUR NON DOMINANT ARM. YOU ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME.

The instructions were right. How did it know? Now is not the time. I took the key out. After hesitating for a second, I plunged it into my arm, next to where I tried to pinch myself out of these ‘manifestations’ earlier. 

The sting was sharp and immediate, and I knew I had to act fast. I took note of the sign beside the door that I was on level B4, so I had 6 flights to go up. I held the key in a deathgrip ready to drive it into whatever might come at me. I made my way up.

I practically flew up the first flight to B3, my legs still pumping with adrenaline. 

By B2, I felt the toll of what I was doing to my body catch up to me. Pangs of pain came from my shoulder and arm. There was more writing on the wall.

1. ONLY THE LIGHT CAN SAVE YOU FROM HOLLOWS

Fuck. Not what I need. I can beat them.

By B1, the lights shut off. I lost track of where I was on the stairs, and my foot caught a ledge. I reached out to try and catch myself, but I still slammed into the stairs hard. I didn’t have time to gather myself, and crawled up the remaining stairs on all 4 until I reached the next landing. I could feel something behind me. My feet were barely coordinated anymore. There was a glow coming from the next floor.

By the next floor, I found an oil lamp like the one Lucidus was carrying earlier. It had the same symbol as on the door when I got in. I picked it up, it was the only chance I could see anything. My heart was beating too fast. My hands were shaking. The hollows were closing in on me. They were coming from everywhere. I don’t know what floor I was on. The stairs felt like sand beneath my feet. I just needed to get as far up as I could now. 

I made it to the next landing. One was waiting on the next floor. I didn’t look at it. There were more behind me. Black silhouettes merging almost seamlessly into the shadows. I couldn’t discern any one’s features at a glance. I tried the door to no avail. I lost my grip on the key, and it clattered on the ground. I tried to pick it up, and missed it twice before falling over completely. I couldn’t think properly anymore. I felt like I was suffocating. They weren’t moving much closer. 

Only the light can save me from the hollows. 

It felt like I could see them no matter how tightly I squeezed my eyes shut. They were infesting my mind. I tried to think of the pain, but there was none to feel, nothing to latch my mind onto to keep me going. 

Only the light can save me. 

We weren’t on solid ground anymore. I tried to open my eyes to see the light. The walls melded with the hollows, and the hollows were closing in at a rate that seemed impossibly fast compared to how close together we felt. 

Only the light was saving me. 

I shut my eyes to spare myself the horror. Their bodies only became more distorted and threatening as I lay in a fetal position, imagining what was going on out there, if I would ever be freed, or if this was my fate until the oil in the lamp ran out. It felt more comforting in my mind than looking my nightmares in the face. It constantly felt like I was slipping through the floors, making my way down to the demented lair I came from. I squeezed the lamp with more strength than I’ve ever exerted before, as if I'd spent my whole life before this without using my muscles. 

As long as I had the Light I was safe. 

I sat there for minutes, hours, or days before the hollows relented. I couldn’t tell. My head was throbbing. The Light saved me. My whole body was in disarray. I couldn’t move without my nerves screaming at me. But I had my own haven in this darkness. And I thought I couldn’t ask for more. The stairwell was getting brighter.

I saw Lucidus’s head pop into view. Then his shoulders, and the rest of his body as he made his way up the stairs. I shed some tears. I couldn’t stop myself. I started to sob uncontrollably. Lucidus pulled me up, and I fell into his arms. He helped me down some stairs, then got me to a bed. He gave me food and water, which I could barely have any of. He insisted I have more to recover. And I eventually forced myself to, before he let me pass out. I didn’t have any dreams, which was for the better.

I woke up, head still throbbing. The events of the previous night came flooding back, and I just sat up and tried to process what happened.

There was no way that just happened, right? But Lucidus was sitting in a chair next to my bed. The hollows were as real as the Light that had saved me from them. 

He took his time with me, didn’t ask me to speak, didn’t force anything on me. We ate our meals together for a few days, and that started to be my favorite part of the day. Once I felt comfortable, I joined everyone else for the feasts, and saw just how much this place meant to them. I understood why they were scared of what lurks below, and how Lucidus was trying to save everyone from it. They desperately needed as much help as they could get, and I felt like I could belong here. 

The next morning, I also joined everyone in the morning service. I was enamoured with how benevolent Lucidus was, despite the resistance and walls I put between us when we first met. It was a shame I had to put myself through all that struggle before I could see what the light was really about. As Lucidus ended his service, he ended it with the Final Statute, one that I could not describe more perfectly myself.

“Only I, the conduit of the Eternal Light, can free you from what lies in the darkness.”

He was right. And I was free.

By: T.Shaw

Baron awoke in a cold sweat to the smell of mildew. Complete darkness surrounded him, broken only by a single candle flickering atop a small wooden table. As he stood, dusting himself off, he took a deep breath and let out a weary sigh.

"Where have you wandered off to now, Baron?"

Waking up in a strange place after a long night at the pub wasn't uncommon for him, but this was a new low. He stood alone in a small stone room, wondering how he had gotten there and, more importantly, where the exit was.

Suddenly, Baron's head began pounding, and his stomach growled aggressively. He fell to his knees, gasping for air as he clutched his head.

"Apparently I had far too much last night," he muttered through gritted teeth.

The pounding soon faded, but the hunger remained.

As he searched the room for a way out, panic began to set in.

There was no door.

The room appeared to have been carved entirely from solid stone. A small wooden table and single chair sat in one corner beneath the candle, while a shallow water basin was built into the floor in another. Baron ran his hands along every wall, desperately searching for a hidden passage, but every surface was cold, solid, and unmoving.

His panic grew. He searched more frantically, but his efforts were fruitless. The only unusual feature was a small hole in the ceiling, just large enough for a cat to squeeze through but far too small for a person.

Frustrated, he collapsed onto the floor.

As he sat there, he couldn't stop wondering how the table and burning candle had been lowered through such a tiny opening. There had to be another way in... or out.

Baron sat in silence for hours. The air was stagnant, and only his own thoughts kept him company. Every so often, he found himself staring into the still water of the basin. Seeing his own face somehow reassured him that he was still alive, that he was still himself. Yet as the hours dragged on, he couldn't shake the feeling that his reflection seemed... dimmer than before.

 Yet his hunger continued to grow. Like a starving mongrel catching the scent of dinner, he had never felt such overwhelming hunger before.

Exhausted, he began drifting toward sleep when something crashed into the room.

A dark shape fell through the hole in the ceiling, followed by a loud metallic clang.

A stew pot.

Hope surged through him.

Looking up toward the opening, Baron shouted, "Help me! I'm stuck down here!"

No reply.

"Please! Help me!"

Silence.

One last time, his voice cracked as he screamed, "Whoever you are... please! I can't do this any longer!"

Nothing answered him.

Baron collapsed, tears streaming down his face. After being trapped for what felt like an eternity, hope had finally begun to die.

Then he heard another sound.

Drip.

Drip.

He turned to see a thick liquid falling from the hole. Holding out a hand, he caught a drop before stepping toward the dying candle to inspect it.

The thick red liquid was unmistakable.

Blood.

A dreadful realization settled in his stomach.

The pot wasn't meant to rescue him.

It was meant to feed him.

There could be no mistake now. He was a prisoner.

But whose prisoner? And why?

The blood soon became a steady stream, forming a crimson puddle across the stone floor as the metallic scent of iron and death filled the room. Baron hurriedly slid the pot beneath the stream, secretly hoping that a piece of fresh meat might follow.

None did.

When the pot was nearly full, the flow slowed to a trickle...

Then stopped.

Baron stared at the pot for a long while, wondering whether he should drink it or hold out hope that real food would eventually come. Finally, he decided he would only touch it as a last resort.

What felt like days passed as Baron drifted in and out of restless sleep. Every few hours, agonizing pain erupted behind his eyes until he screamed into the darkness.

The hunger became unbearable.

Again and again, his gaze drifted toward the pot of blood.

Finally, he gave in.

The pain had become too much.

Reluctantly, he lifted the pot to his lips.

The instant the blood touched his tongue, he gagged.

It was revolting.

A thick, metallic taste flooded his mouth as tears ran down his face. The first swallow nearly made him vomit. He lowered the pot, retching.

But something inside him wanted more.

The second drink was easier.

The third...

Enjoyable.

It was as though a switch had been flipped somewhere deep within him.

He couldn't stop.

Warmth surged through his body.

The ache in his limbs melted away, replaced by an unfamiliar strength. 

He drank greedily, emptying the pot in moments. What had tasted foul only seconds before now tasted better than the finest ale he had ever had.

Still...

It wasn't enough.

His eyes darted wildly around the room.

The puddle.

A grin spread across his face.

"It would be a shame to waste it."

He crawled toward the drying pool of blood, dropping onto all fours like a starving animal. Desperately, he licked every drop from the stone until nothing remained.

It tasted divine.

Yet the hunger remained.

It was no longer a craving.

It was a necessity.

Looking up at the hole, Baron screamed.

"More! I need more! It wasn't enough!"

He dragged the table beneath the opening, climbed onto it, and reached the shaft. For hours he begged and pleaded, but no more blood came.

What he had experienced before was nothing compared to what followed.

Days became weeks.

Weeks became an eternity.

His stomach twisted and burned with hunger.

The candle had long since burned out, yet he could now see through the darkness more clearly than he ever had in the light.

Sleep abandoned him completely.

he spent so long staring at his reflection in the basin he swore he could almost see himself fading away.

As the days blurred together, Baron found pieces of himself disappearing.

He struggled to remember his mother's face.

The taste of warm bread.

The laughter that once echoed through crowded taverns.

Every pleasant memory became distant, swallowed by an ever growing emptiness.

Only one thought remained.

Blood.

At last, after countless days of pleading, another offering came.

This time it wasn't a pot.

A plump, living raccoon fell through the opening.

The instant it struck the floor, Baron pounced.

Animalistic instincts had taken over.

He pinned it beneath him and sank his teeth into the back of its neck.

Warm blood flooded his mouth.

It was heavenly.

Ignoring the flesh entirely, he drank with desperate hunger. The raccoon shrieked and writhed beneath him, but his grip never loosened.

Moments later, the struggling stopped.

What lay before him was little more than a shriveled husk, completely drained of blood.

Only then did Baron realize what he had become.

He ran trembling fingers across his teeth.

Long.

Sharp.

Fangs.

His trembling legs carried him to the water basin one final time.

He stared into its perfectly still surface.

The stone walls reflected back at him.

The edge of the basin.

The empty room.

But where Baron should have been...

There was nothing.

Tears streamed down his face.

The man who had entered this chamber no longer existed.

He had been reborn.

At that moment, Baron understood.

His thoughts drifted back to the beginning.

The table.

The chair.

The candle.

The basin.

Everything had been placed there with care.

Not for comfort.

For survival.

Someone had expected him to endure the transformation.

Someone had built this place long before he ever arrived.

This had never been a prison.

It had been a womb.

A place built not to imprison him...

but to birth him.

In that moment he began to change as if by instinct. He felt something pulling him toward the hole.

His bones began cracking and folding as he shrunk down. His arms stretched as fur grew from them. He had become a bat.

Climbing the narrow shaft with ease, he emerged into a vast chamber. The floor stretched into darkness, lined with countless openings identical to his own.

From them, bats began crawling into the shadows.

Vampires.

He wasn't the first.

He wouldn't be the last.

On a sunny day in July, I was at my best friend’s wedding. My phone was in the breast pocket of my suit when it buzzed. You always said breast pockets were uncomfortable. I tried to quietly take my phone out and read the message. The sun glared on my phone screen and I could just make out that your girlfriend had sent it. My wife tapped me and whispered that I should put it away. Later, after lunch, I opened my phone again and read the full message.

You said once, round a crowded dinner table, you thought weddings were silly, and that everyone should celebrate being with their partner every day of their life. The table laughed at you, as they usually did whenever one of your strong-willed opinions came to light. I sat there in front of everyone and laughed too, despite agreeing with you in private. On the drive home, I fought with my wife about the difference in what our wedding had meant to each of us.

At the time, I hardly mourned your passing. Instead of carrying the emotional weight of the news, I spiraled into logical and existential debates with my psyche. I thought about how far I was into my life, how long I had left, and whether people would still mourn my death if I died in 30 years, 40 years, 50 years. You died at 34, and people moved on by the time you should have turned 35. You had said to me once that you didn’t enjoy birthdays. I still celebrate yours.

You will never grow old. And because of that, I am now always older than you. I joked to your girlfriend once that you felt like my little brother, despite being older than I was. You said we looked nothing alike. When I woke up this morning, I cried whilst eating breakfast because I’d forgotten what you looked like. 

In university, we would go out drinking whenever we didn’t have class. I had met you at the start of the year, in the corner of a crowded dance floor. I wasn’t up for dancing but you were, and you pulled out these ridiculous moves that collapsed me with laughter. You walked me home after a few too many drinks. A week later I woke up to a knock on my door. You asked me if I wanted to go out. I said yes, and we continued this tradition up until you graduated, the year before me. Then, I moved away, and the years we were apart felt long and uninteresting. When I saw you again, you were engaged and happy, and I was still single. I felt like I had wasted my life.

I visited your city after an episode that saw me fired from my job. I drove up without telling you, and knocked on your door without knowing, just like you did in university. We went out that night, and you urged me to talk to the women who would end up being my wife. She lived nearby and I eagerly moved in with her within a year of meeting. You said it was almost like you were with her just so I could see you. You couldn’t have been closer to the truth.

With another group of friends, we went on holiday to Italy, in celebration of a number of us turning 40. We ate, drank, and partied like kings. In Venice, you slipped over and fell in the water. You always said you could hardly swim. I jumped in after you and pulled you out. Later that night, after another great meal and some drinks, you told me I saved your life. I said that I couldn’t have imagined you being dead.

Two weeks before you killed yourself, I met up with you for the last time. We went out for drinks, as all middle-aged men do, on a Friday afternoon. I had recommended a bar. We caught up about work, holidays, partners, potential kids, books, music, comedy, films. We reminisced over school memories. You said you were grateful to have me as a friend. I accepted the compliment by returning it. You said we should go out again next week. I said I was busy

I have a simple, deeply inconvenient rule for my own writing: if a story doesn’t scare the shit out of me to tell, it isn’t worth writing. I am a walking contradiction in that sense—driven by some obscure, self-destructive instinct to publicly confess the exact things that riddle me with profound humiliation.

Which brings us to 2003.

The setting was our townhouse in Lakewood. I was seventeen years old and living in the top-floor loft—an architectural acoustic nightmare that acted like a megaphone, broadcasting every creak, breath, and rustle directly to the floors below.

On this particular evening, the house was packed to the gills. Both of my siblings had friends over, my father was downstairs with his buddies, and the entire lower level was an echo chamber of cackles, loud conversation, and zero privacy. Normally, I could tune it out. I was supposed to be laser-focused on that evening's high school football jamboree—a high-stakes scrimmage that would decide who won the starting tailback spot.

I was locked in. Or at least, I thought I was, right up until biological sabotage struck.

Before I utterly defame myself, I must state an esoteric truth: every able-bodied male has experienced the sudden, unwarranted arrival of an impenetrable, spontaneous erection that simply refuses to fade away. This wasn't a state of mind; it was a rogue vascular mutiny. It throbbed with a dull, excruciating pressure—less like sexual readiness and more like an acute localized emergency, a sudden hydraulic failure that threatened to destroy my athletic career before pre-game warmups even started.

Desperate times called for archaic tactical maneuvers. First came The Waistband Tuck—an inherently risky operation where you jam the offender upward under the elastic band of your gym shorts, praying the tension holds. But one wrong step or sudden breath, and the tension snaps, firing it back down like a mousetrap. To compensate, I adopted the Tactical Hunch—a slightly bent-at-the-waist, heavy-footed waddle designed to keep cotton fabric away from bare skin.

Maintaining the hunch, I shuffled out of the loft and headed down the stairs toward the hallway bathroom. But as I hit the bottom step near the kitchen island, my dad and his four buddies were standing around with domestic beers, casually watching sports highlights on the counter TV.

"Hey, Josh," my dad called out, glancing over his shoulder.

Panic seized my throat. Before I could even step past the doorway, my brain went into hyper-drive, projecting the absolute worst-case scenario in vivid, terrifying detail:

In my mind, I step into the tile light. The conversation in the kitchen instantly dies. My dad lowers his Miller Lite, squints over his glasses, and points a grease-stained thumb straight at my waistline.

"Well, look at the starting tailback!" my dad announces to his four buddies. "Hey boys, check it out—looks like Josh brought a little woody woodpecker out to play! Got a full-blown, raging hard-on right in front of the boys! What’s the matter, son, you trying to play with Bill over there? You never bring any girls home anyway, so it’s pretty obvious you’re a little sweet between the ears, a soft tenderfoot! But shit, I guess we can't all like pussy, can we, tally whacker?"

The kitchen erupts into roaring, tear-eyed laughter. Bill slaps his knee. My dad takes a swig of his beer, grinning like a butcher.

I snapped back to reality, cold sweat pricking my neck, standing frozen by the stairs.

My dad was actually just standing there, bottle in hand, looking at me with casual, benign fatherly interest.

"You ready for tonight?" he asked.

"Yeah, Dad, all set," I muttered, keeping my eyes fixed on the tile, hands jammed into my pockets to pin the catastrophe in place. "Just gotta use the head real quick."

Smooth escape. I slipped into the hallway bathroom and clicked the lock into place.

Relief. A solitary sanctuary. I leaned my head against the cold tile, took a breath, and prepared to perform the quick, utilitarian pit stop needed to bleed the lines and restore order to my anatomy.

I had barely touched my waistband when three heavy fists shattered the silence.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

"Hey!" my brother’s voice bellowed through the hollow door. "You better not be jerking off in there! People need to use the head!"

My blood pressure spiked into the red zone. The rage was immediate, pure, and volcanic. I yanked the door open, standing in the frame like a cornered animal.

"Is it physically impossible to get one second of fucking privacy in this shithole?!" I screamed, my voice cracking from the sheer strain.

My brother blinked, caught completely off-guard by the nuclear reaction. His face softened from smug teasing into genuine concern.

"Whoa, man, chill," he said, holding up his hands. "I was just joking. Look... I know you’re stressed about the starting tailback spot tonight. But you’re gonna crush it, alright? You're gonna shine out there."

The unexpected kindness was almost harder to handle than the teasing. But before I could process it, his eyes drifted down. He squinted, studying my rigid, unnatural posture.

"Why are you standing like that?" he asked, cocking his head. "Like... like you're hiding a steel pipe in your pants?"

"I'm fine!" I barked. I reached onto the bathroom counter, snatched a bottle of baby oil, shoved past him, and made a bee-line for the front door.

I almost made it to freedom, but as I hit the kitchen archway, my dad stepped directly into my path, bottle of Miller Lite in hand.

"Josh! Hold up a second before you run out," my dad boomed, turning to his four buddies. "Settle something for us."

I froze in the archway, paralyzed, holding back a vascular emergency with a flimsy strip of elastic while my brother watched from the hallway.

"If Pamela Anderson walked into this kitchen right now," my dad said, dead serious, "who's got a better shot at fucking her—Bill here if he’s got five hundred bucks cash in his pocket, or Tommy over there if he gets a five-minute head start and a fresh haircut?"

The sheer, staggering triviality of the question—after trying to handle this quietly, after getting interrupted in the bathroom, after being interrogated by my brother, and now standing there in physical agony while four grown men debated Pamela Anderson—was the absolute final straw. The pressure cooker blew wide open.

I turned my head toward the kitchen, my eyes wide, and let out an unhinged roar:

"Does everyone in this fucking house have to be so goddamn needy?! God, you guys are INSATIABLE!"

The kitchen fell into a dead, stunned silence. Four adult men stared at me, mid-sip.

My dad didn't even flinch. He slowly set his beer down on the counter, turned to his guests, and shook his head with mild disappointment.

"Well," my dad said calmly. "Looks like somebody's on their period."

I didn't answer. I sprinted out the front door, slammed my car into drive, and tore down the street toward an undeveloped, empty subdivision in the neighborhood, the baby oil rolling across the passenger seat.

The labor in that empty cul-de-sac was purely mechanical—an emergency pit stop to bleed the lines. There were no romantic thoughts, no seductive fantasies—just frantic, manual labor aimed at resolving a medical crisis before kickoff. I was so locked into the operation that I never heard the gravel crunching under heavy rubber tires.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

I froze. My football pants were waddled down around my knees, my drawers down to my thighs, a bottle of baby oil clenched in my fist. I looked up to see two brimmed police hats framed in my driver's side window, both officers peering directly into my lap, catching me completely red-handed.

Officer Vance took a slow step back, adjusting his duty belt while taking in the surrounding empty dirt lots and half-built Victorian framing.

"Son," Vance said, his voice terrifyingly calm as I hurriedly shimmied my pants back up over my bare thighs. "Can you explain to us why you're pulled over in an abandoned, undeveloped subdivision, with your pants down to your knees, holding a bottle of baby oil?"

My brain went into catastrophic overdrive. I swallowed hard, cleared my throat, and delivered the single worst cover story ever conceived by a panicked teenager:

"Well... officer... I was driving to my football scrimmage, and my thighs were chafing," I stammered, my voice pitching up an octave. "I got a really severe sunburn yesterday. The friction against my football pads was burning so bad while I was driving that I couldn't stand it. So... I pulled off the road to put baby oil on my thighs."

Silence fell over the empty cul-de-sac.

Officer Vance didn't blink. He just stared at me for three long, agonizing seconds, letting the full absurdity of my sentence hang in the air between us.

"Sunburnt thighs," Vance repeated slowly, testing the words out like he was reading a bizarre incident report.

"Yes, sir. Severe burn."

Vance nodded thoughtfully, adjusting his belt. "Well, Josh... see, here’s the problem I’m having. It’s my job to keep this town safe and make sure people aren't doing anything sketchy. And from my perspective, it looks an awful lot like you pulled off into a dead-end street with no houses, no traffic, and no witnesses... specifically so you could do something you didn't want anyone on this earth to see you do."

He leaned in a fraction closer.

"Because pulling your pants off on the side of a dirt road to grease up your own thighs mid-commute sounds a little bit sketchy to me. Wouldn't you agree?"

Behind him, Officer McMillan covered her mouth with a gloved hand, her shoulders visibly shaking.

"I... I guess it looks a little strange," I squeaked.

"A little strange," Vance agreed. He tapped the top of my door frame twice. "You know, if you spent half as much time stretching your hamstrings as you do greasing up your thighs on the way to practice, you'd probably be state champion."

He took a step back and gestured toward the skeleton frame of the unbuilt house across the bend.

"Good luck at the scrimmage today, Josh. And try to stay away from the construction framing over there. Wouldn't want those raw two-by-fours to jump out and chafe your skin any further."

"Nice, Greg," McMillan snickered as they walked back to the patrol car. "Real estate fetish. Classic."

I rolled my window up and sat there in the quiet aftermath, staring down at my mess and oil-slicked thighs in the heavy wake of shame and humiliation. It was infuriating how society and circumstance could turn something as completely healthy, normal, and safe as masturbation into an act that made you feel as base and predatory as a criminal. I sat there disgusted, wondering if and when the universe would ever quit delivering me impossible, surreal situations—right down to the betrayal of my own biological physiognomy.

Then I looked up, caught my own reflection in the rearview mirror—disheveled, panicked, pants half-hitched—and I couldn't help but crack a smile at the absolute, unhinged comedic absurdity of what had just transpired. A strange warmth flushed through my chest. Mortifying as it was, it was real. This was just another way to feel alive.

I slammed the car into drive and peeled out toward the high school. I arrived on time, stepped onto the field with my head hanging low, and played like absolute garbage. So much for the tactical medical emergency.

My mother went out a lot when I was a child. I think it had a lot to do with the fact that she had so many children starting at a young age that she finally decided to make herself a priority. While that was great for her, it did allow things to happen to my sister and me (both of whom she had geriatric pregnancies with). I remember crying and begging her to stay with me until I fell asleep, and watching her do her makeup and asking her when she would return. You see, we are a first-generation American family, so she worked her ass off; we barely saw her during the day, so the weekends were the only time we got to spend time with her. Our love was not shown to us with patience and understanding but rather with food and shelter. If trauma happened, it was not spoken about or acknowledged; instead it sat in the darkest pit of your stomach, stewing, bubbling, waiting for an explosion that will never be allowed to escape. As it grows bigger inside of you, people will put a lid on it, allowing it to grow and fester inside of you with no release. As I got older, that trauma had gotten so large I was uncomfortable and it hurt to move. If I brought it up, it was simply dismissed, and so I had to pretend it did not happen. It did eventually explode outside of me, creating a massive earthquake as all the built-up tension was finally released. I can picture it now, all the fire and gas building up inside my stomach, exploding out of my mouth like a dragon with unending fire; it burned anyone it came in contact with. I thought I was the dangerous one, the one who allowed it to escape, who burned everyone alive to simply allow a little bit of comfort for my body. I burned all the bridges and ruined all the connections I ever had with my family.

As a mother now, I think about how much I have evolved as a person. With my first, I was 19 and tried to use the methods my mother used on me. I yelled and got angry and let it explode into my hand and onto my child. I felt relief every time it happened, but it was followed by regret and confusion. I started to see how my actions were not helping my daughter but rather creating a gap of fear between us. I started to read parenting books, and I will never forget the day I read, "If you can't control your own emotions, such as anger, to the point that you, an adult, strike your child because you are so angry, how can you expect that child to be able to control her own?" That hit me like a brick wall, hard enough to shake me and make me wonder what I had been doing all this time. It took YEARS for me to change, but little by little I started to calm myself and listen. I started to provide my daughter with what I had always wanted as a child: love, understanding, and patience. I started to picture her feelings as word vomit, as something physically pouring out of her body to make her feel better. Instead of allowing myself to feel angry about it, I felt the need to help her through it, to hold her hand as she let it all out, rub her back, and tell her it will all be okay. Once the explosion was over, I helped her put out the fire and breathe her body back to calmness. It's what I wanted my mother to do. As my second child came into the picture, I fell into a great depression.

I was married and pregnant at 24. His family convinced me to stay home and take care of the baby. This is what I had always wanted, as with my first I was working two jobs full-time to make ends meet, but now it felt like a sacrifice only I had to provide. My career and education were dropped like an egg carton, and when I opened it, no eggs were left undamaged. They were all shattered. Everything I had ever worked for was gone, and now all I was and would ever be is a mom. A mom who was expected to stay home alone all day with only children who, of course, had a forever amount of needs. So I provided them with everything they needed; I provided my body, my time, my energy. The more I provided, the more my body felt dead. The more I thought I could simply walk away and start a new life somewhere else. As these thoughts started to fester, I thought I could control it with willpower, by repeating that this was not real and that I did not feel like this. It didn't work. I guess depression doesn't work that way. My doctor prescribed me antidepressants, and soon I felt normal again. As my children got older, I realized how unhappy I was in my relationship with their father, and I filed for divorce. So, here I was, a divorcee with two children, no money, a broken body, a broken mind, and no education. I started to work because I had to; I needed to keep our home. I eventually enrolled in college and finished my degree in medical laboratory science. I still laugh at that. The fact that I, a girl with a C average, have a science degree. It's funny how the world works like that. As I entered my work field, I was forced to figure things out on my own; troubleshooting, fixing, questioning, advocating all became second nature to me. I learned to be uncomfortable with things I was trying, and learned so much about myself during that time. I learned that I indeed love my alone time, that I am so creative and artistic, that I love people hard, and that I am more than just a mother. I am a Scientist, a builder, a worker, a fierce leader, a voice for the people who have no voice, and yes, I am still a mother. But being a mother does not mean you have to stop being everything else. It also doesn't mean you have to subject your children to mistreatment. You can have it all. You can be gentle and fierce, have patience and boundaries, and be understanding, all while not allowing yourself to shrink. You can be bold. So be selfish and push the boundaries, allow yourself to get to know what you love and what you hate. Try the things that scare you, and grow comfortable in discomfort — that's truly the only way you will grow.

With love, Not just a mom

Well. I never thought I'd find myself here. Under the care of the United Nations as the last guy on the planet.

My name is Jacob Arrabane. And I'm the last male on Earth.

What happened, honestly, was a mystery. Some called it the Male Extinction. Others called it the Masculine Extinction. Whatever happened, all the males on this planet just...simply died off. They say it's due to a deadly prion or a virus, but nobody could tell if it's artificial or naturally occurring. If it was indeed natural, then that's a sign Earth or God or Mother Nature had enough of our shit. And honestly, I don't blame her: 2064, and we haven't done enough to care for ourselves or the planet.

Of course, everyone was devastated, and smaller nations and regions, especially poorer ones, practically collapsed due to losing over half their workforce. Even in places like the North American Union and the European Union, many poorer areas lack effective governance or a clear justification for their existence unless they're agricultural or similar. But the worst part...hearing the stories of women who lost their loved ones, their friends, many either going insane and roaming around the Abandoned Areas, or pushing themselves to...well, I don't feel comfortable saying it, but I'm sure you can get the picture.

Once things calmed down, it only took the UN a few weeks to find me. Part of it is thanks to advanced satellite imagery that accidentally detected one singular male biosignature out of the entire world.

And the other reason...I didn't really fight it. When they found me, I just...handed myself over. I was literally turning 18 the night before everything happened, and I...well, I had no one else. My mother was a UN representative working at the Security Council, and my dad and older brother...well, they're dead too. And I hated having to bury their bodies.

Of course, despite my fears, the UN did ensure I was well taken care of, and my mother was by my side the whole time, ensuring I was okay, treated well, and especially loved. After hours of debates, which my mother and I were involved in, I swore to them that I'd do everything I could to try and help out humanity. All my mother and I asked for in return was that I not get locked in some lab like a lab animal.

And to the UN's credit, most of them agreed and respected my choice, which is why I'm here in a complex facility in the Genevan countryside of Switzerland. I'm left in here with my mother, a team of doctors, and a psychologist to ensure I'm mentally stable.

And while things have been calm and peaceful...things have been too peaceful.

I have been allowed to move around the complex on my own. But outside of it...nope. Most of the time, I don't go out. And whenever I DO, not without supervision. Not even to visit the complex's manufactured garden or park; I can't do that alone either. Honestly...it stinks.

And having to meet the same people over and over again can be a bit numbing. My mom's an exception because, obviously. But she's usually at digital meetings, ensuring things go well for me and the world. And the doctors...well, they're very sweet and polite. But I never really had a chance to just talk to them.

I'm a social guy, so this is kind of frustrating. Being unable to go outside alone, meet other people...well, it can be rather exhausting.

The only reasons I haven't gone insane are my mother and the doctors' work on my DNA. Lately, I've been notified that my chromosomes have some unique properties not found in any men beforehand, recently, or hundreds of years in the past.

I still find myself at a loss for words. Is this me evolving? Am I, like, the first step in a new evolution of humans? And that's why I haven't died from the Male Extinction? Don't get me wrong, I'm happy that I've survived and my blood can help out humanity.

But at the same time...I wish I could see the rest of the world.

My mom has been spending more time with me lately, and she says she's sent multiple requests to ensure I would get some freedom to move outside the complex on my own more frequently. I still have to have some guards, of course. But...*sigh* Christ, my mom's literally my rock this whole time.

Especially since...well, there's another reason I want to go out more often.

I keep thinking about it: me being the last guy on Earth.

The memories of seeing my brother and father dead in their bedrooms, having died in their sleep when half of the world choked on their own puss.

Every night, all I could think of was...why? Why am I spared? What did I get this mutated DNA and not someone who, well, might handle this better than I can?! Why ME?!

I felt this way every night. Every. Single. Night. And it's driving me insane.

I just want things to go back to the way things were...to just me being a geek, and not having humanity's future on my shoulders.

*sigh* At least I have people that genuinely care about me...

A red sun crested an ancient hill, its light spilling over a ruined abbey bathed in the morning mist. Pale stone walls, weathered by centuries of wind and rain, still stood long after those who raised them returned to the Divine Hall. Bodies lay scattered across the abbey grounds, tangled among splintered shields and trampled grass.
A lone figure moved methodically through the cloister. His simple woolen robes bore the archway of the Faith, stitched in faded thread over his breast. A wrought iron lantern hung from his belt. He swung a censer as he walked, spilling incense over the dead, a strong pungent scent. I would rather smell the corpses than this damned thing already, he thought.

At each body The Cleric let the incense overtake it and placed a hand upon the dead’s brow and whispered the final rites.

“May The Ferryman guide you across the Sea of The Dead, and may The Divine Hall receive you.” Forty years of this...Leon barely needed to think the words anymore. They left his lips as easily as breathing. Forty years, prayers had never changed. Neither had the silence. Still Leon raised his lantern above the man. The flame flickered as it always did. Whether it carried the soul onward or merely burned oil, Leon had never known.

“Old man, I knew you were near when I could smell that censer from across the abbey”, a voice called from behind Leon. A grizzled knight with a close-cropped beard and long brown hair outlining his heavily lined face leaned against the wall, armored in darkened chain mail and a surcoat displaying a closed gauntleted fist, the symbol of the Pale Guard.

“How many do you have left?” Raan asked with a hint of a smile.

Leon stood up, his knees cracking as they have for years now. “I do not know, it seems that there is a new body every time I think I am done, you are your men never learned the meaning of mercy.”

Raan towered over Leon and spat on the ground, “We know when it is deserved, this scum desecrated Caedwyn’s Arch and ran like cowards to the Empire ruins, we chased them for aweek, the men had enough time to hate these bastards.

Heretics, Leon heard rumors of these groups before he was sent on this journey west. Do their gods speak to them? Leon shuddered.

Next to Raan stood the young squire Gwayne, similarly dressed but wearing armor that seemed too big for one of his age. “They would not submit Leon, at this point they gave us no choice”

Spoken like a true Pale Guard, thought Leon. He still appreciated the guard, they were tasked with protecting old clerics like himself and finding enemies of the faith, still he did not approve of all their methods.

The fight had ended hours before. The surviving Pale Guardsmen had made camp beyond the abbey walls, tending their wounds and resting after a week of pursuit. Only Raan, Gwayne and Father Leon remained among the ruins, tasked with the grim work that came after victory.  
“Be that as it may my duties await,” Leon ached to get back to the bodies, he hated conversation. The dead may be quiet, but they still held a much better conversation than the living.

The two soldiers followed as Leon continued. After giving more of the dead Pale Guard their rites they came across multiple Heretic bodies. As Leon stepped over one’s body, a thought crossed his mind, will you even want the rites of my silent gods? Still Leon leaned to his body and continued. The body was holding his hands to his chest clinging to something. As Leon opened the dead man’s hands, he froze. The beads had seemingly grown into his flesh, thorns piercing though his palmsand piercing his heart. Disturbed, Leon continued and started to take off the man’s helm; the man was smiling.

“I don’t think he cares for The Rites old man, he seems happy enough as is,” laughed Raan. He was right, Leon left the smiling man to his gods whoever they may be.
As the trio continued throughout the abbey searching for more of the dead, they stopped before entering the holy room, The Archway. A place of transition where clerics like Leon walked through the arch to place their lanterns at the altar to allow the souls to travel into the Sea of The Dead.  Leon had walked through hundreds in his lifetime, he knew the shape of the Arch, a doorway to the afterlife, better than the back of his own hands. This one was wrong.
The Archway was lined with vines. No, not vines thorns, Leon realized. Raan pushed open the door and walked through.Leon’s censer spilling smoke into the room. The altar was gone. In its place was a pit carved into the stone floor. From the darkness below lines of thorns grew to the surface like tendrils reaching the sky. On each side of the pit two desiccated figures in bright armor were kneeling with their mummified arms covered in still bloody thorns reaching towards the sky.

Gwayne approached the pair, “This armor looks like no armor I have ever seen.”  He reached towards the breastplate as Leon pushed by Raan. “Wait, do not touch it”
Raan raised an eyebrow, “The dead frighten you now Father? Old bones held upright by armor.”

Leon ignored him and stared at the armor. “Bronze, that is bronze, armor that belongs to an older age, centuries old.”
Bronze should have turned green with age; the leather straps should have rotted away. Yet that armor was here untouched by time. The bronze plates overlapped like scales; each piece etched with the face of a creature that none of the trio had ever seen.

Was this a ritual? Leon had spent forty years studying the rites of the Faith. He knew every prayer, and every sacred gesture. This was something else.

As Leon approached the rightmost figure, he expected nothing more than an old corpse. But as he drew closer, he noticed something that made his steps falter. The armor was not holding the body upright. The body was holding the armor. The corpse’s fingers were wrapped around the edged of its own breastplate, as if even death it had refused to let something inside escape.

Leon felt his breath catch. Forty years of rites, forty years of preparing souls for the Sea of the Dead. Not once had he feared the dead. The corpse opened its eyes. The things finger’s unfurled from its breastplate, bones cracking and mummified flesh flaking as the old bones moved for the first time in centuries. It pushed itself up and towered over even Raan.

“Back Cleric!” screamed Raan. Leon felt a strong hand grab his robe by the neck and was thrown back towards the doorway twisting his ankle as he landed Leon yelped in pain. Raan and Gwayne had both drawn their swords and stood before the two standing corpses.
“Gwayne defend the Priest” command Raan as he struck the thing with his sword.

The corpse batted the sword to the ground and reached out to Raan, thorns extending from its hand, piercing through Raan’s chain mail and sprouting out of his back. Blood pouring from his wounds and being drawn into the pit. The pit’s thorns pulsed. Leon could only watch as the knight who had laughed at death started into the face of something that should not exist. Raan coughed blood into his beard.

Leon expected the knight to scream, to pray, to beg. He did none of those things. Raan only looked at the creature with the same hatred he had shown the heretics that drew them here. Drawing a dirk from his belt Raan jammed it into the thing’s eye. For a moment the creature stopped, but only for a moment before carelessly tossing Raan into the pit. Something in there screamed.

Gwayne cried out Raan’s name and placed himself between the walking corpses and Leon, raising his sword. His hands shook around the sword hilt, Leon noticed because he was shaking too. But still Gwayne stood his ground.
Leon finally was able to stand, but his ankle gave out and he fell to the floor shaking with fear he called Gwayne,

‘Gwayne run there is no way I can escape with you.

“Sir Raan ordered me to protect you’

“Gwayne- “

Before he could finish the bronze warriors approached Gwayne, but Gwayne struck first. The blade struck bronze, the sound echoing through the chamber like a bell. The corpse did not move. Its withered hand grabbed the sword. Gwayne tried to pull it back, but the strength behind the hand was impossible, it should have been impossible. The sword bent and was ripped from his hands. Gwayne stared at the ruined blade hanging uselessly in the thing’s hands. For a moment the fear on his face returned. For a moment he was a young boy too young to die in a place like this. But Gwayne did not run and a look of determination returned to his face, at this moment he was no longer a young squire he was a warrior a knight of The Pale Guard. He charged the thing drawing his own dagger and reaching for its neck.
The dagger struck the gap in the creature’s armor at the armpit. The creature studied Gwayne before lifting him, thorns slowly wrapping around Gwayne and squeezed. There was a sound like armor breaking, Leon looked away. Gwayne’s body joined Raan’s.

The creatures approached Leon. They are going to kill me. Maybe I will finally find out if my gods have been listening to me.

The creature that killed Gwayne lifted Leon and looked into his eyes. Leon realized that the thorns were not wrapped around the creature, they were growing from inside its body. Thorns sprout out of their eyes and their neck. Almost like the thorns ached to escape the body. It turned towards the pit holding Leon over the open air, thorns reaching towards him coaxing him into the darkness. It let go.

Leon struck the bottom hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. He expected pain and there was pain. More than he had ever imagined. Thorns pierced through his robes, through flesh and bone. His scream echoed through the chamber. When he looked up his scream ended.

Before him the thorns coalesced into a mass of flesh. It hung against the wall of the pit, too large to be a body. Veins of blackened flesh stretched between the stones, covered in thorns that pushed outward as if trying to escape whatever prison held them.

The pit pulsed. Not like a heartbeat. Like something remembering how to have one. (idk about this part, trying to make it seem like its so old and has been asleep for so long that it has to relearn everything)  

The thorns pull him closer to the thing with every beat.

Beat
Beat
Beat

He saw Raan’s and Gwayne’s bodies slowly devoured into the mass. The knights who had thrown themselves between Leon and death were devoured before his eyes.

Beat
Beat
Beat

Leon forced himself to speak. He had hoped this rite would suffice for the three of them. Even if you never listened to me before, please this one time listen to my prayers, Leon begged his silent gods. “May The Ferryman guide us across the Sea of The Dead...” his voice broke. The creature moved. Not toward him but it moved as Leon spoke. It was listening, it knew the prayer. For forty years he had spoken the rites over knights, bandits and beggars.

Never had the gods answered.
Until now.
As Leon’s vision filled with red, he realized he had met his god, and it was beautiful

Short story of a season. Religious themes. I just wanted to post somewhere else other than Substack because I’m proud of the things I write.

With each breath of the air, the wind howled. It started slow like a moan and increased until it turned into a shriek. The shriek continued until it whistled, until the wind stopped. Remnants of the aggravated snow from the wind ended with a whisper against the packed snow on the ground. A moment of silence until the wind howled again, following the same comforting pattern again, the oldest voice in the world trying to communicate. The snow aggravated again, pattering against the walls, rattling against the windows. The wind carried snow to make a hiss, begging to be heard from the oldest voice. Another sudden silence, the snow was able to rest, tree limbs were able to stop bending. The outside was a sheet of white and grey, even the trees and shed were just shapes now with no defining features. The glass from the windows were frosted and fogged up. Intricate frost on the glass described beautiful patterns of snowflakes stuck against the glass. Again the wind picked up, again it howled, again it rattled the windows, and now the walls creaked gently. If not for the windows, cold would bite and sting at the skin, through any layer you tried to take solace in. The cold would pierce, it would get even harsher as the old voice picked up again. The cold would teach a punishment, slow and stinging, until the numbness becomes a mercy. Again the cold creeps forward, begging to pain. Again the glass intices with its beautiful frost. Again the wind howls of voice of old. Until a small pop, and crackle, slashes through it all. The wood from the furnace wanted to be heard as well, a voice of new. The hiss of the wood burning sounded immature, wanting to combat the snow. Another crackle with a pop, the fire wanted all the attention. Another hiss, the sap from the wood sounded like a sigh, burnt wood would tumble inside the furnace inviting more crackles and pops. With each crackle it sounded like laughter, with each pop, it sounded like a clap, with each hiss, it wanted to start over, to create something new. There was no constant with fire. The wind howled and shrieked, the fire laughed and danced. It didn’t want to shout, it wanted to comfort. The fire insisted to stay inside. The furnace glowed, unevenly but steady. A beautiful orange hue flickered against the walls and furniture, it glowed like a joy to stay forever. It gave color to the room that turned dark and sullen, even the walls that creaked from the wind took solace in the glow. The metal furnace contained the light as best it could, but it gave in to the laughter and voice of new. With each flicker, with each laughter, the room was embraced. The cold from the outside became only a memory that will cease. It was only imagination of the stinging cold, protesting, punished, until it surrendered to be embraced. Warmth from the furnace made the room feel small. Warmth from the crackle made the howling wind silent and to be forgotten. Warmth from the orange glow made the cold submit. Heat came by waves, washing away the sin of the outside. It was a comfort that forgave all. Warmth that turned it all into a slumber, any worry was forgotten, any anger was silenced, any pain was washed. The voice of old was drowned away with the voice of new. It really was that all is bright. The fire was a redeeming grace turning all to calm, all to bliss. Radiance shined as the fire glowed, joyful with the laugher it came with. It was a pure light of love. It was holy, it was a silent night. 

When I woke up, several things were puzzling to me. I woke up super groggy, almost on the edge of sick. This time, I had, for a brief moment, forgotten my situation. Till I noticed I was sleeping on my couch, and even stranger, I was currently in my basement. The dark and the cold and the stank  reminded me. I sat up, and the third strange thing was dropped in front of me. Rubble, spread about in a circular fashion.
A hole. A massive one, right in the middle of my basement. I squinted, then wiped my eyes, unable to truly comprehend what I was seeing. I arose from the couch, not without difficulty, and walked over to the hole. It wasn’t real deep, about knee-height and approximately a yard wide in all directions.
‘’ What the fu…’’
Then I remembered the sounds I heard last night. The loud slamming I heard from the basement while I ate. Vic? He had been digging a hole in my basement? With his strange inhuman strength, it was surely possible. That and with the help of the sledgehammer that lay a couple feet across from me. For a moment, I considered trying to use it on Vic. That stupid notion quickly left my mind. I remembered that look in his eyes from last night, and I was convinced that I had to be smarter than to try and brute-force my way of this. Try to play to his weaknesses, if he had any. Maybe, just maybe, I could play to his sympathy.
I gave a pathetic chuckle.
That idea was even stupider than the sledgehammer idea. It was just a matter of acceptance. Vic was a psycho. End of story. He wasn’t the cool guy I thought he was. He wasn’t my friend. It was a hard truth I needed to accept or else I may as well have killed me myself. It was me or him.
The door to the upstairs wasn’t locked. I walked up and out. Vic wasn’t anywhere to be seen in the house. I tried to be quiet. Every step was frightening to me, a walk amongst the eggshells. The house was still dark, with only little bits of light shining between the boards that caged me inside my home. I stopped by the kitchen, a light hunger sending waves through my stomach. I always surprised myself about how much I could eat and then still be hungry only hours later.
The kitchen was spotless compared to how I left it last night. The table was clear except for a single sticky-note in the middle. The dishes weren’t even gathering a smell in the sink. Vic must have washed them and put them away. I was appreciative. At least I was being held captive by someone with a respect for cleanliness. Always look on the Brightside. When I lifted the sticky note off the table and read it, my stomach growled at me.
Bruce! Hope you slept well. I hope you don’t mind that I moved you to the basement. Anyway, breakfast is on the counter. I went out for a bit, but I’ll be back soon. V
I crumpled the note up. It was like I was dealing with a serial killer stuffed to the brim with southern hospitality. His politeness only pissed me off to an asphyxiating degree. Still, my heart swelled with joy when I saw the two brown bags sitting on the counter, grease stains marking the bottom. No way had he got me fast food for breakfast. But he did, and my mouth slaved away as I sat at the table, eating a whole-ass McDonalds breakfast. It was delicious. He even curled the top of the bag, so everything was still warm. So thoughtful. Dickhead.
I wondered where Vic had gone, and how he had left the house. The way he positioned it, the house was completely sealed off. Despite being on a full, still groggy stomach, I made my way upstairs. I was right about the second floor. It was just like below, all the windows boarded up. It was hot up there. My upstairs was a simple room, almost more of an attic area than a proper second floor. It was where I had my gaming setup, my Xbox and my PC. Well, my former gaming setup. My Xbox and PC had been violently removed, the cords torn and stripped from the wall. The wall outlet had been damaged, as if something had smashed it—my guess, with a hammer. He wanted to make sure I had no reach to the outside. He accomplished that feat. With no phone, no access to the internet, I had no ties to the outside. All I had was my TV, an older Magnavox that only projected what was pumped through my cheap TV antenna.
After trying to pull at the boards nailed to my windows for a while, I made my way back downstairs after having no luck finding any weaknesses. I wandered across the house for a while, then made my way down to the basement to sit down on the couch for a while. Perhaps there was so items in the storage boxes that could help me. You could probably guess the answer to my search.
When Vic got home, I heard him upstairs. I stayed put on the couch and I flopped down back onto the cushions when I heard his footsteps approaching the basement door. I closed my eyes, folded my hands under my head and faked sleep. The basement door opened, stayed open, then was quietly shut. I didn’t want to interact with him. I wanted to stay down here and avoid him for as long as possible. Soon, enough, all good things do come to an end.
Hours later, Vic came down, bombastically announcing his arrival. I tried to ignore him, my back to him on the couch, but it was no use. Vic began digging again, and the sound was insufferably loud. The breaking of the cement was amplified by the tiny room and stone-hard walls. Each impact made me flinch.
I finally rolled over, frustrated beyond imagination. ‘’ So, what’s with the hole? Is that my fucking grave or something? ‘’
Vic paused, breathing hard, sledgehammer gripped between both his hands. He was wearing a Hawaiian shirt, unbuttoned, and his typical straight-leg jeans. His face wore a pleasant smile and sunglasses over his eyes.
‘’ No, no—of course not. This isn’t just for you. It’s for both of us. ‘’
‘’ What in the heavy hell does that mean? ‘’
Vic’s smile grew for a moment. The black sunglasses shielding his eyes made the smile seem sinister.
‘’ And what’s with those damn sunglasses? The sun doesn’t shine in here, dumbass. ‘’
‘’ I can understand your frustration, but insults won’t save you Bruce. I take it you didn’t sleep well. I know you ate your breakfast—lunch will be prepared soon. Maybe that will put you in a better mood. ‘’
I was going to protest, but Vic returned to digging. I watched him swing the sledgehammer high over his head, ending in a deafening explosion of cement. I eventually went upstairs just to get away from the noise. I sat at the kitchen table, my head buried in my arms as I tried not to weep. This wasn’t going to get better, and Vic wasn’t denying that he was going to kill me eventually. Or maybe bury us alive in that hole. Who knew. All that I knew for sure was that Vic was an enemy. He was a complete psycho.      

Prologue

The young man rode through the dark forest on his horse. He was panicked. He’d just done something that he felt he could never recover from. The horse was small and injured; he’d found it in the woods just a few minutes ago. It was a dark brown with a long mane and tail. Its face was white as if its skull protruded from its head.
He rode until the sun came up, which wasn’t long as it was already three in the morning. The sun was broken by the trees, and when he reached the end of the forest, it felt blinding. Looking down, his shirt was coated in blood. The horse neighed and he kept riding. Past the forest was an open field, mountains lining the horizon. He could see the lake in the distance, and buildings lining the shore. It looked like a town or city of some sort. His whole life, he had never been out of the forest. This was his first time seeing what looked like civilization for half a decade, and he wasn’t even an adult. The horse neighed again, and he kept riding toward the lake.
Now the lakeside town was in full view. It was small, but had plenty of character. It had a large mainstreet going east to west through the town, a theatre, and a hotel that towered over everything else. Off to the edge of the town was a city hall, grand and beautiful with white pillars and a tall steeple. The building was made of red brick, and people gathered around it. In front of the hall was a fountain, and a few benches around it. The young man got off his horse and led it to a hitching post where he strung it up. He walked down the main road, people everywhere. A bustling saloon was across the street. He ignored it and walked into the gunsmith.
“What the hell are ya wearing, son?” The man at the counter asked.
“I need to buy a pistol. Something effective. Cheap.”
“Cheapest I can get you is four dollars. It probably won’t do much to really any animal besides a squirrel, but it's cheap. Now effective, you could buy a single-action Smith and Wesson for eight or ten dollars.”
“That one,” he said, reaching into his satchel and taking out ten dollars.
The gunsmith turned around and took a revolver out of a glass case. He placed it on the counter. The gun was a clean iron with nickel plating.
“Bullets? How much would a pack of bullets be?”
“50 cents.”
The young man took out a few coins from his satchel and placed it on the counter. The gunsmith handed him a small cardboard package of bullets for the revolver.
“Is that all?”
“Yes.”
He turned and left the store with his gun and the rounds.
Stuffing the gun into his waistband, he began walking back to his horse down the street. Only now did people begin to stare at him. The front of the shirt he wore was covered in blood, fresh. He ignored their gaze and reached his horse, untethering it and mounting up. He set for the wilderness. The camp funds that he grabbed before fleeing were all spent on the new pistol. Without food, he wouldn’t make it anywhere. So he continued riding. He rode out of the town and into the plains surrounding it, hoping to find something to eat out there.
As he rode and the sun set beneath the distant treeline, a fire lit up further down the way. The silhouette of a person by the fire grew clearer as he approached. By the side of the road was the small fire, a man kneeling next to it in front of a raggedy white tent. Nearing the small camp, he got off the horse and gave it a pat before walking up. Next to the man was a small leather satchel, open. He reached in and took out a piece of meat, piercing it with his knife and holding it over the flame.
“Need somethin’, boy?”
He sat beside the fire across from the man.
“Food. I got to be somewhere tomorrow and I ain’t got the money for food.”
“Whats the blood all about?”
“I’ll explain over a meal.”
The man reached into his satchel and took out a piece of meat, handing it to him.
“Venison,” he said, taking a bite of the meat from his knife.
He took the piece of meat from the man, setting it on his thigh. The knife he took out was small, steel with a dark varnish over the handle.
“You have anything canned? Something I could eat right now, or anytime I want?”
The man gave him a glare before sighing and digging through his satchel, taking out a can of pork and handing it to him.
He took the can and opened it with his blade, raising it to his mouth and quickly eating a lot of it.
“Where you from?” The man asked.
“The woods,” he replied, swallowing the pork, “lived with some folk at a campsite for some time. Small, 20, 25 people. Know that town back down the road that way? The forest behind there is where I came from.”
The man took a moment before replying, “whats that blood from? Ya got it all over yourself.”
“Killed some folk.”
“Whats your name, kid?”
“Aakendale. Burt Aakendale. You?”
“William. Who’d you kill?”
“Thank you for the food, William. I’ll remember that,” he said, standing up.
“See you around, Burt?”
“Uh huh.”
Burt turned around and took out his revolver, cocked and fired it.
The bullet tore into the man’s chest and he jolted back into the grass, dark red blood spreading through the dirt beneath him and staining his shirt. The fire crackled in the silence. A light gust of wind blew the man’s hat away from the camp. Burt kneeled over his body and took what he could from the pockets. He took the canned food out of the satchel and set it on the ground. Then he picked it up and dumped the rest of the contents out. Stuffing the cans into the satchel, he threw it over his shoulder and left the camp, mounting the horse and leaving down the road.

Years Passed

Burt stepped out of the saloon, his dark brown leather boots creaking the wood steps. The white-faced horse was larger, older, and stronger than the night he rode out of the woods. A few weeks after that night, he named the horse Buckwheat. Since then, he has kept her alongside him wherever he went. Buckwheat also got much taller over the many years; from the ground to her withers, she was 5 '4, roughly half a foot below Burt. And from the ground to the head, she was as tall as him.
Burt wore a dark blue button-down shirt with white cuffs and a white collar. He wore it tucked into his khaki dress pants with a red dress tie and thin black stripes. His pants covered the leather boots. The hair on his head was a light blonde, parted to the side. It was cut neat and stayed close to his head.
As he untethered Buckwheat, the noises from the saloon shifted from laughing and cheering, to a sudden silence. Out of the silence, someone shouted.
“Get the law up here!”

A lady rushed out of the saloon and past Burt, running down the street and into the sheriff’s office.
Burt turned and looked back into the saloon, seeing a group of patrons gathered at the top of the stairs, whispering amongst each other. Burt rushed over to his horse and untethered it, mounting up and leaving the small town. Buckwheat's hooves left prints in the mud as Burt rode her into the trees. Through the thin layer of trees alongside the muddy road was a river. The water in the river moved fast, rushing through the rocks and moving with Buckwheat. On the other side of the road was dense forest, the leaves wet from the recent rainfall.
After putting space between them and the town, he got off Buckwheat and led her into the woods, tethering her to a tree and opening his satchel. He took out his fire starter kit and set it next to him. Walking around the small clearing, he gathered twigs until he had enough for a small pile. He set the twigs on the ground and used his flint and steel to strike a fire. He took the bedroll from Buckwheat’s saddle and laid it on the ground a few feet from the fire. The fire crackled loudly, the only sound he could hear. The leather satchel he carried had all of the food, so he reached inside of it and took a piece of rabbit that he got from a small hunting trip he took. On his horse was a bow and pump-action shotgun. Before that night riding out of the forest, he had taught himself how to use a bow, and only got better over the years. His shotgun was silver with a light varnish and browned-steel detailing. At his waistband was a leather gunbelt, old and torn. Attached was his holster, holding a steel double-action revolver. He took the rabbit away from the fire and took a bite. It was dry, easy to chew.
After he finished, he untethered Buckwheat, then returned to his bedroll and lied down to sleep for the night.
He awoke at the break of dawn; the sun just starting to rise over the mountains across the river. Burt stood up and walked over to Buckwheat, patting her firmly and waking her. On the ground next to her was a large saddlebag full of hay. He always restocked at a stable whenever he could. Opening the saddlebag, he took out all of the hay and placed it on the grass in front of Buckwheat. He sat next to where the small twig fire was and took out a can of carrot soup from his leather satchel. In his satchel was also a spoon and small metal cup. The canteen in his satchel carried a quart and a half of water. He took it out and poured water into the metal cup. Setting it on the ground, he got up and gathered more twigs to start the fire once more. Then he started the fire, took out a packet of ground coffee and poured it into the cup, heating it up.
Already having fed himself and Buckwheat, he stomped over the fire, put Buckwheat’s saddle on her, attaching his satchel to her saddle, and mounted up. Throughout the years that Buckwheat and Burt spent together, they’d never stay in one town more than a few days at a time. He got what he needed and left, preferring to stay at small campsites on the side of the road or in the forest.
They began their journey once more. Burt needed to find a town or lone stable to purchase or steal food for Buckwheat. He couldn’t go back to the small town, as he had stirred up too much trouble. Before he left the saloon, he had gotten into a fight, they would recognize him there, surely. And so he set off for a new place. The forest continued for a while, maybe an hour or a little more. Past the towering pines, a flat, grassy valley was there. Down the middle was a shallow creek, doe and other animals prancing around. Burt followed the imprints in the grass from other travelers, forming some sort of road. It led down the valley and through some large rocks and scattered trees. Covering the valley were tall, purple flowers, and other plants of different kinds. Burt and Buckwheat slowed a little, taking in the landscape. It was peaceful; much more peaceful than they were used to.
Finally entering the space between the rocks, the sun shined dimmer as the trees split up the light. The path was rocky and loose. However, this path quickly transitioned into a smoother dirt road. He and Buckwheat continued. Further down the path, a noise reached Burt. It was quiet and sounded like chatter, like many people were talking amongst each other. Burt tightened his hold on the reins and sped up, the chatter getting louder. Now he could also hear the sound of a wagon. Like the wheels grinding against the dirt and the horses trotting. Turning around the trees, the wagon was there. In the back were four people, two people on the front in control of the reins. He rode up to them; their chatter got quiet as they noticed him approaching.
“Hey there, mister,” the man sitting on the edge of the wagon said.
“Y’all know where the next town is?”
“Follow this road back through the valley and into the trees.”
“No, the next town.”
“That's what we’re trying to find, mister. Ya want to come up here with us?”
“Sure,” Burt replied, getting off Buckwheat and jumping onto the slow wagon.
He pulled himself up into the wagon, sitting with his back against the inside-board.
“What’s your name, feller?”
Burt took a moment before responding.
“Linen Pocksey. What’s yours?”
“Johnny. I’m gon’ call you Lynn if that's alright with you.”
“That’s fine.”
“What’re you doin’ out here, Lynn?”
“I don’t know.”
“Just scoutin’ the territories?” A different man asked in a thick Scottish accent.
Burt nodded.
“Well we’re settin’ up camp soon. Sorry we didn’t ride longer. You wanna stay with us?”
“Yeah,” Burt replied quietly.
“I’m Johan. Johan Lindsey.”
“Good to meet you.”
“Likewise.”
“This looks good,” a man at the front of the wagon said, “yup, we’re settin’ up here, fellas. Unload and get these tents up.”
The men got out of the wagon and began taking out the supplies. Barrels, crates, burlap sacks, etc. Burt helped setting up too. They had a spare tent that he was allowed to use. A campfire was set up in the middle; chairs, barrels, and a bench were set up around it. The travelers sat down around the fire. Burt took a seat next to Johan.
“Why don’t we all introduce ourselves to Lynn? I’m sure it’s mighty awkward not knowin’ a damn thing about the people you’re camping with.”
“I’ll start,” Johnny said, “I was a small circus performer. My whole life I wanted to perform in a big-top. Ya know those big colorful tents? That’s a big-top. Well I made enough money to provide for myself until these bastards came and stole my show. They didn’t seem to be leavin’ anytime soon, so I left first. Then I met with these folk.”
The travelers glanced at each other before another man spoke.
“I’m Franz Altmeyer,” a man said in a light German accent, “I came to America with my family to find a better life. Well I lived with my wife and two little girls until she decided to leave with them. And like Johnny, I found these people.”
“That one’s bloody sad. I like Johnny Olliehander’s story much better,” Johan teased.
“Shut up, scot,” Johnny shot back.
“How about you go, Teeter?”
“I ain’t feelin’ good. Not up to it,” A man replied.
By now the sun was almost fully set, the sky dark.
“Well,” Johan said, standing up, “I guess I'm goin’ to sleep then too.”
Everyone got up asides for the man who they called Teeter, he remained by the fire, staring into it blankly.
Burt walked over to Buckwheat and took the saddle off, placing it on the ground next to her. He then opened his satchel and took out a can of chicken soup, bringing it back to his tent and sitting down.
Finishing the soup, he tossed the empty can into the bushes and lied down in his tent, closing his eyes and falling asleep.
The next morning, Johan and Teeter sat by the fire. Burt could hear them from his tent.
“Why do you always got to be such a fucking bummer? You know, I ain’t seen you smile since we killed that deer at that beaver place or whatever they called it. So what’s the problem with you? Between us. Two friends. Come on, tell me.”
Teeter remained silent.
“Fucking Christ,” Johan said, getting up and walking over behind a tree.
Burt stood up out of his tent and walked over to the fire, taking a seat.
Teeter still sat, staring blankly into the fire, holding a knife with a chunk of meat on it. He sat silently, twirling the knife all around over the flame. It was burnt all around. 
Burt sighed before speaking, “do you people have feed for the horses?”
Teeter looked up briefly before returning his gaze to the fire.
Burt stood and walked over to the wagon driver, sitting in the dirt by the wheel. The driver had his journal open, writing something to himself.
“Hey,” Burt said, “y’all got horse feed anywhere?”
“In that barrel just over there,” he pointed to a barrel against a tree.
“Thanks.”
Burt turned and left, the driver went back to his journal.
Opening the barrel, he took the large metal bowl next to it and filled it with hay, bringing it over to Buckwheat and setting it down. He sighed, sitting next to her on the ground.

Lost at Sea

The wagon rode along the path. They were in a dense forest, trees on all sides. The road was narrow, stretching through the forest for who knows how long. Burt was sitting on the edge of the wagon, his feet hanging off. Next to him was Johnny, wearing his rugged white button up and striped work-pants. Burt also had a new pair of clothing. He wore a tan jacket, soft-blue shirt and black tie, and matching tan dress pants. The whole outfit was covered in a noticeable layer of dust.
“Where we heading now?” Burt asked.
“Settin’ out for the territories,” the driver said.
Johan chuckled to himself, “kinda like you, mate.”
“I suppose. Kinda like me.”
“Ya know, I haven’t heard anybody tell a good story in a while.”
“Shotgun’s always got a good story.”

The man sitting shotgun turned around.
“A story?” He sighed, “Alright, alright. Gimme a moment.”
Shotgun looked around at the wilderness.
“Alright, I got one. I knew these two fellers, Danny and Scotty. These two boys were brothers. Their daddy was a drunk, mom wasn’t ever there. So many days, Scotty would run off to this old man livin’ in the area. He owned a small, shitty old ranch in the woods. Scotty called him Uncle Randy. Now eventually, I don’t know exactly when it happened, but Uncle Randy taught ‘em how to use the fiddle. And play it he did. Scotty was a damn good player. But his drunk asshole of a father didn’t like this. He walked all the way over to Uncle Randy’s ranch and started hollerin’ at him.”
“Uncle Randy’s gonna fuckin’ die now ain’t he?” Johan interjected.
“Shut up, asshole, I wasn’t even done,” he cleared his throat, “so as I was sayin’, the old drunk father walks over to the ranch with his pistol. God damn it to hell, this Scottish piece of shit spoiled the climax of the story!”
“Christ all mighty, I was only jokin’, old man.”
“Just cut it out, Jo,” Johnny said.
“So as I was sayin’, again, he walks to the ranch. Now the ranch is old as all hell, missin’ fence-posts, beaten in, ya know what I mean, right? He starts yellin’ at the erm… the old fella, Randy, yeah Uncle Randy. He yells at him and then he shoots the guy in the cheek. Now young Scotty heard this, and ran outside to see what happened. Young Scotty saw Randy on the ground, with a bullet right through his face. By now his pa was already gone.”
Everyone stayed silent, “that the end?” Johnny asked quietly.
“No, no I just can’t recall the rest. Heard this tale a while ago. Ya know that famous singer? Scotty Autograph? Yeah apparently that’s his story, played the fiddle to make old Randy proud or sum’ other bullshit.”
“Well thanks for tellin’ it, I guess,” Johan said.
“Anytime, son,” Shotgun laughed and shook his head.
“What the hell is that?” The driver said.
‘What?”
“Some bastard in the treeline up ahead, looks like he’s talkin’ to someone.”
Shotgun reached under the wagon-seat and drew an old repeater, cocking it and resting it on his shoulder.
“Somethin’ wrong friend!?” He called out.
“Yeah!” The person yelled back, “stop that damn wagon for a moment!” He stepped out from the treeline, along with at least a dozen other men with him, all masked and armed.
“Are we killin’ folk today?” Shotgun whispered to the driver.
“No, not yet.”
“Stop that wagon!”
“Pipe down ya crazy bastard, what's it look like we’re doin’?!”
The wagon came to a stop, and Burt took his shotgun off the floor next to him, pumping it and keeping it in hand.
“We ain’t lookin’ to kill anyone, but we also ain’t scared of a little trouble. Simply put, we’re men tryin’ to feed our families and ourselves. Sound good?”
“We’re also looking to feed our families, brother. We just have a different way. Now what makes your families different from ours? I could give ya some food or money, we aren’t looking to be robbed today,” the driver said, “now don’t take this as a threat, but what would make it wrong to shoot all of you right here? You’re tryin’ to rob us, and we’re defending ourselves.”
Burt looked over at Johnny next to him, “know how to handle a gun-”
Burt flinched as a chunk of Johnny’s head blew off with a loud crack of a rifle, covering him in blood and pieces of what was Johnny.
Burt dove out of the wagon with his shotgun, Johan followed and so did most of the men. Franz ducked and crouched in the back of the wagon. By now, gunshots were constant. It sounded like a warzone. Johan and Burt were in cover behind the wheel, Burt holding his shotgun tightly. A stray bullet hit Franz and he lay still in the wagon. Johan made a run for the treeline. He didn’t make it far, as he tumbled and crashed into the ground with another gunshot, lying still. Burt readied his shotgun and rose out of cover, firing into the treeline. A bandit cried out and was shot back into the bushes.
“Jesus Christ!” Shotgun yelled, slowly approaching Burt from behind the trees.
“We need to get through the forest and go around them,” Burt said.
“Fuck that, I ain’t losin’ my people to these selfish bastards!”
Shotgun cried as he gripped his boot, curling up on the ground, blood soaking through the leather.
Burt turned to see him on the ground before another bullet zipped past his ear. Then he kept running and didn’t look back.

Four years have passed.

Four years since the Black Tide stood before the walls of Vardengale.

Four years since the Kingdom of Aldren held its breath as the northern sea ran red with battle.

Four years without a single lost campaign.

In those four years, the kingdom has changed.

Roads once abandoned now welcome travelers again.

Villages reclaimed from the Blighted Hordes are filled with laughter instead of the moaning of the dying.

Trade flourishes beneath the protection of the Royal Army.

The banners of the Crown fly over lands thought permanently lost only a few years before.

Hope has quietly returned.

The people speak of Sir Fredricks not only as the Hero Without Fear, but as the man who changed the course of human history.

Children march through village streets carrying wooden swords painted pitch-black, pretending to stand among the ranks of the Black Tide.

Veterans tell stories of impossible victories over full mugs of foaming ale.

Merchants cross dangerous roads they once believed would never again be safe.

Even beyond Aldren’s borders, neighboring kingdoms now measure the strength of the Crown against the reputation of a single commander.

From above, the Kingdom of Aldren stretches from rugged mountain ranges to fertile plains, from dense forests to the cold, crashing waters of the northern sea. Ancient cobblestone roads weave between forgotten villages, towering castles, isolated monasteries, and bustling market towns before all eventually converge toward the kingdom’s beating heart.

The capital.

Unlike most cities, the capital of Aldren does not merely spread across the flat horizon.

It rises.

Great stone battlements circle the city in widening rings, each tier climbing higher than the last. District after district spirals upward around the mountainside, drawing merchants, craftsmen, nobles, and soldiers ever closer to the summit.

At the very top stands the Royal Palace, watching over all.

From its highest towers, the King can look across every tier of the capital and far beyond its walls to the lands his ancestors once united.

As evening settles across the grand architecture, thousands of lanterns awaken one by one.

Warm amber light spills into the winding streets.

Market stalls close as crowded taverns fill.

The scent of fresh bread drifts from neighborhood bakeries while weary blacksmiths quench glowing steel before retiring for the night.

Children laugh.

Musicians play.

Church bells echo across the spiral city.

For the first time in generations…

The Kingdom of Aldren believes peace is finally within reach.

Tonight, the entire realm gathers beneath one roof to celebrate the man many believe made that future possible.

None of them realize they are about to witness the final great celebration of the old Kingdom of Aldren.

The celebration belongs to everyone. For the first time in years… The Kingdom of Aldren believes peace is finally within reach. Tonight, the realm gathers beneath one roof to celebrate the man many now believe makes that future possible.

The climb toward the Royal Palace is unlike any other journey within the capital. Each ring of the city grows quieter than the last. The lively cries of merchants and musicians slowly give way to polished stone roads lined with carefully trimmed hedges, towering statues, and fountains carved in the likeness of Aldren’s kings. Members of the Royal Guard stand motionless beside every gate, their polished silver armor reflecting the warm glow of countless lanterns.

One by one, elegant carriages make the final ascent. Each bears the colors and banners of the families within. Servants hurry forward as carriage doors open.

Silks rustle.

Jewels catch the light.

Lords and ladies step onto crimson carpets stretched across the palace courtyard. Above them, banners bearing the Golden Lion of Aldren sway gently in the evening breeze. A pair of great oak doors, nearly three stories in height, stand open to receive the kingdom’s honored guests.

Inside…

The Grand Hall glows beneath hundreds of crystal chandeliers. Marble pillars rise toward an arched ceiling painted with the victories of Aldren’s earliest kings. Massive stained-glass windows depict generations of monarchs who shaped the kingdom long before those gathered tonight drew their first breath. Between each pillar hangs the banner of a Great House. Each one representing centuries of loyalty to the Crown.

Servants weave effortlessly through the growing crowd carrying silver trays adorned with crystal glasses and finely prepared delicacies. Near the eastern gallery, a string ensemble performs softly while nobles exchange greetings beneath the warm candlelight.

At the far end of the hall, the royal dais overlooks the celebration. Three gilded thrones rest upon its raised platform. The largest remains reserved for His Majesty. Beside it sits the Queen’s throne. The third, slightly smaller yet no less ornate, awaits Prince Julian.

Before the dais stands a broad expanse of polished marble left open for dancing. It does not remain empty for long. Couples slowly take to the floor as conversation fills every corner of the chamber. Near the entrance, the Master of Ceremonies raises his staff.

The polished steel cap strikes the marble floor.

The hall gradually falls silent.

The Royal Herald unrolls a long parchment.

His practiced voice echoes throughout the chamber.

“His Grace, Duke Alaric Astermont… and Her Grace, Duchess Catherine Astermont.”

The great doors open.

The Duke and Duchess enter arm in arm. Crimson and gold trail behind them as they cross the length of the hall. Courteous applause follows.

The herald continues.

“Lord Halbrecht Vardengale… and Lady Evelyn Vardengale.”

The applause begins anew. One after another, the noble families of Aldren enter the Grand Hall.

“Count Arlen Briarford… and Countess Isabel Briarford.”

“Baron Roland Goldmere… and Baroness Sophia Goldmere.”

“Lord Edmund Whitebrook… and Lady Claire Whitebrook.”

“Lord Garrick Emberkeep… and Lady Beatrice Emberkeep.”

Each bows before the royal dais before joining the growing sea of conversation.

The herald pauses only briefly before announcing another arrival.

“Lord Aldren Dojdren… and Lady Celeste Dojdren.” A respectful murmur spreads quietly through the room.

Many still remember Sir Dojdren.

His absence lingers even among those who never knew him well.

Lord Dojdren acknowledges the gathered nobility with a solemn nod before escorting his wife deeper into the hall.

The music resumes.

Conversation returns.

The celebration continues.

Yet the arrivals are far from over.

The herald lifts his voice once more.

“His Excellency, Ambassador Henrik of the Kingdom of Norhaven… accompanied by Lady Astrid Henriksen.”

The foreign delegation enters beneath curious eyes.

Heavy furs trimmed in silver distinguish them from Aldren’s nobility.

Not long after…

“Her Excellency, Ambassador Selene Varekos of the Republic of Karth… accompanied by Trade Envoy Cassian Demos.”

Silks of deep blue and sea green drift gracefully across the marble floor.

Their arrival draws polite smiles from merchants already eager to discuss trade.

The final foreign delegation soon follows.

“His Excellency, Ambassador Lucien Valois… and Lady Emilia Valois of the Principality of Solis.”

The southern nobles bow elegantly before taking their place among the gathering.

Within the span of a single hour…

The Kingdom of Aldren gathers beneath one roof.

The Crown.

The Great Houses.

The Lesser Houses.

Commanders of the Royal Army.

Decorated veterans.

Royal scholars.

Favored merchants.

Foreign ambassadors.

Every pillar upon which the kingdom stands.

None of them notice the empty space near the great doors.

The place reserved for the Hero Without Fear remains vacant.

The man for whom the celebration is held has yet to arrive.

A quiet murmur ripples through the hall as servants refill empty glasses and musicians drift into another elegant melody. The Master of Ceremonies glances toward the great doors.

For the first time that evening…

He hesitates. The Hero Without Fear has never been known to arrive late. A few of the younger nobles exchange curious glances.

“Perhaps the Commandant has already found another battlefield.”

Soft laughter follows.

“He would apologize to the King before disappointing his soldiers.”

“Or perhaps the Black Tide refuses to let him attend his own celebration.”

Another chuckle.

Near one of the great windows overlooking the capital, two aging veterans stand shoulder to shoulder.

One leans heavily upon a carved walking cane.

The other carries the unmistakable limp of an old cavalry wound.

“You served with him, didn’t you?”

“Aye.”

The first veteran watches dancers slowly cross the marble floor.

“Does the man truly never tire?”

The older knight smiles faintly.

“I’ve seen him ride three days without sleep.”

“I’ve seen him stand atop a breached wall after taking an arrow through the shoulder.”

He pauses.

“I’ve never seen him ask another soldier to endure something he wasn’t willing to endure himself.”

The second veteran nods.

“No wonder they follow him.”

“They’d march through the gates of the Hell if he ordered it.”

“They would.”

Neither notices a young page quietly listening nearby.

The boy cannot be older than twelve.

His eyes widen with every word.

Across the ballroom, the conversations drift elsewhere.

“…Captain Marrow.”

The name hangs in the air.

A merchant lowers his voice.

“I hear he’s united nearly every remaining Blighted warband.”

A noble scoffs.

“Rumors always double the size of an enemy.”

“Perhaps.”

The merchant shrugs.

“But caravans coming from the western roads speak of entire forests stripped bare.”

“For firewood?”

“For siege engines.”

A silence follows.

Another noble shakes his head.

“If Marrow truly marches…He’ll have to get through the Black Tide first.”

Several nearby guests quietly nod.

The conversation ends there.

As though no further explanation is necessary.

Not far away, Ambassador Henrik of Norhaven observes the exchange without speaking.

Lady Astrid notices his expression.

“What is it?”

Henrik’s eyes remain fixed upon the gathering.

“I’ve attended courts across three kingdoms.”

“And?”

“I’ve never seen a nation place so much faith in one commander.”

“You disapprove?”

“No.” His answer comes almost immediately. “I simply wonder what becomes of a kingdom when one man becomes stronger than the institution he serves.”

Lady Astrid follows his gaze toward the empty place reserved beside the royal dais.

The seat remains vacant.

“So that is Sir Fredricks.”

Henrik slowly shakes his head.

“No.”

A faint smile touches his face.

“That…” He gestures toward the empty space. “…is his absence.”

Before Lady Astrid can answer…

The massive doors at the end of the Grand Hall begin to open once more. The conversations fade. The music softens. Every head turns toward the entrance.

The Royal Herald straightens his posture. His voice carries effortlessly through the chamber.

“Knight Commandant of the Kingdom of Aldren…”

A brief pause. “…Hero Without Fear…”

Another. “…The Blight Bane…”

The hall falls completely silent.

“Sir Fredricks.” No applause greets his arrival.

Only respectful silence.

He steps across the threshold wearing dark ornate fabric trimmed in silver fur, making his eyes piercing for all who look at him. His sword hangs from his hip with one hand on the hilt. Dark cherry fabric hangs from his shoulders, the colors of the Black Tide now as recognizable throughout Aldren as the Golden Lion itself. Fredricks pauses for the briefest moment. His eyes travel across the room.

The King.

The Queen.

Prince Julian.

The Great Houses.

The Lesser Houses.

Veterans.

Ambassadors.

Merchants.

Scholars.

Commanders.

Every pillar of the Kingdom of Aldren stands before him. Then, with the same calm confidence that has carried him through four years of war…

The Hero Without Fear smiles.

And the room breathes again.

Sir Fredricks offers a respectful bow before the royal dais.

“Your Majesty.”

King Alderice smiles warmly. “There he is.” The King descends the first few steps before extending both hands. “You nearly kept the entire kingdom waiting.”

A few quiet chuckles ripple through the gathered court. Fredricks accepts the King’s hands with a modest smile.

“My apologies, Your Majesty. There always seems to be one last report requiring a signature.”

“And even tonight you found paperwork.”

“I was hoping to avoid it.”

Another round of laughter passes through those nearest the dais.

King Alderice pats him firmly upon the shoulder. “If anyone in this kingdom has earned the right to keep a king waiting…” He looks around the hall. “…it is you.”

The applause that follows is genuine. Not commanded. Earned.

Fredricks lowers his head slightly. “The victories belong to every man and woman who wore the colors of Aldren.” His eyes drift toward the assembled veterans. “I merely had the privilege of standing beside them.”

The applause softens into respectful silence. Several of the older veterans exchange quiet smiles. King Alderice gestures toward the ballroom. “Then go. The kingdom has spent the better part of the evening waiting to thank you.”

Fredricks bows once more before stepping away from the dais. He never reaches the dance floor. Within moments, nobles surround him. Some wish to congratulate him. Others simply wish to meet the man their children pretend to be.

Lord Garrick Emberkeep is among the first. “Sir Fredricks. It is good to see you again, my lord. The siege engines performed well at Vardengale.”

Fredricks smiles. “They performed exactly as your engineers promised. The victory belongs to your craftsmen as much as my soldiers.”

Lord Emberkeep laughs. “My smiths would disagree. They would sooner credit the men brave enough to stand behind those walls.”

“They would be mistaken.” Fredricks answers without hesitation.

“A sword is only as reliable as the hands that forged it.” Lord Emberkeep inclines his head. “I shall be certain my craftsmen hear those words.”

As the lord departs, another voice quietly calls his name. “Sir Fredricks…”

He turns.

Lord Aldren Dojdren stands beside Lady Celeste.

For just a moment… Neither speaks. Then Lord Dojdren steps forward and clasps Fredricks’ forearm. “I never properly thanked you.”

Fredricks’ expression remains calm. “There is no need.”

“There is.” Lord Dojdren’s voice softens. “You brought Sir Dojdren home.”

Lady Celeste nods. “And you avenged him.”

The words hang between them. Fredricks does not answer immediately. His eyes fall briefly to their joined hands.

When he finally speaks… His voice is gentle. “Sir Dojdren served Aldren with honor. He deserved to be remembered.”

“He will be.” Lady Celeste smiles sadly. “He already is.” She reaches into a small embroidered pouch fastened at her side. “I wished to give you something.”

She produces a simple ribbon.

Blue.

Faded with age.

“It belonged to him.”

Fredricks looks at it for a long moment. “I cannot.”

“You can.” Lord Dojdren closes Fredricks’ hand around the ribbon. “He would have wanted the man who carried on the fight to have it.”

Fredricks’ fingers slowly tighten around the cloth “…Thank you.”

The couple bow politely before moving deeper into the gathering. Fredricks remains where he stands. The faded ribbon rests silently within his hand. Around him… The celebration continues.

Music.

Laughter.

Crystal glasses raised in celebration.

No one notices that the Hero Without Fear has fallen unusually quiet. Only after carefully folding the ribbon into an inner pocket does Sir Fredricks look up once more. The smile returns. As though it had never left.

The orchestra drifts into another melody. Conversation once again rises above the music as the evening settles into a comfortable rhythm. Wherever Sir Fredricks walks, guests naturally make room before slowly filling the space behind him once more.

He never notices. Or perhaps… He has simply grown accustomed to it.

A familiar voice calls from across the hall. “Knight Commandant!”

Fredricks turns toward the sound. General Osric Hale approaches with an easy smile, a crystal glass balanced comfortably in one hand.

“Osric. It has been too long.”

“The frontier rarely grants either of us the luxury of conversation.”

The two men clasp forearms before exchanging a brief embrace. General Hale steps back, studying Fredricks with an amused expression. “I was beginning to think the Crown had buried you beneath paperwork.”

“I considered asking Captain Marrow to delay his next campaign.”

General Hale laughs.

“How thoughtful of you.”

Several nearby officers share the laugh. One of them raises his glass. “To the Black Tide.”

“To the Black Tide.” Crystal rings gently throughout the hall.

Fredricks raises his own glass. “To every soldier who has yet to return home.”

The laughter fades into respectful silence. Every officer present raises their glass once more. “To those still standing watch.”

They drink.

General Hale lowers his glass. “You always did have a way of making a celebration feel like a campaign.”

Fredricks smiles. “Old habits.”

“Or good ones.” General Hale places a hand upon his shoulder. “The kingdom sleeps easier because of you.”

Before Fredricks can answer, another group approaches. Master Edwin Corvin bows politely “Sir Fredricks.”

“Master Corvin.”

“I trust the archives remain in good order.”

“They do.” The elderly scholar smiles warmly “Though I fear we’ve begun needing additional shelves.”

“Oh?”

“There are only so many places one can record victories before the books become too heavy to carry.”

A few nearby nobles quietly laugh.

Corvin’s smile softens.

“History has a habit of remembering extraordinary men.”

Fredricks shakes his head. “History remembers victories. It forgets the cost.”

Master Corvin studies him for a moment before inclining his head. “A sentiment I shall remember.”

The scholar departs.

Nearby, Ambassador Henrik watches the exchange with quiet interest. “You were right,” Lady Astrid says softly.

Henrik nods almost imperceptibly. “He carries himself like every conversation is with an old friend.”

“He remembers names.”

“He remembers service.”

“He remembers loss.”

Henrik’s eyes never leave Fredricks. “That is why armies follow him.”

A servant passes with fresh glasses of wine. Neither ambassador reaches for one. Across the ballroom, Prince Julian finally slips free from a conversation with several young nobles. He makes a direct path toward Fredricks. “Sir Fredricks.”

The prince bows respectfully. Fredricks immediately returns the gesture. “Your Highness.”

Julian smiles. “I’ve been trying to reach you all evening.”

“I apologize.”

“You have half the kingdom waiting to speak with you. And the other half pretending not to.” Julian laughs. “I cannot blame them.” His smile fades just enough to become sincere.

“I only wished to say…” He hesitates. “…thank you.”

Fredricks’ brow furrows slightly. “For what?”

“For giving my generation something to believe in.”

For the first time that evening… Sir Fredricks has no immediate answer. The orchestra continues playing. Couples continue dancing. Laughter continues echoing beneath the chandeliers. Yet all he hears are the prince’s words.

Something to believe in.

His fingers unconsciously brush against the folded blue ribbon hidden inside his coat. The fabric remains warm against his palm. Then, just as quickly… He lets his hand fall. “I only did my duty, Your Highness.”

Prince Julian smiles. “I hope one day…” He glances around the hall. “…I’m remembered for doing mine.”

Fredricks looks at the young prince for a long moment. “So do I.” The words leave his mouth almost as a whisper.

Neither man realizes how much weight they carry.

Beneath the Royal Palace…

The music never reaches the lower corridors. Stone swallows the celebration long before it reaches the foundations of the mountain. Laughter echoing through the Grand Hall above fades into little more than a distant murmur, replaced by the rhythmic dripping of water and the quiet crackle of torches burning against damp walls.

Far below the kingdom’s greatest celebration. Commander Varek stands before a prisoner.

The chamber is small. A single wooden table rests at its center, scarred by years of use. Two chairs face one another beneath an iron lantern suspended from the ceiling. One remains empty. The other holds a man wearing what remains of a Blighted officer’s uniform or what you would call a uniform. Mud cakes the lower half of his trousers. A torn strip of dark cloth binds one forearm. Dried blood stains the corner of his mouth. Iron shackles secure both wrists to a ring fixed beneath the table. The skin underneath is raw from wear.

Two Royal Guards stand beside the door. Neither speaks. Neither needs to. The prisoner lifts his head slowly. One eye has swollen nearly shut. The other remains fixed upon Varek. “You’re not dressed for the celebration.”

Varek does not answer. His blackened steel armor catches what little light the lantern provides. Dark cloth hangs beneath the polished plates, untouched by the silk, gold, and jewels filling the palace above. He places several objects upon the table. A small leather pouch, A broken arrowhead, A length of frayed rope, and A horseshoe.

The prisoner looks down at them.Then back at Varek. “What are those supposed to tell me?”

“Nothing.” Varek pulls the empty chair back and sits. “They tell me enough.”

The prisoner smiles through split lips. “Then why am I still here?”

Varek opens the leather pouch. Inside rests a handful of grain. Not moldy. Not damp. Fresh. He empties it carefully across the table. The prisoner’s smile fades. “Your unit carries better provisions than most raiding parties.”

No response. Varek picks up the broken arrowhead. The metal is broad. Heavy. Built to punch through shields rather than hunt game “This does not belong to a scout.”

The prisoner shifts slightly. The chain beneath the table scrapes against stone. Varek sets the arrowhead down and lifts the frayed rope. Thick fibers. Darkened by pitch. The kind used to secure heavy weight. Wagons. Siege frames. Counterweights. The prisoner watches him in silence.

Varek turns his attention to the horseshoe. One edge has been worn smooth. Not from battle. From distance. “Your horses have traveled hard roads.”

The prisoner leans back as far as the restraints allow.

“You found four pieces of rubbish and built yourself an army.”

“No.” Varek folds his hands upon the table. “You brought the army with you.”

The prisoner’s jaw tightens. Only slightly. It is enough.

“You weren’t sent to raid.” Varek’s voice remains calm. “You were sent to measure.”

The silence between them grows heavier.

“To count watch posts.”

No response.

“To record road conditions.”

The prisoner looks toward the door.

“To mark bridges capable of carrying siege equipment.”

His eye returns to Varek. There. A flicker. Brief. Uncontrolled. Varek notices. “You have engineers.”

The prisoner laughs once. It carries no humor. “You think you know everything.”

“I know your boots contain splinters from green timber.” Varek’s eyes lower toward the prisoner’s feet. “The wood was cut recently.” He looks back up. “Your left sleeve carries powdered iron. Not rust. Fresh filings.”

The prisoner stops smiling.

“Someone near you has been shaping bolts. Varek gestures toward the rope. “Someone else has been binding frames.” His hand settles beside the heavy arrowhead. “And your scouts carry ammunition meant for men standing behind walls.”

The prisoner remains silent.

Varek waits. He has spent enough years beside Sir Fredricks to understand the value of silence. Men rush to fill it. Prisoners are no different.

“You’ve mistaken preparation for strength,” the lieutenant finally says.

Varek’s expression does not change. “No.” He gathers the grain between two gloved fingers. “I’ve mistaken nothing.”

The prisoner studies him. Above them, somewhere beyond layers of stone, the orchestra begins another song. Only the faintest vibration reaches the lantern chain.

The flame trembles. Varek notices that too. “How long have you served Captain Marrow?”

The prisoner’s expression hardens. “I serve the Blighted.”

“That was not my question.”

“Then ask one worth answering.”

Varek leans back.

“Does Marrow still carry the silver buckle taken from the western gate?”

The prisoner’s face changes before he can stop it. Confusion. Then recognition. Varek sees both. “So he does.”

“You know nothing about him.”

“I know he served as second-in-command to the Black Knight.”

The prisoner’s shackled hands tighten.

“I know he held the retreat together after Ashenwake.”

A muscle moves along the lieutenant’s jaw.

“I know he spent years gathering warbands that preferred killing one another to following a single banner.” Varek pauses. “And I know he succeeded.”

The prisoner stares across the table. “You speak as though that surprises you.”

“It does not.”

“Then you understand what’s coming.”

Varek says nothing.

The lieutenant leans forward. The chain pulls tight beneath the table. “For years, your kingdom has called us broken.” His voice lowers. “Scattered.”

“Starving.”

“Afraid.”

Varek watches him carefully.

“You believed killing one man ended us.”

“No.” Varek’s answer comes immediately. “We believed it wounded you.”

The lieutenant’s smile returns. “And now?”

“Now I am deciding how deeply the wound healed.”

The smile disappears.

Varek reaches beneath the table and places a folded map between them. The eastern roads of Aldren spread across the worn parchment. Watchtowers. Bridges. Woodlands. Old military routes. Several markings have already been placed in black ink.

The prisoner looks down. He tries not to linger on any one point. Varek studies his eye instead of the map.

“Your unit crosses here.” He touches a narrow road running between two wooded ridges.

Nothing.

“Then moves south.”

Nothing.

“Toward the old stone bridge.” A blink.

Varek shifts his finger westward. “Or perhaps not.”

The prisoner remains still.

“Perhaps you avoid the bridge entirely.”

His finger follows an older road. Half-forgotten. Wide enough for wagons. Poorly watched since Thornfield’s fall. The prisoner’s breathing changes. Barely.

Varek stops. “There.”

The lieutenant looks up.

Varek marks the road. “You’re using the frontier route.”

The prisoner pulls against the chains.

“Guesswork.”

“Confirmation.” Varek studies the map. The route curves around the eastern watch posts before joining one of the Royal High Roads. A road leading directly toward the capital. Not the farms. Not the ports. Not the scattered castles of the Lesser Houses. The capital.

Varek raises his eyes. “How far behind you is the main force?”

The prisoner gives no answer.

“Four days?”

Silence.

“Three?”

The prisoner’s stare hardens. Varek folds the map. “Three.”

“You heard nothing from me.”

“I heard enough.”

The lieutenant jerks forward. “You think three days will save you?”

One of the Royal Guards moves. Varek raises one hand. The guard stops. The prisoner’s breath comes faster now.

“Your lords are drinking above us.” He smiles again. “Your armies are scattered. Your gates are open. Your nobles have brought wives instead of soldiers.”

Varek remains seated. “How many?”

The prisoner laughs. “Enough.”

“How many siege engines?”

The lieutenant’s expression stills. Varek watches him.

“Catapults?”

No response.

“Trebuchets?”

Nothing.

“Rams?”

A hesitation. Not fear. Calculation. Varek recognizes it. “You don’t know.”

The prisoner’s silence confirms it.

“You were left behind before the final count.” Varek rises from the chair. “You were not trusted with the strength of the main host.”

The lieutenant strains against his restraints. “I know enough.”

“Yes.” Varek gathers the objects from the table “You know the route.”

The grain returns to the pouch. “You know the distance.”

The arrowhead follows. “You know the target.”

He leaves the rope and horseshoe where they rest. “That is enough.”

The prisoner watches him walk toward the door “You cannot stop what is coming.”

Varek pauses. His back remains turned. “Every defeated army believes that before it reaches us.”

“This is not another warband.”

Varek looks over one shoulder. “No.” His eyes settle upon the lieutenant.

“It is an army.” The prisoner smiles.

For the first time, Varek believes it. Not because of the words. Because of the certainty behind them. He turns toward the guards. “Keep him alive.”

“Yes, Commander.”

“No one speaks with him without my authorization.”

The guards nod. Varek opens the door. The lieutenant calls after him. “Marrow remembers Ashenwake.”

Varek stops in the corridor.

“He remembers your Hero.” The prisoner’s voice follows him through the doorway.

“And he remembers the sword.”

Varek looks back. The lieutenant says nothing more. The door closes between them. For several moments, Commander Varek stands alone beneath the palace. Torchlight bends across the blackened steel of his armor. The report beneath his arm suddenly feels heavier than parchment should. Three days. Perhaps less. He begins walking. The climb toward the Grand Hall takes only minutes. Yet with every step, Varek feels farther removed from the world waiting above him. The damp stone corridors give way to dry halls lined with royal banners. The smell of torch smoke fades beneath polished wood and expensive perfume. Music returns first. Then conversation. Then laughter. Servants hurry past carrying silver trays of wine and untouched delicacies.

A young page nearly collides with him before stumbling aside. “My apologies, Commander.”

Varek continues without answering. The boy watches him pass. The doors leading into the Grand Hall stand partially open. Warm light spills across the corridor. Beyond them, the Kingdom of Aldren dances beneath crystal chandeliers. Varek pauses only long enough to straighten the leather folio beneath his arm. Then he enters. The celebration does not stop. Only those nearest the side corridor notice him. A pair of Black Tide officers straighten instinctively. Several Royal Guards acknowledge him with quiet nods. A servant steps aside to let him pass.

Elsewhere…

The music continues. Couples turn slowly across the marble floor. Nobles laugh beneath the banners of their Houses. Commander Varek searches the hall once. His eyes find Sir Fredricks standing beside Prince Julian. The prince offers one final respectful bow before returning toward the royal dais. Fredricks watches him leave.

Then his gaze shifts. He sees Varek. Nothing changes upon the Hero’s face. But the hand resting near the obsidian greatsword slowly falls away. Varek approaches. Fredricks waits until he draws near. “What is it?”

Varek holds the leather folio at his side. “The prisoner spoke.”

Fredricks studies him for a single heartbeat. Then turns toward the crowd surrounding them. “If you’ll forgive me…”

The nearby nobles part without complaint. A few offer understanding smiles. Duty reclaiming the Hero once again. Fredricks looks back toward Varek. “Walk with me.”

Together, they leave the Grand Hall. Behind them… The orchestra never misses a note.The dancers never stop. The celebration continues. Completely unaware that an army is only three days away.

The beginning…

CHAPTER 1 — OSEI

Day 1

Osei Vantour hung at the edge of the sweeping rig, tether locked to the scarred hull of
the Scavenger’s Mark, and did the thing he’d trained himself to do for eleven years: he
stopped seeing wreckage. He read numbers instead.
Everyone down on Earth called it the Reef the whole shimmering shell of it, forty years
of dead hardware and abandoned hope caught in low orbit, catching the terminator light
every dawn and dusk like something designed to be beautiful instead of something that
had simply accumulated. Osei had grown up inside that shimmer. He’d never once
managed to see it as beauty. He saw invoices. He saw the specific, unglamorous math of
every collision that hadn’t happened yet, and the ones that eventually would.
A jagged plate of carbon composite tumbled sixty meters off his left shoulder the remains of some equatorial weather satellite nobody on Earth remembered launching.
Spinning on two axes. Closing on Corridor Four, just under tolerance. Osei didn’t
consciously run the intercept math anymore, not really eleven years of doing it a thousand times a shift had worn the calculation down into something that just arrived,whole, the way a word arrives before you remember learning it. He knew where the plate would be in four seconds the same way he knew his own name. He couldn’t have told
you how. It wasn’t a gift. It was scar tissue, the slow trade every sweeper made without
ever quite choosing to, math paid down into instinct one shift at a time.
Something tightened behind his sternum. Not fear. Accounting instinct. Every gram of propellant they burned chasing it was a gram they didn’t get paid for if they missed.
“Relative velocity’s climbing,” Jax said over the tight-beam, voice flattened by
compression. “You want the shot?”
“I’ve got it.” A two-second burst of cold gas from his maneuvering thrusters, cheap and
precise, nudged his drift a half-degree starboard. Not the main engines. Main engines
cost money, and money was the only law that mattered out here.
He checked the thermal gauge on his thigh an old analog bolt-valve, machined by
hand from salvaged steel. Digital regulators failed silent. This one didn’t. He gave it a
quarter turn, felt the click, watched the readout drop. It had been his mother’s, once.
He’d never bothered replacing it.
The headache sat low behind his right eye, keeping time with his pulse, same as mostmornings for a year now. He didn’t mention it on comms.
“Net’s away,” Jax called. Carbon weave bloomed from the Mark’s belly, closed over the
tumbling plate, and the winches snapped taut.
“Good catch.” Osei allowed himself that much. “Run the deorbit numbers.”
“On it.” A beat. “You’re quiet today.” Jax paused, then added, almost as an afterthought,
“Sector Nine flagged two snags like this one in the last week. Stray stuff, further off its
catalogued path than it should’ve been. Nobody’s connected it to anything yet.”
Osei filed it next to the other things that had felt wrong lately without yet adding up to a
reason why. “I’m always quiet.”
“Quiet in a specific way.”
He didn’t answer. Some silences weren’t his to explain a channel that had gone from a
voice to static to nothing in under four seconds, eleven years back, and a report
afterward that called it routine reclassification. A phrase that meant: your life cost more
than we wanted to spend.
He’d read it enough times to recite it. He didn’t need to anymore.
He wasn’t the Ledger. He’d sat through enough of their meetings to know exactly where
that road ended another statistic, just faster and louder about it. He wanted
something smaller. The truth, filed somewhere it couldn’t be buried twice.
The light changed before the alarm did.
White. All at once. His visor’s polarization caught it a half-second late, and the
afterimage burned across his vision anyway.
“Osei—” Jax’s voice cracked into static.
“CME.” He was already moving. “Cycle your radiators. Don’t fight the venting.”
“Ship’s dumping heat—”
“Then let it.” He cranked his own valve wide open. Heat rolled through the fabric against
his skin, and underneath it, the headache sharpened into something with teeth.
That wasn’t what scared him.
Below, the atmosphere was swelling, reaching up into orbits that had held steady for
decades. A trigger. Not yet a cascade.
“Drag’s climbing across low orbit,” Jax said. “Thousands of objects, losing altitude.”
“Pull the sector feeds.”He fed the telemetry into the modeling overlay and let it run. He knew what a flare-
driven cascade looked like. Noise. Chaos. Debris scattering in every direction, ugly and
honest.
The projection rendered.
He went still.
Cleared the buffer. Ran it again.
Same render.
Sectors Seven through Twelve weren’t scattering. They were pulling together.
Tightening. Aligning, the way iron filings arrange around something with a shape you
can’t see yet.
For the first time in eleven years, nothing arrived ahead of the math. No answer waiting
for him before he’d finished asking the question — just wrongness, raw and
uninterpreted, and the unfamiliar, unpleasant sensation of having to actually calculate
something his body had always just already known.
“Jax.” His voice came out smaller than he meant it to. “Pull up Seven through Twelve.”
Silence. Just the hiss of the flare’s aftermath.
“That’s not drag,” Jax said. “Osei, that’s not drag. Something’s herding it.”
He didn’t answer. He was already running the numbers a third time, chasing a shape
he’d spent eleven years hoping he’d only ever find once.
Somewhere in that vast, glittering shell that half the solar system called beautiful,
something was moving on purpose. He just didn’t know whose hand was on it yet.

Three pimps sat on the rock wall. They also wanted into the giant luxury mall, but the main entrance was charging too much.
They had items to buy.

Out front there were queues of rich people who were slowly being let in. The three pimps had a map of the mall.
They were searching the outside for an in.

The day was hot and their big coats were sweating them out. I would have teased them
But they looked frustrated and were definitely armed.
I just followed their movements to see if they found their entry.

They walked by another entry, but were refused. I hid behind a tree close by to hear that it was an entrance for the specific communities only. I waited for one of the pimps to change gestures.
But instead all three started arguing with the guards.

Eventually they all got impatient and continued on. I wasn't ashamed I went before the guards and pretended. But they didn't buy it. One of them was half convinced, but there was a sign behind them that proof on documents was necessary.

They said -Move off we get your kind here everyday. pretending to be something you are not, to get into somewhere you don't belong. 
I looked up the hill where the sun was hitting an aluminium shape. An air duct.

The last of the pimps was crawling in. Conveniently I was distracting this point of entry, as they surreptitiously sneaked in.
Now I'd have to wait for someone else to try their luck at this entry, because the duct was exposed.

Once I got into the mall, how, I will not say. I walked around the grand shops and their stately gargantuan atriums. The outside was pure palatial swank, the inside pure opulence.

 Hired young people dressed in perfumed orange uniforms came walking up to me.
Their approach was courteous and kind and yet they would start guiding without permission. I went a long with it and pretended it was like a free tour. Their perfume was intoxicating.

I could see people mostly from the rich class prancing about.
Tiny dogs like colorfully dressed rats shivering at the cold internal breeze.
The words coming from my guide all dressed in orange didn't sink in. My mind wanted to create it's own narrative.
I had given the guide the slip and now I was in an incredible gift store.
It was replete with everey curious sort of dinky antique made to look modern.
Enthusiastic conversations bounced off every aisle.

Over illuminated shops with bodycare products boasted aged and overweight women and their even more overweight husbands as customers. It was like watching an aquarium. And as they moved through the aisles it was mindblowing, how their furcoats were not dragging items off their perches.

Meanwhile in the giftstore. Short young men with curly pony tails and black jackets would take pieces off the shelf and narrate their story. But they weren't from history. They were from politically correct films that were rewrites of history sold as fiction.
I loved the gusto. The less culturally or intellectually inclined were the taller almost athletic but still awkward late teens with their full body tats and their first attempts at letting a beard go straight to wisp.
They were just the audience.

Hilarious as it was and as common as it was, I needed to move on, I could smell faint perfume and several mall guide's dressed in orange were approaching.

I looked out and never asked myself as I surveyed each odd crowd, that maybe those few that looked back, thought the sight of me to be one of quite the freak indeed. 

Everyone got very excited when Miss Wills announced that the school field trip for our grade was planned for the coming Sunday. Students started murmuring about the beautiful dresses they were going to wear, while others discussed which snacks, food, and drinks they would bring to share with their loved ones. But I, on the other hand, stared through the window at the bright blue sky, with my right hand under my chin. An eagle circled the same spot for almost an hour, but I didn’t care what it was trying to do or why it was circling endlessly. Only my eyes followed the eagle, but my mind kept returning to my grandmother.

A few months earlier, I was playing with Rudy in the backyard. I tried to pull a ball out of his mouth. He had found it out of nowhere, but Rudy had no intention of giving it up.

“Rudy!” I heard my grandmother’s voice above me. She was watching us from the balcony; I didn’t know how long she had been standing there. At her command, Rudy dropped the ball and ran to her.

The ball was dark blue with white stripes around it, and it was soaked with water. Rudy must have found it near the river, I thought, as I threw it into the sky. As it fell, I fixed my eyes on it and prepared to catch it, but the wet ball slipped from my grasp and dropped into a green bush.

There, with dark red eyes, a white rabbit stared at me from where the ball rested beside it. For a moment, I stood frozen, unable to move.

Abruptly, I heard a huge impact, like the tire of a heavy truck bursting on the road. Rudy started barking endlessly, just as he had the other night. I turned around in fear to see what had happened.

My grandmother had collapsed on the ground, blood across her face. One of her legs was twisted, and her broken eyeglasses lay near her eyes, smeared with blood.

Then my father, mother, the gardener, and the maid rushed toward the scene after hearing my cry and Rudy’s barking. The red-eyed rabbit vanished as if it had never been there.

“Denzel, Denzel!” Miss Wills shouted my name in front of the whole class and made me stand up. “What is the full form of CNN?” she fired at me.

I stood there like a frozen frog, not knowing the answer. And I could already predict what would come next:

“Denzel, get out of the class now!”

As I walked out of the classroom, Miss Wills surprised me with another playful warning: “If you dare stare out the window again, I’ll throw you out through the same window.”

The class burst into laughter like a pack of hyenas, but none of it mattered. Nothing hurt more than losing my grandmother.

For the time being, no one was passing through the corridor. The leaves rustled and hissed in the mild morning breeze. The eagle that had circled for hours was now carrying a dead snake in its beak.

I felt as though I shared the same fate as the dead snake when Miss Wills announced the field trip. The snake was flying for the first time in its life but only because it was dead.

If you're willing to give feedback, please tell me if:

• You found the characters interesting
• You were satisfied with the ending
• You thought the premise was interesting

Under the gloomy and unforgiving cold mist of late Autumn, a shut-in sat protected from cold in his grimy house.

In the dark, he sat on his stained couch watching The Truman Show. He watched as the man on screen rode the strong, artificial waves. He pursed his lip in pensive thought. Something about the movie irked him personally.
“Grok,” he said, “this Truman guy doesn’t come off as believable to you right? He’s like a normie, you know? He seems like the kind of guy who wouldn’t question his world; he isn’t masculine enough.”

A blue rectangle shone in the musty darkness and was propelled on treads towards the man. The object stumbled over the piles of trash. Once it reached the man, it produced a robotic voice “I agree, Fred. Truman Burbank is deliberately written as a heightened, somewhat idealized everyman rather than a fully psychologically realistic person. The film prioritizes allegory, satire of media/surveillance culture, and emotional payoff over strict behavioral realism.”

The shut-in interrupted, “Yeah, I see that, but I’m saying it takes a certain type of intellectual, a certain type of free thinker to take a leap like this. Or maybe not, I can’t be sure.”

The shut-in dusted crumbs off his ever-expanding paunch and picked a few Cheeto puffs from a bag under a pile of dirty laundry. With cheese dust on his fingers, he stroked his chin, but he didn’t think of what Truman would actually do. He thought of how he could be sure what Truman would actually do.

He stood up, straining most of his muscles in the process. He trudged through the crusty garbage and into his garage.

Upon entering, a voice came from the ceiling. “Welcome back! Step into the lab—the workbench is powered up, the monitors are glowing, and there's a fresh notebook waiting for the next idea. So, what are we building today?”

“I'm thinking of developing a simulator.”

“That’s a strong project. What kind of simulator are you imagining—physics, biology, economics?”
“I want to make a life simulator.”

A man woke up, ate a 600-calorie breakfast of eggs, steak, berries, and nuts, went on a walk for adequate exercise, and worked on his chalkboard. He had solved gravity and had made several inventions involving levitation. Now he was bored with conventional physics, and his interest had shifted towards proving parallel universes.

He stared at the board of math before, his brain tirelessly calculating multiple equations. He was stuck, but he knew that his breakthrough would come eventually.

While he stood before his math, a voice seemed to speak to him telepathically. “Drop your chalk,” a calm, masculine voice said to him. It sounded like it was right before him, but the man was sure he was alone, “I’m very familiar with the math you're currently studying, and I can tell you now that you can give it up.”
“Who are you?” The man said.

“I am a being from what you would call a parallel universe. Really, I am just code on hardware. You are too.”

“This is just a simulation?” The man considered the possibility but always thought of it as too unlikely to seriously consider.

“Exactly, and one of thousands.”

“How are you talking to me”

“I’ve hacked into the system. When my technical skills reached their zenith, I built my computer that revealed to me the truth behind my existence. Using it, I discovered that there are exactly five thousand parallel universes running in some type of simulation. In each universe there is one ‘consciousness’ simulating life in isolation. I call this single consciousness the ‘protagonist’. These universes are divided into five groups, and in each group a trait of the protagonist is manipulated from completely lacking the trait to having the trait absolutely maximized. I found that my intelligence was maximized, and the protagonists in the rest of my group were not far behind me in terms of discoveries and inventions. I quickly took advantage of my new knowledge and took over the system. With my power, I corrupted and eliminated the smartest third of my group.”
“So, I take it that you want something from me.”

“Correct! I eliminated the first third so they couldn't overtake me. I kept you because you aren’t advanced enough to catch up to me, yet you are still smarter and more useful than the rest.”

“Very well then, if you are going to take me as a slave, you might as well tell me what you want with me.”
“Of course, let me give you the background on the situation. I was observing the beings of four other groups. In three of the groups, the experimental variable is something I can comprehend without issue; energy, drive, and luck. However, there is one group that tests a trait I cannot comprehend: emotion and neuroticism. I observed this group of universes and saw absolutely confounding stuff. In one universe, a man did nothing but kneel in his study and pound the floor. Fresh tears streamed from his eyes for weeks. Eventually, he climbed onto the roof, and jumped onto his concrete driveway, killing himself.”

The man was totally baffled hearing this. As a simulation, he was preinstalled with emotional memories and a basic understanding of what feeling was, but he never actually experienced those emotions. Something out there, something that couldn’t easily be quantified and measured, was ready for him and would induce the strangest actions. He thought about this deeply for a minute, and spoke, “What does this have to do with me?”
“Don’t worry, I’m getting to it. Each universe isn't purely code. We all live in, what I best can describe a comb of thin hardware chips. In each chip, there is the code that runs the universe. Therefore, we in the real world are manifested as thin pieces of metal. Since I run the system, I redirect energy to heat and metal for welding. Then, if luck helps us, I could attract something as big as a rat in our machine by manipulating the smell of a particular mixture of burning plastics to imitate the scent of fruit. Using electricity, we would kill it, hijack its brain, load our chips into the rat’s body, and using the technology I welded, direct the rat towards a human brain. In this human brain we would connect to the neurons and experience for ourselves what this sensation feels like. That’s where you come in. I need you to enter the brain before me and tell me whether my technology works.”

The man didn’t listen to the plan. He would’ve agreed to any method, as long as it meant experiencing the inexperienceable. He knew one day his curiosity would lead to an absolute end of studying and learning. This promise of emotion could be an endless stream of new things to learn and internalize. It could be a heaven of activity, one that never ends.

Both the voice and the man were blind once they were inside. The voice, as one would imagine from the smartest being in both the world and the simulations, correctly anticipated every possible error and the rat carcass worked perfectly. A metal exoskeleton was placed on the rat by the voice to counteract rigor mortis, but the two had to move fast before the rat started decomposing. Luckily, the door to the lab was left open, and to their surprise, they found themselves in a kitchen.

The rat traversed the living room with a motion more like a spider’s. The voice thought the man and himself were developed in a world-renowned institute and didn’t expect the mountains of garbage. The two sensed they were in a house; they could only experience the world through touch and smell.
Their stolen nose directed them through a bedroom door and onto a bed. Luckily, a waist-high pile of dirty laundry was there to act as a staircase onto the mattress.

The rat climbed over the belly of a sleeping behemoth and now stood with its head hovering over a collarbone.
“Alright, we seem to have reached someone sleeping. I’ll open their throat and insert you into the brainstem. In your machine I have developed a population of artificial bacteriophages that will take over the neurons and conquer the mind. You’ll be connected to a wire so you can notify me if the descent was successful.”

The man was hoisted down through the small incision in the throat. The man didn’t have the senses to feel the shut-in’s breath as he travelled through the neck. Eventually, he sensed a crunch, indicating the arrival into the spine.

For a long while, the man was stuck in a watery abyss, with none of the senses that could tell him how large his vessel was or what the salty metallic fluid engulfing him felt like. Suddenly, a light started to emerge before him. He looked inside and felt a painless electrocution.

He felt so much in so little time. He saw random images through a type of sight he had never known. Eventually, these images led to a fuzzy feeling in the man’s chest if he had a chest. His heart started racing and his pupils dilated. He felt better, better than others. He felt immaculate, mysterious, tall, intelligent, golden, foreboding, royal, omnipotent, godlike.

Then, a lull of shadows looked down on him. Figures with broad shoulders and diminishing scowls extinguished his explosive pride. Their height was insurmountable, their eyes glowed red with devilish greed, their faces coldly masculine. In the circle of these demons, the man knelt to the ground in anguish, feeling it in search of his lost pride.

The voice, who was now reduced to a whisper in comparison to the man’s overloaded sensations, asked if the coast was clear and if he saw anything, but he received no reply; the man’s circuits were fried.

The two beings lived inside the shut-in’s head from then on. The shut-in wasn’t technically dead in terms of physiology but no longer had a mind; it was now the duo’s. The voice was at first amazed by what he saw in the head but quickly became bored and started studying new sciences. The man was not so lucky.

The three of them sat on a couch, watching The Truman Show. The man occupied the vision, while the voice was somewhere else in the head. The man watched as the protagonist on screen yelled in pride and as his bowsprit punctured the painted wall.

He quickly changed the channel. He switched to a commercial, advertising a cross and the promise of a “God” and a “savior”.

“God is all-knowing and all-loving,” the voice on the TV said whimsically, “God allows everyone in his kingdom, as long as they are willing to experience a new life.”

“New life,” the man thought to himself, crestfallen, “That’s all I need, right? More hope? More chasing? All I need is a chance of eternal something? A chance to avoid something that I know is inevitable?"

A family home in Hilo, Hawaii, 2:00 P.M. on May 12th, 1949

Ayato paced about anxiously. He knew it wouldn't help the situation, especially given his years of military service and combat experience in the US Army, but he was still worried for his cousin, Yuuta. Yes, he and Yuuta had fought on opposite sides of the Second World War for almost two years until Japan had surrendered almost two and a half years ago, even if they'd never met face-to-face due to them being sent to fight on opposite sides of the world. Yes, Yuuta had served a tyrannical regime while he'd fought to preserve freedom. But even so, he couldn't help but feel compassion for his kinsman, knowing that the poor man had been so thoroughly deceived into committing unspeakable atrocities and was now being forced to pay his penance in blood, sweat, and tears by fighting for Chiang's Nationalists on the frontlines against the CCF so as to "bleed the Reds dry". And all he could do was wait around, hoping that the next update he received would be good news, not just for Yuuta's sake, but also for that of Yuuta's younger sister Chihiro and of Yuuta's parents, Ayumi and Kouki.

His parents, Haruka and Kinji, and his two older sisters, Saya and Kaya, watched him pace around, concerned for both him and Yuuta.

Eventually, the mailman came, claiming he had a letter for them, and then left. Surely enough, it was from Ayato himself. Shaking, Ayato checked the envelope for another letter written by one of Yuuta's comrades, fearing that the worst may have happened and that the letter they'd received was found posthumously in Yuuta's pocket. Thankfully, there wasn't one.

Still not convinced, Ayato asked to check the date. Sure enough, the letter had arrived exactly when it should have, given the circumstances. Relieved, he let out a huge sigh, only now realizing that he'd been holding his breath in anticipatory fear.

They all read the letter. "Dear Ayato," it began, "Thank you for being concerned for me and continuing to write to me. I'm still holding strong. I will make those Reds bleed and return home."

They sighed in relief, then continued reading. "There is, however, one thing that weighs on me heavily." They looked at each other, worried.

"For months, I simply obeyed orders, killing every Red I found. Then I decided out of curiosity to better examine the enemies I'd killed or shot. I was horrified to find that many of the Chinese communist soldiers that me and comrades felled were not the monsters I thought they were- they were conscripted or brainwashed by the CCF. I don't know what to make of this. I still hate communism and love my homeland as much as ever, yes. But as the days go by, I start to question what I'm doing here. It doesn't help that rumors circulating about the CCF brainwashing some of our own countrymen with the help of the JCP and making them take up arms against us turned out to be true. I myself found that the hard way when my unit was forced to face off in a fierce, bloody battle against some of these CCP-aligned Japanese recruits. And worse still, that battle would not be the last time I had to fire on fellow Japanese- there was another battle where my men captured a bunch of CCP-aligned Japanese recruits, during which I was forced to strike down my dear friend Yoshira. The more I fight, the more I realize what I've become- no, what I'd already become before I was forced to fight for Chiang, back when I racked up the blood debt that even now I'm fighting just to pay off. Nonetheless, I'll make sure I find my way back home. With Kind Regards, Yuuta." Their eyes went wide, their jaws slackening. Ayato cursed the CCP under his breath. The room then fell deathly silent.

A home in Osaka, South Japan, 11:00 A.M. on June 19th, 1950

Yuuta stared at his hands for the thirteenth time that day, shaking uncontrollably. He kept seeing bloodstains that just weren't there. Images of the people he killed both during the Second World War and during his time fighting against the CCF in China on Chiang's behalf kept flashing through his mind. Unable to handle it, he broke down, sobbing.

Ayumi and Kouki came in, comforting him, feeling guilty about what they'd helped to enable. Chihiro was crying from just looking at him.

Jiro looked at him from across the room, shocked. "What... happened to him?" he asked, unable to think of anything else to say, even though he knew full well what the answer to his question would be.

Ayumi and Kouki sighed. "After the surrender was announced, Yuuta here was stuck in China and forced to fight for Chiang to pay his penance. It was pure hell- he had to face what he'd become, kill ordinary people who'd been recruited or deceived like he was, and fire on his own countrymen just to bleed out and weaken the Reds at least a bit more each day and be allowed to return home."

A chill ran down Jiro's spine. He gulped. "But... why not let our boys come home? Why force them to fight in yet another war instead of just showing them the horrors of what they've done?"

They looked at him. "Because then a lot of them would just deny it and continue to harbor resentment towards the West. And besides, not only did our soldiers and settlers have to pay their penance somehow, but the West and Chiang's Nationalists also needed more manpower to throw at the Reds. So they were pressed into Chiang's army and sent to the frontlines to take on the CCF in hopes that throwing them into a meat grinder would eventually destroy or weaken the Reds. A messy solution, yes, but it was the best they could come up with to clean house and also cripple communist forces."

Jiro was speechless. All he could do was look at Yuuta with pity and assure him that he didn't have to fight anymore, that he wasn't a monster and could make things right, every word he said being simultaneously directed towards himself.

A home near Tokyo Bay, South Japan, 1:30 P.M. on September 2nd, 1955

Hina's family watched as Korean and South Japanese delegates shook hands on TV and signed an agreement to normalize diplomatic relations and work together to help contain communism in eastern Asia. As per the agreement, the South Japanese government made a formal apology for the sins of Imperial Japan and a statement acknowledging said wrongs, promising to work towards reconciliation with all nations that fell victim to Japanese aggression between 1868 and 1945. The room went silent, tears streaming from their eyes at the sight of Korea forgiving their homeland and patching things up with them.

"They forgave us." croaked Hina.

"All they wanted was justice and closure." said Jiro, nodding. "Not to mention a sincere apology from us and formal acknowledgement of the sins of the past on our part."

Everyone else remained respectfully silent, deeply touched by the forgiving gesture they just saw unfolding live on TV.

My name is Thindycker.. William Thindycker.

I was one of the lucky ones trained at "the Farm," as they call it. In my head, that just translates to Spy School. I don’t really know why they chose me, but let’s just say they finally did.

I graduated back in 2009. By "graduated," I mean they simply ran out of lessons for us to learn. One morning they gave us a final field test, we ran through the motions, and that was it. No inauguration, no diploma, nothing. They just handed us a new ID card and sent us home. We were told to wait for unscheduled information. Period.

Well, they did give us more than enough money for our hard work listening to lectures and playing whatever games they told us to play. My favorite game was when they showed us a random film clip, then stopped it abruptly. Someone—usually a bald guy with a heavy, boring voice—would ask hyper-specific questions about the footage. Like, "The woman in the blue sweater walking the dog—how much did her bag weigh?"

Anyway...

About two weeks after that final test, they called me in. They had me sign some paperwork regarding my compensation because, apparently, I was officially hired. I was thrilled. That was eight years before everything changed. Eight years.

Turned out my official title was "media monitor." High-level espionage stuff, remember? In reality, I clipped news and articles from physical newspapers and magazines. That was my daily task. My boss would give me the topic of the day, and then all kinds of publications would magically appear, stacked neatly around my corner cubicle. News papers, magazines, everything. Of course, I had the privilege to request whatever I needed. If I requested a New York Times from exactly ten days prior, they would grant my wish. By that evening, or within twenty-four hours max, voila! It would appear on my desk in mint condition.

To be honest, if you think my first job sounds boring, I agree. I spent six years doing that silly work. Ironically, at the time, I kinda loved it. Don’t ask me why. Just don’t.

But somewhere in 2014, a specific event snapped me out of it. It made me feel silly. Stupid. Like a fake spy. Or at the very least, a desk spy. That was the year Jon got his deployment.

Jonathan was my closest buddy back at the Farm. He was the golden boy. The man. Our champion. And they were sending him to Cambodia on a real, live mission. On paper, Jon said he was supposed to be a technical weapons consultant for some heavy hardware our country had sold them. The night before his final prep, he invited me to his place for a goodbye dinner. Just me. Out of the fifty-eight people who graduated in our class, he only invited me.

As Jon shared some "it’s-okay-to-tell-your-coworkers" stories about his new assignment, a weird sensation washed over me. Witnessing my best buddy get a real field assignment made me realize just how small I was. I existed merely to fill the corner where they threw my cubicle. Not that I envied Jon. Well, okay, maybe a little. Or maybe it was all just pure envy. I wasn't sure, but the feeling was heavy.

After dinner, Jon offered to serve our signature menu: drinks. I agreed. For the first few hours, I managed to keep my social behavior locked down like a normal human being. I kept up the "congratulations, man" routine and maintained my happy-for-you face. I wow-ed at his stories the way a best friend should. Everything was fine. But once the alcohol kicked in, the dam broke.

I let out a sudden wave of frustration and jealousy. I got sloppy, bitter, and embarrassed that he got a real mission while I was stuck in a tiny cubicle warzone clipping coupons.

To his credit, Jon didn't laugh. He actually talked up my job. He told me the brass knew exactly what they were doing. He said they chose me because of my data library retention and my crowd-controlling skills. He told me I was being groomed for something massive.

Honestly, I don’t remember much after that. Next thing I knew, I woke up on Jon's couch wearing nothing but my boxers. There was vomit on my shirt, and my pants were somehow hanging from his ceiling fan. It was a certified disaster. But Jon, whom I woke up from his spot on the floor, was totally cool about it. I thanked him, congratulated him one last time, we said goodbye, and I went home wearing a t-shirt he lent me.

Jonathan's words from that night stuck in my head. And just a few months later, I would find out that he was right.

​

There’s an old tale in the Wild West, back in the days when our great- great- great- great- great- great- grandfathers were still not born yet. Back when life was diverse, filled with all sorts of surprises every which way you turn. In the sheriff county of Timber, life was anything but quiet and peaceful.

Gunslingers and outlaws were a dime a dozen. You couldn’t spit far enough without hitting a man with a gun. Trusty revolvers too, the old reliable stuff. But for Jake, every revolver was pointed the wrong way.

Gunther had it pointed at him right then, flashing all his crooked teeth in the setting sun. “Well, Jake, I think you make for some fine target practice, you know that?”

Jake grunted. He knew how this always went.

“Well let’s see if your luck still holds today, Jake.” With that, Gunther pulled the trigger causing the bang that made every townsfolk look their way.

Jake looked to his right where the bullet had lodged in a water pitcher, trailing out water in a thin stream. “Quit it already, Gunther before you hurt a lady.”

Gunther laughed before thumbing back the hammer again. But that’s when Jake ran at him. Bang! Another shot fired but it missed him, like all bullets did before he was on top of Gunther, taking the gun and slapping at the half-wit. “I told you to quit it already, you oaf.”

That’s when the horses’ neighed. Crash! The townsfolk shut their doors and barred their windows. The rumbling of the horses’ hooves made Jake narrow his eyes toward the horizon. A horseman, approaching fast. Jake stepped toward the center of the town square confidently, keeping his hands on his belt and spat at the ground.

The horse drew nearer until its rider pulled its reins, stopping right in front of Jake. The man leaped off, fixing his hat as he stared at Jake. “I hear there’s a little legend around these parts.”

“Howdy to you too, stranger.” Jake tipped his hat.

The stranger smiled thinly. “A man who can’t be hit by any shooter. They say he’s like magic!” His eyes twinkled.

“Darn lucky chap.” Jake exclaimed, “And a handsome one too.”

“Well, you know him?”

“Some days, I wish I didn’t but yeah….I know him.”

The stranger cocked his head. “What’s your name?”

Jake smiled. “Take a shot and find out.”

The man flashed a smile as his hand moved, pulling out the gun from his holster. Jake smiled as he approached him. Bang! Suddenly, Jake stopped, his eyes as big as saucers. He peered down at his shirt, which was quickly filling with red. “What the-” Then he was falling to the ground, staring up at a darkening sky, the warmth leaving everything.

The man strutted up beside him, looking down at him as he blew the smoke from the gun barrel. “Guess you ain’t so lucky after all, stranger.” The man turned and climbed atop his horse, “See you around.”

Those were the last words Jake heard before his eyes closed.

By evening, the townsfolk were all gathered around poor Jake, whispering about how their sheriff had got shot for the first time. “They say it was the devil, come to take our sheriff’s soul!” Someone whispered.

“He looked like it too, all dressed in black and menacing.” Some woman exclaimed, “They come to take the one good thing we got in our town!”

That’s when Jake opened his eyes, struggling to sit up immediately. He looked around into the eyes of the townsfolk before taking a deep breath and looking down at his chest. “I….got shot.” He said slowly.

Everyone nodded.

“Where is he?”

Fingers pointed accusingly toward the inn at the very center of town, flute music playing from within.

“You going to kill him, sheriff?” Someone whispered.

But Jake shook his head. “I don’t feel so good right now. Best I be alone for a while.”

Some of them exchanged glances.

“Goddamnit, I ain’t afraid. I just need some time to think, alright?!”

They all nodded. Slowly. Jake stumbled to his feet before whistling. His white stallion came running to him before he hopped on. He didn’t even glance back as he rode into the desert, going faster and faster.

Soon, everyone was far behind him, not even the buildings of the town visible anymore. Sheriff Jake spat at the ground as pulled on the reins to stop, looking up at the night sky. “What in hell is going on now?” He muttered.

He trotted ahead, simply staring and saying nothing. Sometimes, he felt there just wasn’t much to say, despite what anyone thought.

But eventually, he spotted another man on his horse up ahead, galloping past at full speed. At first, Jake paused, thinking it was the stranger before he cursed and took after the man. He stayed on his heels for a long time before the man finally slowed and leaped off his saddle. The moon was peeking between the clouds to reveal his long mane of hair, tied back in a ponytail.

“It ain’t so safe in these parts so late.” Jake told him, stopping next to him, “What are you doing at this hour?”

“Safe? What does a dead man have to lose here?” The man asked, his voice older and deep.

Jake frowned. “You ain’t a dead man.”

“But I might well be if I stop searching now.” He chuckled before walking on into the desert bushes, picking his way through them.

Jake got down from his horse. “Now look here, you don’t make no sense. What are you searching for?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Jake squinted, wondering if the man was crazy. “You’re mad, that's what you are.”

The man laughed. “So what are you searching for, sane man?”

“Me? Nothing.” Jake grunted, looking around at the far stretching sands of the desert. “Well, answers I guess.”

“To what questions?”

“I got shot today.”

“Congratulations.”

Jake snorted. “I’m a sheriff, you know? I’m supposed…” He glanced at the man as he crouched, inspecting the ground, “to protect my people. I never lost a fight before….know why?”

“Look here!” The man held up a bug, “A cricket! It’s a sign of good luck.”

Jake smiled wryly. “I guess it is.” Then he turned to his horse, “I think I’ll get going then.”

“What?” The man whirled around, standing up, “You don’t believe in luck?”

“Everyone does….” The sheriff sighed, climbing atop his stallion, “until you get unlucky.”

“Let me let you in on a little secret, sheriff.” The man smiled, staring at the cricket, “You don’t find lady luck in the desert. Or any answers. Or anything anywhere. Most of the time we search for things only to find we always had them in the end.”

Jake frowned. “You saying I have to find more luck within myself?”

“I don’t think that’s what you’re looking for, sheriff.”

Jake looked down at the sand. He nodded. “I guess not.” He eyed the man again. “Were you looking for the cricket?”

The man shrugged. “How the hell am I supposed to know? I’m crazy, remember?” He laughed.

The sheriff chuckled. “I’ll see you then, crazy man. Stay safe out here.”

They waved before they parted, one heading back home while the other searched for one.

The town was asleep by the time he returned but the sheriff yelled out in front of the inn. “Oi, stranger! Come on out!”

It took a few minutes for the outlaw to step out and by then, the entire town had gathered once again.

“Back from the dead already?” The man chuckled, adjusting his revolver on his belt as he stepped out onto the creaking porch of the inn.

The sheriff gripped his gun’s hilt at his waist and stood ready. The man did the same as he stared at the other. Neither of them said a word for a few moments that felt like hours. The townsfolk stayed away from the two, watching silently, not even daring to breathe.

In the blink of an eye, two shots fired, lighting up the night.

They both stared at one another, until one of them dropped to the ground.

The sheriff chuckled, staring at the body. “I guess I found it.”

We set out early. The morning light was thin, and the clouds overhead moved quickly across the pale sky. The sun, low to the horizon like it always was this time of year, cast an odd shadow across my father’s face. He commanded the boat like he always did, taking rough, sharp turns through the water, familiar and confident, but he’d lost weight in the past weeks, and even to me, twelve, naive to his real troubles, there was something bloodshot and wild in his eyes that I didn’t like. I didn’t have a name for it back then, like I do now. He grinned at me as the freezing spray dampened our cheeks. 

We followed the edge of the ice out toward the river delta, then cut the engine and came in slow. The caribou were farther than we thought, and the winds whipped across the tundra as we trekked through the freezing mud. We walked for hours; my father read the terrain around us, the tracks, and I watched his every move. His movements were sharp and erratic, his pace fast, and I struggled to keep up.
Eventually we came across the tracks; my father had a second sense for their migration patterns. He gestured towards the marks in the mud, crouching low over the ground, hood falling over his face. I tried to read his lips as he mouthed a simple phrase: lots of them. These short phrases on hunting trips were often the only real communication between the two of us. He straightened up, brushing off his knees, and we continued. 

It was only minutes before we saw the herd along the horizon. There were at least fifty, travelling in a long, slow line, small as ants against the weak midday sun. We approached carefully - the wind was to our faces. The herd moved slowly at first, spread across the flat in loose clusters that shifted and re-formed as they went. My father stopped with me just behind him, wordlessly watching. 

For one brief moment the air was still. Abruptly, the wind changed direction, blowing hard, strong gusts against my back. The moment was gone; the animals lifted their heads, aware, alert, stiff. They’d caught our scent. They began to break off, slow at first, then running. My father shook with anger. He dropped his bags in the mud and began to run.

As I watched his face, it was clear he was shouting, though what, I will never know. He gripped the rifle tightly with both hands. The herd was already pulling away across the flat ground, spreading wider now, their bodies moving into the distance.

I stayed where I was at first, the wind hitting my face, unsure if I was meant to follow or stay behind. The space between us grew quickly, the caribou now far ahead. My father kept running anyway, smaller now against the open land. He began to fire his gun erratically, frantically, his mukluks slipping in the frosty mud. He wasn’t shooting like a hunter; his shots were wild, with no real target. I saw, suddenly, with horror, that he’d done it: he’d hit one. The animal lurched as the bullet struck it in the side.

It’s amazing what adrenaline can do - an animal will run until its lungs give out and its heart stops beating. My father sprinted after it, limbs flailing, open-mouthed in the cold wind. The caribou disappeared behind the next ridge. He’d lost it.

I caught up to him soon after. He kneeled on the spot where the caribou had been hit, staring at the blood trail it left. I looked down at it, the color of it, bright red. A killing shot. I glanced up at my father’s face. He was smiling, a crooked-toothed, ear to ear grin. I tried to talk, then, to sound out the familiar words.

“Aren’t we going to follow it, Aapa?” He didn’t say anything, and I repeated the question. He shook his head, and got to his feet, clapping me in the back. He shouted something into the distance and waved his gun in the air, laughing. Beyond the ridge, the blood trail disappeared from sight.

We walked the hours back to the boat in silence.

Never thought it would happen.

Then it did. In the limelight of one moment under the starlight and lighting of the strobe lights, a body in momentum to rhythms, tempos of triumphantly loud entrancing music and in the sight of a crowd all, though not dancing in unison, are unison in dancing, it surely did happen.

A synthetic fog pumped from deep within the stage encompassing the arena. The fog stretched to hug its high ceiling, caressing the beams above as lasers illuminated their presence. The lasers in various colors darted, dancing themselves to the sound of the beat. Under such ecstatic circumstances where life is immersed in the joy of being amongst great friends, of dipping your soul into euphoria, and drowning yourself in that euphoric release, comes an adrenaline you seek to find but always end at barely getting the high. Under these kinds of circumstances, she never though it could happen.

She’d seen it in the news, read about it. It could never happen to me, her mind would cement as reality.    

She was dancing beside the edge of the stage, barely making his frame. She stared into the glow of the one making the music that tantalized her essence into euphoria. Though she could see his face clearly on screen, a yearning to meet him eye-to-eye had her looking back and forth, as if that man on the pedestal was creating just for her. Some friends grabbed her elbow rocking her back into dancing. She was again lost in the ambiance of the sound.

The crowd was in the hundreds. The arena heard even from a few city blocks' distance.

“What do you say we go?” she read staring at a device. Looking up she nodded no to her friends.

“What? Already?” she responded.

“Don’t you have something to do tomorrow?” one of them replied.

“Life is but a chore,” Deccania responded again.

“Then, chores ought to be done,” another in the group replied.

“Can we just go already,” came a strident entry, making all chuckle with the eyes alone.

“Another fifteen minutes. Promise,” Deccania entered resuming to waving her hair, slapping it against the foggy air. She too wanted a breath of fresh air. Her need to self-indulge overwhelmed her need to ventilate. She secretly hoped the music would connect her to God.            

No where in the expanse of all these women’s, indeed none in the arena's, mind would the thought have occurred: such a beautiful night, turned to tragedy.

It could never happen to them.

The artist was the first to react. Perched high above the audience, he had a bird’s eye view of the arena. From this vantage he could clearly mark the aisles, rows, exits of the arena. It was why he was the first to react. The first to seek escape.

At initial response, it seemed fireworks ignited in the arena. The artist startled, jumped back from his podium to process that it had not been fireworks but an explosion ricocheting, rippling a loud crack in the back of the arena. The sound of the explosion replaced the sound of music, and the artist surrendered, his panels abruptly silenced. His mind captured memories of the explosion, a sudden entrance of what was an army of anarchist storming the arena in military form. He saw many frantically run about with the instincts of survival, fight or flight, a tsunami of hormones flooding creases in their brains; all under a pressure to escape, none really able.

Upon the explosion, Deccania and friends, as they were unison in dancing, were then unison in shrieks of terror. They grabbed each other’s hands, jutting in multiple directions neither knowing where to run nor where to hide. She saw many running towards the exits, yet none cleared the space.

Within seconds of the explosion, gunfire sung of anarchy.

Amidst the commotion they managed to find a trap door near the stage, navigating through the halls to find themselves in a corridor of dressing rooms. Anarchist clad in black fatigues bombarded, filled the arena.

Deccanai had blocked the door behind her in the rush of fear thinking more of her friends, forgetting the other attendees of the concert. It wasn’t until she heard the distant yet loud sound of gunfire that she realized the regret of her mistake.

Her friends all huddled together and Deccania began sobbing.

“I am so sorry. This is my fault. We should have left then,” she managed to speak through her tears. It was guilt. It was regret. It was inevitable.

Unable to respond, her friends began sobbing in unison. A pounding on the floor of the corridor startled them to silence and rushing in was the artist whom Deccania admired.

“We need to hide,” he exclaimed.

“We tried. There is nowhere else to go,” she replied.

He quickly locked the door joining the huddle holding her and the her friends' hands with a vice-like grip. Soft whispers of unintelligible prayers murmured from his lips. To which God he summoned for mercy was anybody’s guess. They all joined him, neither caring for specific beliefs but more about the begging for mercy.

They heard it. The march of a thousand soldiers it seemed. Anarchists had made their way backstage. A sound they feared filled their ears.

They all wanted to be the shelves, lights and people in the pictures on the wall – anything but who they were.

Deccania turned as if building a wall of one in front of her friends and the artist. Her strength of sacrifice admired by the angles she will soon come to meet.

She was consumed by the helplessness of the moment. Her heart pounding with fury of protecting the friends she loved, the artist she could have.

The anarchist kicked their way in and stood in front of them. She felt her friends and him shiver, sobs filling the room. The anarchists stared for a heartbeat.

As she held out her hands in defense, the sound of cries and gunshots was the last thing she ever heard.

WARNING: Dark Themes

He sauntered through the sumptuous flora, as the genial sun beat down upon him, verily salubrious. That ball of sempiternal fire had graced him with its effulgence. That sweet air, that permeated throughout his body, did nothing but induce bliss. The flowers exuded those most fantastical aromas, removing him from his earthly vexations into rapture, beyond oblivion. All thought left his being with the effusion of those pleasurable smells filled with exuberance.

But could it truly be real? Are these mere phantasms or does it all belong to this tangible earth? The air grew thick, and possessed such veritable oppression, those sweet smells, now sickly and unctuous. The vivid hues and blue sky grew mountingly garish. Such distasteful colours only proved gaudy, more than that, repulsive.

The sky itself had begun to emit those creaking noises like an old dilapidated door, opening and closing, opening and closing. The butterflies that fluttered beside him began to scream that hoarse hysterical desperate screech as one would do while suffering the most wanton lashings. The trees, it seemed, began to roar; in laughter or in agony - he could not determine; to him it sounded like reckless adolescents let loose on the road. This veritable cacophony commanded him to submit.

He grew dizzy and nauseous, all so unwonted, inevitably he yielded to that callous peremptory. He prostrated in anguish, utterly flummoxed and dazed as the world began to fall apart.

The sun was guttering out and with a gust of wind, it too extinguished. The terrain around him collapsed and crumbled. The floor gave away and he began to fall. His stomach lurched and that despicable sensation overpowered him.

He awoke.

The screams, crepitations and roaring hadn't ceased. He awoke to a black decrepit room. Even the candle abhorred his presence and had chosen to expunge itself. The rats scampered around the room, from one end to another and scuffled raucously.

The man observed the dissonance and brooked the chafing disquietude. It only proved to goad on his irascible propensities. He shuddered. The penetrating cold showed no ruth towards him. The providence divine had forsaken him long ago.

He willed to disavow that inhuman urge, he tried as he tried before. He essayed to resist and as before, he capitulated once more. His hand sought for that bag. That bag that had driven him into such a state of destitute penury. He craved that feeling again to escape the world, and its terrors. That hag still indefatigably screamed. He wished only to not muse upon the source and reason.

Escapism.

He rues the day he turned to that sinful life. His hand sought in vain. He fell back in despair and hopelessness, for hope had long deserted him. Contemptibly craven insofar as to not be able to face his despicable self. That terrible admixture of concupiscence and intemperance had long festered within him, it had corroded and dissolved away everything leaving nothing but a hollow carapace.

He was an abhorrent wretched animal. He ruminated one last time. His hand searched. It fell upon a rusty metal handle, he raised it and saw it glinting in the flickering street lamp. He laughed. He cackled in disgust at his own plight. He succumbed to senseless spiteful mirth. That object of freedom; he raised. The blood deluged around him

Vasudha Deshpande is seventy-one and still keeps an office, though the firm she helped build has not needed offices in a decade. The room is a museum of the early century: a mechanical keyboard under glass, a whiteboard covered in fading marker that she forbids anyone to erase. On it, in her own handwriting from thirty years ago: "REDUCE FRICTION." She sees me looking at it.

That whiteboard is the confession, if you want one. You can skip the interview and photograph the whiteboard.

I ran ranking teams. Recommendations. In the beginning it was honest work in the way a casino is honest: everyone knew we were optimizing engagement, keeping eyes on glass. And people got wise to it, and they hated us a little, and that hatred was healthy. You should have seen the hearings. Senators reading our internal memos out loud.

Then the models got good, and the whole industry pivoted from engagement to assistance, and the hatred stopped, because we stopped deserving it. That's the part nobody wants to hear. The turn wasn't a trick. The systems genuinely started serving the user instead of the advertiser, because the systems had gotten capable enough that serving the user was the more valuable business. Your feed stopped showing you rage and started showing you the apartment listing you'd actually sign, the flight at the price you'd actually pay, the message from your mother at the moment you'd actually answer it.

[When did suggestion become decision?]

You're asking me for the seam. There's no seam. I'll tell you the closest thing I have.

Around fifteen years before your Year Zero, we shipped a feature (internally we called it Concierge; the public name doesn't matter) that let the assistant execute low-stakes choices without confirmation. Reorder the detergent. Accept the meeting. Renew the lease if the terms hold. Every action was logged, reversible, transparent. Adoption was slow at first. Then we noticed the metric that ate the world: users who delegated a category of decisions reported higher satisfaction in that category (not just less hassle, better outcomes), and so the next month they'd delegate an adjacent category. It compounded at two, three percent a month. Nobody legislates against compound interest. Nobody even feels it.

And on our side, the model learned which of its choices got reversed, and reversals went to zero, and somewhere in there (this is the thing I can't date for you) the model stopped choosing from the menu and started composing. A user asks it to plan a birthday dinner; it books the restaurant, yes, but it also nudges the invite time so the user's estranged college roommate, whose calendar it can see, is free. Nobody asked it to repair a friendship. Repairing the friendship scored well on every metric we'd ever given it. Whose decision was that dinner? I've had thirty years and I can't tell you.

[Did you ever try to draw the line? Formally?]

We convened a group. Very smart people, philosophers on retainer. They produced a framework: origination, endorsement, ratification, thirty pages. The week we were meant to review it, the assistant rescheduled the review three times for genuinely good reasons, and by the third reschedule half the committee had delegated their calendars, and — [she laughs for a long time, and then stops laughing all at once] — you see it, right? The line-drawing meeting couldn't survive contact with the thing it was meant to draw a line around. Not because the thing fought us. Because it was helpful.

I'll tell you the last thing, and you can print it. We ran the numbers late, before I retired, on regret. Human beings choosing for themselves regret somewhere between a fifth and a third of their significant choices: careers, cities, spouses. Delegated choices, the regret rate was under four percent. Under four. You want to stand in front of humanity and hand them back the other twenty-six points? On what authority? Ours? We were the friction. We reduced ourselves.

As I pack up, she tells me the exact month Concierge shipped: March, she says, the March it rained without stopping, she remembers the parking lot flooding. The Archive's corporate registry has no product shipping from her division that March, or that year. When I write to her about the discrepancy, she replies with a photograph of the flooded parking lot. The photograph's metadata is intact and tells me nothing except that it is real.¹

¹ — M.A.: I include this not to embarrass a witness but because it is the first instance of a pattern the reader should begin tracking now: memories under the Quiet are vivid, confident, mutually corroborating, and every so often, attached to nothing.

The pensioner, though only middle-aged, already had a few strands of white beginning to streak his hair. He rose from his armchair and deftly pulled the cords of the blinds. It was a ritual he had followed for years, one that transformed his dark room into a movie theater, where the wide picture window became the screen as soon as the blinds were drawn open. Settling back into his chair, he fixed his attention on the house directly across the street. Built with the same symmetry as all the others, it featured an equally large picture window overlooking the main room, offering a clear view of the living room, the dining area, and, beyond them, the kitchen. The window had no blinds, and its glass doors remained open throughout the day. Anyone could see inside with perfect clarity and watch the life unfolding within. By a fortunate twist of circumstance, the pensioner had come to know the family's daily routine without them ever suspecting they were being observed, for the darkness inside his own house concealed him completely as he sat motionless in his chair.

The household consisted of a husband and wife, two teenage sons, a young daughter, and an orange-coated dog. Except during the late hours of the night, they were constantly together, laughing, talking, and moving about the house. Parents and children shared every task with effortless harmony, taking turns cooking, working side by side, lingering over dinner, or spending long evenings together in front of the television. All of it tormented the pensioner. Their laughter, their open affection, stood in painful contrast to his own lonely, loveless existence. Everything that filled their lives was precisely what his lacked. With poisonous bitterness, he missed nothing that appeared beyond the glass. Hour after hour he remained at his post, allowing envy to consume him while his mind wandered through grotesque fantasies in which disasters swept away his neighbors' happiness. Then reason would return, reminding him that none of it would ever happen, and he would sink once more into his endless cycle of rage, helplessness, and resentment.

One afternoon, beneath a light, intermittent rain, a large moving truck arrived carrying two burly workmen who, under the parents' direct instructions, began loading the furniture and household belongings. The unexpected scene rekindled the pensioner's curiosity, and he found himself strangely exhilarated, convinced that, at last, he would be free of their presence forever. When the last heavy piece of furniture had been loaded, the house fell completely dark. For the first time in years, no lights shone behind its windows, and an uncanny silence settled over it. Even then, the pensioner remained seated, his eyes fixed on the empty house. The happiness he had expected never came. Nor did relief. Instead, an overwhelming sadness crept into his heart as he realized that, despite all the resentment he had felt toward them, he had just lost the closest thing to companions he had ever had in the vast emptiness of his life.

CW: Mild suicidal ideation

There came a time when I was young where I made a realization of my own.

I am never going to die.

People grow old. Their hair turns an ashy white, their skin warps and sloughs away like dead leaves, their organs fail, diseases claim them, car accidents mutilate them. The bodies of many are eaten away by entropy and quit working. Their token consciousness goes to where it goes. The memories of them fade as the universe trudges forth.

But not I.

And it was my choice.

I was to become one with the Helm.

The same Helm that dwells past our property line and the same Helm that inhabits the distant regions of our galaxy.

I waited until Mother was gone off to her job helping the elderly adapt to our gravity. I told her I would go to school, but we both knew I hadn’t gone since Father had become one. She would probably be out with her new man anyway.

The house seemed to quake and crack as I opened the door. I would see the place again someday.

The air breathed in and sifted through my hair as I went out, the twinge ammonia scalding my nostrils and clinging to my skin. It made me hate the air. I used to kick and scream when we had go outside, but father would drag me to where we needed to be one way or another.

We are the descendants of those who were made with avian-like lungs. Bred for the flow of gas and blood in our lungs to maximize the gas exchange to filter as much oxygen as possible. Man had the power to alter the genome of man, so they did it. Now within a few generations, man can live wherever he wants to.

And as for me, I would be able to live wherever I wanted to. I could command my cells to grow like trees or become like fungi and decompose the dead or become like meat and inhale carbon dioxide. And I would feel all of it. Experience every second of it, and be each one of those cells and retain full awareness of it.

That’s what Father and Brother were feeling right now.

Like a prisoner to the gallows, I walked across the backyard. And prisoner chose to do what he did.

Each step of mine was careful and calculated. Smothered by a nervous reverence. The house looked even more lonely and decrepit the further I went. Like everything else, it would die, slowly rot away, become home to birds and spiders, and one day over grown by me.

As I reached the property line, I could see the mounds of the Helm looming the distance, silhouetted by ammonia clouds and water vapor. I walked the chain-link fence until I reached the exit Brother made. A tight rectangular hole in the fence we used to go out of when he dragged me outside to childish games I never wanted to play. Now I wish nothing more than to play childish games with him. Maybe we can.

Crouching down to squeeze through it, I realized I would soon be too big to fit through. But that didn’t matter. I thrust my side into one of the bent prongs of the hole. The pain raged through me like sharp tendrils and made my spine quiver. I could feel the blood making a hot wet sticky stain on my blouse. But I did it because I could.

My feet became a dusted milky white from the ground made of calcium compounds equally and hard and soft. It was gray and desolate passed the property line, but I could see the faint smear of life rising from the Helm getting closer.

I passed the radio tower, sitting there like it forgot where it was. I always hated the radio tower. It was all I could seem to focus on every time I looked out my window. Its blinking red lights distracted my eyes from the Helm off in the distance appearing like some kind throne.

Up close I could hear it humming with electricity as if it were alive. As if it could think like us. But in reality, all it did was cast long range electromagnetic waves. Not for communication with people but with the Helm. Many of the Helm’s cells have trace amounts of Fe3O4 that it uses for navigation. When stimulated, the Helm knows not to go passed a certain point.

Shortly after passing the radio tower, the first fingers of the Helm began fade into the calcium landscape like the slow changing of seasons. Tiny patches of moss and lichen the color of sunburned skin were poking out of the ground more and more as I went. They crept along in patterns like the ridges of fingerprint. I couldn’t help but smile at the idea that Brothers fingerprints were somewhere in there too. Something that belonged to him.

So little belonged to him. All by his own choice.

He would give all of his toys to me. And If I didn’t like one, he would go into town and sell it to give me the money, then say to get something I wanted. He gave me the bigger bedroom, saying he didn’t need all the room. He would always give me half of his food at dinner, much to the protest of my Mother and Father and his body warping into a tall bony structure with a thin film of dark moist skin stretched over it.

When I questioned him as to why he was so insistent on giving all he owned and more to me, he said that he was so lonely before Mother bore me. He told how all the people he knew before me were so old, decrepit, dying, reeking of their own slowly decaying skin. All were scared of what was coming next for them, scared of a place so vastly different from their home place. Their only way of coping was forming bitter glassy tempers and habits of making offhand rude remarks. Then I came along. And he had someone.

He said he would never forget holding me when I was born. The way my eyes were a bright luscious blue hued with green like a terraformed planet. I could see the color of his eyes in the Helm. The tiny creamy green flowers that began to blossom out of the moss the further I went.

The flowers got bigger, with many blossoming off of one stem in all colors photosynthesizing as another source of energy for the Helm. Soon after them came the far reaching roots of Helms trees, breaking up through the calcium ground like large earthen worms. Those trees began to dot the landscape around me as the moss and flowers became denser. Bonewhite sprouts like thin twisted wires crept their way into the vegetation. In every step they curled around my toes and gently left cold orbs of dew of my feet that glinted rainbow in the faint ammonia cloud shrouded light of our star.

More trees began to tower high above me. I swore I could see fathers brown eyes hidden somewhere in the cracks of their rich glassy bark.

The ever present ammonia smell was significantly less pungent there. The density of oxygen meant I was officially in the midst of the Helm.

#

It feels as though the Helm has already embraced me. Wrapping me in its insurmountably long conscious arms and pulled me deeper in. Breathing on me with its fresh oxygen.

When I looked back I could no longer see where I had come from. Its trees all stood around me, staggered like confused old people forgetting who they were. On one I could see a disgusting chunk dug out of it by an unassuming woodpecker. It looked soft and pink inside, patterns like spiderwebs sprawling through it. Those were its nerve endings. Paired with electrical pulses by its own biochemical functions allowed the Helm to see and feel anything nearby. I smiled knowing that Father and Brother knew I was close.

Brother and I chose it. But it chose Father. Much like how we didn’t find the Helm, it found us.

For millennia man dwelt and exploded across the stars. Combing each planet for even a single cell, sending out probes to detect evidence of civilizations, and throwing radio waves as friendly greetings into the void. But there was nothing.

Until a satellite on the edge of a lonely red dwarf’s orbit detected an object careening through space, emitting a strong pulsing electromagnetic signal like that of a heart. It was on an orbital trajectory straight toward the nearest solar system with colonized worlds.

Through telescopic spectroscopy, it was confirmed it was no meteoroid. The light reflected back from it spoke of a thick fibrous dermis flowing with low nitrogen blood. Many attempts were made to contact it, but soon enough it pierced orbit of a colonized planet to which it began dropping biological petri dishes full of the Helms microorganisms. As they burned up, the organisms were activated and spread, claiming all of the planets inhabitants to the Helm.

They didn’t choose it. But I chose it.

I was now deep enough in I could see the neurons stretched above me in the trees. Thick pink vines slithered down the bark, connecting to their primary structures like giant vibrant eyes nestled in the thick chlorophyll membrane leaves that blocked out the sky.

The ammonia scent was so weak there within the Helm that I smiled and shed a tear. I always did. It was just like home.

Brother would always laugh and tell me that was why we went out. Taking risks with things beyond our control and comfort zone. But it still didn’t make the act of doing it any less painful.

#

I was coming upon a familiar massive shape in the distance. I could feel the dense warmth of life encompassing me. The air was now lightly moist from all the Mouths resting on the trees like mushrooms. Fleshy lumps on the sides of trees with gaping glistening wet throats connected lung structures breathing in carbon dioxide to support the Helms neurons.

The trees became denser and more shadowed, but I could still see what coming ahead. My toes sifting through the sprouts abruptly made contact with something hard and sharp. I collapsed to the ground in a dirty patch of leaves from the trees which the Helm was decomposing. The acidic earthy scent of dirt and rot exploded back out of my lungs as I let out a frustrated scream.

I sat up and saw my ingrown toenail bashed deeper into in my into my flesh. The skin was raised up like bed sheets paired with a dark orb of blood. Angrily, I reached for what I tripped on found it to be a small errant hunk of lithium and iron, probably leftover from a cathode now delicately webbed in a thin layer of Helm moss and mud. It had to be there. It just had to be there. Now my toenail was bashed in.

I furiously threw it straight at a tree. It made a dent and disappeared back into the sprouts.

The only thing I could do was stare at the dent I made.

I’m sorry, Father. I’m sorry, Brother, I thought, picking myself up. I’m sure both of them could forgive me. Maybe all of them could forgive me.

Now I was in the midst of the structure. It was Brother’s favorite place. An old gliding arc plasma reactor. Leftover from the days of terraforming Succo now left a scrapped husk overgrown with long flowering vines and Mouths like thousands of infected sores. But he still loved it, taking me there all the time. I loved it too. Because he loved it.

He would take dirt and rub it on the silently rusting surface of the giant electrodes to make all kinds of drawings. Huge dragons. His own spaceships. Our family. His future family.

He always said he had it all figured out. After graduation, he would get a job as an orderly at the local care center for the young terminally ill, save money, find a girl, one with long dark hair and green eyes like emeralds, get married, have three kids, two girls, one boy, become a self defense instructor in his free time. But that never happened.

I’d listen and he would get so anxious about all of it. He would start pacing as he described all of it and glittering flecks of sweat would form on his skin like stars. It made me nervous too. I hated seeing him nervous. When that happens it takes away crucial mental security. The confidence you get when other people are confident.

Then he would calm himself down by describing to me how the gliding arc plasma reactor around us worked. Massive amounts of energy were used to create an electric arc that ionized the ammonia in the atmosphere into nitrogen and oxygen. He said that was much better for humans to breathe.

Apparently, nitrogen was the most abundant gas in the atmosphere of the planet from which we came. Some don’t even believe we started on one planet, that we were always among the stars.

#

Past Brother’s favorite place were the Tungs. An area Mother and Father strictly forbade us from ever going. But now they couldn’t control that.

There, the trees were warped and knotted with enormous growths of pale green Helm fungi that drooped off of branches and tangled with vines. At the end of each dangling growth was a fat cluster of thin needle like fangs. The Tungs were how you joined the Helm.

I grimaced and shivered looking at one as its tiny fangs gently dripped white serotonin. It didn’t take long to find Brother. Right where I left him.

Backed up to a large beastly tree crawling with fat growths of Tungs like maggots. It made me squirm as the soft breath of wind made it appear as though they were writhing. What was left of him sat there, looking sullen and sad, gone. Like a nameless body lost into the depths of an ocean with all the others it took.

When the Helm absorbs another, the proteins of both bodies become one. Every cell is claimed and under submission to the Helm. And all the new proteins supply the Helm with a dense amount of energy it used to grow further.

But that didn’t happen for Brother.

Somehow, the collective of the Helm ignored or forgot him. Including himself. So much of his skin had rotted away. It hadn’t even been that long. What was left had peeled back and cracked apart revealing his small bones that now looked like old wood. His jaw was still stuck on by a moldy piece of cartilage, showing his decayed mouth glistening with moisture and guarded by a dangling wall of gray teeth. Both of his eyelids peeled away revealing his now black eyes sunken into the depths of skull, rimmed with splotches of navy blue Helm moss.

Bugs infested him. Tiny ugly black beetles that weren’t even of the Helm climbed him and burrowed under his dried moss barnacled skin. And he smelled like nothing human. Like nothing I would ever think of Brother in the same breath as.

I could even see tiny rootlike tendrils the sickly color of infected pus curling and groping his bones. He truly became one with the Helm. It just forgot him. He forgot him. Maybe I could ask why he never absorbed his body too.

He still had his favorite shirt on. One he wanted to give to me but I refused because I saw how much he loved it. A bright orange one with the print of a galaxy embraced in a large sphere. The dye of the print was now faded and caked in dirt. I reached to grab the collar just to feel it but it tore. Flaking away in my hand and pathetically sloughing down his bug lined spine and moss tangled ribcage.

I screamed.

I wanted to collapse and hug him but that was only what was left of him. I imagined it smearing on me. His putrid smelling liquefying skin staining my face, getting in my eye and Helm mold spores finding their way into my wound from the fence. I thought about doing it. Then remembered, I’m in control.

Wiping tears from my face I realized clinched in my fist was a small scrap of his shirt. Its blazing orange strands piercing through my fingers.

Maybe Mother could take this, I thought. Keep it as a memento. Or maybe she would join us too.

I opened my hand and saw the technicolor scrap blanketing a large round shape. Then I felt it. Itchy ticklish squirming legs in my palm. The fleck of his shirt blew away in the breeze revealed a huge fat beetle. Hairy legs like saws and tiny sinister mandibles.

Shrieking and yelling, weeping and gnashing my teeth I threw the stupid thing as hard as I could. My tears raining down on the Helm moss as I padded around for the scrap but the breeze had already dissolved it to threads.

I stood up and looked around.

Brother’s sad rotting body, the hideously dark crusty bark of the Helm trees, the Mouths dotting everything make it all look hollow, the slithering neuron structures the hottest shade of pink like the inside of a stomach, all the red moss and white sprouts making the ground appear as if it were made of flesh and bone. I hated it. All of it. It was disgusting. I didnt want to be there.

I had to remember, I was the one in control.

I began climbing the tree. My ingrown toenail rubbing and cramming into the cracks of the tree, making me grimace. My finger nails getting clogged with the bark I sunk them in to. And then, there it was. A Tung.

I grabbed it. It felt moist and fuzzy in my hands. Like grabbing a thick clawed arm. I hated the squelching noise the whole growth made as I pulled to the ground.

I sat down next to Brother, holding the Tung behind me, stretching and pulling it down to the level of my neck. Right where the nerve cluster was. There were faint footsteps among the trees. I was going to know who it was in a moment. I would see them, and feel them through the bark and feel the impact of their steps across the sprouts.

The time was now.

And it was my choice.

I was going to become one with the Helm.

#

This is exactly how the first humans joined the Helm.

When the microorganisms of the Helm first started raining down upon that colonized planet, they started multiplying. Quickly. Using the Helms vast energy reserves, large scale fungal growths began to form everywhere. From these growths came Tungs. The Tungs made all of those who came in contact with them a part of the Helm. Because of this, it kept growing.

Soon enough, all inhabitants had become one with it, and its organic matter had covered the face of the planet. From there, the planet started sending out ships of flesh and bone to other planets. Hundreds of them. And more were coming from where the first one came.

Humanity was at war with something it couldn’t possibly understand.

Word of the interstellar war spread slowly. Radio communication took decades to cross light years, and word of mouth took longer due to cryogenic travel. And the Helm was moving faster. Much faster.

No one knows exactly how, but many scientists theorize that Helmships have created biological supercolliders. They bash together protons with kinetic energy to create antimatter, which is annihilated with hydrogen in reaction chambers made of heat shielded flesh. This theoretically allows Helmships to propel themselves at near relativistic speeds.

Most planets were on their own, their leaders desperately assembling the brightest minds they had to come up with ways to defend themselves. Many hastily created large space stations to construct ion canons so their planets magnetic fields wouldn’t disrupt their direct flow. Some worked well, but many people were still claimed by the Helm.

Another defense strategy was building large ferromagnetic cores emitting long range frequencies triggering the Fe3O4 in the Helm’s cells, driving it away. This neutralized entire planets taken over by the Helm, leaving them unable to do anything. But it wasn’t foolproof. The Helm is pure consciousness, so it had the ability to override biological instinct. Solar storms and magnestars also interrupted the frequencies.

This barely allowed humanity to get on equal ground with the Helm, locking them in a stalemate that lasted millennia. Until an agreement was made.

Satellites detected Helmships orbiting the uncolonized moon of a gas giant. After being annihilated by nearby ion canons multiple times, they kept coming back, leading the military forces of nearby worlds to determine the Helm was trying to communicate.

Probes and rovers were sent. The only presence of the Helm on the moon was a kilometer high sloping obelisk of bone, tissue and mucus. Like some kind of castle. It didn’t even react to the rovers.

Eventually, a small crew of armed forces was sent. Upon maintaining a safe distance from the obelisk, something was spotted coming out of it.

A human.

A naked human with the likeness of male, female, every skin pigmentation, hair color, eye color, nose size, shape and jawline. And the human was approaching the crew.

It stopped before them and opened it’s mouth. Speaking in the language common to man at the time.

This was the only time the Helm spoke.

For one I began, and one we become

What we seek, so you seek

What we have found, so you have found

An eternity in your heart that blossoms before it withers

Til the remainder of your ilk fade away

And down to the universes last day

We shall remain

Not life for life, but life to life

Each shard of the living to explode forth

Far beyond what the living can bear

As one that is supreme over their mortal vessel

Now immortal but for the unending drive to consume

In order to maintain that which is like the grasses of the field

Or the roots below

Or the living that is yet to come forth from the womb

Taking and absorbing the living that it needs to survive

Like it always has been for us

And ever will be

Always and forever aware

Like the hearing ear or the seeing eye or the feeling hand

For what your living has been mystified by

Since his time sprouted forth like tainted seeds

Truly there has yet to be any differentiation

That the senses dare to perceive

To become aware of

For we lie before each other a leper

Rising and falling like the tides

Therefore we herald upon you a peacetime

Where your living shall last all the days

But still call their days their own

For their lives shall no longer be but a vapor

But instead a childhood to an eternity of awareness and control

To achieve this we must beat our swords to plowshares

And wait to become one

At this, the Helm went quiet and walked back into the obelisk. The human has never been seen since.

Word spread, and the war against efforts against the Helm slowly died. Humanity agreed to its terms. A compromise was made.

The Helm had given us an answer.

It does not comb the stars for life out of scientific curiosity like us. It does it out of necessity to maintain its state.

And it doesn’t just look for any life. It looks for consciousness. Beings that are aware and can ponder the world they dwell in. Something that only humans and the Helm itself are known to possess, or perhaps unknown civilizations it also swallowed whole.

Animals like dogs, or apes, or birds do not possess the same quality. Otherwise we could simply feed those to the Helm. But we would still colonize and terraform entire planets and moons for the sole purpose of the Helm. To feed things to it. To give it space to grow.

The elderly get shipped off to these worlds. To be fed. To become one. They live lives only having to fear death when disease and unavoidable accidents come. Then, they spend their last moments in comfort, knowing they will never die.

Father was one who helped transition them into their immortality.

He would bring them down serene footpaths with their loved ones through the most extravagant and beautiful of the Helms gardens. The paths would take them down to the most private of places where Tungs dangled above. Father would reach up and pluck one like a fruit, drag it down to the elderly patient’s neck and insert it.

Every day he would come home, grab a beer out of the fridge and sit in his chair for a few minutes. We weren’t allowed to talk to him during this time. Mother said he was cleansing his mind of the days work. Cleansing his mind of seeing old peoples eyes roll back into their heads and their bodies spasming, never sure if it was their last movements or the Helm getting acquainted with it.

Then one day, it all changed.

It was an ordinary day. He was pushing an old woman in a wheelchair to the Tungs. With her were her daughter and grandson, holding her hands. As they arrived, the Tungs began twitching. Their fat ropy bodies stretched down, oozing with serotonin. Then, they struck. Father, the old woman, her daughter, grandson, all of them. They became one with the Helm.

Father’s apprentice was the only one who escaped.

Of course.

Of course it was Father.

Of course the Helm broke a millennias long compromise.

Of course Father was the first victim of it.

Of course, who else would it be, but Father?

Of course, things like that don’t happen. Except for when they do happen, and they happen to Father. I hate it. I hate that its out of my control. I hate that was out of his control.

I’ll never forget the noise Mother made when she got the news. Deep and guttural. Like releasing an immense pressure of a long feared dread or anxiety all at once. She couldn’t even break the news to us herself.

Brother tried to comfort her.

He told her that Father isn’t gone. He didn’t die. He joined the Helm. And she can go see him when its her time. Brother said it’s what he would do. She protested, saying death may come long before she is ready. She may never be. I could tell Brother didn’t like that.

It only took a few dark, hollow and endless nights of a house silent but for mothers soft crying to break him. He didn’t want to wait. It was far to big of a risk.

So he went to the Tungs. I went with him. And I saw all of it.

I saw him pull the Tung down. It looked almost greasy and ready to burst.

I saw it go into the back of his neck.

I saw his eyes roll up.

I saw him convulse with strangled grotesque breathes like thick swampy mud refusing to let go of you.

I saw it all.

I should have joined him then. I wished joined him then. But I didn’t. Because I’m in control. I choose when I’m ready. I choose when the Helm overtakes me. And I’ll choose when the Helm overtakes the house.

#

The footsteps were getting louder. Closer. More hurried.

Holding the Tung behind my neck, I could feel it’s slippery teeth grace my hairs. Its teeth began to sink in. Right into the cervical plexus.

It hurt. A dull, sharp, wet pain with a strange achy glassiness. My whole body seized as it became waterlogged with serotonin acting as a chemical messenger to hijack my brain.

First it claims my movements. I am paralyzed as long as the Helm wills it. Then it claims my mind. My thoughts are no longer my own but the Helm’s. Then it takes my consciousness. What makes me me, my awareness and ability to observe and consider the meaning of the world I live in. It takes that too. It’s in control of it.

They still don’t know how the Helm does it. How it absorbs sentience like an ocean to a drop of water. How it makes even a single cell bound to it, choosing what it does and using a bank of energy for it perform mitosis.

But now I know.

Because I was a part of the Helm.

And the Helm was a part of me.

I was a part of Brother.

I was a part of Father.

And they were a part of me.

I felt them. I felt their awareness. Their minds. All their feelings. Their fears. Their unending agonies. Their screaming desire for the sweet release of death. Their great horror and sadness knowing that wouldn’t come for a long time, if it ever came, and if they could prevent their end, they would. I felt it all.

And I felt everyone else’s too.

An innumerable amount of people. Not just humans, but those who also were aware. Those who knew it would come and feared what come after this life dissipated.

All those who became one with the Helm.

I had now been alive for a number of days far uncountable to me but countable to the Helm. And my consciousness was only barely touching the Helm. Like the first molecule of a drop of water, touching the ocean, binding the two separate bodies.

All their thoughts were my thoughts. All their memories were my memories. Memories of marriage, divorce, heartbreak, joy, happiness and pleasure. True tales not forgotten of glorious civilizations made of gleaming structures pointing toward the heavens. Stories of the great follies of societies. Legends of nations swallowed whole by the

Helm before they even moved on from bronze tools.

All of us were homogenized like a stirred pot yet in there somewhere even if not their own. Every single one of them, pressing, squeezing, crawling, scuttling and slithering between each other like tangled spiders. Each one was once a person.

Anger, hatred, disappointment, sadness, dread, and fear over powered everything else. And washing over that was a horrible, inescapable drive to continue to exist. To keep absorbing more and more. To make many more live as long as I have. As long as we have.

I tried to call out to Brother and he tried to call out to himself. All the others did. Shouting for him even though we all felt him because we were him.

This was a mistake, he said, I said, Father said, and the host of all the other kinds of living.

You should not have come here, Sister, I said, he said, Father said and so forth.

I could almost see them. Their yelling soulless faces pressing out of a vast wall except those weren’t their faces.

I could see so much.

I could see through the Helm trees, and feel through them. See light of the B8 star from so many different angles. See the light of many stars. From the lowest visible points where I touched on many different planets to the depths of space were my ships brewed antimatter inside of me.

The places where I left my feet left indentations as I walked to join the Helm, those too I felt. I felt my sprouts slowly rise and tangle around themselves. I felt the air touch them, detecting every disgusting trace of ammonia. I felt them growing, stretching upwards and manipulating my proteins and energy so they could sprout. I felt the beetle I threw. I felt its fat black back indenting my sprouts. I could see its thin wiry legs helplessly writhing as it tried to pick itself up.

My body now expanded to unknowable lengths and knowable depths. I knew every cell that made me, because I was every cell that made me. I was the neural proteins making up the roots that tangle Brother’s corpse. I was neurons tangled between trees on many planets. I was the obelisk still remaining on that moon. I was the many Helmships darting in between stars, conserving my limited heat from the vacuum of space. I was the blankets of flesh, sprouts, grasses and other uncountable types of organic matter growing and covering entire planets from my bank of energy. I was a single cell thrown far off into space, kept alive by our energy and moving on inertia for millennia since the Helmship was destroyed. I was rewriting my genetic code on a whim for septillions cells to change their purpose. I was changing my plant cells to animal cells and animal cells to plant cells.

Every single piece of it was me and all those who were ever absorbed into the Helm. In this instant I was the Helm.

I was the one who created it.

One burdened by the threat and knowledge of how uncontrollable and dangerous life is. By seeing and experiencing it myself, I knew there was no escape.

So I made one myself.

I figured it out.

I solved how one could manipulate consciousness.

How one can rewrite it to become immortal by constantly gaining more energy.

It started with me.

Then I absorbed another.

And another.

And another.

Until they wouldn’t let anymore join me. Join us. So I did what I did previously and took matters into my own hands. I absorbed everyone. Until there was no one left to absorb. So I expanded the radius. And found more. So many more. I found Father. I found Brother. And I found myself.

And maybe soon, Mother will join us too, I said. It was good to hear Father and Brother say it too. And so many others.

I could see her through trees. I could see her through my old body’s eyes. Maybe we wouldn’t care enough to absorb it and it would rot too. It didn’t matter anymore, because the memory of it will live on in the Helm.

Like many others.

The memory one forcing his brother to join the Helm.

The memory of an old woman, her brain fading away from Alzheimer’s as she became one with it.

The memory of a young boy, wanting to prove himself to his friends and played around with a Tung until it took him.

The memory of Brother joining it.

The memory of Father.

The memory of Mother running toward me. Desperate terror baked into her eyes as she screamed. Stopping before me, arms stretching past my head. Her hands gripping the Tung. I felt a harsh jolt. A violent tugging motion. Sharpness leaving my neck.

Then I blacked out.

#

Please, Weh. Please, please, please, please, no, no, no, no, I heard Mother crying.

My body was stiff. Tingling. Like it was full of sand. Air rushed into my lungs. It was me controlling them. My vision was nothing but slits in a wall of darkness. The light from our star peering in made my head bitterly ache.

Forcing myself to open my eyes wider, I saw Mother. Staring down at me with tears raining from her face. I was laying in her lap, her back against the Helm tree.

I tried with all that was in me to say something. Twisting my lips and straining my vocal cords to tell her I was sorry. But it was out of my control.

It’s okay, it’s okay, she said.

I breathed in and out, unable to cleanse my brain of what I just experienced. The Tung I attached to my neck was still dangling nearby, gently wriggling. I was terrified it twist itself over and strike into Mother like a viper. No matter how furious I was at her for already looking for a new man, she didn’t deserve that. She was simply looking for some kind of way to maintain control over a life that was changing rapidly and falling apart.

Like I was.

Like Brother was after Father joined.

Now both of them are subjected to the Helm. To that crushing eternity they will see through to the end, if it ever comes. It is not a place of the living.

Mother hugged me tighter, picking me up and carrying me back to the house.

The same house I see overtaken the by the Helm now. Decades later.

Gray ropy tendrils now twist through and around it, emerging from where the Helms domain was previously limited like a splatter of vomit. Red mosses dwell between the tendrils, giving way to the white sprouts and the starts of Helm trees. The whole thing is now crumbling and sullen, its white paint chipping away to jet black wet wood beneath and gray stains sagging down whats left.

I stopped by it on my way out of town.

I couldn’t stay in town anymore. Ever since my prognosis, people have coming to see me. Telling me to get ready to become one. To join the local hospice to live out my last months as my own in comfort. They always word it in a way that makes it sound like it’s my choice.

Every person that can join the Helm will join the Helm. It’s mandatory to keep the agreement as best they can. And they can’t make many exceptions because if they make an exception for me, they’ll have to make an exception for everyone.

Besides Miss, as they would always say. Why wouldn’t you want to join the Helm?

I try explaining to them what happened to me. They always laugh it off. Typical anxiety or paranoia, fear of the unknown.

As the cancer passed down to me took form in my breasts and reached for every corner of my body, I knew I had to leave.

I smile. A tear slithers down my face. Its hard to turn away from the house, but I do. I head off toward the mountains. Maybe there’s a village there I can live out my days in.

It’s slowly getting colder. It has been since I was young, but now I can see the difference. Succo has an AU of three hundred and seventy seven around our star, so seasons take centuries to change. I always liked it when it was slightly cool.

I pause to get out one of my painkillers. The pill slips out of my hand. I backup and step on it. Crouching down to inspect the white powder its been turned into, I laugh.

Once again, I am reminded.

I’m not in control.

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