 
# Material Things

## The Fiction of Kody Boye

## Kody Boye
Material Things

The Short Fiction of Kody Boye

Copyright © 2007 – 2020.

All Rights Reserved.

Smashwords Edition

* * *

Edited by Various

Cover art by Kody Boye

Interior formatting by Kody Boye

This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

# Contents

Introduction

Beauty Queen

Harpy

The Devil on Blue Hill

The Dog on Taylor Road

Her Eyes

Life in a Fishbowl

Bubba

Baelra and the Equine

Sometimes

Pedestrians

DJ Skippy says Life Goes On

Jade

Animals

The Snake Woman

And His Name Was Peter

Delilah

Bouquet

You and I

My Dead Boyfriend

The Butterfly Man

The Witch of Lincoln Wood

The Tragedy of Louis Décor

Elijah

Dream

War is in the Hearts of Men

Beautiful Woman

The Girl With the Origami Swan

Jossiah's Bones

The Glass Doe

Uncle

An Amorous Thing

Gwenny

Bellaerama

Camera Shy

Baby Monitor

Garmantua

The Diary of Dakota Hammell

Wraethworld

The Devil Is A Man in Red

The Town That Hides at Dusk

Material Things

The Black Wedding

The Stairway to Heaven

After the Flood

The God of Small Animals

Update Log

About the Author

# Introduction

Hello everyone,

We're back, and this time, better than ever!

But, the question is: _why_ are we back?

The answer to that is simple:

Short fiction doesn't sell anymore.

For that reason, I am pleased to announce that _Material Things: The Short Fiction of Kody Boye_ is going to be permanently free from here on out!

How does this short fiction compilation work?

It's simple:

You can either:

  * A. Read it online at www.ablogofmaterialthings.blogspot.com

Or

  * B. Download your preferred file type on Smashwords (where you've downloaded this file from.)

The collection, in its current state, is sporadically updated; and, as a result, will receive only occasional additions.

You can find out what has been added to the new versions of this compilation by referring to the Update Log at the end of this document. That will let you know what was added and when.

With that said:

I hope you enjoy this compilation. I enjoyed writing each of the stories within.

If you would like to donate to further my writing endeavors, you can do so by clicking or tapping on this link (which will take you to my personal Paypal payment portal): <http://paypal.me/kodyboye>

Thank you for following me along on this journey. It's much appreciated.

Sincerely,

\- Kody Boye

# Beauty Queen

She was as beautiful as a beauty queen. Ebony-black hair, full red lips, big high cheekbones, brows perfectly trimmed and nose finely-crafted—she bore a bust that drew many a man's attention and commanded attention with but her body alone. She was, as anyone could have described her, beautiful, and for that she took herself to the stage—where, in New York, she would become the greatest icon in history.

Six feet tall, with substantial but slight measurements that framed her body in the most glorious of light—she'd walked into a modeling agency one day and was hired on the spot after she'd drawn the looks of everyone within the building, and on the day of her first photo shoot she wore nothing but a long, vulnerable sheet, all to cover her sex and the things that made her beautiful.

"Tilt your head up," the cameraman said, "just a little higher."

This beautiful woman who was as beautiful as a beauty queen pushed her jaw into the air and faked a plaintive sigh as from the side the cameraman began to fire at her. One shot here, one shot there, another to the left and another to her right—she saw for but a few moments the bright bulbs and their amorous light before she felt upon her skin a breeze. This, she knew, was the trigger, the sex-bomb that all women in glorious makeup had, and it was when she opened her eyes and stared directly into the camera that her life changed forever.

Little more than a week after her photo shoot, she graced almost every magazine in the continental United States.

_You're beautiful,_ some would say to her in passing, as while she walked down the street she drew attention in her four to six-inch heels. _I've never seen anybody like you._

_That,_ this beautiful woman knew, was because there had never been anyone like her. The last great American icon had died in 1962, a cocktail of barbiturates and the gloom of the world around her. It was her blonde hair and her one birthmark that had inspired the world—that, ultimately, shaped the beauty of the modern age—but this beautiful woman was not like the other beautiful women. No. She was tall, she was waifish, she had long dark hair and a pair of eyes so strikingly-gray you could on some occasions see a storm in them—beauty could not be defined by shade, by color or by mark, so it was for that reason when she passed the newspaper stands that she drew all eyes.

Eventually, things became rough. A modeling agency by the name of something wonderful sent with her on daily excursions bodyguards tall and broad-shouldered. Her freedom, she first proclaimed, had been jeopardized, but it when the first of the money-hungry men came forward with his dingy little cameras and his selfish little hand she realized she could no longer be alone.

In one month's time, the whole world had seen her face.

On the greatest throne she could have ever been seated upon, the reporter asked just who she was. _We know your name,_ this man said, _and we know you're beautiful, but who exactly are you?_

This beautiful woman could not speak. She knew nothing of who she was past the things she held inside. The little girl, the Barbie in her hand; the adolescent twelve-year-old, mistaken and mad; the teenager who grew up with legs too long and a body too lean that they often called her a beanpole; then as an adult, when, for foolish purposes, she had turned out beautiful—she could say honestly say without regret that she was just a simple girl from California, but that's not what they wanted. What they really, _truly_ wanted was to feed on her—wild dogs drawn to her corpse when her flesh was filleted like some poor dead fish.

After the interview concluded, the beautiful woman with the long dark hair took what she most loved during these times—a hot shower—then made her way into the bedroom: naked, save for the towel wrapped around her shoulders. It was there, in her hotel room, that she wandered to the window; and it was there, in naked glory, that she looked out and saw the awe-inspiring city before her.

_It's,_ she thought, almost unable to believe her thoughts, _beautiful._

Beauty could not describe a thing so historic and revered, as along the streets she saw the cars and upon the buildings the glass. This place was new—utopia, it could be said, for the modern celebrity. It bore no scars, had drank no blood, nor had it ever within its surfaces captured the life and reason within it.

Outside, one of her bodyguards knocked on the door and called in, "The dinner plate is here!"

She dressed herself in a modest gown and opened the door. Through the threshold the skinny little barhop came, and pursued shortly by her bodyguards he entered the room. He lifted the wine bottle, poured a glass, lifted from the platter the lid, under which her favorite, a freshly-cooked lobster, was revealed. He offered two capsules of butter and then turned and departed, all without acknowledging her by presence or name.

"Roman," she said to the sole remaining bodyguard within the room. "Why won't anyone speak to me?"

"Because you are beautiful," her guard named Roman said. "Because they do not believe you are not a real person."

Her flaws could not be defined by time, could not be shaped by biology or even by the natural evolution of the world, for she was something that they were not—cold, nearly-lifeless and, often told, devoid of a personality.

When the beautiful woman with long dark hair considered the meal before her, she rose and made her way to the mirror.

Before the looking glass that reflected Hell and back she opened her nightgown, revealing herself to the world.

She bore no gender other than the impressions of breasts upon her body, where there were no nipples upon her frame and where life would have caused them harm, and there was no sex between her legs that defined her as what it was she was supposed to be. In cream coloring and carefully-carved features, she had been born of beauty—shaped, she and her kind understood, out of one single event that had changed the world forever.

"Madam?" the guard named Roman asked.

"Yes?" the beautiful woman replied.

"You should eat. Your food's getting cold."

It was with that notion that she sat down, took the fork in her hand, then carved from the exoskeleton the stringy meat beneath.

When she put the first bite into her mouth, the beautiful woman couldn't help but sigh.

She was a mannequin.

How was she supposed to live?

* * *

She raised her shoulders and walked down the catwalk as in the audience hundreds of lights blinked forth. Some constantly shining, others flashing, a choice few impressing upon her a reel of snapshots that would capture her every movement—as she walked, and as she shifted her hips and rolled her shoulders, the beautiful woman who earned no name acknowledged the people and just what they were doing.

_They are taking pictures,_ the mannequin thought, _of me._

Then again, who could blame them? Those men in the crowd, those eyes on the streets, those carefully-guarded glances from men and women and even children who stood along the sides of the road to watch just what it was she was supposed to be—she was beauty incarnate because she had been molded by the hands of grace. First were her eyes, now a nice blue and startlingly wide, then was her nose—perfect, in nature, and finely-tipped. Even her lips, a normally-unattractive trait, caught the light from the many bulbs and phones and shutters and reflected it back to the world before her. They were looking upon her, this perfect thing, and it as with that knowledge that she realized she could not disappoint.

If only the clothes on her body wouldn't have been so cumbersome.

The dress she wore fit tight to her frame and allowed little to be discerned by the imagination. Though sexless, her groin appeared shapely, feminine and not in the least bit obtrusive, and her breasts were fine and small, nicely-shaped and devoid of nipples but hidden behind a fine transparent bra. Around her, as they walked to and from the catwalk, she noticed the women and how, unlike her, they appeared boyish—much like a young man transitioning from his child to adulthood. Why they had not replaced these false persons with more of her kind the beautiful woman could not know, but in looking at them, she decided not to care.

At the end of the catwalk, she pressed a hand to her hip and jutted her head to the side, the many threads and rhinestones upon her body glimmering in the eternal night.

_It's her!_ she'd heard one cry. _The mannequin!_

_Quit being disrespectful!_ another person said. _Her name is G92X._

Though the mannequin could have cared less about what she was being called, she considered her name ugly, similar to a computer program whom in its scripting had been made to do the most meaningless of acts. Given her supposed lack of emotion, however, and the fact that she was not able to communicate with her facial muscles beyond standard autonomous eye and speech movements, she decided to ignore this fact, then turned to walk up the catwalk.

Two boyish women flanked her sides.

The beautiful woman merely ignored them.

When she reached the end of the catwalk and turned to make her way toward the dressing rooms, she was met with immediate applause and words of congratulations. _You were the first,_ they said. _The first beauty, the first act, the first_ mannequin.

What they had forgot to mention, in all of this, was the fact that she was a woman—not a mannequin, as many had coined due to her lineage, but a perfect construct of the world's greatest artists. Her first inclination was to ignore them, as in her head she could not help but pity them, but when they came forward to touch and smooth down her dress, she merely shook her head and started back toward her dressing room.

"G92X," one of her stylists said. "Where are you going?"

"Back to the motel," she replied. "I'm done."

"You're _done?_ What the hell are you talking about? You _blew_ that stage to pieces. You can't leave now!"

"Watch me," she said.

She entered the dressing room for but a brief moment to pull off her dress and then redress herself in civilian clothing. Once completed, she opened the door, pushed through the crowd, then exited the building.

Outside—not only alone, but in the rain—she stepped forward and considered the idea of taking a cab, though realized soon after that she had no money.

_Because you don't need it,_ those people had said. _Because you have no actual, physical,_ human _needs._

The truth in that sentiment was strong and not in the least bit inappropriate. She required no food, though she could taste it when welcome to eat it, and never would her body wane in strength for the fact that she was made up of several interlocking parts, each of which had been surgically implanted to resemble the mainframe of the human body. She need not even blink if she didn't want to, nor would she ever have to open her mouth. She was, as anyone could have described her, completely autonomous, and run by nothing more than the Rising which had occurred five years ago.

While trying to decide what to do while she stood at the side of the road, she stared into the street and attempted to discern just how far her walk would be.

_Five miles,_ she thought. _Maybe ten?_

Of course, if she waited, they would always take her back to the hotel. But since she refused, she looked up and down the street both times before starting forward.

The rain thickened.

Lightning flashed.

The beautiful woman pushed into the long, dark street opposite the convention center.

Through the darkened depths of the alleyway, in which she walked toward her ultimate goal, she could hear nothing—not even the rain.

A flash of movement came from her right.

The beautiful woman turned.

A man held a knife in his hand and brandished it toward her. "Hey there little lady," he said. "What've you got in those pockets for me?"

The beautiful woman merely blinked.

_What?_ she thought.

_"I said—"_

"I don't... understand," she replied.

That, in hindsight, was a lie. She knew of men like these—knew that, when pushed to the most dangerous of circumstances, they would attack unarmed women and even children—but she'd never known herself to be a target. The fact that she resembled something of a woman was most likely the reason she had become a target.

"Okay bitch," the man said. "You're done for."

The man lunged.

The beautiful woman stood her ground.

The knife sunk into her chest—gouging, instantly, a hole into her body.

The man looked from his weapon, to her, then back again. "I-I-I," he said, freeing himself of his weapon and beginning to step back. "I didn't know you were—"

The beautiful woman backhanded him.

Made of hard plastic, her blow was enough to send the man sprawling into the wet alleyway, blood streaming from a nose obviously broken and a lip split.

Looking up, she let out a sigh of trapped air and continued forward.

It wouldn't be much longer before she would arrive at her hotel.

* * *

She was escorted to her room by an unwanted security guard who stepped forward in the moments following her entrance and began to lead her through the hotel. Her casual clothes soaked, the wig on her head in disarray, she was led to the elevator, then into it, where shortly after they began to ascend to the penthouse.

"You're... one of them," the security guard said, "aren't you?"

The beautiful woman looked down. Though she'd long discarded the weapon, the bloodless hole in her torso was obvious, especially considering her blouse had been severely torn.

The bell signifying that they'd finally reached the last floor echoed out at them.

"Thank you," the beautiful woman said.

"No prob—" the man began to reply, then the elevator closed, silencing him.

After taking a moment to consider what the man might have wanted to say, the beautiful woman made her way to the door.

A simple knock was all that was required to make an entrance.

Her bodyguard opened the door.

Before she could even begin to enter the room, he stretched his hand forward and examined the gouge in her chest.

"Madam," he said. "What hap—"

She ignored him and pushed forward.

There would be no reason for this—not now, not so late at night.

* * *

"Why do you think they do it?" the beautiful woman asked.

"Do what?" Roman replied.

"Hurt people."

The man frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. "The weak always like to prey on the innocent," he said.

"But _why?"_

"Because they want to show their victim that they're dangerous."

Atop her place on the bed that had been reserved for her, the beautiful woman gingerly examined her wound with the tip of her finger. Necessity had crafted her kind without nerve endings. So far as she understood, such a wound would have caused a normal man or woman great harm, if not death.

_At least,_ she thought, _it was not your head._

Even if her head had been damaged, there was a very-reasonable chance that she would not have 'died,' if they could even consider the act such a thing. No. To kill a mannequin, you had to tie it to the ground and then burn it, head and all. Her plastic kind were easily susceptible to such things. Her fiberglass brethren would have lasted a bit longer, but they would eventually shatter and be freed of this world.

While thinking on this reality, and in knowing that she could have just as easily died the night before, the beautiful woman couldn't help but feel, in her non-existent heart, that she had to do something more.

If anyone were to have looked upon her, they could have easily seen that she was beauty—an icon in fashion whom, with her presence alone, had changed everything.

"Roman," she said.

"Yes, madam?"

"I want you to call the biggest news station in town and arrange an interview with me. Tell them who I am and what happened to me."

"Why do you—"

"Because I have a bigger purpose in this world," she said. "Because I have an obligation to stop things like this from happening."

* * *

She was stripped of her identity and re-appropriated into the person the public wanted to see. Shoulder-length blonde hair, a set of blue glass eyes, a lipstick so fine and soft it made her lips appear only the slightest hint of red above a nude lining—she sat in the dressing room and allowed the men and women around her to turn her into something marvelous in which the mannequin people could find all of their answers. Though she herself did not like the way she looked, as she resembled far too many other blonde-haired and blue-eyed mannequins, she took it upon herself to ignore that status so she would have a level head when it came time for the interview.

"All right," a man with his watch said as he came in. "You have five minutes. Anything else you would like to add?"

"No," the beautiful woman said. "I don't."

Standing, much to the unease of her now less-dense side, she straightened her body and used the makeup desk as a perch.

_Five more minutes,_ she thought, _to change their minds._

"To change their worlds."

Most of the makeup crew shied away from her words. A few happened to look, but soon after they turned their heads, faking cleanup in a place that was already too spotless for its own good.

"Two-and-a-half minutes," the man with the watch said.

She stepped forward to signify that she was ready and followed him into the hall—where, in the deep, vast distance, she could see the double doors that opened into the newsroom.

When the light above the doorway turned green, the man with the watch let her inside.

"Ah," the anchorman said, stepping forward and around the large oval desk at which he and his currently-missing co-host sat. "You must be the one we're interviewing."

"Yes," the beautiful woman said. "I am."

"There's one thing I should probably mention," the anchorman said, sliding an arm around her shoulders and bowing his head. "We need a name."

"Whose?"

"Yours."

"For what?"

"You're not going to look very sympathetic if we call you G92X. It makes you sound like a product."

"Which I'm not," she agreed.

"Good. So... a name. Have anything off the top of your head?"

"Jessica."

"Jessica?"

"Jessica."

"Too common," the anchorman said.

"You asked for a name."

"And I said—"

"Thirty seconds until we're back on the air!" a cameraman called out.

"Come, Jessica," the anchorman said. "Follow me."

She took his hand and allowed him to lead her, with haste, up to the oval table. Once they sat down, final, last-minute adjustments were made to the lighting—which, when directly-centered on her skin, made her appear to be a freshly-coated piece of caramel.

The cameraman gave a thumbs-up before the anchorman started. "And we're back," he said, waiting a moment to flash a smile and to allow his eyes to grace the camera before him. "As has been mentioned before, we want to concentrate our next segment on a group of people who are currently suffering more in our country than any other minority in existence. Is this person gay? No. Transgender? No. Mexican, Chilean, Asian, Pacific Islander, African, Asian? No. Not at all. This person comes from no known place in the entire world. Rather, my guest today is a young woman who was born out of an event called the Uprising—when, all over the world, her people opened their eyes and woke up for the first time."

A moment of silence followed the anchorman's presentation—likely, Jessica imagined, to build tension. Even without plausible skin she could still sense it in the air—that tight, miserable anticipation leading up to some big event that was about to change the world forever—and for that she couldn't help but feel as though she were bearing the world upon her shoulders, a strong man whose name she could not remember.

"We all know the history," the anchorman continued, stirring Jessica from her subconscious thoughts and into the active world. "It's undeniable, almost impossible to even believe, but five years ago we experienced an event that has come to be known as the 'Uprising'—when, for no reason or explanation, every single mannequin with a head gained sentience and began to interact with the world around us. In those five years we've experienced much debate over what we should do regarding these things that now bore human intelligence. Should we consider them illegal aliens? A threat to the population? A weapon? It's even been said that this may have been an orchestrated attempt by the government to create soldiers that could not easily die. Regardless, we have come to learn one thing—that these creatures are as intelligent as you and I, and for that their civil rights become human rights.

"My guest tonight is a young mannequin by the name of Jessica. You may know who she is, and you may even recognize her by her appearance, but what's happened in her past is not the forefront of the issue. Rather, it is what she experienced no more than twenty-four hours ago that has made her rise to the position she is currently in.

"Jessica—would you tell me, and America, what happened to you?"

"I," she started, then stopped, her glass eyes shifting about the room to take in everything from the lighting above to the interconnected fabric of wires running along the rafters. "I..."

"Take your time. I know this is hard for you."

She saw in one of the cameras her position and gave a short, stout nod. Though she could not cry, she felt her voice would tremble. Once that happened, she would be seen as weak—a target, some could say, for the extremist anti-mannequin groups.

"Last night," she said, simulating what would have been a deep breath by allowing her chest to rise, then to fall, "I was walking back to my hotel in the rain when I encountered a man wielding a knife."

"Why did he target you?"

"I assume it is because he thought I was a woman."

"And what did he do upon realizing you are not, in fact, human?"

"Ran."

The anchorman remained quiet. Instead of leading in to another question, he cleared his throat and fingered through what she could easily see was a touch-pad interface before the pictures of her disfigurement was revealed.

"What I'm about to show you," the anchorman said, "may be graphic to some viewers."

The beautiful woman waited.

The pictures of her wound appeared on the wound behind her.

It appeared nothing of the flesh and blood, of the life that was so determined within the world by millions upon millions of years of evolution. It, instead, looked like a gash—an incision, she could easily see, that was about five inches long—whose countenance was made not of the evisceration of muscles, but of the torn and jagged rips of plastic.

_Did he really... damage me so badly?_ she thought.

"Though Jessica may be a mannequin," the man interviewing her continued, "such wounds can aggravate if not completely disable a person such as her. Tell me—how have these wounds affected you?"

_How have they affected me?_ she thought. _They haven't—_

_Make something up,_ the anchorman's face said, his eyes lewd and harsh under the room's oppressing lightning. _Don't make me look like a fool._

Like a fool, she thought? Who was he to act the fool when she was right before him, almost as if she were a creature of flesh and blood?

Rather than lie outright, the beautiful woman sighed, cleared her throat, then said, "I am having trouble with my mobility."

"How do you mean?"

"The chest," she said, reaching down to trace her fingers across what only the audience could see as a picture. "It's like I'm being filled with air."

"Have you been repaired?"

"Manufactured?"

"No," the man said. _"Repaired."_

This time, the beautiful woman couldn't help but frown.

"How about we move on," the man said, sliding through a few pages of text on his touchscreen before returning his attention to her. "What made you want to come on this program, Jessica?"

"I wanted people to be aware that I am just like they are—that I have feelings and emotions and thoughts just as you do."

"Is it true that you received these feelings and emotions by leeching off others?"

"Excuse me?"

"It's been said," the anchorman began, "and by science, I should add, that mannequins are not born with what you describe as a conscience. They have to learn what is right or wrong by absorbing it from the consciences of others."

"We are not real people," she replied. "We—"

"What _are_ you then if you are not a person?"

"I don't think that's—"

"We'll have more with Jessica after we hear a word from our sponsors," the man said.

In but a blink of an eye, the beautiful woman flung herself from her place behind the desk and began to stalk her way toward the door.

"You can't leave!" the anchorman called back. "We're not done yet!"

"I am not being a part of your political campaign," she said. "Goodbye."

She turned and walked out the doors.

She felt the cameras all the way behind her.

* * *

"G92X—aka Jessica—spotted storming out of a news facility after controversial questions arise," Roman said, tossing the paper onto the bed.

"It is... already live?" she asked.

"Live?" Roman laughed. "It's all over the news. All over the _world._ You can't type the letter G into a search engine without your name coming up."

"That is... troubling," she mumbled.

The sight of herself post-interview and in disarray was quite the shocking scene. The wig halfway off her head, her makeup smeared down her face as she walked into the rain, her shoes waterlogged and making her constantly trip—had she been human, she would have been seen as some huge starlet done over on cocaine or drunk from a club. Since she wasn't, her actions could only speak words—and in this case, they'd spoken far too many.

"What are we supposed to do?" she asked.

"I don't know," Roman replied. "We can't be sure of anything until we hear from your manager."

A knock came at the door.

"Speak of the devil," the big, burly bodyguard said.

Immediately upon opening the door, a tall, suave man with slicked-back white hair and a gaunt face stormed into the room and threw his hands in the air. _"WHAT,"_ he screamed, _"WERE YOU FUCKING THINKING?"_

"I was doing what I thought was right," she said. "Are you not—"

"I'm not _anything_ with you, Miss G92X. Or should I call you Jessica? Huh? Maybe that'll heighten the sensationalism of you _storming out of a news office without any regard for your current commitments."_

"He baited me."

"Of course he did, G9. _He's a bigot—_ a man who would rather roll around in the dirt with mud and get half a story when there is so much more at work."

"What do I do?"

"Thank God this man is a notorious bigot and has constantly been baiting the mannequins for any kind of poison to be thrown at them."

"So... things are fine?"

"I _think_ you're safe—for now, anyway. That doesn't mean you'll be able to hide forever."

The beautiful woman bowed her head and laced her fingers together. She imagined, in that moment, that this would be a time where she would be able to hear her heart beating, had she such a biological structure. Instead, she heard nothing—not the sound of the bodyguards shifting near the door, not the sound of her agent's frantic tirade, and not the sound of the streets below. There was nothing—absolutely nothing. She couldn't help but feel ashamed.

"I am sorry," she said, turning her head up to look at her agent. "Please... keep me."

"I don't think you understand the severity of your action, G9. You've fed fuel to the fire. Now they're going to be coming after you more than ever."

"They have come for me before?" she frowned. "Why was I not told?"

"Because you were in the infant stages of your development and needed time to grow your sentience," the man with the slicked-back hair said. He gestured to a space beside her and she offered a nod, only briefly looking up to spot the name _Alan Mars_ on a nametag. "You don't have to worry about anything, G9—you're going to be just fine."

"I don't want to be this."

"What?"

"A celebrity."

"You are a fashion model. That is where your strengths lie."

"I—"

"You are the perfect rack to wear fashion. Your measurements can't change, you can't grow any taller, and, most importantly, you will never get fat."

"I would not fear that if I were a real woman," she said.

"You'd be one of the few." Alan shook his head and reached up to run a hand across his hair. "There's another banquet going on tomorrow. If you are willing, I would like to invite you to come be a part of the show—after your wound is repaired, of course."

She reached down and fingered the plastic where the knife had entered. She quietly debated whether or not she could or even should go.

"Will I be safe?" she asked.

"You'll be fine," Alan replied. "Now—if you would do me the honors: we're going to go get your chest fixed up."

When Alan offered a hand, the beautiful woman took it and allowed him to lead her and her two bodyguards out of the room.

Once in the elevator, things seemed to come into focus.

She had a job—a purpose. If she did not appreciate that, then she could very well end up being a display in a discount store—forever.

* * *

The following day was met with apprehension, a limousine, an amount of paparazzi eager and willing to tear at her like rabid dogs. First came the flashes as she was helped out of the vehicle, then came the questions that were called or yelled at her.

_Jessica!_ one would call. _What do you have to say about your interview the previous day?_

_Are you still injured?_ another asked. _Can you walk?_

It would have appeared that she couldn't, as with each step she took she had to hold on to her agent's arm. Her wound had been healed yesterday afternoon when, after arriving at a plastics shop, a skilled craftsman had created a new piece to put on her chest. _It wouldn't,_ he said, _be the perfect color come time for the show,_ but that didn't matter _._ Little did he know that makeup could fix any mistake.

Backstage, while arranging herself into a dress in front of a multitude of female and male models, the beautiful woman tried not to concentrate on what may happen come the next few days. Tabloid sensationalism was a quick and sure-fire way to get attention, or at least enough people talking to where it could become a full-blown discussion, but she didn't even want to think about that. Being seen in a private moment had been punishment enough, but to think that they would start stalking her relentlessly? How was she supposed to feel safe?

The woman in front of her applied a generous dosage of base powder to G92X's cheeks, brow and chin before she began to spread it out across her face. Here she used her fancy brush to blend all the pieces together, like a puzzle completed from a miraculous man's hand, then the color came in full motion. She was not, like she had been the day before, the traditional runway beauty. Instead, she would be wearing all black—including, on her last walk, a wedding dress that would fit even the most deviant of men's desires.

After the black lipstick, the smoky eye shadow and a near-bladelike contour of her cheeks and nose, the makeup artist gave her a thumbs up, one G92X quickly returned.

_Well,_ she considered, falling into place at the end of the line. _I can only see how it goes._

The music began.

The screams erupted.

The room began to pulse.

"Good luck out there," one of the makeup artists said, taking a moment to grace her shoulder with his hand before walking off.

All the beautiful woman could do was nod.

It began as a procession toward what she knew and understand was one of the greatest creations in all the world. McQueen, Jacobs, Barcelona, Rodriguez, Cuho, London—they marched forward first in a single line, then eventually divided into two separate groups to display the varying types and contrasts in design. The lights were blinding, nearly-painful to look at, and though she bore no human body she could still feel everything that afflicted her. The noise, vibrating through her head; the tension, coursing throughout her joints; the unease, lighting a place within her stomach where she had learned once upon a time by glamouring a teenage boy—these emotions assaulted her as if they were swords and daggers, a knife in a petty man's hand or even a bomb in which the lowest of them all would pull the snare and allow himself to self-destruct. Though she was no human, and though she only knew human emotion based on lie and deceit and theft, she understood that this was what it was to be in Hollywood—strong, tall and not in the least bit flawed.

As the line continued to decrease, and as the models who'd gone before her returned to their place behind stage, the beautiful woman prepared to walk the stage as the only mannequin within the modeling industry.

"You're up," a guard said.

The beautiful woman took a step forward. She lifted her dress, lowered her eyes, then raised her head to look out into the bright and beautiful Heaven before her.

She floated across the stage as if she were a boat within the water, a strong beacon of hope to those who swam along the beach and who realized that just beyond the nets there were predators waiting to eat them. To walk this stage—to cross this catwalk—was to step onto a road were many traveled but few ever reached their goal. Her makeup fine, her attention set, her hands cast down and to her sides as she delivered the gothic attire to the masses before her—she lifted her hands to reveal the fine lace about the hem of her skirt, then released hold of the dress before continuing down the catwalk. The screams were massive—gargantuan, even, and comparable to a great monster at sea—and as the lights before her continued to flash, almost blinding her from the scope of it all, she couldn't help but wonder just what lay out in the crowd—in that great, grand ocean of humankind and emotion.

When she reached the end of the catwalk, she paused, set a hand on her hip, then raised her eyes.

The photographers erupted in applause.

The beautiful woman did her best to smile, though such features were hard and overly-harsh on her plastic face.

After allowing the men and women to take just what they wanted from her, the beautiful woman began to turn in preparation for walking back down the catwalk.

A flicker of movement appeared at the side of her vision.

She turned.

That same thing flickered in the crowd.

She had very little time to react before an explosion rocketed the crowd.

People screamed, ducked, cried out in horror.

The beautiful woman had but a moment to realize just what had happened before it struck her.

_A gun?_ she thought.

The bullet exploded upon impact and sent shards of metal into her head. Shot in the nose, the plastic in her cheeks and along her lower jaw disintegrated almost instantaneously and down she fell onto the catwalk—twitching, pulsing, as in her head what was commonly known as her most human feature began to react to the effect of it all. Models who had come forward to grace her presence ran from the scene of the crime and then escaped back into the stage.

Somewhere in the crowd, someone laughed.

_Is this,_ she thought.

She lost sight of color in the next moment.

G92X tried to lift her head.

When she found she couldn't, and when a new feeling so powerful and unimaginable struck her body, she could only lay there and bathe within the emotion of it all.

It took her one fractured moment to realize what she was feeling.

_Pain._

Those were her last thoughts before whatever event had created her renounced its hold on her person.

In the crowd, a man laughed.

A woman screamed.

Sirens could be heard.

It was too late.

The beautiful woman was already dead.

# Harpy

"What is it?" Jonathan asked.

Barry had no idea how to reply.

From the safety of their apartment building—where, locked within their bedroom with nothing more than a laptop computer streaming light from its surface—they watched the Cherryville Dog Killer in all its glory.

It had captured its most recent meal.

The fact that it had dropped it from nearly twenty feet in the air was only the beginning of the nightmare.

He couldn't tell what it was. His natural inclination was to say that it was a bird—that anything that flew in the air that had feathers and wings that was not a plane or a helicopter most obviously was a bird—but he knew he couldn't say that. Its features were too grotesque, its size too exaggerated, and even in the light streaming from the nearby streetlamp he could make sense of its more defining traits.

In complete and utter darkness, he could see nothing more than a monster—a cruel, feral creature who killed like an eagle in the highest mountains of Brazil.

Barry swallowed a lump in his throat.

Jonathan shifted.

Barry pushed a hand out to keep him from moving.

The thing in the alley paused, then craned its head around until it looked directly at them.

He couldn't see its face.

_Thank God._

"What," Jonathan started.

_"Quiet!"_ Barry hissed.

The creature let out a sound between a growl and a low shriek before it turned back to its meal.

In one deft move, it opened its jaw and snapped a chunk of flesh away from its victim.

One look at its teeth was enough to prove that it wasn't a bird.

"Get away from the window," Barry said, taking hold of his boyfriend's shirt collar and retreating a few steps.

"Are you sure we—"

A second shriek lit the darkness of the night.

"We're gonna say it's a bird right now," he said, "and go in the living room where it won't know where we're at."

"But you—"

Rather than respond and goad another response, he tugged Jonathan out of the bedroom and through the short hall into the living room. Here, their lives were blessed. With no windows for anything to see in or for them to see out, they'd be perfectly safe from whatever the hell was in the alley.

Sighing, he turned, set a hand on Jonathan's ribcage, and set their heads together.

"Do you know what that is?" Jonathan whispered.

"No," Barry replied, "I don't."

"Then why are you so scared?"

_Because I don't know what the fuck it—_

The sound of screaming broke him from thought.

"Ok," Jonathan said, breaking away from him. _"Now_ can I call the police?"

"I think that would be appropriate."

The gunshots that followed only solidified his case.

_"9-1-1,"_ the ambiguous voice of the operator said from Jonathan's smartphone. _"State the nature of your emergency."_

"There's people shooting outside the apartment building. Someone landed in the alley outside our window, something's in the alley _eating_ them, now everything's going to—"

"Calm down, sir. Repeat what you said. Someone fell in the alley."

_"And is being eaten!"_ Jonathan screamed.

Barry took hold of his partner and began to stroke the small of his back.

_The anxiety's taking its toll,_ he thought as the gunshots, along with the screams, continued to echo throughout the night. _It's eating him alive._

"Sir," the operator said. "There's been six calls about this incident. Someone is on their way. I would advise you to lock your doors, get yourself into an enclosed space and lock yourself in. Do you understand what I'm—"

A gunshot ripped through the night.

The glass exploded from their bedroom window.

A screech filled the air as a car first tried to swerve, then collided with something out in the street.

The world became an inferno of noise.

Jonathan—far gone in the midst of a PTSD attack—threw himself to the floor, not even bothering to take note of his phone as it flew from his hands.

Through the disorientation plaguing his head, Barry could just barely make out what sounded like a car alarm and the snapping sizzle of electrical wires.

_They hit a transformer,_ he thought with a laugh. _They hit a fucking transformer and—_

The blare of sirens filled the streets.

"Come on," he said, taking hold of his trembling boyfriend's arms.

_"What?"_ Jonathan screamed.

"I said _come on!"_ he yelled over the noise.

He dragged the gangly man's body through the apartment until they stood in the kitchen.

In front of the pantry, he took a moment to consider what was outside and the shot that had broken their window.

_If it saw,_ he thought, _and it knows, it could—_

He shook his head.

Without so much as a second thought, he threw the pantry door opened and barred them inside.

A few stacked boxes of soda cans would at least keep anything from looking in through the lower slats.

Drawing back, he cradled Jonathan against his body in the darkened corner and stroked his hair.

Outside, the world went to hell.

How long it would last he couldn't know.

* * *

"And what time did you recall seeing this figure in the alleyway?" the chief of police asked.

"I can't remember," Barry said, glancing over his shoulder to look at his sleeping partner. He ran a hand through his ruddy hair and then down through the thin beard across his face as he contemplated what godawful hour of the morning it was. "Three, I think."

"Would he be able to tell us?"

"He's in no condition to answer."

"Sir," the police chief's partner said, drawing up alongside her superior officer. "We need to get statements from everyone who witnessed this incident."

"I can try to get him up, but I doubt that's going to happen. I knocked him out."

Both of the officers raised their eyebrows.

"He suffers from PTSD," Barry continued. "He had an episode after everything started happening. I had to practically force him to take the Xanax just to get him to calm down."

"So you're saying there's nothing you can do to wake him up?"

"No. There isn't."

"He wouldn't be a reliable witness given the drugs he's taken anyway," the policewoman said. She finished marking down a few notes and then lifted her eyes to look at him. "Mr. Lawman, would you be willing to let forensics into the room the bullet entered through?"

"Be my guest," Barry said. "Second door on the left."

While the policewoman led the forensics squad through his apartment's front door, Barry stared at the police chief and tried to determine just what it was he was supposed to do in this situation.

_Do I just stand here?_ he thought. _Or... what?_

"Sir?" Barry asked.

"Yes?" Police Chief Morris asked.

"Do you know when we'll have the power back on?"

"Might not be until morning," the burly man said, offering a shrug that to Barry seemed to dismiss the situation entirely. "Might not be until the afternoon. Who knows."

"What am I going to do about the hole in my bedroom?"

"That would be up to you and your landlord, sir." The man paused and turned his attention to the couch, where Jonathan lay sleeping. "Will he be needing medical attention?"

"No. I can handle it. Don't worry."

"All right. I'll leave you to yours, then. We should be out of here in about an hour."

"Thank you."

The man tipped his hat and retreated into the hallway—where, faintly, Barry could just make out the police force calming down the other tenants. He only bothered to watch them for a few moments before he rounded the couch and settled down next to his boyfriend.

_God,_ he sighed. _What a fucking night._

Instinctively, his hand fell to his partner's head and began to stroke through his thin locks of black hair. He resembled nothing like he had minutes before—screaming, inconsolable, unable to process anything save for the sound of violence outside their home or his own incoherent mumbling. It was a godsend Barry had been able to calm him down. How he did it he still couldn't understand, even after three years of living together. All he knew was that he had the magic touch.

_The magic touch._

"The magic touch," he whispered. "The magic touch."

He drew a blanket over Jonathan's near-naked body and debated whether it would be worth it to try and get anyone to come over here. Given their situation, it wasn't likely that someone would refuse their offer for help. He knew for a fact that his friend Carter would come. The man was a life send—Christ-like if ever there was a word for it. He'd do just about anything to help a friend. The guy would even carry Jonathan, which was something Barry could do himself considering he was so skinny, but would it even be worth it to ask for such a thing?

_You can't expect people to bail your ass out all the time. You know that._

Still—would it hurt to ask?

_Besides,_ he thought. _When was the last time I asked someone to bail us out?_

Last month's rent, Jonathan's medication, groceries—the list could go on and on.

"Fuck," he whispered.

Jonathan twitched.

After taking a deep breath, Barry set a hand on Jonathan's chest and held it there until he was sure his boyfriend wouldn't stir further.

Rising, he made his way into the kitchen, filled a glass of water, and downed the whole thing in a minute.

"You'd've thought I'd pissed myself," he mumbled.

The sound of the forensics team in the other room only further ground to home the reality of the situation.

_You'd've also figured the forensics department would never be in your bedroom,_ he thought. _Not much they'll find there._

He couldn't help but snort at the matter.

After setting the glass of water into the kitchen sink, he hopped over the side of the couch, slid up behind Jonathan, and wrapped an arm around his waist before burrowing under the blanket.

It didn't matter. He could lay here for a minute. They'd wake him up if they needed something.

_Just a few minutes,_ he thought. _Just a few..._

* * *

"You all right?" a voice asked.

Barry blinked. Jonathan stood over him, nearly-invisible in the darkness that still permeated the apartment. "What time is it?" he asked.

"Eight-thirty," he said, looking down at his phone.

"Are you okay?"

"I didn't break it," he said, idly running a thumb along his phone.

"No. Are _you_ okay?"

This time, Jonathan paused. While the only inflection Barry could make out was because of the light pooling off the phone, he could tell that Jonathan was still reeling from the previous night's happenings.

"You still loopy?" Barry asked, throwing his legs over the couch and standing.

"I'm all right."

"You don't have to lie to me."

"I..."

_Progress,_ Barry thought.

Jonathan leaned into Barry's body and bowed his head into his shoulder.

"There," Barry said, patting his back. "That's my boy."

"You really do save my ass, Barry," the younger man replied, drawing closer until their bodies melded almost perfectly together. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

"You'd do whatever you wanted to. You know that."

"Mom would've said otherwise."

"Your mother was a nut."

"What does that say about me?"

"It says," Barry said, gently pushing them apart until he could look into Jonathan's eyes, "that you've got a lot of shit on your plate to deal with. And you know what? You're dealing with it just fine."

"I really don't feel like it sometimes."

Smiling, Barry pressed a kiss to Jonathan's lips and drew him into the hug. "Come on," he said. "Let's get out of here for a little while. I don't want to stay in a stuffy apartment."

"Where would we be going?"

"To breakfast. I think we can just wing it from there, don't you?"

"We always do," Jonathan said.

The smile that crossed his face nearly melted Barry's heart.

* * *

The first thing Barry saw when the waiter placed the menus and newspaper on the table was the headline: **_MAN FOUND BUTCHERED IN ALLEY AFTER EXPLOSIVE SHOOTOUT._**

_Great,_ Barry thought. _Just great._

He already knew it was too late. Jonathan's face said it all. The tense expression, the fixed stare, the pursed lips—if he didn't act fast, this would turn into a full-blown anxiety attack.

"Can we get two Cokes, please?" Barry asked before the waiter could even begin to greet them.

The man eyed the two of them incredulously before departing for the kitchen.

"So," Barry said, nonchalantly brushing the newspaper off to the side before taking hold of Jonathan's hands. "How's my man this morning?"

"Trying not to flip his shit over last night."

"At least you're being honest with me," Barry chuckled.

The blank look in Jonathan's eyes offered no reprieve.

_Fuck._

"I'm sorry," he said, tightening his hold on his partner's hands. "I'm trying."

"I know."

"I just feel like a dick because I never know what to do in these situations."

"How're you supposed to?" Jonathan laughed. "It's not like it happens often."

"I—"

When he found he couldn't continue, he drew his hands away and let out a sigh he felt he'd been holding in for quite some time. In this lapse of dialogue, the waiter approached with their drinks, then proceeded to take their order.

The whole while he watched Jonathan, Barry couldn't help but awe over his sudden and unnervingly transformation.

_It's like he became a completely different person in just one moment._

The human mind was a brilliant thing. When applied with pressure it could perform many a feat—conform, adapt, expand, contract. In some instances it could even absorb the external stimuli in order to better protect itself, thus bonding to an external presence that may not be beneficial.

_It's like a parasite,_ Jonathan had once told him, after the first attack had left Barry in such a state that he felt like nothing more than a blank slate on a chalkboard in a room filled with willing students. _One that gets planted and you can never take out._

The body may be cast in bone, but it is truly the flesh that is mortal. Once something was put in, it could never be taken out.

When Jonathan finished ordering—for, Barry took note of, him too—he turned his head back to him and smiled. "You look like you've seen a ghost," he smiled.

"More like a facehugger," he mumbled.

"Huh?"

"Sorry. _Aliens_ joke. You've never seen it."

"I don't like horror movies," Jonathan shrugged.

_I don't blame you._

Given his boyfriend's history, it was any wonder he could even function in everyday life.

The scar on his palm was proof.

_They used to call me Jesus,_ Jonathan had said after their first few dates.

But sadly, he had added, it wasn't because he could walk on water.

_My mother wouldn't have tried to nail me to the bed otherwise._

His focus was lost in his thoughts. Caught within the realm of the past three years and that of which lay right before him, he stared into Jonathan's soul-piercing green eyes and tried to imagine a life without him, though as much as he wished he couldn't he already knew he could.

_Deadbeat,_ he thought. _No job. Shit degree. Librarian._ Gay _librarian. Living on donations and toothpaste. Oh—and open mic nights._

The _Great American Novel_ still wasn't done. It'd probably never be either if he couldn't afford to keep the power on.

The furrow in Jonathan's brow drew his attention back to the present. "Sorry," he smiled. "Got to thinkin' about stuff."

"What stuff?"

"Oh, me, mostly."

"I was going to say," Jonathan started, his voice lowering as he went along.

"Don't worry, babe. We can get this. It's no big deal. It's just breakfast."

"That's what we said last month when we got that bottle of wine."

Barry visibly grimaced.

_Ouch._

$0.01 cents off the marker, _after_ the jackass had swiped it.

Needless to say, their account had been drained.

"Sorry," Jonathan said, lowering his eyes to the table. "You know I talk out of my ass when I'm fucked up."

"We're fine, honey. Don't worry."

Jonathan lifted his eyes.

The pain there was unbearable.

Looks like those made Barry want to cry.

* * *

The park was the greatest of their luxuries. Free as a boy on a silver-coated bike, it reigned supreme in the honor of spectacle—where not only could they walk and see the flowers, the bees, the dogs, the occasional cat and also the street performers, but also the people that inhabited their small town of Cherryville, California.

_God,_ Barry thought as they passed beneath the trademark blossoms that framed the opening of the park. _And to think I used to bring Jonathan out here to check out the guys when we first met._

"What're you smirking at?" Jonathan asked.

"Oh, nothing," Barry replied, sliding an arm around Jonathan's shoulder. "Just about how we used to salivate over the guys here."

"Running shorts are form-fitting," his boyfriend mused. "Especially when they're not wearing underwear."

"Good God does that happen a lot."

Jonathan chuckled and leaned against his side.

_There we go,_ Barry thought, running a hand down Jonathan's back. _Now he's loosening up._

The sound of rollerblades shooting past was enough to make him draw Jonathan into his side.

Ahead, the typical douche-dude roller gang spun to a stop, each appropriately dressed in denim shorts and tanktops pulled back over their heads.

"Hey!" one called. "Keep out of the way!"

"We were," Barry replied under his breath.

The rollerbladers gave pause before they started off again.

"Dumbasses," he mumbled.

"They're going to end up hitting a kid," Jonathan said. "Or an old person. Or worse: a bird."

"The pigeons never were ones to take a hint."

Chuckling, Jonathan pulled away—a fact Barry found remarkable considering what could have been an unpleasant situation—and took a few steps forward. Barry merely hooked his thumbs into his jeans and waited for a cue to respond.

_Okay,_ he nodded, watching Jonathan first pause, look back at him with an unsure frown, then start forward again. _This is good._

The Xanax had to have worn off by now, which meant that if Jonathan was venturing on his own— _and,_ most importantly, _without_ encouragement—he was coming down from last night.

He smiled, taking note of the pigeon that appeared to be following Jonathan along the side of the cobblestone path.

"Hey," he said. "You've got a friend."

"What?" Jonathan asked.

Barry jutted his chin out at the bird.

"Oh," he smiled. "Hey there little guy."

The bird titled its head up and cooed at him.

Crouching down, Jonathan balanced the weight on the tips of his toes and smiled as the pigeon approached. Waddling slowly, its movement resembling something of a landbound penguin, it first paused, looked up, then continued until it stood no more than a few short inches away.

Jonathan reached forward.

The bird extended its head.

_"What the FUCK?"_ someone yelled.

A child's scream ripped through the park.

The bird took off into the air.

The blank look on Jonathan's face mirrored Barry's thoughts to a T. "What's going on?" he asked.

"I don't know," Barry said, "I—"

His eyes followed the trail of gazes up—into the trees that lay just beyond the path.

_Oh God._

The urge to retch was so strong he almost did it then and there.

"Barry," Jonathan said, rising to his feet. "Why are you—"

"Don't turn around, Jonathan. Please, whatever you do, don't—"

_"HE'S DEAD!"_ a woman screamed. _"SOMEONE KILLED HIM AND HUNG HIM FROM A TREE!"_

The ear-splitting screech from the toddler that followed brought the situation home.

Immediately, all eyes were drawn.

There, suspended from the tree in a manner that thankfully shielded Barry from the gory details of it all, was a person—so bloodied and torn their entire outfit was drenched in blood.

It took all of Barry's willpower to keep his eyes set on Jonathan as he stepped forward and took his boyfriend's hand. "Come on," he said. "We're leaving."

* * *

"My life is horrible," Jonathan said from his place on the couch.

"Your life is not horrible," Barry replied. "Don't say that."

"It sure seems like it."

At his place in their bedroom—where, in perfect view of last night's crime, he looked out the plastic-wrapped window—he tried to process the reality of the situation and just what was happening. One man brutally murdered in the park, strung up in a tree and laid bare for all to see, another dropped in the very alley he now looked into and devoured by something that he knew was a monster—it seemed too odd a coincidence that trouble would occur at the peaking point of Jonathan's worst time of the year, and especially disturbing that the dog killer had upped its ante.

_First the train-fuck of last month,_ Barry thought, _and now this._

Thank God they'd refilled Jonathan's prescription, otherwise he had no idea _what_ he'd do.

Turning, he swept his eyes across the small room until they settled on Jonathan's back. It was almost painful to see how badly corded the muscles were.

"Hey," Barry said, crawling up onto the bed and sliding in next to Jonathan. "You okay?"

"No," Jonathan replied. "I mean... maybe. I'm not freaking out. _Yet."_

"You're not going to either," he smiled. "You know why?"

"Humor me."

"I won't let you."

Jonathan laughed and turned his head to look at him. "How do you propose you're going to do that?"

"Because we're going to stay in and have a bro's day."

"A bro's day?"

"Pizza, beer, and a whole lot of stupid TV."

"Oh."

"Don't look so thrilled," Barry teased, nuzzling Jonathan's face with his chinfuzz. "Besides—beer is for straight dudes. Let's be classy. We've still got that bottle of wine. And besides—it's not like anything can get us in here."

"Don't be so sure," Jonathan mumbled.

Barry frowned.

Standing, Jonathan pushed his arms over his head, stretched his interlaced hands behind his back, then tilted his body to look at him. "Is the power even back on?" he frowned.

"Won't know until we find out," Barry replied.

* * *

His idea of a day in appeared to be exactly what Jonathan needed. Spread out along their couch, glasses of wine in front of them, a pizza ordered and nearly devoured in the span of a half-hour—by the time the first movie was over, the credits were rolling and a buzz had set in, Jonathan had fallen asleep across his lap, head resting on his thigh and fingers intertwined in his.

_Thank God,_ he thought.

He ran a thumb along the side of Jonathan's stubbly jaw and lifted the remote to turn the TV off with his other hand. The DVD player followed suit, then the shitty speaker system he'd managed to pawn off a friend who was going to throw it away otherwise. By the time everything was off, the low static hum that resonated through the living room was gone, replaced by the sheer bliss of silence.

Taking care to make sure he would not wake Jonathan, he slid a pillow under his head before making his way toward the meager computer den opposite their room.

Inside the converted storage room, he settled down in front of his dinosaur of a computer and waited for it to boot up.

Once into his profile, he began the meticulous task of navigating his folders.

He didn't keep anything secret from Jonathan. There was no point, no reason for him to be so secretive when the strength in their relationship was built on the solidity of their trust. But there was the matter of Jonathan's PTSD, and for that he had made it specifically clear that there _would_ be things he would hide if only to avoid triggering him—including, but not limited to: the police records Barry had scanned in from the time he'd pulled Jonathan out of the homeless shelter, his list of medications and proper diagnoses from varying psychiatrists, and the few records he had managed to pull from the public database about the one woman who had made his boyfriend's life hell.

_Melinda McCrady._

He came across the files buried in a list of subfolders he'd specifically made confusing in order to keep Jonathan from finding. Only a few documents wide and bearing a file size of little more than a few kilobytes, he scrolled through the few until he found her complete biography.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Barry cast a look over his shoulder to make sure the door was closed before opening the file.

Her face was revealed.

She was a hag of a woman in life. With rotten teeth, disproportionately-elongated jowls and a dead gaze that Jonathan said she'd developed from what he believed was a religious regiment of methamphetamine, it was impossible to believe that Jonathan could have come from such a spawn, let alone be as good-looking as he was. His boyfriend had been quick to remedy that she didn't always look like that, and that he had his runaway father's 'only lasting impression.' Her obituary—which he'd copied and pasted directly from the internet—stated that her death had occurred almost a year ago to the day.

_But that doesn't make sense,_ he thought. _You know it doesn't._

Melinda McCrady had killed herself on the anniversary of Jonthan's second year of escape from her. She'd always been what her son had called a vindictive woman—a calculated, serialized torturer who couldn't keep grocery lists on a piece of paper but who could remember explicit times and dates like the back of her meth pipe. She'd specifically arranged her death to coincide with Jonathan's national emancipation at the age of eighteen, but also his attempted crucifixion at seven and then her attempt to kill him on the eve of his twelfth birthday.

_She didn't want me to reach the end,_ Jonathan had said. _The thirteen-hundred-thirty-five days._

Over a course of eleven years, Melinda McCrady had tried to kill her son twice and had tortured him on numerous occasions.

For some reason, the numbers were aligning with something.

_Seven,_ Barry thought. _Twelve... Eighteen..._

"Twenty-one," he whispered.

Even he as a non-practicing Christian would know that there were twenty-two chapters in _Revelation._

_This isn't some religious bullshit,_ he thought, swiping to close the document with such force the resounding click from the mouse sounded like the drop of a heavy pen. _You know that._

_How,_ though, did he know? If she'd killed herself on Jonathan's twentieth birthday and the events that were occurring now fell on the month of his twenty-first, did that mean that she—

_No._

The idea was too illogical for him to even think.

With a shake of his head, he closed the folders, cleared his recent documents if only to protect his own sanity, then began to boot down his old computer.

Though he knew peace would not come, he would try his best to persevere, for Jonathan's sake.

* * *

"Barry," Jonathan said over the makeshift dinner of spaghetti that night.

"Yes?" he asked.

"I want to go out to Cadbury Bend."

The geyser of water that erupted from Barry's mouth and onto the floor did little to phase Jonathan. _"What?"_ he asked.

"I want to go back home," he said. "Just one last time."

_Good God,_ Barry thought.

The psychiatrist had said that it was not uncommon for victims of child abuse to feel responsible for the actions that had been afflicted on them. Growing up, Jonathan's last doctor had said, children are trained to believe the 'punishments' dealt upon them are their own fault. _She hit me,_ he had said, _because I was bad._ Or, _She didn't let me eat for three days because I forgot to turn the burners off._ Most often than not, the delusion manifests into an idea—an accord, the psychiatrist had said, that there is always some kind of finality even after one has completely disassociated from their abuser.

_It doesn't end,_ the doctor had told Barry one day after a particularly-rough couples session. _He lives with it every day. I've helped him, and I know you've helped him, but no one will ever fix him._

He didn't _want_ Jonathan fixed—he wanted him _better:_ happy, successful, getting back into his painting so he could better express himself and living, breathing and sleeping as if there were no ghost over his shoulder. But this—this was outrageous. What purpose would it serve to return to the place Jonathan had spent eighteen years of hell in?

"Barry," Jonathan said, his voice a mixture of foolhardy confidence and childish fright.

"What?" he asked, swallowing his forkful of spaghetti.

"Are you—"

"Mad? No. I'm concerned."

Sighing, his body deflating like a balloon who in but a moment had lost half its air, Jonathan crossed his arms over his chest and tried to maintain focus, though Barry knew it was nearly impossible given what must be running through his head. The repeated loop, the infinite metaphor, the symbol that ran a figure eight through his life and the world around it—sprouted from its tips were roots that dug deep and interconnected with every living person and each inanimate object he had touched. For most, those roots eventually broke—withered, dried out, were gnawed away by the absent conscience present only in the darkest layers of the mind.

For Jonathan, though, those roots ran deep.

The gardener from hell would have never wished to stumble into his vineyard of destruction.

Standing, Barry rounded the table until he stood at Jonathan's side, then fell to one knee, taking his boyfriend's hand in his. "Hon," he said.

"I have to go, Barry."

"I'm not arguing with you. I just want to know why."

"I... I don't—"

_Is it a delusion?_ he thought.

He ran his thumb along the curve of Jonathan's wrist as subtly as possible and tried to take his pulse.

Trembling, Jonathan bowed his head atop his outstretched arm and began breathing exercises Barry knew by heart.

_One,_ he thought. _The great breath of the world._

"Two," he whispered, mostly to himself, but also to Jonathan, "the sigh that is exhaled."

The pulse quickened. A low staccato, but far more frequent than it should have been, he released hold of Jonathan's wrist, stood, and gestured his boyfriend to stand by sliding his hands under his arms. From there, he led him to the couch, settled the two of them down, and cradled him against his chest as he prepared to wait out the storm.

Jonathan's body against his was a testament—a history written by the greatest of men but captured only by the most helpless of victims.

_I desire the things that will destroy me,_ Sylvia Plath had once said.

But was that indicative of Jonathan, who perhaps wished for nothing more than answers?

The time that passed he couldn't determine. In previous years, Barry had learned to stop such things because such a declared element was not a prospective measure to recovery. Rather, he'd learned to wait with the pace of a breath, the tremble of a finger, the low flutter of a heart. The body itself was ageless—it was the mind that aged in the end.

"Barry," Jonathan whispered after a while.

"Yeah?" he asked, resting a hand along Jonathan's ribs.

"Let's go finish dinner."

He rose without question.

* * *

The bird had fallen from its cage. Painted in harsh strokes that dictated only the most frustrated of creation, the portrait ran the length of the canvas from the cage that dangled from the heights of nothing and eventually fell to the depths of all. There, Barry could see nothing, save the few feathers whisked carefully with a brush, but the cage alone spoke volumes of what his partner to be feeling.

_Set loose,_ he thought, _but bound._

He tried to keep from setting his attention too obviously on the painting for fear that Jonathan may rise and make his way from the bedroom, but he was so enraptured by the illustration that when he drew forward—when he smelled the bitter tang of paint that rolled down his throat and entered his chest like some hallucinogenic drug—a spark of longing filled him.

_It's not realistic,_ he thought. _It never was. It never will be._

Who didn't want the one they loved to feel as though they were special—that within their personal depths and space they were their own magnitude and creation? Those around could see them as a normal individual, yes, but to be someone who mattered— _that_ was what people desired above all else.

"Yet you were stripped," he whispered. "Stripped of all those things most normal people have."

The flush in his fingertips rose from a numbness that occurred after he realized he'd balled his hand into a fist.

His eyes rose from the painting, then fell to the bedroom a few paces up the hall.

Wrapping his arms around himself, he cursed the bitter cold and flicked Jonathan's fluorescent lamp off before making his way up the hall and into the bedroom.

There, within the threshold, he watched Jonathan stare blankly into space—toward the window that they or their landlord had yet to repair.

"Cold as shit in here," Barry offered, treading foreign waters so commonplace within his life.

"It'd help if you weren't wandering around without a shirt."

"Sorry. It's Cali—doesn't rain like this here that often."

"Not in Cherryville," Jonathan agreed.

He stepped forward and slid toward the bed, trapped within a frame of mind like a snake upon a glass surface. First he applied pressure onto Jonathan's side of the mattress, eased forward, then settled back. When his boyfriend made no move to resist, he spread out alongside him, but waited to set a hand on his shoulder until what he felt was a reasonable time.

"This okay?" Barry asked.

Jonathan nodded and shrunk against Barry's body.

"I'm sorry I made you so uncomfortable at dinner," he whispered, sliding his hand along Jonathan's ribcage until it came to rest on his abdomen. "I just want you to feel safe. Sure doesn't seem like it when your boyfriend's questioning your every motive."

"I've only ever felt safe with you," Jonathan whispered.

Barry closed his eyes. He fought to control his emotions and somehow succeeded despite all that was set against him. "I won't question you," he whispered in turn. "If you want to go up there, I'll take you."

Jonathan said nothing. His hand atop Barry's was answer enough.

Outside, the rain continued on—a love song for a vampire.

It was decided.

They would return to the home Jonathan had grown up in... and had almost lost his life to as well.

* * *

He was woken early that morning by the press of Jonathan's hands upon his shoulders and the sound of the falling rain. Half-asleep, disoriented, exhausted emotionally and so physically tired he imagined he'd not slept at all, he opened his eyes to find Jonathan standing above him, fully-dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and a jacket appropriate only for outside weather.

_Come on,_ his eyes said.

Barry wouldn't argue. He couldn't, even if he tried, because he knew that even if he somehow inspired the urge to try and make them stay, he would toil within the same madness as Jonathan.

If this had to happen, it had to happen now.

It took little more than five minutes for Barry to shower, shove the grilled cheese sandwich Jonathan had made for him into his mouth, and get out the door.

Soon, they were on the road and headed toward a place whose name was written on a map but whose spelling had been scarred into the mind of but one unfortunate young man.

Jonathan McCrady had run from a small town called Cradle when his mother had told him that God would not allow him the wheels of His mechanism. Near a little area of Glenville, California, cradled on the outskirts of the Sequoia National Park and little more than fifty miles away from the dragon-like facade of Isabella Lake, it appeared so nondescript that most anyone would've never believed it to have a population. Yet after Jonathan had been found by a state trooper in little more than his underwear, the town had gained notoriety for but one moment—when, in the eyes of the California court, it had been sanctioned as the home of one of the greatest cases of mental illness the state had ever seen.

On a map it looked completely barren—empty of anything more than forest and the long stretch of highway roads—but the cold and stark realization was that it held more than just monsters of the inhuman kind.

It was outside the city limits that their true test would begin.

At his side, Jonathan trembled in the passenger seat of the remodeled by still-dingy Ford pickup that was nearly as old as Barry himself. With the heat blowing on him, he bowed his head and fumbled with his hood, though eventually gave up after several moments of frantic tugging.

Barry set a hand on his thigh.

Jonathan jumped.

"It's okay," Barry said, careful to keep one hand on the wheel for fear that the old beast would decide to act up. "Deep breaths. I can pull over if you need me to."

"No," Jonathan said, shaking his head. "I... it's just... I—"

"You don't have to explain. Pull your hood on. We've still got two more dials if we need more heat."

When he felt his touch was no longer needed, Barry pulled his hand away and returned it to the wheel.

The road ahead was long.

He needed all the focus he could get.

* * *

The town of Cradle resembled something of a lost soul who after stumbling along a road for a long period of time had simply caved in and collapsed. Bordered along a heavily-wooded area whose purpose seemed fit only to allow those misanthropes the fortune of living on the fringe of society, it came into view about an hour-and-a-half after they left Cherryville and immediately prompted a rolling feeling of unease within his gut.

"Where we goin'?" Barry asked.

"I'll let you know," Jonathan replied.

Their destination was set along a road that strayed from the main path and into a wooded area that gave Barry the chills. The California redwood was usually an impressive sight. These, though, were gangly. Gnarled like hags whose hands had spent their lives spinning between their fingers cruel instruments of torture, they resembled little more than the countenance of what all great things should be and offered nothing in terms of the awe-inspiring altitudes that Barry loved about this state.

_It looks,_ he thought, then swallowed a lump in his throat.

Maybe it was just the writer in him, but it looked like the trees had been sucked of all their worth.

Though his first inclination was to speak to Jonathan and continue to ask for directions, he allowed his boyfriend to provide them when needed and kept silent—mostly for Jonathan's peace of mind, but also his own. The winding, beaten trail of Cadbury Bend appeared all but deserted until a few cabin homes appeared in small, secluded clearings.

"We're at the end here," Jonathan said, his voice so sudden Barry almost jumped. "Mom never liked company. She wanted to be as far away as possible."

Barry had to grind his teeth together to keep from even thinking a response.

As he took a curve that brought them away from the other homes and thrust them into darkness, Jonathan lifted his head and began to scan the road. "Stop," he said.

"What?" Barry asked.

"It's just ahead."

He couldn't see. The darkness had become so absolute that in their current position, even his headlights could do little to shine through the piercing nothing that existed around them, but he did as Jonathan asked and rolled to as slow a stop as possible, which wasn't difficult given that he had already been going under the speed limit.

Once stopped, Barry waited for Jonathan to offer further direction.

Slowly, and with a hand whose purpose was strong but strength lost, pointed to their left. "There," he said.

Barry was just about to question his partner when he took note of a pathway so nondescript it could barely be seen. "That's it?" he asked.

Jonathan nodded. "We're at the end of the road," he said. "In the only clearing that offers light."

_That even in this darkness won't offer hope._

It was with trepidation that Barry eased the truck forward and took the turn that led onto the darkened path.

Here, darkness was absolute.

It took little to realize that it wasn't just because there was no light.

* * *

They pulled up alongside a dilapidated house Barry first mistook as the wrong destination. More than prepared to shift gears and fall back onto the road, he reached for the shift and cast a glance behind his shoulder before the sound of the passenger door clicking open entered his ears.

"Jonathan?" Barry asked, turning to look at his boyfriend. "What're you doing?"

"We're here, Barry. This is it."

The ghost of Jonathan's past stood harsh and strong in contrast to what was around it. Here, nature was king. It ruled as though atop an iron throne and commanded with its hand the justice of the land. While the sequoias grew tall and the ground circling the clearing was feathered with fallen green needles, the ground upon the McCrady property was disintegrating. Here, fresh mud sunk into Jonathan's shoes as he stepped from the road and onto the makeshift step-stone pathway that was sinking into the ground. The home itself was a different story. Looking ready to fall apart at any moment, Barry's first inclination was to jump from his truck, grab Jonathan and keep him away from it, but he knew he couldn't. They'd come this far. Turning back would be idiotic.

Setting the car into park, Barry slid the key from the ignition, jumped out of his vehicle, then rounded it until he stood at the end of the step-stone path.

Jonathan stood no more than a few feet ahead, framed by the aging pillars supporting a roof almost in shambles.

_Is this where it ends?_ Barry thought.

He swallowed a lump in his throat and stepped forward. While he expected the hand he set on Jonathan's shoulder to startle him, the younger man didn't respond at all. "You okay?" he asked.

"I don't want you to come in with me," Jonathan said.

"This place is falling apart."

"That's not the reason why."

"What is it then?"

Jonathan turned to look him in the eyes. His expression, while not downright frightful, was mixed with the sort of stubborn authority that came from a man scared senseless but who knew work needed to be done.

_Okay,_ Barry nodded, knowing that any answer he got out of Jonathan would probably not make sense. _I understand._

"You just... can't come in there with me," Jonathan said. "But... it's only because I don't want you to see."

_See what?_

What devil was tempted to beg men to ask that question—to test their strength of morality and inflict upon themselves the horrors others wished them not to have? Was it gluttony? Lust? Avarice? Or was it something else?"

"You have a flashlight?" Barry asked.

Jonathan lifted the one Barry kept in the center console of his truck and held it before him. "I know it without," he smiled, "but it's nice to see."

"How long will you be in there?"

"Not too long. Just... be careful, all right?"

_Careful?_ he thought, frowning. _Why—_

"I will," he said, before he could think on it any further. "Don't worry."

Jonathan nodded and turned. Before he could get more than a foot away, he spun around and planted a kiss to Barry's cheek. Then, without pause, he made his way up to the house.

After Jonathan found a key and disappeared into the house, Barry wasn't sure what to do. Trapped in a position where he had no choice in the matter, he stood in the very place Jonathan left him and crossed his arms over his chest, hopeful that his boyfriend wouldn't be long. Though loathe to admit it, his unease was not specifically geared toward Jonathan's situation.

_Screw off,_ he thought. _You're just being paranoid._

Still—it wasn't hard to be that way when all around him the world seemed ready to swallow him whole.

He crossed his arms over his chest.

The rustle in the woods he took as nothing more than a squirrel or chipmunk—a lowly-creature wandering through the underbrush scavenging for food on a cold and miserable day.

"Come on Jonathan," he whispered. "Let's get out of here before I—"

A snap drew his attention to the trees to his left. Eyes narrowing, nostrils flaring, he scoured the underbrush for the source of the sound. When nothing was found, he shook his head and loosened the tension within his back, but it wasn't long before the snap happened once more and his eyes were drawn in a different direction.

_Up._

The twilight of the gray day gave excellent view for the silhouette resting in one of the high tree branches.

_Oh God,_ he thought. _Please, God... let me be seeing things. Please._

It was highly-unlikely that the thing _hadn't_ seen him, whatever it happened to be. It was so warped in shadow that little could be discerned save for its size, which mirrored something of a golden eagle who nature had allowed to grow exponentially large. Its features, though, offered a different story—especially its nearly-rounded head and the disproportionate legs.

His attention was so fixed upon the thing that he hadn't realized he was staring until he heard the snapping once more.

He blinked.

His eyes trailed along the tree branch.

A jagged crack began to spread along its underside.

"Shit!" he cried. "Shit!"

The limb bowed.

The thin strands of keratin splintered.

Barry stumbled back and fell flat on his ass just in time for the branch to land on his pickup.

_What the fuck?_ he thought, trembling.

The twisted resemblance of an avian screech struck fear into his heart.

Barry looked up.

It descended.

_That first night, in the apartment, when something fell in the alley and you thought it was an animal, but it was really a man; then in the park, when that man was torn to pieces—_

It hadn't been a bird.

It had been a monster.

She flew these lands as if they were her own. And now, she had come for him.

She landed on the remnants of his pickup cab with a thud so loud it reverberated through the metal and ground massive six-inch talons into the mechanism of her own destruction. Head downturned, but mouth still visible, she identified herself with her teeth alone and the jagged juxtaposition of her body, so hunchbacked and not resembling any bird in the least. Her wings—massive—ruffled as a breeze came up, but still she refused to budge.

Barry's only inclination was to begin to crawl back—toward the house from hell.

His hand landed on, then crushed a constellation of needles.

Her head shot up.

Her face was bared.

The image of her monstrosity was thrust into his mind.

_No,_ Barry thought, frozen. _No, no. It... it can't. It—_

She was the hag that all men feared, the witch of all desires, the devil in the night whose face was carved from the flesh of a mortal being. Her mouth was distorted, yes, and her eyes had bulged to birdlike proportions and blackened like the sallow corpse left in a bog, but her features still remained the same.

The creature that stood before him was not an ordinary monster. It was Jonathan's mother.

_But how—_

His thought was cut off as she reared her elongated neck forward and uttered a screech that sent pinpricks of numbness across his body and into the finer pieces of his person. Stunned, slightly, on his left side, he scrambled to get to his feet and fell instantaneously, face-down in the mud that he choked out upon lifting his head.

He caught only one glimpse of the house before she took him by the shoulders and lifted him into the air.

Her strength was uncanny. He wasn't a big man, by any means, but he was top heavy enough to know that her bird-boned body shouldn't have been able to lift him. Little else could be thought of. Her nails were like knives ripping through his skin, six-inches long and caressing his shoulders, and the hallux digit at the back of her foot pierced the curve just between the muscles between his arm and back. The resulting affliction was an epiphany of pain he compared to having a scalpel shoved, then dragged through your skin.

He screamed.

He kicked.

He tried to reach up and grasp the creature's talons but wailed.

He couldn't do it. He couldn't lift his arms.

Was this what prey animals felt when they were lifted into these arms—so helpless that they could do nothing but stare?

Knowing that his only hope lay in a house ten feet below him, he screamed.

_"JONATHAN!"_

The door burst open.

The young man emerged.

In his hand he held but one thing—a gun.

"Let him go you witch," Jonathan said.

The harpy screeched and stopped her ascent. Flexing her claws, she dug her grip into Barry's shoulders just enough to where he could not slip free from her grasp.

"Shoot her, Jonathan," Barry gasped, blood running down his body.

"I came here to get rid of you," Jonathan said, stepping out from under the awning and narrowing the gun at her body. "I knew it was you when I saw you in that alley. I knew you'd come back. But it's not him you're after. It's me."

_"John—"_

"Come get me you crazy bitch."

Her grip loosened.

The talons on her right claw slipped free.

The scream that came from his throat could not compare to the one that ripped from hers when he ripped his free arm around and grabbed her leg.

The bones were brittle.

He squeezed as hard as he could.

"Shoot her!" he screamed. _"SHOOT HER JONATHAN! SHOOT HER!"_

The shot went off, but must have only grazed her, as only feathers and not blood exploded into the air.

Barry thrust his body down.

He screamed.

The talons dug deep, but the adrenaline gave him resolve.

The moment he felt her grip slid free of his left shoulder, he twisted his body with all his might.

She screamed.

She flew.

He let go.

The fall to the ground was a daze of gunshots and screams. The impact was a truck slamming into him at ninety-five miles an hour.

The breath was knocked out of him instantly.

His spine felt like jelly.

He managed, in the moments he heard the last of the gunshots, to reach out to every extremity he could.

He could move.

He wasn't paralyzed.

The blanketing chaos of something crashing into the trees was the victory all warriors sang.

Barry closed his eyes and struggled to breathe.

"Barry!" Jonathan cried. "Barry!"

"I-I'm—"

"Oh thank god," Jonathan said. He threw himself into the mud at his side and took hold of his hand. "God... I'm so sorry. I didn't want you to come in because I thought she'd be in there. I thought you'd be safe."

"It's... okay," Barry managed with a cough. "Help me up."

Jonathan struggled to help him from the mixture of mud and blood trapping Barry to the ground, but eventually got him upright. Rolling with pain and shivering from the spastic fire of his shredded nerves, Barry looked toward the clearing as his eyes began to water and waited for her to return.

"The truck," Jonathan managed.

"There's people," Barry said. "Right?"

"Yeah. There's—"

The rev of an engine coming up the road cut him off.

"Thank God," Jonathan said.

The blue minivan ignored all aspects of the road and pulled directly up beside them.

Jonathan flicked the safety on his gun.

The passenger door opened to reveal a tall, elderly black man holding a glock in his hands. "What happened?" he asked, rounding the corner with caution. "We heard gunshots and thought a bear had gone after a camper."

"My boyfriend got attacked by something," Jonathan said. "Some kind of bird."

"Jonathan McCrady?" a woman's voice said. The driver's window rolled down to reveal a black woman with startlingly-green eyes. "Is that you?"

"It's me, Mrs. Miller," Jonathan said. "She came back."

"Your mama?"

Jonathan nodded.

Mrs. Miller turned her eyes on Barry and paled instantaneously. "We need to get you to a hospital," she said. "Get in the van. We'll go as fast as we can."

"Is she dead?" Mr. Miller asked, taking Barry from Jonathan's arms and helping him into the car.

"I... I don't—"

"We can't worry about that now," Mrs. Miller said. "Edgar, get those seats rolled down and that first-aid kit out. We gotta get to the infection before anything else does."

"I," Barry started.

The blur in his vision gave him pause.

"Get his shirt off," Edgar said to Jonathan, slamming his door shut.

Jonathan grabbed the bowie knife the older man offered and went to work cutting Barry's shirt free.

"Jonathan," Barry managed, turning his head to the side and coughing. "What the hell was that?"

"I'll explain later." Jonathan pressed a rough kiss to Barry's mouth and cut the sleeves off his T. "Thank God you're all right," he whispered.

Barry spread out flat on his stomach and closed his eyes as he felt antiseptic wipes drawing the blood and mud off his back.

His breath faltered.

"Don't fall asleep," Edgar said. "Stay with us."

"I won't," Barry said, the force of the minivan's engine just enough to give him peace.

The world behind them, easily visible through the back window, offered but one glimpse of the outskirts of Cradle before they burst out onto the highway.

It took but a moment for him to realize something.

They'd done what they'd come out here to do.

The only question was: had it brought Jonathan peace?

# The Devil on Blue Hill

"It's time to feed her," Mama said.

I lifted my head from my place in my book and tried not to quiver in my seat. "Now?" I asked.

Mama only nodded.

The sudden chill the room took on couldn't have been from the nuclear winter taking place outside. Nearly twenty-below and with ash falling down, all that could be made of the outside world was the faint gray light streaming through the thick overhead clouds, those of which had come years ago and never left, but it did little to settle my frayed nerves. Nothing did—not anymore, not when I was the only girl who could get close to the one who had become clinically insane.

_Vanessa Franchesca,_ all the girls used to say, _she'll knife ya then best ya._

Mama's eyes followed me through the living room as I made my way into the kitchen and grabbed the bowl of creamed corn that she made for Vanessa every day, her accusatory stare that of the predator that wanted food but was far too afraid to go after it. I, as usual, could only stare back, but with the cream corn slowly cooling, I knew I couldn't wait long.

There were three things about Vanessa that you could never forget: she didn't like her food cold, she couldn't eat solids, and if she even thought you'd done something wrong, she would make sure you'd regret it.

"Go, Anna," my mother said. "Now."

She watched me make my way down the hall toward the room she stayed in. Snared with bolts and snarled with chains, it seemed an unnecessary procedure in captivity when the only person behind there was a sixteen-year-old girl. But Vanessa was different. People underestimated that. She was strong. And if you didn't remember that, you would die.

At the door, I set the bowl of creamed corn on an end table home adorned with a long-dead series of flowers and reached forward to unlock the door.

The minute the chain at the top of the door slid out of place, Vanessa was awake.

_Please,_ I thought, tears burning in my eyes. _Please don't do it._

It didn't start—not at first, thankfully. It kept me from crying too much as I orchestrated my mother's grand and malicious desire, which was essential considering that any time I cried Vanessa liked to lick the tears off my face. Just that tongue... sliding over my face...

The movement ceased inside the room.

"Hurry up," my mother said.

A single slap of a hand against the door ground my situation to reality.

It was there that it came—the thing that made grown men cry.

Her voice.

_Na,_ she said. _Na._

It wasn't the voice of a sixteen-year-old girl. It was too dry, too hollow, like wind in a cage where the canary had died had never been taken out.

"It's me," I replied, struggling to undo the locks. "It's me. _Na."_

_"Na."_

_And by the Lord Christ almighty,_ a friend had once said. _Why do you let her live like that?_

People still weren't sure what happened to Vanessa. Some say she was hit by the radiation, others that the time she'd come home with blood on her legs that she'd been raped and had gone insane. But I knew better. Vanessa hadn't gotten raped. Back then, she would've told me, and even now she would've told me. No. The reason I was so afraid was because I knew something more had happened. I just didn't know what.

When the final chain came undone and the only thing that remained was the deadbolt, I pulled the key from its hook beside the door and took a deep breath. "Vanessa," I said. "Food. Go bed."

The telltale reply of the creaking mattress was sign enough.

Pushing the key into the door was like sacrificing a bit of my soul.

As the lock came undone, I lifted the bowl of creamed corn, closed my eyes, and braced myself as much as I could.

I opened the door, then stepped inside and closed it behind me.

I turned to face my destiny.

Vanessa's room had been purged of light three years ago when what Dr. Murston had called 'the Madness' had taken over her mind. Given the light was gray, it was an almost-perfect scenario, but even the curtains that covered the windows did little to hide what really lived in here. The walls were thin. There was no more paper; it'd all been torn off. The bedding was strewn along the floor in a mishmash of guts and the patches of denim it had once been made up of, and the toys—most were gone, and by gone I don't mean torn apart. She couldn't be watched. She'd pulled all their beady little eyes out and had thrown them under the bed.

I couldn't see her, such was the light in the room. I knew she was on the bed—poised in the dark corner—but she was a shadow now. Nothing like her normal self.

Carefully, I set the bowl of corn on the floor and stepped back to the door.

I reached for the doorknob.

The bedsprings began to creak. _"Na,"_ she said.

I nodded. It was her sign to wait. For me to see.

She appeared from the darkness on all fours, her visage guarded by hair in knots and tatters that dangled around her face like dreads along a fine queen's head. Twitching, wheezing, stumbling, her body the spider who had lost half its legs—she didn't lift her head to look at me. I think she was too ashamed. But her presence was salvation. Most who got this close were dead.

_"Na,"_ she said. _"Soft."_

"Corn," I replied. "Your favorite."

A bony, gnarled hand whose nails had long since blackened shot out and grabbed the bowl. Even after all this time I couldn't help but jump.

I waited. Time was a place in which I was trapped in a room with the girl who had gone to the hill and had only barely come back. She hated clothing—detested it to the point where even if I tried to put her in a sweater when it was cold she fought and screamed—and because of that her condition was made plain. The spirals of dirt around her shoulders were enunciated only by the emaciated hollows of her ribcage. She was far too thin. We couldn't get her to eat. She'd only eat the soft foods.

_And candy,_ I thought. _The sweet, sweet candy._

Her slur of words I could only barely hear beneath her slurping.

_Tree tree tree,_ she chanted. _Tree tree tree._

"Vanessa," I said. "Can I... can I ask about the tree?"

Her head shot up.

The bowl dropped.

Though she was not facing me, the look on her face was one I had seen time and time again. _"Na,"_ she said. _"Na. NA!"_

"Ok," I said. "It's okay, it's okay. I'll leave. I—"

She spun so quickly I shrieked.

She launched herself forward.

I stumbled toward the door, desperate, the panic drumming like the sickly noises that sometimes came from the city, but I knew it was useless. She would touch me. She'd eat my fear, lick my tears, consume my hunger, and she'd do it all because she could not understand.

Something caught my ankle.

I didn't even have time to shriek as I fell. I hit the ground so hard the breath went from my lungs.

The sound of her moving somewhere in front of me was enough to silence my ragged breaths.

_Please,_ I thought. _Please..._

The languid sound of breathing entered my ears as she crawled over my body.

Her breaths fell over my face.

It was times like these that I couldn't help but wonder if Hell was real.

I didn't know what to do. The way she acted was never the same. Her schizophrenic behavior was like a starving dog in the barrens chasing after the piece of rotten meat the boys dragged behind their jeeps on supply runs. It'd bark, it'd growl, it'd whimper, walk, then run away. In the end, everyone knew it wanted to be fed, but how it would go about doing it was what really made it unpredictable.

When I realized the only way I would get out of this room was to answer her demands, I knew what I had to do.

Slowly, and with pain I had felt far too many times in my life, I opened my eyes.

My sister's face came into view—sunken, gaunt, and with her protruding jaw hovering right over me.

"It's okay," I said, unsure whether the confused look in her nearly-pupil-less eyes was for me or for what she felt she had to do. "It's me. Na."

_"Na."_

I nodded.

Vanessa drew back.

I pushed myself upright and looked into her eyes, trying not to trace the contours of her misshapen face but unable to do so anyway. Her cheeks were broadened far beyond any normal scope and her eyesockets appeared to have been pushed in. Doctor Murston had claimed assault. From what could never be answered. She'd never complained of pain, and there'd never been any broken bones or blood. But Vanessa... she'd come back looking like this. And she hadn't changed since.

"Are you still hungry?" I asked. "Is that why you stopped? Because you—"

The wheeze of air escaping her throat stopped me before I could continue.

I waited. "Vanessa?" I asked.

"Man," she said.

"Man?" I asked.

"Man in blue," she said. "By the tree."

A flicker of unease passed through my ribcage. "Vanessa," I said, swallowing a lump in my throat. "Did someone hurt you?"

My sister reared back her head and screamed.

I took all I could muster to get out the door.

* * *

"Mama," I said, lifting my eyes from my own bowl of creamed corn. "I think someone hurt Vanessa."

My mother narrowed her eyes. "Nonsense," she said, scraping at her own bowl.

"I mean it," I replied. "I... she... she said something about—"

"Vanessa says a lot of things, Anna."

"But—"

"No more."

With sadness I resigned myself to my meal. Given Vanessa's revelation, it would make sense that I was on edge, but Mama's words didn't have to be so harsh. She was her mother too—not just mine.

"I'll be going over to Mr. Patterson's tonight," Mama said, lifting her bowl and carrying it to the sink. "I'll be working late. Listen for the door."

"Are you sure you should be going out again?" I frowned. "Last time—"

"Men are dogs, Anna. The sooner you learn that, the sooner you'll know what they want. We need the pennies. We're running out of food." The frown that crossed my face made my mother smile. It seemed pain was her only form of happiness these days. "Take care of your sister," she said as she grabbed her coat and started for the door. "Make sure to give her some water before you go to bed."

I could only nod as she walked out the door.

As always, I locked the door behind her.

She wouldn't be coming home tonight.

* * *

_Man,_ Vanessa had said, _in blue. By the tree._

I lay awake watching the ceiling. The perpetual twilight of the outside world—a gift from the Fallout of the old world's destruction—was enough to offer just the slightest winks of light, but it did nothing to reveal anything about the situation I had been so horribly thrust in.

No matter how hard I wanted to believe it, I could not deny what Vanessa had said.

Something had happened. Someone had hurt her. And he'd hurt her in the one place we were told never to go.

Even from here I could see it if I wanted to rise and walk to the window. Tall, stoic, stripped of all its leaves and resembling something of a wirework mannequin the seamstresses put dresses on—on days windy and cold it would shift as if it were a man drunk upon the great moonshine. It stood atop the only hill within the facility's limits, as if it were a testament to the place the world once was. They'd try to fence it off a few years ago, after Vanessa's accident, but after the first few attempts, they'd stopped.

They said the place was haunted.

Somehow, I couldn't help but wonder if they were right.

_If only you were here,_ I thought. _If only._

But what would Mama do? She wouldn't say anything. Even when I'd tried to tell her earlier she'd shaken me off. _She's crazy,_ she'd said. _You can't believe anything she says._ And while it was true that Vanessa _was_ crazy, I was the only one she would let get close to her. That had to count for something, didn't it?

Knowing I wouldn't be able to sleep, I rolled out of bed and paced toward the doorway.

A flash of the outside world stopped me mid-stride.

I turned.

Outside, the tree stood in all its lost glory—watching, waiting, _persisting._

_Never go there, Anna,_ my mother had once said. _Never, ever,_ ever _go there._

"She whispers she whispers the king in the night," I sang, walking toward the window, "as once the world ended and turned out the lights."

I wrapped my hands around the windowsill and peered out.

"And He who said God would punish us all," I continued, "would turn us to evil, the Devil his Thrall."

A flash of lightning lit the sky.

The wind brought in the clouds.

Drawing away, I turned, closed my eyes, and took a deep breath.

It wasn't unusual for me to feel watched.

Everyone said they felt that way after looking at the tree.

* * *

_"Na,"_ Vanessa said.

I nodded and watched her eat her oatmeal.

The weather had taken a turn for the worse. The corrosive acid rain that was not powerful enough to damage buildings but dangerous enough to burn human flesh fell to the earth like some great king and bore against the windows like the dead trying to break in. Considering our position, I couldn't help but sympathize with that idea, but I tried not to think about it and instead focused on Vanessa—who, for the time being, wasn't screaming or launching herself at me.

_You know she's not going to hurt you,_ the little voice in my head said. _Why are you worried?_

I _didn't_ know if she was going to hurt me. That was the point. Her unpredictable behavior lent to anyone around her the excellent scapegoat that I was. She'd never hurt me, they said, because I was the one who found her, who brought her back. Yet the few times Vanessa had slammed me into the wall hard enough to bruise my back were enough for me to realize that, regardless of how frail she was, she was still stronger than me.

She ate the oatmeal meticulously, like it always did. The oats within had to be saturated just enough to where she couldn't detect the crunch within them. She'd spit if she found any, mostly at me because I was convenient, but so far I seemed to have made the oatmeal right.

_Thankfully._

Mama still had not returned. It had only dawned on me when Vanessa started screaming and I'd checked the old pocketwatch to see that it was past breakfast time. She was the one who always made breakfast. I couldn't cook. The most I could do was sew, and even then, I couldn't follow patterns. The fact that I'd managed this was something of a miracle.

"Vanessa," I said. Even though I'd become accustomed to her erratic behavior, I still couldn't help but flinch when she jerked her head up. "Did I make the meal right?"

_"Na,"_ she said. She ate the last of the oatmeal and set the bowl on the floor, then slid it across to me—gently, a surprising feat considering her normally-aggressive behavior.

When I took the bowl in hand and rose to make my way toward the door, the shuffle of her footsteps stopped me.

I turned.

Vanessa, standing bow-legged from a developed posture, looked down at me. _"Na,"_ she said.

"Are you still hungry?" I asked, swallowing when I realized Mama would slap me for offering extra servings we didn't have. "Do you need something."

_"Blue."_

"Blue?"

She crouched back down and placed both hands on the floor to hold herself in place. I, willingly, followed.

"Who is the Blue Man?" I asked, frowning when Vanessa bowed her head and began to sniffle. "Vanessa?"

_"Na,"_ she said, trembling.

Something landed on my hand.

I looked down.

A lone tear, glistening in the light shimmering through the windows, lit my wrist.

She was crying. Not screaming, raging or shrieking— _crying._

As she continued to sniffle, shivering as if she were far colder than it actually was, a storm began within me—so deep, in fact, that I could never recall ever feeling this way.

My sister—whom Doctor Murston had said was incapable of emotion—was _crying._

"Vanessa," I said, reaching toward her. "Did he hurt you by the tree?"

I touched her shoulder.

Her head shot up.

I had but one moment to look into her cloudy eyes before she screamed.

I threw myself away from her.

It was only when I was out and had locked the door that I realized she wasn't going to attack me.

No.

She was screaming because she was in pain.

She was trying to hug me.

* * *

I couldn't do it anymore.

I couldn't wait for Mama to crack.

I had to find answers myself.

After I slid my bowl of oatmeal into Vanessa's room, along with a bottle of water, I washed up, changed into new clothes, then donned a hooded cloak to help stave off the cold before grabbing my market basket and the single key off the rack. While I debated leaving the door unlocked if only so Mama could get in, I couldn't risk anyone sneaking inside and trying to steal something. So after locking the door and checking to make sure the knob would not budge, I knocked on our neighbor's door.

Abatha, one of the oldest people in the facility at the ripe age of seventy, answered in kind, her cane in hand. "Annabella?" she asked, narrowing her eyes. "Is everything all right, dear?"

"Everything's fine," I replied. "Vanessa's fine. I'm okay. Don't worry. Could you... do me a favor? Keep this key, give it to my Mama if she comes around?"

"Oh dear," Abatha said. "Don't tell me she went out last night."

My silence was enough. The old lady sighed and took the key from my hand.

"I'll make sure she gets in when she comes back," she said, reaching up to wipe a stray hair from my face. "I should ask, though—where might you be going?"

"I need to see Doctor Murston. It's about Vanessa. She... she—"

_Do I tell her?_

Abatha frowned. "Annabelle?"

"She's not acting like herself," I said, and while I wasn't exactly lying, I wasn't telling the complete truth either. "I want to ask him a few questions."

"All right. I'll let her know where you are if she comes back before you do. Just be careful, all right? You know what kind of people are down that way."

"I know, Abatha. Thank you."

The old woman's sad eyes glimmered with unease as she closed and then locked her door.

Sighing, I turned and started down the hallway, already regretting that I had not brought anything to protect myself.

_Never go where the red lights are,_ my mother had once said. _That's where the bad men are. The ones who'll do anything to get a piece of a girl like you._

I shook my head.

Mama once said girls who went down that hallway never came back.

The sad part was: Doctor Murston lived in the sector beyond that.

I'd have to go straight through to get to him.

* * *

When we were little girls—Vanessa just eleven, I just eight—Mama used to tell us that there were three things you were to never do within the facility: You were to never approach strangers, no matter how kind or friendly they seemed, without a trusted adult nearby; you were to never to venture beyond the limits of what the doctors considered the 'safe zone,' that of which ended at the tree on the hill; and you were to never walk through the red light district, no matter what.

All those years I'd obeyed my mother.

Until now.

Now, here I was—walking the red light district as if I were a girl in a forest.

_They spit and they drool,_ Mama used to say, _they bark and they growl._

"They hiss and they stutter," I whispered, "the men from the gutters."

Regardless of how well-dressed I was for a typical day, the biting cold in this part of the facility was always bone-deep. It was something that could never be solved, even when more people were added to the heating mines in the basement. Some said that the draft came from the outside, despite the fact that we'd been told the building was air-tight, and that we were slowly being poisoned to death. That was why the old people weren't living as long anymore, and why the babies kept getting sick. In the end, I always wondered what their point was. We were bound to this place anyway. We wouldn't last forever. Our resources would eventually dwindle. Then, we'd die.

Until then, I would do my best to take care of my sister, whether people liked it or not.

My progress through the district was slow, marked by the sound of yells and the occasional guttural cry. The metal framework that surrounded me on all sides turned the sounds into monsters—of wolves and banshees frolicking in the night. The blood on their lips, their fingertips, the snarls on their mouths and the looks in their eyes—Mama once showed me a picture of what an artist once said lived in the red light district, and when I asked why there were wolves and women who looked like corpses in them doing things that she said were 'very bad things,' she merely said that this was an artistic representation. When I'd asked what that meant, she merely said I didn't want to know—that I never wanted to go there.

What sounded like footsteps echoed behind me.

I spun, basket for market in hand.

There was no one there.

I knew I was being paranoid. That was more than obvious, because no matter how hard I looked at it, it was just a thirteen-year-old girl in a place she'd been told never to go. I was the fair maiden and here, in this dark and forsaken place, there lurked a monster, yet where they would ask was my knight in shining armor, his helm trunked and hanging and his gun armed and ready, for lying in the middle of the hallway was a little girl, torn and eaten by the wolves.

Trembling, I turned.

Something passed before my vision.

I slapped my hand to my mouth before I could cry out.

There was nothing there—nothing at all.

"Don't be scared," I whispered. "Don't be scared, please, don't be scared, don't be scared."

I took steps up the hallway—one, two, one two. I started slow and then increased my pace. What started as a fast walk turned to a brisk jog, then a full-out run as I swore I heard voices behind me.

_Annabelle, Annabelle,_ the voices said. _Run away, run away. The wolves are coming to play._

The urge to scream was stronger than anything I'd felt in my entire life. My heart beat like a horn come time for danger and burned so hard it felt I would turn to ash. My flight was staccato—breath breath pant pant. Soon I wondered if I would even be able to stand, but I kept running, as fast as the wind, the air no longer cold and my breath no longer visible.

At the end of the hallway I saw like a gleaming beacon of hope Doctor Murston's office.

I tripped.

I cried out.

I fell to the ground.

The basket went tumbling and I only just barely caught myself with my hands.

I gasped, desperate to breathe air.

Something from behind reached forward and brushed the hair from my cheek.

_Hello Annabelle,_ the voice said. _I fucked your sister, ate her heart and stole her brain. Now I'm gonna do it to you._

I screamed.

The door opened.

I jerked my head back and would've cried out had I the breath to do so.

Doctor Murston looked down at me, a frown painting the corners of his shapely lips down. "Annabelle?" he frowned. "Annabelle Ross? What're you doing here, girl? You know what this place is like."

"My sister," I gasped. "Something's happened. She's... changed."

"What?"

"She's talking. And I think someone might have hurt her."

Murston said nothing. Instead, he reached down and offered his hand. "Come," he said. "It's not safe out here."

* * *

"I want you to tell me about the Man in Blue," I said.

Doctor Murston paused. From his place in the kitchen, where he prepared tea he said would calm my nerves, his face lay painted in an expression completely unlike his character. As a child I'd used to watch him from my place in the corner as he checked Mama and Vanessa's radiation levels, customary to those born before the Fall. As he'd do this, I'd awe as he seamlessly maneuvered his fingers through row upon row of needles filled with fluids and couldn't help but admire the way his skin glowed, a great shimmering bronze that reminded me of molten gold as he stepped under the fluorescent lights. He'd been the whole reason I wanted to be a doctor when I was young. Now that dream was dead. Vanessa was all that mattered.

My fog of memory was cleared as the telltale sign of glass being set on a plate entered my ears. Murston settled down in the armchair across from me, hands on his knees, before sighing and saying, "Why do you want to know about him?"

"I just do."

"You know he's just a legend."

"Vanessa was talking about him."

Murston frowned. "What?" he asked.

"It was the day before Mama went out," I said. "I brought her creamed corn and she was... _chanting_ something, under her breath. _Tree."_

"She was chanting about the tree on Blue Hill?" Murston frowned, then waited for me to nod. "Keep going."

"Then she said... well... she just said _man in blue, by the tree."_

"And this triggered... what, exactly?"

"Tears."

Murston's eyes softened. Their green depths were like pictures—of a world where people were allowed to be vulnerable without having to worry about getting killed.

"Doctor Murston?" I asked, the fear in my heart flickering like a broken light switch. "Is there a man who lives on Blue Hill?"

"Go home," Murston said. "Now."

"Sir—"

"If you know what's good for you, you'll stay away from that damned Blue Hill and the tree on top of it."

"He hurt my sister!" I cried. "He did something to her! Why won't you tell me?"

"Because it's better not to know some things," the doctor said. "Because sometimes if you know them, the things they're about will come looking for you."

I didn't say anything.

Rather than argue, I turned, walked to the door, then stepped into the hall.

Outside, I couldn't help but close my eyes.

It was too late.

I already knew.

It all made sense now.

I hadn't just been imagining the thing in the hallway.

It was real.

* * *

I decided to take the long way home rather than risk going back through the red light district. My nerves shattered, I could hardly keep my hands from shaking or my jaw from quivering, even though I'd tightened my hood and had pulled my hair around my face. It was like the monsters kept following me—which, in this instance, I couldn't help but feel they had.

Although I knew things would be fine, I couldn't help but wonder.

I rounded the district the infirmary lay within and considered stopping for groceries as I passed the warehouse district, but realized it would be worthless, as Mama would not want me spending her money for food she might not find appropriate. A second pass over my change pocket proved to be empty, which gave me no reason to go.

With the basket in hand, I started down the hall that would lead to the district we lived in. Along the way, I would pass the last iconic view of the city, forlorn in the wastelands and slowly falling apart.

I adjusted my hold on my basket—empty, sadly, but the most excellent scapegoat—and lifted my eyes as I rounded the corner.

Before the panorama of windows—which, before the Fall, had been used for scenic purposes, but were now used to watch the gates—a crowd of people had developed: some crying, others in shock, others merely shaking their heads.

A breath caught in my throat.

What could be going on?

I drew forward, trying to part through the crowd but unable to make my way.

Then, it dawned on me.

I realized I was not supposed to make my way. I was supposed to bear witness.

I turned, heart singing the songs that all children hear in childhood.

Yet when I looked out that window, those songs stopped.

The choir no longer preached.

Before my eyes lay a nightmare come alive.

Suspended, by the ankles, from a cable where electricity powered the floodlights, was Mama—throat slashed, breasts exposed, and legs marked with lacerations. Upon her chest were but two words: _Babylon Falls._

Sometimes, they say when you see something horrible for the first time, you don't believe it's real. Then, a moment later, you scream.

I couldn't hear what happened next.

All I knew was that everyone turned toward me.

* * *

They demanded someone stay with me. No father, no mother, no family, friends or relatives. Even little old Abatha asked if she could stay, but I said no, that it was fine, that someone else in the house would only upset my sister and that would only make it worse.

Before I went to bed, Doctor Murston came by and gave me a sedative.

The needle was like Heaven. The liquid within paradise.

After he left, and after I locked the door behind him with the thought that Mama would never return, I checked on Vanessa one last time before I went to bed.

For a while, I simply lay there, staring at the ceiling fan that no longer ran.

Soon, I drifted to sleep.

I dreamed.

* * *

_I stood at the foot of the hill where once in a life long before mine a school had been built. Only barely hit with the results of the fallout and still bearing its skeletal structure, it resembled something of a monster who'd washed up on shore and had been eaten by birds—long, tall, broken here and there, as if savagely ripped and then torn in some points. It was a pinnacle of destruction both in the physical and metaphorical sense—not only because it was a part of the old world lost, but also because it was the last place she had been seen._

_Her name had been Julianna Romero._

_She'd been the first one who'd gone missing—the first one who'd been killed by the devil._

_I stepped away from the broken remnants of the school grounds and toward the hill. Like most who approached, my natural inclination was to lift my head to look at the tree—which, stark in its portrayal against a perpetually-gray world, was a sight unto itself. But today was different. Today the clouds had gathered—and above appeared the eye: a vortex that never touched the ground but always lingered close._

_It was stupid to near the hill. It was stupid to even be outside during a storm, especially in the post-fallen world. But as dreams often dictate, I wasn't allowed a choice._

_Today, the dream would show me a vision._

_Julianna Romero stood at the top of the hill. Though I couldn't see her face, I knew the stars were in her eyes._

_I didn't see him. I don't think anyone does. He takes shaped based upon what people believe Him to be. But that didn't matter. One moment Julianna was alive. The next she was on the ground, and like we were face-to-face I could see into her eyes._

_At first, all I saw was glass—the pale fog they say comes when a soul no longer inhabits a body._

_The next thing I knew, I saw a person._

_His face was horrible._

_I could not scream._

_I could only laugh._

_They say you smile before you die._

_The grin on Julianna's face was maniacal._

* * *

I didn't jerk from sleep. I didn't scream, I didn't jump—I didn't even gasp. Instead, I opened my eyes, expecting Julianna Romero to look back at me. But instead, I saw nothing—nothing but the wall, the darkness, and the faint luminescence of the new world weeping through the window, its gray hue my only light.

Blinking, I pushed myself up with one arm and rubbed my eyes with my other hand as I tried to make sense of my situation. The doctor said it was supposed to keep me asleep all night, but here I was awake in the middle of it.

Was it because of the dream?

Was Vanessa all right?

When my feet touched the floor, I expected to feel grounded—like the world was back to normal. Instead, everything came back.

Mama was gone. Vanessa was sick. I was alone and no one would tell me the truth about anything—not about Blue Hill, not about the legend behind it, and not about the girls who had gone missing or even the one girl who had come back.

I think the doctor expected me to break down. That was why he'd asked if I wanted him to stay. But Mama always told me never to let strange men in the house, no matter how well I thought I knew them.

A thumping noise entered my ears.

I frowned.

It had come from the living room.

"It's nothing," I whispered. "It—"

It came again—once, then a second time.

Three times followed.

Had Vanessa gotten out?

No. It couldn't be. I'd made sure to lock the door. There was no way she could've gotten out unless she'd broken the door, and even then, I would've heard such a loud noise.

Unless...

I swallowed a lump in my throat.

The doctor said the sedative would make me sleep through the night.

What if it had only made me sleep through Vanessa's escape?

The thumping noises only continued to escalate

It took me less than a moment to figure out what to do.

As carefully as I could, I pushed myself to my feet and reached out to steady myself on the footrest as I started toward the door. My world an ocean, my body a fish, I floundered through my room on uneasy currents and stumbled into the wall just before I could reach the door. I crashed into an end table that held a piece of ornate pottery and watched in horror as it went crashing to the floor, its dozens of white pieces glimmering like moonlight that I rarely was blessed to see.

The thumping stopped.

I paused.

My breath caught in my throat.

Had they heard me?

"Vanessa?" I asked. "Is that you?"

The thumping did not continue.

Swallowing, I twisted the doorknob and threw it open.

It only took one look down the hall to see a vision of hell.

The walls were smeared with blood. So black it looked to not have even been human, it painted the wallpaper in grisly caricatures of human suffering that came in the form of hands. Clawing, pawing, slapping, _scraping_ at the walls—they extended from one side of the hall to the other, from where Vanessa's door lay toppled like a fallen monument with its many chains and bolts strewn across the floor all the way into the living room I could only just barely see. Its premonition was worry enough, and the moment I stepped into the hall a chill so horrible it ate at my very bones swept through the threshold and slammed into my body.

Something was here.

I was being watched.

In the back of my mind, something told me it wasn't Vanessa, no matter how much I wanted to believe it.

"Vanessa?" I asked, gingerly stepping forward, around the chains snarled across the floor. "Did you get out?"

Something shifted, groaned, then crashed in the kitchen. The sound of snapping wood was evidence enough that something had fallen onto the dining room table.

"Vanessa?"

The single lamp flickered to life, then died out.

Slowly, I stepped toward the end of the hallway, prepared for the worst.

Some say Hell is a place on Earth. If that were the case, I'd just stepped into the very heart of it.

She'd painted the walls with a single bloodied finger. The marks erratic, the lines not in the least bit consistent, and began near the edge of the hallway that led to the bedrooms as a series of handprints that, like before, appeared to have been clawing away. Eventually, they tapered out into simpler shapes—mere fingers dragged along the walls, then twisted to create spirals and other nonsensical images. It seemed too much to process—too much to take in.

It was only when my eyes were drawn to the series of windows before the kitchen that I saw the true masterpiece of torture.

The wall, where the pictures of me and Vanessa as children had once hung, now lay derelict, like a house that was not a home, and in its place lay a painting that started at the ground and rose all the way to the ceiling.

"No," I whispered, tears burning from my eyes. "No."

Upon the wall there was a hill, atop the hill a tree. And just beneath the tree there was a girl, just like in my dream.

The moment I looked at that painting, I knew what I was about to see next.

It was like the branches were meant to lead me toward the truth.

And the truth it led me to.

Dangling from the rafters, a rope around her neck and a glassless look on her misshapen face, was my sister.

I should've cried. I should've screamed. I should've ran for help as fast as I could because there was a chance she could still be alive, that it hadn't broken her neck and that she was merely suffocating, passed out from shock and slowly dying from lack of air. But I knew she was dead. I knew because she wasn't moving, and even though her shoulders were bumping against the rafters, making the thumping noise I'd heard before, I knew this had been murder.

In death, one arm lay extended, a finger pointing out the window.

I didn't have to look to see what it was.

She was pointing at the tree.

* * *

I don't know how I did it. How I got through the halls unnoticed, how I got past the guards, how I passed beneath the floodlights that normally reveal anyone trespassing. All I know is that I got outside, and like some great machine that had no other purpose, I made my way toward the tree.

A storm was beginning to brew. Like in my dream the great eye that has often foretold of omens to come spiraled in the sky to offer a wind that many would have considered evil. _Don't go,_ the people would have said, _don't look, don't breathe, don't even think,_ but they knew nothing. I was the one who knew of the true evil that lived on that hill. It had taken my mother, my sister, my innocence, my future, my past and present. Now I would take from it the dignity it so thought it had.

At the base of the hill, I craned my head up to look at the tree.

Like a dream come alive, I saw a girl before my eyes.

That girl wasn't Vanessa.

That girl was me.

The image shifted, flickered, like a dull television set that no longer worked displaying images from an old VHS tape whose film had been scratched. I saw before my eyes my body. Then I saw nothing before all was gone.

I climbed its surface like the last mountain I was to climb. Its size small, its heights enormous, I pushed myself with determination fueled by madness and fought the current that continued to mount in power. It whipped my hair about my face, snapped my shirt across my back, made my eyes water and my cheeks burn. But no matter how hard it tried to keep me away, I would find it. And I would see it for myself.

At the top of the hill—just beneath the tree and where without looking up I could see the eye—I stood testament to its power.

It appeared like a cloud. Descending, slowly, its body wrapped in a tattered shawl that covered shoulders that led to bony mechanical arms and a torso that bore no lower half, it lifted its head to reveal in its skeletal face a blue lightning that lit its eyes and the tiny fibers beneath its only mortal clothing.

Instantly, images flashed before my mind—of lights, of deaths, of men and women being lured to this place. My mother, bled out; my sister, hanged from the ceiling; and Julianna, who'd died so frightened she couldn't help but smile, taken to a place beyond the stars—where Heaven could no longer exist for the distance was far too great and Hell could not be seen. He was the Android of our destruction. The Devil on Blue Hill.

He said nothing as he neared. Hovering in midair, the wind about him lessening, he drifted forward and regarded me with a gaze so alien I could not help but feel insignificant until he was no more than three feet away.

Slowly, he extended his arm.

I closed my eyes.

"I'm not afraid of you," I whispered.

He brushed my hair away from my face.

_Everyone's afraid, Annabelle,_ he whispered.

I opened my eyes.

I felt him behind me.

He took my cheek in one hand and the back of my skull in the other before he leaned forward.

_See eternity._

A flash of white light appeared before my eyes.

There swung before my vision a great tableau.

Then there was nothing.

# The Dog on Taylor Road

There's a long trucking road down in West Virginia where some boys go to become men. Likewise, some men go there to turn back into boys.

Taylor Road, set alongside rolling hills, reaches all the way to Kentucky.

On a crisp May day, a family of three—single father and two teenage boys—drove down Taylor Road, heading to an uncle's house in Kentucky.

"Dad," the youngest, Kyle, says. "Can we stop?"

Richard, the father, has been so caught up in the scenery that he hasn't realized his son has spoke. Dandelions, a green hill's diamonds, poke out from the luscious forests of ground bound green. Rolling hills spread out far into the distance, so far that Richard doesn't dare try to look for the furthest ones. It's like a painting done by a greatest masterpiece, where they're driving.

"Why?" the father asks, returning his attention to his boy.

"I have to use the bathroom."

Richard sighs, but nods. He isn't going to make his thirteen-year-old suffer for who-knew how many miles. He _isn't_ one to torture his boys. Some parents usually say, 'Can you wait until we stop?'

"We'll stop here soon, son."

From the rearview mirror, he catches his youngest son's nod. Dominique, his oldest, continues to read. It seems like he's on his second or third book; he hasn't said a word in hours.

"Dominique, you ok?"

"Yeah, Dad." Dominique looks up, revealing a long face, free of blemishes. "I'm ok."

"All right. I was just checking."

"There's a rest stop in a mile," Dominique says.

Richard turns his attention back to the road. The green sign is right; there _is_ a stop a mile away.

"See that, Kyle? We're going to stop here soon."

"Ok."

For the next few minutes, Richard continues to drive, struggling with the station wagon. The '64 Buick LaSebre, while a nice machine, is getting old. It has a tendency to move too fast or too slow if Richard isn't paying attention.

_It's a good thing I'm such a careful driver,_ he thinks, _otherwise I might've been pulled over by now._

"Dad, can you turn the radio on?" Kyle asks.

Richard nods. He's tempted to offer the front seat to one of his boys, but doesn't. An argument would only stress him out. He doesn't need this, not on such a long trip.

After adjusting the channel until Kyle agreed with what was playing, Richard sets his hand back on the wheel.

"You already know the radio is shit," Dominique mutters.

"Dominique," Richard scolds.

"Sorry, Dad. It's the truth."

"Is not!" Kyle cries.

"Please don't fight," Richard begs.

"Sorry," the boys mumble.

The kids have been good for the first little while. Having been going for almost two days, Richard's surprised they haven't broken out in fights over something as little as who ate the last ninety-nine-cent bag of cheese puffs.

_Ah well—gotta admire the kids for wanting to brave the long trip to see their uncle Mark._

Being an only parent was tough, especially when you had to manage two teenage boys.

The turn-off that leads to the rest stop comes into view. Richard checks his mirrors before he signals, merging into the lane beside him. He slows down as he ascends the hill, pulling into a parking space.

"Ok," he says, disengaging the car, looking over his shoulder at Kyle. "Be careful. Don't let anyone try to talk you into anything."

"I won't."

"If someone tries to do anything to you, scream, especially if you're alone."

"I know. You don't need to tell me."

"Do you want me to come in with..."

"No, it's ok." Kyle smiles. His son isn't rude or condescending, but understanding. Considering he's a thirteen-year-old boy who's been going through puberty for the past year, it's surprising that his personality hadn't shifted into the more obnoxious of teenage stages.

Kyle jumps out of the car and makes his way across the parking lot. Only when he disappears into the bathroom can Richard somewhat relax. Kyle wouldn't be in there for too long.

"You don't have to baby him," Dominique says, unbuckling his seatbelt.

"Don't..."

"He's old enough to know not to listen to anybody he doesn't know. He's not a little kid."

"All right." Richard sighs, closing his eyes. He swipes a hand over his forehead and comes back with sweat.

"I'm not trying to be rude."

"I know." Richard opens the door. "Come on. Let's get out of the car for a few minutes."

Richard stretches his back as soon as his feet hit the ground. Dominique walks around the car to stand beside him.

"Do you have to go to the bathroom?" Richard asks.

"I don't. Do you?"

"No. You _do_ know that we won't be stopping again for a little while, right?"

"Yeah, I know."

With that little issue out of the way, Richard looks up just in time to see Kyle running toward them.

"Sorry," the boy says.

"It's ok, Kyle."

Richard smiles, despite the smoldering heat and the blinding light that's bouncing off the blacktop and into his eyes. He looks around, taking deep breaths of hot but otherwise fresh air.

_It's ok,_ he thinks, running a hand over his beard stubble. _You'll be at your brother's place in a few days. Keep your cool. You don't want to ruin the trip by getting mad at your kids for no reason._

He's been doing well so far—at least, in his opinion.

"Dad?" Dominique asks.

"Yeah?"

"You ok?"

"I'm ok, son. Just taking advantage of being out of the car."

A few more minutes of surveying the area and Richard is ready to get back in. That is, before a dog saunters over to where they are standing. The short-haired, blonde-and-white collie stares at the men and two boys. Always, Richard knows, there are strangers in this place of lonely desolation. This dog is the property of some man's foolishness, a stray to the modern world.

The dog sits at their feet, panting, long tongue hanging out the side of its mouth.

"Hey, boy," Dominique smiles, lowering himself to the animal's height..

"Dominique, don't you touch that dog. It might bite you."

Regardless of what he has just said, Dominique touches the dog's head. He's about to say something, but Richard gives up before he can even begin. It wasn't as though he was going to get Dominique away from an obviously-friendly animal. The kid interns at the local zoo during the summers part time, filling up the other half of his working career. It was only natural that he would want to pet the animal.

"Good boy," Dominique says, stroking the familiar's neck.

"Cool," Kyle says. He too bends down and runs a hand over the dog's back.

"Come on, guys." Richard sighs, not wanting to believe they were being postponed by a dog. "We gotta get going."

"Uncle Mark isn't going to care if we're a few minutes late."

The boys chuckle at Dominique's remark. Frustrated, Richard slides his thumbs into his pants pockets, chewing on his over lip. He chants, 'Don't get mad, don't get angry' in his head over and over.

"Ok. You can pet him for a few more minutes, then let's get going."

Richard leans back against the station wagon, watching his kids. He feels bad for not letting them have a dog. Being a single father and working two jobs, he can't afford anymore than he already had. If he could, he would've got a family pet a long time ago.

"Come on," Richard says, speaking up before things get out of hand. "Let's go."

"Can we..."

"No," Richard says, cutting Kyle off in mid-sentence. "You know I make enough to barely afford us."

Dominique frowns, while Kyle's face scrunches up in hurt. The boys give the dog a few more pats before climbing up into the car.

"I'm sorry. You _know_ I'd let you keep that dog if I could afford it."

"We know," Dominique says. "Don't worry about it."

Richard takes one last look at the dog before he pulls out of the rest stop.

* * *

"Kyle, are you sick?"

Richard's ears perk up when he hears Dominique's words. He looks into the backseat, concern sparking his conscience like only a father's could.

"Kyle? You ok?"

"I feel like I'm gonna throw up, Dad."

_Great, just great._

"Ok. I'm going to get us to this next rest stop. It's three miles up."

"Dad..."

"I can't pull over on the interstate, Kyle."

"But..."

"Just take deep breaths, son."

Richard accelerates the slightest bit. He isn't going to speed up a whole lot, because it wouldn't be any good if he got pulled over with a sick kid, but a little bit wouldn't hurt.

"Just keep taking deep breaths, Kyle."

He hears the deep, exasperated breaths from his youngest son. He keeps driving, hoping— _just hoping—_ that Kyle won't throw up.

_You know you're going to make it. Just believe that._

He has no choice _but_ to believe that--unless, of course, he wants puke in the backseat of his car.

Two minutes later, another green sign shows up.

"Ok, Kyle. We're almost there."

The next time he turns, he stops right when they hit the beginning of the parking lot. Kyle is out the door and throwing up almost immediately.

"It's ok, Kyle." Richard bends down, rubbing his son's back.

Kyle dry retches, occasionally spitting up bile or nothing at all, for another three minutes. When he finally regains his composure, Dominique comes forward, holding a bottle of water.

"Thanks, Dominique," Richard says.

"Yeah, thanks, bro." Kyle says, sipping the water. "I don't know what happened."

"We'll wait for a few minutes, buddy."

Kyle shrugs before he walks to the car, where he sits near the back wheel.

"What made him sick, Dad?"

"I don't know, Dominique."

Richard looks up at the road. He sees what looks like another dog.

"Dad, it's a..."

"I know."

When the thing comes forward, Richard can't believe what he's seeing. Somehow, the dog has followed them all the way from the last truck stop. This isn't what surprises Richard though.

What surprises him was that the dog was somehow walking on its two front legs.

"Oh my God."

The words come from Dominique. The dog's back legs are gone, severed at the thigh. Sickly bone stick through bloody muscle and flesh, painting a grisly portrait on the concrete below. A few moments of weak stares and the dog collapses beside them.

"Dominique, don't," Richard says, but it's too late; his oldest son is already at the dog's side. Kyle is there shortly after.

_Why..._

He doesn't keep the thought. Instead, he runs to his children's side.

"He's dying," Dominique says, stroking the dog's neck.

The blood pooling from the dog's shattered legs is enough to break Richard's heart. Minutes earlier, this exact dog had wagged its tail, panting, enjoying the attention his sons parted upon it. Now, here it dies on a hot concrete parking lot.

Kyle cries. Dominique seems near tears, but keeps them at bay.

"It's ok, boys."

The dog whimpers. Richard sets a hand on the dog's head.

"Go get in the truck," he sighs.

"But Dad," Kyle whispers.

"Don't argue with me."

Both boys rise. When Richard catches Dominique's eyes, his son has some greater understanding. There's a look in his eyes that Richard rarely sees in men his own age. There it is though, resting in the depths of his son's eyes. The eyes are a link to the soul, some say. If that is true, he was seeing deep down into his son, into the depths of a soul not even fully matured.

When both boys were in the truck, Richard sets his hands on the dog's neck and head.

"It's ok," he whispers. "I'm going to help you."

The dog whimpers. The warm tongue slides across the top of his hand. Compassion fills his heart. Here, a dog is dying before his eyes, yet has the strength to offer thanks for Richard's mercy.

With one simple motion, the dog is gone.

Its neck is broken.

Richard stands and walks back to the car. Although there isn't blood on his hands, he feels like there is. It's a dirty thing, putting an animal out of its mercy. It's like subjecting cruel torture to something that can't even defend itself.

"Dad," Dominique asks. "Is he..."

"Yes, boys. He's gone."

"Are we just gonna leave him there?" Kyle asks. Tears glisten the boy's eyes.

"Yes." Richard takes a deep breath. He can't help but ball his hands into fists "They'll find him."

Richard pulls out of the parking lot, but not without a final look at the dog. In the rearview mirror, he can see it. Though its body may lay in mortal death, its soul is in immortal peace, something Richard only begins to comprehend as he drives away from the scene.

He can't help but shed a tear for the dog, the creature that died on Taylor Road. He can't help but realize that his boys have just become men, while he himself has been reduced to a boy. There's a shift of roles; while the boys are busying themselves with wiping away tears for fear that it will make them look less like the men they have obviously become, Richard lets his fall freely.

"Are you crying, Dad?" Dominique asks.

"Yes, son. Men cry sometimes too."

"Even for dogs, Dad?" Kyle asks.

"Yes, Kyle," Richard says. "Even for dogs."

# Her Eyes

The first time I saw your eyes was when I was sixteen, Abigail Donna. The first time I saw you was the first time I had drew a blade across my wrist, perfectly ready to let go and be done with this cruel, savage world.

You were on the free channels then. You weren't something to be talked about, not someone to be recognized. You were singing about sadness and how that, through positive thinking and a good friend or two, everyone could eventually be happy.

The first time I saw your eyes was when I was sixteen years old.

That was the first time you saved my life.

* * *

The second time I saw your eyes was when I was eighteen, when I had been dreadfully depressed about year-end exams. I was supposed to be doing my homework that second time I saw you, but that didn't matter. Fate had her way of telling people to keep on going, because if she didn't send you subconscious signals, we'd all be gone in one way or another.

I saw your green eyes and instantly went back to when I was sixteen. The old scars on my wrist tingled, warm with pain, and I was back in that room, a young man with a knife to his wrist. I could almost feel the hot liquid that came from my body, that red blood that had bled so pretty.

When I saw you that second time, I was once more inspired. I was filled with hope, filled with the need to continue on, to take that one last test that everyone needs before they finally go out in the big box that is our world.

You helped me past those final tests with flying colors.

* * *

I saw you again, back when I was twenty-one. Terrible things liked to follow me around, Abigail. Yes they did. They followed me wherever I went and told me to do bad things. To cut myself, to burn myself, to prick myself; it was all elementary. Easy as A, B, C and one, two, three, right?

My girlfriend cheated on me. What hurt the most was that I walked in on it, right when it was happening. That was the worst thing that had ever happened to me. My girlfriend, cheating on me with my best friend, _in my own apartment._

Some people might say that's how the penny rolls, while others might say that you're supposed to deal with it, or let it go. Ta ta for now, go-getter girlfriend.

I'm not that kind of person though. I've never depended on anyone for my happiness, except for you, Abigail Donna. By that time, you had a CD out. _Charming._ That was what your first CD was called. I saw you on the street, passing by in a lime-green Lamborghini, that third time I saw you.

I wasn't sure if you saw me or not, but I saw you. I was a simple bystander, a simple person whom had been walking down the street that fateful day. And when I went back to my apartment, I put your CD in the stereo and listened to you sing about lilac-honey candles and how bad times got us down.

* * *

Over those years, I'd fallen in love with you. It was never a celebrity crush. How could my feelings of admiration, trust, and love be a simple crush when I felt like you had helped me my whole life? How could a man love a woman whom he didn't even know, other than adorning his house with autographed photos bought off eBay and sealing first-editions CDs in glass boxes?

I was just a teenager when I first met you, on the screen, on those free TV channels. And when I became a drinking-age man, I raised a glass of wine and toasted your life, all the while thinking that whenever I was down, you'd always be there for me.

* * *

I had married when I was thirty and had a child the next year. My work kept me away from my family, which pained me so much, but you were always there for me. While I loved my wife physically and emotionally, I loved you mentally, Abigail Donna. You, a woman whom had saved my life, would never lose that special place in my heart.

I had turned thirty-two the first time I saw you in person. I had gone down to the local bar for a drink, hoping to drain my worries with a little of the sweet stuff. When I expected cabaret dancers dancing on poles and drag queens who played their roles, I saw you instead. I saw _you,_ a diva, a beauty, the reason I was still alive. You strolled out there, on that stage, in your lime-green heels.

You sang a song about life, and how people you didn't know could change your own so much.

I knew that song was for me.

Deep down, I truly believed that.

* * *

That memory I would forever cherish. I would never forget the way your voice sounded, the way your presence lit up the stage like a thousand pure diamonds. I would never forget the way you looked, your blonde hair pushed back, a golden sun peaking your universe. And I would never forget that twinkle in your eyes, the way the light reflected those green jewels of beauty. I would never forget the way you took a single glance at me, smiled, and then said that time was a given thing, and that a man should never forget the people he met.

I would never forget you.

* * *

My time was a given thing, and it was only confirmed when I was given three months to live. The people around me cried and said that, while I was here, they would do whatever I needed for them to do, that they would try and give me whatever I needed.

I didn't need anything. All I ever wanted was to hold my wife in my arms at night, to kiss my children whenever they came to visit. I was fifty years old when the doctor told me that I had an inoperable brain tumor and that I had a twenty-five percent chance of living if they tried to removed it.

I had chosen to live the rest of my life as I felt fit.

That was the right choice, I knew that.

* * *

The last time I saw you was the month before I died. Like myself, you were a woman whom had let time do what it did to all people, in one way or another. Your blonde hair was now snow-white, your skin was etched with wrinkles. But you were still beautiful, Abigail Donna. You were still beautiful.

You had fallen out of the limelight after your husband left you, after you had given up all hope in your career. I had been angry when I had heard what he did. I had been angry. How could someone leave you, a goddess sent to earth? How could someone just walk over your heart and leave it thin?

I watched you in a jewelery store in a mall the last time I saw you. I occasionally went into the grand utopia of a public love affair to eat baked pretzels and to enjoy the plants and waterfall in the mall's square. I had been about to leave before I saw you, awing over jewels that you had once had but could no longer afford. The teller was clueless as to who you were. I was saddened. This woman, who was blessed with the presence of a diva, did not even recognize you.

Every moment of my life had led up to this. From the first time I put a knife to my wrist, to the time I was diagnosed with brain cancer; it was all leading up to this moment. It was all leading up to the moment that I'd meet you.

I stepped at your side and said hello, Abigail Donna. You had stared at me, surprised that I had known who you were. I told you the story of my life. I told you how you'd saved me from a knife, how you helped me get through high school, and how you helped me get through my first real heartbreak. Then I told you about my wonderful family, my beautiful wife, my son and my daughter. Then I told you that I had one more month to live.

A tear had traced your beautiful face. You had asked if there was anything you could do, that you'd had money that could help me. And I had shook my head and said no before leaning in and gently kissing your cheek.

I had told you that your eyes were what saved me, your beautiful, emerald eyes. You had hugged me and told me good luck before we passed our own separate ways.

I died that night, Abigail Donna, and besides my wife and my children, the last thing I saw was your eyes.

# Life in a Fishbowl

I don't know how to start, but I'll start like this: My name is Bill, and I'm a carnival goldfish. Now, if you don't know what a carnival goldfish is, it's one of those fish that _never, ever_ die. One of the fish that can't die from old age, or from tank sickness. A carnival fish is one of the fish that can only die from accidental stupidity, or the cruelty of an owner.

How am I telling you this story?

Well, that's another matter entirely.

The old man who sold me gave each of us fish a small amount of powder that he put in our water, depending on what kind of fish we were. Betas got a grain, koi got what could fit on the tip of your thumb, like that. See, now us carnival goldfish, we get a little more, because we're less expensive. We only cost twenty-five cents half the time.

Yeah; sad, I know.

Anyway, we get a short sprinkle of the powder, which the old man poured in the center of his hand. Now, right before he was about to pour my sprinkle into my bowl, he forgot about something. He picked up another thing of powder to check on it and, apparently, some of it got in his hand.

I dubbed that power 'The Talking Potion.'

So, that's how I'm talking to you, for starters.

I guess I'll tell you about how I came to be where I am, huh? It's better to start there than anywhere else.

Little Timmy and his big mama came into the pet store one day. Timmy ran up and immediately said he wanted me, the little fish. I was so, so happy, but I couldn't reveal my secret that I could talk, much less understand.

So, Timmy bought me with his twenty-five cents, then named me Bill.

After they brought me home in my little bag, they put me in a small glass container with a few pebbles. Now, mind you, I can't die, but an air hose would've been nice. Normal fish die without one. Most parents just say 'fish die' to their children when they do die, but the truth is that we goldfish can live for a long time if we're taken care of.

Come bedtime that first night, Timmy asked to take me to bed, which he did. Then come the following morning when he was playing in the tub, I joined him.

Thank _the heavens_ that the old man's magic powders work as good as they do, because I would've been a dead fish. I'm not stupid. The old man put all his knowledge into those powders.

So, when Big Mama comes in to help Timmy, she gasps as she sees me slowly but skillfully avoiding the little boy. She plucks me back into my tank, expecting me to be dead. She lets out a shriek when she knows I'm alive. (To this day, I don't know if that shriek was a good one or a bad one.)

Timmy wasn't allowed to bring me into the bathroom anymore, much less take me to his room. Big Mama set me up in the kitchen, where I got to hide at the bottom of the tank under a little treasure chest while Princess, the cat, tried to get me.

As the years grew on, I lived. When Timmy's voice started deepening, he was allowed to take me into his room. By then, they'd given me a light inside the tank and an air filter. And by then, Timmy's mom was gone. Dead, Timmy said. She died in a car crash.

At the time, I felt bad. I mean, Timmy was hurt; who _wouldn't_ feel bad for him? He'd lost his mom and was now stuck with his step dad, who hadn't done much for him his whole life.

Timmy talked to me a lot. By now, I had let on that I was a little smarter than the average fish. I nodded when I agreed with something and moved back and forth when I disagreed. Timmy knew he could only ask me yes and no questions shortly after I revealed my intelligence.

That was me, the magic eight-ball, except I wish a fish and didn't babble like those things do.

The problem started when Timmy's step dad stopped coming home. He'd come home for one day, be gone the next two, then be back for a few minutes before he left. Timmy started asking me where he was going.

I didn't know; I was only a fish. I may have been able to talk, but I wasn't a mind-reader by any means.

'Bill,' Timmy said. 'What if Dad doesn't come back?'

I shook my head, and at that point in time, I think I actually frowned. I'm not sure, because I've never frowned. All I know is that Timmy sighed and closed his eyes.

'You're a smart fish, Bill. Do you know where he might've gone?'

I moved back and forth. Again, Timmy sighed.

'I miss him,' he said. 'Since Mom died, he... he's the only thing I've got.'

I nodded. I swam to the end of my small world and pressed my nose to the tank. Timmy smiled and set his hand on the glass.

"You're such a good friend, Bill."

And I was his only friend. When he told me that he didn't have any friends, it made me feel bad. Timmy, a thirteen-year-old boy, shouldn't be sitting in his room talking to a goldfish; he should be spending time with his friends.

'You know, you're the only thing I really care about, right?'

I knew that. He always bought me new toys or special food when it became available. Timmy was a good boy, the best friend a fish could have, but he was too dedicated to me. Maybe it was in his nature to be dedicated, and if so, whomever he decided to be with would be very lucky.

'And you know what, Bill? I love you.'

I nodded. It hurt me to hear him speak so passionately. I shouldn't be his best friend, I just shouldn't.

That phase didn't last for long, because Timmy's step dad eventually let up on whatever he was doing. With the step dad home more often, Timmy had become a social butterfly and was rarely ever home. This pleased me beyond all words.

As he aged, he grew into a fine young man, one on the honor roll and the football team. The girlfriend was nice. She'd come over and wiggle her finger in the tank, then shriek in delight when I'd swim up and bump her. She was a good person. Her name was Mary. Mary was a good name, I just knew it. Mary was good for my Timmy.

When Timmy finally moved out on his own, he took me with. He went to college and worked long days and hard hours to keep himself in school. He eventually graduated from college and became a technician. Then he married Mary and she had a baby not a year later.

Through all of this, I could feel the world changing. It wasn't a physical change, but more like a change in the air. Maybe it was because I wasn't aging, because I was still alive. Timmy had been five when he got me; that had been twenty years ago.

I've always appreciated my life. It's made me feel good about myself. The thing I like is that I bring so much happiness to Timmy. His friends come over and he brags about how I'm his 'never-aging fish,' then they laugh it off and say he's joking.

Timmy's not joking, and that's what makes me warm inside my small body.

As his children emerged into themselves, they too appreciated me. They quickly picked up their father's habit of talking to me whenever they had troubles, and I always listened. I served a purpose, a good purpose, one that made Timmy and his whole family happy.

But time seemed to flow so fast. It only seemed like the day before that his daughter had been born, then she went to college. It only seemed the twins were born the minute before, and then they went away to Europe to study at the tender age of sixteen. Then Mary passed away. Timmy talked to me a lot those first few years after Mary passed, then he stopped.

It hurt to know that I was only there as a pet and not an actual person. When Timmy came to my tank, he usually didn't smile. Those times he smiled made me feel special, like I had so many years before.

And then, just then, he was older, a man with white hair and a long beard. Timmy was old, much older. I was so old. Almost a hundred, at eighty. Me and Timmy were separated by only five years, yet I never aged. He aged, but I didn't.

And then came the day when Timmy passed. I knew he was gone when his drink slid out of his hand. He didn't move, didn't stir, didn't make any noise. I then realized that I would soon be gone too, because even though I don't age, I still need food to survive.

I had finally been given the answer to the question I had desired for so long. I now knew that immortality, while painful, could also be a beautiful thing. I had brought Timmy so much happiness in the eighty years I had been with him, and that was all that mattered.

And finally, I close my story. For those of you who have taken the time to listen to it, thank you. I know that I was the first of my kind, and now I believe that I am the last. If I am not the last, I pray that the fish who receives my gift will be given a good home. Because, in the long run, a good home is always the best thing, and a best friend is what makes life worth living for.

# Bubba

Hello Bubba.

I have an offer I'd like to make you, one that would greatly improve the quality of your life. It's an offer I know you'll have trouble considering—or accepting, for that matter—but I have a feeling that once you read what's enclosed in the following envelope, you'll be willing to take my offer into consideration.

* * *

Hello Bubba.

I haven't received a reply from you today. That's fine, but I'm starting to worry. I've seen you walking around your apartment, pacing endlessly with that letter in hand. I wonder if you are still considering, or are perhaps to afraid to reply. But don't worry, I can wait. I can wait for as long as you need me to.

* * *

Hello Bubba.

Today's the third day. My patience is beginning to grow thin. I see you in there, Bubba, walking around the apartment in your underwear, with my letter pressed to your face. From the looks of it, it seems like you are blind, but I know better, Bubba—I know that you're not blind. And I know that those lines across your arms aren't from handling the barbwire fences, like you've been telling your family. I know the things you are thinking about, the things that you have hiding under your bed. There's no need to deny it anymore. I see all, Bubba. I see the inside of your house, I see what's inside the box under your bed. I even see the things you look at while you're browsing the internet, believing that no one or no thing can see what you see. But that's not true, Bubba. All it will take is one person—one report—for the police to come knocking at your door. They'll find what's under your bed, my friend, and they'll take you to court, where you'll soon rot in jail like men who do what you do do.

* * *

Hello Bubba.

Day five, almost a week now. I'm sure you're aware that my offer is still up in the air, waiting for you to grasp it between your outstretched hands and pull it to your heart. I'm also sure you're aware that I'm watching you. You can't see me—as you already know—but you know where my letters come from. The post office claims they're from Virginia, per the postage stamps in the upper right-hand corner of the envelope, but so does my handwriting. You don't really know where I am though. You'd like to think this is all some elaborate hoax, a prank being played on you like the jocks used to do in your high school days. You're practically the same, they say, and it's true. You're still wearing the underwear your mother bought you when you were fifteen, your hair is still a mess, cut like a bowl picked from the finest, downtown restaurant. And your glasses—oh, your glasses, Bubba—are still as big as ever. Many say you look like an old woman, and I agree. But it's not the hairs on your chinny chin chin you're looking at with those big glasses, are you, Bubba? Oh, no, it's not. There's only two people who know what you're looking at, Bubba, and those two people are you, and I. Let's say hi to the sky, my friend, because soon, you'll have to say goodbye.

* * *

Hello Bubba.

Day six. You're still playing tricks. You're desperately scrounging money together to buy something that you're sure will erase your problem forever. Registry cleaning software. Pfft. Motherboard wiper. Hah. Nothing will help you, Bubba. The money is too far away, resting at the bottom of your bank account like fat whales speared on the tips of an Eskimo's spears. I know what rests at the bottom of your bank account, Bubba—it's five dollars, and five dollars that you won't be able to use. The bank's about to close your account. Remember the overdraft fee from last month, after you bought a subscription to... well, you know? It set your account under the required limit. Say goodbye to that five dollars, my friend, because tomorrow, it's going to be gone.

* * *

Hello, Bubba.

One week. I said I'd give you one week, and one week only. But here you are, standing in your underwear, jerking off to the metaphorical idea of going free. You know you won't though. You know the things that are still in your house, the things you still can't erase. There's not much time now, not much time at all. You could burn the things under your bed, but where would they go, if not up? There's too many to do at once, in the privacy of your bathroom. Hundreds, maybe, if not thousands, are in that box. You know what would happen if you set off a fire alarm? Someone would come—the fire department first, then, maybe, the police. They'd find you in your bathroom, with ashes on the rim of your toilet seat, and they'd ask what you were doing. Then, like all good policemen do, they'd find the things you don't want them to find. First, they'll find the box, which might have been pushed behind the toilet, or maybe under your tub. And then, once they find that, they'll take you in, and make you wait in a tiny little cellar. You'd be alone, Bubba, so, so alone. But not for long. Soon, you'd be reunited with those you have loved so much. They'll show you the things they found on that computer, what you didn't burn from under your bed. And they'll make you look at them for the longest time, asking what they are, where they've come from and how they got there. Then you'll ask if you have a problem, and you'll say no, because you couldn't _possibly_ have a problem. You, Bubba Handyman, a middle-aged man who lives alone in his dead mother's apartment. They'll ask if you have a job, and, of course, you'll say no. Then they'll ask how you're able to afford a nice apartment, and you'll say that your mother left you everything, just like a good, dead mother would. Then, as you know, a psychologist would come in, asking you to read the blots and the screen. And when you'll try to lie, claiming that you see the twin towers in place of something even more sinister, that psychologist will know, and she will tell everyone in the world what you've done. Oh yes, Bubba, they'll know. Infamous, you will be—on the phone, on the TV, on the internet and at the front door. You'll have to tell your neighbors who you are, what you did, and why you did it, and when they slam the door in your face, turning their little ones away for fear of corruption, you'll know what you did.

There's one more day, Bubba. Don't let it go to waste.

* * *

Hello Bubba.

Day eight. I see, at least, you've said grace, finally atoning for all the bad things you've done. You kneeled at the foot of your bed, hands crossed and bowed in prayer, as an image of our lord, the great, Jesus Christ, stayed at you from the base of a metal candleholder. As he died for his sins, you, of course, have died from yours. You kept your head bowed until the candle burned out, just like many cultures do when they're committed atrocious acts of sin, and you've repented for all the things you've done, all the people you've hurt. You know, Bubba, you won't read this letter—someone else will, most likely the police. But you know what? That's all right, because you'll already be gone. I see you've loaded the gun, extended the trigger, replaced the bearings, and I see you've obtained the ammunition. Mother used to call them her little helpers when you were quite young, possibly four or five. You'd walked in on her one time, just when she'd loaded the gun. You asked what was wrong and why she was leaning over the toilet, and she said that mother's little helpers decided not to help that night. You came to realize latter on in life that she'd been trying to commit suicide, just like you are now. But unlike her, you're not leaning over the toilet, spilling your guts from the malicious confines of your throat. You're lying on the bed, letting three bottles of heavy alcohol pour out from over the floor. The computer will, obviously, explode, and the things under your bed will burn with the flames. But that's what you've always wanted, isn't it, Bubba? That's the only way you could ever repent for your sins. A counselor might not help, because their job is to report those they deem unsafe to humanity to higher sources. And just _stopping_ wouldn't help either, because... well, you've tried that once before. Your weekly emails, proclaiming your new content, spurred you onto the illegal habit that you've so desired.

I'm proud of you, Bubba. You've made a right choice, and you've saved so many lives because of it.

* * *

Sincerely,

Your friend,

Andrew

# Baelra and the Equine

She ran.

Behind her, dogs barked and torches flickered in the waning daylight, casting shadows off the trees and the surrounding shrubbery. Men jeered, yelled obscenities, and demanded that she turn herself in, all because of something they'd thought she'd done.

No.

She'd done nothing wrong. She would not turn herself in.

_Keep running,_ she thought, desperate to pull hope from a seemingly-hopeless situation. _They won't catch you if you keep running._

Her skirt—long since torn by shrubs, branches, and other wayward plants—billowed at her knees, threatening to send her head over heels at any moment. If she fell now, she would have no way to escape. The dogs would find her, sniffing and grappling with their teeth, and the men would drag her to her feet, bind her, and do God knew what.

"No. I'm going to get away."

She stopped, turned in a complete circle, and—finding no obvious destination—bounded through the thickest part of the greenery, hoping it would deter the men, if only for a moment. They couldn't chase her forever, not with what supposedly made its home here watching them.

It doesn't exist.

They said she—the creature from the wood—had perished long ago in a fire set by delinquent juveniles who'd been playing with fire. Her savior—no matter how real or imagined she was—would not be helping her today.

"Bitch!" a man screamed. "Come back!"

His companions threw in their own insults—whore, bitch, witch. It didn't matter what they called her, as long as they further broke her down.

_Sticks and stones._

In the blink of an eye, a branch level with her face appeared out of nowhere, striking her forehead. The unexpected blow sent her feet forward. Her head—the most vulnerable part of her body—slammed into a rock. White covered her vision and blood ran into her mouth, fresh from a gaping cut on her forehead. Her tongue instinctively slid out to lick crimson from her lips.

"She's... she's gone!" one cried.

"Nonsense!" another added. "She can't be gone."

A dog howled.

The faint hairs on her neck stood on end, beckoning her to her hands and knees.

"She can't be gone," someone growled, close enough so that she could hear fallen twigs cracking under his boots.

"Let the dogs off their chains. They'll find her."

_Oh no, please no._

There would be no way to defend herself if the men released the dogs.

_I can try, but... it might not work._

With unsteady feet, she stood, leaned against the base of a tree, and closed her eyes.

A moment later, a half-dozen men carrying crossbows entered the clearing.

"Got you," the head man sneered, tightening the strings of his bow.

"Stay away from me," she warned.

"I'm not afraid of you, witch. You're too weak to do anything to me, much less five armed men and dogs."

"Try me."

A bolt shot at her face, but stopped no more than a finger's width from the bridge of her nose. She sent it back at the man with a simple flick of her wrist. Thick blood poured from where his eye used to be.

"Kill her!" another man screamed.

Five more bolts flew at her. Three missed, a fourth grazed her leg, and the fifth caught the shoulder of her dress, pinning her to the bark. She freed herself before the last—and fatal—shot could embed itself in her chest. She tore away from the tree, ripping the whole shoulder of the garment off in the process.

_You won't get me,_ she thought, raising her hands.

Green light enveloped her hands, casting the area in a harsh glow. The dogs whimpered, tugging at the end of their chains, while the men restrained them. One let the creature go completely, where it ran into the forest with its tail between its legs.

All it would take is one shot, one precise hit, and they'd all be dead.

_They'll send more if you kill them._

It didn't matter.

She'd already killed.

With more anger, hurt, and hate than she'd ever felt in her life, she threw the energy from her body with all her might. It shattered the ground below the men and forced them and their dogs into the ground screaming and howling as an earthbound whirlpool tore them apart. Rocks bit into their flesh, roots slapped their skin, and their weapons—loaded to perfection—disengaged, spearing one another like pigs to a stake.

When the ground settled, when she felt everything had since stopped and calmed, she turned and ran, throwing herself into the woods before her.

* * *

Baelra walked the forest in complete darkness. Even the moon—which, ironically, shone full in the night sky—could not pierce through the forest's thick branches. She felt as though she existed under the ground, in a sunless world where nothing except her and moles existed. She rubbed her arms, somehow resisting the urge to cry when dirt and rock filled her open wounds.

_I'm alive._

The concept astounded her. Surely, she should have died back there, in that clearing with all of those men. They'd shot without hesitation, without acknowledging the woman in their presence, and she'd stopped a bolt from embedding itself through her brow. Then, in an act of will, she killed a man like he would have killed her, then dug the rest their own grave.

_It wasn't necessary._

_Necessary,_ her conscience laughed. Six armed, fully-garbed men had chased a lone woman without shoes through the forest and tailed her with dogs. They hadn't intended to give her a chance. No. They'd wanted to kill her then and there, without mercy of any kind.

_They got what they deserved, Baelra,_ her conscience whispered. _You did nothing wrong._

Nodding, she closed her eyes and backed up against a nearby tree, where she slid down its trunk until she sat at its base. She pulled her knees to her chest and locked her wrists at her knees, resting her brow against the rough, torn skin on her legs.

Blood kissed her lips.

She found herself crying for the first time that whole evening.

* * *

Rustling in the woods woke her.

Slowly, as to not alert anything—or anyone—of her presence, Baelra turned her head up and scanned the area, tuning her eyes to what little light existed. Like a cat, a deer, or a similar creature of the night, green washed over her vision, marking out details she wouldn't have been able to see had she not used magic. Nearby, the dog that had run off with its tail between its legs lay beneath a tree, tongue hanging from its mouth like a man at a bar. She thought the creature ugly—with flaps of skin that hung over its black eyes and its heavy cheeks—but not guilty of what its master had tried to make it do earlier.

"Here," she whispered, extending her arm.

She wiggled her fingers, feigning the action a man would give should he give the dog a treat. The bloodhound raised his head, watched her for a moment, then crawled forward, like a child not used to his legs. Baelra slid her hand along his face, then down his neck, where she caught the metal collar between her fingers.

"This may startle you."

A spark of green lit the immediate area for a brief moment. The dog—surprised at the sudden action—jumped away, free of its collar. At first, it didn't know what to do, and hung its head as though scolded for an action. Once it realized the woman had freed it of its burden, it woofed, pouncing the ground as if it had found a mouse.

"Shoo," she whispered, flinging her hand at the things face. "Go home."

Whimpering, the dog lowered its head onto its outstretched paws and stared at her. _Maybe,_ she thought, it wanted a treat, or wished to show its appreciation for the gift she had given.

"I said _go home,"_ she repeated.

The bushes rustled.

_Are they here?_ she thought, raising her hand in the direction the sound had come from. _Have they found me?_

If the men had indeed returned, why hadn't the canine returned to its owners?

Standing, she kept her one hand toward the bushes, while the other she used to keep the dog at bay. Again, the bushes rustled, but stopped soon after. Whatever watched her used the slight breeze to its advantage. Whenever the wind drew forward, it moved, and then so on, repeating the process over and over as it steadily advanced. Baelra knew better though. She knew how easily creatures could sneak up on unsuspecting humans.

_They could be all around me and I wouldn't even know it._

The urge to turn and scan the area struck her hard, but she managed to keep her focus.

If she turned her back now, she'd be dead.

"Come out," she said, biting her lower lip. "I won't act in self defense if you show me who you are."

At that moment, it stepped from the bushes, revealing herself for the first time. Blonde hair spilled from the darkened roots at the base of her skull, where it fell to her shoulders to shield perk nipples from the wind. Firm breasts lay fully exposed on her naked chest, carving its way for a flat midsection. What stopped Baelra in her tracks was the thin amount of white hair that fell from her abdomen, then slowly to her waist.

There, Baelra realized, the woman was not human.

Equine from the waist down, with fine, white hair the color of fresh snow, the centauress pawed at the dirt with a hoof, testing the ground below. She allowed Baelra to stare, unashamed of the naked beauty granted to all proud creatures.

"Hello, human," the creature said. "I hope I have not frightened you."

"Nuh-No," she managed, tears flowing down her face. "You haven't."

Until that moment—when the equine stepped from the bushes to reveal herself for the first time—Baelra had never cried for something beautiful, for something so unique and true. She found herself shaking in the presence of such a mighty thing.

_You're not gone,_ she thought. _You're still here._

"Do you require assistance?" the equine asked. "You are injured."

"I was chased by men," she said. "They... they called me a witch."

"Come, child. There is nothing to be afraid of."

"They called me the witch," she repeated, holding her hands to her chest.

"I know," the centauress said, "and I am sorry they called you such names, because you are too beautiful to be a witch who does naught but cause the innocent harm."

"Thu...Thank yuh-you."

Smiling—but with her lips, not her teeth—the most beautiful thing Baelra had ever come to know offered her hand.

"There is a place we can go," the creature said. "A place where you will be safe."

* * *

The grotto stood near a pond of crystal-blue water, shielded by the overhead trees. Had the equine not led her to it, Baelra would have never imagined her home existed in such a beautiful place. She trembled under the beautiful thing's touch, not only because of the kindness such a creature offered, but because she'd been blessed to meet her. She—a creature who had, supposedly, died with the forest—stood no more than a breath away, holding Baelra's hand to steady her pace.

"We are here," the centauress said, releasing hold of Baelra's hand. "But it is dark. Here—let me give us light."

The creature closed her palm, then opened it. A silver moth no larger than a broad-winged butterfly rested in the palm of the equine's beautiful, smooth hand, flickering its wings and moving its antennae. Baelra watched her savior lift the moth to a lantern woven from wicker, where she closed the cage and set it on a slab of rock. The moth—realizing its purpose—beat its wings against its body, producing a subtle light that would not have been noticed from outside the cave.

"Tell me," the equine said, "why you were chased. You say... you say they called you a witch?"

"Yes," Baelra nodded. "I... I was only there for the good of the people, to help them. The children, you know how they suffer from blood cough. A little boy of only ten years had lain in bed for weeks on end, suffering in unbearable agony as his chaffed lungs bled with each and every breath. I only wanted to help, so I did—with the parent's permission, of course. But when I cured him, it... something happened. His arms convulsed and his back arched, where he clawed at his chest as though he couldn't breathe. But the truth was, he couldn't breathe, and I didn't know why. The mother, she went to the child's side, while the father pushed me from the home, drawing a knife from his belt when I tried to push myself back into their home. He called me a witch and chased me down the street.

"That evening, the men, they... well, a man, he came to my room at the bar and said that he needed me to leave, that I was no longer welcome. But when I came out, carrying my belongings in a rucksack, he had men with him—militia, from the village. They said that I was to be taken to the town square, where I would be burned for witchcraft. So... I ran."

"You are very wise, young one."

"I didn't mean to hurt that little boy. I was just trying to help him."

"I understand. It is not your fault that your magic turned against you. That village, it is everything but good, a place where boys become young men who burn forests down. You must remember, how they said I burned with the fire?"

"Yes, uh... uh..." She paused. How did she address this creature? "Your.... I don't know your name."

"My name is Rohln," the equine said. "Please, do not scarlet your cheeks. You did not know."

"Yes, my lady."

She bowed her head, taking a quick breath. Her mouth tasted copper, her throat and chest burned from exertion. Rohln turned, reached for a crystal vial on her stone table, and offered it to Baelra. "Here," she said. "Drink."

"What is it?"

"Water from the outside, near the grotto."

Baelra accepted the vial, careful not to drop its cap as she twisted it from its base. She pressed it to her lips and tilted her head back, sighing as water cooler than the sky's rain slid down her throat. The sensation reminded her of milk—slightly old, but smooth, like a sweet. She drained half the bottle before returning it to the centauress.

"Thank you," she gasped.

"There is a matter I am concerned for, young Baelra. You are not safe here, in these woods. Their wolves bred captive by man will find you if you linger."

"I know, but... I don't know where to go. I can't go to another town, because they'll already know what happened here, and I'm too weak to travel on my own."

"You may stay here for the night. I would say as long as you need to, but I know that these men will return."

"You know?"

Rohln nodded.

"How?" she shivered.

"It speaks on the wind. The trees that passed from their mortal lives to build your homes, they whisper to their brethren, the ones that still stand in this forest. They say that these men will come soon, and they will return with dogs, maybe even more."

"The trees tell you this?"

"No," she said. "They do not tell me. But I know, Baelra. The trees, their voice is not as quiet as you may think. Listen to it—their rustle, their hum. There. Out there, in the distance. Do you hear it?"

"Nuh-No."

"It does not matter," Rohln said, taking the moth and its cage in hand. "Come. You must rest."

* * *

Rohln led Baelra through the cave, guided by the light from the moth she'd summoned from the ether. Baelra thought the grotto would never end, with all its twists and turns and bends. But soon, they came upon a definite ending—a dead end, as one would say. Here, a blanket large enough to support the creature's length covered the stone floor. Nearby, a shelf chiseled from the rock itself held Rohln's personal items—her jewelry, her glass vials, human trinkets that she must have come across in the forest. Baelra resisted the urge to touch a pendant in the shape of a butterfly, which looked to have been carved from some kind of grand stone.

"You have a very nice home," she said, looking over her shoulder.

"Thank you, child. Come, now. It is not time to talk about my home and whether or not it is pleasant."

"Where will I sleep?"

"With me."

Rohln set the moth near the edge of the blanket. She settled onto it, folding her legs under her to assure that she would not harm herself when rising. She gestured for Baelra to come lie down after she spread out along her side.

"You can rest against my belly," the centauress said, stroking the fine hair on her human stomach.

"You won't mind?"

"You will be warm this way."

Nodding, Baelra slid up against the equine, careful not to lay on one of her long, powerful legs. She brought her knees to her chest and closed her eyes once warm and comfortable, surprised that sleep tugged at her so strongly.

"You will be safe for now," Rohln said, spreading her human half out along the blanket. "Sleep without worry, for if something goes wrong, I will protect you."

"Thank you," she whispered. "I..."

She could no longer speak.

Sleep had pulled her one step too far.

* * *

"Baelra," Rohln whispered, gently shaking her shoulders. "Wake. It is dawn."

She opened her eyes, content in the faint light that the moth continued to produce. Fresh and rested, she pushed herself up into a half-sitting position and looked over her shoulder. Rohln watched her with calm eyes the color of honey, waiting to see if she would say something. The stare unnerved Baelra, if only because she'd come to trust Rohln so much in such a brief period of time.

"Will you help me find my way out of the forest?" she asked.

"Yes," Rohln said. "I will."

Standing, Baelra stretched her legs, glad that the sores on her arms and knees had stopped burning. She waited for Rohln to rise to her feet, half-expecting the centauress to hit her head on the high ceiling. Thankfully, she seemed a good judge of height, as she kept her head slightly tilted forward, the moth in her hand.

"Come."

Stepping into pace beside the equine, Baelra took slow, deep breaths, wishing how she had shoes and how good it would feel to walk in them. She said nothing about her slight discomfort. Rohln would not be able to help her, because she had no need for human clothes or necessities, so it would be no use complaining.

_She's done so much already,_ she thought. _I couldn't possibly ask for any more._

"We're almost there, Baelra."

"We are?"

"We are."

Light flowed into the grotto, gold at this early hour of morning. Baelra took a deep breath and looked at her companion, watching as she walked to the table to set the now-empty wicker cage down.

"The trees do not whisper of men in the forest," Rohln said, turning to look at Baelra. "I believe we are safe."

"You're not sure?"

"The trees choose when they speak. Perhaps they are sleeping."

_Perhaps they are sleeping..._

She'd never imagined the world being so in tune with itself, despite the fact that her gift allowed her powers that men deemed evil. Before, she would have never imagined the trees could speak, nor would she have imagined them sleeping. Some people said that, because trees do not move, or breathe, they cannot be alive. Now, though, she didn't believe that, not in the least.

"All right," she said. "I'm ready when you are."

"I am ready," Rohln said. "Let us go."

* * *

With dawn came its blessing, eastern heat. Fresh dew embraced the greenery, clinging to it as though it would fall at any moment, while the slight wind rustled the overhead branches. Baelra shivered, reminded of last night and the men and dogs that chased her.

_Why did you come for me?_ she thought, looking up at Rohln. _What was your reason?_

"You are bothered," the equine said.

"No," Baelra murmured. "I'm not."

"Do not hold back the truth. I know you think of something."

"Why did you help me last night?" she asked. "What made you come to me, of all people?"

"You were hurt and tired," Rohln replied. "You would have surely perished."

"I would have?"

"Yes."

Deciding it would be best not to ask anything further, Baelra crossed her arms over her chest, trying her best not to think of just how close she'd come to death. What would have happened had she been a moment later in catching the bolt, or if she hadn't tore herself from the branch of the tree soon enough?

_I'd be dead, that's what._

"It will not take us long to leave the forest," Rohln said, drawing Baelra's attention. "I assure you, you will be safe on this path."

"You're sure?"

"I would not take you this way if I were not sure of your safety."

With one last nod, Baelra pursed her lips, sealing them with a single drop of moisture.

They continued on for the next little while in silence, only occasionally speaking if something merited a warning. Once, before Baelra had slid her foot into a root that jutted out of the ground, Rohln had set a hand on her chest and gestured to the root. Baelra nodded, smiled, and thanked her friend for her warning, sliding her foot out soon after before they continued.

As the morning wore on, the temperature began to rise. With the shift in humidity came bugs—bloodsuckers, mostly, but nothing more than that. They seemed to target Baelra and ignore Rohln completely. She briefly wondered if they left the centauress be because they knew she guarded their forest, or if they just weren't interested in her.

_Doesn't matter,_ she thought, squashing a rather-large insect against her arm. _She doesn't deserve to be eaten by bugs._

"There."

Rohln pointed.

There, under the arch of two curved trees, a path extended from the forest into the open plains. It followed a long, winding river that seemed to continue on forever.

"Follow the river," the equine explained, "and you will come to a place where you will be safe."

"Where will I end up?"

"There are women like you, with the gift that runs through only the most special's blood. They will not turn you away."

"What about you?" she frowned.

"I must stay here, to ensure that others are protected from the evil of corrupt men."

"I..." she paused. "Rohln, I..."

She had no chance to finish.

A dozen men appeared from the woods, bearing crossbows and swords.

"Holy Lord of Mercy," one breathed, stumbling back as he laid eyes on Rohln. "It can't be."

"A centaur!" another man breathed.

"You have no business here," Rohln said, eyes narrowing to deadly slits. "Leave."

"We just want the girl, beautiful. We have no business with you."

"Your business with her is also with me. I have asked you to leave. I expect you to do so."

"Or what?" one man asked. "What're you going to do, half-breed?"

"I am much more than a simple half breed, human. Still your tongue before it is stilled for you."

Several of the men gasped. Some chuckled, while others snickered at the warning. Baelra glanced out the corner of her eye. The men had flanked them on both sides. Thankfully, though, they had not stumbled behind them. Whether that was because they were wary of Rohln's back legs, she did not know. Quite frankly, she didn't care. The two of them had stepped into a trap that the men had set for them. Nothing else seemed to matter at that point.

"I will not ask a third time," Rohln said. "Leave. Now."

"We're not leaving without the girl," the head man said, taking a step forward. "Get out of our way, horse, and we won't have to deal with you."

Rohln bucked, striking the leader with her front leg. His neck snapped up in a spray of blood before he fell to the ground, dead.

"GET THEM!"

Baelra ducked as three arrows shot at her. She reached into her magic and threw a blast of energy at one man, knocking his crossbow out of his hand and into his face. Bloodied, he hurled himself away as rocks the size of his fist hurtled toward them.

"ROHLN!" she cried. "RUN!"

Throwing her head back, the equine whinnied, a sound that Baelra would have never expected from her beautiful friend. Rohln thrust her arm forward, an arc of silver light spearing a man through the heart and killing him instantly. She ducked, avoided an arrow, and slapped two men at once with her hair. She hit one directly in the nose with her palm, seemingly driving the bone into his skull, and kicked the other in his stomach, projecting blood from his throat in gory detail.

_This can't be happening,_ she thought, watching Rohln slaughter two more men. _This can't..._

She stopped.

The crossbowman whose nose she'd broken took aim.

"NO!"

Rohln turned just in time to be struck in the shoulder. She screamed, a sound half horse, half human. Her eyes burned silver, the muscles in her forearms bulged, the muscles in her neck divided in three. She raised both hands and summoned balls of light into them, throwing both at the man who'd just injured her. He flew into the air, spinning over and over. Slowly, his body dissolved, spreading like ash on the wind. He disappeared before he could hit ground.

Forced to realize that one more shot could kill her friend, Baelra stood and grabbed a nearby crossbow, shoving a bolt in it. She slammed it against her shoulder and fired. The bolt tore through a man's neck, disarming his own bolt from his bow. It speared his partner in the groin, forcing him to his knees. Rohln jumped, crushed him beneath her huge weight, then turned, striking two men at once with her back legs. Baelra buried both underground with a sweep of her arms.

The remaining three shook as Rohln advanced on them, quivering in terror at the terrible beauty that advanced on them.

"Puh-Please!" one cried.

"Don't do this!" another sobbed.

Rohln said nothing.

She raised her hand, summoned one last bit of energy, and severed all three's heads at the neck.

After that, the equine fell to her knees, spent and bleeding.

* * *

"Here."

Baelra knelt at Rohln's side, pressing a hand to her shoulder. Thankfully, the bolt had missed her breast. She couldn't imagine trying to remove it from such a tender spot.

"This will hurt," she said, looking into her friend's eyes. "Bear with me."

Taking a deep breath, Baelra wrapped both hands around the bolt.

"Ready?" she asked.

Rohln nodded.

With one hard, mighty tug, she slid the bolt out of Rohln's shoulder with little more than a grunt from the creature in response. Baelra examined its smooth, single surface and thanked the Gods the tip had not been jagged or barbed. She both regretted and thanked herself for pulling the weapon out blindly—regretful because she could have seriously injured her friend, thankful because she'd done it without hesitation.

"Are you okay?" she frowned, pressing a hand to the fresh, bleeding wound.

"I will be fine," Rohln sighed, turning her eyes on Baelra. "I would have died had you not stayed behind. Thank you."

"You don't have to thank me," she said. She closed her eyes, pulled the magic out of the deepest part of her body, and channeled it into Rohln's shoulder. "Does that feel better?"

"I cannot feel anything."

"I'm afraid to heal the wound, because I don't know how, but I numbed it so you wouldn't feel the pain."

"Thank you, Baelra... You should go. You do not want them coming after you."

"You can't stay here. You're hurt."

"There are others..."

"Look," she sighed, setting both hands on Rohln's shoulders. She stared into her friends eyes, willing them to connect on the personal level she wanted them to. "You're not going to be able to help anyone if you're hurt, so there's no use staying here and letting your shoulder get worse."

"I can tend to it myself."

"You may be able to tend to it, but you won't be able to defend yourself with one arm."

Rohln said nothing.

"Rohln," she said, setting a hand on her friend's cheek. "Please, look at me."

The equine did as asked.

"You helped me," Baelra continued, "so I'm going to help you."

"There is no need for this."

"Yes, there is. I would've died if you hadn't have helped me last night. I'm not just going to leave you out here by yourself, all right?"

"I..." Rohln paused. "Yes, Baelra," she then said, "I understand."

"So it's settled then," she said, taking her friend's hand and helping her to her feet. "It's okay—don't be sad. You'll be back soon."

"I understand this," Rohln said. "Thank you, Baelra."

Baelra smiled, tightened her grip on her friend's hand, and began to lead her down the path.

Wherever it would lead, they would go, together.

# Sometimes

Sometimes, they say that when you leave a candle on your front porch when it's raining, a ghost can find its way back home.

Sometimes, they do.

* * *

I lit a candle on Christmas night. Alone, with only my dog to keep me company, I placed it in a small china cup and set it on the arm of the wicker chair. Sloped, to protect your drink from the rain, and curved in, to set your drink inside, that candle would burn all night, if only the chair would let it.

_You've never set a candle there,_ my father would have said. _What if it sets the house on fire?_

"Then so be it."

What did I have to live for, if only my dog? He, too, would burn should the house catch aflame.

Charles had never left my side, not even when I tried to fight the wolves that killed my best friend.

* * *

I met her when we were sixteen, out in the hills of Tennessee. Dressed in moccasins and with her hair in a braid, I'd surely thought her Indian. But, as it turned out, she bore no Indian bloodline, and no heritage save for the adoptive father that took her in.

She said that his tribe killed her parents before she learned to speak.

_That's why I don't hate him,_ she'd said. _I didn't have time to know them. Why hate someone for killing someone I never knew?_

Her father's name escaped me as the years went on, but I remember him being proud and strong, with long, black hair and sunburnt skin. The men in the village called him Red Man sometimes, but never around him, or the daughter they'd come to call the Indian's Maiden. Their resemblance—so different in some ways, but so uncanny in others—often made people mistake her for the Red Man's wife.

Never in the Indian man's life would she be his.

No.

Forever, and through all eternity, she would be mine, and mine alone.

* * *

We wed after what seemed like years of being together, but in truth, our relationship before marriage only lasted a few months. Back then, seven was our number—magical, in more ways than one. We met on the seventh day of the seventh month, of the seventh year of the decade. Seven flower girls danced at our wedding—three Indian, three white, and one half of each. Seven men graced my side as my best men, while seven women from the Tribe carried my wife's dress and brought down her veil.

I remembered her being so beautiful back then.

She had to have been twenty-seven.

It pained me to no end that I could not remember her age when we married.

Still, it didn't matter.

No.

Nothing mattered, not when love caught you and pulled you in two.

* * *

We lived in the hills a month or so after we wed. Framed by trees that grew out at seemingly-impossible angles, and centered between two mounds of earth that protected us from the harsh sun as it came up in the west and then down in the south, we could call it nothing but home.

Sadly, like all good things, the house came with the bad.

Abandoned nearly ten years ago, the wood that held it together was slowly but surely beginning to rot. On hot, summer days, the bugs would come out of the woodwork and plague us while we slept, while during cold, rainy nights, the house rumbled, growling as though a beast waken from its sleep would.

It required work that I could not afford.

Somehow, we managed without.

Through the first year, with minor repairs here and there, the house remained standing, despite the wind and the rainstorms we endured on a regular basis.

She used to say that Indians danced whenever it rained and stormed so much.

I didn't doubt her.

Sometimes, in the middle of the night, you could hear their harsh caws and their low, beating drums. Carried over miles both by the hills and the intensity, their ancient dances and ancestral prayers would startle any man out of his sleep. Once, when I shot up so fast and cracked my skull on the headboard above, my wife woke from her slumber and asked what was wrong.

I told her to listen.

She did.

Waiting, at first for moments, then for minutes, she sat as still as a person possibly could. Then, slowly, she smiled.

_It's just the Indians,_ she'd said. _Why are you so afraid of them?_

I said nothing.

Her people—or _the_ people—never scared me.

That is, until they came to the house one night and broke down the door.

* * *

I used to call them Indians—now I called them wolves.

To disrespect the people who raised my wife—to take their name in vain and tarnish it in whatever way I could—would bring nothing but bad fortune my way.

My wife cooked meat the night the wolves came to our house and forever changed our lives. Thinking back on it, anyone could say how morbidly disturbing it seemed to be—how, unbeknownst to either of us, my wife would cook venison I'd freshly killed with the help of my trusty dog. I knew better though. I knew—and still know—how things can happen for no reason at all.

Some things don't happen for a reason.

Things happen because they _can_ , not because they _do._

Right as we sat down to eat that night, the door burst open, revealing men with faces painted like wolves and clubs adorned with fangs. They wasted no time in dragging my wife from her seat and pinning me to the ground, and they wasted no time in kicking my dog hard enough to tilt his head to the side.

I thought they killed Charles until he whimpered.

I never would've guessed the attack would have left him dumb.

As the chaos unfolded in the house—chairs flying, windows breaking and family heirlooms shattering—I watched in utter horror as one of the wolves took a knife from his belt and pressed it to my wife's chest.

No one knows how it feels to see a knife pressed between your wife's breasts, just like no one knows how it feels to watch your wife's clothes being cut apart.

Slowly, with the precision of the finest hunter, the wolf dragged his knife along the length of my wife's blouse and bent his head to the curve of her naked breast. Like a child, his lips encircled her nipple while his knife continued to trail along the curve of her dress.

First her hip, then her thigh appeared.

After that, it didn't take long to understand what was going to happen.

Before my eyes, I watched the wolf stab her in the heart and dig the knife deep into her flesh.

He went at it like an animal.

When I tried to look away, another wolf pressed my head into the ground, forcing me to watch every excruciating detail of my wife's brutal murder.

It didn't stop there.

Once the head wolf finished, another took his place—then another, and another, and another, each stabbing her in tune with their wicked laughs. It was impossible to ignore—impossible to unsee—and though Charles growled wickedly at each of them, he did not go forth.

No.

He knew, just as I did, that my wife was dead; and I, the cruel survivor in this wicked game, could do nothing but watch.

It ended as swiftly as it began, with a hard strike against the back of my head and a kick to my ribs. I lay there, stunned, as they left—as my wife, bleeding but dead, stared at me with her glassy eyes.

_Don't go,_ they seemed to say.

I wouldn't—not because I didn't want to, but because there was nowhere else _to_ go.

That night, I simply lay there and cried.

* * *

I buried her on the property the day after she died.

No one came to the funeral.

Red Man and his tribe had moved on. My father lived in a different state.

To ensure that no one or nothing would ever try to reenact the suffering my wife had endured during her final moments, I buried her one layer at a time—first with blankets, then with rocks, then with dirt and, finally, more rocks. I covered the grave with limestone I'd broken from the river out back.

I used to tell my wife that, one day, the inside of our house would shine with the finest, greenest stones.

Instead, it lined her grave.

I couldn't afford a tombstone.

By next summer, fresh dirt and grass covered the ground.

Sometimes, when I go outside, I can't find my wife's grave.

That's why I decided to find her ghost.

That's why I decided to try _..._

* * *

Rain buffeted the house.

Charles whimpered.

It thundered.

I drew a blanket around me.

Despite the cold, and despite my naked torso, I couldn't help but feel as though my skin were swimming in sweat. Clammy, my father would've said. I felt clammy, and I didn't know why.

_You'll come back,_ I thought. _I've lit a candle for you._

But, really, would she come back?

Did ghosts really _sometimes_ come back?

* * *

I fell asleep at the kitchen table, but without regrets, and without the lingering presence of a horrible, tragic night. I'd long since thrown out, destroyed and burned the table my wife and I once sat at. Old memories burned bright, even two years later.

Startled, I jumped out of my seat and threw myself into the kitchen, toward the window where once I could once look out and see my wife sitting in her wicker chair.

The candle no longer burned.

_I can light it again,_ I thought, heading for the door. _She always used to say that it only rained when the Indians..._

I stopped.

Something lingered in the doorway.

A shadow, large and hulking, blocked my path.

"Wha... What are you?" I gasped, backing out of the kitchen. "Who are you? Where's my wife?"

Nothing replied.

_Do ghosts reply?_ my father used to ask.

Had they the power, I could not tell. The creature in front of me said nothing.

Taking its first step forward, the hulking black figure turned its head and surveyed the room, as if unsure of its location. Then, with another step, it made its way toward me, stopping only to step around the table.

"I command you to leave!" I cried, continuing to back into the living room. "I did not summon you! Leave, now! Begone!"

The creature shrugged.

A rumble echoed throughout the house.

Had it just laughed?

"LEAVE!" I screamed. _"LEAVE!"_

The windows exploded.

Rain flooded the floor.

Charles ran out the open front door.

Hurling myself toward my chair, I grabbed my Bible and thrust its surface at the figure.

A second rumble shattered the house.

The splintering of wood snapped in my ears.

_The foundation,_ I breathed.

Before my eyes, the figure leaned forward, pressed its chest to mine, and began to whisper.

_Sometimes,_ it said, _we come back._

# Pedestrians

I think of them as goats, those pedestrians. When they walk across the road with their wide eyes and their stiff, unsure gaits, it's as though that, at any moment, some mechanical, primal instinct will crack, forcing them across the road in harm's way. My hummer—my SUV—could easily strike them down, cut them in half or break them in two, but for what reason? Idaho law states that all vehicles must yield to pedestrians, no matter the risk that lies in suddenly slamming your foot on the break when you're going an excess of twenty or thirty miles an hour.

_Wear your seatbelt,_ they say, but neglect to add that you can get thrown through your front windshield if you don't.

Obviously, it doesn't matter what 'the law' states. People will go by without wearing their seatbelts, obeying the speed limit, or even stopping when they hit one of those goats—a pedestrian, simply crossing the road on an ordinary day.

That happened to me once, on a Saturday afternoon. Ironically enough, I'd been driving home from church, just after I'd said my prayers and repented for my bad ways. I paid a traffic ticket the week before, both for violating the speed limit and for not wearing my seatbelt. I always thought that it was ridiculous that you should have to pay for not wearing a seatbelt—I mean, what's the point? It's not like you're going to hurt anyone but yourself if you don't wear a seatbelt.

Usually, when you get in a crash, no one gets hurt as long as you take extra precaution.

That day, I did the exact opposite.

A middle age woman of about thirty or forty, she'd crossed the street with the utmost concern, looking once, then twice up both sides of the road. I happened to miss her shock of blonde hair and the mess of her dowdy, long-sleeved shirt because the road seemed too bright. Ahead, I remembered, water seemed to rise out of the baptismal abyss of black road, like flames from dying charcoal.

Birds would have died that day.

The weather had been too hot.

Things had gotten out of hand.

The moment I struck the woman, the world seemed to fade to black. Like a movie shown in the fifties, things seemed to slow down—distort, become uneven. Slow motion ruled the world, a government bent on control, while the black and white continued, walking the street, flying in the sky, getting hit by an SUV.

Only one color broke the surface of the horror movie of my life.

_Red._

Red—a seemingly normal color upon first glance, but look again, and what do you see? Do you see cherries, the tips of bombs that destroy entire countries, or do you see blood, what soldiers shed when they go to war? Maybe you see rubies, lit with fame and full of shame, if you reek of wealth or passion; or, maybe, you see nothing but an apple, a cruel aspect of nature forced to drop once it has fully matured. Like a child, that apple is innocent, and never deserves to fall from the mother that is its tree.

Neither, of course, does anyone deserve to die.

I would later come to find her name was Cloria Stephens—a respectable, middle-class woman that worked at the local elementary school. She tutored homeless children in math and science and gave her time for the disabled, pushing children in wheelchairs and wiping the mouths of those whose digestive systems did not work properly. She and her husband had three children—a young man of fifteen in high school, a girl of twelve in the seventh grade, and a boy of three that stayed at home, unbeknownst to the cruel, savage world that his virgin soul had not yet met.

I killed a woman that day.

It was only an accident.

When I realized what happened, I slammed on the breaks, threw myself out of the car, and ran to her side, only to find that, in my haste, I had only made things worse. Since I didn't bother to put the car in park, and since the topmost right wheel caught her leg under its rubber curve—forcing her upper body under the other, opposite wheel with gravity alone—the SUV veered forward, crushing her chest under nearly a ton-and-a-half of pressure.

At first, I didn't know what to do. I screamed, I cried, I yelled at the neighbors to try and get someone—anyone—to come out. Then, I realized—horribly, and with a sense of fear so terrible I feared my heart would simply stop beating—that no would had, or would, hear me.

No one was around to see or hear what had just happened.

Panicking, and in a state of mind that threatened to overwhelm my senses and force blood from seemingly every part of my head, I threw myself in the SUV, put it in drive, and veered forward.

I crushed Cloria Stephens' chest and sped down the road, all the while not bothering to look back.

Little did I know that a trail of blood would follow me for the next hundred feet.

* * *

I shaved my head, dyed my lengthy beard red, and starved myself of both sleep and nourishment in order to alter my appearance. My puffy, bloodshot eyes, my scraggly, black-and-red mess of beard, and my nearly-clean-shaven head kept me from being recognized for the man I had once been.

My wife used to call my Charles.

My son used to call me Daddy.

Now, I went by the name of Tim.

Although nothing happened following the incident, the guilt and worry that plagued my consciousness forced me to do things to myself that I would never even dream of doing. Shaving my head—though receding as my hairline was—dealt a blow I never imagined. Me—a teacher at the local college, with a fine, if somewhat graying head of dark hair—bald, just like that? I nearly laughed when I saw the light bounce off its baby-smooth surface. I looked like my son when he first went through his leukemia treatments.

_Johnny... my baby..._

Settling myself into the chair in my shitty, run-down motel room, I bowed my face into my hands and cried. Johnny lost his father, all because of a fear of being thrown in jail for reckless driving. How could any sane, _proud_ man dream of leaving a child who had been diagnosed with an almost-fatal disease? The umbilical-cord blood saved him, sure, but his father—his one and true father—left him, just like that?

"I'm a coward," I whispered, trying my hardest not to scream. "I'm a damn, mother _fucking_ coward!"

Impulse took hold of my arm, slamming my fist into the table. The side of my hand caught my plate with buttered toast and sent it into the air. Flying like a bird shot with a BBgun, it soared through the air for about five feet, then landed on the muddy carpet.

_Crumbs galore,_ I thought.

The roaches would be eating well tonight.

Forcing myself out of the chair, I bent down, gathered what crumbs and toast I could, then turned and tossed it toward the sink.

The plate fractured on impact.

The bread would be soggy in less than three minutes.

"Johnny... _why?"_

For what seemed like the millionth time since I left the scene of the crime, I contemplated why I left and why I hadn't tried to call 9-1-1. My cell phone had sat in the driver's tray right beside me—waiting for three magic numbers to be pushed—yet I'd done nothing. And, upon lousy judgment, I hadn't stopped to consider putting the hummer in park.

That woman could still be alive, had I kept my head on straight. She could be in a hospital bed, possibly recovering from a severely-fractured leg and a few scratches and bruises. She could be talking to her husband—her children, her family, her parents, maybe even her brothers and sisters—and I could be apologizing for what I'd done, signing a check to pay both the hospital bills and the karmic debt that had surely come back to bite me in the ass.

No.

I'd done none of that.

I ran away from the responsibility of ending a perfectly-healthy, middle-aged-woman's life.

And now, sitting in a shitty motel room, crying over the fact that I'd left my baby boy and battle-weary wife, I broke, destroyed, and mourned for the things I had lost, when others had lost more than I could ever imagine.

* * *

I mailed my wife a postcard under the name of Timothy L. Johnson.

I told her her 'husband was well' and that he 'was sorry he left so suddenly.'

The rest of the note detailed a fictitious account of an affair that never existed.

I cried the whole time I wrote it.

I sent it standard.

She would wait seven-to-eleven days before she read it.

I sent it with stamps embossed with the image of Lady Liberty.

One of those stamps lay drenched in tears before I pushed it to the paper, all the while knowing I would never have to lick it.

My sorrow signed my deal for me.

The postcard had a picture of a man and the woman in the front.

They stood on a beach, in Hawaii.

We spent our honeymoon there.

I broke down in tears in front of the mailman when I handed him the postcard and drove away.

* * *

Days, weeks, months—all went by in the blink of an eye. Like a second to its minute, and a minute to its hour, time didn't seem to exist anymore. One minute it'd be Sunday, then the next it would be Thursday. Nearly a week would have gone by before I'd rise to shave, much less eat. It didn't seem important anymore. Nothing did, not since I left my family.

_All because I wasn't paying attention._

Sighing, I pushed myself out of bed, made my way into the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror. Haggard, with sunken cheeks and a head full of stubble, I resembled someone you'd find out on the street begging for change or a piece of pizza. But unlike the people who intentionally looked like that to get what they wanted in life, I looked that way because I couldn't help myself.

_You'd be better off on the street than wasting your hundreds in a shitty motel room._

"Yeah," I grunted, "I would."

Reaching up, I opened the medicine cabinet, pulled out an electric razor, and went to work tidying myself up. I shaved my head, trimmed my beard back to its original, brown-grey length, and washed the dirt off my face.

By the time I finished, I couldn't help but break out in tears.

_Daddy! Daddy! You're home!_

"No I'm not," I sobbed, resting my head in my hands. "I'm not home, Johnny, and I'll never be home!"

With the razor still running, I tossed it at the medicine cabinet as hard as I could.

Glass exploded.

My sanity went with it.

* * *

Live and let live.

Die and let die.

Suffer and let suffer.

In my endless, waking dreams, my son chased a kitten across the street, laughing, crying and screaming in excitement. During this dream, he'd wear a tattered flannel stained with blood. His shoes would be missing and one side of his head would be caved in, flattened by some extraneous force. Like the devil from the dead, his one remaining eye gleamed red. His smile, once young and innocent, became cruel—vile, even. Fangs appeared in place of baby teeth and stubby fingernails now became claws, stained with the blood of those long since dead.

Shocked from the hallucination by the sound of a screeching horn, I looked up and out the nearby window to find a woman jabbing her finger at someone in a truck.

_Almost got hit._

"You'd be dead if he hadn't been paying attention," I mumbled.

_Just like Clah-Clah-Loria,_ Johnny whispered, tugging on my arm. _Daddy?_

"I'm not here, buddy."

_Yes you are Daddy. I can see you._

"But I can't see you."

_What color of shoes am I wearing?_

"You're not wearing any shoes, buddy. The ambulance knocked them off your feet."

Johnny ceased his incessant tugs. I looked down just in time to receive a fanged smile.

_You're one of us now, Daddy. One of the crazy people._

"I'm not crazy, Johnny. I'm not..."

_Crazy?_

I turned my head up to meet another ghost.

Head mostly missing and stomach imploded, its spinal cord twitched and moved, vibrating like the rattle on a snake.

_Or a baby's toy._

"I'm sorry, Cloria."

_You killed me, Mr. Johnson._

"My name isn't Mr. Johnson. It's..."

_Mr. Johnson, you have no reason to lie to me. I know who you are. I know what you wrote on your letter._

"My wife..."

_Your wife has been having an affair with another man._

"No, she..."

_You've been gone for three months. People die—they move on._

"She couldn't have. I'm not..."

_Dead? Alive?_ Cloria paused. The sharpened tip of a vertebra twitched, as if willing its former occupant's missing head to tilt. _How do you know whether or not you're dead?_

"Because I'm here, talking to..."

_You._

Neither Gloria nor Johnny had spoken.

Who could it have been, if not them?

_You?_

_Me?_

Them?

Who were they, standing at the window, with their dull, black eyes and their twisted, black horns? Why would intruders dress up as goats and stand at the window, only to watch me talking to ghosts?

_Daddy?_

"You're not Johnny, Johnny."

_Can I go outside and play with them?_

"Play with who?"

_The goats._

"The pedestrians."

Something touched my shoulder.

A hand—adorned with a wedding ring—traced the curve of my muscle and set its broken fingernails to my neck.

_Do dead men bleed, Mr. Johnson?_

"I don't know," I whispered. "You tell me."

A nail sunk into my neck.

I swallowed.

The nail withdrew itself.

No blood followed.

_Do dead men bleed?_ Cloria asked. _Or is it just you?_

_Just me?_

_Yes, Mr. Johnson—just you._

"I don't know," I whispered. "I..."

The pedestrians pressed their hooves to the window.

Baaing, moaning, _crying_ , __ they pressed their weight forward and shattered the window.

Like babies crawling to their mother, they poured over the broken window and made their way toward me.

I think of them as goats, those pedestrians.

When they walk across the road, it's as though some primal, mechanical instinct has pushed them in harm's way.

# DJ Skippy says Life Goes On

Friday the thirteenth began like any other day, albeit with a bit of superstition. While black cats continued to prance the streets, arching their backs at wary travelers, and while those travelers cast salt over their shoulders come their morning meal, everyone went about their day as though nothing would happen.

Content with their beliefs, they didn't bother to draw their curtains when the sun rose above the city and blinded them with its harsh rays.

For many, they simply didn't care.

Friday the thirteenth was just another day to them.

For others, the number itself spoke an ill that would not be soon forgotten.

Rising from a strangled fit of sleep in a mix of swears and obscenities, Bart Newclerry tore his way through his New York apartment like a madman bent on destroying the world. With his head hung low and grisly arms outstretched, he tore the blinds across the windows without a care in the world, not bothering to double-check whether or not he had damaged the expensive fabric or if he'd pulled drawstrings free. Nothing mattered at that particular moment except the light—the cruel, jagged light. With its harsh rays and its cruel, foreboding stare, it burned itself into his head and threatened to sallow him whole.

Head ablaze, Bart set out on his mission.

In all, it took him no more than ten minutes to draw the curtains across each and every window in the apartment.

By the time he finished, a migraine began to set in.

It would only contribute to the savage hell the day would become.

_Damn these headaches,_ he thought, forcing his way into the kitchen. _Damn these motherfucking headaches and those cocksucking doctors._

In one swift motion, Bart pulled a cupboard open, swiped a bottle of pills from the second shelf up, and made his way to the sink.

Had he cared, he would have bothered to read the instructions on the prescription. Since he didn't, he simply squeezed, twisted, and pulled the child safety cap off, downing the pill in a single swallow.

With only six months to live, he could care less about overdosing on prescription medication.

_Cocksuckers._

A smirk crossing his lips, Bart made his way into the living room and settled down in his recliner, ready to face the day, but unsure how to do so.

Bowing his head, he took a brief moment to consider going to work.

Shortly after, he realized the date and made a decision.

Bart Newclerry would be staying home today.

Fuck his boss—he didn't have a brain tumor.

* * *

It seemed to have happened simply enough. A series of reoccurring migraine headaches, lack of concentration, comprehension, and the inability to focus on backlit objects for more than a few minutes of a time—all played into a series of small concussions that eventually landed him into the back of an ambulance after he collapsed in his home for no reason at all. Minorities always seem to start out as minorities. Majorities always seem to start out as minorities. They start out small, work their way to the top, then explode in a manner of time that seems incomprehensible to anyone that hasn't been watching. One might say that something can't come out from behind a curtain for no reason at all, but others would beg to question the process of how that something came to be in the first place before actually questioning the event itself.

Bart begged to question that very specific thing the first time a doctor told him he had a growth on his brain.

_A what?_ he'd asked.

_A growth,_ the doctor had replied.

Medical terminology doesn't leave anything in the way for question. A hypothesis is perceived, a diagnosis is given, then a prognosis is explained, all in a unemotional manner that often shocks most people. You might say a doctor is heartless because he doesn't falter when he tells you you have brain cancer, and you might scream, kick and cry while calling him the worst things you can possibly imagine after he tells you your daughter has died after having been run over by a car, but you can't deny the flicker of emotion that always passes behind his eyes. You can't deny that somewhere, somehow, deep inside him, he is secretly crying, regardless of what his exterior demeanor may say.

In the end, he's only there to do his job.

He can't cry for each and every person he tells they're going to die.

Following his diagnosis, Bart went home, pulled his curtains shut, and laid in bed for three days, all the while trying as hard as he could not to cry.

He broke after the third day of silence, when his brother called to ask what had happened.

_This is it,_ Bart had said.

_This is what?_ his brother had asked.

_I have brain cancer,_ he replied. _I only have six months to live._

Five days after his diagnosis, when Bart crawled out of bed and contemplated going to work, he looked at a calendar and realized the date—not only for its worth, but for its reason.

Why go to work on a Friday, much less on the thirteenth?

"I'm not going to work," Bart mumbled, tipping his head to view the television set.

Though nothing shone from its dull, blank surface, Bart imagined what he'd see should he decide to turn it on. It would be like any other day, most likely. Marha Minyon would be sitting at her desk, giving the citizens of New York their morning news, while Bill Mackerton would recite the weather by a screen that showed him what should be there but really wasn't.

Men never have, nor ever will be, magical. They've never been able to cast spells, bring the dead back to life, or recite the weather to the precise T.

If magic existed, they probably would have found it by now.

Shaking his head, Bart pushed himself off the couch and made his way to the bathroom. There, he turned the light on, immediately regretting it soon after. Eyes bloodshot, stubble awry and face as pale as a sheet, he looked as dead as he would be in six months.

Given his current state of affairs, that only gave him one-hundred-and-seventy-five days to live. He'd be lucky if he were still around for Christmas.

_Who fucking gives a shit about Christmas?_ he thought, stepping out of his clothes and into the shower. _I won't be around for it anyway._

Still—the thought of a holiday he would never see sure gave him a lot to think about.

_No. Not now._

Cold water hit his face.

It did nothing to dull the heat rising in his chest.

* * *

Anger ate at him like a lion encaged in a zoo. Wanting, hoping, _needing_ to get out alive, it tore through his ribcage as though nothing existed between it and the outside world. Teeth sank into the fleshy pulp of his diaphragm, while claws barreled down on his lungs in a desperate attempt to gain leverage. Several times, the lion slipped, only to sink itself into a different part of his internal vessel. The kidneys, the liver, the gallbladder and the intestines—everywhere the lion fell, its presence went, casting Bart's body in a mixture of pain, confusion and hurt.

In the dead of night, cars bathed the city streets in ghostly glows.

In the apartments above, men listened to the sound of heartbeats inside their heads.

A lion roared.

A monkey cried out.

A man squeezed his eyes shut and begged for it to all go away.

He didn't need a menagerie inside his head. Wasn't it bad enough to have a tumor, much less a cancerous one?

_Guess not._

Deterred in his quest for sleep, Bart threw his legs over the side of the bed and planted his feet on the ground. There, he rubbed his eyes, took a deep breath, then prepared to rise, but not before casting a glance out the window.

How many times would he see the grand, almost-utopian world of New York City before it all ended?

Bart didn't bother to count.

He rose and made his way for the door.

* * *

In his living room, Bart watched the curtained-off windows with a sort of animosity. Deep down, something inside him hated seeing nothing but white slats of plastic, while another grew to favor it like certain parasites do their hosts. Once, when he thought he saw a flicker of light pass across one of the windows, he jumped backward and nearly fell onto his glass coffee table. His saving grace was the nearby recliner, which he grabbed onto just before he could tumble back.

A single fall to a glass coffee table would seal his fate in an instant.

_Not like anything else won't,_ he thought, expelling a held-in breath.

The back of his knee hurt where he'd stumbled into the table. Though not a deep pain, the slight stab he felt whenever he moved drew the lion in his chest from sleep. It let out a low growl, but didn't rise from its place of rest. Instead, it merely opened one eye, bared its teeth slightly, then settled its head back onto its forelegs, making sure to expose its claws for a brief moment before retracting them into the safety of their pads.

_Slow, deep breaths. One... two... three..._

Settling down into his overused recliner, Bart leaned back and allowed the chair to carry him to his destination. At a one-hundred-and-thirty-five-degree angle, it allowed him to view the ceiling with the utmost of ease. Dark, cradled in tension and cracked by age, the paint above looked as though it would begin to fall off at any moment.

"Knowing my luck, it probably will."

A low chuckle broke the silence of the apartment, though not in the pleasant manner that Bart expected. The sound seemed rough, harsh in contrast to his normal voice. It did little to comfort him, especially at this hour.

_Is this how it's going to be?_ he thought, drawing a quilt across his chest. _Is this how I'm going to live the rest of my life?_

To think that his last six months would be spent in awkward silence was troubling enough, but to know that the sound of his own laugh frightened him? What did it mean when a man started looking over his shoulder at his own shadow, or jumping at the sight of himself in the mirror? What did it mean when he sneezed and cringed at the sound, or spoke and sighed at its tone?

Honestly, truthfully, and without any doubt in the world, what could it mean when the sound of his own laugh made him uncomfortable?

He didn't know.

Part of him didn't care.

All he wanted to do was sleep.

* * *

The alarm clock came on in Bart's bedroom and a stranger projected his voice through the apartment. Awkwardly-loud in a room that should have been quiet, he announced himself as DJ Skippy and began to relay the tracks that he would be playing this morning. Modern pop shit—the stuff Bart hated—would play on this channel the entire day, from six o'clock in the morning until six o'clock at night. Reruns would sound during the six-oh-one PM to the five-fifty-nine AM that Skippy and his coworkers weren't on. Then, once six o'clock AM came rolling around, Skippy would proudly announce that you were on the air with DJ Skippy, the master of the tracks and the king of the bling. It was this way every morning—had been since Queen Starla had resigned last year—and would be until one-too-many people got tired of Skippy's coked-up personality. The normality of it usually secured Bart in his life, especially when teenage girls started singing about parties in the USA and women who said you couldn't read their poker faces.

For the most part, Bart could care less. He was too old to party. He hadn't tried to read a poker face in years.

Rising from the recliner, Bart pushed his way into the blackened apartment and into his bedroom. There, he stared at the clock, listened to Skippy's preppy-boy voice, then made a decision that would forever free him from any timely limitations.

He pulled the cord from the outlet in the wall and watched as the LCD numbers faded from view.

If only it were that easy in real life.

* * *

Breakfast came and went in a manner of speaking. Though usually filled with pleasures small yet fruitful, the dawn of the day could always offer something new, regardless of how the yesterday or year went.

Normally, after rising from bed and taking a five-minute shower, Bart would have sat down at the table to read his morning paper and wait for a piece of bread to toast. As his hair would begin to dry, slicked with droplets of morning dew, he would listen to the sound of traffic echoing up from the city below and flip one of New York's many newspapers open. Front-page headlines of terrorism and school shootings would gloss his mind, though they would do little to impact his overall day. Like moisturizer to a pair of fine lips, the morning news meant little more to the average person than it did to someone thousands of miles away. On the moon, beneath the sea, or slowly-but-surely on the breeze, it was meant to inform and nothing more. Besides—who really cared about what was going on in the world anyway? Who cared what was going on in Chile, Haiti, Iraq or Afghanistan? Who cared about China's republic, Korea's stance on nuclear weapons, or Russia's war with Georgia? Who cared about the AIDs crisis in Africa, the forests of South America or the extinctions in the Amazon? Who really, _truly_ cared?

In the end, the sad but simple truth could be answered in a few simple words.

_No one._

No one cared who died or suffered, who lost their wife or who ate their baby. No one cared who was maimed from war, cheated by government or imprisoned by people. No one cared who drank Typhoid, ate Malaria or consumed AIDs. No one did. It was always that way and would always _be_ that way.

Suffering from cancer, dying from the inside out, who would pity him, if not himself?

Breakfast would no longer be a memorable occasion. He would have to get used to that.

Standing beneath the doorway that connected the living room to his bedroom, watching the kitchen with a sense of dread he had never before felt, he heard a knock at the door and looked up just in time to see the morning paper slip between the slots.

He walked into the bathroom without looking back.

At ten o'clock, after the first clerk arrived at the front desk, he would cancel his newspaper subscription for the rest of his life, however long that may be.

* * *

The telephone rang for the next several days. Each time the answering machine clicked on, the person calling hung up, almost as if their decision in calling seemed hasty or rash, or they'd dialed the wrong number. From Sunday to Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, then finally Thursday, the phone rang at least twice every day, usually anywhere from eight in the morning until twelve in the afternoon.

Finally, on the sixth and final day, the caller left a message.

They began simply and securely.

"Hey, Bart," George McCaughlgrun said, the buzz of activity in one of New York's finest offices evident in the form of white noise. "I'm just calling to see how everything's going. You haven't called in sick. I'm getting worried. Anyway, if you get this message, call me back, tell me what's up. I know you went to the doctor. I want to hear the news you..."

The answering machine clicked off.

Silenced by the gods of man, McCaughlgrun's voice disappeared in but the span of a second.

Bart rolled over in bed.

_Am I imagining things?_

The phone rang again.

It quickly went to voicemail.

"Sorry about that," the man laughed, the thick German in his accent confirming that he was, in fact, George McCaughlgrun. "I forgot how short your voicemail is. Anyhow, like I said, I want to hear the news you got. Call me back when you can, Bart."

With his peace said, the answering machine clicked off, this time without interruption.

Closing his eyes, Bart set an arm over his forehead and tried to drown out the sound of the world.

For George McCaughlgrun, a simple checkup meant nothing.

Silence was golden.

Tomorrow morning, the owner of one of the greatest real estate companies in New York City would check his employee roster, find Bart missing, then drop his employee's final check in the mail.

McCaughlgrun would never call again.

* * *

Hunger eventually forced Bart from his bed and into the kitchen. Ravenous, like a hunter starved over a long, cold winter, he tore through the fridge as though he'd never seen food in his life. No matter the subject, no matter its condition, he ate. Week-old pizza, nearly-frozen potatoes, soggy bread, watery tomatoes, chocolate bars, milk, soda and vodka—all went into his mouth and down his throat as though nothing could stop it. Be it the finer, inner mechanics of the human construction or the more complex machinery of the brilliant mind, little existed other than the need for food.

Men used to eat like this in the dark ages.

How he managed this, he did not know.

After what seemed like an eternity of gnawing, tearing, chewing and swallowing, Bart stumbled back and collapsed in a chair, chest heaving and stomach groaning.

_What happened?_ he thought.

He started crying a moment later.

Scattered across the floor, bathed in a glory fit only for the lowest denizens of the earth, the remaining contents of his fridge winked and smiled through a haze of meat, bones, blood and chocolate.

His mouth burned.

His lips bled.

His gums flapped like ribbons.

Rising from his place at the table, Bart walked to the sink, washed his face and hands, and grabbed a dishtowel from a nearby drawer.

Pain wouldn't keep him at bay.

The kitchen required attention.

The house needed to be clean.

* * *

Cleaning became his obsession. From sunup to sundown, from the moment he grabbed a dishtowel to the moment he set the tenth down, he cleaned anything and everything he could. The kitchen, the bathroom, the bedroom, the sink, the living room, the countertops, the dishes, toilet and sheets—not a thing went amiss under the doubtful, all-seeing eye that Bart Newclerry had come to possess.

Though some might think his obsession meaningless, the distraction it offered meant everything in the world.

_There's nothing to it,_ he thought, dragging a sterilized, soap-coated sponge across the inside of the stainless-steel sink. _Nothing to worry about, nothing to think about, nothing to_ care _about. What more can someone ask for?_

Arm halfway inside the immense depths of the kitchen sink, Bart looked up just in time to hear the telephone ring.

His heart nearly stopped at the sound.

George McCaulghrun couldn't be calling, not after six days in a row.

_No... he wouldn't, not after..._

_What? Six days without response._

Bart cursed himself for his stupidity.

_You know,_ the voice continued, oblivious to the disgust on Bart's face. _Sometimes, when a boss gets worried about an employee, they'll call to make sure everything's all right. Sometimes they'll leave a message, thinking you'll get back to them, and sometimes they won't. Sometimes, they really don't care at all, but just want to do it out of some twisted godforsaken place in their heart. To them, it doesn't really matter if you're missing for a few days—you're one less person on their payroll. Eventually, though, they'll start to get nervous. When that happens, they'll get spooked, thinking that something's wrong, then they'll call the police and ask them to make a welfare check. It's not hard to do, especially for bosses worried about employees with perfect attendance who go missing for extended periods of time for no reason at all. Tell me something, Bart—is someone calling to make a welfare check on you?_

"No. No one cares about me."

_You're wrong, Bart. Someone_ does _care about you. That person's on the phone right now, waiting for you to answer._

"But who..."

_Stop. Don't say anything. Just pick up the phone and see who it is._

"You can't make me."

_It's not me you have to worry about._

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Bart dropped the sponge and peeled the gloves off his hands, careful to avoid the harsh chemicals that soaked their surfaces. Once sure that nothing would come from the quick rinse and remove job, he wiped his hands on his jeans and made his way toward the phone, dreading each and every step he took.

Who would be calling, if not his boss? He had no external affairs—no wife, no girlfriend, no significant other to speak of or any friends close enough to give a damn. The majority of his family lived back west and didn't know anything about his diagnosis. If someone was calling, it had to be...

Bart picked up the phone.

"Hello," he breathed.

"Bart?" a man asked.

"Who is this?"

"It's me, Bart—your brother, Rob."

Adrenaline shot into his heart before he could even begin to comprehend what the man on the phone said.

"Wha-What?" he asked, sweat lacing his face. "Huh-Who did you say you..."

"My God. What the hell's wrong with you?"

"Who is this?" Bart asked again, bracing himself against the kitchen wall. "Just tell me who the fuck it is!"

_"Bart._ It's _me,_ your _brother._ What the hell's wrong with you?"

"Oh God, Rob," Bart sobbed. "Is that really you? Please, tell me it's you."

"Bart, what's going..."

_"JUST TELL ME IF IT'S FUCKING YOU!"_ he screamed. _"JUST TELL ME IF IT'S YOU!"_

"Yes! It's me! Calm down, Bart—tell me what's wrong."

"I can't take it anymore," he said, his breath coming in short, quick bursts. "I can't take it anymore, Robby! I go to bed and wake up days later, I tear through the fridge like a madman and eat anything I can find, I clean everything in the house even though my mouth's torn up from all the bones and shit in my mouth. I just.... just... cah-can't..."

"Bart," Rob said. "Please, listen to me."

Bart took a deep breath. He nodded and kept his silence.

"I don't know what's going on, but it doesn't sound good. Listen to me, okay? Don't say anything for a minute or so. I want to tell you something. We clear?"

"Yuh-Yeah."

"I've been planning to come out and see you since you got the news. I was supposed to leave next week, but hearing you like this... Are you there alone?"

"Yeah."

"What happened to Cindy?"

_"Who?"_

"Cynthia. That girl you were seeing."

_Who the hell is Cynthia?_ he thought, cold arms brushing up against his side. _What else am I forgetting?_

"I... I don't know, Rob. I just don't know."

"It's okay, Bart. Take a few deep breaths. There... that's it. Yeah. There you go."

"Yuh-You're cuh-coming out here?" Bart managed to ask.

"I'm leaving tonight. I should be there in the morning."

"You can't..."

"You shouldn't be there alone, especially right now." Rob paused. Something rustled in the background. "Give me your room and the address of the apartment you live in."

"Rob..."

"I already booked my ticket Bart—either you give me your address or I scramble around the house looking for it. I don't care either way."

"But what about..."

"Megan?" Rob laughed. "She's been telling me to go out there since the day I called. She'll understand."

"All right," he sighed. "I can't stop you now."

"No," Rob said. "You can't."

* * *

Night passed like a cloud briefly drifting over the city. When dawn broke the surface of the New York Skyline, lighting the world in various shades of red, orange and blue, Bart woke to the stifling scream of the alarm clock in the other room.

_It can't be,_ he thought. _I thought I..._

Its shrill cry echoing through the house, Bart pushed himself out of the recliner and nearly fell over when he felt the room move. Subject to vertigo under choice circumstances, he took a moment to gain his composure, then balled a fist. He stared at it for the next minute-and-a-half, focusing his attention on his doorknob-sized appendage until the room stopped spinning.

_Hey hey hey!_ Skippy shouted from the other room. _It's six o'clock AM and you're listening to DJ Skippy, the master of the tracks and the king of bling! Welcome to another Monday morning ladies and gentlemen. Hope you didn't drink too much beer over the weekend—I know I sure did—because in approximately an hour-and-a-half, you'll be leaving for work. Better swallow that Aspirin, ladies, and better down that shot everyone knows you take before you get in that car, guys—it's the only way you're going to make it until lunch._

"You annoying dipshit," Bart murmured, pushing himself toward the bedroom. "When I get in there, I'm gonna..."

_But let's not worry about that though!_ Skippy giggled, hollering an unintelligible sound before his voice returned to its normal pitch. _We all know life gets hard and that sometimes, shit happens that brings you down a notch, but I'm here to tell you that life goes on, everyone. Sure—you may be down in the dumps because your gramma died yesterday, or because your best friend has AIDs, but does that mean you have to stop living your life to its full potential? No! It doesn't! And you know why? Because when life gives you lemons, by God, you're supposed to..._

A pounding came at the door, knocking Bart from his reverie and Skippy from his mind.

"Bart!" someone called. "You there?"

"Yeah!" he shouted. "Give me a second! The fucking radio's goin'!"

_I mean, it's okay when life gives you lemons,_ Skippy continued, _but you know what would be_ really _nice? If life—God, Jesus, whoever the hell is making us go through all this shit—gave us_ melons. _Yeeeaaahhhh, you heard me right, ladies. Life would be_ so _much better if we guys walked out the door every day and we were handed a pair of nice, double-D titties. You know why? Because sometimes, after a long, hard night of partying, all a guy needs is a nice, juicy pair of..._

The cord flew out of its socket.

Satisfied with himself, Bart took the portable alarm clock in hand and wrapped the cord around its base, taking extra care not to trip over it as he made his way out of the bedroom.

"Bart!" Rob called.

Glancing at the alarm clock, Bart shrugged and tossed it on the counter, the resounding _clink_ more magical then he could have ever imagined.

"What took you so long?" Rob asked, pushing his way into the apartment.

"The alarm clock went off," Bart mumbled. "I didn't think you would..."

"Be here so early? I know—I was surprised too."

"What time did you leave?"

"Around midnight. Thank God we only stopped two or three times. I don't think I could take much more of that."

"You never were one for planes, Rob."

"Yeah. No kidding." Rob set his suitcase on the floor. One glance at the kitchen was enough to raise his eyebrows. "What's going on, Bart?"

"I don't know," he sighed.

"You _should_ know. You're the one living here."

"It's just," he started, then paused. "Okay, it's like this: I went to lay down a few days ago and never got out of bed. I woke up a few times, sure, but it was only to go to the bathroom. I wasn't sure if I was asleep for that whole time or if I was awake, which was what scared me so much. The first time I _really_ 'woke up' was when the phone kept ringing."

"Why didn't you answer it?"

"Because I thought I was imagining things."

"Did they leave a message?"

"Yeah."

"Who was it?"

"My boss," Bart sighed. "Shortly afterward, I must've fallen asleep, because I didn't wake up until the next morning. Even then, the only reason I got out of bed was to eat."

"That was when you tore your gums," Rob nodded. "Open your mouth, Bart."

He did as asked.

Even the simple motion of moving his jaw sent flares of pain throughout his mouth.

"Damn, Bart. What got into you?"

"Like I said, I don't know."

"Either way, you should probably go to the doctor and get your mouth sewn up."

"What's a doctor going to do?" Bart laughed. "That's a dentist's job."

"Either way, you don't want your gums getting infected."

"What the hell do I say?"

"You don't have to say anything. Just say you tore your gums open and you need to have them stitched."

* * *

Under general anesthesia, it only took the dentist an hour to sew Bart's mouth up.

When asked how he managed to tear his gums apart so badly, Bart could barely reply. Pain medicine his only saving grace, he slurred something about eating too fast before Rob pulled him out of the dentistry office and pushed him into the rental van.

Once home, Bart spread out along the couch and fell asleep.

When he woke three hours later, he found his brother sitting in the recliner, smoking a cigarette and drinking a glass of whiskey.

"You're not supposed to smoke in here," Bart mumbled through the agony of his mouth.

"The window's open," Rob shrugged, placing the smoke to his lips.

With light streaming through his apartment for the first time in weeks, Bart couldn't help but place the time in the sky. In his forty-three years, he'd come to possess an ability uncanny to most untrained city men, especially for someone who'd only lived in the same area for ten years. The sun—a grand, flaming diamond in the sky—could tell many things, if only you looked at it the correct way. The time, the strength of the ozone layer, the fires in the distance or the weather to arrive—you didn't need a clock, watch, or a weatherman to tell you what was to come. The sun could do it for you.

Closing his eyes, Bart lowered his head to the cushion that framed the couch.

"You want something to eat?" Rob asked, rising from his place in the recliner.

"What am I supposed to eat?"

"Soup, salad, ice cream."

_"Ice cream?"_ Bart laughed.

"Yeah," Rob smiled. "I picked some up on the way home."

"Where was I?"

"Passed out in the passenger seat."

"Oh," he frowned.

_That would explain things._

"I'll be okay, Rob—don't worry."

"The whole reason I'm out here is because I'm worried."

"I know. Just... don't worry about me. Get me my pill."

"You going back to sleep?"

"Nothing else better to do. No point in staying awake through this."

_No point in anything, really,_ he thought, closing his eyes. _Not anymore._

* * *

Later that night—after a long, dreamless bout of sleep—Bart woke to a silent apartment. Save for the glow coming from the nearby TV, darkness shrouded his home, trapping him in a sense of solitude he'd come to know, love and embrace over the past few weeks. Like a lifelong friend willing to take you in their arms and offer you everything you'd need, it wrapped itself around his world and made no attempts to conceal itself for what it really was.

Beautiful, lonely, chaotic—what else could a man ask for to silence an imperfect world?

_It's so... peaceful,_ he thought, wanting to close his eyes, but unwilling to lose the euphoria. _It's like it could swallow me whole and never let go._

"Bart?"

He blinked.

Rob stood no more than three feet away, watching him from behind the horned rims of his glasses.

"Yeah?" Bart asked, blinking to clear his vision.

"You awake?"

"I'm awake," he said, pushing himself up. "What time is it?"

"Ten-thirty. Why?"

"Just wondering." He yawned, pushing his arms over his head and arching his back. "What're you doing up? I figured you'd have already gone to bed."

"I've been watching you," Rob said, pushing his glasses up his nose.

"Why?"

"Because I'm supposed to."

"You're not supposed to do anything," Bart laughed, pushing himself off the couch. He lost balance and almost fell over, but Rob managed to catch him just before he landed on the glass coffee table. "Shit."

"Shit is right."

"That's the second time I've done that in the past two weeks," he chuckled, pushing himself out of his brother's arms and back onto the couch. "Thanks Rob."

"What do you need, Bart?"

"Huh?"

"Why were you getting up?"

"I wanted to stretch my legs."

"No point in stretching your legs if you're going to fall and hurt yourself," Rob sighed, sitting down at the end of the couch. "You want something to eat?"

"You got any of that ice cream out?"

"I can get some, yeah."

"Ok, sure—what flavor?"

"Vanilla's your favorite."

"You bet it is."

Smiling, Bart leaned back and watched his brother disappear into the depths of the kitchen. The whole while Rob stood at the fridge—unshelving a pack of ice cream, opening the box, grabbing a bowl and fishing for a spoon—he couldn't help but wonder what would happen if it were the other way around, if it were Rob in his position and he in Rob's.

Alone, single, without children to care about—it took enough mental willpower to worry about oneself, but to worry about a family?

How would it feel to have the ever-creeping presence of death with your loved ones so close by, or to know that you would eventually be leaving them, but sooner than you could have ever imagined? What was it like to fear for the woman you loved, to worry how she would pay the bills and raise the kids, and what was it like to worry about the daughter you loved so much, whom you called angel and said would one day fly? How did it feel to know that, one day, your wife would sit alone on your thirtieth anniversary, and how did it feel to question what your daughter would do the day she graduated, how she would see, think and feel. Would she look to the crowd to find her father, then cry when she only saw her mother, or would time have healed those wounds? Would the minutes, moments, hours, days, weeks and years have removed that pain, or would it still exist, a wound meant never to be closed, but always opened?

With this in mind, Bart took a moment to comprehend the reality of the situation. As a single, wifeless man without children, pets, or extraneous family, his fate in death seemed meaningless compared to what it would be if he were Rob.

Megan, Chloe, Bob the Dog and Chiggle the Cat—all needed the man they called their own, all needed the trust and faith in life.

"Hey, Bart," Rob said.

"What?" he asked.

"I want you to go to the doctor tomorrow."

"Why?"

"I want you to have your blood pressure checked. Lord knows what something like this can do to you."

_Lord knows?_ Bart thought.

God knew nothing.

Only he knew.

* * *

The clean white walls echoed pain across the brevity of the waiting room. Around them, patients sat in groups of twos and threes, idly waiting for their turn to be called back for their examination. Occasionally, a fourth would be present, but only when it seemed their presence would be necessary. In those cases, families would sit together in small clusters near corners, while friends would coagulate near the middle of the wall, most standing or kneeling for the loved one they all wished well. Those without illness who chose to sit did so for the comfort of the friend, whose hand they held without a momentary thought or care in the world.

An atmosphere of love, a sense of hope, a belief in trust and an ultimate, giving must, most people walked into the hospital without the fear of ever being alone.

In some instances, that proved to be the exact opposite.

Sitting directly across from Bart and Rob in a lonely, unoccupied row of chairs, a boy with bandages over both his eyes listened to a nurse who stood nearby. Nodding, though without any other trace of emotion, he bowed his head, though out of shame or dignity could be anyone's guess. Bruises highlighted the zygomatic regions of his cheekbones while crimson freely bled into the hollows of his face, creating a sickly, morbid image in the shape of a human skull. Given the breadth of the coloring and the complexity of the patterns, an artist would have found it difficult to paint the human portrait that made up his face.

_Give this to your mom,_ the nurse said, sliding a leaflet into his hand. _She'll be here in a few minutes._

_I can't see,_ the boy replied.

_It's all right. We won't let anything happen to you._

No more than a second later, the nurse turned and strode away.

The boy tightened his grip on the leaflet.

The pages crinkled.

His nostrils flared.

A quick intake of breath followed.

"Look at his face," Bart whispered.

"Shh, Bart."

"You _shh._ I'm not being that loud."

"Still, if someone heard..."

"They just left him there, _alone._ He can't even fuckin' see."

"Bart..."

An elderly woman in the corner looked up from her paper.

"I'm going to sit by him," Bart said, pushing himself out of his chair. "It's bullshit, leaving him there by himself."

"But what if someone..."

Bart pushed his brother's words aside.

Crossing the room in a few short steps, he made sure to make his presence known before he sat down by the boy.

"Hey," Bart said, setting a hand on the boy's shoulder. "You okay, buddy?"

"I'm fine," the teenager said, keeping his head down. "Are you a nurse?"

"I'm not."

"Then what're you doing?"

"Keeping an eye on you," Bart said, then grimaced. "Sorry."

"It's all right. I'm glad someone's doing it for me. I can't see a thing."

"You gonna be okay?"

"Yeah. I'll be fine. It's just retinal surgery. I should be able to see in a week or so."

"How far's your mom coming from?"

"Downtown. Her boss wouldn't let her take work off today. She would've lost her job."

"Your dad?"

"He's long gone," the boy sighed.

"I'm sorry, kid. I shouldn't be asking these things."

"It's... it's fine, sir. At least I know I'm not alone if someone's asking questions."

"Charles?" a woman asked.

Bart looked up. A finely-dressed woman in a gray suit stood under the archway, watching him with wary eyes.

"Mom?" the boy asked.

"Who's this with you?"

"A friend," Charles said, looking up at Bart. "Mister..."

"Newclerry," Bart said.

The woman smiled.

"Thank you for looking after my son, Mr. Newclerry. If you'd excuse us..."

Charles reached out, took hold of his mother's hand, and allowed her to take the brunt of his weight until he stood on his own two feet. Once there, she accepted the leaflet her son offered and began to lead him out of the waiting room.

Before they could leave, Charles took one look back.

Something about the way he smiled stirred something inside Bart's heart.

_That boy can't see,_ Bart thought. _He shouldn't know where I..._

"Everything okay?" Rob asked, settling down in the chair beside him.

"Yeah," Bart sighed. "Everything's fine."

"Mr. Newclerry?" a nurse asked.

Bart looked up.

"The doctor's ready to see you."

* * *

"Mr. Newclerry," Doctor Richard Brown said, lifting the clipboard and briefly scanning its contents before returning it to the counter. "What brings you here today?"

"My brother," Bart said. "He suggested I come in for a checkup."

"Ah," the man said. "You were due for one in the next few days, so it's great to see you here now. I assume this gentleman here is your brother?"

"Yes sir," Rob said, offering his hand. "Robert Newclerry at your service."

"He's visiting," Bart added.

"It's great to see that you're not toughing this out all alone," Brown nodded, once again lifting the clipboard and scanning through its contents. "Tell me, Bart... you're here about your blood pressure, correct?"

"Yeah. Rob said I should come in and have it checked."

"It runs in our family," Rob said, settling down beside his brother. "I didn't want to let it slide."

"It's definitely something you don't want to leave unchecked, especially given your situation, Bart." Brown paused. He looked up from the clipboard to meet Bart's eyes, only to sigh a moment later. "It's tough, going through something like this. Don't feel like you're alone."

"I don't," Bart said. "I try not to."

"I'll tell you something, guys—my son was diagnosed with leukemia a little while back. I try not to talk about it with my regular patients, but I think it helps to let people know that there's always another person suffering from the same disease they are, regardless of whether or not it's the exact same type."

"Is he okay?"

"He'll be fine, Bart—you don't have to worry about a thing. My point is, there's resources out there if you need them. I'm just glad to hear that your brother's staying with you."

"I would've come out sooner if I knew he was like this," Rob said, closing his eyes. "It hurts to know that I let him sit there for a week without anyone there with him."

"You didn't know," Bart sighed.

"Know what?" Brown frowned. "Can I ask what's going on, guys? I mean, if it's not too personal?"

"It's nothing, Rich. You don't need to..."

"I thought his girlfriend would be there," Rob said.

_"Rob,"_ Bart growled.

"Girlfriend?" Brown asked. "I don't see what the problem is. Did you two break up?"

"That's the thing," Bart laughed. "I don't remember having a girlfriend."

Richard didn't immediately reply. Instead, he reached up and ran a hand across his forehead, fingers idly tracing a scar over his eyebrow.

_You dumbass,_ Bart thought, shooting Rob a glare. _This is exactly why I didn't plan on telling him._

"You're telling me you've had memory loss," the doctor finally said.

"I'm supposed to know if I had memory loss?" Bart asked. He couldn't help but chuckle. "Doesn't that defeat the purpose?"

"What worries me is that you don't remember having a girlfriend, but your brother does."

"My brother lives in California."

"Robert," Richard said, leaning forward in his seat. "Did Bart ever tell you about having a girlfriend?"

"Yes."

"When?"

"About a month ago."

"Do you remember her name?"

"Cynthia. How could I not remember it? Bart was up in arms about it."

"Do _you_ remember her, Bart?"

"No. I don't. That's what scares me."

"And what scared me," Rob said, pushing himself out of his seat. "Excuse me, sir—I have to stand."

"That's fine."

"Anyway," Robert continued, making his way toward the window. "I called a few days ago to see how everything was going. I hadn't talked to Bart since the diagnosis, so I was getting worried, especially since he lives alone. I called once and didn't get an answer, so I figured he might've been out getting groceries or something to eat. Then I called a second time. I didn't get an answer. So... I quit for the night. Then I called the next morning. Again, didn't get an answer. When I finally got a hold of Bart, he was in hysterics. He didn't recognize my voice, so when I tried to tell him who I was, he panicked. He didn't think I was really his brother."

"Is this true?" Richard asked.

Unable to deny it, Bart nodded. He hung his head shortly afterward.

"Anyway," Rob said, "when I finally got him to acknowledge that it really was me calling him, I asked if he was alone, then asked about Cynthia when he said yes. He had no idea who I was talking about."

"I still don't," Bart murmured.

"It's not unnatural to have memory loss when you're going through so much stress," Richard said. "I'm glad you guys came in, especially about the blood pressure. I hate to say it, Bart, but you're at a high risk for a heart attack."

"Shit," Rob whispered.

"Given what's going on in your life, I can't say that a simple diet and exercise change would really do any good, especially since your blood pressure has likely raised as a result of stress."

"What do you suggest?" Bart frowned.

"Well, first of all, diet and exercise—that's a given in any situation. I'd also suggest anti-anxiety medication, if that's all right."

"What would that do?"

"Help regulate your serotonin levels. I can't guarantee it will work immediately, but I can assure you the medication will help with the problems you're having, especially with the panic and anxiety attacks you may have."

"Is everything going to be okay?" Rob asked. "I mean, he's not going to... you know..."

"Have a heart attack?" Brown sighed. "No. Not if we nip this in the bud before it gets any worse."

* * *

"Why the hell did you tell them that?" Bart cried, throwing his arms in the air as they walked into the apartment. "Talk about a bullheaded move!"

"You can't expect to walk into a doctor's office and not tell them what's going on, Bart."

"Says who?"

"Says _me,_ the guy who came all the way out from California to make sure you were all right."

Growling, Bart started for his bedroom, but stopped when his brother stepped out in front of him.

"Move."

"Bart..."

"I said _move."_

"Come on. Talk to me for a second."

"You did more than enough talking back at Doctor Brown's office."

"I'm worried about you for God's sake! Can't you understand that?"

"Oh, yeah—I understand. I understand that you like to run your big mouth if it means it's going to make you look like a better person."

"I don't _care_ about being a better person!" Rob cried, hardly resisting when Bart pushed him out of his way. "I care about _you!"_

Bart stopped in his place.

_Your telephone rang nonstop for seven days,_ the voice inside his head said, prickling the hairs on his neck with one long, bony finger. _Not all of those calls were from McCaughlgrun._

"Bart..."

"I'm sorry," he whispered, setting a hand on his forehead. "I'm sorry, Rob."

"What?"

"I said I'm sorry," Bart repeated, tipping his head up to look at his brother. "I'm sorry about yelling at you, about having you come all the way out from California, about making you leave your family—I'm sorry about everything."

"You don't..."

"I don't have to say anything, I know. You're out here because I'm sick, I'm yelling at you because I'm upset—I get it, Rob, but that doesn't make it any different. I'm still treating you like an asshole. You're a saint compared to me."

"No I'm not."

"Yeah you are. You never swear, you go to church, you have a wife, a kid. _Fuck,_ Rob—you've got a _dog._ Even _I_ don't have a motherfuckin' _dog."_

"That doesn't matter."

"Yes it does."

"No, it..."

"It matters because it makes you a better person than me. And you know what? I don't care. I'm fine with that, because I _know_ you're a better person than me."

"Bart, please, stop..."

"When I think about it, Rob, it makes me so much happier to know that I got cancer instead of you."

"Don't even say that, you asshole," Rob said, balling a hand into a fist. "It's _never_ better when one person gets cancer over the other."

"Yeah it is. You know why?" Bart asked, desperately fighting through tears that threatened to break over the veil of his eyes. "You've got a family. You've got so many people that you need you. Your wife, your daughter... your brother and sisters-in-law. It... it won't even matter when I'm gone. Who's going to remember me?"

Bart closed his eyes.

A few choice tears sowed the seeds that agony had come so far to root.

Bowing his head, he let out a long, low wail and allowed everything to come out.

It didn't matter anymore.

If cancer didn't kill him, a heart attack would.

No matter how hard he tried, no matter how desperately he wanted to listen, he could not hear the words coming out of his brother's mouth.

One thought continued to echo through his head.

_Who'll care when I'm gone?_

* * *

"Bart?"

"Yeah?"

"You awake?"

He opened his eyes.

Rob stood in the doorway, jeans and undershirt undermining the professional attire he usually wore.

"What is it?" Bart asked, rolling over on his back.

"I have to go get your pills. Will you be all right here by yourself?"

"I'll be fine. Don't worry about me."

Rob chuckled. A moment later, he brushed his arms and entered the room. He waited for Bart's approval before he seated himself on the bed.

"If I didn't worry," the older man said, "would I have come all the way out from California?"

"No."

"There."

Bart frowned. He waited for Rob to say something more. When he finally didn't, he pushed himself up on one elbow and looked his brother straight in the eye.

"What?"

"There," Rob nodded, setting a hand on Bart's shoulder. "Do you get it now?"

"Get what?"

"Thank about it. What were we just talking about?"

"You coming out from California."

"Yeah."

"So?"

"Are you really that dense, Bart?"

"No, I..."

"Then tell me why I came out here."

"I know why you came out here."

"Then tell me."

"Why..."

"Because if you never admit that you need help, you might as well just let me lock you in here until the day you die."

"Rob, what're you..."

"You don't get it," Rob laughed, standing. "You really don't get it, do you, Rob?"

"If you would just come out and..."

"You need _help,"_ Rob said, exhaling a pent-up breath between pursed lips. "You don't _want_ help, but you _need_ it. You just don't want to admit it. That's the whole reason why you got mad at me after we got home from the doctor's office. You didn't want to admit a flaw you had because you don't want anyone to think you've got a weakness. You've _always_ been like that, Bart, and you always _will_ be if you don't get that through your thick skull."

Sighing, Rob stepped forward and set a hand on Bart's shoulder. He offered a reassuring squeeze before turning and heading for the doorway.

"You need anything while I'm gone?" Rob asked.

"No," Bart said. "Thanks anyway."

"Think about what I said, Bart. Let me help you. There's no point in me being here if you don't."

With one last look at Bart, Rob turned and left the room.

A moment later, a pair of keys jingled and the front door shut.

Content to be alone for the next ten, possibly fifteen minutes, Bart spread out along the bed and closed his eyes.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't help but hear the beat of his heart.

* * *

Lying between states of consciousness, unsure whether or not the events taking place around him were actually real, Bart watched nature bloom within the very room he now rested in. Above him, butterflies twisted and danced as they would in the mid-afternoon sun; at his side, a flower bloomed, revealing its virgin surface to a stray hummingbird that flew through the gap in his open window; around his neck, a snake the color of coral in the Pacific ocean coiled around his neck, then flicked the stubble on his chin with a long, forked tongue. The white-tiled ceiling cracked as vines broke through its surface. Windowpanes rusted, exploding outward as seeds expanded, then grew into trees. Carpet surrendered to mold and light fixtures became the homes of spiders, who laughed with bitter humor as they spun their prey in webs.

Within this bizarre, surrealistic evolution only possible in his mind, Bart could do little other than watch as his world caved in around him. The organic destroyed the manmade, the wild consumed the tamed and the light turned to darkness, offering solace only in the surface of a pair of eyes resting near where the clothes closet would have once been. Occasionally, this light would go dead, then reopen as though blinking into existence. Black holes within their confines designated them as pupils, but from what, Bart couldn't possibly imagine.

Swallowing a lump in his throat, he took a deep breath and pushed himself up against the bed's massive headrest. He recoiled almost immediately. Slime slicked its surface, drooling on the tattered remains of the T-shirt that used to cover his back.

A deep, throaty growl sounded from the far side of the room.

The eyes rose, shook side-to-side three times, then paced forward.

Somewhere inside the apartment, a door clicked shut and something jingled.

Bart opened his eyes.

Oblivious to everything except the normality of his home, he sighed his relief and set his arm over his eyes.

_Thank God._

"Bart," Rob said, raising his voice over the roar of the air conditioner. "You awake?"

"I am now!" he called, lifting his arm from his head.

"Is everything all right?"

"Yeah. Had a bad dream, that's all."

"About what?"

_You don't want to know,_ he thought, rolling over and pushing himself out of bed. _Even I wish I didn't._

After taking one last, careful glance to make sure nothing was out of the ordinary, Bart ran a hand over his face and made his way out of the room. Upon his arrival, Rob looked up from his place at the kitchen, momentarily halting his work at unpacking the groceries to give him an unsure look.

"You sure you're okay, Bart?"

"I'm sure," he said, settling down at the kitchen table. "You want some help?"

"No. Don't worry about it."

"I'm really not."

Chuckling, he ran a hand through his greasy hair and cocked his head at his brother. A lone, paper bag with a single sheet of paper stapled to it sat among a menagerie of plastic, its presence so bold and obvious that it immediately caught his attention. For a short moment, he wondered what it could possibly be, then sighed when the realization came to mind.

"Bart?"

"Yeah."

"What's wrong?"

"I just saw the medicine."

"Well... yeah. That's the whole reason I left—to get your medicine."

"I forgot."

_Though I wish I hadn't._

How many people could honestly say they've woken up from one nightmare only to fall into another?

_Not many._

"Hey, Bart."

"Yeah?" he asked, blinking to clear the fog over his eyes.

"The pharmacist said to take these with food," Rob said, shaking the bottle of pills in his hand. "I'll make dinner after I unpack everything. That all right?"

"Yeah."

"Or we could order something."

"Whatever you want," Bart shrugged, turning his gaze toward his bedroom. "I don't care."

For a brief moment, Bart thought he saw a lion lingering in his bedroom doorway.

A moment later, he brushed it off as an illusion and tried to push it from his mind.

* * *

Dinner came quick and easy in the form of hamburger helper and French fries. Seated in the kitchen with a pair of sodas at their sides, Rob gingerly picked at his food with practiced but dignified table manners, while Bart could care less about how he held his fork or whether or not his elbows touched the table. It was the first time in days that he could eat semi-solid food. He'd either enjoy it or go without.

Brushing a bit of cheese sauce off of his chin, Bart reached for his soda, but not without taking a glance at the bottle of pills.

"Might as well take one now," Rob said, dabbing his face with a napkin. "You're halfway done anyway."

"What difference will it make if I take it nor or wait until I'm finished?"

"I don't know. It might be easier on your stomach if you let some food settle on top of it."

"I guess."

_Though I doubt it will make any difference,_ he thought, bowing his head to hide the smirk on his face.

Taking the bottle in hand, Bart unscrewed the plastic top and dumped a pill into his palm. Its shiny, reflective surface caught the light from the overhead bulb and shot it into his face, intensifying its color into a more sickly shade of red. Had someone spotted one on the street, they probably would have figured that someone dropped a piece of candy and thought nothing more of it. It seemed innocent enough—with its smooth surface and its small, almost-unreadable strand of numbers—but it didn't take a genius to discern that the power inside was most likely not sugar, pop rocks or any other powdery sweet.

If a child picked this up and ate it, he would most likely be dead within the hour.

"Something wrong?" Rob frowned.

"Nothing," Bart said, popping the pill in his mouth.

He took a swig of soda and closed his eyes.

Hopefully, this would solve most, if not all of his problems.

* * *

Over the next half-hour, an increasing sense of tension began to build within Bart's head. At first, it started with the slight, irritated feeling of having to listen to something that his brother was watching on TV, but it soon began to build. Laughter bothered him in ways pleasant things normally shouldn't. The rise and fall of sound on the TV stabbed needles into his eardrums. Warmth curdled in his chest, spreading into his muscles and heating at an alarming rate. Soon enough, life began to seem hopeless. He imagined the cancer spreading across his brain and taking hold of every concept of his reality, then envisioned the blood in his veins exploding out of his wrists, coating his brother's face and destroying the sense of dignity he had somehow managed to obtain.

Shortly thereafter, he started crying.

Somehow, he managed to keep the tears hidden from Rob, even when he turned to comment on something that had just happened in the program.

_What the hell's going on?_ he thought, standing, making his way out into the kitchen. _Why the hell do I feel like this?_

Halfway toward his destination, Bart stopped.

He took a breath, then expelled it.

Something slammed into his chest.

Any trace of air inside his lungs left in one single, mighty exhale.

"Bart?" Rob asked. "Is everything all right?"

_I,_ he started, but couldn't speak.

He took a deep breath.

What felt like a needle stabbed into his heart.

"Ah.... I," he managed.

"Bart?"

"Cah-Can't.... bru-breathe..."

Rob threw himself from his place in the recliner. He caught Bart just before he could collapse.

"Bart!" Rob cried, struggling to bear his brother's substantial weight. "What's wrong? Bart! What's..."

"Huh-Heart. Cah-Cahn't... need... ah-ahm-beuh-lance."

"It's okay, Bart," Rob said, dragging him into the bedroom and pushing him onto the bed. "Everything's going to be fine. Don't worry."

"Guh-Go..."

Rob needed no further encouragement.

He was out of the room before Bart could even begin to finish.

Fighting to regain control of his body but unable to control his breathing in the process, Bart began to panic. What little breath he managed to gain was exhaled a moment later, pushed away in order to make room for new oxygen.

His breathing rampant, his lungs gasping for oxygen, Bart's fingers began to curl.

His feet went numb a moment later.

"Ruh-Rob," he gasped, desperate to raise his voice over the roar inside his head.

The sound of Rob's voice floated into the room. No more than a whisper, Bart could only make out parts of the conversation.

_Apartment... room thirty-seven... brother... heart attack... cancer..._

A convulsion seized Bart's body.

His head came up, then slammed onto the corner of the nightstand.

Blood trickled into his ear.

A flicker of shadow crossed his vision.

In the center of the ceiling, a light appeared, then began to expand.

As though pushing the ceiling apart in order to make room for its presence, the sky came into view in less than a minute.

Clouds parted.

One fine ray of light shot from the sky and lit the surface of his face. Around it, darkness began to cloud his world.

_Is this it?_ Bart thought. _Is it the end?_

A figure of light appeared above him.

_Everything's going to be fine,_ the voice said, taking hold of his face. _Don't worry, Bart. I'll take care of you._

"Take... care... of me," he whispered, closing his eyes.

A part of him shifted.

Though his eyes were closed, the world brightened.

All his worries were gone.

He was free.

* * *

"This is DJ Skippy at twelve o'clock Friday morning. Who's calling?"

"Charles."

"Hello, Charles. Or can I call you Charley?"

"Charley's fine."

"All right. What may I play for you today, sir?"

"Actually... I wanted to talk about something, if that's okay."

"Got nothin' better to do. What's on your mind?"

"I... Well... I... Sorry."

"Something on your mind, kid?"

"I just found out a friend of mine died."

"Oh. Damn, Charley—I'm sorry bro."

"It's okay. Thanks."

"Was this a good friend of yours?"

"I hardly knew him, but... yeah. I guess you could say he was a good friend."

"What was his name?"

"Bart."

"Ah. Bart. Good name."

"He sat with me in the hospital after I had my eye surgery, when I couldn't see anything."

"Sounds like a good friend."

"Yeah... he was. Skippy? Can I ask you something?"

"Go for it."

"I'm scared."

"Of what?"

"Of what happens after someone dies."

"I'm not sure what to tell you, Charley, but I can tell you this—you've heard me say it before, and you'll hear me say it for as long as I live: life goes on."

"How does it go on after you die?"

"We all live on in some way, Charley. You know how?"

"No."

"As long as you're alive, and as long as you remember what Bart did for you while you were in the hospital, he'll never die. Sure—a memory may not be the real thing, but it's as close as you can get, right?"

"I... I guess."

"You gonna be okay, Charley?"

"Yeah—I'll... I'll be fine. Thanks, Skippy."

"No need to thank me, kid. Just remember what I said. Life goes on."

# Jade

Barry Jackson knew nothing of the power of glass until he stared into a mannequin's eyes. Though their fine marble and their exquisite, exotic colors had always attracted his attention from a distance, it wasn't until he'd stepped forward and truly examined their depths that he began to realize something more existed inside the blocks of clay. While a woman's curves could exist on the mantle of their chest, or a man's muscles on the face of their stomach, nothing could compare to a mannequin's eyes.

_Jade green,_ he thought, resisting the urge to reach up and stroke the creation's face. _That's the color of your eyes._

Had he not worked in an art department that required their workers to know specific colors, he would never have guessed the word jade would have been involved in said mannequin's name. Jade—the word alone summoned grand images in his mind. Riches, royalty, fame, power; all reminded him of the color, all spoke of the word.

"Barry."

He stole a glance over his shoulder. His wife—a thirty-something by the name Delilah—stood with a hand on her hip, concerned yet wary eyes darting from her husband to the mannequin he had so closely examined.

"What?" he asked.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking at her eyes," he said, taking a few steps back.

"Why? Is there something wrong with them?"

"I didn't know they made mannequins with glass eyes."

"Well, of course they do," Delilah laughed. "How else do they keep people from stealing them?"

_Who would want to steal a mannequin?_

While he'd indulged in the occasional fetish, he'd never gone so far as to steal a block of clay.

"Come on, let's keep going."

"All right," Barry said.

Before they could get too far, he turned to look back at the mannequin, wondering when he would see her again.

* * *

They returned home with four armloads of bags. While most of their contents consisted of shoes, makeup and sunglasses, he'd managed to sneak in a pair of loafers and a new bathrobe.

"Aww, Barry!" Delilah crowed, pulling the bathrobe with its fresh fourteen-ninety-nine tag from one bag. "I already bought us his and hers!"

_In pink,_ he thought, making sure to conceal his smirk with a look of utter surprise. "Oh? You did? When?"

_"Valentine's Day."_

Maybe he wouldn't have forgotten if she'd bought something see-through...

"Sorry," he frowned.

"Don't worry about it. At least now you'll have an extra if something happens to your new one."

How his wife could call something three months old 'new' he didn't know, but Barry nodded and decided not to argue.

"I might go back up there tomorrow," he said. "I wanted to look at the electronics."

"Didn't you look while we were there?"

"No. I was too busy carrying your shoes, remember?"

"Oh, all right. Just shut up about the shoes."

And before his eyes, his wife began to unload them.

One pair, two pairs, three pairs, four...

* * *

The following day, a security guard caught him eyeing the mannequin he'd secretly come to know as Jade.

"Excuse me," the man said, taking a few steps forward. He made sure to keep his hand near his side, where a police-styled baton dangled from his belt. "Can I help you, sir?"

"Uh... no," Barry smiled. As always, one side of his lip curled too low, the other too high. It always seemed to happen when he got nervous. Then, to make up for his embarrassing—if somewhat odd—action, he turned, pointed at her eyes, and said, "I didn't know they made them with glass eyes."

"Oh?" The security guard approached the mannequin, as if confirming what Barry had just stated. "Well, I'll be damned—they are glass."

"I just thought that was weird."

"You afraid of mannequins, captain?" the guard grinned.

"No. Why? Are you?"

"I worked security in the clothing department for three years. Needless to say, I got used to them."

Barry glanced at the mannequin, tightened his hold on the bag that held a new rechargeable battery dock, then took a few steps back.

"Sorry to bother you," he said, reaching out to shake the man's hand. "Have a nice day, mister..."

"Jackson," he smiled.

* * *

On the third day, he left the house to 'pick up dinner,' as he wrote on a post-it. While he planned to pick up dinner—specifically a tub of chicken—he also planned to swing by the mall.

Taking the long way around the parking lot, he entered the building from the side, as to not meet the previous day's security guard. He figured that, if anything, he'd see another, but not the same one. Yesterday's encounter had stretched his comfort zone more than he liked.

_She's not too far away._

He rounded the corner and came face-to-face with her almost immediately. Jade—the beauty with royal green eyes and striking, well-cut black hair—stared at him, one hand extended.

Hadn't that same hand been on her hip yesterday?

_Something,_ he thought, swallowing a lump in his throat.

For reasons he couldn't understand, he couldn't finish the thought. So, instead of dwelling on it, he reached for the mannequin, setting a thumb on her colorless lips while the rest of his hand lay against her cheek.

"I came here," he said, "just to see you."

At that moment, Jade smiled.

Barry found something he'd always been missing in his life.

* * *

"Barry... _Baaareeeey..._ Barry!"

The third, sharper enunciation shocked him out of his thoughts. He sat in front of his computer, scanning the homepage of a young woman who just happened to make mannequins, one with glass eyes.

"What?" he asked.

"What are you doing?"

"Clicked the wrong thing," he grumbled.

Carefully, as to not alert his computer-illiterate wife to something suspicious, he clicked the menus button, then trailed the mouse down and closed a news window he had also opened. Since Delilah knew nothing about computers, she would assume he had closed the page and nothing more.

"I still think they're creepy," she muttered, setting a hand on his shoulder. "Thanks for going and getting supper."

"Yeah," he muttered. "No problem."

Delilah leaned down, kissed his cheek, and muttered something about getting off the computer to watch some TV. _Quality_ and _time_ were the only words that really stuck out.

_Quality time._

After taking a moment to digest the words, he clicked the page he'd hidden from his wife and stared at a mannequin, one that looked just like Jade.

* * *

Wax dolls filled his dreams. They lined the streets, melted on tanning chairs—complete with reflective tinfoil—and browsed the makeup aisle at the local convenience store. One particular mannequin—the slim, trim-haired beauty Barry had come to fancy—turned and winked at him, gesturing him forward with the tip of her finger.

A nearby thermometer read one-hundred-and-twenty-degrees.

Maybe that was why her lips were melting off her face.

* * *

Panic thrummed his heart, playing chords in his lungs. His chest—the resonant cavity of a greater human instrument—heaved, expelling notes that ranged from low, desperate exhales to harsh, sharp inhales.

The one and only thing that entered his mind at that point could only be found at the mall.

As carefully as he could, he slid out of bed, dressed from the waist down, then snuck into the hall. There, he closed the door to the slightest crack and made his way down the corridor. He grabbed a hoodie, pulled it over his head, and grabbed his keys, not even bothering to swipe the wallet that lay on top of the microwave.

For several long, almost painful minutes, he navigated the streetlamp-lit street, hardly able to believe that such hues of orange could actually exist. The road swarmed with shadows smaller than his thumbnail. Bugs, most likely mosquitoes, ranging in the hundreds to hundred-thousands, danced beneath the halos, waiting for their winged god to bestow upon them their final feast.

Barry pulled into the parking lot closest to where Jade most likely stood, slid the crowbar out from under the seat, and held it close to his side. He didn't bother to disengage the vehicle, nor did he plan to lock it. Let some ghetto kid pimp his ride—he sure as hell didn't care.

He stopped at the door, considered his situation, then realized he had nothing to worry about.

Jade was waiting for him.

Taking the chance he'd been waiting for the past few days, Barry closed his eyes and thrust the crowbar back over his shoulder.

The display window shattered just as easily as he thought.

_Jade._

Nothing else mattered, nothing more than the mannequin. An automaton, long since hidden in the evolved depths of human consciousness, opened. Gears shifted, cords rearranged, strings replaced—single, sole instinct now overrode unnatural though.

In the end, instinct had—and always would—matter above all else.

At the end of the long hall, a single, possibly schizophrenic light cradled her in faint yellow.

She stood, waiting.

No words could describe the way he felt.

The ache, the need, the want—all coexisted, together, as one.

Closing his eyes, he stepped forward.

The mall darkened.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

And outside, roughly a mile-and-a-half away, Delilah Jackson woke to discover her husband was no longer asleep beside her.

# Animals

"Are they still here?" Tricia asked.

"Yes," Clive said. "They are."

From their place within the kitchen, in which they were shrouded from view by black curtains, they watched the moonbeam eyes pierce through the darkness and light their world whole. Even from such a vast distance they could be seen—watching, waiting, salivating. They'd been here for a week now and so far showed no signs of going back.

Directly opposite of Clive stood Tricia, his wife. Arms crossed over her chest and face painted in a mixture of pain, she locked her eyes on the furthest window on Clive's side of the room and let out a sigh that made the hairs on Clive's arms stand on end.

_Poor Tricia,_ he thought.

It was no secret that she was troubled, as in her eyes was an expression that made Clive feel weak—nothing like the strong man whom, on the second night, had boarded up their doors and tried to do the same was their windows. To know the animals were still there created an apprehension that rang in tunes of his shivers and sighs. To actually _see_ that they were still watching, though—that was a monstrosity that sucked all happiness from life and all sense of security from his heart.

"Have you checked on the baby tonight?" Tricia asked.

"I haven't," Clive said, only managing to tear his eyes away from the window when his wife spoke. "Do you want me to?"

"No. I'll go do it."

"All right."

Clive watched his wife flee the kitchen in but a few short steps until she disappeared down the hall off the living room—to the room he, she and their son had been sleeping for the past week. He heard first the doorknob clicking, then the door opening, groaning in anticipation. Shortly thereafter, the bedroom door was closed and their connection once more broken.

_If only I could do something._

To think that he could do _anything_ right now was ridiculous, preposterous to the point where he might as well open the door and invite the things outside in for tea. His gun had been loaded, his bullet set, his sights locked in, and when tasked to bring down one of the creatures he found he could do nothing—that, somehow, someway, they were invulnerable to such displays of violence. Coming to that conclusion would have made any man break, Clive felt, especially a man who had a family.

"And a baby boy," he mumbled.

Blinking, he looked up and at the window nearby to find that the eyes had moved forward a few steps. No longer did they appear to be across the backyard and in the woods. Now, it seemed, they were on the freshly-mowed grass, attempting to slink forward and once again asked to be let in.

_No. Don't think about that._

First the doorknob began to tremble, its light brass construct clicking like a dog's untrimmed nails, then the knocking began anew. It came once, then twice, a third then a fourth, each in a soft pitch that would have been similar to a child knocking upon the door. The fifth and sixth, however, were much more violent, and when it stopped only to begin anew again, Clive hugged himself and took several steps back.

_They always do it three times,_ he reminded himself. _Only three times._

It was one to six a second time, each in low pitch, then again, this time in a fevered monotone that Clive felt for a moment might break the door down. He had to keep inspiring the urge to realize that whatever these things outside were couldn't get into the house, especially not since he'd boarded the front door up so well.

"If only you would leave," Clive whispered.

When the third and final set of six knocks ended, he turned and began to make his way into the living room.

Before he could reach the hallway, he stopped to look back into the window.

One of the animals stood just outside the window, its bright, moonbeam eyes staring in at things it could not see.

* * *

In the quiet sanctuary of their bedroom, Tricia watched as on the TV the news anchor continued to talk. "There are no confirmed reports," this man said, "as to why the world has gone dark, nor have there been any breakthroughs in determining just what these creatures are."

"Why are you watching that?" Clive asked, careful to close the door as softly as possible as to not wake the baby.

"There might be news," Tricia said.

"There _might_ be?"

Tricia ignored his comment. Instead, she turned the television set up a few decibels and leaned forward, one hand poised on the cradle beside the bed and the other wrapped around the remote control.

_They're never going to tell us anything new,_ Clive thought, _because there_ isn't _going to be anything new. It's not even worth—_

"And now," the anchorman said, "we turn our attention to Natalie Crimcraw, professor of biology at the University of Texas in Austin. Tell us, Natalie—what exactly are the things we're dealing with?"

"Well, Brandon," Natalie said, adjusting what had to be on the shelf in front of her the light she was using to make her presence known. "As you and most of the continental United States already know, we have been dealing with the creatures we are simply referring to as 'Animals' for the past week now."

"Is there any word on what exactly they are?"

"Confirmed reports of individuals who have been in close proximity of the creatures say that they are tall, about six to seven-feet in height, and that they resemble something of an upright-walking canine—most specifically, a jackal."

"Can you confirm whether or not we are dealing with a terrestrial, or Earthly, threat?"

"I cannot confirm that," Natalie said.

"They don't even know what the fuck they're talking about," Clive said, settling down on the bed beside his wife before reaching forward to attempt and take the remote from her hand. When Tricia pulled away, he exhaled through his teeth and shook his head. "They think we're dealing with aliens."

"What do _you_ think they are?" Tricia asked.

"I... I don't know. Animals, maybe, but—"

"But what?"

"I don't know what to tell you, hon. All I know is that we're dealing with something bad."

"At least the power is on," Tricia sighed. "At least we don't have to worry about being in complete darkness."

_Not for now,_ Clive thought. _Maybe later, but—_

Their son began to stir in his cradle.

"Shh, shh, shh," Tricia said, lifting the baby into her arms and holding him against her chest. "It's okay, Colton."

"We still have formula for him, right? We don't have to worry about him going hungry?"

"I would go hungry long before I even considered letting him."

Nodding, Clive reached over, cupped the back of his baby son's head in the palm of his hand, then looked up—where, on the screen, the anchorman had switched cameras to display the station's expansive back parking lot. Distantly, eyes could be seen piercing through the darkness, though unlike in the real world, these appeared green, an aftereffect of a night-vision security camera.

"We shouldn't be watching this," Clive said once more.

"But," Tricia started. "Clive, shouldn't we—"

Clive pushed the POWER button on the remote before his wife could finish. "We should sleep," he said. "Besides—the white noise might be bothering him."

_You pansy-ass pussy,_ he thought. _Why not tell her the truth and let her know what you're_ really _worried about?_

To state that he was afraid electronic equipment might draw the animals was to instill within his wife a sense of dread that, as of now, lay restrained only to him. His panic was enough—a beast rolled up in a cage, it could be said—but his wife, who bore not only the difficulty of wondering if her distant family was safe, but also the burden of a child still breastfeeding? He wasn't sure just how she was getting along, but by God was she a strong woman.

_Exactly what I married her for,_ he thought, then reached forward to push her dark hair away from her high cheekbones.

In the brief moments of silence that followed, Clive stood, pulled the comforter hanging over the single computer chair in his wife's bedroom-slash-office into his arms, and brought it back to the bed.

Tricia pushed the cradle a few short inches away.

Clive threw the blanket over the bed.

In his cradle, Colton slept.

When he and his wife crawled into bed together, Clive prayed for safety.

_Please God,_ he thought. _Let us all be all right._

* * *

He was pulled from bed by the gravitational force of curiosity later that night. Having just risen from a troubled sleep in which he'd tossed and turned, Clive crawled from beneath the covers and began to make way towardthe far corner, where the stairs leading up to the second floor stood.

_What the hell are you doing?_ he thought, still inching forward without much conscience.

Of course, had he been honest with himself, he would have said that he was going upstairs—to where, in the bedroom off the hallway above, the windows looked out at the forest, providing ample opportunity for him to see what these things truly were.

At the top of the stairs, he paused, craned his head back to make sure his wife had not followed, then paced the few feet to the end of the hallway before letting himself into the guest bedroom.

Once inside, he was perpetually frozen by terror.

_You work up the gall to come up here only to stop halfway? What the fuck are you doing, Clive? Get a hold of yourself._

"I am," he whispered. "I have."

The looming series of windows encompassing the northern half of the room stood tall and gargantuan, their curtains only partially closed and their surfaces marred by rainwater. Here they waited for his approach—beckoning him with kind, simple eyes—and here they would stand the test of time until he stepped forward to look out their surfaces.

Only one thought struck him in the moments leading up to what would soon be his first true revelation.

_Do I really want to do this?_

Would by looking out the window he risk not only himself, but his family? Unable to know, and not willing to risk remaining ignorant, Clive stood proud, took a long, deep breath, then began to step forward, all the while staying to his left in order to conceal his presence.

He reached the side of the room.

His heart beat a thousand times in more and his chest.

_By God,_ he thought. _Am I going to have a heart attack?_

Rather than risk the implications, Clive leaned forward, took the curtain in hand, then pulled it slightly away.

Below, they lurked—not in the thicket of trees, as he'd imagined they would, but out in the cold and open.

Clive braced himself for the revelation that was to come.

When it finally struck him, his sense of reality was lost.

They resembled something like jackals stripped of their coats and allowed to roll carelessly in the dirt. Tall, emaciated, with a pair of glowing white eyes that pierced through the darkness—they walked hunchbacked and without care, as though hunting for something he could not see. Perhaps their most terrifying feature, however, past their smiling, open mouths and their devilish rows of crocodile-like teeth, were their hands. They were not paws, as many would have expected, but were instead a series of five fingers, which were carried limp-wristed with their sickly claws hanging toward the ground.

In standing there, hidden to the world and the monsters it offered, Clive could barely believe his eyes.

_They're,_ he thought, then swallowed a lump in his throat.

His hold on the curtain shifted.

The three animals who'd been stalking together turned their eyes up.

Their stares instantly stabbed daggers in his heart.

_Did they see me?_ he thought, attempting to breathe whilst trying not to panic. _Did they? Did—_

The things below began to make a grating, chuckling noise, a sound which could have been compared to a lifelong smoker's laugh.

After taking a few steps back, Clive was finally able to gain the breath he'd been so desperate to inhale.

_They didn't see me,_ he decided, nodding, if only to give himself better support. _They just saw the curtain move. That's all._

That, however, did not answer the question that rang clear in his mind.

Could they determine the movement of objects within a dwelling, and therefor deduce that someone was inside?

Trembling, Clive turned, wrapped his hand around the doorknob, then let himself out of the room.

A few short minutes later, he crawled back into bed beside his wife and closed his eyes.

No matter how warm it was beneath the covers, he couldn't help but feel cold.

* * *

It was seven AM and there was still no light. A thought unwelcome, a burden all but carried, Clive opened his eyes to find that the nightlight in the corner of the room—which, until just now, had been dead—had miraculously come back to life.

_What did you expect?_ Clive thought at the notion of light and what all it met. _Sunshine? Maybe even a rainbow?_

At his side, Tricia slept peacefully, her arm sprawled out, her body cupped in his. Directly opposite him their baby son continued to sleep without a care in the world—Colton's light, almost-inaudible snores a chorus to the peace Clive felt within this very house. It was enough, for just one brief moment, to make him disregard the world that existed outside—that the monsters, so frail and old, had all but disappeared. Unlike miracles, however, and unlike the sweeping hand of God coming forth to push all the sand away, that feeling soon disappeared. With its absence came a sense of apprehension that seemed tangible enough to cut with a knife.

Guided only by the nightlight in the corner of the room, Clive threw his legs off the bed, rose, then began to make his way out into the living room, dressed in only a pair of boxers and a short-sleeved shirt.

_So cold,_ he thought. _So very, very cold._

Near the threshold that opened into the living room, he stopped to consider what it was he was actually doing. There, between two walls and the entrance to a gateway called hell, he contemplated whether or not it was worth going out into the kitchen to make him and his wife something to eat, as no more than a few feet outside the animals would be watching. While that notion was all but clear, it did little to disarm the hunger that snaked through his stomach, wrapping about his gut and creating an almost-unbearable tightness.

With little more than a sigh, Clive took his first step out into the living room.

He turned to look at the windows.

He braced himself for what was to come.

He saw, distantly, the moonbeam reflections piercing in through the windows—watching, waiting, hunting.

_Don't worry. You've got a four-inch wooden door between you and them._

Added to that realization were a series of several wooden two-by-fours—which, in their current state, made the entryway resemble something of a final threshold between them and death.

"You're getting yourself in over your head," he whispered. "Stop."

While most thought ceased to exist, the cat-shaped clock hanging above the stove continued to tick—tail switching, sound egressing. Each individual vibration that came from its insides sent trembles of unease throughout his heart. _Hello,_ it would have said as it looked down at him, its bobble-head eyes jumping up and down, left to right. _Come to get yourself something to eat there, Clive boy? Well, let me tell you something, good sir—you are quite the work of art, coming out here all by yourself. But you're not alone. You know you're not._

Of course he wasn't. _No one_ was alone in this world—not anymore, not after this... _calamity_.

Rather than succumb to the devils of insanity, Clive decided to partake in the pleasures of the human landscape before him. He crossed the threshold and opened the fridge to find the remnants of last night's chicken noodle soup.

_Can't eat it warm,_ he thought, then sighed, pulling the pot from its place inside the refrigerator.

Oh well. He could care less whether or not his food was warm. The fact that they had food was enough to put him at ease.

While he poured himself a small bowl of soup, taking care not to give himself too much for fear that he would deprive his wife and infant son of nourishment, he tried to keep his focus on his food rather than on the window at their side. That, however, was impossible. It seemed that their presence alone was mandated, and no matter how hard he tried to keep from looking out the corner of his eye, his peripheral vision continued to send shards of reality into his brain, directly connecting to the optic nerves in his head a horrible image of something standing directly outside the window.

_No._

"No," he said.

The doorknob began to jingle on the opposite side of the room.

_I think it's time to leave now,_ he thought, taking several steps back.

"Clive?" Tricia asked.

Something bumped into him.

Clive released his hold on the bowl.

It fell, then, upon impact, shattered.

A chorus of laughter began outside the house.

"Is that... _them?"_ Tricia asked, beginning to retreat back toward the hall as the doorknob continued to jingle with increased intensity.

"That's them," Clive replied. He pushed a hand back to position his wife behind him. "Stay back, Tricia."

"But—"

A heightened pitch of laughter began once more.

In the bedroom, the baby began to cry.

_Fuck._

"Go get him," Clive said.

"What are you—"

"Just go get him!" he hissed, turning, then taking her by the shoulders. "He can't keep crying. They'll hear him."

"I know, but—"

"Go, Tricia! I'll make sure the two of you are safe."

Tricia turned and bounded down the hallway without a word in response.

Clive paced his way to the couch.

The laughter continued. The cat clock clicked. The doorknob jingled.

At the loveseat, Clive bent down, took several deep breath, then began to pull the cushions from their place.

_Come on. Come on! Where the fuck are you?_

The rifle, complete with its trigger locked, came into view a short moment later.

Clive grabbed the gun.

Something began to pound against the door.

"Clive!" Tricia called out.

"Stay there!" Clive called back, taking the gun into his hand and removing the lock in but a few short moments. "I've got the gun!"

"Are you sure it won't—"

A bought of laughter so loud it drowned out Tricia's voice echoed throughout the house.

_Please God,_ he thought, pulling the fully-loaded cartridge out to check it one final time. _Please, just let me protect my wife, my son. Grant me the strength to—_

All sound disappeared instantaneously.

Trembling, Clive pushed the cartridge back into place and checked the chamber to make sure there was a bullet in it.

_Thank God._

Raising the gun, Clive trained it on the door and waited for something to happen.

Outside, the creatures continued to shift back and forth along the windows, their glowing eyes the only presence that he could see.

"Clive?" Tricia asked.

Clive lifted his head, looked down the crosshairs, then shook his head, lowering the head of the rifle to the floor before raising a hand to keep her in place.

_If they break in,_ his conscience said, _there's nowhere for them to run._

_Maybe they should go upstairs,_ Clive thought. _Maybe if they were up there I wouldn't have to worry about—_

The doorknob began to jingle again.

"Tricia," Clive said, raising his voice as the knocks began anew. "Take the baby and go upstairs. You'll be safer there."

"But what about—"

"I'll come when I make sure we're safe."

Tricia said nothing. Instead, she lifted the baby into her arms, walked carefully out into the hallway, then stood directly beside him, where she waited but a moment to kiss his cheek before turning and making her way up the stairs.

_Please don't let anything happen,_ he thought. _Please, God, don't let my family die. Kill me if you want, but don't let my wife or my baby suffer._

As had happened before, all sound ceased to exist.

Outside, the creatures laughed.

Their eyes, once pressed close to the window, began to retreat back through the yard, into the tree line where nothing could be seen.

Clive sighed, took a deep breath, then expelled it before turning and making his way upstairs.

Only one thought ran through his mind.

They were safe for one more night.

* * *

In the upstairs master bedroom—where, in past days, he had come to view the progress of the animals outside—Clive pulled the curtains across the window and fell to his knees. Exhausted not from lack of sleep or a slight of his body, but the emotional possibility of death, he allowed the gun to slide from his grasp and onto the floor—where, once flat on the ground, he pushed it up against the wall until he felt the distance between it and everything else in the room appropriate.

"Are you all right?" Tricia asked.

Clive didn't respond. It wasn't that he didn't _want_ to so much as it was he _couldn't,_ but to know that he was so mortified that he could not speak stirred tears from his eyes.

_Am I_ all right? Clive thought, staring at the carpeting below the window.

What could he say to such a question? Could he lie, grieve, mourn, rant and scream at the top of his voice despite the animals outside that he was _not_ all right, that he was _not_ okay? To do anything would possibly cost him everything. His wife, his life, his son—just _what_ was he supposed to do in the aftermath of such a horrendous moment without breaking down?

_You're stronger than that, Clive. Get a hold of yourself._

"Clive?" Tricia asked. "Are you okay?"

"Not really," he managed, "but at least the two of you aren't dead."

Rising, Clive turned and took the few short steps it took to get to the bed. Once there, he sat down, sighed, then reached up to run a hand through his unruly hair.

"You really thought they were going to get in that time," Tricia said, "didn't you?"

"I don't know what to think, Tricia. They're... they're just..."

"There?"

"Yeah. _There."_

"I'm fairly sure we're safe in this house, Clive. I mean, look at what all you've done—you've boarded up the front and back door and moved us into a room invisible to them."

"I hope to God that's the truth."

"I guess," Tricia said, crossing her arms over her chest, "we have to decide something, here and now."

"What would that be?"

"What we're going to do if they break in."

The silence that followed played a cruel symphony. A broken harp, a withering cello, a series of whistles sung from a crystal flute whose surface had been cracked time and time again—the wind whipped around the house and screamed hellfire at their plight and the sound of Colton's breathing drew cold the reality in plain and bold colors. It was in these moments, during which time not a soul or a monster spoke, that Clive looked into Tricia's eyes—that, within their blue surfaces, he saw the weight of the world and then some, a warm blue planet that had since been shadowed over by darkness.

_Okay,_ he thought. _What're we going to do about this?_

"What do you mean?" Clive finally asked.

_"What we're going to do,"_ Tricia said.

"I get that, but..."

"But... what, Clive?"

"I'll shoot them if they come in."

"You know good and well that if those things get in we're all going to die."

"I won't let that happen."

"You're not a one man fighting machine."

_I'm not?_ he thought, then laughed before reaching up to paw at his face.

His laugh was not reciprocated.

"What do you suggest we do?" Clive asked.

"What I think we should do," Tricia said, "if in the event they get in—"

_She's playing with your head, Clive. She's trying to mess with your thoughts._

_No she isn't,_ he thought. _She would never—_

_Listen to what she's asking!_

"Clive?" Tricia said, raising her voice just slightly. "Clive, are you even listening to—"

_She wants to kill you. She wants to kill herself. And you know what's worse? She wants to kill your little boy._

_No she doesn't._

_Yes she does!_

_No she—_

The hand waving before his face brought him back to reality. "Clive," she said.

"Yuh-Yeah," he managed. "I'm here."

"Why aren't you listening to me?"

"I am listening to you."

"No you're not."

"Yes, I—"

"What did I just say then?"

Clive remained silent and merely stared as a dumbstruck smile crossed his wife's face.

"You weren't even listening to me," she said.

"Yes I was."

"Then what did I—"

"You're absolutely mad if you think I'd ever agree to anything like that."

"Anything like _what?"_

"I _would never_ hurt you or our son," Clive said, standing.

"Is it better to be torn apart," Tricia asked, "piece by little piece? And what about after we're dead? Huh? What do you think they'll do to us?"

"I don't know."

"You don't _know?"_ Tricia laughed. "Clive, you saw it on the news. You saw what they did with the _bodies."_

"That doesn't mean anything," Clive replied. "Just because we saw something on the news doesn't mean that—"

"They're harvesting us?"

_Harvesting?_ Clive frowned. _Why could she—_

The notion struck him shortly thereafter—when, upon staring in his wife's eyes, he realized the intent of her words. It'd been reported not too long ago that the animals dragged the people's bodies off into woods or heavily-concealed places of the land. What they did with them afterward was and would probably remain a mystery, but the series of lights usually accompanied by such 'stealing' gave life to a thought that many would rather have not had.

_To think,_ he mused, _that this would be the way it would happen._

"Our first contact," he whispered.

Tricia crossed her arms over her chest and let out a sigh. She stood there for several more moments, likely debating what Clive had said, before turning and making her way toward the door.

"Where are you going?" Clive asked.

"To get us something to eat," Tricia replied. "Crackers, at least."

"All right then."

At the door, Tricia paused. She turned first her attention to the baby lying on the bed, then to Clive before turning the doorknob and stepping out of the room.

When she closed the door behind her, Clive thought a part of him had died.

It was almost unbearable to think that his wife would really prefer death as a way out.

* * *

He lay in bed for a long while without the company of his wife. To his side the baby lay, wrapped in several layers of loose-fitting blankets, though what sounds Colton made were barely audible above the low hum that droned in Clive's ears. Where this sound was coming from he couldn't be sure, as no electronic devices existed within this room and no electricity was currently lighting any object.

_Tricia,_ he thought, then sighed, reaching forward to cup a single hand around their son's body.

How could she have been reduced to thinking such things—that she, as a mother, could kill her child; that he, as her husband, could then kill her; and then that he, as the only one left alive, could kill himself? Had she fallen so deep down the rabbit hole that she could not even dream of crawling back up, or was there something else at play here—something that, while weak to begin, had since festered and grown stronger?

_She wants release. You know that._

Humankind could succumb to such simple desires far too easily. To draw a blade, to wring a noose, to take a pill or to hold a gun to your head or chin or neck or heart and to pull from its interior a bullet that would open the portal to one world and close the other—it was said that men and women, as deeply-set into their evolution as a whole, harbored failures within their consciences that they could not control. It was not of the fox's intent to eat a number of pills, as with its curiosity it would find that such things tasted quite nasty, and it was not of the owl's good will that it would arrange from the arm of a tree a noose in which it could hang itself, as they believed such things to be too geometrical for their own intent. Animals, as a whole, did not harbor the regret that humankind felt. For that, it could be said, humans were weak—that, without purpose, they would simply collapse in on themselves. To know that reality was to expose a fallacy within all of humankind—to reveal in the flesh and blood the inner makings of what it was to be alive—and in that moment, while lying there next to his baby son, Clive began to understand slowly just why it was his wife would consider an easy way out.

_Is this what you really want?_ he thought. _For all this to go away?_

The door opened.

Clive pushed his elbow under him to prop himself up before turning to look at the open doorway. "Tricia?" he asked.

She gave a slight nod, then entered the bedroom, balancing on her arm a platter of various meats, cheeses and crackers. "I figured you hadn't eaten," she said.

"No," Clive said. "I haven't. Thank you."

"Clive," she sighed. "Can we talk about something?"

"We can," he said.

"I didn't mention what I did earlier to upset you, and before you say it, I know it doesn't change the fact that it did. However..."

_Always the key word,_ Clive thought.

"I'm just..."

"You can say what you want," Clive said. "I'm not stopping you."

"It's not you that's stopping me. It's... well... _me_ that's stopping me. And Colton. He's stopping me too."

"Say what you need to say, hon."

"I only mentioned suicide," she said, "because... I don't want anything to happen to any of us, especially not you or Colton."

"I feel the same way."

"So... you understand where I'm coming from, right?"

"Sort of," Clive said.

"Good." Tricia set the snack platter on the bed beside Colton before taking the baby into her arms. She watched for several minutes as Clive arranged and ate the crackers, meats and cheeses before she sighed and settled down on the bed beside him. "Clive."

"Yes?"

"The military might come."

"You think?"

"I think."

_We can only hope,_ Clive sighed. _We can only hope._

* * *

They were trying to get into the house again. This time, however, they had a plan.

"Clive," Tricia said. "What're we going to do?"

"I'm not sure," Clive said.

Along the walls they skittered, to the left and right they went, up and down they jumped and around the house they stalked.

_It's ok,_ he thought. _Deep breaths, deep breaths._

"One," he said. "Two... three..."

"Clive? Are you all right?"

"Ah-Asth-Mah."

Tricia ran to the doorway and let herself out before Clive could even attempt to say more.

_Don't worry. She's just going to get your inhaler. She's not going to do anything else._

Either way, the panic strumming through his heart was enough to make him pray for his life.

Tricia flew through the open door.

Clive jumped.

She thrust the inhaler into his hand and sighed as he took his first breath off it. "Thank God," she breathed.

"Thuh-Thank you," he managed, pounding his chest with the curve of his fist before taking another hit off the inhaler.

"I wasn't sure if I would find it."

"Well, you did. That's all that matters, right?"

Tricia nodded.

Outside, a chorus of chuckles went up into the air.

"What're we going to do if they get in?" Tricia asked.

"We have guns," he said.

"We've only got the—"

"Did you forget about the revolver?"

Tricia stared blankly, blinking every few minutes as if she were a doe caught in the light of an oncoming truck. "What?" she asked.

"I bought you that revolver for your birthday so that I wouldn't have to worry about you while I was on my trips."

"Do you think a revolver would... _kill_ them?"

"We can't say it won't if we haven't tried, right?"

"I guess."

Pocketing his inhaler, Clive stood and began to make his way for the door. "I'm going to go get the guns," he said. "Stay here."

"I will."

"If something happens, _do not_ come running for me. Push the vanity in front of the door and pray they don't find you."

"Oh God, oh God, oh God. I can't believe this is happening."

"Neither can I." He stepped forward and pressed a kiss against his wife's mouth before taking her hand and squeezing it. "I'll be back," he said.

Tricia nodded.

When he was sure that he need not worry about anything else, Clive exited the room, took the short route to the stairs, then began to descend them as quickly as he possibly could.

_God, please don't let anything happen to her or Colton. Please don't—_

A pair of moonbeam eyes stared directly at him the moment he stepped off the final stair.

For a moment he was paralyzed—frozen with fear over what stood before him—then he realized it was nothing more than a face pressed up against the window.

"Thank you, Lord."

Clive took off into the hallway that led to he and Tricia's room.

Inside, he pulled the bottom drawer in their cabinet open and began to fling clothes out of it as fast as he could.

_Where the fuck is it?_ he thought, fuming, his cheeks swelling with anger and his heart trembling with fear. _I know I put it in here. I_ know _it!_

A brush of something smooth came under his touch.

Clive threw the final item of clothing away.

Before him lay the revolver—old, cold, and filled with the five bullets its chamber allowed.

Reaching forward, he locked his hand around the grip and removed the weapon from its mortal prison.

Outside the room—in the dark place where nothing could be seen and where their hopes for the future lay in easy access—the sound of glass falling to the floor echoed throughout the house.

_No._

They'd never tried using the windows before, only doors. How could they have gotten in?

Standing, Clive opened the chamber, checked to ensure that all five bullets were inside, then flicked it back into place before pulling the hammer toward him.

The sound of glass being crushed entered his ears.

Clive took a step forward.

Revolver held before him, he braced himself for whatever was to come.

In but a moment, the creature stepped into view.

_Please,_ he thought, trembling, his arms shaking from the reality that they were no longer safe in their very own home. _Don't you hurt them. Don't you dare. They didn't do anything to you._

The animal stretched its elongated body out as high as it could—ribs contracting, emaciated form lengthening. With its hands and its head full of crocodilian teeth braced forward, it tilted its nose up and sniffed at the air before turning its head to look at him.

The moonbeam eyes shined directly into Clive's.

Momentarily blinded, he lifted his gun and held it steady before him.

When his vision finally began to clear, he saw that the animal was stepping forward—knee bent as its foot rose, then setting back into place when it fell once more.

_I can't believe it,_ Clive thought. _I can't fucking believe it._

Such a comical display should have only existed in a cartoon. It should have been chasing the roadrunner, he knew, down the road, across the deserts, over the seas, and despite that fact it continued forward, one leg up, then one leg down. Its eyes broadened and the scope of its moonbeams became so targeted that the hallway appeared lit in light, almost to the point where Clive felt blinded by the act alone.

"You can do this," he whispered. "You know you can."

The thing's mouth—which, up until now, had only been slightly revealed—opened to reveal the rows of needle-sharp teeth that existed between its jaws.

Clive raised the gun.

The animal laughed.

He fired.

The shot connected with the thing's head. Shot directly between the eyes, it could only stand there for but a moment before it fell to the floor—dead, it seemed, as no longer did it breathe or move.

Stepping forward, then around the body, Clive pushed his torso around the curve in the wall and looked out into the kitchen—where, directly before him, the door had been knocked from its hinges.

_The rifle,_ his conscience said. _Go._

With hate he could have never imagined, Clive stole across the room and threw himself to the sofa. There, he flung the cushions off the loveseat and grabbed desperately for the rifle lying just beneath his touch.

Something laughed from the doorway.

Clive raised his rifle and trained it directly on the creature. "Get away," he said. "Go. Now. You don't belong here."

The thing laughed before snapping its jaws together and stepping into the house.

Behind it, two more animals appeared, both in varying stages of height and hunger.

After shoving the barrel of the revolver into his pocket, Clive rose, made his way around the couch, then stood with his back to the stairway, taking extra care not to retreat too many steps back for fear of following and shooting himself.

The creatures advanced slowly, with the cunning intent of wolves who had just cornered in a thicket of trees the baby fawn. He would, he knew, not serve as an ample meal, as upon his frame was merely a thin layer of skin, but it was common knowledge that these things would do anything to get what they wanted, even if that meant killing him to get to his family.

Clive stepped back.

His foot hit the first step.

"Get away from here," Clive said, taking his first step up the stairway, hands braced along the rifle and eyes set directly ahead. "You don't want us."

The animal tilted its head to the side, then let out a brief chuckle, its sound deep but resembling something like that of a song bird. It raised its hands and sniffled the air once more before stopping in place.

As the two behind it stopped in turn, Clive took a deep breath.

_No._

The animals charged.

Clive shot.

The bullet tore through flesh and bone along the front creature's shoulder and sprayed its fellow companion in blood.

In but a few moments they would be upon him.

Reaching down, Clive took the revolver into his hand, set the hammer back into place, then screamed, _"Tricia! The gun!"_

Overhead, the door opened.

Clive threw the revolver up into the air and over the banister.

"Clive!" Tricia cried.

"GO!" he screamed. "GO, TRICIA! _GO!"_

The three animals broached the stairwell.

It took but a moment for Clive to realize his fate.

He was going to die—here, alone, at the foot of the stairs, with his wife and baby son no more than a few dozen feet away.

_God,_ he thought. _Use me as your vessel. Do what it is that needs to be done to keep my wife and son safe._

He fired a bullet.

One of the animals went down.

Another came in its place.

He fired again.

The weapon was knocked aside.

Yet another bullet was fired into the air before the rifle was torn from his grasp.

Clive could only watch as the creature pounced on him.

It sunk its claws in.

It bit into his neck.

Blood sprayed the air as his carotid artery was ripped from his body.

In the few brief moments at the end of his life, he thought of only one thing as he heard from upstairs a window being broken.

_She has the keys,_ he thought. _She can get away._

The last thought before his life ended was of his wife and child.

Tricia and Colton were safe.

# The Snake Woman

Beauty is a woman. In heels she's five-foot-seven, one-hundred-and-twenty-pounds, has long dark hair and occasionally likes to dress with winter in mind when it is, in fact, summer. She is so beautiful that at times those who stare at her are only able to marvel over her great ingenuity. She is the perfect human machine, the automaton of man's desire and the temptation of every poor boy's smile. She is, without a doubt, truly perfect, which is why on this night a man has stopped.

He pulls over to the side of the road in his yellow Lamborghini and admires her for what she is. She has no name—she never gives anyone a name—so she is simply called Beauty. Dark olive skin, almost the tone of sweet caramel; piercing green eyes, like the greatest emeralds upon the earth; shiny white teeth, cosmetic procedures and dental work—she is in his mind the conquest of the night. In his pocket he has the money to give out.

"Hey, doll," she says, leaning against the Lamborghini's yellow passenger seat door. "How are ya?"

"I'm ah-all ruh-right," the man inside says. "You?"

While he waits for her to answer, he stops to consider just who he truly is. He is young—nineteen, fresh out of high school and in community college, living the dream life of party and booze and sex and champagne: all on his daddy's money, no doubt. Were it not for the old man, he wouldn't have a thing, which is why in looking at her he can't help but wonder if his daddy will find out.

_Daddy doesn't know a thing,_ the man inside the yellow Lamborghini thinks. _He doesn't know a goddamn thing._

Beauty smiles, her faint dimples attractive even though she has likely had Botox injected her face to make them disappear. He doesn't care about that though—perfection is every man's interpretation, and tonight, he sees it in her eyes.

"I'm doing all right," Beauty says. She cranes her head in through the door and admires his skinny frame, the glasses on his face and the smatter of acne he's been unable to drive away from his chin. "You looking for some fun?"

"Yuh-Yes," he managed.

She smiles once more and he feels his heart drop a foot in his chest.

_Come on, you idiot. Do something already!_

He pulls the money out of the pocket and flashes it before her eyes, a poor whore's dime for new high-heeled shoes, and immediately her attention is drawn. It is as it always is with women like her, his daddy says—flash one-hundred and you can get her to do anything. Anything below that's just not worth it. Twenty for the hand, fifty for the mouth, seventy-five for both, but damn if you can't get pussy for one-hundred.

"Yuh-You wah-wanna?" the man in the Lamborghini asks.

"Sure," she says. "Where to?"

It is no more than several minutes later that they are in a dark alley rocking to the tune of each other's lust. Her on top, him on bottom; his shirt open, her in only her bra. He sucks at her nipples and moans as her sweet depths overwhelm him to the point where he feels as though he can go no more. He's hard, though—very, very hard—and he'll be damned if he shoots his load off in five seconds flat.

"Can we," he gasps, "get in buh-back?"

"I don't mind," she replies.

A short moment later her legs are over his shoulders and his hips are driving forth, a piston in the mighty machine of man's sex drive. She doesn't seem to moan, a fact that makes him a bit self-conscious, but it isn't how she's supposed to feel. No. It's how _he's_ feeling. He did, after all, pay one-hundred dollars to get laid. Screw the whore and what she wants. She obviously has better things to do.

_Or better men to do,_ he thinks.

He reaches the point of climax. Inside her silky depths, his cock throbs one long, hard time. He pulls it free in one swift move, pulls the rubber off and jacks three times—one, two, three, then comes.

"Wow," she says, idly sliding her fingers over her breasts. "Big one, wasn't it?"

"I guh-guess," he replies, then falls to his knees on the dividing cushion between the two back seats.

Beauty lies there while he recuperates from his struggle. His chest falling up and down, his eyes swollen and heavy, he reaches up to wipe the sweat from his forehead and only briefly turns to look at the woman he's just fucked before turning his eyes away.

_Wow,_ he thinks. _What a shitty way to spend a hundred._

He can't help it though. He hasn't been laid in weeks— _months_ if he wants to be honest with himself. How long can a man go with just his hand?

_Apparently not very long._

Chuckling, the man in the yellow Lamborghini pushes himself forward and begins to dress himself from the waist down. Beside him, Beauty begins to do the same.

After she's done dressing, Beauty counts the money he's laid out for her in five simple twenties. She does this with ease and grace, as if she's done it a thousand times and more—which, quite frankly, is quite possible, considering her profession, but it's not that that bothers him. It's the way she turns to look up at him that strikes fear within her heart.

"Wah-What?" he manages.

"You've shorted me."

"What?"

"Fifty. It's _one-fifty,_ not _one-hundred."_

"You stupid buh-bitch! Last I huh-heard, you were chuh-charging wah-one-huh-hundred."

"I've raised my prices since then."

"How was I suh-posed to nuh-know?"

"Look, Mr. Stutter-Mouth," she says, leaning forward until their faces are but a brief inch apart. "I'm not going to tell you twice. Give me the extra fifty and we can be done with this sad little story."

"Suh-Sad Story? Are you fucking mah-mad?"

"I've had better," Beauty smiles. "And bigger."

The urge to rant and rave and slap the shit out of her becomes great—so great, in fact, that it becomes a fireball in his chest, slowly contorting and manipulating into a deep and dark festering tumor that threatens to overwhelm the entirety of his being. _No one_ has made fun of his stuttering—and he means _no one_ —since school. It's an issue he's never been able to conquer even with speech therapy. Despite that nuisance, however, and the fact that he's more than angry, he has never hit a woman—never will, either, especially not after he'd seen what his parents have gone through.

Careful to tame the beast of anger inside his chest, he lets out a slight sigh, then says, "I don't have the extra fifty."

Beauty's eyes shift in the darkness. "Then I guess I'll take it out on you," she says.

Her mouth parts into a smile.

Her fang teeth lengthen.

The man in the yellow Lamborghini stares in horror.

Beauty's eyes no longer have pupils. Instead, they have slits—cold, dark slits, just like her tongue is when it comes free from her mouth and dances before his eyes in one single, double-pronged tip.

The man in the yellow Lamborghini lashes out with his foot.

He strikes her in the chest.

She sails, backward, into the other side of the car just in time for the skin on her arms to raise into solid, green points—scales, he can see, the color of her eyes.

_Oh no,_ he thinks. _Oh fucking no._

This can't be happening. Surely it can't be—

But it is. He realizes that just as she throws herself forward once more.

He draws his arms up and over his face just in time for her fangs to come sliding down into his biceps.

He screams. She laughs.

The car vibrates as if they are still making love.

To the outside spectator, one might have expected that the occupants inside the car are doing something wrong—horribly, horribly wrong, something that would get them thrown in jail if they were caught. The real truth, however, is much more sinister, and as she continues to assault him he tries to cry out feebly for help. _She's killing me!_ he wants to scream. _She's fucking killing me!_ But so great is his terror that even his poor, stuttering self can't get a word from his throat.

Inside the vehicle, he learns that if he does not fight he will surely die, and for that he lashes out. He grabs her neck in both hands and begins to choke her—violently, attempting to cut off her flow of air so at least she'll pass out and maybe allow him to back out of the alley and throw her out so he can leave—but he's forgotten how long it takes the human body to pass out from lack of oxygen. Is it one minute, two, three, maybe four? He knows six is brain damage, at least in humans, but if this thing, this _beauty_ is what he thinks she is, then she isn't human at all.

_No._

"Nuh-No!"

He slams her head into the window and she howls in pain, her guttural cry something like a wisp of wicked wind traveling around a mountain in the worst of thunderstorms. She does not, however, pass out, and when she jumps forward for round two, he flings the car door open and pushes her out with one mighty shove.

She lands, face-first, onto the concrete alley below.

The man in the yellow Lamborghini pulls the door shut.

He jumps to the front seat.

She lunges for the door.

His fingers slam on the locking mechanism in the front seat.

Now trapped outside and unable to reach him even if she tries her hardest, he takes note of his arms and how horribly damaged they are. Six incisions lie upon his right, two tears his left. Each are bleeding profusely, and he knows if he doesn't get away from here he may very well end up dead.

Still without his shirt and shoes, he slides into the driver's seat, throws the key in the ignition to life, then turns the lights on.

Beauty is standing at the end of the alley, watching him with two glowing green eyes.

"Yuh-You buh-bitch!" he screams.

The creature that he once formally knew as the area's most well-known prostitute fades back into the darkness and all but disappears.

The man in the yellow Lamborghini pulls out of the alleyway and high tails it to the emergency room, emergency lights on all the way.

* * *

"Sir," the nurse at the emergency room counter says, desperately attempting to console him as he stands, crying, at the front desk. _"Sir._ I need you to listen to me. You're going into shock, but I need some information from you. What's your name?"

"Ah-Aaron Puh-Puh- _Patterson!"_ he cries. "Gah-God-damn-uh-it! I'm buh-bleeding to death and you—"

A pair of male nurses rush forward, help him onto a stretcher, then roll him away, the pace of which is so electrifying that his head begins to swim with vertigo.

_Oh no,_ he thinks. _Oh fucking no._

This night couldn't get any worse.

The nurses roll him into what appears to be the emergency trauma section and a doctor comes over immediately. Her tag he cannot read due to his uneven and frantic breathing, but he could care less what her name was at the moment.

"Sir," the doctor says. "Can you hear me?"

"I cah-can—"

"Just nod if you can."

Aaron nods and closed his eyes, only to have one opened by a pair of prying fingers so a penlight can shine in.

"What happened to you?" the nurse asks. "How were you injured?"

"Snuh-Snake!" he cries. "A snuh-snake!"

"A snake?" she frowns. "Sir, are you sure this is—"

_"Of course I'm fucking sure!"_ he screams.

"He's going into shock," the doctor says, gesturing the two male nurses forward. "Start running fluids in him."

"This is going to hurt," the blonde male nurse says, preparing and then sliding an intravenous drip into his right hand.

Aaron can barely tell the difference from the pain on either of his arms, let alone the sting of an IV sliding into his hand.

At his side, the brown-haired male nurse comes forward and prepares a fluid drip. The doctor, whose name he can finally read as _Julian,_ presses her hand to his neck to check his pulse.

"How long have you been bleeding?"

"Fuh-Fifteen—"

"Minutes?"

He nods.

"Check his blood pressure," she says.

The nurse does as asked. "It's low," he says.

"Shock," the doctor repeats. "Sir—can you tell me what kind of animal it was that bit you?"

_How the fuck am I going to explain this?_ he thinks, blinking, the room slowly coming into focus before suddenly spinning uncontrollably.

It would be easy, he thinks, to simply tell what has happened—he found a woman, paid her one-hundred dollars, fucked her in the front, then back seat of his car, then shorted her fifty dollars before she turned into some anthromorphic snake-woman who not only attacked, but attempted to kill him.

"I," he said. "I duh-don't—"

_It was too fast. You couldn't tell what she was._

"Sir," the doctor says. _"Sir._ Stay with us. Tell us your name, where you live, how old you are— _anything!"_

"Aaron," he says. "Puh-Patterson. Westbrook Street. Nine-tuh-teen."

The world spins one final time before the lights go out.

* * *

In his dreams he sees her form, her beauty, her horror, her unimaginably-bright green eyes. He sees her teeth gleaming in the moonlight and her lower body a construct of hate. Beauty is a snake, and she wraps around his body as if she is ready to squeeze the life out of him and more. It is, as he knows, a horrible way to die, and in that moment he feels the rush of the real world coming back to him.

_I can't,_ he thinks. _I won't—_

* * *

He is jarred to consciousness by the rapid beeping of his heart rate monitor.

"Prepare more liquids!" the doctor screams. "Prepare more—"

Aaron blinks. The doctor, in response, lowers the hand she has raised high above her head and watches him with a pair of eyes so intense Aaron sees for but a moment the snake-woman's gaze in hers.

_No,_ he thinks. _No. Not again._

At his side, the heart rate monitor begins to slow, its beat progressively dying down until it hits only a slight amount higher than average.

Before him, the doctor, the several nurses and even what appear to be some of the surrounding patients stare in wonder.

"I," he begins to say, then stops. "I—"

He can't control the tears that follow.

"Sir," Doctor Julian says, stepping forward so she can look directly in his eyes. "Sir. Mr. Patterson, sir. Listen to me. Everything's going to be just fine. You're safe now."

"She'll come back to me," he moaned, grimacing as the pain once more began to blot along his arms. "She'll come back for me!"

"Who?"

"The woman."

"Which woman?"

"Beauty!"

Several of the male nurses pale instantaneously.

_Do they know?_ Aaron thinks. _Do they know what it is she's done to me? Do they really—_

"Who is Beauty," Doctor Julian says, "and what did she do to you?"

"She... she... she tuh-turned into a snuh-snake."

"Have the blood tests come back yet?" the doctor asked.

"Not yet, Doctor Julian."

"Sir—I need you to tell me if you've been on any hallucinogens or taken any prescription drugs. Mr. Patterson... can you hear me?"

He can hear her all right, but it is not her words that he digests. No. It is her accusation, her belief that he was not attacked by a snake-woman, but by the curse of narcotics. Why, of course he'd done some drugs—had, in the past, smoked weed and even taken LSD—but not once since coming to college has he been high or stoned or anything else. He's a good student, a good kid who, though a bit bribed by money, is fairly even-headed.

_Until tonight,_ he thinks. _Until I met Beauty._

Doctor Julian watches him with chillingly-calm eyes, waiting for a response he cannot give in words, but actions. He shakes his head back-to-back, left-to-right, before craning his body forward and taking his face into his hands.

"Are you in any pain?" the blonde nurse asks.

"Nuh-No," Aaron says. "I'm not."

Had he been telling the truth, he would have said that his heart was beating a thousand times and more in his chest. But since he can't tell the truth, he merely sits there, trying his hardest not to cry while around him he is scrutinized in the most painful of ways.

"I huh-haven't taken any druh-drugs," he said. "And that's the truh-truth."

"So you were attacked by someone then," Doctor Julian says.

_"Something,"_ Aaron corrects.

Doctor Julian frowns, then turns to the side when a small petite female nurse comes up bearing a runoff. "This is his bloodwork," she says.

"What's this?" Julian asks.

"Something found in his bloodstream."

"Has anyone in toxicology been able to identify what it is?"

"They think it's a poison."

Doctor Julian's eyes widened.

_I told you,_ Aaron thought. _I fucking told you!_

"You were attacked by a snake," the doctor says.

"Yuh-Yes," Aaron says.

"But you said it was a snake _woman."_

"She wah-was!"

"Likely the effects of shock from blood loss," the blonde male nurse says. He steps forward and presses an arm to Aaron's right shoulder. "Lie down, sir. You need your rest."

"My ah-arms—"

"They'll be tended to shortly."

The menagerie of nurses and one doctor come together in a small group and begin to whisper among themselves—first nonsense that Aaron isn't able to determine, then in higher tones that he can understand.

"What kind of snake could have bitten him so far in the city?"

"I don't know."

"Maybe it was a water moccasin."

"But we aren't near any water."

"Are their bites that bad?"

"They can cause necrosis. Better check his bites and administer the anti-venom as quickly as possible."

"Sir," one of the nurses says, though which one it was Aaron can't determine, as his eyes have crossed and he is seeing doubles of everything. _"Sir."_

"What?" he manages.

"Were you bitten by a snake that looked like this?"

The petite female nurse holds a picture up. Instantaneously, Aaron panics. From the dark green scales, to the olive-colored speckles upon its body, the portrait paints a picture of the very thing that the woman had turned into—a cruel, savage creature that, if provoked, would strike out without mercy.

"Thuh-That's—"

"It?" Julian asks. Aaron nods. "One of you get on the phone and see if we can get that anti-venom in. Hurry—now!"

The nurses run off before the doctor can even begin to turn around.

* * *

By midnight that night, nearly two hours after he'd been admitted into the hospital, the anti-venom is administered and he is lying between the realms of consciousness. The police in the other room, the nurses nearby, they talk in tones hushed and secretive, likely so Aaron cannot hear just what it is they are saying.

_I solicited,_ he thinks. _I might go to jail._

Then again, who was to say that he has to tell them about Beauty, their lascivious sex affair or just what they'd done? For all they knew, he'd been bitten by a snake, though from the looks of things the police seem to have a keen eye on whatever it was that had happened to him.

_You did say a name._

That he did, but he'd called her a _snake woman._ That could obviously mean one of many things.

While lying there in bed, trying his hardest not to concentrate on what is happening in the outside world and desperately hoping he will not dream of her again, he begins to feel around his body a tight constriction that is not caused by a medical cord or anything similar, but something inside his body. It begins slowly—a pause, a beat, a drum and then a series of twangs vibrating along his ribcage and into his sternum. From there, a symphony of terror begins to rise up his chest until it enters the back of his neck, where it hits his brain stem and sends him sailing forward in his seat.

His IV cord snaps along his hand.

He cries out in surprise.

In the other room, Doctor Julian and the police officers raise their heads.

Aaron can only watch, stunned, as they come forward to investigate.

"Mr. Patterson?" Doctor Julian asks. "Is something wrong?"

"I..." Aaron pauses. His eyes wander from the doctor to the two police officers at either of her sides—one the standard, portly, handlebar-mustached type, the other the skinny cop with the crew-cut hair and glasses.

"Son," the portly officer says, "we have a few questions we'd like to ask you."

"Of cuh-course."

The portly officers frowns and turns to his lighter-bodied companion, who merely shrugs and crosses his arms over his chest. "We're here to investigate the claim that you were attacked by a snake," the skinny man says. "A water moccasin, to be exact."

"There's been talk of illegal practices going on with them," the portly officer adds.

"Like wha-what?"

"Like using their poison to kill people."

Aaron swallows a lump in his throat. "Sir..."

"We would like to know where you were attacked," the skinny man says. "What time, if there were any people around, that sort of thing."

_Good God. They really expect me to cough this information up?_

He is, of course, not going to lie about the bigger details—just the specifics, one of which would likely mark him as insane and therefore unstable.

With a deep breath and a long, drawn-out exhale, Aaron tells the cops just what they want to hear—that in this small little town of Worship, Mississippi, in which there are no rivers or bodies of water running through but alongside it, he had been walking back from the club when he'd dropped his phone on the ground and had bent to pick it up.

"And that was when you got bit," the skinny man says, to which Aaron responds with a nod.

"How'd you get bit so many times though?" the portly officer asks.

"I duh-don't nuh-know," Aaron manages, though in the back of his head chastises himself for using such a bold-faced lie.

The rounder officer watches him with eyes similar to a wild dog set on attacking the hen and her freshly-born chicks. His gaze is intense—brutally so, with an eye for detail that seems to strip him of all defenses and bare him naked and glorious to the world. It isn't a gaze he can take lightly, and as such Aaron shivers and draws the sheet around himself, only to grimace at the still-open wounds on his forearms. The cops merely watch, stupefied at his intricate white lie.

"I think I pah-passed out," Aaron says. "I only remember getting buh-bit once."

"And after you woke up?" the skinny man asks.

"I druh-drove here."

The cops trade glances with one another before allowing their arms to fall slack at their sides. "Thank you for your time, Mr. Patterson," the portly one says. "I guess that will be all."

They're about to turn and leave before the skinny man leans forward and speaks with his larger partner. They engage in whispered dialogue for several long moments before they turned to watch him.

_Shit._

"Now that you mention it," the portly officer says, "Doctor Julian here said you mentioned someone named Beauty. That ring a bell?"

"Nuh-No, sir."

"Probably just shock then." The man nods and adjusts the hat atop his head. "Thank you for your time, sir. If you remember any other details, please feel free to contact the Worship PD."

Aaron can only nod as the officers disappear out the double doors.

"Mr. Patterson," Doctor Julian says. "Though you're no longer in critical condition, I'm going to ask that you remain here for a while, at least until we know that necrosis isn't going to set in."

"All ruh-right," he said.

Though Aaron has no idea what necrosis is, he knows he doesn't want to know.

With a brief nod, he leans back, allows his head to fall on the pillow, then closes his eyes.

He's out almost instantly.

* * *

He learns after his wounds are stitched and he is passed with an almost-clean bill of health that necrosis is the act of muscles and skin tissue disintegrating—in essence, dying from lack of oxygen. The idea that he could have been so seriously injured after his near-fatal brush with death is almost enough to send him into a panic, but after repeated conversations with the doctors and nurses detailing that the anti-venom is still being administered, he soon begins to calm down.

Late the next evening, at a time in which he cannot sleep due to a lack of downers and pain medications, Aaron lays in bed and watches the shadows on the distant side of the room. In the corner there is a bathroom, shadowed over and completely invisible, while on the wall across from him there are several paintings, each depicting Salvador Dali in various forms of appreciation. The morbidity of them is enough to strike unease into his heart, as each and every time he looks at them he cannot help but remember Beauty as the snake, but he soon calms down when he realizes that he is probably in the safest place he could probably be.

_She can't reach me,_ he thinks.

Despite that, the notion does not quell the fear that she will return. She is agony in a glass bottle, an epiphany inside a golden room, a giant whose feet touch the ground and stain all with blood—she is everything horrible and wonderful in this world, and that alone makes him feel wrong: dirtied, sullen and marked by the fact that they had once been one, two bodies connected by sex and passion and greed and money.

_What will Daddy think?_

Daddy is far away in Birmingham, in a place where he will not be reached unless it is absolutely necessary. Mr. Patterson Senior was not called because he was never listed or given as an emergency contact. Aaron's never been to the emergency room before. Hell—he hasn't even set foot in a doctor's office since he was fifteen.

Rather than think about the consequences of an emergency room visit and what all that would entail—both financially, personally and emotionally between he and his father—Aaron spreads back down along the mattress and tries his best to dispel the pain that is humming along his arms, a cruel thing's whisper of vengeance and turmoil.

In the back of his mind, he knows something is wrong.

He knows she will come back.

_No,_ he thinks. _She won't._

Beauty is as beauty does. In her high heels or on her scale-lined underside, she will come for him like a break in dawn, an eclipse of the moon and sun, an interplanetary alignment in which everything falls in a row and the world begins to end. It is this notion that compels him to remain awake—that, regardless of how far away he's run, she has marked him. Her venom is word enough.

At his side, where there lies an end table with three drawers, he reaches down and pulls from its depths a Bible. He has not practiced for many years—has, essentially, abandoned all form of scripture—but if he is to believe that this creature is what he thinks she is, then he needs all the help he can get.

_You fell from Grace,_ he thought, _when you took from the Garden of Eden._

It was that snake who had lived in that tree, who had guarded the Golden Apples, who tempted Eve to pull from its heights the things of which she nor Adam were supposed to touch. It was of its wrongdoing and its lascivious intentions that they were cast out, and it is for that Aaron knows that Beauty is one thing and one thing only.

_The Devil._

He was not a Satyr pale-skinned and fine hoofed, a Red Man who upon His head bore horns and on His back a tail, nor was He even man at all. Such a thing had not come to reveal itself as the arbiter of his personal suffering and sin in the form of a man. No. It had, instead, come in the form of a woman—a beautiful, beautiful woman: one whom, though so captivating and beautiful, held within her grasp his very hand and more.

_God,_ he thinks, holding the Bible before him steady as from the darkened, pitch-black hallway someone begins to fiddle with the doorknob. _Jesus, Mary, Joseph, the fine Saints Michael, Catherine, whoever you are—please, hear my plea._

"Pruh-tect muh-muh-me fruh-from this thuh-thuh-thing."

The doorknob continues to jitter, an erratic staccato that vibrates around the room and through the walls and along the bed springs and base and board. His tears come soft and without sound, his trembling shakes pained and without regret, and his quivering lip spills from its surface words that he cannot, nor ever will speak.

Is he being judged because he has not Believed—because he has Sinned, because he has taken into his arms and being and place and sex a woman of lewd intent? Though he knows not, he imagines he will soon.

"Guh-God," he whispers. "Puh-lease..."

The doorknob ceases to tremble.

Aaron breathes and lowers the Bible.

_Thank you,_ he thinks. _Thank you for—_

Across the room, the doorknob turns.

The door cracks open.

Outside, the world darkens as behind the clouds the moon is hidden.

He can see but one thing in the darkened room—two high heels, upon their surfaces stones of many colors.

Trembling, now, and crying harder than he had been previously, Aaron raises the Bible and turns his eyes away.

"Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death," he says as she draws nearer and nearer, "I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me."

Her glowing eyes pierce through the darkness.

"You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows."

The sound of her heels echoes throughout the room and begin to bounce off the walls.

"Surely goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."

Her laugh cuts daggers within the air and pierces at each and every follicle upon his neck.

"The earth is the Lord's, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters."

She hisses. Her hands wrap around the footrest.

"Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord? Who may stand in his holy place? The one who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not trust in an idol or swear by a false god."

She pushes her upper body forward. Then, slowly, her shoes fall to the floor, and she is on the bed with him.

"They will receive," he continues, now unable to still his shaking body, "blessing from the Lord and vindication from God their Savior. Such is the generation of those who seek him, who seek your face, God of Jacob."

Beauty bears her fangs.

Aaron closes his eyes.

He drops the Bible. It falls to the floor.

"Forgive me," he says.

The snake woman screams and sinks her fangs into his throat.

# And His Name Was Peter

He takes one look at the world and flies away, bound for a place he can never reach, but always wants to be.

* * *

He lives in a world of carnivals and shoestrings, of toys and candy and apples and cake. In this world of fun and sun, he runs through a playground that stretches for miles, beckoning forth any and all who look upon its glory. In this world—in this Wonderland, as many would feel fit to call it—there is no one who can't enter. Men, women, children; young, old, black, white; enabled, disabled, sane, crazed—little is left to question when you enter such a beautiful world. One moment you can be lost in a jungle, then the next swinging from iron bars above lakes of molten chocolate. Rain can taste like strawberries, ice the tang of orange and rocks the crisp of brownies, while the dirt you inhale can smell of dust, a pixie's lost magic as she flaps her wings and ascends to the highest points in the sky.

Though few are willing to admit it, many are willing to enter.

This is the real world.

This is the world that was always meant to exist.

_Wonderland._

The word a whisper on his tongue, a lollipop in his pocket, Michael Kelly jumps over an airborne swing just as it sails his way. An arc in the wind, a smile on its face, Michael whips between its chains before the seat is able to smack his legs, thus tripping him with its animated tongue to send him on a flying journey back to earth.

Once through and clear, Michael sighs, takes a deep breath, then leans forward, taking a deep breath and exhaling his worry out his throat.

Beyond him lays a forest of gumdrop trees.

In the distance, Michael sees children climbing their trunks, desperate to reach the candy crowns on top.

Before he can begin to run, the world begins to fade.

Michael falls.

Slowly, infinitely, majestically, he is pushed away from the world he has always wanted to live in, from the world that was always meant to be.

* * *

"Michael," a voice says. "Wake up."

Michael opens his eyes, first perturbed by the wooden ceiling above him, then saddened by the absence of clouds the color of rainbows. It takes him a moment to process that someone has just spoken to him. By the time he has, the owner of the voice has moved to the side of the bed.

Dressed in a flowery skirt, he immediately identifies her as female.

"Wake up, honey," the woman says. "You overslept again."

"Huh?"

"Michael." A hand touches his face. "Look at me. Here."

Michael blinks.

The face above him clears, shifting into focus.

"Emilin," he says, sighing as his wife comes into view.

"Yes, dear—it's me."

"What time is it?"

"Eight-thirty."

"Shit!" he cries, throwing himself from bed. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

"I tried. You kept telling me to give you ten minutes."

"Shit! Shit shit shit shit shit!"

"I'm sorry!" Emilin says, retreating to the far wall as Michael tears through the bedroom in search of his clothes. "I tried to wake you up. I thought you were sick."

"I'm not sick," he rasps, swearing as he trips over a stray shoe on the floor. "God dammit! Why didn't the alarm go off?"

"It did. You kept turning it off."

Shaking his head, Michael storms into the bathroom and tears the shower curtain aside, barely pausing to compose himself before pushing himself into the shower. The initial shock of cold jars him, but is quickly pushed aside as he grabs for the soap and begins to scrub himself down.

Every day—it seems that every day this happens. No matter what time he goes to bed, no matter how much sleep he gets, he can never wake up at the time he needs to. _Work calls,_ he tries to say, as he prepares for bed each and every night an hour earlier than he usually does, but it never matters because he can't get up on time. Some days he wonders why he does it, because most of the time, it doesn't seem worth it. He's always stuck at that boring job, at that boring desk that does nothing but sit there. There is nothing magical about it. It's all routine—all a boring, stupid routine.

As he continues to scrub, trying not to drift away into his thoughts, he thinks of Wonderland and the gumdrop forest he was so close to reaching.

_I've never come that close before._

A brief moment of disbelief overtakes him as the wintry plane flashes before his eyes. Trees poised atop high hills sparkle in the mid-afternoon light, blinding those who look rather than adventure, while houses in the distance spout smoke from chimneys that extend into the sky. He has never seen those houses up close, but has always wanted to go there. Some say the gingerbread men live there, making snowmen and laughing all day. Others say that the wicked witch lures people in with the promise of goods, only to eat them alive. It is the curse of Wonderland, to be so good without evil. Eventually something will slip through.

A knock at the door startles him from thought.

The soap slips from his hand.

Michael gasps.

His foot flies out from under him and he goes crashing into the wall.

"Michael?" Emilin asks. "Are you all right?"

"A bit dizzy this morning," he mumbles, done with his shower.

"Are you sick?"

"I already said I'm not."

"All right. If you don't want to tell me, that's fine, but if you are, please don't put it off. I don't want you to..."

One look is enough to silence her.

The look of disappointment that overcomes her face saddens him.

_She shouldn't worry,_ he thinks, reaching for her, but stopping halfway. _This isn't the way things are supposed to be._

"Michael?" she frowns. "Are you—"

"It's nothing," he says, pulling his clothes onto his body. "I've got to get to work."

"But you haven't even..."

He doesn't bother to wait.

The sole thing he does before he walks out the bathroom door is kiss her cheek. Even then it is forced.

He can't help but think that things are constantly wrong as he climbs into his car and begins to make his way to work.

* * *

Seated at his desk, plugging away at the most recent batch of financial forms, Michael tries to distract himself from the morning's events by throwing himself into his work. Arranging graphs, monitoring spendings, calculating earnings and working toward financial purity, he tries to create an even environment that allows someone without the proper knowledge to read just what is going into the business and what is coming out of it. By the time he's halfway through his most recent report, he is saddened to see that the business is only continuing to plummet into depravity.

_Whoever said bathroom soaps could save your life_.

The reality that his job will, most likely, not last past this month is slowly sinking in. It's a knot at the lowest part of his neck that grows like a tumor, then begins to spiral, circling its way up his spinal cord until it hits the curve of his skull. There, he feels, it explodes, molesting his mind and tantalizing his senses with false prophecies.

_It will last six months,_ he wants to say, when in reality the charts now show that it will most likely not survive past the last week of June, three weeks away from now.

Pushing himself back, Michael spins around to look out at the city. Manhattan—beautiful, urban, created by the world of profit and birthed by the need of cash, it spirals out below his office like a tranquil jungle in Africa. From his place on the forty-fifth floor, he imagines leaves on a tree shifting, but only sees air-conditioning vents winking in the wind. Where macaws should be there are pigeons—ugly by appearance but beautiful in nature—and where monkeys should be howling cars are screaming, filling the air with metallic reverbs as they plummet into one another and end the lives of children. This, he thinks, is the jungle, a paradise not ground in nature, but nurture. There are no monkeys, no trees, nor are there hidden wonders reaching for the last piece of dying fruit in the forest. There are no ants building homes beneath the ground. There are no elephants bathing their young with their trunks. There are no creatures who look to the sky and see a plane, then reach forward as if to grasp it, then say, _Oh._ There is none of this in this concrete jungle. You are born, only to live life ignorant of the outside world, then die soon after.

Some say this is the way the world was once meant to be.

Michael saw otherwise.

Taking a deep breath, he slides his hands into his pockets and glances toward his desk. Had he looked upon a fellow employee's workspace, he would have seen pictures of a wife, a child, of a family waiting at home, but on his desk he sees nothing. There is no woman framed within a heart or a case of gold. There is no Emilin smiling back at him.

_Is it wrong,_ he thinks, _to marry for ignorance?_

Closing his eyes, Michael tips his head to the ceiling and breathes.

Work will be over in three hours.

He'll return home to a life that was not meant to be.

* * *

"How was work?" Emilin asks.

"Fine," Michael replies, loosening his tie and collapsing onto the couch. "Other than the regular problems."

"It's still bad?"

"It's been bad, Emilin, and it's only getting worse."

Frowning, Emilin seats herself in the armchair across Michael, watching him with plain, indecisive eyes. In the slowly-waning, evening light, her heart-shaped face appears even harsher than it normally is, struck by concern and sharpened by doubt. She appears nothing like her normal self. It is this fear that courses through him each and every night when he drives home from work. It's as if at any moment she will change, metamorphosing into something other than the doe-like woman he has known for the past eight years.

At times, when waking, he believes Emilin is nothing more than a dream, a China doll sitting in a glass case.

_Always her eyes,_ he thinks. _Always her eyes._

As though waiting for further dialogue, the woman purses her lips, feigning a childhood pout.

"How was your day?" Michael thinks to ask, popping a button on his shirt.

"Fine," Emilin says.

"Did you do anything special?"

"I went to St. Mary's."

Michael nods.

The Catholic church on the corner of the street has served his wife well for the past few years. He makes no further comment.

Rising, Michael stretches, then makes his way into the bedroom, where he discards his shirt and slides his belt through the loops in his pants. Once the buckle comes off, his pants fall to the floor and he wanders into the bathroom, slipping into the shower and waiting for the water to warm.

A moment later, he hears Emilin walk into the room.

"Can I get in?" she asks.

He doesn't reply. He turns his face to the wall and bows his head instead.

* * *

The night comes and the world disappears as he is swallowed whole.

* * *

"Hello," the dalapago says. "How are you?"

Michael smiles as the creature shifts beneath its pile of snow. First peeking out to see if anyone is around, the blue, wormlike creature tilts its head from side to side, winking beady eyes before shaking snow from its head. Once revealed, it takes a moment to gain its composure before snaking its way out of its burrow.

As it moves forward, small, barely-visible wings appear from beneath the snow on its back, then expand outward and began to flicker. Like a dragonfly during flight, the transparent membranes whistle against the wind, only illuminated by the fact that they are covered in snow. The dalapago, vain in its exposure to the cold, uses its wings to beat the snow from its body, then returns them to its sides, content with its current frame of existence. It returns its attention to Michael shortly afterward.

"Oh, you're a small one," it says, craning its body forward to look at Michael more closely. "What pretty eyes you have, young one."

"Thank you," Michael says, reaching up to brush his cheek. "What is your name, Mr. Dalapago?"

"I am Maximillian the Great Blue," the creature says, rearing back to form a proud S with its body. "What assistance can I be to you today?"

"The house," Michael says. "What is it?"

"You mean the house at the top of the hill?" Maxilimillian the Dalapago asks. "Why, that is none other than the House of Dreams, built by the Gingerbreads themselves."

"The House of Dreams?" he frowns.

"You don't know what the House of Dreams is?" The dalapago gasps. Its body expands like a puffer fish, feigning the human equivalent of shock, before returning to normal. "Why, the House of Dreams is only the place where children go for their dreams to come true!"

"Can I go there?" Michael asks, looking out at the hills.

"Of course you can go! Why couldn't you?"

"I..." Michael pauses. "This place... it's a dream, isn't it?"

"Anything is possible when you dream."

Turning its head, the dalapago examines the hills and the plains below, then looks over at Michael. Its near-featureless face shifts, as though smiling, before it bows its head, flattening its body to the curve of the ground.

"Climb on, dear Michael. I will take you where your heart allows."

Stepping forward, Michael takes holds of the dalapago's sides, then throws himself onto the creature's back.

As the dalapago begins down the hill, Michael begins to fall.

_No,_ he thinks. _Not now, not after I've just..._

His vision whitens.

The world goes dark.

* * *

They haven't made love for six months.

Preferring to remain distant, Michael makes as little physical contact with his wife as possible. A comforting woman by nature, Emilin often tries to initiate contact—kneading his shoulders or stroking his palms—but each and every time, Michael turns her down. Lately it seems like nothing satisfies him anymore. Even masturbation, his usual solace in times of frustration, has become a chore. In a way, it frustrates him; in another, relieves him.

_How sad,_ he thinks, _that I don't even want to touch my own wife._

Rolling over, Michael reaches out to touch his wife's arm, to prove to himself that he can, in fact, touch her.

Halfway there, he stops.

Arm frozen, wrist slack, he finds that he can only reach so far before he has to pull back.

Hurt, angry and confused, Michael throws himself from bed and stomps into the kitchen, where he stops near the separating island to collect his emotions.

_Calm down,_ he thinks. _Everything will be fine._

Will it, though? In the off chance that something may, in fact, be wrong, _would_ everything be _'just fine'_ or _'all right?'_ Not being able to control your emotions said something about your character. Some called it an illness, others called it an inhibition, while a few simply said to shut up and deal with it, because life is life and it's going to do whatever the fuck it wants.

"All right," Michael murmurs, taking a deep breath. "Just give yourself a moment."

He waits.

A clock chimes.

A dove mourns outside.

The rage in his heart slowly dissipates until, finally, it is gone.

His heart content, his mind at ease, Michael makes his way to the refrigerator. There, he pulls out a carton of milk, fills a glass, then walks it to the microwave.

Mother used to say that warm milk would chase the worries away.

_Hopefully,_ he thinks, _it will._

* * *

"Michael," the CEO of the company says. "Do you have the reports ready?"

"Yes sir," Michael says, swallowing a lump in his throat. He toys with the flaps on the manila folder and hopes that the sweat on his palms hasn't stained it as he musters up the urge to make his speech.

"Well?"

"Well... what?"

"Are you going to tell us?"

A murmur of activity begins around the circular table.

"Yuh-Yes sir," Michael says, standing.

"Something tells me this isn't going to be good," an investor mumbles.

Michael tries to ignore the man's words, reaching into the folder in order to distract himself, but the moment he sees the charts and graphs, he panics. Goosebumps break out along his arms and the hairs on the back of his neck sticks straight on end.

The perfect storm is before him. It's ready to destroy his life.

Taking a deep breath, Michael pulls the papers from the folder and spreads them out on the table before him.

"The company will last three more weeks," he says. "Then we'll go bankrupt."

The committee gasps.

An imaginary gong sounds.

Tears threaten to break Michael's eyes.

He can't deny it anymore.

In less than three weeks, his job will be gone.

He has no idea what he will do.

* * *

When work ends, he doesn't go home. Instead, he detours to a coffee shop with hopes of drowning himself in caffeine.

Seated at the bar, waiting for his cider to arrive, Michael sighs and bows his face into his hands, massaging his temples and dreading the idea of going home.

_What'll I tell her?_ he thinks. _What will she think?_

The answer, as obvious as it already is, doesn't sit well with him. Emilin has known about the company's slow decline to bankruptcy since it began late last year. Always she has said that it would be fine, that if something did happen, he could find another job. Regardless, the answer she always offers is not the one that is necessarily needed. Emilin doesn't work. She's offered to, but with her multiple sclerosis, he's always said that he would win the bread, that he would bring the venison home for dinner.

"Here you are."

Michael looks up, thinking it is he who is being served, but comes to find that another man has just received his drink. He's about to turn his head to the side before the stranger smiles at him.

For a brief moment, Michael stares, unable to contain himself.

The stranger, briefly introduced by a tag embossed with the name _Peter_ , winks at him.

"Michael," the barista says. "Here's your..."

He barely stops to think.

Grabbing his coffee, giving the barista a quick thanks, Michael walks out of the coffee shop with sweat streaming down his back.

* * *

"Are you well?" Emilin asks the moment he walks through the door.

"Fine," Michael says, setting his drink on the counter. Emilin looks at the cup with mute indecision. "Oh, shit. I'm so sorry, Emilin. Here, take it. I didn't mean..."

"No, don't worry. You look like you need it more than I do."

Feeling more of an ass since he's walked through the door, Michael shakes his head and starts toward the living room, his destination already set. However, before he can cross the threshold, a hand brushes his back and stops him in place.

"What's wrong, Michael? Tell me."

"Nothing," he smiles. "Don't..."

"It's about work, isn't it."

Michael sighs, nodding.

"You can always see through me," Michael says, seating himself at the end of the couch. "You've always been able to."

"I'm your wife," Emilin says. "I can tell when something is wrong."

Silence clouds the room for the next few moments. Michael, saying nothing, looks to the ground, at his freshly-polished shoes, while Emilin, waiting for a response, looks to Michael, at his hazel eyes and the doubt that clouds them.

"I had a meeting today," Michael finally says. "About the company going downhill."

"How did it go?"

"Not good. I wanted to run out the moment I said the company would be bankrupt in three weeks."

Again, silence washes over the room, but Emilin quickly remedies the situation by setting a hand at the middle of his back.

"I'm sorry," she whispers. "It's not your fault."

"I know, but it sure feels like it."

Standing, Michael starts toward the bedroom, but once again stops.

"I'm going to take a shower," he says.

"All right," Emilin replies.

Michael starts forward without another word.

He can only hope the weekend will be better.

* * *

"Hey!" someone calls.

Michael looks up.

Seated atop his own dalapago, waving his hand and flashing his teeth, is another boy, his blonde hair shifting in the breeze as the dalapagos continue down the mountainside.

"Hi!" Michael calls back, smiling. "What's your name?"

"Peter!" the boy laughs. "What's yours?"

"Michael!"

"Cool!"

"Are you going to the House of Dreams?"

"Of course!" Peter calls back, ducking as a stray branch from a gumdrop tree comes into view. "Are you?"

"I'm going," Michael says.

"Have you ever been there before?"

"No!"

"It's great!" Peter laughs, taking hold of his dalapago's neck. "You need to lay down. They're going to go through the tunnels!"

"What?"

"DUCK!"

Michael throws himself down just as they enter a tunnel.

"That wasn't very pleasant," Maximillian the Dalapago says.

"Sorry," Michael murmurs.

"Oh well. That's fine. Have you made a new friend?"

"I... I guess." Michael frowns.

"You guess?"

"It seems like I've seen him somewhere before. I just wish I knew where."

"No matter. You'll be seeing him again here shortly."

"Maximillian," Michael says, pressing his head to the worm's neck. "Why can't this world exist?"

"It does," the dalpago says. "It does."

* * *

Michael wakes crying.

Curled into a ball, back facing his face, he draws his portion of the blanket to his face and takes a deep breath.

His head thumps.

His lungs scream.

His heart hurts.

Why did it have to end?

_He was in my dream,_ he thinks. _Peter... he... he was..._

The coffee shop flashes before his vision. He, sitting at the bar, waiting for his drink; a man, sitting nearby, stubble lining his square jaw and tracing his thin lips, waiting for the same. His mouth need not smile when his eyes, so crystal in clarity, can do such a thing, but seeing the interior of his beautiful frame had been the greatest gift of all.

A shiver runs down Michael's back, tracing his tailbone and tickling his thighs.

His groin throbs.

His erection lengthens.

Crawling out of bed, he steals into the bathroom and locks the door behind him, falling to his knees and wrapping his hand around himself. His head roars and his eyes roll into his skull as an unstoppable pressure forces itself across his body. Dark memories and closeted desires come flooding back in an instant, assaulting him from all ends. He silences a groan by biting down on his arm as he continues, squeezing his eyes shut at the thoughts that roll through his head. The man, his eyes, his smile, his teeth—by the time he is done, Michael is breathless. His hands are sweaty and his chest is heaving, moisture slicking its surface and dampening the hair dusted across his torso.

For a moment, the feeling is nothing he could have imagined.

By the time he realizes what he's done, Michael is crying.

_Why?_ he thinks. _Why now, after all this time?_

Unable to contain his sobs, Michael reaches into the bathtub, turns the showerhead on, and destroys the evidence of his lust.

There's no reason to deny it now.

He married the wrong person.

He never fell in love.

* * *

Michael wakes up the following morning and leaves the bed without disturbing his wife. After showering, shaving and climbing into a set of clothes, he walks out into the kitchen, where he drinks a cup of coffee and eats a piece of toast before heading out into the world. Locking the door, walking down the driveway, crawling into the car and pushing the key into the ignition—it takes little more than forty-five minutes for him to disappear, if only for a few hours. Though he knows he won't be gone for long, he thrusts himself into his journey as though he will never return.

Making his way out of the town and into the wild countryside, he winds through hills and skirts the edge of forests, passes the remnants of civilizations and explores the world untouched by man. Once every so often, he pauses to look at the land around him, but always moves forward. There is no need to stop, he knows, because whatever it is he is looking for will eventually find him.

Come the birth of mid-morning, Michael pulls his car to a stop in front of a monument to history.

There, at the edge of a cliff, is a river, expanding out as far as his eyes can see.

Taking a moment to recover from his hour-and-a-half journey, Michael bows his head into the steering wheel and takes a deep breath. Afterward, he climbs out of the car and walks to the wooden fence, where he circles his hands around the wood and leans forward.

_I've come all this way,_ he thinks. _Now what do I do?_

He doesn't force the image to come. Instead, he closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and listens to the world around him.

Birds, water, the whisper of the wind against his ears—it soothes his aching heart and stills his wandering thoughts.

The memory flows before him as though it has never been forgotten.

Ten years ago, on the eve of his fifteenth birthday, his mother walked into the room with the Bible in her arms. One hand set over the cross, the other grasping its spine, her eyes had sought him out in the gloomy darkness of the room. He'd been reading then, he remembers, under the icy light of a slowly-dying desk lamp. The look on his mother's face was one he would never forget. Her hair, usually drawn back, had been down, and her old, gnarled hands—laced with wrinkles and veins—had trembled, as though sad and full of worry.

_Mother?_ he'd asked.

_I know, Michael._

_Know what?_

_About the things under your bed._

Even the memory of the words sends ripples through Michael's heart.

_What things?_ he'd asked.

_The magazines,_ she'd replied. _I know what you've been doing when your father and I are asleep._

A moment can be described as many things. Wonderful, ecstatic, heartbreaking, terrifying—there are many moments in life that allow you to look back on them with clarity so clear they could have happened yesterday. At that moment in his life, Michael had felt a fear so great it would haunt him for the rest of his life. He swore his heart had stopped and his mind had locked up, because a moment later—after his breath returned and his eyes came into focus—his mother had stepped forward and her hands were shaking worse than they had before.

_It's the Devil,_ she'd said. _You know it, Michael._

_The Devil?_

_The Devil tempts you, as he tempts us all. But you are young. You can still recover. Pray with me, Michael. Pray with me so your soul can be saved._

Regardless of its clarity, the memory goes no further. He cannot remember what his mother said after she asked to save his soul. All he can remember is her hand on his wrist and his hand on the Bible, tears in his eyes and agony in his heart.

"It's all right," he whispers. "You can open your eyes."

He does just that.

He is greeted by clouds rolling in from the ocean.

_This is what I came here for,_ he thinks. _To remember what happened. To know what I really am._

Sliding a hand in his pocket, Michael turns and makes his way to his car.

Along the way, he loosens the ring on his hand.

When it falls from his finger—when it bounces in his pocket—relief fills his heart.

He knows what's true.

He knows what he has to do.

* * *

"Michael," Emilin says. "Where were you?"

Michael looks up.

His wife is sitting at the kitchen counter, eyes wide and cheeks bloated.

_She's been crying,_ he thinks, _all because of me._

"Out," he says, then sighs, running a hand through his hair. "I'm sorry I didn't leave a note. I needed to think about some things."

"What things?" Emilin frowns. "Michael... what's wrong?"

"We need to talk, Emilin."

"About what?"

Shaking his head, Michael steps forward and settles down beside his wife.

Taking her hand in his, he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath.

"About my life," he says. "I've been lying to you for a very long time, Emilin. It's time I tell you the truth."

* * *

Emilin agrees to a divorce on friendly terms.

* * *

The day after Emilin moved back home with her mother, Michael steps into the coffee shop and seeks out the front counter. When he doesn't see the man named Peter, he frowns, but isn't dissuaded. He steps forward and settles down in one of the bar stools, relieved when he sees a familiar face.

"Hi," the waitress who served him no more than three days ago says. "What can I get you today?"

"I didn't come in for coffee," he smiles. "I was looking for an employee. Peter."

"Peter?" the woman laughs. "He doesn't work here anymore."

"What?"

"He moved back to Japan."

Michael isn't able to respond.

_No,_ he thinks, trembling. _He can't... he... not after—_

"Can I get you anything before you leave?" the woman says, reaching toward the computer console. "Coffee, cider, a scone?"

"Nuh-No," Michael stutters, stumbling from his stool. "Thu-Thank you."

Unable to control himself, he turns and leaves.

Tears are in his eyes.

* * *

In pain and agony, hurt and despair, he throws himself to the bed, to the throes of dreams and the monsters of nightmares.

* * *

He wakes nestled against the curve of the dalapago's neck. Confused, disoriented, and unsure of his location, Michael opens his eyes and raises his head, only to be blinded by a dazzling light a moment later.

"Where are we?" he asks, bowing his face into the creature's flesh.

"The House of Dreams," Maximillian says. "The home of all the good and wonder that exists."

"Are we really?"

"We are really."

Shielding his eyes, Michael raises his head to find that the immense light that blinded him moments before is none other than a string of peppermint. Wrapped in cords and melting together like some beautiful, Siamese twin, it frames the roof of the snow-covered house, casting the area in rays of white and red.

_That's why I can't see it from the hill,_ he thinks, stepping toward the house. _It doesn't let you see it until you're right here._

Maybe this is why you are meant to walk the path instead of looking for it. Maybe this is why seeing isn't just believing, why knowing isn't understanding, why hoping doesn't necessarily mean it will come true.

Maybe, just maybe, this is why miracles are meant to exist.

"Hey! Michael!"

Michael looks up.

Peter is standing at the doorway, waving his arms back and forth.

"I thought you were gone!" Michael cries, running to the boy's side. "I couldn't find you!"

"I never left!" Peter laughs, wrapping his arms around Michael. "What made you think that?"

"I..." Michael frowns. "I don't know."

"It doesn't matter," Peter says. "Come on. Let's go."

Turning, both boys look at the gingerbread house, then at one another.

They lace their hands together and run forward.

* * *

Michael wakes crying. Ripped from a dream of a world so perfect that problems don't exist, he rolls onto his side and tries to ignore the festering pain in his chest. He reaches forward, toward Emilin's side of the bed, but realizes she isn't there and begins to sob.

_All this,_ he thinks, _just because of a memory._

Had he not taken that drive, he would have never remembered that night or the reasoning behind it—or would he? Could it be possible that, had he stayed home—content with the warmth of his sheets, wife and bed—he would have never remembered anything, or would it have even mattered?

_No,_ he thinks. _It happened before that._

Almost immediately, Peter enters his mind.

Another strangled sob escapes his throat.

Japan—why there, of all places? Did he have family, friends, an estranged lover who beckoned him back with the wave of his hand? Surely Peter had a partner, a man to call his own. No man so beautiful in body and soul was alone in this world. He _couldn't_ be, not with a smile that shined like a thousand rainbows and eyes the color of Niagara Falls.

"It doesn't matter," Michael wails. "Because he's _gone!"_

Michael screams.

He throws what used to be Emilin's pillow from the bed.

A picture shatters, then falls to the floor.

In the faint light pouring from the window, a woman sits trapped behind a pane of broken glass.

Behind her, a man who used to be Michael stands.

He isn't smiling.

Neither is she.

It was the best picture of their wedding day.

They must have captured the wrong moment, for both of them should have been smiling.

* * *

For three days, Michael hasn't been able to dream. Each day, he has woken to the light of a new day, only to cry and remain in bed until his body is too sore to sleep.

That night, under the cover of darkness, Michael walks to the bedroom with a glass of warm milk in hand.

Its touch against his lips brings him warmth.

His mind at ease, Michael lays his head down for sleep.

He begins to fall.

At the end of a long, dark tunnel, a light appears. Then all goes black.

* * *

"Michael," Peter says. "Can I ask you something?"

"Sure," Michael says. "What is it?"

At first, Peter doesn't speak. He seems distracted by the events around him. The children screaming, the gingerbreads laughing, the dalapagos smiling and the other, candy-creatures dancing—it seems chaotic in this house of dreams, but it is anything but. They seem to exist in a world all their own, so at first, Michael frowns when Peter doesn't speak. Then, after a moment, he realizes that his question must not have been thought out, that he first asked without thinking of what he was going to say.

"Peter?" Michael asks.

"Sorry," the other boy laughs. "I didn't expect you to say yes."

"Why?"

"I dunno. You didn't seem to want to look at me before."

"When?"

"Before," Peter says, then frowns. "Before... in that other place."

"Oh." Michael looks down at his feet. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay." Peter sets a hand on Michael's thigh. "I know what I was going to ask."

"What?"

"If you could do anything," Peter begins, "if you could do _anything_ you could to stay in Wonderland—anything at all—would you?"

"Of course I would. Wouldn't you?"

"I'd do anything," Peter smiles. "Anything in the world."

"So would I," Michael says, pressing his hand into the cotton candy.

His fingertips touch Peter's.

He can't help but smile.

* * *

Late the next night, after a long day of indecision, he enters the master bedroom and begins to comb through the medicine cabinet. Its interior spacious, its contents few, he begins at the top row and works his way down, all the while set on finding one particular thing. From the top row he pulls tubes of toothpastes and long-forgotten razors, while on the rows below he retrieves prescription drugs and over-the-counter medication. Most of it is painkillers—Ibuprofen and Aspirin, the angels in your pocket—while some of it offers relief in other ways.

Emilin used to say that a good night of sleep didn't exist. Such is the reason for tonight's pursuit.

Pushing an aging bottle of shaving cream out of his way, Michael sighs and sets a hand against his forehead.

He knows it's here.

Where could it be?

_Come on,_ he thinks. _It has to be..._

Michael stops.

It glints at him from the corner of the cabinet.

Reaching forward, he wraps his hand around the bottle and draws it toward him.

Only one word is visible in the glow fading off the nightlight.

_Ambien._

A touch—so humanlike and not at the same time—blooms across his chest. An orchid of trust or a devil of relief, its petals spread from his ribs to his shoulder, from his stomach to his abdomen, then back again. As it blooms, birthed from the realization of something so simple, its anthers creep forward like silent killers drawn from the shadows, then begin to vibrate, echoing across its petals and into the wider aspects of the room. First the mirror seems to move, then the walls, crawling with life and laughter, then the floor begins to melt below him. Hands reach up from the depths of nothing and claw at his legs. One grabs his pant leg while another wraps around his shoe. Oddly enough, they do not tug him down. Instead, they seem to be pushing him aside, as though it is not him they want, but something else.

_What is this?_ he thinks, tightening his hold on the bottle. _What is this hell below my feet?_

Out of nowhere, something presses against his back.

A claw wraps around his neck.

_It's this that you fear,_ the creature says, _the things that you have always known._

Swallowing a lump in his throat, Michael nods. The monster relinquishes its hold and skirts into the shadow. When Michael turns, he sees a crown of gold atop its head. Pendants and medallions dangle from its obscure, hornlike headdress, blanketing its face in wealth, while its eyes—black holes unto themselves—peer out at him from what appears to be a ceremonial mask. What isn't obscured by said ornamental creation appears to be broken armor, but Michael isn't particularly concerned about its appearance. What he does know, however, is that it has come with purpose.

"What are you?" he asks.

_Something that all know, but few acknowledge._

"What do you want from me?"

_Nothing. It is what you want from me._

Michael frowns. He backs toward the threshold, but is caught off guard when the creature lunges forward. A shawl of dead animal fur adorns the curve of its plated shoulders, only barely obscuring the sickly, three-fingered claws that tip its arms. These too appear to be made from plate armor, but he doesn't linger on their appearance. It has stopped him from walking out of the room, forbidden him from ignoring its call. He has to acknowledge it.

"Are you from Wonderland?" he asks.

_I am from everywhere and nowhere at once._

"Are you here to help me?"

_To guide you, yes, but not to decide._

"What do you want me to know?"

_That you will never escape hardship no matter where you go—that life, as perfect as it may seem, it never as such._

"You're saying Wonderland isn't perfect?"

_It is merely a mask of what it might really be._

"Do you know what it is?"

_No._

Michael shivers.

_It is your choice what you decide to do, mortal, but know that no matter where you go, no matter what you may believe, that nothing is perfect._

Before Michael can question it any further, the creature vanishes, leaving behind only the scent of rot.

Fleeing from the room, Michael makes his way toward his bed and seats himself atop it. In his hand is the Ambien, at his side the glass of water specifically chosen for this mission. Though the scent of rot is gone, it lingers in his mind.

"My choice," he whispers.

_Because nothing is perfect._

Bowing his head, Michael closes his eyes.

Peter, Wonderland, Maximillian, the House of Dreams—whatever can compare to a perfect world?

_Nothing._

Lifting his head, Michael presses the bottle's cap down and rotates it.

He pulls a pill from its depths.

Slipping it between his lips, he lifts the glass of water, then tilts it into his mouth. He swallows the first pill before taking another, then the next. He repeats this process for an indefinite amount of time, his mind lost in other places. Trees topped with gumdrops sprout on the road outside his house, while a pair of gingerbread men prance across the neighbor's lawn, one laughing while the other raises a hand in silence. A dalapago appears from a doghouse, then slides across the road, while in the distance what appears to be a comet plummets, a candy-like string trailing behind it.

For one brief moment, Michael fears Wonderland may be impossible to reach.

Shortly thereafter, he realizes Wonderland is closer than ever before.

Lying down, taking his last sip of water, he rests his head on the pillow and closes his eyes.

_This is it,_ he thinks.

The world begins to darken.

His heart begins to slow.

Then, with a smile on his face, Michael begins to dream.

* * *

They are lying on a bed together. Staring into one another's eyes, smiles on their faces, Michael slowly comes to the realization that he is no longer in pain. Gone is the hurt in his heart and the anguish in his mind. Gone is the idea that he will always be alone, that he will never be completed. Gone is the feeling that there is nothing better than Wonderland.

"Is something wrong?" Peter asks.

Michael shakes his head.

"No," he says. "Nothing's wrong."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm sure," Michael smiles. "Everything's perfect."

"I'm glad."

In the moments that follow, Peter's eyes soften and his breathing comes to a halt. He leans forward, as though wanting to come closer, but stops short. His lips purse and his eyes flicker, briefly illuminating an emotion Michael has never truly felt.

"Peter," Michael whispers.

"Yeah?" Peter asks.

Michael reaches up. His hand touches Peter's cheek.

Peter leans forward.

Their lips touch.

Some say that eternal happiness can never exist, that it is a state of mind and never a state of presence. They say that love only happens once and never again, that after that first moment you feel as though you are really, truly loved, everything else is false—unreal, an illusion to a perfect, first time.

Some say Wonderland doesn't exist.

Those that do are wrong.

# Delilah

Delilah Amberough stood at the base of a hill, looking down at what her life had become. Loneliness, isolation, death—all were staples in her already-complicated existence. Life only existed within the walls of her village, marking humanity's true passage of survival. Green stapled the ground, only divided by rough, dirt road; the occasional shrub littered the side of the path, separating their houses with their sought-after greenery; and the very hill on which she stood bore the only tree in the area—a maple, large and wide, with limbs that extended into the sky like fingers yearning for the old world.

Outside of that, nothing but dead, dirt and rot ruled the land.

It chilled her to no end to realize that they may be the only people left in the world.

"This is pointless," she whispered, falling to her knees and crossing her legs. "Why even bother?"

What the doctor asked for was something she could not give. No matter how hard they tried, they could not bring the dead back to life.

_Why me?_ she thought, tugging at her hair. _Why me, when there are so many others?_

She hadn't been the only one blessed with this gift during the great dying, so why would the doctor turn to her, a simple seventeen-year-old girl?

_It doesn't matter anyway, because no matter what I do or say, he's still going to use me._

As long as she wanted to remain within the walls, she had to do whatever the doctor said.

Sighing, she stood and made her way down the hill, back to the doctor and his somewhat-twisted ways.

* * *

"Veronica," Delilah said, leaning against the front desk, "could you ring Jason and say I'm here?"

"That's Doctor Anderson," the older, heavyset woman said. "And yes, you can go back, he's expecting you."

"All right," she frowned. "Thank you."

She couldn't understand why Veronica didn't like her. As far as she could recall, she hadn't done anything to the woman that could have made her mad or upset. But, then again, Veronica could just not like her for the bizarre gift she had.

_It's not like I can help it,_ she sighed. _I'd be much better off without it._

She chose to ignore any of Veronica's potential reasons for disliking her and instead continued down the hall, stopping only when she came to the doctor's office. She raised her hand, knocked, and then pushed the door open, peeking inside to make sure she hadn't disturbed the man's progress.

"Delilah," he said, looking up at her. "I'm surprised you came."

"Of course I would. Why? Did you think I wouldn't?"

"You're late."

Delilah looked up at the clock.

As Anderson had said, she'd arrived thirty minutes late.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't know."

"It's all right. Close the door—I don't want anyone to see what we're doing."

"Don't people already know?"

"Yes, but that doesn't mean they need to see it, right?

_Good point._

Turning, she closed the door, then crossed the room to where the doctor stood. A clipboard lay on the counter, a few papers folded over to allow Anderson's pen easy access.

"Are you ready?" he asked, looking up at her.

"Yes sir," she nodded.

The body lay on an exam table under a thick, white sheet, the contours of the cadaver's limbs bulging and indenting the slick fabric. It only further reminded Delilah that she had stepped into something far worse than the end of the world, something far worse than anything she could have ever imagined.

"You know what to do," the doctor said.

She nodded.

"Of course."

As if afraid of disturbing the corpse, she took slow, careful steps, extending her arms as slowly and gently as she could. She'd experienced the shock of having a freshly-expired cadaver involuntarily jerking a limb. Doctor Anderson had always assured her that such reactions were just electrical pulses going off in the body. Delilah sometimes believed otherwise.

"Something wrong, Delilah?"

"No," she shivered.

"Then what are you waiting for?"

Shaking her head, she took a deep breath and reached for the sheet.

The body of a middle-aged woman came into view as the fabric came down. At first, Delilah felt sickened, repulsed even. As always, the nausea passed and was soon replaced with a sense of dread. This woman—who had been alive no more than a few days ago—now lay dead on a table, indifferent to her surroundings and the people around her.

"You know what to do," Anderson said, setting a hand on her back.

Delilah kept her silence, tossing the sheet to her side. She stepped around the table until she stood at the woman's right side, took a deep breath, and pressed a hand to her chest.

_Wake._

A tingle started in her heart, quickening her pulse. Sweat broke out on her brow and slid down her face, coating her cheeks with perspiration. A drop slid off the tip of her nose and landed on the woman's face, at the beginning of the bridge of her nose.

Aunt Claridia's eyes opened.

Death filled their surfaces.

"Good," the doctor said, scribbling a note on a clipboard. "Forty-five seconds from touch to reanimation."

_Forty five,_ she thought. _My fastest yet. A record._

She waited, forcing the tingle from her heart and into her shoulder. The effort left her breathless. Rich, if clouded, oxygen entered her lungs with each inhale, and left with every exhale. At first, she thought she would pass out, or maybe have a heart attack from the energy she had to use. But, always, she didn't. The last of the tingle left her arm, entered her palm, and entered the woman's chest, arching her back off the table like she'd been shocked by a defibrillator.

_Only in the movies,_ Doctor Anderson had said. _You never see that in an ER._

You never see it on a dead body either.

"Three minutes, Delilah," he said, looking up at her. "Did the energy leave your hand?"

"I'm a witch," she whispered, almost unable to believe she possessed such powers.

"Delilah?"

Propelled by newfound strength, the corpse of Claridia Johnson pushed itself into a sitting position, turning its head from Delilah, to the doctor, then back again. Once settled on her savior, Claridia opened her mouth, revealing a black, bloated tongue. It wiggled, slicking her teeth before sliding over her lips. Delilah briefly considered the possibility that the corpse was thirsty—parched, even—but said nothing, not even when Jason turned his eyes on her.

"You're aware that you've beaten your previous record by three minutes, right?"

"Almost half," she mumbled.

"Delilah?"

"She's alive," she whispered.

"No—she isn't. Aunt Claridia is dead."

A low groan rose from the corpse's chest, tracing Delilah's forehead and puncturing the top of her skull. It slid into her brain and took control of her body, causing the hairs on the back of her neck to rise and her arms to shake. She stilled them by crossing them over her chest, but it did little to help. The dead had spoken. They wanted answers.

_I'm sorry,_ she mouthed, a tear sliding down her face.

"Is something wrong?"

"I need to go," she said, walking to the door.

"You can't!" Jason said. "You need to put her down."

"Do it yourself. You have a drill."

She slammed the door without saying another word.

Until that moment, she hadn't known that the dead really did have souls.

* * *

Back home—in a small, rounded building constructed from the remnants of metal buildings and topped with a flat, wooden roof—she sat on her bed and rocked herself to the sound of her thoughts, trying as hard as she could to forget the sound of Claridia's gargled moan and the sight of her fat, bloated tongue. The woman—as dead as she may have been—had experienced human emotion, regardless of the fact that her brain had died and disappeared with the rest of her bodily functions.

_I'm so sorry, Aunt Claridia._

While she hadn't known the woman past the casual meet-and-greet at one of their village's social gatherings, reviving someone she'd once known pained her to no end. At times, she'd remain on her bed for days, unable to sleep as the ghosts of the dead wiggled their tongues or blinked their glossy eyes at her. The only cure for these fits of insomnia were the sedatives Anderson kept in his medical office, and even then, those rarely helped.

_You can't help what he makes you do,_ she thought, curling into a ball. _You can't control or give him the things he wants._

No.

Had she been able to control anything at all, she would've turned that fateful night and stopped the event that would ultimately change her life.

The war, the bombs, the brief flash of light that covered the entire sky—then the flames came and wiped away all the good in the world. People ran the streets, flaming cherries atop a Burning Alaska. The ground had turned white, then, as a superheated firestorm waged over the earth's surface and destroyed almost everything that existed. Those few that had managed to escape to the underground catacombs emerged to an almost-barren earth, wiped clean of humanity's former existence.

All that had remained was an obelisk that had once marked the location of Washington D.C.

Just like the day she went underground—a parentless girl of only seven, clinging to the arm of a tall man in a big, black suit—the day she emerged from the darkness below remained clear in her mind.

Almost three years later, when the few scientists that had survived deemed the world fit for human habitation, the group of about fifty men, women and children took their first step on the cold, barren land.

Like mud cracked from the immense heat of a summer-long drought, the ground below crumbled under their feet, virgin soil tested by human weight for the first time in years. Those few trees that managed to survive had been stripped of all life, crystallized under ash like Pompeii from its volcano. They'd looked like mannequins then, faceless because of a creationist's inability to give them a true identity. And that image alone had struck fear into the hearts of those who survived the most brutal event in human history. Many broke down crying, elated from survival, but terrified of the future. Even the men—who, until that point, had remained the stoic, almost-godlike figures of the group—broke down, shedding tears for all the things they'd lost.

Loved ones died during that time, burned by the pressure or the apprehension of three cold, dark years; but despite everything lost, those few survivors vowed it wouldn't be in vain.

Not long after they began their trek across the barren wasteland to start their new life, the first case of magic turned their world upside down.

* * *

With morning came both dawn and the realization that she would once again be returning to the doctor's office. So, as always, Delilah rose, walked into the bathroom, and washed herself down, grimacing—but not shrieking—as the cold water hit her body. She bathed for about five minutes, then climbed out, pulled herself into a T-shirt and jeans, and made her way out into the streets.

This early in the morning, people had only begun to rise—hanging laundry or pulling it back in. A few women waved at her as she passed, but she paid them little attention. Their waves meant nothing more than a sign of recognition for a witch in their midst. Many of them probably cursed her in their minds, or prayed that she wouldn't come anywhere near them.

_Don't worry,_ she thought, running a hand through her hair, _because I'm not coming anywhere near you._

At the end of the long, dirt road that trisected itself into a Y-shape, she turned west and headed toward the doctor's office. In her mind, she chastised herself for ever getting into this situation, but it couldn't be helped. Until she turned eighteen, she had to do whatever was asked of her, regardless of whether she liked it or not.

With as much dignity as she could manage, she pushed open one of the double doors and made her way inside.

"Veronica," she began, "can I..."

The woman pointed before Delilah could finish.

"Thank you," she murmured, stepping through the threshold.

As she made her way through the halls, Delilah thought of Claridia and how she'd beaten her personal record. Three-minutes and something, she remembered, closing her eyes. That had been all it had taken to bring a dead woman back to life.

_I need to tell him straight-out that I can't do this anymore. It's getting to be too much._

Delilah opened her eyes just as Jason opened the door.

"Delilah?" he asked, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "What're you doing here so early?"

Her eyes wandered over his face, fresh with beard stubble, and to the buttons on his shirt, which seemed to have come undone of their own free will. He had to have spent the night in his office, because Doctor Jason Anderson _would never_ have been caught looking the way he did.

"I came to see you," she said, sliding her hands into her pockets. Then, in a lighter voice, added, "Weren't we supposed to do something about Claridia?"

"Oh. Yes. I forgot." The man paused, frowned, and scratched his chin. Beard stubble always seemed to make his face look red and raw. "Come in. Just give me a moment to get ready."

"All right."

Stepping into the room, she made her way around the desk and to the window, where several plants grew under plastic wrap on in glass vials. A single flower sat in the very center, growing from a mixture of charcoal and potting soil.

"It's pretty," she whispered.

"It's the only rose I've been able to grow," Jason said, setting a hand on her shoulder. "And look at the color. Can you believe that?"

No. She couldn't—and didn't want to—believe it. Just the sight of a green rose with a beautiful black-and-red interior threatened to overwhelm her with the reality of what had happened after the great dying.

"Have you told anyone about this?" she asked, grimacing as the older man pressed his chest against her back. "Jason, don't, please."

"You're a very pretty girl, Delilah," he said, brushing his lips against her neck. "A very special pretty girl."

"This isn't right."

"I'm not that much older than you."

True. At twenty, the three years that separated them meant nothing, and compared to a few of the other girl's Delilah's age, the slight difference made them one of the most likely—and appealing—couples in the whole town. But despite the man's attraction, his intelligence, and his smooth, easy smile, the darkness that corroded his heart made her that less willing to ever be in a relationship with him. Who would want to sleep with a man who wanted to bring something dead back to life?

_I sure don't._

"I'm sorry," she sighed, reaching up to push his hand away. "Are we going to work on Claridia, or not?"

"Yeah," Jason breathed, "we are."

Even though a tinge of malice lingered on the tip of his tongue, Delilah felt better knowing that they would finally be getting to work.

* * *

"She's aware," Jason said. "Very, _very_ aware."

"More than the others have been," Delilah agreed.

Like a glass puppet with strings attached to its back, Claridia followed Delilah's finger with the utmost abandon, not caring—or believing—in anything else but the single digit that lingered no more than a foot away from her face. When Delilah moved her finger up, Claridia's head rose with it, and when she moved it down, the woman's head followed, a plane nose-diving toward the great, misty beyond. But when Delilah put all of her fingers up, Claridia's eyes widened, the dead, hazy pupils widening in confusion or fear.

"Why does she look so surprised when I put more fingers up?" she frowned, sliding her hands into her pockets to avoid Claridia's startled expression.

"It could be that she thinks she's supposed to follow them all," Jason grunted, expelling a deep breath. "I don't know what else to tell you."

"It's all right. What do you want me to try next?"

"Anything you think might work."

_What_ I _think will work._ She nodded. _Great. Leave it up to me, the girl who knows nothing about anything._

Sighing, she lifted the hand Claridia had been watching. This time, she chose to spread her fingers apart, then flick them forward, as if stretching the muscles. As she did this, Claridia's head bobbed up and down, watching each and every digit.

"Aunt Claridia," she said, stilling her hand. "Do you know which finger I was moving?"

The corpse stopped moving. Even her eyes, usually animated inside their hollow pits, ceased to move the slightest bit. The harsh, rising sunlight that penetrated through the windows didn't even seem to bother her at all, even though it glared right into her dull eyes.

Then, out of nowhere, her right eye moved.

She reached out and touched the tip of Delilah's index finger with the tip of her own.

"Did you see that, Jason?" she whispered, turning her head up at the doctor.

"Uh huh," he breathed, mouth slightly agape. "Yeah. I did."

"What... what does it mean?" she asked.

"It means that it might be working," Jason said, stepping up beside Delilah. "It means that we might be onto something, Delilah."

* * *

When she left Jason's office nearly five hours later, the bleak sun had risen high in the sky, brightening the dead land like it had before the great dying and as it always would. She thought of the green rose with the speckled, black-and-red interior and what it might mean to the existence of everyone within the wall.

_Does it mean that Jason's smarter than he thinks he is? Does it mean that we might be able to bring the dead fully back to life?_

What would happen if Jason were truly able to accomplish that? Would he be hailed a hero, like those scientists and doctors had in the past? Or would he be scorned, belittled and hated for his treacherous work? Human nature existed in a way that allowed a man or woman to be afraid of death, but did it really, truly exist to defeat it?

_No,_ _it doesn't. And it shouldn't._

But, as far as she was concerned, Jason could do whatever he wanted, just as long as he left her alone.

_You know he won't._

Why her, of all people? She didn't have large breasts, a nice, shapely figure, or the face of an actress long since dead. Jason had called her pretty—special, too—but that meant nothing, coming from him. He'd go from one girl to the other, obsessing over the first, then flocking to the second as though he'd been forever lost from his troop. Part of her liked Jason and the way he seemed to admire her, but the other, darker and stronger half hated him for what he did.

_You can't hate him._

"Oh, no," she whispered. "Don't worry—I can."

"What're you goin' on about, girl?"

She jumped, and then spun around to find Johnson, the village farmer, grinning like an idiot.

"Nothing," she smiled, reaching back to rub her neck. "Just talking to myself."

"You crazy witches and your talkin' to yourselves," the man grinned, leaning against his shovel. "So, what were you and Jason cookin' up there in his old lab?"

"I shouldn't say," she sighed.

"Come on. You know I won't say anything."

"I know, sir. I... I just don't want to break Jason's trust."

"So that's what you were mumblin' about," he chuckled. "Someone's smitten for the smitter."

"That's not even a word."

"It is with Jason Anderson, dear girl."

"Anyway," she smiled, setting her hand at her side, "did you need something, or can I go?"

"I just wanted to wish you well," he said. "And tell you to watch yourself."

"Watch myself?"

"Uh huh," he nodded. "Because as far as I'm concerned, when you're playin' with the dead, you're on a whole other playin' field."

* * *

Jason held the terrarium-grown rose in two hands, admiring its delicate, exotic surface with careful, calculating eyes. Delilah stood off to the side, eyeing both him and Claridia, who sat in the examination chair waiting to see what would happen.

"I've been running tests on this," he said, watching Delilah through the glass terrarium, "and Claridia's flesh."

"Her flesh?" Delilah asked.

"Her flesh," the doctor confirmed.

"But what does the rose have anything to do with... with Claridia?"

"At first, nothing. But, upon further examination, I've found that the rose seems to have chemical properties, which was expected, because the seeds were exposed to radiation in the doomsday's vault, but I never expected something like this."

"What did you find?"

"The tests show increased cellular activity when a broken-down petal is exposed to the dead flesh. Now I'm not saying this means anything, because dozens of tests would be needed to see if my theory is correct, but..."

"Tell me what the flower does, Jason."

"It brings the cells back to life."

Delilah swallowed a lump in her throat.

"To life?" she managed.

"To life." He set the terrarium on the counter, a smile perking the corners of his lips. "You know what this means, Delilah? This means that we could _finally,_ after all these years, bring the dead back to life!"

"But we don't know if it's true," she sighed. "Jason, we don't _know_ if we can bring the dead back in order to keep humanity going. We don't know _anything_ past a few ideas and speculation, because _nothing's_ been proven, and the few tests you've done have shown _little to no_ results. We don't know _anything_ about the people we've been bring back to life. Jason, we..."

"That doesn't matter, Delilah! We've got the resources, and we have the test subjects. All we'd need now is..."

"No."

One word—one single, deadly word—was all it took to silence one of the most powerful men in the entire village.

"What?" he laughed, turning his eyes on her. "I'm sorry, but did you just tell me _no?"_

"You can't do this to them!" she cried. "You can't do this to _her!_ She's a person, for God's sake!"

_"Was_ a person, Delilah." Jason shook his head. Again, the smile returned, but this time with a sense of narcissism that could only come from a power-hungry man like Jason. "I'm sorry to say, but you're in no position to tell me what I can or can't do."

"I'll stop working," she warned. "You can't make me."

"Oh? And just what, exactly, will you tell the mayor, when I report you for insubordination?"

"I'll tell him what you're doing."

"I've been _authorized_ to perform _life-altering_ experiments on the bodies that the witches are able to revive. Just because one pathetic, _little_ girl says that she doesn't want to help me doesn't mean I can't get others."

"I'm the best."

"So be it. There are others."

"Jason," she whimpered. "You can't..."

"Get out, Delilah."

"But you..."

"I said _get out."_

"You shouldn't..."

_"GET OUT!"_ he roared, throwing his hands in the air. "Get out before I have someone remove you!"

"Fine," she whispered. "But don't think you'll get away with this, Jason."

"Oh, don't worry," he smiled, licking his lower lip. "I'll get away with whatever the hell I want."

* * *

Tears coursed down her face as she ran from the neurology office. Having barely been able to contain them in the front lobby, they came out in a blistering torrent of heat, burning her eyes and forcing them shut. She ran through the streets without a care, not bothering to look to see where she was going or the people who looked on with concern. It didn't matter, not anymore—Jason had had his way, and he would do whatever he wanted with Claridia.

_Claridia,_ she sobbed. _I'm so sorry._

Inside her home, she threw herself on the bed, buried her face in her pillow, and screamed as loudly as she could. At times, she thought she would drown, weighted down by an insufferable emotion called guilt, while at other times she thought someone would come knocking down her door, demanding her screams to stop or her pleas to be silenced. But throughout all of this, she thought of the one woman she'd brought back to life, the one woman that seemed to have part of her soul still inside her.

_You touched my finger,_ she thought, drawing breath into her lungs. _And I touched yours._

It was at that moment she knew what she had to do.

* * *

_Memory._

_Simple, cosmetic, something everyone and every single thing on the planet experienced. Even the planet, thought to be only a rock floating in a vast, never-ending universe, remembered the things she once experienced, for her surface bore the scars of years past. Craters where giant rocks from heaven had blanketed the deserts, twisted caverns that rose and fell from where the tides once swept back and forth, and even marks of the greats—the Egyptians, the Mayans, the Aztecs and the Chinese—still stood, monuments to the cultures that once thrived upon Mother Earth's surface. And like Mother Earth, Delilah remembered how both her and the life of thousands of others had been turned upside down on one loud, fateful day, when a man in a big, white house stood up and said they were going to war._

_Then, three months later, a man in a long, black cloak and with Christ hanging from his neck pointed to the sky and began to watch as Armageddon reigned down upon all of them._

_At only seven years old, and tailing the heels of a social worker who made it his mission to adopt her, Delilah looked up at the sky at exactly the same moment the alarms went off. Washington, D.C, the home of the great, grand president, issued a warning to any and all who could hear, across all airways and across all radio signals._

_That warning had one meaning._

_And that warning ensured that death would come to the United States._

_Some got down on their knees and prayed, and some threw themselves into cars and headed for the hills, while others simply stared in wonder at the three angels soaring from the sky. With their mechanical wings and their broad, open arms, the faceless things from above extended their hands in offering. They offered peace, they offered gratitude, and they offered one final chance for those who believed to be with their loved ones one last time. Some did stand and wait, eyes wet and glistening, lips quivering and pouting; but not Delilah—not Delilah and the social worker who made it his mission to make a little girl happy._

_As if no time had passed at all from the moment the alarm went off, the man in the big, black suit took Delilah's hand and ran._

_Dodging through traffic, civilians and wayward pets let loose by their owners for one last, final feast, the social worker tucked Delilah into his arms and threw himself forward. Shoulder-first, like a football player on a grand field of sport, he slammed into his opponents—men and women running for their lives. Some fell to the ground, trampled by the crowd of wild apes, while others simply stumbled aside, only to be pushed again, and again, and again._

_Few survived that day, all because only a few knew where to go._

_The government had once said to run for the hills were the end of the world to come, to rush into the prepared bunkers in case tragedy did indeed strike._

_What the government_ didn't _tell them was that those bunkers couldn't withstand a nuclear attack._

_So, while they ran, making their way to the hills, Delilah and the man whose name she could no longer remember ran toward the catacombs, a place where only certain military officials were allowed. And because that social worker wore a suit, and because he held a child no older than ten in his arms, they took him in, out of pity for a father seemingly rescuing his daughter._

_After that, they made their way into the ends of the earth, all the while listening to the sounds of the screams outside._

_A minute later, everything went silent._

_Then, like a man dropping a pin in a large, quiet room, the world exploded and everything died._

_With that memory held intact, and with those nightmares and dreams continuing to linger in the later days of her life, Delilah knew that she could not let anything else suffer, not after what she had seen and experienced._

_Whether a person was alive, dead, or undead, she knew that nothing deserved to suffer._

* * *

That night, she did the unthinkable.

She broke into the Anderson Neurology Department and made her way inside.

Guided by the single, lone beacon of a flashlight, she made her way through the wide lobby and down the hall, careful to train her light at an angle on the ground in front of her. If she were to hold it the way a normal person would, and were Jason to walk out of a room and be caught in her spotlight, there would be no way to explain her reason for being here.

_I came to check on Claridia,_ she'd most likely say. Or, if her conscience betrayed her: _I came to say I'm sorry, Jason. I shouldn't have said what I said to you._

Regardless, she'd come for one reason, and one reason only—to free Claridia.

Taking a deep breath, she stopped at the foot of the examination room and waited, hoping to hear the sound of Jason's heavy breathing or the click of his polished shoes. Neither of these sounds came to her ears, but she stopped to consider something else she might hear—a pen on a clipboard, the scratch of stubble, the quiet murmurings or the soft curses of a man with troubled thoughts. She heard none of the sounds that would attest to Jason's lingering presence, and for a moment, stopped to consider one deadly possibility.

What if Jason _wasn't_ in there?

What if, after all this time, he'd simply been following her, waiting to make his move?

"No," she whispered. "He couldn't..."

"Hello, Delilah."

She whirled around faster than she ever had in her life.

Jason stood no more than ten feet away, smoking a cigarette.

"It's a no smoking zone," he grinned, plucking the cigarette from his lips, "but I'm not the bigger fire hazard here."

"Go away, Jason. No one has to know anything about this."

"So you want it gone, just like that? All the work we've done, all the progress we've made?" He dropped his cigarette. "I don't think so, Delilah."

"You can't stop me, Jason."

"You think so?"

"I know so."

He smirked, spread his fingers, and pursed his lips.

The cigarette he'd just dropped rose, suspended by invisible ropes and chains.

"You..." she breathed. "You're..."

"You're not the only witch in town, babe."

A firestorm erupted from the cigarette.

Throwing herself to the floor, Delilah covered her head with her hands just as a plume of flame exploded inches over her head. The flames—hot, greasy, and slick—tickled the walls, pawing at the ceiling and sprinkler system like hellcats from the underworld.

For one brief moment, Delilah thought the sprinklers would start.

Then, with a horrible, undeniable truth, she realized that they hadn't, nor ever would, work.

Taking a deep breath, she rolled over, thrust her hand into the air, and forced a gap between the flames just large enough for her stand. Once on her feet, she held the barrier steady, sweat tickling her neck. She didn't know how long she would be able to keep the fire at bay.

_It won't be long,_ she thought, closing her eyes.

"Give it up, Delilah. You're never going to win, not against me. I'm too powerful."

"No!" she cried, tears burning her face. "You're nothing but a coward!"

"You think so, girl? Would a coward defend his work until his final breath?"

"Only a coward would defend something as futile as this!"

The barrier broke.

She screamed.

Fire surrounded her.

Laughs echoed the hallway as what Jason believed to be Delilah's death ensued. Fire spiraled around her like a butterfly's cocoon, smoke devoured her like a dog to a kill, and fear tightened its hold on her heart, once again playing the puppet of a teenage girl. All seemed hopeless for the Amberough girl, who'd tried to destroy what the doctor believed to be the cure to death.

But, despite all this, Jason did not know one thing.

Delilah had only shrunk the barrier, not let it break.

"You see!" Jason howled, tilting his head back to the ceiling. "This is what you get for trying to destroy me!"

"No, Jason," she said, "this is what you get."

Using the barrier as a propellant, Delilah caught the flame in its surface, curled it around her body, and then thrust it right back at Jason.

There was nothing the man could do as over two-thousand degrees of heat slammed into his body and forced him against the wall.

The last of his screams died with the fire's last breath.

"Goodbye, Jason," she said. "I'm not part of your game anymore."

She turned and opened the door.

* * *

Claridia sat in her chair, unaware of the events that had just taken place outside. She did not look up once, not until the door clicked shut behind her.

"Claridia?" Delilah asked.

The corpse turned her head up.

Glossy eyes glowed in the darkness.

"I... I came to help you," she said, stepping around the chairs. "I don't know what will happen now that I've killed Jason, but at least this way, you won't have to suffer."

Delilah closed her eyes.

A dead hand touched her arm.

"I know," she smiled, opening her eyes to find Claridia looking up at her. "You're ready to go, aren't you?"

_Of course she is,_ she thought, tightening her hands into fists. _Why did you ask that?_

"I want to thank you for everything you've taught me," she said, pressing a hand to Claridia's chest. "I don't know how I'll ever repay you, but the least I can do is let you rest."

From her heart, to her shoulder, then down her arm and through her hand, the healing touch of mercy entered Claridia's body and forever stilled her undead body.

Closing her eyes, Delilah tilted her head back and let a tear fall from her face.

_You did it, Delilah. You finally set her free._

"Goodbye," she said, making her way toward the door. She stopped in front of it, gripped the doorknob, and took a deep breath. "Thank you, Claridia. Rest in peace."

Behind her, a flower sparkled.

The rose began to shed its petals.

# Bouquet

The man stands at the register buying flowers for his boyfriend.

"They're beautiful," the clerk says. "Who are they for?"

In this socially-oppressed, medieval-minded neighborhood, you can't get away with being gay, so he lies. With his tongue in cheek and his eyes clear, he simply replies, "For my girlfriend" with his face straight as ever. He thinks it's ironic that he just said that, but he tries to push the sentiments aside. Calling his boyfriend a 'she' doesn't further diminish his masculinity, as there is a 'he' in the 'she,' so there isn't anything to worry about, right?

"Have a good day," the clerk says, passing money into the man's hand.

He nods and leaves.

* * *

He drives home with his hands on the wheel and his mind in the sky. His heart feels as though it will fall out of his chest and it aches like it's been struck with a metal hammer. _Bang,_ he imagines, it crushing his ribcage and hitting his soul, and _boom_ he thinks, for he has just delivered upon himself a horrible realization.

It is their three-year anniversary.

He and his boyfriend have been together for longer than most straight couples have.

_It's all right,_ he thinks, looking down at the flowers in the passenger seat. _He'll like them._

Michael has always liked flowers. He said when he was a little boy that he wanted to run down the aisle when his mother married his stepfather, that he was the one who wanted to cast the flowers and not a little girl. But Michael was told that he couldn't because he was a little boy and not a little girl, and in that statement his life had been changed, his future sealed in this place of nothing and hate.

Shaking his head, he pushes his foot down on the accelerator and tries not to think about just what it is that's haunting him.

* * *

"Jim," Michael says as he opens the door.

"Happy anniversary."

He presents the roses as though they are nothing more than trinkets, fake gold in a quarter machine. However, despite their cost, and despite their commonly-held, feminine sentiments, it is Michael's smile that forces a grin across his own face as his boyfriend takes the flowers in hand and holds them as if they're the most precious thing in the world.

"I... I don't know what to say," Michael says, turning his eyes up to face him.

"Then don't say anything," Jim replies.

He leans forward.

The rose bears its thorn.

Blood falls onto Michael's perfect white skin.

"Jim," Michael says, reaching down to take his hand. "You're hurt."

"No I'm not," he replies.

When Michael frowns, he offers nothing more than a smile.

Somehow, Michael finds the means to smile too.

* * *

They watch TV by the light of the bedside table lamp. Light cast across the room and painting the room in beige, it seems as though the TV cannot speak and is instead made to cast its own light as well. Jim tries to watch it, but he can't help but look down at Michael, who is cradled in his arms as though there is nothing wrong in the world. He is a child, Jim knows, of their generation, of their socially-oppressed and horribly-depressed kind.

_Hold him,_ he thinks. _It's the only thing that helps._

Outside, a neon sign covers a brick wall that would have otherwise been the only thing there. The curtain is drawn, but still Jim can see it, shining through the curtain like it's a devil hidden in a fruit bowl. Its V its beard, the A its face, the devil smiles in shades of red, white and blue, completely patriotic in semblance to their lives which are nothing but ordinary.

"Jim," Michael says.

"Yes?" he replies.

"Are you all right?"

He wants to say he is fine, that nothing is wrong and that there is nothing that can hold him from the happiness he so desperately wants to have, but he can't. For some strange, horrible reason, his tongue is silent, as though the cat has caught it and made it its canary.

_What do I say,_ he thinks, _to someone who doesn't know?_

So innocent Michael is that half the time, he doesn't even realize there is a slip within his mind, a stutter within his voice or the pain within his skull. Headaches bloom there often, wicked flowers meant to show him the meaning of the world, but still Michael doesn't notice. Sometimes, it makes him so mad that he wants to bash his skull into the wall in a fake attempt at trepanation, and other times, it makes him want to swallow as many painkillers as he can manage. However, he always does neither, because he does not want to hurt not only himself, but his boyfriend, the one he loves so much.

"I'm fine," he finally decides to say, drawing his boyfriend close. "Don't worry about me."

They continue to watch the TV as though there is nothing wrong in the world.

* * *

Proclamation is king, and when the devil says AIDs, it automatically points to them. _The gay disease,_ they call it, _the thing that the homosexuals are made of._

"All you have to do is be around them to get it," some preachers say, then spread their arms to their communion. "All it takes is one simple step."

Once, when Jim was late to come home, Michael had called his workplace and asked if everything was all right. Up until that time, his boss hadn't been aware of the existence of a young man named Michael and had asked Jim about it, to which he simply replied, _It's my brother._

His boss didn't buy it.

They had moved the next town over shortly thereafter.

As Jim watches the TV in the kitchen with his shirt halfway done-up and toothbrush in his mouth, he tries to avert his eyes as the man on the screen continues to speak about the AIDs epidemic. They say that people are dying, that gay men are spreading disease because of drug use and unprotected sex. They say they don't use condoms, that they aren't celibate and that they party non-stop. Jim wants to scream, to say that it is all wrong and that it isn't true, but he doesn't want to wake Michael.

His sweet, sweet Michael... how he couldn't live without him.

_I work,_ he thinks, _for him._

Automechanics is a manly thing for manly men. He couldn't be gay, his fellow employees say, because he's under the hood of a truck, because his jeans are stained with grease. It is the one thing that keeps them alive at night and food on the table.

"Jim!" Michael calls.

He shuts the TV off with a simple click of the switch. "Yeah?" he asks.

"Are you going to work today?"

"Almost," he says, then frowns. Almost? _Almost?_ What is he thinking? Of course he's going to work. "Yeah," he says, raising his voice over the sound of the toothbrush raking across his teeth.

"Will you come here for a second?"

Jim doesn't think he can bear it, especially after what he's just watched on TV, but he spits the toothpaste in the sink and turns toward the bedroom, swallowing what he couldn't spit out without a second thought.

As he passes into the bedroom, he expects Michael to be out of bed—awake and fully dressed. Instead, he finds the precious being he has so devoted himself to, naked and with the sheet only barely covering himself.

"Yeah?" he asks, leaning into the threshold.

"I just wanted to say I love you before you went."

"Thank you," Jim said.

Little does Michael know that those two words are the only thing that keeps him going during the day.

* * *

"Jim," his boss grunts. "You almost done with this car?"

"Yes sir," he replies.

He has been fixing this vehicle for the past four years. Always it ends up with the same problem—a bad carburetor, a slight of the wheel, a bad AC vent. He fixes all of them with little more than a passing thought, as it's his job and it's what he's paid to do, but sometimes he wonders if Mr. McKinney's car is just buying its time before it one day explodes out on the open road.

_That,_ he thinks, _would be a sight._

He nods to his boss, bows under the hood of the car, then begins to fix the problem he has fixed ten times before.

* * *

He returns home at six in the evening dead tired and covered in grease, so into the shower he goes. His clothes on the floor, his mind in the ground, he barely hears the creak of the door opening, much less feels the press of naked flesh against his.

"Hey," Michael says.

"Hey," Jim replies.

His boyfriend slides his arms around his waist and leans against his back. It is not sex Michael wants when he displays this sort of emotion. No—what he wants is company, as he feels loneliness during the day that Jim can't help abide.

_It's all right,_ he thinks.

His heart wants to break out of his chest. It's a sick thing, a creature of guilt and sorrow, though he knows it is truly his mind who forces him to feel the way he does. A way to a man's heart is not through his chest, but his mind, and were someone to want a direct way to the mind, they might try finding way through his nose, as it's the closest, most direct route to the inside of his head.

"How was work?" Michael asks as the lukewarm water falls on both of them.

"Fine," he says, then thinks to add, "I fixed Mr. McKinney's car again."

"Again?" Michael laughs.

"Again," he nods.

Michael doesn't ask anything further. Instead, he tightens his hold around Jim's midsection and presses his body against him.

In that moment, Jim can't help but feel sorrier than he already does.

* * *

He lays awake. Like he often does during the night, he ponders on life and just what is happening around him. He doesn't believe in God, as it's too complicated with the church in such an uproar, and it's not worth it to try and wish for better things, as ninety-five percent of his check goes into rent, utilities and living, so most of the time, he lays there and tries to imagine just what the future would be like.

_It may be great,_ he sometimes thinks, _or it may be horrible._

He can't imagine a future with anything good in it, at least not in the foreseeable distance. He's been trying to shave away the block of indifference with the change jar he keeps at the side of the door, as he often finds change in the garage, though whether or not he's stealing it is up to anyone's discretion. He doesn't think it'll hurt anyone—a few pennies here, a dime or so there. Some would argue that a dollar could save a child's life in Africa, but with twenty-five cents, they'd still need another seventy-five to get anywhere.

Shaking his head, he begins to make his way out of bed, to get the customary warm glass of milk that usually helps him sleep, but stops when Michael stirs at his side.

_Will he wake up?_ he thinks.

It wouldn't matter. Michael knows of his sleeping problems. He won't say a word.

Rising, he makes his way toward the door, but stops before he can do so.

In the bed, Michael turns.

He can feel his boyfriend's eyes on him.

"Jim," Michael says.

"Yeah?" he replies.

"Are you coming back to bed?"

"I will soon," he says, then makes his way out the door.

* * *

The milk does little to help him sleep. It seems to upset his stomach, and when he goes through the entire night in rolls of agony and frustration, it is Michael who tells him he should call in sick for work.

"You should," Michael says. "You've been on the toilet all morning."

"Shut up," he says.

When Michael doesn't say anything further, he sighs, knowing that he has crossed a boundary that he knows he shouldn't have broken. He begins to say something, but Michael leans forward and captures his lips before he can finish, an apology not broken, but accepted.

"The boss is a hardass," he says.

"You can't fix cars if your stomach's messed up."

"I know."

"So why not call in sick?"

When his stomach rolls, he decides to do just that.

* * *

It is the next day, when he is only barely beginning to feel better and isn't in the bathroom for an extended period of time, that he gets the call.

"I can't keep going without a good mechanic," the boss says.

Jim wants to argue, to say that he has only missed one or two days in the past six months, but he says nothing. His arguments will be futile, his rebuttals unnecessary, and in the end he can do little more than nod.

Michael is standing in the threshold, his arms over his chest, when he hangs up the phone. "What happened?" he asks.

"I just lost my job," he says, then begins to cry.

* * *

There seems to be little he can do. One moment he is happy, then the next he is sad. Michael has suggested that he go to the doctor, because they say that massive mood swings can be an indication that something is wrong, but he says no, that everything is fine and that he's just going through a bit of a depression.

_That's a medical condition,_ Michael says.

He doesn't reply.

Seated at the kitchen counter with a newspaper folded out before him and a red marker in hand, he begins to circle jobs that are within his proficiency range, then begins to think about them and just how much money they will have before they run out. He knows it's a couple of thousand, maybe two, and that can keep them fed and in the apartment for at least a few months, but until then...

_What am I going to do?_ he thinks, cupping his face in his hands.

Part of him wants to freak out. Another, desperate part wants to cry. Regardless, though, he has to remain strong—if not only for himself, but for Michael, who will surely begin to panic if he sees him crying, just like he always has and does and will until the end of days.

Shaking his head, he picks up the marker and continues to go through the newspaper.

* * *

He is there for much of the afternoon. Head bowed, one-year-past-due prescription glasses balancing on the end of his nose, he has gone through much of the paper and has even begun to call a few of the places—the first of which is a lawnmower repair business, while the second in line is a fast food joint. He says he's served as a cook before, that he can flip eggs faster than anyone else in town (he can provide reference) and that he is more than willing to serve in the food industry if it will help him stay in his home.

The businesses ask for references.

He supplies them freely.

Each person he calls says they will check back with him in the coming days.

He begins to think this is worthless when the fifth person says that.

* * *

He lays on the couch with his arm over his eyes. Counting sheep in a feeble attempt to fall asleep, it's one-two-three then three-four-five, six-seven-eight and nine-ten-eleven. When he gets to somewhere within the hundreds, he decides that he will be unable to sleep at this late hour of the afternoon and succumbs to that very notion.

Throwing his legs over the side of the couch, he reaches up to rub the half-sleep from his eyes and sighs when his gaze falls on his boyfriend, who is sitting in the corner of the room reading a hardback.

"Hey," Michael says, when he notices that he has risen. "You all right?"

"I'm fine," he smiles. "Why?"

"Because you're trying to sleep at five in the afternoon."

_What more is there to do if I don't have a job?_

Choosing to keep his thought to himself rather than risk upsetting Michael, he stands, stretches his arms out over his head, then forces himself to grin when Michael in turn rises and pushes his book back onto the bookshelf. He's always had a problem with not finishing books—he's an avid reader and will devour half of one in an afternoon, but he seems to always put them aside, something he can't help but feel is inappropriate at the time, if only because it makes things seem misplaced. However, instead of dwelling how things seem appropriate or not so much, he steps forward, sets his hand on his boyfriend's shoulders, then draws him forward, into an embrace he can't help but feel is meaningless.

"Michael," he says.

"Yes?" his boyfriend replies.

"Everything is going to be okay. Okay?"

"Okay."

He bows his head into Michael's hair and breathes.

* * *

His sleeping habits only continue to decline as the week goes on. First minutes, then hours, then eternity—it seems like he cannot sleep at all, and when Michael finally confronts him with a bottle of Melatonin in hand, he gives in and decides to try to normalize his schedule.

The pill works.

Every night, he's out like a switch, and every morning when it fades away, he's right back up again. Most mornings are spent beside the phone, afternoons with Michael on the couch watching TV or something similar. He tries to introduce new habits into their lifestyle, budgeting accordingly for each time they may possibly go out to dinner, but Michael is afraid. He says so one night just as they're getting ready to go to bed, him with the pill already in his system and less than an hour away from being completely light's out.

_I don't think we should waste any money_ are the words that begin the fabled conversation.

In pajamas bottoms and little else, he looks upon his near-naked boyfriend with eyes that normally would have been reserved for lewd purposes. Though he cannot see it himself, he feels it in the back of his head, as though he's just taken eye drops designed to not only clear his vision, but enhance it. This look—this _thing_ —is what makes him feel as though he has just overstepped a boundary that cannot be undone.

"Michael," he says.

The younger man crosses his arms over his chest, sighs, then bows his head. His fair hair falls over his face and covers most of his eyes, shielding him from any indication as to what he's feeling. Jim can already guess most of it—indecision, possibly, maybe even unease. He knows fear lingers there as well, just under the surface, but it hasn't yet surfaced. Indecision has not yet progressed to unease and unease has not yet fallen to fear. It would take some time before those emotions began to surface.

Reaching forward, he extends his hand to touch his lover's arm, but stops halfway there.

_He doesn't want to be touched._

The voice in his head wills him to instead take the blanket and lift it up, if only partially, and crawl into bed, which he does without another word or action.

Michael follows soon after.

As always, Michael falls back against his chest.

Their fingers lace together.

* * *

It is when the first notice of rent arrives that he begins to become frustrated. Four-hundred dollars out of their account and with no job in clear sight, he thinks that it is the end of the world until Michael wraps his hands around his shoulders and leans forward to whisper in his ear.

"I'll get a job," he says.

He doesn't want it to come to this. Always he has promised Michael that he would never have to work, that he could leave his past behind and instead recover from the hellish childhood he'd survived. He took medication for such illnesses, for such psychotic episodes that sometimes came in the form of dreams, and for that reason alone, it pained his heart to hear such a confession.

_You don't have to,_ he thinks, but doesn't have the strength to speak.

The one man he truly loves should not have to give up the comfort he's found just because he lost his job.

Is the world wrong, or is it just incredibly painful? He can't be sure. All he knows is that he wants to cry.

* * *

"Someone called for you," Michael says.

He's slept in this morning—not, of course, of his own accord. He'd set his alarm to go off at exactly eight AM, but sometime between that and the five minutes that followed, Michael must have risen and turned it off to allow him the solace of sleep. He knew what his partner would say—that it was 'just to let him sleep,' but regardless, he can't think about it. There is something new on the horizon, something that may just get them the money they need.

"Who was it?" he asks.

"A technical college."

_A technical college?_ he thinks, then remembers that he had called a technical company a few days prior.

This school claimed to be the future. Computers, they said, would rule the nineties, then the two-thousands afterward, and that by twenty-ten, every kid in America would own one. They would be small, they claimed, but easy to assemble, and not only by the grace of invention, but the ingenuity of man would this future be grand. They offered a three-year program, along with internship, that could very well secure him a job in the flourishing future of computer mechanics.

_Is it really worth it though?_ he thinks, staring upon his boyfriend's face with all the hope in the world.

When he began to calculate the logistics in his head, the pieces began to fall together—first the student loans, which would supplement their income and pay for the rent, then the school and just what it could teach him. If one thought about it for any definitive amount of time, they could easily see what it could offer, but would it be worth it to dive in headfirst and risk getting eaten by the sharks?

_I did okay in school. Maybe I can get a grant._

He doesn't know the exact percentage he needs to pay for the school, but he knows he could find out.

Stepping forward, he brushes past Michael's shoulder, then stops.

In a rough economy, taking a risk could spell the end of them.

"Michael," he says.

"Yeah?" Michael replies.

"I'm not sure if I should go for this."

"I think you should."

"You do?"

"Yeah."

"You read it, didn't you?"

"The clip and the article?" Michael asks, then waits for him to nod before continuing. "Yeah."

"You think it'd be worth it?"

"You're smart, Jim—this may be the best thing for you, but like I said, I can get a job."

"I'm not going to say you have to," Jim sighs, "but I'm not going to say that won't be completely out of the question."

With the statement out of his mouth, he feels as though a thousand-pound weight has just been lifted from his shoulders and replaced by something much more simple and manageable.

He hasn't been to college, technical school or any kind of post-high school program.

If anything were to come of this, at least he could upgrade his résumé.

* * *

He sits in the lobby waiting for someone to come and get him—a student, a teacher, a secretary, maybe the Devil Himself. He expects the world to come to an end before anything or anyone comes to greet him, as it seems the clock overhead is simply ticking, but when he hears the door open and a voice beckon him in, he rises, brushes dirt from his workman's jeans and makes his way into the office. There, a man sits with his hands laced together and his eyes set ahead, as though expecting someone further to enter when he himself steps into the room.

"Are you Jim Arnoldson?" the man asks.

"Yes sir," he says. "I am."

"I'm Howard Yearn. I work here at this institute."

"It's a pleasure to meet you, sir."

They shake hands and then he seats himself when Howard Yearn gestures to the chair opposite him. The man's eyes are hard, ice-like in their perpetually-hollow pits, and every moment he looks at him feels like a judgment thrust upon him by some higher force.

_Is this it?_ he thinks. _Is this the way it works?_

He imagined it to be different, a trial and error set in order for the student to leap over it. There should be ropes, he thinks, to climb, and rods to jump over. This seems too easy, but then again, it is a technical college. He is no Harvard, no Yale, no Princeton, Columbia or Stanford. Hell—he is barely a man with a degree, a man who barely passed math in high school and who only excelled in English because he for some reason liked to read. This place, this very _school_ he now sat in, was the bottom of the rung, but it promised something that most other schools couldn't even begin to debate.

"We've reviewed your application request," he says, "and your student loan application has gone through."

"It has?" he asks.

Baffled, he nearly loses his breath, but manages to contain himself as the secretary at the side of the room rises and passes him a piece of paperwork, upon which are figures he can barely begin to process.

_Is this,_ he thinks, but stops before he can finish.

The number of zeros behind the two stop him short.

"Sir," he says, looking down at the piece of paper. "I can really get this much money a month?"

"Of course," the man says. "The government's paying for its future generation of workers. How old are you, Jim?"

"Twenty-four."

"See? You've got a whole life of work ahead of you. Of course your loans would have gone through—that is, if you keep up with the recommended number of hours."

_I can do this. I really can._

Nodding, he looks down at the piece of paper, smiles, then tilts his head up at the man he knows will change his life.

In Howard Yearn's eyes, he sees his future.

He can't wait for it.

* * *

"How did it go?" Michael asks.

"Fine," Jim smiles, taking his partner into his arms and spinning him about the middle of the living room.

"Jim! Jim! Put me down!"

Unable to contain his laughter, he crushes Michael against his chest, then presses their lips together in a savage kiss. At first Michael tries to shy away, but after Jim calms himself down enough to settle his nerves, Michael accepts the kiss, then pushes Jim away to look him square in the eyes.

"Tell me," he says.

"I got in," he smiles. "I got in, Michael. I got in!"

Michael bursts into tears.

Their future is ahead of them.

* * *

Jim begins to attend the technical college with his heart on his sleeve and his hopes in his hands. Not once since high school has he carried a backpack on his shoulders, and not even for a second has he contemplated doing homework, but the simple act of waking up in the morning, brushing his teeth, then driving to school has him happier than ever. He makes friends quickly, learns about the inner workings of the newest and future technology, and even begins to construct one of the machines within the first three months of his schooling.

Six months into his life as a technical college student, he begins to realize that this is what he wants to do.

One night, while sitting at the counter doing homework, he raises his eyes to find Michael standing in the kitchen, eating cheese and crackers. He rises and starts for his boyfriend's side, then stops before he can round the counter, when Michael raises his head and looks him directly in the eyes.

Something on his face unsettles him.

"Babe?" he asks. "Is everything all right?"

"Everything's fine," Michael says, shoving the saltine and cheese mix into his mouth. "Don't worry about it."

_You always say that when something's on your mind._

Sighing, he braces his hand against the counter and stares Michael in the eyes, begging for a response. When none comes, he rounds the counter, takes two of the crackers in hand, then places a piece of cheese between them, all the while waiting for his boyfriend to speak. It seems as though nothing is going to come out when Michael turns and starts for the threshold that leads into the living room, but when he stops to do what Jim thinks is reconsider his actions, his right hand tightens into a fist hard enough to make the vein in his arm bulge.

"Michael?"

"I'm not used to you being gone so much, that's all."

"I'm gone the same amount of time I usually am," he says, starting toward his boyfriend.

"I know, but..."

"But... what?" he frowns. Unsure how to take his partner's response, he wraps his arms around his shoulders, then pulls him back against his chest, swearing he can hear their hearts beating together when he bows his face into Michael's neck.

_Isn't that what they say?_ _That two hearts beat as one?_

Either way, he doesn't want them to be individuals—he wants them to be a pair, together, as two people bonding together to create one greater whole.

With that thought firmly in mind, he sighs, takes a deep breath, then backs away, giving Michael just enough space to decide what it is he's going to do.

When Michael turns, Jim expects the worst. However, when he sees the look in his eyes and the curve of a smile on his lips, he knows that things are lighter, the agony distant and the frustration caged within its magical menagerie.

"You okay?" he asks.

"I'm sorry for being so selfish."

"Don't be, babe."

"It's just... I'm used to us spending more time together when you're not gone."

"I know."

"And... I don't know. Maybe I should try to find some new friends, but this town, this place—"

Michael doesn't need to finish, and as he draws away, into a place where his voice is silent but his thoughts are screaming, Jim tries not to remember the horrible abuse his partner not only suffered as a teenager, but as a young adult, when his father whipped him to bits for being gay and his mother smacked him so hard across the face she split his lips. The thought, as unsettling as it is, grounds him even further and only confirms his suspicion—this time alone is forcing him to reconsider his past, his notions, and possibly even their future together.

"You're... okay with me going to school," he starts, unsure how to continue. "Right?"

"Of course I am."

"I mean... I know you must be thinking about some things."

"Yeah."

"But you know I love you, right?"

"I know."

"I wouldn't be doing this if we weren't together."

"You wouldn't?"

"No. I want a future together, baby. I want a future with you."

Michael turns his head up.

When a smile crosses his partner's lips—when his white teeth are revealed and his dimples are shown in all their glory—he knows he has made the right choice.

* * *

One year later, he's the top of his class. Riding the coattails of his professors, soaring through his homework like mad. Each of his teachers say that he will go far, that he will be one of the leading men in his field and that, come time for the new millennia, he will be at the top of the career bracket making not hundreds, but thousands of dollars.

Seated at the kitchen counter with food on the table and more content than ever, he waits for Michael to get out of the shower, all the while scratching numbers into dimensions that serve as the makeup of one of the world's current supercomputers.

_This is amazing,_ he thinks, looking not only at the sheet, but at the book next to him.

Gargantuan in purpose and even greater in scope, the _Computer Sciences_ book at his side is his Bible. Though not Catholic, Christian, Lutheran or Baptist, he believes himself to be a religious man based solely on the text within this book. It tells him of the past, the present and not only the foreseeable, but the distant future. It says that every ten years their computer processing power doubles and that by twenty-fifty, they could very well have computers that fit within contact lenses.

_Amazing. Just... amazing._

In the distant side of the house, he hears the water turn off and the door close. Shortly thereafter, Michael emerges in a pair of boxer shorts and crosses the room to fetch one of the tacos he brought home for the afternoon's lunch. "Hey," he says, offering him a quick kiss on the cheek.

"Hey," he replies.

"More homework?"

"More?" he laughed. "It's never-ending."

"Still," the younger man says, unwrapping the hard shell before him. "It seems like all you're doing lately is homework."

"I've worked my ass off to get straight-As."

"I know. You've earned it."

Smiling, he sets his pencil down, then reaches over to mess with his boyfriend's hair. In response, Michael laughs and opens his mouth to take a bite out of his food.

The sight alone makes him realize just what all he is working for—their present, their future, maybe even a family. He's broached the topic of adopting or maybe even hiring a surrogate, but they haven't talked about it in detail. They're young, not even in their mid-twenties, and can wait for such things as children. Besides—in his current frame of mind, he doesn't think that he would be a capable father, especially not with all the schoolwork he has piled up.

Caring for a baby _and_ going to school—he might as well shoot himself in the foot.

_Ah well,_ he thinks. _It's no big deal._

Taking a bite out of his own taco, he bows his head and continues his work.

* * *

"Your grades are impressive," Professor Haldwell says in a meeting after class one day. "You must study quite a bit."

"I do, sir," he replies, sliding his hands into his pockets.

"I never expected this from you, Mr. Arnoldson."

"Thank you."

"Can I be honest, son?"

"Yes sir."

"I thought you were just some dumb hick like most of the other kids here are."

"Sir," he laughs.

"It's true, Mr. Arnoldson. You're one of the brighter bulbs in this group."

"I appreciate the compliment," he smiles, reaching out to shake the man's hand as he offers it. "I'm just trying to work toward a better future."

"You have a girlfriend, son?"

_No,_ he thinks, but his confidence betrays him and he offers a nervous smile. _Not exactly._

"Something wrong, son?" the professor asks.

He does not trust this man enough to say that he is gay, that he sleeps with another man and that he shares his home with him. That knowledge in itself is enough to place him in an awful predicament. Time and again he has heard of students getting slighted for their accusations, their thoughts, their selves, and he doesn't want to fall into that trap. So, like the honest man that he is, he smiles, shoves his hands in his pockets, then says, "No," because it's the truth—he doesn't have a girlfriend, and though he has a man at home, that is not what the professor has asked.

"Shame," the man replies. "You're a good man."

He'd say thank you if he had the need to.

* * *

"How'd school go?" Michael asks.

_Okay,_ he thinks, closing the door behind him.

He doesn't want to broach this topic with Michael, this indecision about their relationship and sharing it publicly. It's too sensitive a topic, too great a risk, so with that in mind, he merely smiles and leans forward to embrace the man he has lived, loved and lied about for nearly four years.

"It went fine," he says, smiling when they break apart. "What about you?"

"I didn't do much," Michael admits.

"That's all right. As long as you've had a good day."

"I have." Michael pauses. His eyes flicker in their sockets. "Jim. I need to tell you something."

"Yeah?" he frowns. "What is it?"

It seems as though there is something on the air—tension, thick with meat and juicy beneath. He imagines a knife slicing through the atmosphere and killing the millions of particles he knows are there, then it slicing into his partner's chest and killing him on sight. Just the tone of the words makes him feel as though something is wrong.

"Michael," he says, frowning when his partner's smile begins to widen. "What is it? Tell me."

"I got a job."

_A job?_

Has he heard correctly?

"A job?" he asks, laughing as Michael's smile continues to get wider and wider. "Doing what?"

"Working as a museum tour guide."

"That's great, baby," he laughs, once more taking Michael into his arms. "Where is this?"

"Just down the street."

"So you're the guy that basically leads them through the museum, telling everyone what everything's about?"

"Yeah."

"Oh God, Michael. This is great."

Beyond great, actually—in years past, he thought Michael incapable of even thinking about work, much less attempting to do it. However, despite that, something in his gut tells him his partner is more than capable of doing this.

_He's good with people,_ he thinks, _and he knows how to talk about things._

How Michael could go on for hours and hours about something he'd learn. Just the other day, he'd told him almost the entire history of a pharaoh from Egypt and then some. If that wasn't a display of his ability, then he didn't know what was.

Unable to contain his happiness, he pulls Michael into his embrace once more.

Things seem to be going just fine.

* * *

"So," Jim says, raising his eyes as Michael steps through the door. "How was your day?"

"Long," Michael replies, "but great."

His boyfriend is wearing a long-sleeved, button-up shirt that bears the local museum's logo on its breast. _Burnet's Bazaar_ is home to many things—some mummies, medieval weaponry, pottery, but it is most famously known for its reconstruction of all things Arabian, particularly in regards to their historical reconstruction of one such location it is named for. The fact that Michael is learning to navigate such a place is almost beyond him, but in that regard, Jim stands, smiles, and takes his partner into his arms, only to have him fall to his side and onto the couch a moment later.

"Beat?" Jim asks.

"Beat," Michael replies.

"I'll make dinner tonight."

"Thanks, Jim."

"No need to thank me."

His secret passion is cooking. While he loves to get his hands dirty with machinery, he can't help but feel a certain thrill when he is poised above the stove with food simmering in a pan. It's like a drug—adrenaline, fueled by the very need to make something delicious, the saucer his needle and the oil his pain.

_He did it,_ he thinks. _He really did it._

His boyfriend—his _Michael—_ has finally done what he thought was impossible.

Tonight should be a celebration.

He will make it as such.

* * *

He prepared a feast in all respects—chicken, noodles, with a bit of vegetable on the side. When Michael rises from his short catnap and comes into the kitchen, he merely stares at the pile of food sitting on the counter and laughs when Jim raises his head and wags his eyebrows. "Jim," he says.

"I don't get to do this enough," he replies. "Especially not for you."

"But this... have you been in the kitchen this whole time?"

"Chicken Alfredo with Velveeta and broccoli on the side."

"It smells delicious," Michael says, pacing around the counter to take a bit of the cheesy broccoli on the tip of a spoon. "Tastes delicious too."

"I'm glad you like it, babe." Jim sets his hands on Michael's shoulders and guides him back around the counter. "Sit down. I'll get it for you."

"You don't have to do—"

"You've been at work all day."

"But you were at—"

"School. Yeah, I know, but I haven't been on my feet for the past eight hours."

Frowning, Michael does as asked, reclining in his seat as though it were more than just a simple plastic kitchen chair and watching Jim as he makes his way back around the counter. Once there, he begins to splay food out on two plates, humming a tune under his breath as he does so.

The day seems to be going perfectly well.

He can't ask for anything more.

* * *

"You okay?" Jim asks.

"I'm fine," Michael says. "Why?"

"You look sore."

"I'll get used to it. Don't worry."

_Can't expect me not to,_ he thinks, but only kisses Michael's brow in response.

Settling down into bed, Jim tries not to think about Michael's work or his schooling. It seems impossible, given the lack of activity and the current circumstance, but he eventually manages to settle into an even routine of breathing and almost falls asleep until Michael rolls over and sets a hand on his face.

He cracks one eye open.

Michael frowns in response.

"You okay?" Jim decides to ask.

"Fine," Michael replies. "Just thinking."

"About what?"

"Us."

"What about us?"

"Our future... what's going to happen after you get out of school."

"You worried about it?"

"No. I..." Michael pauses. "Can I say something, Jim?"

"You know you can."

"I don't like living here."

"I know."

"You know?"

"I don't either."

"I mean... I know we'll have to wait until you get out of school, and I know that's not going to be for another two years, but I... I dunno. It's just tough, that's all."

"You've got a job," he says, "and I'm in school, so at least we have a future for the two of us."

"You really think so, Jim?"

"I think so. Don't you?"

"I honestly don't know."

"Don't worry about it," he says, pressing his lips to his boyfriend's. "Nothing more we can do about it now."

* * *

At the crux of his schooling career, he finds himself almost unable to believe that he has almost been attending college for an entire year. In this town of screams and means, it seems impossible to go about accomplishing anything, much less doing it in such a simple matter. This place is filth, vile—it breeds hate like rats and in turn leads to religious persecution. How he's managed to avoid it these years he doesn't know, but he doesn't think it particularly matters.

As they stand at the end of the harbor, looking out at the lake that lays complete with lilies and swans, he reaches out to hold his partner's hand, but stops when someone passes by.

_Not here,_ he thinks.

How he would love to hold Michael's hand, to kiss his cheeks or lips in public. In California, maybe, they would not be lynched, or in New York, New York, but not here. It's an undeniable fact that should they even begin to do something of the sort, it will swallow not only him, but them whole.

_This is what I'm doing this for. This is why I'm back in school._

Someday— _someday—_ maybe they could move to the coast, to a place where the economy would thrive and the energy was clean and clear.

Someday.

_Someday._

* * *

He thinks of someday two years later, when he is standing at the podium in the socially-oppressed town he has lived his entire life in. With his diploma in hand, garbed in a robe and with a hat on his head, he holds a plaque made of wood and embossed in gold. Upon it is the name _Jim Gabriel Arnoldson_ and the words _Bachelors in Computer Sciences._ The sight of an audience full of not only his fellow peers, but his one and only family makes him feel as though he is the greatest man on earth.

In the third seat in the seventh row, near where the patrons with the last name of A sit, he finds his partner looking upon him with eyes proud and smiling. In that moment, when their eyes are captured within one another's, he thinks of how much hell he has gone through to get to this point—how, despite all his fears, doubts and misconceptions, he was able to do the one thing he has set out to do.

_This is all because of you,_ he thinks, nodding as he begins to make his way off the stage and toward the man he loves. _This is all because of you, babe. All because of you._

When Michael steps forward and into his arms, he can't help but think he's the happiest man on Earth.

* * *

Seven years later, he is standing at the register buying flowers for his boyfriend.

"They're beautiful," the cashier says. "Who are they for?"

In this socially-oppressed neighborhood, you can't get away with being gay—you can be lynched, beaten, raped and even murdered for such an open declaration, but in his mid-thirties and with more money in his pocket than he could ever imagine, he smiles, swipes his debit card through the machine, then looks the clerk straight in the eyes.

"My boyfriend," he says.

The woman does the one thing he doesn't expect she will do—smile.

"They're beautiful," she says once again, then smiles as she passes the flowers back with the receipt. "Have a good day, sir."

As he turns to leave the grocery store, he can only think of the bouquet in his hand and the man back home.

# You and I

Diana, stay with me.

I love you.

* * *

It seems like it was such a long time ago that I met you out by the shore. Your pretty hair, your beautiful figure, your eyes so crystal blue they could have reflected the Caribbean and back again—there was absolutely nothing in the world that could have described your beauty, for it was too great even for painters to capture. They tried, yes, and some died attempting such a feat, but every time someone looks at you, it's like seeing the world end and be born again.

I love you.

* * *

I remember the two of us meeting out at the parlor one day. A drink in your hand, a water in mine—we could've been two completely opposite people coming from two completely different places of the planet. You, Antarctica; me, Iceland—we were always two beautiful spirits drifting through the world while trying to survive on just $7.99 an hour, something that seems so impossible but can be accomplished if you try hard enough. We'd starve, yes, and sometimes we'd buy cigarettes in order to curb the hunger, but each and every time I looked at you my entire world would fade from view. It's really not hard to strike up a conversation with you. You laugh, you smile, you glow, you blow smoke rings out of your mouth and into the air like it's some kind of art form—you were always so approachable in those days, when every time we'd come close to each other something magical would happen.

_Hello,_ you said, the first time we met. _I'm Diana. Who are you?_

_I'm Joel,_ I would reply, and I would stick my head up as high as I possibly could in order to make myself appear taller than I was, as at five-foot-five I was always self-conscious about my height and always tried my hardest to resemble the graceful if somewhat-awkward giraffe. But you didn't seem to care at all, and when you'd smile at me the entire world would drip away, like we were at the frozen ice caps and watching them melt—the penguins slide, the polar bears drown, the orcas hunting the baby seals in packs and tipping them from the icebergs they lay prone upon. It's a hard thing to describe, this feeling I'm trying to relate, but in looking at you it's almost impossible _not_ to think about the good things in the world and the things in life that come with it. The birds, the rain, the shame, the drain, the unforgettable moment when two forces collide and they become one, much like a storm brewing in the sky or a tornado touching down in Arkansas. We were like that, once upon a time, and it seems as though whenever I look back on it and remember just how foolish I'd been that I can't help but love the fact that you tried to stay with me even through all the pain.

I love you.

* * *

We dated casually for about six months. They said we had chemistry, that we were the perfect couple, that we should get married and have three babies. Why three I could never be so sure, as it's an odd number and it doesn't seem to relate to anything in life, but I guess that doesn't really matter. We stayed together for all that time even though the people around us were starting to break up. It's a miracle, they say, when two complete polar opposites come together to create one whole, as sometimes heat doesn't meet cold without creating some kind of thunderstorm. It'd crack, they say, and it would wash over the water as if it were Moses parting the great Red Sea, but it never meant that we couldn't be together.

One night, you told me that your brother committed suicide and that you were just as willing to join him. _It's over,_ you'd said, while your mascara streamed ugly watery trails down your cheeks. _I don't want to live anymore._

You always loved him. Hell, I loved him too, in a way, because he was a great guy and he seemed to be the one who always cheered us on, who caught the ball at the park just as the batter was making the home run and gave it to me when I was feeling down. Your brother—God, he was an amazing man, and it's no wonder that you loved him so much. I, too, felt it when he died, like a piece of meat being torn out of my side, like my heart being throttled repeatedly by a BMW, and it hurt so damn much that I didn't even want to think about living because without him, where would we go, what would become of the world and what, ultimately, would happen to your parents, who loved baby Josh so much that they carried pictures of the two of you together as if you were still children?

I remember taking you into my arms that night, when it stormed so bad that the front window shattered and lightning touched down no more than twenty feet away from the house, and I remember the way your tears felt on my face—how, despite the feelings emanating from you, it felt as though wrong and dirty, as if you were the child chained in the basement and I was the monster coming to liberate you from life. I remember telling you how much I cared, how much I felt for your loss and how I considered it one of my own, and I remember saying it the first time and how it felt too good to be true.

I love you.

* * *

We married on the anniversary of our first year of being together. I was never good at proposing, so you took up the initiative when we were out celebrating. Cocktails, good food, a cab no more than five minutes away ready to pick us up to take us home—you got down on your knees just like I would've done had I the confidence to do so and said, Joel _, will you marry me?_ and I stared back at you as if you'd just struck me in the face with a baseball bat. It hurt, somewhat, because in my heart and mind I'd always tell myself that I'd do it one day when I worked up the nerve and when the stars seemed to align, but there you were kneeling before me, the ring in hand, the perfect onyx atop the most beautiful black band, and I looked at you and could only say three words, the words that said, _Yes, I will,_ and then the words that I eventually said thereafter, the words that said:

I love you.

* * *

There was tension within our marriage from the get-go. You wanted a child, I was unsure; you wanted a girl while I, if anything, wanted a boy. We'd met halfway a few times, saying that we'd have two, maybe even the three that were mentioned so long ago, and we tried so hard over a series of several months and found ourselves unable to do it. I thought it was my fault, because being the fuckup of the family, it didn't seem too outrageous to think I was the problem. So we went in and got tested, you and I, and when the tests came back, it happened to be neither of us. They said that your body simply wasn't equipped to have children and that you would never get pregnant naturally. You had no eggs, they said, for fertilization, and I remember how you cried and like that night your brother died your makeup swam all the way down your face and made you look like you were some creature from a completely different dimension. You didn't seem human, then, because no beautiful creature such as yourself ever looked like that and made their way through the world without being recognized, and it was for that reason when, in taking you in my arms, I leaned forward and whispered in your ear as softly as I possibly could:

I love you.

* * *

The tension in our marriage finally died down after the revelation was over. We would adopt, we said, when we were ready, though it didn't seem we would be ready anytime soon. We went for days, weeks, months and then eventually years without ever thinking about children. It was obvious we both noticed it. You, ever so shy, would look longingly into the baby aisle and I, the traditional father, would look out into the baseball field and imagine my son being out there one day. Maybe we would name him Joshua, after your brother whom we both loved so much, or maybe his name would be Tim or John or Alexander or maybe even Bastian, as that name seemed appropriate enough for a child that the two of us shared. You, Diana, and I, Joel, would have been perfectly content naming our child a name of glorious advances, and it would have been perfect to see our little boy out on the baseball field or at the school recital or at his first Muffins with Mom or Donuts with Dad, and we would both take the morning off of work to be with our little boy or girl or little boy and girl and we would, by God, be the best parents that we could ever be, because you and I, we both know that my parents were never good to me and would never repeat their mistakes even if someone put a gun to our heads and said we'd die if we didn't do what they told us to. And after elementary school they would go to middle school, and from then on high school. Our little boy would take his girlfriend to the dance and our daughter, if we ever had one, would be led arm-in-arm down the driveway with the boy she was going out with at her side. I would be furious, I know, because I'm the type of guy who would be the overprotective father to my little girl, who would take the shotgun out if he brought her home past ten-thirty and threaten to blow his balls off, but you, you would just laugh and say that things would be fine, and then our little boy would come home alone after dropping his girlfriend off and our little girl would be walked to the front door by her date before he left to go home, and things would be fine, we knew. But never once after that initial anticipation did we ever talk about children. Not once were names raised, the idea mentioned, the excitement released, and never afterward did we ever talk about that. We would grow together—alone, I thought, as well as you possibly did, and it wouldn't matter at all because all we needed in the world was each other.

I love you.

* * *

There were times when I harshly considered that something was wrong with you—not mentally or emotionally, but physically. I loved you far too much to allow my eyes to stray from you for more than a few moments, and when you started reacting badly to even the most simple of things, I told you to go to the doctor. You said no, that things would be fine, that you were just having a bad day, but eventually your bad days started coming every day and it scared me so much that I demanded you go to the doctor otherwise I would drag you there by the ear myself. And so you went, and for a long while I sat in the waiting room, waiting for any news, but you never did come out. It took me a long, hard while in thinking about just might be happening—about what could be wrong, about what might not be wrong, about what might be going on behind the curtain that I couldn't see. And then, after a long while, someone came out, but it wasn't you. It was a nurse, and by the look on her face, she bore bad news. And it was I who stood up and walked directly toward her as she walked directly toward me, and for a long moment she flinched, as if I were about to strike her, before she delivered the ultimate news: _She has multiple sclerosis,_ she said, her head hung low and her face completely devoid of emotion. She then told me the most horrible news, the news that I never wanted to hear once in my entire life. She said, point-blankly, _It's an incurable disease._

It was then and there that I realized my life would change, for without you and your health the world would never once be the same.

I love you.

* * *

Life continued on as life does when you are struck with an incurable illness. They say there are five stages in the Kübler-Ross model, otherwise known as the Five Stages of Grief. The first is Denial, and during which time after your diagnosis we denied all the things that were likely to happen to you in the coming years, it seemed as though we were simply kidding ourselves and not thinking of what could and what couldn't happen. The second stage is Anger, and while I know you were less angry than I was, I begged and pleaded with God or the Gods or some Higher Force or Nothing At All for you to be all right—for this disease to vanish, and for you to be healthy and for everything to be just fine. This Bargaining—this _third stage—_ continued for quite some time until, eventually, I succumbed to Depression, the fourth stage of the Kübler-Ross model. Both you and I suffered this tremendously, and at one point I remember you telling me to get on antidepressants. To be perfectly honest, I wanted to blow my fucking head off, because I wanted nothing in the world to do with seeing you slowly decline in health, and I did as you asked and got on the antidepressants, even though they made happiness false, and eventually things transgressed and came full circle. Acceptance, they say, is the Fifth and Final Stage, where Grief ends and where Healing begins. But that didn't matter at all, because in seeing you decline each and every day, I couldn't help but wonder just how long I had until eventually you whittled away to nothing. I knew only one thing.

I love you.

* * *

And here, it seems, is where the story ends, as you're lying in a hospital bed with tubes shoved down your throat and attached to your arms. It's been five years since you've been diagnosed, fifteen years since we met and, ultimately, some seven years since your brother died. It seems as though you're going to join him here in this very moment, and while your family has gone home from saying their final goodbyes and I'm sitting here writing you a letter which will probably never see the light of day after I put it in your coffin, I feel as though my whole world is about to end. You were my everything, Diana, and you will always be my everything, because you and I—God, we were perfect for each other, and still are and always will be. It doesn't matter if you leave life and eventually go on to Heaven, or Hell, if it even exists, or Nowhere if what science says is true: That God and Heaven and Angels and Cherubs and even Mary, Jesus and Joseph don't even exist. It hurts, wondering just what might happen and where you might go in but a few moments, as your heart monitor slowly but surely begins to fade and your breathing becomes more and more sparse, but there isn't much I can do. Hell—there's _nothing_ I can do in this moment, in this instant, in watching you die, but I know in my heart, my mind and my soul that there's only one thing I would ever, _ever_ say to you. And if you could hear this right know, you would hear these words, and you would know that life has come full circle—that things, as painful and hard as they've been, have eventually worked out.

You may not be alive right now—you may even be dead, so far as I can tell, as you're barely breathing and they said you've since succumbed to a coma—but you know what I'm about to say. You know what words have been on my mind ever since you've been in this hospital bed and since you've come full circle, as I've said before. You know it in your heart because I've said it to you so many times, and when you finally are buried, and when you finally are underground and resting with God or Satan or Nowhere At All, you will hold this letter in your hands, my final token to your life.

You and I, Diana... we were meant to be together.

Things weren't meant to work out this way.

I love you.

# My Dead Boyfriend

The spirit of my dead boyfriend is haunting me.

At least, that's what others might claim.

I can't be so sure.

It doesn't seem real.

It feels like a dream.

He comes to me every night, but he is not a ghost. Upon his back are two wings the color of a raven's feathers—stark blue, reflecting their hidden color only when the light reflects off their surfaces—and his smooth, alabaster skin is far too fair to bear any semblance to John's. His form is stretched, his posture bent. The most terrifying and unsettling thing, though, are his eyes. They're black. There is no sclera, just darkness, and his lips are not stained with color. Instead, they are white—a color which, in life, would have never afflicted his flesh. He was too perfect, too _real_ for any apparition to come in a form that was unlike him. Maybe that's why I can never look him straight in the face when I dream. Maybe that's why I wake up crying.

My friends think I'm crazy. My therapist says I need to be on medication. The priest said I'm gay and that my boyfriend would've never went to Heaven. Instead, he said, John went to hell—a place that, though seemingly connected only with the real world, is said to exist below.

Sometimes, when I think about how it happened, I feel like he's right beside me—standing, watching, _waiting_ for me.

When that happens, I can't help but wonder.

Did John _really_ go to Heaven... or did he go to Hell?

* * *

The accident happened one month ago.

It was simple, really. We'd planned it for months. Our trip to Florida—it was supposed to be something of a going-away party before John and I started a new life together, a cross-country jaunt across the United States to prepare our weary souls for the storm that was supposed to come ahead. We were to travel along the east coast until we hit the sunshine state, then go see the Everglades before skipping along the west—where, in New Orleans, we would attend Mardi Gras, see the sights and look at a few houses that were for sale in the area. It'd been our dream to live in the French quarter, or at least near it, so for us to think that anything would have gone wrong would have been ridiculous.

For weeks before we left, I watched the weather and would warn John about anything that was about to go on.

The day before we were supposed to leave, a cold front blew in and brought with it rain. _John,_ I'd said. _Are you sure we should be going now?_

_We'll be fine,_ he'd replied.

If only that had been true.

If only he were still alive.

* * *

It comes in flashes now. The pain, the agony, the sorrow, the frustration, the complete and utter need to push yourself over the edge when you've suffered the most horrific tragedy that you've ever experienced in your entire life—it's all been present in my life even though it's only been a month since the accident. It's like a cancer, slowly-spreading and eating me alive. But unlike cancer, and unlike any kind of debilitating illness, it does not wear on me physically. It does not weaken my joints, sallow in my knees, sweat blood or bring about the pains that only the most severe forms of distress bring. Rather, it consumes my mind, my heart, my emotions. It drives away each and every form of happiness I've been lucky to have since the accident and delivers me to a place that I would not wish upon even my worst of enemies.

For people to look me in the eyes and say that I got lucky is almost an insult too unimaginable to take.

_I got lucky?_ I ask.

_No,_ I then reply. _I didn't. I just didn't get hurt._

When I lay in bed at night, I struggle to sleep for fear that the moment will return to me. Each night since I have returned home to our tiny nook in New York I have dreamed of the experience.

Raw, visceral, lucid to the point where I can feel the rain on my arms and smell the gasoline in my nose—there's no greater form of torture than reliving the most horrific moment of your life over and over again.

If the FBI could bottle this form of distress, world peace would occur in but a few short days—that much I can almost be sure of.

Outside the lightning flashes and the silhouette appears once again. Tall, lean, with the flutter of black wings—he hasn't missed a night for the past three weeks, but every time I see it I can't help but wonder whether or not it's real or if I'm truly going crazy.

_Of course it's real,_ my consciousness begs to differ. _What else could it be?_

An illusion, a mirage, a hallucination caused by the most grief-stricken of minds or even a visage created from the iconography of churches—it's not uncommon for those who have suffered terrible losses to see loved ones who have recently passed, and it would definitely not be out of the world of possibilities to see angels, or angel-like things. It is, as my Catholic upbringing would like to say, an occurrence—a message, the priests would proclaim, from the world beyond, though only the most kind of fathers would have said that it was merely my dead boyfriend coming back to check on me.

Whenever they say that though, I can't help but wonder.

If he really was what I think he is, would he even be able to step on consecrated ground?

To avoid the sight of the figure that perches outside the apartment on the looming building beside me, I roll onto my side and stare at the darkened, whitewashed wall. That gives me no solace. Each and every time the lightning strikes I can see his shadow—there, embossed upon the wall, unmoving and shifting only when it seems the wind comes up.

In the moments of silence that follow, during which the onslaught of rain lightens to just a slight drizzle and the thunder does not growl, I think that everything will be fine.

The lightning flashes.

The figure is revealed.

Quite contrary to the belief that monsters come to wreak havoc upon the lives of men, the figure that perches on the building across from me has not yet made any contact. It would have seemed far too benevolent for such a thing to happen, as any contact would have at least sated my fears.

For reasons I do not know, and for purposes I feel are supposed to protect me, he has not attempted to breach the apartment. This was not because of holy relics, if he is truly in fact a demon, because I have not had a cross in my presence for years. While this reality is settling, if only because it secures the belief that I am at least protected, it only contributes to the paranoia that grows within my mind, as with each attempt his presence is slowly driving me insane.

When the lightning strikes three more times and reveals to me the figure that has been haunting me since the accident, I find I can take it no more.

After throwing the covers off my body and pushing my feet over the bed, I rise, wrap the shawl my mother made me around my naked upper body, then make my way out of the bedroom and out into the hall that connects to the living room.

Here, where there are only three windows to my right and none to my left, I stand and try to determine what I will do in order to calm my rattled mind. My first inclination is to draw the curtains over the windows and try to sleep on the couch. Instead, my fractured conscience leads me to the kitchen—where, from the refrigerator, I pull from its confines a gallon of milk before setting it on the counter.

My mother used to say that warm milk would ease any weary soul.

It's the one thing that has been keeping me sane every night.

When the milk is done warming in the microwave, and when I feel the cup is not too hot to bear, I retreat to the couch and settle down, but not without turning on the LED candles that run along the center of the coffee table.

_John,_ I think.

Lightning illuminates the room, but with it no silhouette comes. This, I know, is because he is not here, but on the balcony outside the bedroom, waiting for me to return to my most sacred of places.

I shiver.

I tremble.

I lift the cup of milk to my lips and drink.

It is in that moment that the memory starts coming back anew.

* * *

We'd left at 4:30 AM to try and beat the usual New York traffic that comes with rush hour. Wrapped in hoodies, the heater on full blast, we drove through the city intent on traveling along interstate 478 until we were down in Brooklyn and taking interstate 278. While I had anticipated a cold front coming in, what we hadn't expected was rain.

_It's going to be fine,_ John had said, even when the rain thickened to the point where it fell in sheets and we could barely see the road in front of us. _It's just a little rain._

_We can't see anything,_ I'd replied. _Maybe we should just pull over and—_

It was in that moment that John gave me one of his cursed looks out the side of his eyes. Even though there was no full eye contact, his expression was enough. His eyes darkened and his lip curled into a snarl as he expelled his breath out through his nose like a bull. The look was enough to silence me instantly, and it was there that I realized, rain or not, we would keep driving.

_This trip,_ he'd continued on when I didn't speak up, _is going to go just fine. We don't need to waste any more money than we have to._

There had been a discussion, though slight, about the cost of the trip, but with our scant few belongings in the back of the SUV, there wasn't much else I could say. We were leaving New York to go south and then house hunting further west—there'd be costs, yes, but at least we would be having fun, which I thought would make it worthwhile.

So early in the morning, and on the outer skirts of town, there were few people to be seen. Stupid as we were to be out in the rain, we had the road almost to ourselves, save for the occasional vehicle we passed who drifted along like a ghost in the limelight. With that lack of traffic we made good time, and by the time we got on the interstate the worst of my fears would be gone.

_At least there,_ I had thought, _we wouldn't have to worry about heavy traffic._

Boy had I been wrong.

Almost immediately upon merging onto the highway, the state of the road became clear. The interstate, flooded with semi-trucks, appeared like a racing lane, and the rain, coming down in sheets, made almost everything disappear. We hydroplaned immediately after we cleared the on-ramp and then shortly after John had the vehicle under control.

_We need to stop,_ I'd said, though in my current state I was practically yelling it at the top of my lungs.

_We'll be fine,_ John had replied. _We—_

Whatever he had planned to say afterward was immediately cut off by the sound of screeching tires.

A truck beside us lost control.

My heart stopped beating.

I had but one thought: _we're going to crash._

Next I knew, the scream of metal entered my ears.

What felt like minutes of horrific agony were likely only seconds as the truck that had tried to pass the semis in front of us slammed into the driver's side of the SUV and sent us spinning. Whether or not John had been injured I couldn't be sure, but with the combined force of two extremely-heavy vehicles crashing into each other and the rain slicking the road, the SUV immediately hydroplaned and spun out of control. The truck who crashed into us rebounded onto the interstate while our vehicle spun. I screamed for John to tap the break, but by that point it was too late. In what felt like moments we hit the concrete wall and stalled right then and there.

I smacked my head into the dash and lost consciousness.

By the time I woke up, I had a hand on my shoulder and someone talking in my ear.

_John?_ I'd asked.

_Sir,_ the man had replied. _Are you all right?_

It was at that moment that I saw the red and blue police car lights in the rearview mirror, and when I realized it was not John's hand on my shoulder, but a paramedic's, I panicked. The man's words were almost instantly lost to me as I turned my head to see whether or not my partner of five years had survived.

Immediately upon looking at John, I realized he was dead.

His throat, restrained by the seatbelt, had kept him from flying out the windshield, but had broken his neck instead.

For the first few moments, I could only stare. My mind lost, my heart beating a thousand times over in my chest, I reached forward, took John's shoulder, then squeezed and shook it.

Shortly thereafter, the reality of the situation set in.

My partner was dead—and I, with a gash running along my head, had survived.

It was supposed to have been the trip of a lifetime.

John was dead.

* * *

I wake the following morning to dappled sunlight streaming through the living room windows. My body spread out along the couch, my eyes raw and burning with tears, I push myself into a sitting position and once more welcome the reality that comes every morning—that John is dead, and that he will never come back.

Once my initial melancholy following the realization passes, I allow my eyes to trail across the living room until they fell to the clock hanging above the stove. _7:45_ shows pure and strong upon its surface, and though the numbers mean nothing symbolically to me, it wouldn't be much longer before I would have to take the bus and head down to Dr. Burns' office for one of my bi-weekly therapy sessions.

_What's it going to change?_ I think vaguely, much like I do every time.

Though I know it would likely not be much, I understand that I have to go.

Upon my first wellness evaluation, I'd been placed on suicide watch and had been treated in the psychiatric ward for three days.

If I wanted to live, the doctors had said, I had to do this.

With that thought firmly in mind, I stood and began to make my way back to the bedroom—toward where, once upon a time, the two of us had slept.

* * *

"Tristan," Dr. Burns says. "How are you feeling today?"

"I'm... fine," I say, then blink, trying to adjust to the early-morning light.

"Oh. Pardon me. I didn't realize the sun was in your eyes."

"It's fine, sir."

Burns stands and walks the short distance to the window before sliding the shades into place. Once finished, he turns, offers me a smile, then returns to his desk, where he sits down and, as always, flips open the slowly-building encyclopedia that is my overall mental health.

"You appear troubled," Dr. Burns says. "Did you have a bad night?"

"Bad couldn't describe it," I say, then laugh, though the sound is hollow and without intent.

"Would you care to tell me what happened?"

I never want to tell him anything. It's not that he's conceited or that I'm unwilling to share—it's just that every time I even _begin_ to speak about what I'm seeing, Burns immediately becomes skeptical. That may in part be due to the fact that he is a mental health professional and likely sees his patients through a predetermined lens, but it does nothing to help me when I'm feeling at my lowest.

_To tell him,_ I think, _or to not tell him._

Every time this has happened we end up saying nothing. Sometimes we go for ten minutes without talking—his eyes kind, his mouth set and firm. While I realize it's most likely a method used to inspire a response out of me, it does little for my overall level of comfort.

Shifting in my seat, I let out a slight sigh, then bow my head, still debating as to whether or not I should say that I saw the thing outside my window again.

_It's not going to do you any good to keep it to yourself,_ my conscience says.

But, I wonder, is it even worth it to tell him?

"I'm sorry to see that you're in such a state," Burns says, instantaneously drawing my eyes back up to him. "Would you like something?"

"What?"

"Would you like something? There's a portable fridge down here. There's water, iced coffee—"

"Something to eat would be nice, actually. I haven't eaten breakfast."

"You haven't?" Burns asks, to which I answer with a nod. "Tristan... are you not feeding yourself?"

"I just find it hard to work up the urge to cook."

"I've noticed you looked... _leaner_ than usual," the psychiatrist says. "If you're having trouble cooking for yourself... or are worried about paying for your rent... you could always go to the church. I'm sure they'd be willing to help."

"I'm gay."

"Just because you're something they may not approve of doesn't mean they'll turn you away."

"I'll take my chances."

"What about a food bank, or a soup kitchen? They'd be more than willing to feed you."

"Again, sir: I'll take my chances."

Burns frowns. He lifts a pocketbook at his side and flips through it until he seems to find what he's looking for. "Not to play the broken record," he says, "but have you tried a homeless shelter?"

"Don't you actually have to be homeless to eat at one?"

"Your circumstances are quite severe. I don't see why they would turn you away."

"Not many people want to help me," I offer. "Well... other than you."

"What about your parents? Do they know?"

"My father disowned me when I came out at eighteen. My mother, she... she sends me money, but it's not a lot."

"Have you been back to work yet?"

"They want a letter of recommendation."

"I see." The doctor frowns, places both hands on the table, then lifts a finger and presses it on his phone. "Cindy," he says.

"Yes?"

"Could you go down to the kitchen and bring me up a burger with fries?"

"A burger and fries?" the receptionist laughs. "What are you—"

"It's not for me. It's for my patient."

"Oh." Cindy pauses. "Yes, I can go. Just give me a few minutes to get down there."

"Thank you, Cindy." Burns pulls his finger off his phone and looks back up at me. "Would you be interested in some water now?"

"I guess."

I take the water he offers and swallow a hearty mouthful of it before I place the bottle on the desk. There, it sits between us, sweating with precipitation and the doubt that exists within the room. The act itself is kind in nature, but the magnitude of its purpose only continues to confirm what it is I'm afraid of.

_It's okay,_ I think, attempting to try and calm myself. _Everything's going to be all right. Everything's going to be okay._

I begin the process of taking long, deep breaths through my nose and then expelling them out my mouth, a driving purpose meant to try and calm my nerves. It's not a subtle action, and when I hear Doctor Burns begin to drum his fingers along his desk, my heart begins to beat similarly to the staccato of his undetermined tune.

"Tristan," Dr. Burns says, the sound of his voice drawing my attention back to his face. "Are you sure you're—"

A knock comes at the doors and silences Burns. A short moment later, the door opens and the pretty blonde receptionist walks in with a paper plate, atop which are the burger and fries that the doctor specifically requested for me.

"Thank you, Cindy," the psychiatrist says, pushing the plate in my direction.

"You didn't have to do this," I reply, waiting until the receptionist crosses the room and closes the door before I raise my head.

"Eat, Tristan."

"But—"

"Do it."

I give him a precursory glance through the length of my slowly-growing fringe before I reach forward and take the food into my hands.

_Oh well,_ I thought, my stomach rumbling—likely not in hunger, but unease. _Here goes nothing._

I bide my time while I eat the food this man has given me to both appease him and keep from having to say anything. A fry lifted, then inserted into my mouth; the pack of ketchup torn open, then squeezed out between my burger; the salt added generously to the food when I find it lacking in flavor and my tongue tingling at the spices they've added—all are a part of a process which symbolizes not only my own inner suffering, but the inability for me to even feed myself.

_When was the last time I ate?_ I think vaguely. The fact that I can't even remember confirms my own suspicion—that it wasn't today, it wasn't yesterday, and it might not have even been the day before.

When the realization begins to set in, and when finally my stomach can take no more and I fear I may throw up, I set the other half of the hamburger down and take only one more fry before I decide I'm done. "Thank you," I say.

"Do you not have any way to get to the store?" the doctor asks.

"I don't have a car."

"What about a friend? Can they take you?"

_Maybe,_ I think, but am unsure what to say.

The doctor sighs. "Tristan," he says, his voice filled with apprehension and even what sounds like the smallest bit of disappointment. "I don't like seeing you in this state."

"Neither do I," I reply almost fondly.

"Maybe you should consider having a family member come stay with you, or at least a friend."

"No one wants to come."

"Have you tried?"

I blink. "No," I say.

"I hate to say it, Tristan, but you're in a state where you're becoming apathetic to your own needs. That's dangerous, especially to someone who's dealing with the loss of a loved one."

"What are you saying, sir?"

_No,_ I think, the bad seed planted, the roots beginning to grow. _He isn't—_

"Are you," I start, then swallow a lump in my throat, "suggesting I—"

"I can't put you in a psychiatric ward, though if I'd've had my way you would've never been released from the hospital as early as you were."

"Sir?"

"Your grief is consuming you. You can't eat, you can't sleep. By God, Tristan—you've even been hallucinating things."

"He's real," I whisper, my voice small and once again childlike.

"I'm sorry?"

"I said he's real," I say, turning my head up to look at him. "I _know_ he's real."

"All right," Burns says, crossing his arms over his chest. "Let's just say, for the point of this discussion, that your partner _has_ come back from the dead—that even though it seems impossible, some residual part of him has transcended death and returned to the Earth."

"Okay."

"He doesn't speak to you, he doesn't attempt to reach out to you, and he hasn't entered your apartment once since you've started seeing him... what? Three weeks ago?" he asks. I nod in response. "Okay. With that being said, I can't help but ask: what's the real story behind this?"

"What?"

"You've told me for the past three weeks you haven't been able to sleep because he's been... _watching_ you—that you've been too scared to leave your windows open even though you're on the thirteenth floor and that you can't even be in your bedroom unless the curtains are drawn."

"Yeah. I did."

"That's what I don't understand, Tristan."

"What do you mean?"

"Your story doesn't make any sense."

"Why do you say—"

"You think John came back from the dead."

"Yes."

"And you haven't been able to sleep because you're so afraid of him?"

"Yeah."

"You don't think he's an angel, obviously, because from what you've told me you don't believe angels haunt the persons they love, and from what I understand he's most likely not a ghost. I also have reason to believe, given your history of faith, that you do not fear a haunting would be occurring in your home. Am I right?"

_I haven't touched a cross in years,_ I thought, but nod anyway rather than give into a potential argument.

"With that being said, we have to look at the reality of the situation. He just... _appears..._ on your balcony or the roof of the building directly beside you. He, again, says nothing, and does nothing other than watch you. Am I right?"

"Yeah," I say. "You're right, but I don't understand why you're asking me this though."

"What are you not telling me, Tristan?"

_What am I not telling him?_ I think, my lips curling down into a frown. _Why is he—_

"I get the impression you're keeping something from me," the doctor continues, sprawling his hands out along his desk.

"I'm not holding anything back from you, sir."

"Yes you are."

"No I'm—"

_Why does he think I'm lying?_ I think, the bundles of nerves swimming up and down my spine. _Why does he—_

Doctor Burns lets out a soft sigh when he looks up at his clock. "Though I'd love to continue this conversation with you," he says, "I'm afraid we're running out of time."

"All right," I reply, standing.

"You think about what you want to tell me before you come in for our next session," he says, extending his arm to shake my hand. "Okay?"

"Oh... Okay," I say.

I can barely stand to touch his hand.

The moment I'm out the building, I start to tremble.

_What's happening to me?_ I think.

I have no time to wonder.

The bus pulls up alongside the road and the driver waves me over.

* * *

He's closer this time.

Standing directly outside with one hand splayed across the glass doors that lead onto the porch, the figure of my late boyfriend watches me with eyes I cannot see. His silhouette darkened, his presence almost invisible, his impact and mark upon the world can only be determined by the occasional shift of the wings that now frame his back.

Outside, the rain continues to fall—a slight drizzle compared to the previous night's storm from hell. It does not, however, appear to deter him. Rather, it seems to only further his attempt of making himself known by slicking his hands with rain and creating with each moment an impression upon the world at hand.

_Please,_ I think. _Just go away._

He paws at the window like a cat. One hand first, then the second, then the other, followed by the first again—the sound of what should have been flesh touching glass forces miniature squeaks throughout the bedroom which bounce off the walls over and over again. Even when I roll over so my back is facing him he continues the process—lovingly, desperately, _longingly._ It's not hard to understand what he wants, but in thinking about it, and in knowing that what used to be John wants in, I can't help but shiver even though the space heater has made it warm in here.

_John._

The severity of his actions rises to a crescendo when he not only paws at the door, but slaps his hands into it full force. The first time it happens I jump, thinking it's thunder, while after the second I merely lay in bed, numb to all emotional turmoil. It only continues to get worse as it goes along, and when the force of his strikes begin to rattle the glass doors, tears snake out of my eyes and onto the pillow beneath me.

"Why?" I whisper.

The force of his assault is now so bad that with each strike I think he is throwing his weight against the doors. I half-expect them to break, the glass raining down and the cold rain descending, as with each passing moment his assault only seems to grow worse. I wonder briefly whether or not I'm the only person who can hear what's going on, but that question is soon erased when, for no apparent reason, all noise ceases to exist.

"John?" I ask.

_Don't give him a voice,_ my consciousness says, rattling the inside of my head as if I am a toddler with shaken-baby syndrome. _Don't you dare give him any more power than he already has!_

_But I—_

A low moan begins to sound from within the room.

"Please," I whisper, closing my eyes once more. "Leave me alone."

The sound transorms into something more definite when outside the rain begins to lighten. Though not an actual word yet, the syllables are beginning to come together—first the reckless T, then the Tris. Before I can even accept it or John can even begin to start with the last and final _tin,_ I throw myself out of bed, bolt out of the bedroom and then stand in the kitchen.

_No._

Breathless, crying, and heart beating so fast in my chest it hurts, I double over and let out a long, low sob that echoes throughout the kitchen.

I stumble.

I fall.

I collapse.

On the floor, and on my knees, I cradle my face in my hands as once again the earsplitting rain begins once again.

_"Why can't you just leave me alone?"_ I sob. _"Why?"_

A shadow passes across the room.

I can't even bear to look up.

Nothing has been disturbed. No windows have been broken, no doors have been opened, and no entryway has been provided for anything to get in, so to see a shadow pass along the walls and know that I am safe is a relief worth its weight in gold.

I raise my eyes to look at the wall.

I expect something—anything—to look back at me, or at least be there to mark its presence.

When I see nothing on the wall, I let out a slight sob and stand.

Outside, the rain continues on.

Maybe this time he will be gone.

* * *

Earlier the following morning, I'd called and requested that my ex-military friend Armand come over.

_"What's wrong?"_ he'd asked while I cried on the phone. _"Tristan, why are you—_ "

_"I just need you to come over here,"_ I'd replied. _"Now."_

Little more than forty minutes later, Armand stepped through the door and greeted me with his presence.

We sit in the living room drinking tea and eating biscuits Armand has brought from home. The dialogue nonexistent, the apartment quiet, I try desperately to control my emotions, but with every moment they flood forward. It is the coastline of my impenetrable heart that is wearing away as the minutes pass by—that, under the pressure of wind and waves, is being carved out. I could've taken a knife and stabbed myself in the chest to parody the pain, as the feeling is far too real to be something imagined, but even that seems worthless, as directly across from me is a man who has been my friend for far too many years to count.

_You came before John,_ I think. _Before everything._

"Before this."

Armand's eyes narrow in confusion and his lips curl down into a frown as the moments continue to pass by. His eyes darkening, his full bottom lip now quivering, it is obvious he knows that something is wrong, though to what extent he understands I don't know. The only person I've ever told about John was Doctor Burns, and even that hadn't helped my conscience much.

"You look better," Armand finally says, setting his cup of tea down before leaning forward and running one of his large, black hands over the place where my flesh wound is only just now healing. "Now _sound..._ that's a different story entirely."

"I'm sorry I called you over here," I reply, reaching up to wipe away tears and also to push his hand away. "I know I shouldn't have, but I just couldn't... I couldn't—"

"Hey—don't worry about it. I'm here for ya."

"Thu-Thank you."

"What's going on, Tristan? I mean, beyond what happened to John?"

The way the words slide from his mouth like velvet across a fair thing's skin immediately impresses upon me a terror that I can't control. My body begins to shake, my lip starts to quiver—I lose control over the flow of tears in my eyes and moisture comes spilling down my face. I probably would've even started sobbing had I lacked control, but somehow I'm able to keep from that and instead bow my head so we don't have to look at each other.

_Does he know?_ I wonder. _Does he?_

I keep telling myself that I have not told anyone other than Doctor Burns. To most people, it would be seen as an illusion—a hallucination caused by the grief of losing a loved one—while to others it could've been seen as a disease. There's a reason schizophrenics often don't tell people what they see or hear. In this moment, I can't help but wonder if my best friend has seen through me and realized something more sinister was at work.

"You wouldn't believe me," I finally say, forcing myself to look up at the man sitting directly across from me.

"Why wouldn't I?" Armand asks, reaching down to place his massive hand over mine.

"Because I'm not even sure if I believe it."

Neither of us say anything for some time. A frown strikes his face, his eyes fall to the floor, his lip once more begins to quiver and his nostrils flare at nothing—even his hand, large and strong, begins to tremble over mine, and to stop it he curls his fingers around my fist: an act of patronage from the most nervous of souls.

When finally the silence becomes too much to bear, Armand sighs and leans forward. He then says, "Tell me what's going on."

It seems almost impossible that I could just willingly open my mouth and allow the past three weeks of hell to come spewing forward, but when it does I'm shocked and can hardly believe what is happening. It begins at the start of it all—when, one week after John's death, a figure appeared on the roof of the building beside mine to watch me through the window, then of its malicious intent. I tell him of its forward advances, of it occasionally following me from window to window and of it standing on the porch. Finally, when I come to the night before and tell Armand not only of the figure pawing at the glass doors, but of it trying to voice the syllables of my name together, tears stream down my face in full force and the first sob that I've had today tries to echo forth.

"I," I start to say, then lose my breath. "I... I don't... I can't—"

"It's okay," Armand says, tightening his hold on my hand. "It's okay, Tristan. Don't cry."

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"I never said—"

"You don't believe in that kind of stuff," I continue, cutting him off. "You never have, never will."

"I never said I didn't believe you."

"But you were—"

"Going to? No. No I wasn't, Tristan. Don't think that for a goddamned minute." He pauses as he seems to consider his words. "Sorry. Wrong choice of words to use in front of a Catholic guy."

I take the moment of clarity that follows to wipe my eyes and take a deep breath. When I'm finally able to see clearly again, I look directly into Armand's eyes and find not the skepticism that is often there, but enlightenment and concern.

"You... you believe me?"

"I believe you're going through something, yes."

"Then you don't believe me," I sigh. "All right. That's cool."

"I don't get this bandwagon you're jumping up on. I never said I _didn't_ believe you."

"You said that I was _'going through something.'"_

"Since when has that meant that I don't believe you?"

"It's always meant that, Armand—or, at least, it has for a while."

Standing, I force myself to walk to the series of three windows on the eastern wall and sigh as I look out at the city and its awe-inspiring heights. It is this that is real—the buildings, the cars, the world, the people. My problem, though... I can't help but wonder.

When I hear the sound of footsteps behind me, I sigh and bow my head.

A pair of arms wrap around my shoulders. "Tristan," Armand whispers.

"Yeah?"

"You need to tell your therapist about what he did to you."

"Why do you think that's important?"

Armand doesn't reply.

I close my eyes.

It takes me but a moment for it all to sink in.

Has it really come down to this?

* * *

"Tristan," Doctor Burns says when I walk into his office the following day. "You're here earlier than I expected."

"Sorry," I say, reaching back to grip the doorknob. "Do you want me to—"

"No, sit. You wouldn't be here unless you had something to tell me."

_How true that is,_ I think, then close the door behind me.

I cross the distance between me and the desk and settle into the plush seat that sits opposite Doctor Burns. His green eyes intent, his beard fine and trimmed, he watches me for a few short moments before reaching down for my file. "How've you been?" he asks.

"Fine," I say.

"Have you gotten yourself to the store yet?"

"My friend Armand is staying with me. He went out and picked up some groceries."

"I'm happy to hear that," Burns replies, leaning back in his seat. He drums his fingers along the edge of his desk and watches me with calm, calculating eyes.

_He expects it,_ I think. _He_ knows _it._

Of course he did. What psychiatrist _wouldn't_ notice that something was wrong or at least unsettling upon looking at his or her patient?

Rather than keep the charade going, I sigh and take a deep breath.

_Here goes nothing._

"Doctor Burns," I say. "Can I... can I talk to you about something?"

"Of course you can," he says. "Why, that's the whole point of being here, isn't it? For us to discuss what's going on in your life?"

"I... I guess."

"Take your time, Tristan. Tell me whenever you're ready."

With that thought in mind, I bow my head, take a deep breath, then expel it before returning my attention to the man in front of me. "Doctor Burns," I say. "There's... there's something I haven't told you. About me and John, I mean. About... about what it was like when he was alive."

"You've never mentioned how day-to-day life with him was," Burns remarks, then leans forward.

"That's..." I pause. I watch his green eyes flicker with interest and take another deep breath.

"Take your time, Tristan."

"I've never told you anything about me and John because I didn't want to... well... _sully_ his memory, I guess."

"I'm sorry?"

"John was... he was a good guy. I can say that honestly. It's just... near the end... we had... _times."_

"Like every relationship does."

"Yeah, but... they weren't us just arguing with each other over stupid stuff like bills or the car. He... he..."

_Damn you,_ I think, tears burning in my eyes. _Goddamn you John._

"Tristan?" Doctor Burns asks.

"He... he didn't mean it when we'd get into arguments."

"Didn't mean what?"

"He didn't mean to hit me."

Doctor Burns remains silent. His hand doesn't even stray to the pen and folder that he has all my most intimate of secrets in.

"He... he started hitting me," I say, "when he'd get really mad, when he was angry about something, when he was stressed out. You know how it was. His job didn't really allow much in the way of relaxation."

"Such is the curse of working in the police department," Burns remarks. "So... I have to ask, since you brought it up: how often did this happen?"

"Only near the end of his life. It was... we..."

"Bad?"

"Yeah. Really bad."

"How often did this happen before he died?"

"We got into a fight about us leaving New York and moving down to New Orleans a few weeks before we left. We couldn't really talk about it much because we were both working, and since he was going through so much shit trying to get transferred down to the New Orleans PD he was almost always in a bad mood, especially since he'd get home from the midnight shift just as I was getting up in the morning." I let out a breath. "He started hitting me every other week when it started, then every day during the week we were planning to leave."

"What were your fights about?"

"What we were taking, what we were selling, getting out of the apartment before the lease ran out—it just seemed like everything made him angry near the end of it all. I mean, I know he loved me, because throughout it all he'd apologize after he'd calmed down, but it... it just... I don't know."

"I'm sure you're already aware of this," Doctor Burns says, "and I hate to bring it up, but you are aware that men and women who are abused by their significant others are often conditioned to accept the abuse without a second thought."

"I... I know."

_"He loves me,"_ Burns says. _"It was an accident. He didn't mean it. He's a good man. We're going to stop and get help. We—"_

"He didn't mean to hit me," I say, stopping Burns before he can continue. "It's just... he was brought up that way."

"He himself was abused in the past?"

"His fucking dad—goddamn him for fucking him up."

"It's not surprising that he would repeat the cycle of abuse. You become accustomed to that when you grow up or live with it for extended periods of time."

"I know."

"I'd like to ask, now that you've brought this up. If I may."

"Go ahead."

"What brought this to your attention? I mean, telling me about the abuse. You've said before that you didn't want to 'sully' his memory, but why tell me what happened now, after you've been seeing me twice a week for nearly a month?"

"Armand said I should tell you."

"Why did he think it was important?"

"Probably because I was so messed up over it just after he died. I thought..." I pause. Tears begin to fill my eyes once again. "I thought there was something I could've done to help him. He wasn't a bad man all the time, Doctor Burns. It's just..."

"It's just... what?"

"I think he was sick before he died."

"What do you mean?"

"He didn't start acting like this until a few months ago. Before we were fine. We got along great, we did all the things we'd normally do together, we'd go out, eat, drink, have fun with friends. I... I noticed his job was starting to get bad and I told him he needed to get counseling, help, _something_ to keep his mind occupied and his conscience healthy, but he wouldn't listen to me. That's when he started getting mean, but it wasn't just physical at first—just verbal."

"What did he tell you?"

"He'd say I wasn't bringing in enough money, that I wasn't keeping the house clean, that I needed to cook more often because he was exhausted when he came home every morning and during the nights when his schedule would suddenly change. I mean... I know his job was stressful—it _is_ New York, after all, but..." I sigh. I allow myself a few moments to compose myself both by wiping the tears from my eyes before I look up at my doctor. "I thought I could fix it. Fix _me._ Fix _him."_

"Was this why you stayed with him even through the abuse?" Burns asks, drumming his fingers along his desk. "Because you believed he was suffering from an illness?"

"Yes sir. I was."

"And it never crossed your mind to break up with him, if only just to scare him into getting help?"

"I loved him too much to break up with him, even if it was only temporary. As to the help, it's just... I thought he'd come around, that he'd see through the film over his eyes and realize that what he was doing was hurting us, hurting _me."_

"But that never happened."

"No, sir. It didn't."

"And you didn't suggest going in for help? Not even together?"

"I told him I wouldn't move to New Orleans with him unless he got help. He promised me he'd go get help after we made the trip across the country."

"And that was when the accident happened," the doctor nods.

I'm unable to respond.

"There's little one can do to help fix another if they don't help themselves," Burns says, as if the words he's saying are meant to be comforting rather than hurtful. "Tristan... I know we've discussed this before, and I know the few times we've ever made progress you've refused to consider it, but... have you reconsidered trying antidepressants? At least for a little while, to see how they work?"

"They won't work for me."

"Why do you say that?"

_Because my problem's not in the past,_ I think. _It's in the present._

"That... that _thing."_

"You're still seeing it?"

"Yes."

"Him?"

"Sir, it... whatever it was... it was trying to get into my apartment last night."

"Did you call the police?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Because the NYPD aren't going to respond to a call from someone who says there's a monster breaking into their home."

"They might not if you say it's a monster," Burns says, "but if you say it's a person—"

"I'm on the thirteenth floor. How's someone supposed to get up onto the porch?"

At this, Burns has no reply. Instead, he opens his file on me and begins to write, with feverish haste, what I have just told him. To combat the nerves that come with such a sight, I cross my arms over my chest and think back to how things will be when I get back to the apartment—where, within the closed confines of four walls, Armand will be making dinner for the two of us.

_Everything will be just fine,_ I think. _He's just writing down what you told him because he has to have it on record that—_

Burns stops writing.

I frown. "Sir?" I ask.

"I know for a fact that I can help you with the emotional fallout from the abuse you've suffered, and from the trauma of losing your partner. That's part of my job description. That's what I'm _trained_ to do. But helping you with this... this _thing_ you keep seeing... I can't do anything."

"What do you suggest I do then?"

"Honestly, I don't know, Tristan. You refuse to take medication, so we can't know if it's a hallucination, and if you can't call the police department to report a potential break in we don't know where or not this 'figure' is a real person."

"You're not... turning me away, are you?"

"No. I'm not."

"Then what are you—"

Burns slides a single piece of paper across the table. "If you think this is something beyond the realm of your control," he says, "and if you're convinced that for some reason your partner is haunting you from beyond the grave, you should consider looking for resources that deal with that sort of thing."

I lift the piece of paper and hold it before my eyes.

_Joseph's Home for the Brave._

"A church?" I ask.

"You did say you had a Catholic upbringing," Burns replies, "and so far as I know, that's the closest church you have to your area of town."

"Are we—"

"Out of time? Yes. We are." Burns reaches across the table and holds his hand open. "Good luck, Tristan."

"Thank you, sir," I say, shaking his hand in turn.

I rise and begin to make my way to the door.

Even before I touch the doorknob I can't help but wonder if this is the end of it all.

* * *

"You think it's over?" Armand asks.

"I'm not sure," I say.

We stand in the kitchen while Armand cooks. His attention set mostly on the food, but drawn to me, his eyes linger cautiously over the soup he has painstakingly rolled noodles for. I want to say something to set his mind at ease, but with my own thoughts running rampant inside my head, I can't help but wonder if I'm even capable of such a thing.

_It doesn't matter anyway,_ I thought. _You already know he's not going to be able to help you._

The piece of paper in my pocket is trapped within my balled fist, its sharp edges kissing the palm of my hand and its soft ones whispering carefully to me. It's as though at any moment I will be damaged of the world's accord and by the paper's intense might, as upon its surface the words _Joseph's Home for the Brave_ are spelled fine and pure. I still haven't decided whether or not I'm going. I haven't even broached the subject with Armand yet.

"So," my friend says, lifting his eyes once more. "I assume you told him then?"

"Yes."

"And?"

"He agreed that whatever John was going through at the time could have caused his behavior, or at least influenced it."

"Which is definitely a possibility."

"What did you think of John when he started acting... weird?"

"I thought there was something wrong," Armand says. "You could _tell_ there was something bothering him, whether it was something about his job or about the way his life was going. There was something in his eyes, Tristan. I don't know if you noticed it, but... it scared me. It was like he was crying out for help but couldn't ask for it himself." He sighs and shakes his head. "I just tried to stay out of it, even though I wanted to step in and say something."

"Why didn't you?"

"Because I thought the two of you were just going through a phase. You did talk about going to couples counseling. Remember?"

I nod.

"I don't like to get into other people's business, Tristan," Armand continues. "It's bad enough when you've got two people going at each other, but when you throw a third person in? That's just asking for trouble."

"But you thought about doing it—I mean, calling John out."

"I wanted to, yeah, but anytime I was going to try you told me not to."

"I—" I pause at the end, unsure what to say.

It was true. There was no denying the fact that I had protected John—probably more than I should have, now that I think about it—but the past is the past. There's nothing I can do to fix the situation now that everything's set in stone.

Armand adds more spice to the broth, stirs the contents within, then turns the burner off before sliding his potholders over his hands and lifting the tub of soup to an unoccupied place on the stove. He stares at it for several long, intense minutes before he looks up and offers me one of his impeccable white smiles.

"Thank you for doing this," I say, stepping forward and wrapping my arms around him.

"You don't have to thank me," Armand said, pressing one hand against the small of my back and the other on the middle of my spine. "You know I'm here for you."

"I know."

"I guess the question I should be asking is how long you want me to stay here with you."

"You're off work," I say. "Right?"

"No. I'm not. But I can bring my laptop and do it from home... well, here, anyway. I just don't want to intrude on you."

"And I don't want to keep you from your job," I reply, though the words are nothing more than lies, as I want more than anything else in the world for him to stay.

"Well," Armand says, "if that's the case, then I'll run home after we eat dinner, then come right back. You have WI-FI, right?"

"Yeah," I say, watching as he leans down to check the crescent rolls in the oven. "How much food did you make?"

"Soup, bread bowls—"

"Bread bowls?"

"Uh huh. Soup, bread bowls, crescent rolls—I can make more if you like."

"I'm sure that'll be more than enough," I laugh.

Armand smiles and pulls the rolls out of the oven. "All right," he says. "Let's just let these cool off and then we'll get to eating."

I couldn't agree more.

* * *

I sit in the silence of the darkened apartment as outside another storm threatens to loom in. Wrapped in a blanket, sitting on the couch, drinking a diet cola and trying to keep my attention on things other than the clouds outside, I stare at the television screen standing opposite me and immediately am flooded with his presence.

_All our shows,_ I thought, _we were supposed to watch._

It'd been a general thing, really—a ritual that we would perform three times a week. Him on the couch, legs spread out; my leg over his, his feet against my toes; me leaning against him, his arm wrapped around me; our hands pressed against one another, his on my abdomen and mine on his wrist—in life, John and I had gotten along, and despite the occasional spells of violence conceived and delivered from the stress of work near the end of his life, those times had always been the best. On those Monday, Wednesday and Friday nights, during which time John specifically did not work the midnight hour, we would curl up with one another on the couch and lose ourselves to fake realities and each other, two men in love without a care in the world. Just the realization that such a thing would never happen again has haunted me since the day he died, and now, sitting here, in his— _our—_ apartment, I'm almost on the verge of tears.

"It's okay," I whisper. "Deep breaths, Tristan. Deep breaths. Everything's going to be just fine."

It is with those words that his presence becomes tangible—that, in spite of the world and all its laws, it presses itself to the glass separating the two of us from the inside and outside worlds. It grows, mutates, shifts into something concrete. I see it first as only a flicker of movement from the corner of my eye, like a shadow playing across my retinas, then as a monolith as it continues to morph into a more powerful entity. The rain begins to fall and outside, thunder rolls forward. Despite that, though, it is not until the night's first lightning strikes that the figure becomes real.

_Tris,_ it says, _tan._

I shiver at the word and wrap myself deeper into the blanket to avoid making direct eye contact with it, though in this moment I seriously doubt I could see his eyes even if I _wanted_ to.

_Just be quiet,_ I think. _Don't look at it, don't talk to it, don't acknowledge it._

Did they not say that the conception of our greatest fears begins within our own consciences?

Rather than think about the probability of it all, I stand, adjust the blanket across my shoulders, then wander into the kitchen. I pull from the cabinets above the stove a bowl and fill it with the soup that's still simmering on one of the burners, but instead of going back to the window I seat myself along the bar and begin to eat in silence.

On the stove's LED display, I watch as the minute number changes from two to three.

How long could it possibly take for Armand to return?

Sighing, I bow my head and turn my eyes down to the soup in front of me, though at that moment I could care less about whether or not I'll end up eating it.

A sound begins on the far side of the room.

I close my eyes.

He's pawing at the windows again.

"Please," I whisper. "Just... just go away."

The sound of laughter echoes into the apartment and rebounds off the walls before it enters my ears.

Sunshine, warm days, long walks around the neighborhood, trips to Times Square via the subway system, his arm around my shoulder, mine wrapped around his waist, our fingers interlaced and our breaths shared from one to the other—all enter my mind in that moment when, outside, the thing that used to be my partner continues to try and get in.

Tears fall from my eyes.

I bow my head.

I'm somehow able to refrain from sobbing even though the memories of it all are flooding forward, breaching the levees of my mind and the barriers of my consciousness as if it is a hurricane destroying along the coast of a city grand and historical one of the few things that keeps it safe.

To my left the doorknob begins to rattle.

_No,_ I think. _Please, just leave me—_

"Tristan?" Armand asks, then knocks on the door. "Did you lock me out?"

"No," I reply, standing. A quick look in the direction of the windows shows that the figure is gone. "Sorry."

"It's all right."

After crossing the brief distance between us, I sigh, open the door, then allow Armand inside with a simple wave of the hand.

When he is fully in the apartment, his laptop snug under his arm and a peculiar look on his face, I close my eyes and sigh.

"Tristan," he says. "Are you—"

"Will you sleep in my room tonight?"

"Sorry?"

"I said—"

"No. I heard you. It's just... I don't understand."

"Please," I say.

"Did he... come back?" Armand asks.

"I don't want to talk about it," I say, then look past him to view the row of windows along the wall. "I won't ask you again."

"All right."

"Will you sleep in my room tonight?"

"Yes," Armand says. "I will."

* * *

Armand sleeps on the floor while in my bed I lay awake. The sheet wrapped within my fist, my body prone and vulnerable atop the mattress, I stare at the wall and try to drown out my thoughts by listening to the sound of rain, which sounds like innocence on a long and cold day.

_Don't get your hopes up,_ I think. _It could get worse at any moment._

Though not yet fierce, and while still somewhat far away, that does not mean it will be sated by a night cold and alone and with the company of a friend at my side.

I listen to the sound of Armand's breathing on the floor beneath me as I cry to regulate my own uneven breaths alongside it. A deep inhale, a quick exhale, a cough, a brief start and then a short mumble beneath his breath—these are the things that enters my ears as I concentrate on the world below and the things that ultimately make me miss having someone in my own bed. There'd been a short quarrel between the two of us when it came to sleeping positions, and upon saying that he could sleep in the bed with me, Armand had refused, replying with a simple, "It's not the bed I made" before he accepted a pillow and a quilt from the clothing closet.

_It's not the bed I made,_ I think as the rain continues to fall and a man continues to breathe. _It's not the bed I made._

Closing my eyes, I begin the breathing ritual once more.

The pitter-patter of the drizzle is melody to my mind.

The heater kicks on.

The breath of winter draws forth.

Something begins to knock on the sliding glass door.

"Just ignore it," I whisper, drawing the blankets tighter around me. "Just ignore it and it will go away."

But will it, though? I have willed whatever the thing that comes to my apartment is away several times and yet with each attempt it has returned. I have no allies, save for my friend, and I bear no sword with which I could cast the creature away. Instead, I merely have my sanity—which, with each meeting with the creature, is slowly slipping away.

Armand mumbles something below my bed.

"Armand?" I ask. "Are you awake?"

"Huh?"

The knock at the outside door ceases to exist.

"What's wrong?" Armand asks, jarring me out of my reverie just in time to see his face appear over the side of the bed.

"Did you hear that?"

"What?"

"The knocking."

"I was fast asleep. Sorry."

"It's... it's all right. Don't worry about it."

"What was I supposed to hear?"

_Probably nothing,_ I think. Instead of saying that, however, I simply say, "Go back to bed."

Armand obliges.

I settle back down into the mattress and close my eyes.

It is no sooner than Armand's breathing falls back into a pattern that the knocking begins again.

* * *

I wake the following morning to an empty room that is devoid of not only any bad feelings, but also Armand's presence.

"Armand?" I ask, pushing myself up on one elbow to peer over the side of the bed. "Are you here?"

I do not find my friend. Instead, I discover a sticky note posted to the bedside lamp that says, _Went to get us breakfast. Be back soon._

"Oh well," I sigh. "At least he cares about you."

_And was willing to stay overnight._

Not many people in my life had been willing to help me in my time of need. John's friends had been distant—police officers who, though respectful of John's private life, were likely not willing to help me. My friends, on the other hand, had flocked to my side, almost to the point where I couldn't even take it anymore. The grief, and the anger that had come along with it, had ultimately driven people away, though through the thick of it all one person had remained.

_Armand._

To think that I could have a friend as good as him was almost impossible. Considering what all I'd done—all the names I had called, all the blows I had thrown, all the hate I had delivered and all the ill will I ultimately inspired—I shouldn't even have any friends, much less ones that would care enough to stay with me. Armand, though, he'd been special—always had, always would. Nothing in the world could ever change that.

"And here I am," I say, "using him as a crutch."

I gather a fresh set of clothes from about the room and then make my way into the bathroom—where, once inside, and with the door closed to but a crack, the mystery of everything begins to deepen.

It takes but a few moments for the initial, jarring thought to enter my mind.

Beneath the showerhead, and within the midst of it all, I'm almost unable to think.

The water strikes my body.

My skin crawls.

I let out a slight cry of surprise.

Only one question enters my mind.

Why had the figure stopped knocking when I'd woken Armand?

_It was just a coincidence,_ I think, drawing away from the showerhead while waiting for the water to heat up. _That's all it was. Nothing more, nothing less._

If that were true, though, and if Armand's presence had been enough to deter the creature, what could that mean for me—the victim of it all and the last, dying savior of my own mental wellbeing?

"You shouldn't worry about it," I whisper, sinking into the water as it heats to a comfortable, lukewarm temperature. "You shouldn't—"

The front door opens, then closes in the kitchen. "Tristan?" Armand calls out. "Are you awake?"

"I'm in the shower!" I call back. "Give me a minute!"

"Hurry up! Don't want the food going cold."

_No,_ I think. _We don't._

* * *

"Armand," I say, lifting my head to look over the spread of sausage and egg muffins, the coffee and the cinnamon rolls before us.

"What's up?" he asks.

"Do you... uh... remember anything that happened last night?"

"Like what?"

"Like... me waking you up."

"No," Armand says, biting into one of the muffins. "Why? Somethin' happen?"

"Not... particularly."

Armand's complexion darkens a shade. He finishes chewing what he has in his mouth, takes a drink of coffee, then swallows that down before frowning and saying, "What?"

"What... what?"

"What _happened,"_ he replied. "You know... last night."

"I was probably just imagining things."

"Tell me what's on your mind, Tris."

"Like I said, it was probably just—"

"He was here again, wasn't he?"

It is a stunning accusation that is true in every way, shape and form—that, without regret, and without any form of material filter, strikes me hard and inspires within my chest a heat doctors had once described as anxiety. The voice is lost in my throat, a child long gone to bed. My appetite wanes and suddenly, for no reason at all, I feel like throwing up. It's as though I've just been given a poisonous cocktail in which the olive has gone sour.

_What do I say?_ I think.

I don't expect Armand to remember what I had said, much less take it into consideration as a real and concrete thing. My friend has always been a man of logic, even when it came down to what some expressed as truth. There was, he once said, 'no life beyond,' and when faced with the reality of John's death and my distress, he'd merely added that 'humans were energy' and that we 'never truly disappeared from the world.' At that point I'd been keen to tell him that John hadn't disappeared—that, instead of vanishing into thin air, he was in a morgue and waiting to be put six feet under—but the intensity of the situation had quelled my desire. Now, though, in the brink of it all, while Armand is sitting directly across from me and staring at my face with eyes so dark and intense I think I will cry, I can't help but wonder if John's death had triggered something in him.

_Maybe he opened his mind,_ I think. _Maybe—_

Armand drums his fingers along the table. "Tris?" he asks. "You still there?"

"Uh huh," I manage, looking down at the coffee cup my hands are wrapped around.

"Did you hear what I said?"

"I didn't think you'd believe me," I say. "I thought you didn't."

"I never said I didn't believe you, so don't go thinking that."

"All right."

"So... what happened last night? Before you woke me up?"

"I heard what I usually do when I'm trying to go to bed."

"Which is?"

"A knock on the door."

"How long does this go on for?"

"Hours, maybe. I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I eventually fall asleep."

"Okay. So you hear him knocking at the door."

"I don't like to call it... _him."_

"Why not?"

"Because it's not John."

"Then what is it?" Armand asks.

"It's," I start, then falter halfway through. "It's..."

"Take your time, Tristan. Don't think you have to blurt it out all at once."

"It's an interpretation of him," I say, raising my eyes to look at Armand.

"What do you mean?"

"It's like someone's pulled pieces of him out of a hat and tried to put him back together."

"Do you mean that in just the metaphorical sense, or—"

"No. I've seen him up close. It doesn't look anything like him."

"Then how do you know it's him?"

"I just know." I pause. Armand's demeanor, though serious, shifts, as if he's just been dealt a card he doesn't know how to play. "I don't know how to explain it," I continue, lifting and then sipping my coffee. "I guess the best way to describe it is... well... like knowing how home smells. You _know_ it's home, because you know how it smells... because you've grown up with it your entire life."

"And you're saying this... well... _thing..._ is a part of John?"

"It has parts of him, but it isn't really him."

"What do you think it wants?"

"Recognition."

"What makes you think that?"

"It wants _me,"_ I say. "It _wants_ me to know that it has _parts_ of him in it."

"But what kind of thing would want to take _parts_ of John and _put him back together again?"_

"I... I don't know."

"Tristan... I know I'm an Atheist and all, and I know that you're Catholic and you had trouble growing up with it, but... well... have you considered looking to the church for help?"

"That's what my psychiatrist said," I laugh.

"What?"

I point to a note posted on the refrigerator. "Joseph's Home for the Brave," I say, then laugh, almost unable to believe the absurdity of the situation. "Yeah. I know what you're thinking. A psychiatrist—a man of medicine and logic—telling me to go to the church instead of a psych ward."

"I've heard of it before," Armand says, seemingly disregarding the part about the psych ward completely. He stares at the paper for several long moments before turning and asking, "Have you looked into it?"

"I haven't gone, no."

"But you think they'll be able to help you."

_"He_ does," I say. _"I_ don't know."

"Well... anything's worth a shot, right?"

"I... I guess."

Armand takes another bite out of his sausage muffin. "Let's finish eating," he says, "then I'll go with you."

_"You_ will go with _me_ to a _church?"_

"I'm fairly sure the roof's not going to cave in on us," Armand laughs. "What've we got to lose?"

"I guess nothing," I reply.

"Then it's settled. We'll go to Joseph's Home for the Brave and see if we can get this situation sorted out."

While I can appreciate Armand's proposition, I wonder if it will even be worth it.

_Some said John was going to Hell because he was gay,_ I think.

Oh well. That was a different church at a different time.

Maybe this will be different.

* * *

Armand and I walk side-by-side for several blocks until we come to the district where the church stands. It is a looming figure in the distance, a religious icon that bears on the top of its structure a cross. What appears to be an angel rests upon it—arms raised, its legs slack and its wings bearing all the effort—and though what seems to be an air of peace surrounds this place, the reality that I am returning to a church for the first time since John died unsettles me to no end.

"Hey," Armand says, pressing a hand to my shoulder. "You okay?"

"I'm fine," I lie. "Don't worry about me."

Truth be told, I'm nervous as hell about even stepping _near_ a church, but I decide to keep that to myself and instead push forward, sliding my hands into the belly pocket of my hoodie and keeping my attention set straight ahead. At my side, Armand's demeanor stiffens, but he makes no move to question me any further.

_Thank God._

The only thing I need is to be rattled before I go to seek help of the holy matter.

As we progress up the street, taking into consideration the streams of water that run up and down the sidewalks like miniature fairytale rivers from this morning's rain, I raise my head and look upon the ingenious wonders of the natural world. Here skyscrapers soar high, birthed on the wings of metal skeletons, and here glass windows shine as in the west the sun begins to fall. The sky seems small, the space distorted, the roads almost nonexistent as upon them traffic travels—to say that this was a land of great and marvelous ingenuity would have been to diminish some four-hundred years of history, and for that I can't help but feel small in the presence of it all.

_Are my problems,_ I wonder, _nothing compared to this?_

Had my situation been of the natural world, I would have gone through the process. The shock, the denial, the pain, the guilt, the anger, bargaining, depression, reflection, loneliness and, at the end of that long tunnel, the hope—I would have suffered as anyone else would in my situation, but yet here I am walking the streets of New York with a friend who may not believe me and a church who may condemn my actions as sin. Does this make me weak, I wonder. Natural? Strong? Or is this whole fiasco yet one final attempt to try and free my tortured soul from the agony it rests within?

At my side, Armand lets out a sigh.

"Something wrong?" I ask, struggling to turn my head up to look at my friend.

"I'm really worried about you, Tris."

"I'll be fine. Don't—"

"Worry? I can't. I _am_ , Tris. God—you know how bad it fucking _sucks_ to see your best friend going through so much shit?"

"I can imagine," I mumble.

Armand stops walking. I would've passed him had I not been paying attention. "Armand?" I ask.

"I know you're doubting my support. You'd _have_ to be, considering what all I've ever said to you."

"What're you—"

"I'm sorry I ever insinuated that there wasn't anything beyond life, that there wasn't a new beginning after the eventual end. Fuck, Tristan—I told you we _turned into energy_ and that we _never faded away._ You know how fucked up that sounds, especially after your best friend's boyfriend just died?"

"Don't worry, Armand. I wasn't—"

"You were so. I just wasn't able to see it until now."

"Why are you getting so upset about this?" I ask.

"Because you're _suffering_ and there's nothing I can do about it."

"What do you think you're supposed to do about it?"

"I dunno... _believe,_ maybe?"

"How are you going to believe in something you don't think is even real?"

"I... I don't—"

"Seriously, Armand—don't worry about it. It's a lot for you to think about, believer or not."

"It is, which is also why I'm feeling like a really shitty friend."

"Armand." I turn and take a few steps. Once in front of him, I reach forward and grip his upper arms. "You wanna know something?"

"What?"

"You're the _only_ one who has come around in the past two weeks."

"What about—"

"The others? I don't know. Maybe my grief pushed them away, or maybe it was because I got so angry and frustrated that no one wanted to help me. You, though—you're _staying_ with me. You're _going to a church_ to _help me find an answer_ even though _you're an atheist."_

"I'd never leave you to suffer this alone."

"Thank you."

Leaning forward, I wrap my arms around Armand's broad torso and sigh when the moment of it all seems to set in when he returns the gesture in kind.

_He's here,_ I think.

Is that enough?

"Come on," I say. "Let's go. We still have a ways to walk."

* * *

We enter the church to find that inside it is empty. No people, no worship, no moments of clarity or even the guiding hand of a priest—even the presence of what I used to consider as 'God' is devoid in this room, almost as if I have damned myself to Hell just by stepping on consecrated ground.

_You're fine,_ I think. _There's nothing for you to worry about._

While that may be true, it doesn't help alleviate my burden any.

"What do you know," Armand says. "The roof didn't fall in on us."

The sound of footsteps echoes throughout the church.

"Sorry," Armand says.

"Don't worry," I reply. "Wait here."

"Where are you going?"

"To see if anyone's here."

With a short shrug, Armand seats himself at the back of the nave and crosses his arms over his chest, leaving me to my own devices and problems.

I walk between the rows of benches and try my hardest to dissuade any memories that come back, but instantly a vision takes me through the varying stages of my life over the course of several seconds. My birth, which I could not have experienced and remembered; my childhood, when at the age of five I was first brought into the church; my teenage years and when, at only fourteen, I began to realize that I was not as spiritually whole as I felt I should be—all flash before my eyes and reveal within my troubled psyche a weakness that I can't help but feels comes from previous rejection.

_Father,_ I had asked one time, whilst seated within a confessional trying my hardest night to cry.

_Yes, my son?_ a man had replied right after.

_My boyfriend just died and I don't know what to do._

To Hell John had been condemned, and to Hell I would also go if I kept walking the road of sin.

I approach the front of the nave, near where the altar stands. "Hello?" I ask.

The footsteps begin to echo throughout the church once more.

_There's someone here,_ I think. _They're just walking through the church and they'll be out in any—_

Before I can finish my thought, a tall, snow-haired man in a white robe comes forward. "Hello," he says. "Welcome to Joseph's Home for the Brave."

"Thank you, sir," I say, stepping forward. I ground myself in place before I can get any further and turn my head up to look at him. "Father?"

"How can I help you?"

_You're just going to have to face it,_ I think. _That's all you're going to have to do._

"Father," I say once more. "It... it isn't a sin I want to confess."

"As I can see," the priest says, raising his head to acknowledge the confessional on the far side of the room. "If not a sin, what is it?"

"I... I'm being haunted by the spirit of my best friend."

He appears in but a moment. Before my conscience, across from my bed, standing on the porch with wings that shift and shiver as rain falls and lightning cracks overhead—had I reason to believe it, I would have fully accepted that what I think is only a fragment of John has appeared to me, but since I do not, I only sigh and bow my head.

"You are... seeing an apparition?" the priest asks.

"Yes sir. I am."

The father raises his hand to regard the nave and the lack of people in it. "Is that—"

"A friend? Yes."

"Come with me."

The father does not take my hand as he leads me around the stage and toward a hideaway entrance that rests on the far western side of the room. It is there we slide into it, take a left, then follow a long corridor to the right before we stand in an office. The priest takes a moment to close the door and gestures me to sit before he settles himself into the chair across from me.

"It isn't often that I hear of young men and women facing apparitions," the priest says, leaning forward to view my face. "Tell me: what is it you see when you see your best friend?"

"A man," I say, "Standing in the rain, outside my window, with a pair of wings."

"Like an angel's, my son?"

"It's not an angel. It... it has black wings."

The priest does not reply.

_What can he be thinking?_ I wonder.

That I'm crazy, that I'm insane, that I'm someone who has committed a sin so unreal that from God an angel of mercy has been delivered to haunt my ever-so-sinful life—these are the things that run across the surface of my vision like memories from a long and disturbed past to reveal an image of sanctity that I should be practicing. I should, I think, be a man of God, even though the men who serve Him well have condemned me in the past, and I should, I know, be a regular, adult, _straight_ man—a man whom, at night, sleeps with a woman whom, in her womb, harbors a child of its God-loving parents. Since I am neither of those things, and since I'm lost for words or actions, I merely sit there and wait for my penance, as it won't be much longer before the priest replies.

"My son," the father says.

"Yes, Father?"

"Do you have reason to believe that the thing that haunts you is one of the Fallen?"

_The Fallen?_ I think. _Did I really just hear him say that?_

"My son?"

"I'm still here," I say.

"Did you hear my question?"

"I don't know what he is," I say. "He just... just..."

"Just... what?"

"Wants in."

"Wants in what?"

"My apartment. Where we lived together."

"And he is denied by... what? Whom?"

"I don't know. He just... he paws at my window when he wants in, and every time it rains he's outside on my porch or on the roof of the building next to us. He... he makes it rain, Father, and he makes me feel so cold that I'm not even sure it's him."

"Has he attempted to harm you?"

"No."

"And he has not displayed supernatural abilities, other than just existing?"

"No sir. He hasn't."

The priest sighs. He shifts in his seat and the groan from the chair reverberates throughout my ears. I'm almost convinced he's about to leave, but when he clears his throat and sighs once more, I come to the conclusion that he's here with me for the long haul.

"What should I do, Father?"

"If he is truly a friend of yours," the priest says, "who has either come back from the grave of his own accord or has lingered away from the light, then you should be able to send him away."

"Send him away?" I frown. "What are you—"

"You have to send him back to whence he came. Only then will you be free of this problem."

"There's something more you're not telling me," I say. "Father... what if he isn't back of his own accord?"

"If something has seized his spirit and taken into its body the essence of a mortal, then it is surely a demon."

"What must I do?"

"You are strong in your love of God, otherwise you would not have come here."

"That's right," I say, though my love of God has been slim for the past several years.

"So if you are strong in your love of God, you should be strong in your love of life. Are you not?"

"I am, sir."

"God has given us these gifts to ensure that we remain devoted to Him. Sometimes, though, we are not protected from the things that we would rather not see, which is why through the power of faith and the sacrifice of Christ we are able to stand on our own two feet." The priest pauses. I'm almost ready to ask something before he clears his throat. "To you, my son, I say this: face him head on. Do not be afraid, do not show fear, and do not allow this thing that presents itself as your friend to sway you in any way, shape or form. The Devil is all around us, young man, and His servants are many, but His influence can only extend for as long as you allow it."

"And if I can't face him head on?" I ask. "Or if he tries to attack me?"

"Then he is truly insufferable and can only be removed by a proper exorcism." The priest stands. I'm almost about to do the same when he turns, takes my hand, then begins to lead me out and into the church.

"Father?" I ask. "Where are we—"

He points. "The font."

"But what am I—"

Before I can finish, the father slides a vial into my hand. "The water has been blessed in the name of God and his son, Jesus Christ. I offer it to you for your protection."

"Thank you, Father."

"Go light, my son, and use your gift. I will pray for you and the soul of your friend."

I'm only able to wave Armand to his feet as I begin to make my way toward the font, the vial in hand.

* * *

"Do you think it'll work?" Armand asks.

"It has to," I say, looking down at the vial of holy water. "Otherwise I'm going to have to have a priest come and perform an exorcism."

_Or I'm going to have to live with it for the rest of my life,_ I think, then sigh. I never did take into consideration that this Catholic church may be no different than the others. Besides—did exorcisms even _work_ for gay people?

With a shake of my head, I stand, then turn away from the windows to find Armand standing in the bathroom's threshold—freshly-showered and wearing little more than his underwear. "Uh..."

"Oh. Sorry," Armand says, then begins to retreat back into the bedroom. "I saw you sitting there and I thought I'd see if you were all right."

"I'm fine, Armand. Don't worry about me."

"You know I will anyway," he replies.

While waiting for my friend to dress, and while standing halfway between my bed and the door leading out into the living room, I begin to play in my head one of many scenarios that could take place when the thing that resembles John returns. The first is that I could simply banish him away—that, with my words, and my faith in God, I can tell him to leave without regret: to go to the light and be free of the burdens of the physical world. The second follows a similar route, and the third rings true with answers and acknowledgment. The fourth, and most unsettling of the notions, is the idea that whatever this is will try and strike back at me—using, what I can only imagine, is the fear that courses through my body.

_Do not be afraid,_ the priest had said. _Do not show fear._

"And do not allow this thing that presents itself as your friend to sway you," I whisper.

The bathroom door opens. Armand peeks out and offers a smile. "Hey," he says.

"Hey," I reply.

In but one moment my friend steps forward, slaps an arm around my shoulders, then pulls me into his side, offering a one-armed bear hug that radiates with compassion.

"Thank you," I say.

"You don't have to thank me," Armand replies. "Seriously—I'm here for you."

"That means a lot to me."

"I know." Armand straightens his posture and looks out the glass doors. A frown crosses his face soon after.

"What's wrong?" I ask.

"There's another storm coming in," he says.

I turn my head.

In the distance, storm clouds threaten to come forward.

"Tristan," Armand says.

"Yeah?" I ask.

"Are you ready for tonight?"

"As ready as I'll ever be."

* * *

The plan was to have Armand sleep out in the living room and only come in if and when I called him. Dressed in boxers and a T-shirt, worrying desperately that my attempts to lure him would fail and unsure of just what I should do, I stand, look in the bedroom mirror, and try to understand just what will happen tonight.

_I have you,_ I think, fingering the cork in the vial of holy water, _and I have you, Armand._

All I really needed was my own personal faith.

With a sigh, I tighten my hold around the vial and prepare for the worse.

I wait for him until it is dark and when from the north a storm rolls in.

New York isn't necessarily known for its blackouts. The traditional recollection is that it's a thriving city—a mecca of everything the state and maybe even the country was founded upon—so when the blackout begins on the far side of the city I am shocked and unsure of what to think. The lights blink off slowly—dying like fireflies in the night, almost to the point where most anyone looking on the sight would have described it as a domino effect. There is no sound, no thought, no appearance of what could have caused it, save the notorious lightning that echoes across the sky, nor is there any purpose in the matter.

When it hits our part of the city, the sound of the power going off builds to a screaming pitch, then dies down like a low groan.

The lamp I've left on for Armand goes dark in the kitchen.

The A/C whimpers before dying a slow death.

The whispered growl of thunder echoes overhead.

The clouds shadow the moon.

The rain begins to fall.

My room goes dark.

It is in that moment—standing there, holding the holy water in my one hand and my thought and heart in the other—that I begin to panic. _What,_ I wonder, _if it doesn't work? If he's invulnerable? If he's even susceptible to such a thing?_

I have little time to thought before it appears on the building directly across from us.

"Stay calm," I whisper. "Do not be afraid, do not show fear."

Lightning cracks the skyline in two.

A figure is visible on the porch railing for but a moment.

The world grows dark.

My bravery falters.

Convinced, in but a second, that I should turn and run, I hold my ground and wait for the spell to dissipate.

The room grows quiet.

The rain continues.

The knowledge that I am here in this room alone becomes painfully-obvious.

_Come on,_ I think. _Show yourself now before I—_

Lightning flashes again.

The figure is now standing on the porch.

"John?" I ask.

It begins anew. The pawing, the trembling, the whispered voice of something that cannot speak and the reality that it is now here—the thing that I feel so truthfully is John asks to be let in not with a voice, but an action.

_It's not going to hurt me,_ I think. _I won't let it._

I step forward.

The pawing continues.

I stand before the door.

Lightning flashes overhead.

The figure and I are separated now by no more than a sheet of glass.

"Please," I whisper. "Don't... don't hurt me."

A warmth I cannot decipher comes forth and radiates across my chest.

I reach forward to unlock the door.

The outside world is lit once again.

The thing's hand is pressed to the glass—fingers spread, arm trembling.

I take the lock that holds the door in hand, then reach up to press my hand on the spot where the figure's fingers are spread apart.

_This is it._

"It's time to see if you are what I really think you are."

I undo the lock, then reach down and take the plastic handle in hand.

I slide the door out of place.

The Child of God comes in.

I shiver—trembling, I know, not from the cold, but the simple fact of what I am doing.

When the door is fully open—when there is no space between myself and the thing that has haunted me for nearly one month—I raise my eyes and look directly at its face.

Even though there is no discernible light within the room or outside, I can see its outline against the darkness—defined, visibly, by the rain that cascades upon and around his form. His wings shift, his head tilts to the side, his shoulders rise, then fall—I am so severely tempted to touch the thing across from me that I lift and extend my hand. The moment it touches the rain, however, I am shocked back to the reality of the moment.

As outside the rain continues to fall, and in my heart a storm of reckoning begins, I raise my head once more and look at its face.

"John," I say.

The warmth begins to snake across my chest once more.

The figure takes one step forward.

I take a step back.

It bridges the distance between the porch and the white carpet beneath us in one short moment.

But one word is said.

_Tristan._

I shiver at the memory of his voice and nearly begin to cry. Its rough hue, its tangible source, its heightened twang that comes from what I know is a past in the south for a boy who dreamed of going to New York and who, at the age of eighteen, accomplished such a thing—the vibrato that transcends the imaginary world and becomes one with the physical enters my ears like bells and instantly I am relieved.

"It is you," I say.

Lightning strikes, revealing his form for but a moment.

I see now that his skin is not white, but instead tan, and I look up to see that its eyes are not black, but a fabled remnant of hazel.

_Tristan,_ it says again.

"It's you," I reply, tempted to reach forward but not sure if I should. "That's you, isn't it? John?"

A light so small I can only see it because of the darkness begins to shine at his chest. It starts, shortly, then begins to grow, extending across the space in front of us until I can see everything. His broad shoulders, his lean body, his naked form that in life I had been conjoined with far too many times to count—this is the man I fell in love with and who, for five years, I had shared everything with. It is undeniable, and when the light rises to hover between the two of us and explodes to light the whole room, I can't help but cry.

"John," I say, the tears now coursing hard and thick along my face. "I'm so sorry."

_Why are you apologizing?_ the man whom I'd loved more than anyone in my life asked.

"I... I couldn't save you."

_Not even I could have saved myself, Tristan._

"That's not true," I say. "I could've taken you to the doctor. I could've _helped_ you, _saved_ you, made you better, but I—"

_My death was not your fault._

I bow my head and close my eyes as in my mind the memory begins to play out. Us, arguing, on the night before we were supposed to leave; us, the following morning, sitting in the SUV; us, no more than a few moments thereafter, driving through New York and heading toward the interstate—I had kept my silence during that time to avoid making him angry, because God knew I was just as afraid as he was of change and what it was that would happen come our arrival in New Orleans, but in those moments following the accident I couldn't help but think. _What,_ I had wondered, _could I have done differently?_ Could I have said a word, delivered a prayer, told John to pull over until the rain let up and so the traffic around us would die down, or could I have done anything at all? To stand here, in this moment, face-to-face with the man whom I loved in life, whom in death I mourned and who near the end of it all I could not save, is almost enough to break me down, but when a presence similar to a pair of arms wrapping around me crosses my shoulders I can't help but look up. There I find John—standing in the same spot, unmoving, eyes watching. It takes little to realize what all has happened, and when for the first time since he's appeared I begin to cry, I hear something stirring in the other room.

"John," I say. "Please—"

_He is here for you._

At first I'm unsure just what he means, but when I turn to find Armand in the threshold, a sense of relief shrouds the entirety of my being.

"John," Armand says.

_My time here is done,_ John says, his body now moving, his arms extending to take me into them.

"No," I say, reaching up to touch what I feel is real, solid flesh. "Please, you can't... I can't live without you."

_You are stronger than you have ever believed,_ John replies, his swimming arms and his deteriorating form shimmering before my body. _Do not mourn me, my love, but do not forget me. Know that you are the most important person who has ever touched me and the only one who ever healed my heart._

"Don't leave. _Please."_

_My time on this Earth is done. Know this—there is another who loves you just as I have._

"Ah...Armand?" I ask.

John offers a smile that does the one thing it has always done—break my heart.

_Goodbye Tristan. We will meet again._

"I love you," I whisper.

_And I you._

John's form fades into the air before me.

Outside, lightning breaks the sky, then makes way for a glorious moon that shines even brighter than I have ever seen it before.

Defeated, I collapse. "He's gone," I say.

"Know that he loved you," Armand says.

I am enveloped in his arms.

Bowing my head, I close my eyes.

But one sob comes from my being.

Only one thought comes to mind.

He is free.

No longer would John be bound to the world that had created him.

"Tristan," Armand whispers.

"Yeah?" I ask.

"I'm sorry I didn't believe in you."

I don't respond.

Outside, the storm begins to cease.

In its wake, I see but one thing.

_Eternity._

# The Butterfly Man

His most beautiful feature was the proboscis upon his face.

He wasn't a man—at least, not in the sense people would usually think. Most would've called him a freak of nature, a cross between something that was real and wasn't supposed to exist, but I didn't care. All that mattered was that he was my friend.

_El,_ he would say. _Elrena._

The voice that I could hear only inside my head held my utmost attention as he approached my bedroom window. As he did every night—at exactly twelve-thirty AM, during which the moon would either be a blaze of glory of a dark pit of nothing—I would hear his approach by the sound of his fluttering wings, whose enigmatic presence was marked by a rhythmic sound like the revving rotors on a helicopter's blades.

Until I first saw him, I'd never realized what a butterfly had sounded like.

Given how close we were to a base, no one would've ever expected that it was the butterfly man passing by and not a helicopter.

I watched his inbound approach like a spellbound child. Lowering with grace that I would've never imagined from such an awkward form, his tall, lithe frame descended much like a normal butterfly would and landed on the skirt of the roof. His wings, like daggers, caught the moonlight and reflected it back at me as they reacquainted themselves with their new position, made orbs of light along the glass windowpane that reminded me of headlights approaching in the darkness night. Then he did as he always did—approached my window until we were face-to-face.

_Elrena,_ he said.

I'd never been able to get a true look at him. Without light to shine upon his face, I could only make out his more sensitive details—the proboscis, the antennae, the lupine face that was human in shape but probably not in nature. The rest of him was a complete representation of a man—from his five-foot-tall body to the lean frame that branched off in long arms and legs. He only occasionally reached forward to try and touch me, but each time was deterred by the glass.

His fingers were human.

_He_ was not.

"Butterfly?" I asked, his moniker the one name I had given him. "What is it? What do you want?"

The faint flicker of his antennae always unnerved me. It didn't seem predatory—unless I was just fooling myself, which could always be the case—but it was far more alien than anything I had ever encountered.

In moments like these, I wondered sometimes if he was judging me—if, within the shadows of the darkness, two big, black eyes were watching me, seeing me in a way that only he could.

The butterfly man's wings shifted, flicking light off their reflective tips. Their piercing rays passed across my vision only briefly before he ceased his incessant movements.

_Elrena,_ he replied. _Love._

He pressed a hand to the glass.

It wasn't hard to feel emotional when he said something like that. Here I was, the country girl who everyone hated, who at fourteen had never had a boyfriend and would probably never because I was nothing more than just a stupid farm girl, living in a house with no electricity on a plot of land where all my life amounted to was cows and sheep. A boy had never approached me, but him—he was something else. He'd sought me out from whatever place he'd come from to offer me hope that I would otherwise not have.

Of course, in the end, I was only really fooling myself.

What use was a girl to a man who wasn't even a man?

Knowing that my lack of response might be seen as rude, I reached forward and pressed my hand to the windowpane.

Though our palms did not line up exactly, being within his shadow did all the more for me.

* * *

"There been someone up in your room last night?" Papa asked.

I lifted my head from my morning breakfast of dry cereal and eggs and frowned. "No," I said. "Why would you think that?"

My father didn't have to explain. We'd had this conversation before. The scuff marks on the outer windowsill, the occasional misshapen twig that he'd see the times he'd go into my room with fatherly intent—the deal breaker had been when one of the shingles had been mysteriously broken and I'd never been able to explain it, though my mother had passed it off as cats and nothing more.

_Cats,_ my father had grumbled. _More like dogs._

I lowered my eyes as he lifted his newspaper and returned to my breakfast, only turning my head when I saw my mother shift from the corner of my vision.

"Elrena?" she asked, pressing a hand to my upper back. "Did you study for your test last night?"

"Yes," I said. God, how I wish she hadn't reminded me.

"I know how hard those mathematics are for you, but I know you can do it. You're a smart girl."

"I know."

"So don't be scared. Everything's going to be just okay."

I swallowed a lump in my throat.

Little did she know.

* * *

I'd perfectly neglected to tell my mother that today was the school dance.

Already I was under scrutiny.

In the burgeoning little city that lay just beyond the outskirts of the farmlands I lived upon, the girls were pretty and weren't afraid to show it. Though only my age, they possessed an uncanny ability to transform themselves into creatures that didn't even appear human. High-dollar foundations and the sheerest of lipsticks lined their faces, mascaras that made their lashes appear twice as large adorned their eyes, earrings that may or may not have been real gemstones dangled from their ears. Their clothes were another thing entirely, and put my country-bumpkin self to shame, but I'd always tried to ignore that. On a day like this, though—when _everyone_ was dressed up, including the ageless librarian Mrs. Craebey—it was hard to fall into the shadows.

"Hey Elrena!" one of the girls cried. "Elrena!"

Carlee Martinez' voice was like needles gouging through my ears, so loud and recognizable that it probably could've drawn the attention of the entire state. Her crowd of cronies—which my mother liked to refer to as the 'mean girls club,' but whom I liked to call 'the bitches'—instantly turned and offered me their full attention.

Though a seldom few made it a point to continue on and spare me the shame of public humiliation, most regarded Carlee's words like the Ten Commandments.

I tried to move past the people gawking at me like birds on wire-rimmed cages.

No sooner than I approached, the Bitches blocked my path.

"You do know that today is the day of the dance?" Carlee's other friend—a tall, skinny white girl named Whitney with some boobs and nothing else—said. "Right?"

"I know," I replied.

"But where's your dress?" Whitney's twin, aptly named Britney, asked.

"Oh," Carlee said. "Wait a minute... you don't have a dress, do you? Bless your heart."

The girls burst into laughter.

My anger was quelled only by the desire not to cry.

Carlee was the kind of girl you wanted to like. She seemed nice—at least, at a distance. She got along with all of the popular kids, made relatively good grades, was beautiful like a goddess with her lush olive skin and striking hazel eyes, but she was one of those girls who specialized in pulling the wool over the eyes of those she wanted on her side. The teachers never believed anyone when they said how horrible she was. They accused _them_ of bullying, in the end, because why would good little Carlee Martinez ever do something to make someone else feel bad?

My usual lack of response goaded them for only a minute. They prodded me as I walked off, books in hand, mocking my lack of nice clothes, my ratty hair I tried so hard to maintain, the dirt I could never get out from under my fingernails.

In the end, I couldn't bother with it.

This was my life.

There was nothing I could do.

* * *

The boy I secretly admired but whom I would never tell sat exactly two rows and three seats in front of me. Tall, dark-skinned, with a lean build which began with broad shoulders but tapered off at an incredibly trim waist—David Markan was a boy who got rap for his grades but who excelled in his place on the wrestling team. Most girls swooned. The majority wanted to date him. I often wondered if he was the reason why I could never concentrate in math class.

_He does sit in plain view,_ I was always quick to remind myself, as with open seating and a small class there wasn't much to block him from sight.

Mr. Abraham, the math teacher, reclined in his seat with his feet propped upon his desk reading what appeared to be National Geographic, though most everyone suspected otherwise. The biggest rumor about him, besides the fact that he had ears like a hawk, was that he snuck magazines onto the campus—magazines that had supposedly been discovered by Principal Montgomery when she'd come into his office after hours. Such paranoia prevented anyone without the trickiest of fingers from passing notes in class. There was a saying: Mr. Abraham heard all, saw all, then had you read it out loud.

Pulling my gaze away from David, I looked down at the test and felt instantly defeated.

_Find x._

The temptation to circle the letter was far greater than any inclination I'd ever had toward a boy.

With the knowledge that the period would soon be ending, I began to snowball and Christmas tree the test where it was needed. Most of it I knew, but a couple of the questions—which Mr. Abraham had conveniently marked with a high number of points—were ones I'd never been able to figure out.

It seemed like only a minute had passed when in reality the last third of the period had just ended.

Desperate to rise and turn in my test before lunch, I scrambled up front after most of the students on my side of the room had left, only to bump into David Markan so violently that he dropped his Algebra textbook on the ground.

The book hit a floor with a thud that shook the room.

Mr. Abraham's resounding haruumph did nothing to console my embarrassment, though thankfully his attention did not stray from his magazine too long.

"David," I said, gulping, looking down as he bent to grab his textbook. "I'm so—"

"Sorry?" he asked, smiling as he rose. "It's cool. No worries. I wasn't paying attention either. I think we all get a little unnerved when Mr. Abraham assigns a test."

"As you should," the teacher replied.

After I slid my paper into place on Mr. Abraham's desk, David gestured me out into the hall, which was already empty given the mad rush to get a decent portion of lunch.

"How've things been?" David asked, completely jarring my attention as I realized he was following me to my locker.

"Fine," I replied, trying my hardest to conceal a frown.

What use did David Markan have for me—Elrena Bobbet, the farm girl from the outskirts of town?

"Why do you ask?" I continued as I dialed my combination.

"Just wondering," he said. "The dance is tonight, you know?"

He didn't need to remind me. "I know," I replied, with the hopes that the sting in my voice wasn't as present as I thought it would be.

"Are you going with anyone?"

I froze.

No. I couldn't have just heard that.

I blinked.

I was getting far too ahead of myself.

Though I wouldn't know if I didn't ask, the most I could manage in response was a, "Huh?"

"The dance," David repeated, drawing closer, his cologne thick and far too musky. "Are you going with anyone?"

"No," I said. "I'm not."

"Would you like to go with me?"

David's smile was the sort that could melt anyone—particularly girls who had a crush on him. Me in particular, the girl who had never thought in a million years that I would be the object of any affection, could've turned to sludge right there, but since I couldn't, I merely gave him an unwavering, probably-unblinking stare, which only prompted his smile to remain.

Once again, I asked, "Huh?"

"You're cute," he replied. "I'd like to get to know you more. Kinda hard to do, practice and all, and you not having... uh..."

"Power," I said.

"Yeah. That."

Thankfully, my giggle came naturally and didn't sound like a stupid girl's bad attempt to impress a boy.

"You game?" he asked.

"I guess," she said. "I mean, if you can pick me up. Papa doesn't like me driving into town by myself."

"That's cool," David said, though didn't keep eye contact.

I mentally kicked myself for bringing up my dad in front of him.

"It's gonna be at the church," the handsome boy said, then smiled, as if he'd completely forgotten my father's racially-objective personality. "You know, the one on the other side of town? I know, I know—weird place. I thought the same. School thought it would be better, since our auditorium's the size of a molehole."

"You can barely play dodge-ball in there," I replied.

"And don't even try basketball."

I laughed. "Yeah. Okay. Cool. Sounds good to me."

"I'll pick you up at... seven... ish? Will that give you enough time?"

"Yeah," I said. I shut my locker with a resounding nod and gave him another smile. "Thanks, David."

"No problem. I'm looking forward to it."

"Yeah," I said. "Me too."

* * *

I dreaded even telling my parents about the dance.

Seated at the kitchen table exactly one hour after school had ended, I watched Papa tinker with the clock that normally hung over the threshold with a pair of pliers and a screwdriver while Mama poured the two of us tea. Biscuits spread out along the centerpiece, the common after-school snack, I waited for what felt like the right moment to spring the news to the two of them.

This would not be good.

"So," Mama said, as if breaking the silence that hung in the air with a hammer. "How was school today?"

"Fine," I replied, reaching for a biscuit to distract from my shaking hands.

"How did you do on your test?"

"I think I did okay."

"Okay?" Papa asked.

I merely nodded. There was now a fifty-fifty chance that I would get the _'you're a freshman in high school and you have to make A's to get into college otherwise you're going to become a drug dealer on the street for the rest of your life'_ talk.

"So," my mother said, when she, like me, felt the talk would not come. "Anything else exciting happen today?"

"Uh... sorta."

Both my parents raised their heads. I couldn't be sure whether it was the tone in my voice or the fact that I'd admitted to something exciting happening.

"I got asked to the school dance," I said.

"By who?" Mama asked.

"David Markam."

"That nigger," Papa said.

I nearly knocked my tea over. "Daddy," I sighed.

"You know how I feel about the Markams," he replied, returning to the clock, but this time with much more aggression than before. "Always lying to get their discounts at the grocery store, stealing from the government, Medicaid, Welfare. The one brother's in a gang, the father's a dealer, and don't get me started on his mother. Boy, if you ain't seen a woman spread her legs before—"

"Arnold," Mama snapped.

Papa didn't raise his head. "You know how they are," he replied.

The heated debate Mama and Papa proceeded into only made me think of how stupid it had been to say I was going out with a Markam boy. I'd thought about lying—because only God knows that my parents are not the most observant about current events, especially not my school—but I knew that if I tripped up I'd be in serious trouble. I couldn't say I hadn't expected it, though none of it was obviously true. Papa'd had a beef with David's dad for as long as I could remember. Sadly, I knew it was only because of his skin color.

I only noticed the argument had ended when both of my parents were looking right at me.

"The answer's no," Papa said.

That sealed the deal.

I knew I couldn't fight, couldn't weasel my way out of it, even try to negotiate with him.

That didn't matter though.

For the first time in my life a boy had asked me out.

Nothing was going to keep me from going to the dance.

* * *

Mama and Papa were early to bed, early to rise. After an early dinner, they retired at six to leave me to my own devices. This allowed me ample time to go through my closet.

The whole time I searched, I tried to imagine what a girl would wear to a high school dance.

_Something pretty,_ I was inclined to think. _Something that's nice but not flashy._

In that regard, I had nothing to worry about. The best clothes I had were from discount stores selling last season's brands. Compared to what some of the girls would be wearing, I'd look like Cinderella when the movie first started—in rags and scrubbing the floor on my hands and knees.

I eventually decided on a simple, dark-red blouse and a frilly black skirt. The skirt I'd never worn, since it was no use on the farm when I could trip on and land in a number of things, and for the shoes I'd just wear sneakers. I doubt anyone would care, and if they did, well... it's not like I cared about what they said.

The early winter nights always started at seven.

By candlelight, I did my short hair in a ponytail, applied what little makeup I could to my eyes and lips, and settled into my clothes when I heard the familiar sound outside my window.

_Thump thump thump... thump thump thump._

Shortly thereafter, the second noise came—the landing, mostly graceful but sometimes awkward—then the three taps upon the window. The name came next.

_Elrena,_ he said. _Elrena, Elrena. Love._

I didn't turn to face him. In the mirror, he was more than present—his silhouette marked by the candlelight but his features obscured. He didn't move—didn't even so much as cock his head or reach forward to tap on the window again. Instead, he simply watched me, _waiting,_ as if he knew that I could see his reflection _._

"I can't stay here tonight," I said, not wanting to turn, but knowing that I would have to. "I have to go somewhere. With a friend. A boyfriend."

_Boyfriend._ The name had slipped off my tongue so fast.

The butterfly man cocked his head to the side. His wings fluttered, as if he were ready to depart, but he used them to propel himself forward so he could be closer to the window.

_Love,_ he said.

"I know," I said. "And you're my friend, but you have to let me go. This... this means a lot to me. More than anything."

_More,_ he said.

Something about the way he said the word sent shivers through my body. I'd never heard him say anything beyond my name or the word _love,_ but hearing him say that, and with such malice...

I shook my head.

I was getting ahead of myself and imagining things. Me, jealous, over what a butterfly man thought? I could've laughed.

I looked down at my watch.

_Seven-thirteen._

"I have to go," I said.

I approached the window and reached for the clasps that held it in place.

The butterfly man stepped back, watched me for another moment, then took off.

I waited until I was sure he was gone before opening the window.

After making sure I wouldn't be found out, I secured the window frame and began my climb down the house.

It wasn't too awfully difficult. The vines snaking up through the wooden beams Papa had specifically built for Mama so she could have something pretty along the less-fortunate side of the house were spaced perfectly for a girl like me, of only five-foot-three. The annoying parts of the vines—which, at times, seemed to want to grab me, and occasionally snagged onto my skirt even though I'd pinned it up with hairpins—were the hardest part of the climb, but somehow I managed.

At the bottom, I set my eyes on the T-intersection that connected the farm with the rest of the back road paths before starting forward.

It wouldn't take me too long to get there.

Soon enough, Mama or Papa wouldn't even be able to see me. It was too dark, especially for a girl using nothing more than her sense of direction to guide her.

I navigated the outskirts of the road to keep from being in line of sight and to lessen my chances of stepping on anything. The animals didn't come out this far, but there was always the one that happened to sneak in through some damaged piece of fence or burrow under a weaker spot in the earth.

When I felt I was a far and safe enough distance from the house, I stepped onto the road.

It started again.

_Thump thump thump thump._

I wanted to ignore it—desperately—but there'd never been an instance where me and the butterfly man hadn't been separated between four walls and a pane of glass. I knew nothing of what he wanted. All I knew was that he had a fascination with me, one that sometimes made me nervous.

I'd gotten so used to our relationship from behind the safety of my window that I'd never stopped to consider what he might be like in the open.

Rather than stand there like an idiot, I started forward again.

It continued.

_Thump thump thump thump._

I didn't want to speed up. Any smart person, especially a farm girl raised around animals, knew that breaking into a run would only trigger a creature's predatory instincts. It didn't matter if it was a strange dog or even the mangy coyote starved out of its mind—if it thought you were prey, it'd pursue.

Given that the butterfly man was airborne, it wouldn't take much for him to catch me.

I passed through the simple iron gate that surrounded the property and secured it behind me without looking over my shoulder. The clasp was simple—large and clumsy and something even the smartest horse could unlock—so it required little effort. That, on my part, was a blessing, because the further I went up the road, the closer the sound got.

_Thump thump thump thump._

"Leave me alone," I whispered. "I'll be back later."

_Thump thump thump thump._

This time, I did speed up.

_Thump thump thump._

_Thump thump thump._

_Thump thump thump thump._

I was just about to break into a run before I heard the soft landing, then the shift of earth behind me.

I froze.

Though I wanted so desperately to keep going—to make it to the intersection where David had said he would pick me up—I knew that the butterfly man would pursue. If David saw him, who know what either of them would do.

Slowly, I turned.

The creature, still shorter than me but intimidating in its own right, cocked its head, but made no move to approach.

"I have to go," I said, taking a step backward, making sure that my attention was firmly set on the creature whom I still could not see. "I have a date tonight."

Five clicking noises sounded from the butterfly man's direction.

Had that been him?

The creature cocked its head. This time, it did step forward, moving on feet I could now see were angular in the moonlight shining down upon us. It explained his odd posture, considering how unbalanced he seemed most of the time.

The butterfly man clicked again.

I took a deep breath.

His face—which, up until that moment, had never been any closer than beyond the pane of the glass—leaned forward until we were little more than a few inches apart.

The proboscis, bowed to the ground, did little to unnerve me. It was the faint sensation of feelers moving right before my face that sent the hairs on my arms on end.

"Please," I whispered, fighting to keep my eyes open as the clicking noises began to grow more agitated. "Just let me—"

The sound of a car coming up the road stopped me.

A gust of air buffeted my face.

The butterfly man took off, disappearing into the darkness.

It didn't take long for me to turn and run.

* * *

"Hey," David said as I crawled into the passenger seat, breathless and with dirt covering the lower half of my skirt. "Everything okay?"

"Fine," I managed.

"You sure?"

"I fell."

"You're not hurt, are you?"

I shook my head. I took a moment to try and brush the dirt off my skirt before I pulled my legs into the car and closed the passenger seat door. "Ready when you are," I said.

He rolled the car to a slow start after I buckled myself in and shifted to the far side of the road as we picked up speed. Though the road was dark, and it was highly unlikely that there would be any cars or farm equipment out, that didn't guarantee that Old Mr. Parkson who lived up the road wouldn't decide to take his prehistoric tractor out for a drive at night _._

"So," David said, catching my attention in what had to have been halfway of the supposed conversation. "What do you think about all that?"

"Huh?" I asked.

His smile, usually the brightest thing about him, dimmed. "School play," he said. "The one we were all forced to watch."

"What about it?"

"I was just asking what you thought of Katy Tisdale when she took a header off the stage when she was trying to show off."

"Oh, that," I said, then laughed, which started out normally and then tapered into a giggle.

"What?" David asked.

"You know how everyone was trying so hard not to laugh and everyone did so well?" I asked, waiting for his confusing look to turn into a nod before I continued. "I was the one who laughed."

David snorted. "Figures," he smiled.

"I hate her," I replied. "I don't know how anyone could like her. Always showing off, trying to make everyone think she's something that she's not. It doesn't help that she hangs around with Carlee Martinez and the rest of the bitches."

Howling, David reared his head back and smacked the steering wheel three times, the last hard enough to send the horn screeching into the night. "Goddamn," he laughed. "And I thought I was the only one who thought that was funny."

"How _couldn't_ anyone?" I asked.

"My friends didn't think it was," David shrugged.

This time when he got quiet, he _stayed_ quiet.

Unable to keep from frowning, I reached down to fumble with my ruffled blouse.

"Hey, Elrena," he said. "You care if I ask you something?"

"Go ahead," I said. Anything to get the conversation going again.

"When you... weren't talking, I guess... was it because... well..."

He trailed off. My lack of response, coupled with my blinking, must have answered his question.

"Oh," he sighed, this time smiling soon after. "Sorry. It was stupid to ask. I shouldn't make assumptions."

"My papa's an idiot," I said.

"How'd he feel about you going out with me?"

"He didn't. I was absolutely, one-hundred-percent forbidden."

"Then how are you—" David's smile broke his train of words before he could finish. _"You_ snuck out?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I did."

"Why?"

"Because I wanted to have a nice time. And because I... I wanted to get to know you."

"That's sweet, El."

"Thanks," I blushed, thankful for the darkened car.

"I've always had a thing for you," David continued, his eyes straying from the old dirt road to look at me. "I just wasn't sure how to go about saying anything... with, you know, your dad and all."

"I know."

"But that doesn't matter. You're here. We're going to the dance. Nothing can go wrong now, right?"

My smile had only partially begun to emerge when I heard it above the car.

_Thump thump thump thump._

"What the hell is that?" David laughed, craning his head forward to look out the window. "A helicopter?"

"Just keep driving," I said.

"Huh?"

"I said, 'Helicopters don't drive at night.'"

That could've been the stupidest thing I'd ever said in my entire life, but it didn't matter. David could think whatever he wanted of me, helicopters in the night or not. Fact of the matter was, he was _following_ me _._

It only just struck me that I never went anywhere after dark. I didn't even leave the house after the sun started going down, and even then, that hadn't been because of the butterfly man.

David's fascination with the sound continued right up until it abruptly stopped. "Huh," he said. "Weird."

I turned my head to look out the window.

I could've screamed.

The reason the sound had stopped was because the butterfly man wasn't above us—he was at our side, gliding over what had to be the air gliding off the car.

David didn't look over. I only just kept eye contact, because even in the darkness I still couldn't see the butterfly, just his shape, and huge wings that kept him afloat.

_Love,_ the voice said in my head.

I shivered.

Love, I thought.

The creature launched into the air.

He disappeared only for a moment before he landed on the hood of David's car.

"Fuck!" David screamed. _"FUCK!"_

His natural inclination was to crank the steering wheel as hard as he could.

In the teenage boy's little car, it didn't take much to make it flip.

Given that I was buckled in, I was safe. David, on the other hand, went flying through the vehicle. He hit the ceiling first and then clipped my jaw with his fist before he disappeared into the back seat.

The vehicle rolled off the road and landed, right-side up, in the four-foot grass along the side.

"David?" I asked, gasping, trying my hardest to free myself from the seatbelt. "David?"

A moan greeted me.

"Gah!" I cried, blinking tears from my eyes. "Are you all right?"

"What happened?" he asked.

"I don't know," I lied, still struggling with the seatbelt. "Are you hurt?"

"My head..."

I finally managed to jam my finger into the clip hard enough to unsnap it and crawled into the backseat.

Face-down, I couldn't see much of what he was talking about.

When I helped him roll over, the damage became more than clear.

Somehow during the rollover, he'd managed to get a six-inch gash that started on his temple and disappeared into his hairline. His lip was also split.

Blood soaked the ruddy leather. I couldn't tell how badly he was hurt.

"What else hurts?" I asked.

"Everything," he said.

"We have to leave. Now."

I wasn't sure if that was true. We'd probably be safer in here, especially if the butterfly man was so hellbent on capturing me, but with David bleeding so badly, I couldn't take the risk.

Reaching down, I grabbed the bottom layer of my skirt, braced my other hand along the lower portion of it, then ripped as much of it off as I could before tying it around his head. "Come on."

The backseat door on the driver's side was stuck. Even a few of David's defeated but still forceful kicks wasn't even to get it to budge. The one on the passenger side came open easily enough though, and we climbed out, David with his skirt-wrapped head still leaking blood onto everything.

"We gotta go," I said.

"Does... anyone live out here?" he managed.

I scanned the area. Though the grass was nearly as tall as I was, I was still able to make out the surrounding farmlands. This far out, it was all crop—nothing more, nothing less. Even Mr. Parkson was two miles off.

"We'll have to walk," I said, starting forward, tugging him along.

"What was that thing?" he asked.

"I don't know. I didn't see it."

"It looked like a person," David said, coughing. He turned his head to spit out blood and what might have been a tooth, judging by the sound. "But its eyes..."

"Don't worry about it," I said.

The more David didn't know about the butterfly man, the better. At this rate, I was just about ready to collapse into a mental breakdown. I could only imagine what David would do if he knew the truth, or worse—saw the creature again.

Though I hated to risk being on such open ground, I figured our chances at flagging someone down were better if we were on the road.

When we cleared the incline, David fell to his knees and took several deep, wheezing breaths.

"We have to keep going," I said. "You're bleeding."

"Just... a minute," he gasped. "Just a—"

It happened so fast, I didn't have any time to respond. Knocked to the ground and thrown three feet back, I had only just gained my bearings before I realized David was gone.

"David?" I asked, struggling to stand. "David!"

A scream that started as sheer terror but then was reduced to gurgling nonsense echoed across the cool night.

Alone, in the middle of the road, and with only the light from David's idling but likely-dying car, I was completely exposed.

"David?" I asked, blinking, forcing myself not to cry even though I wanted to scream my lungs out. "Are you there?"

There was no answer.

With the wind knocked out of me and still unable to breathe, I clawed at the dry earth and tried to pull myself toward the incline.

If I could get to the grass, I could hide.

If I could get to the incline, I could at least roll down it and into the grass.

If I managed to get anywhere near the car, I could crawl inside, close the door, and hope the monster wouldn't find me.

If only I hadn't accepted David's request. Then he would still be alive and I wouldn't be responsible for his murder.

At the end of the road, I heaved a long, dry heave and coughed as much dirt out of my mouth as I could before snaring my fingers in the grass.

Something landed behind me.

It wasn't David. The sound was too light.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked, sobbing, no longer able to keep my cool now that I knew the inevitable had come. "I didn't do anything to you. Nothing! _Nothing! I thought you were my friend!"_

_Elrena,_ the creature said.

The slight shift of its wings signaled its approach.

Its footsteps sounded near me.

I looked out the corner of my eye just in time to see the barbed, angular foot I had only briefly glimpsed before.

With my left hand, I fumbled for something I could use as a weapon—as a final attempt to free myself of its monstrous ways.

I raised my eyes to look into the monster's face.

Even so close I still couldn't see its face. I could only make out the slight pink that adorned the underside and tips of its wings.

It lunged.

I screamed.

The flutter of black wings took me.

# The Witch of Lincoln Wood

_There once was a witch in Lincoln Wood_

_Who would do anything for you she could_

_But if you had the price to pay_

_Then she would take your life away._

* * *

"God," Scott panted as he pounded the last stake into the ground, reaching up to wipe his sweat-drenched forehead. "How the fuck did I let you talk me into this?"

"Because you love me," his boyfriend, Terrence, replied from his place at the firepit. "And because you want _the D."_

"I'm serious, T. This place is fucking _creepy."_

"Only because you spend too much time believing in old legends and fairytales."

Sighing, Scott lowered the mallet at his side and stood.

It was true. Maybe he had become a little obsessed with the legend behind the witch-haunted wood, but that didn't help detract from its overall aesthetic. Dead trees all around, no wildlife to be seen, no fresh breeze, the scent of pine, the distant sound of clear-running water one would expect in the great Rocky Mountain Wilderness—he stood there, staring at Terrence for what felt like the longest time, before his boyfriend's eyebrows narrowed and his lips were cast into a scowl.

"Scott," the beautiful African-American man said as he approached.

"Don't." Scott stepped away from the touch and shook his head. Sinking his teeth into his lip, he fixed his gaze at the ground in an effort to avoid lobbying his partner's concern before extending his arm and flexing his knuckles around the mallet. "Better give this back to Brendan."

"Scott, maybe we should—"

A series of girlish shrieks burst from the outskirts of the clearing as Courtney and Ronda came running from the trees. In their wake, a silhouette—dressed in a long black robe and a mask whose only definitive features were the glowing eyes beneath its hood—pursued in their wake.

"Knock it off Brendan," Terrence said. "Someone's going to end up getting hurt."

_"The witch will get them!"_ the six-foot-tall man said through his vocal distortion device. _"Eat them up, swallow them whole."_

"Or someone will fall and break an ankle."

Courtney giggled. Ronda playfully pushed the brunette aside before collapsing into a fold-out lawn chair in front of the fire, fanning herself as if close to fainting. "Oh, Terrence," she breathed. "Our lord, our _savior."_

"Where's your boyfriend?" Terrence asked Ronda, the bitter tone in his voice doing nothing to cut through the childish antics of the other Montana State University Freshman.

"Taking a shit?" Ronda asked. "Who knows."

Courtney, again, giggled. Judging from the pungent odor wafting from her clothes, Scott imagined they'd been smoking pot.

"Scott?" Terrence asked. "Can you see if you can get a hold of him?"

"Reception's dead," Scott replied. "Most I can do is play _Angry Birds."_

"Hey!" Ronda yelped. "Give it here!"

"Your own damn fault you didn't bring an external charger."

"Not everyone's as economical as you."

Scott resisted the urge to frown. Though likely stricken with some emotion, the girls would've been too high to notice—or too distracted by Brendan's aimless ambling throughout the campsite, making incoherent grunting noises that sounded like extended, wheezing snores.

Terrence glanced over and gave him a look.

Scott, unable to muster an adequate response, merely forced a smile.

He'd only come out here for him.

It was just a stupid fraternity, just a stupid camping trip. He had to keep reminding himself of that.

_And stop thinking about what you saw that night,_ the devil on his shoulder whispered.

"Who's hungry?" Scott finally managed to say.

"Marshmellows!" Courtney and Ronda yelled in unison.

At least they were having fun.

* * *

"Hey," Terrence said as he pressed a hand against Scott's shoulder. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Scott said, brushing off Terrence's touch. "You should go back to camp. They'll probably think we're sucking each other off out here."

"Oh, that comes later," the taller man chuckled, wrapping an arm around Scott's abdomen and leaning into his back. "Seriously, though—how you holding up?"

"Define: _Up."_

"You didn't have to come with us."

"And what? Spend the weekend alone?" Scott sighed. "Besides—I gotta get over this."

"It isn't real, Scott. Your brother didn't get taken by some witch."

"I know."

Terrence kissed the back of his neck and patted his abdomen before stepping away. "You gonna come back to camp?" he asked.

"In a minute," Scott said.

Though he didn't turn to watch, Terrence remained there for several moments, the sound of crunching twigs the only indication he had left.

He knew it wasn't real—shouldn't, _couldn't_ be at all—but that didn't matter.

That didn't change the glowing eyes he'd seen beyond the trees.

* * *

"Eat one," Terrence said through a full mouth upon Scott's return, lifting a stick with a browned marshmellow impaled at the top.

"No thanks," Scott replied.

"Party pooper," Courtney jeered.

"More like _diabetic,"_ Scott shot back.

The girl offered one of her trademark cutesy-tootsy smiles before snuggling back against Brendan—who, knee-deep in his third beer, had stopped smiling and instead concentrated on groping Courtney's ass.

"Ronda," Scott said, centering her eyes on the pretty red-headed girl across from him. "Did Jeremy ever come back?"

"Ugh. _No._ But you know him. He's probably off fucking some tree or something— _in the name of science!"_ She thrust a fist into the air, then let it fall slack at her side.

_Are they pulling a gag on me?_ Scott thought, frowning as the tension in his shoulders heightened and the rolling waves of unease began to ebb along his back.

It'd explain Brendan's costume, and Jeremy's long and unnecessary absence. It wouldn't necessarily be outside the realm of their jurisdiction either. The only reason Scott was even somewhat accepted was because he was the hot-shot football jock's boyfriend, and even that wasn't enough to stop the constant jabs and irrelevant racism.

_Don't you Chinese guys know how to do everything?_ Brendan had asked upon their arrival and Scott's frustration with arranging their tent into place.

_Korean,_ Scott had replied.

_Whatever._

Scott expelled a pent-up lungful of air and leaned against Terrence's side. "Are you sure you don't know where he is?"

"Your knight in shining armor will be back to impale you with his lance... or probe you with his telescope... or something," Brendan drawled, turning his head to cough, then hock up a loogie.

"Look, asswipe," Scott snapped. "I'm asking because it's hunting season. You know—moose, deer? That thing all these stupid rednecks go _pew-pew_ at? If the two of you were wandering around in those stupid suits, who's to say he wasn't shot?"

"We'd've heard it."

_"Silencers."_

"Oh God," Ronda said. "Oh... God. Oh _fuck!"_ She threw herself to her feet. "Jeremy! _JEREMY! Where the fuck are you?"_

"Now look what you did," Brendan groaned.

"The only thing I did was have some common sense!"

"They teach that in China?"

Scott growled through his teeth, his knuckles popping as one hand balled into a fist. Terrence—having been the only one silent throughout the whole ordeal—stood and pressed a hand against Scott's upper back. "Scott," he said. "I think you should get some rest."

"I'm not tired," he growled.

"Yeah you are. Come on—" Terrence took his hand. "Let's go."

* * *

"God," Scott growled as they entered the tent, kicking aside a stray sleeping bag and thrusting his hands out before him. "I can't _stand_ those guys!"

"I know," Terrence said. "I was worried about you coming with us."

"I'm tired of being locked up in the apartment all day without anything to do, Terrence."

"I know."

"And the only reason I'm enduring these assholes is so you don't get shit for their _romantic outing."_

Terrence pressed a hand against Scott's cheek and bumped their heads together. "Let's just go home," he said. "There's no point in being here if you're not having any fun."

Scott didn't say anything. Terrence broke away and crouched alongside their belongings, vaguely fingering a compartment on a backpack before unzipping it and reaching for the sleeping bag spread out along the ground.

"No," Scott said, pressing a hand to his forehead. "Just... don't."

Terrence looked up.

"Maybe I just need to get some sleep," he said. "It's been a long day."

"I love you Scott," Terrence said. "I'm glad you're here. It wouldn't be the same without you."

"Yeah."

After pulling his shirt over his head and stripping down to his boxers, Scott slid into their sleeping bag and laid his head across his arm.

The last thing Terrence did before leaving was kiss his cheek.

* * *

He woke sometime later in the night, long after the fire had been extinguished and everyone had gone to bed. Tucked into the curve of Terrence's body, drunk off sleep and baffled as to how so much time could have passed, Scott shifted in place and grimaced as a flare of sensation lit his bladder.

_Shit_.

Normally it wouldn't be such a big deal, but given that they were in the middle of the woods, _at night,_ and on the worst calendar date of his life...

Scott sighed.

It'd be selfish to wake Terrence up just so he could go to the bathroom. It'd be understandable, sure—especially given his circumstance—but it'd be rude as hell and offer nothing more than ammunition if they were caught hand-holding while he was taking a piss.

_Suck it up._

He'd told himself he was going to get over this fear—or, at the very least, confront it. Suffering in silence would do him no good.

Shuffling out from under Terrence's arm, Scott crawled out of the sleeping bag and blindly fingered for a flashlight, bracing himself to step into the dark beyond.

His hand had just fallen upon a flashlight when a twig snapped outside.

His blood ran cold.

He would've lost control of his bladder had he not been more aware of it.

_What was that?_

He waited to see if he could hear it again—to determine if it was real or something he'd just imagined—but it never came. There was no crack, there was no whisper, no surprising relief—his imagination was in overdrive. Laced with fear, memories of a childhood rife with nightmares came to life in but a moment—when, in the central cortex of his mind's eyes, he saw his brother Stephen walk into the woods after seeing a pair of glowing lights, then disappear forever.

_It's here,_ he thought. _Watching. Waiting._

"Knock it off."

The pale whisper of invisible hands along his naked thighs wracked him with shivers.

Then—it was over. The panic was gone, the notion quelled, the insatiable fear dispelled as if it were nothing more than the ghost of a candle whose smoke only lingered against the backdrop of the lightest walls.

It was over.

It was nothing more than his imagination.

Scott sighed.

_Great job, Scott,_ he chuckled, reaching up to rub a hand across his still-trembling lips and then through his short hair. _Scare the shit out of yourself, why don't ya? Monster in the woods, monster in the woods, monster in the woods gonna get—_

Something touched his shoulder.

He would've screamed had he not lost his voice.

"Scott," Terrence breathed. "Why are you up?"

The quick intake of air nearly made him pass out. The only thing that stopped him from falling was Terrence, who promptly caught him as he stumbled.

"Scott?"

"Scared the shit out of myself," he whispered, grimacing as the arachnid pain echoed along his ribcage. "That's all."

"Are you all right?"

"Yeah. Just—"

Something cracked outside the tent.

Scott swallowed.

Terrence—whose one hand had been braced along Scott's ribcage—tensed, fingertips digging into his chest.

"You hear that?" Scott asked.

"Yeah," Terrence said. "It was probably just Jeremy."

"This late at night?"

Terrence patted Scott's side and stepped toward the flap of the tent.

"Terrence—"

His boyfriend turned. "Yeah?"

Scott extended the flashlight.

"Oh," Terrence said. He chuckled as he took the flashlight and opened the flap with hesitation.

Only the pale beam of light was enough to cut through the swath of darkness and illuminate the smoking firepit before them.

"Jeremy?" Terrence asked, leaning out the front flap. "Come on—cut it out. We're trying to sleep here."

The whip of a branch slapping a tree reverberated in the distance.

_No lights, no eyes,_ Scott kept thinking. _No lights, no eyes._

Nearby, the sharp hiss of a flap being unzipped revealed they were not alone. "Really?" Brenden groaned as he peeked his head out through the minor gap. "Really, Terrence? Really?"

"Where the fuck is Jeremy?"

"Hell if I know."

"Well where's Ronda then?"

"Lezzing it out in here with my girlfriend."

"Fuck you Brendan!" Courtney cried from the depths of their tent.

Brendan smirked, then offered a one-armed shrug. "I haven't seen him all night," the jock continued. "I don't know why you're up yelling at him."

"Scott heard something."

"Scott hears _everything_ , Terrence."

"Don't you start on my—"

This time, the sound of a twig snapping came right near the campsite.

Brendan's head shot to the side.

Terrence swung the flashlight toward the copse beyond the camp. "Where did that come from?" he asked.

"Beats me, dude," Brendan said, looking around again as another twig snapped. "Quit fuckin' around Jeremy! It ain't funny anymore!"

"It's coming from above us," Scott said.

"What're you talking about?" Terrence asked.

Scott tilted his head to view the canopy around them.

Through the twisted spires and skeleton hands, he could just barely make out the moon—waxing, shadowed by the dense clouds moving through the mountains.

If one weren't looking carefully enough, they would've never been able to see that something was out of place. But if they looked at the gnarled section of branches above them—where, upon casual glance, it would've appeared to be nothing more than a twisted mitosis of nature—and saw the silhouette above—

_Oh God,_ Scott thought. _Oh God, oh God. Please no. Please don't—_

A creak, groan, then several smaller whips and lashes lit the clearing before something snapped.

The vague impression of something falling was all Scott was able to make out before something hit the fire pit, sending ash, embers, and the wood logs and stones surrounding it in all directions.

No one moved. No one spoke. No one _breathed._

The first to speak was Ronda. "What happened?" her groggy, pot and-sleep-addled voice asked. "What was that sound?"

"Don't go out there," Terrence said, still as stone as Terrence and Courtney's flap ripped open. "Don't go there."

Courtney swore, slapped her flashlight, cursed it as it flickered to life, then aimed it toward the fire pit.

She screamed.

No one was prepared for what came next.

Jeremy's face stared back at them—eyes wide, mouth agape.

Except it wasn't Jeremy.

There was only one problem.

His eyes were completely black.

_Blood._

The semblance of a twisted smile protruded from the wretched maw of twisted flesh and blood.

"There once was a witch in Lincoln Wood," Scott whispered. "Who'd do anything you wish she could."

Ronda stepped from the tent and screamed.

"But if you had the price to pay," Scott continued, his body trembling as something materialized in the nearby woods.

"Scott," Terrence breathed. "What're you doing?"

"Then she would take your life away."

Every sleeping bird in the canopy took flight.

The skies opened.

The moon came out.

And in the shadows, a pair of white eyes glimmered with fire.

So frozen with fear that Scott was unable to move, he simply stood there and trembled as his eyes crossed time to a day thirteen years ago—when, for no explainable reason, and no apparent cause, his life had changed forever.

_He disappeared when he ran into the forest,_ his father had said. _It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault, Scott. It wasn't your fault._

_They haven't found him!_ his mother wailed over the telephone, her mascara bloody and cheeks swollen with tears. _They've been searching the woods for three and days and they haven't found_ anything!

_They'll find him, honey. I know they will._

_Police have officially called off the search for Tommy Morris after a week-long search throughout the area known unofficially as Lincoln Woods. Though all attempts were made to locate the boy or his remains, a search team of some three-hundred people—coupled by K-9 and helicopter units—have failed to bring any results._

The cries, the screams, the wails from family, the utmost terror—the funeral without a casket, a cenotaph headstone to mark his existence—

The glowing white eyes he'd seen in the dark.

_Tommy?_ a voice whispered.

It wasn't his own voice—at least, not from the present. It was younger—smaller, reigned with pitch that had not yet matured with adolescence, and strained with the tension that was the confusion of someone lost and utterly afraid.

It was the voice of his childhood.

_His_ voice.

From thirteen years ago.

The apparition from whom these woods gleamed their legendary moniker stepped from the copse opposite the camp and into the pale moonlight streaming through the trees. Its face a shadow from the time of the plague, its body long and without definition, the wicked claws upon each hand bone white and tipped with glimmering claws—it lifted its beak as if to scent the air and then turned its head in a single revolution, observing the four students in the canopy as if they were nothing more than insects.

_Because that's all we are,_ Scott thought. _Worms._

"Who the fuck are you?" Brendan asked, ripping his way out of their tent. _"WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU?"_

"Brendan," Courtney said, reaching out to him.

Her hand fell short, slipping only along the finely-contoured muscles of his back.

Guided by the flashlight and the immense glare imposed upon them by the moon, Brenden crossed the campsite toward the apparition—huge feet crunching the leaves underfoot, his near seven-foot figure imposing regardless of the fact that he was wearing only his white briefs. He stopped short of reaching the masked entity—whose impossible height dwarfed Brenden by at least two, if not three feet—then balled his hands into fists.

"Brenden," Courtney sobbed. _"Please—"_

"Shut up!" Brenden roared. "Just _shut up you stupid bitch!_ _SHUT UP!_ This fucker killed our friend and I—"

It happened so fast, Scott couldn't tell what happened.

Soon, it all became clear.

Ensnared within its grasp was Brenden—feet hovering above the ground, body trembling as his windpipe was crushed into oblivion.

No sooner was he lifted was his head snapped, his body allowed to fall without dignity or grace.

Chaos took hold.

The girls screamed.

Courtney ran.

Ronda, trembling, fell to her knees, unable to move as the figure began to advance.

Scott, meanwhile, could not move. Petrified by fear, mesmerized by its glowing eyes, heart ensnared by the everlasting childhood fear of the monster in the woods born real and manifested before his very eyes—he stood, unfathomably still, as Terrence reached down to drag Ronda away, and watched his greatest fear make its way toward him.

"Scott," Terrence said, grabbing him by one arm while dragging Ronda by the other. "We have to get out of here."

"But—"

The campfire raged to life.

Ronda screamed.

Jeremy's corpse was engulfed in flame.

_"Jeremy!"_ she screamed. _"JEREMY!"_

"Scott! Scott!"

"What?" Scott asked, unnerved at how calm he was.

"We need to get out of here!"

"But the car's two miles away!" Ronda protested. "We'll never make it!"

"Damn if we try."

The cooler with booze and soda exploded.

Glass shattered.

The hiss of soda filled the air.

Tightening his hold on his arm, Terrance stepped forward, then dragged Scott and Ronda along with him.

That was all it took for them to start running.

The last thing they heard before they cleared the edge of the campsite was the boom box screeching, then exploding.

Something laughed in their wake.

* * *

It was a while before any of them spoke. Breaths ragged, the whisper of leaves beneath their feet, the startled but subdued cry as they stepped on a twig or scraped against a tree—the horror imagined became real as through the dark forest they were chased by the witch of Lincoln Wood. Without light to guide them, little could be seen. It was only the rising impression of the boulder they'd chosen to use as a landmark that revealed to them their location.

"You know where we're going," Scott managed through a chest wracked with tension, leaning against the bolder in an attempt to catch his breath.

"Yeah," Terrence replied, his athletic endurance not even enough to keep him from being winded. "Ronda—Ronda!"

"I'm fine," the girl said, stumbling between them. She pressed both hands against the boulder and wheezed, struggling to maintain her composure as she coughed, breathed, then succumbed to another fit. Terrence's hand against her skin instantly resulted in her complete seizure—which, after a moment, started the tears that had long been absent.

"Are you all right?" Terrence asked, crouching down beside her.

_"What the fuck was that thing?"_ she sobbed. "Terrence... what... what was—"

"I don't know, hon. I don't know."

"It was the witch," Scott said.

Terrence and Ronda lifted their heads. Scott—whose attention was captured in the deceiving distance they'd crossed—flexed his fingers, feeling muscles that'd gone dormant flicker to life.

"Scott," Terrence said, stepping forward. "You know that isn't—"

"How else could you explain this?"

"Someone's in the woods. That's all it is. Some deranged psycho who broke out of prison and decided to raid a costume shop."

"That doesn't explain the fire."

"What?"

"It... it started on its own," Ronda said, drawing her knees to her chest from her place at the foot of the boulder.

"Carnival trick," Terrence replied.

"And the cooler?" Scott asked. "I highly doubt some _psycho_ could've pulled that off."

"I... Look. It doesn't matter. All that matters is that we need to get the fuck—"

Something cracked.

Terrence froze.

What sounded like an amplified bird call echoed toward them.

"It's laughing at us," Ronda said, drawing herself back to her feet. "It's laughing at us because it doesn't think we can get away."

"Let's prove it wrong," Terrence said.

They needed little persuading.

Stepping back, Scott took a breath of the cool night air and grimaced as his muscles flared with pain.

The contrast was laughable.

If he already felt like this—after running, he imagined, what couldn't have been more than a half-mile—how was he going to continue for the rest of the night?

_Can I make it?_

He wasn't sure how much he could take.

The hand at the back of his neck drew him from the torment of thought. "Scott?" Terrence asked. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," Scott replied, turning, facing his boyfriend as if he were the boy before Mount Olympus.

"Ready to get out of here?"

"Yeah. More than ready."

* * *

Their plight took them through the less consecrated part of the wood and the sheer agony that was the untamed wilderness. With no way to take the predetermined nature route for fear of making their presence known, they were forced to navigate the treachery that was the early-spring bloom and the forgotten winter's cruel touch. Always, they feared, of fallen branches, of lingering vines, of the skeletal corpses of creatures whose bones the earth had not claimed, but never could they escape the lingering dread of the witch's telltale song.

Not once had they heard it since that moment near the boulder.

Fortune, Ronda claimed, might have been smiling on them. _They could get to the truck, get to the nearest gas station, then get the police out there as fast as they could._

The plan was foolproof. Nothing could go wrong. And though scared they would be, their lives would be spared from the cruel agony of an unfortunate death.

Literally nothing could go wrong.

Or so Scott thought.

It wasn't until Terrence—who'd taken the lead out of size and stamina—went down with a howl of pain that the situation was made clear.

"What happened?" Scott called, pumping his legs to run as fast as he could.

"Watch out!" Terrence cried.

Scott came to a halt.

The root, so cleverly concealed beneath the lumbering tree, was only revealed by the shift of clouds.

He looked up.

The prognosis wasn't good. Terrence was clutching his ankle— _cradling_ it as close to his body as he could—and by the looks of things, it didn't look like a minor injury.

"Are you all right?" Scott asked, falling to his knees.

"Does it look like I'm all right!" Terrence cried. "Ow! Stop touching me!"

"I don't think it's broken," Ronda said, looking up at Scott rather than Terrence.

_"Broken?_ Who they fuck cares if it's _broken?_ How the hell am I going to walk out of here?"

The birdcall started again.

"We'll have to make it work," Scott replied. "Ronda—help me get him up."

"Are you crazy?" Terrence cried. "Are you—"

The man cried out in distress, then pain as Ronda and Scott took hold of his upper arms and haphazardly dragged him to his feet. It was almost impossible for Scott to hold the big man up until he moved around to support his bum side.

"Fuck," Terrence said. _"Fuck."_

"Do you see anything?" Scott asked as he tried to usher his boyfriend forward, nudging his ribcage with his elbow until the man started moving.

"I don't see anything," Ronda said. "I—"

Something skirted through the bushes behind them.

Ronda swiped a formidable but likely-useless branch off the ground and held it out like a sword. "Start moving," she said.

"But what about—"

"I'm right behind you."

Terrence groaned and hobbled along with Scott's help as they continued through the woods. The slackened pace, while allowing opportunity to avoid roots, did nothing to subdue the witch's relentless pursuit.

"We're not that far from the road," Terrence said.

"How do you know?" Scott asked.

"That tree." He jutted his chin. "I saw it on the way in."

Towering above all the others, cracked nearly in half by lightning—the singed scarring from the impact spread like a gross affliction that could be seen even in the darkness nights.

_How did I not see that?_ Scott thought.

It didn't matter. As the witch's cries only continued to get closer, their only goal was to reach the edge of the forest—and soon.

"Come on!" Ronda cried. _"Go!"_

"We have to hurry," Scott whispered to Terrence as he tried to pick up the pace, struggling with the tug and pull of a man who had to weigh at least fifty pounds more than him. "You're doing great, babe. Come on—you can do it."

"It fuckin' hurts," his boyfriend whimpered.

"I know."

"I'm sorry I brought you up here, Scott. I'm so fucking sorry."

"Don't be."

He couldn't imagine how this would've turned out had he not begrudgingly agreed to force himself out of the house and trek into the Montanan wilderness. Maybe all of this was his fault. Maybe this wouldn't have happened. Or maybe, just maybe—

_No._

Scott shook his head.

They were too close.

He could already see the road.

It'd only be a few moments until—

Ronda screamed.

"Ronda!" Terrence cried.

"Go!" the girl screamed. "Get out of here!"

Scott threw a glance over his shoulder.

The imposing apparition stood directly over Ronda, unphased by the presence of a five-foot-five girl wielding a tree branch.

"Look at me!" the girl screamed. _"LOOK AT ME_ you dirty motherfucking bitch!"

The creature snapped its head toward her.

"Yeah!" Ronda cried, stepping to the side, into the denser part of the wood. "You look at me you stupid bitch! I'm the one you want!"

The creature reared its head back, then thrust it forward, its beak parting to shatter the night with an impossible screech.

"Scott," Terrence breathed, trembling.

"It's oayk. We're getting out of here," Scott said.

He pushed them through the last few feet toward the road.

Their feet touched ground.

Dry earth crumbled beneath their weight.

Ronda screamed and the sound of a gargantuan object hitting the forest floor echoed into their ears.

_Ronda—_

"We're almost there," Scott said, refusing to believe the woman was dead if even for a moment. "It's okay, Terrence. We're almost there. Stay with me."

"I can't stop shaking," the bigger man replied.

"Don't you pass out on me!" Scott cried, faltering as Terrence shifted, then stumbled onto the road. "Terrence! Terrence!"

"It's so cold, Scott," his boyfriend whispered, tears streaming down his face as the choke of sobs came from his lips.

"Don't pass out on me!" he screamed, slapping the man's face. "Terrence— _Terrence._ Look at me. _Don't go to sleep. Look at me!"_

"I'm sorry I brought you out here," Terrence whispered, the telltale signs of shock reducing his speech to slurs. "I'm so sorry, Scott."

Something snapped in the nearby woods.

Scott trembled.

Kneeling there—in the middle of the road, in the twilight hours of the morning, and when dawn's presence came only in the form of burning spokes in the eastern sky—he couldn't have been more exposed.

He had no weapons.

They were at least a mile from the vehicles.

They didn't have any keys.

Scott turned his head to regard the nearby woods before leaning close to Terrence's face.

"Everything's going to be fine," Scott whispered, closing his eyes as he leaned down to kiss his boyfriend's lips, the sound of sound of tires coming up the rocky pass the only solace in his decision. "I love you."

Terrence had already slipped into unconsciousness.

He'd never hear his boyfriend's final words.

Standing, Scott turned and took a few steps toward the woods.

"All right you bastard," he said, the sound of snapping twigs and guttural birdsong the only thing that could be heard as he approached his greatest fear. "This ends now."

All sound ceased to exist.

Scott faltered.

When the white eyes pierced out at him, the only thing he could do was start forward.

While he had absolutely no chance of being saved, at least he would die knowing Terrence would live.

The creature pushed its beak into the road.

He couldn't hesitate any longer.

He threw himself into the woods and screamed.

# The Tragedy of Louis Décor

**1.**

**Audition**

Louis Décor fancied himself as one of the best actors in the theatre. With his flamboyant manner and his charming white smile, he wooed the audience with the best of his affections and the worst of his fears. _I am nothing,_ he once said, at the opening monologue that would soon establish him as one of the local critic's favorites. _I am nothing without regard._

_You're a whole lot of nothing,_ Anderson thought, drumming his fingers across an armrest. _That's for sure._

"Everyone! Everyone!" Edgar Jeraldine called, waving his hands to gather his troupe. "That's enough now! No more talking. We're here to discuss this year's presentation of _Patronage."_

"We already know who's playing the lead," someone drawled.

From his seat at the far side of the theatre, Louis crossed a leg over his knee and poised his long-nailed fingers atop it.

"Now now," Jeraldine said, "don't be so disappointed. _Patronage_ is a remarkable play with much to be done. I'm not someone who will just pick and choose at random."

_So you say._

Anderson waited for the headmaster to continue, hoping to God he would not continue with his dramatic theatrics or rile Louis to a fever pitch. With the group of fifty-plus seated within the theatre, it was starting to get boiling hot. It wouldn't be much longer before he'd start to sweat.

_And I don't need to sit on the train with pit-stains._

"Get on with it!" someone called.

"Who's playing the peacock!" another jeered.

"The peacock," Jeraldine said, "is perhaps one of the most difficult roles in all of the theatre. You have to be strong but thin, quaint but elegant, cold-hearted, but calculatingly-warm, sensual but powerful. The leading actress has to—"

"Why a woman?" Louis asked from his corner.

All eyes turned to look at him.

_Great. Not a—_

"Pardon?" Jeraldine asked.

"I already know what you're going to say," Louis said, standing, flexing his fingers as though preparing to strum a harp. "You're going to propose Amanda LeRoy play the role."

"And that would be a problem because?" Jeraldine asked, allowing the ending syllable of the sentence to carry its own weight.

"I'm not saying it would be a problem," Louis continued. "However, we all know that I am a better actor than Amanda LeRoy could ever be, bless her poor and indignant heart. Besides—is it not the male who sports the beautiful feathers?"

"Why yes—"

"And is it not the female who looks ugly and dour in comparison?"

"I—"

"We know what you're thinking, Jeraldine, but you already know the answer—only I can save this theatre from the obscurity it has fallen into."

"That's enough," Jeraldine said, raising his voice for the first time in Anderson knew how long. "Seat yourself, Louis. We will begin auditions, including for the leading role, this Saturday. Who knows?" he paused, looking toward the audience. "Maybe Mr. Anderson Carter will audition as well."

No one said a word. Even Anderson had a hard time biting his tongue at the remark.

"For now," Jeraldine said. "You are dismissed. Take a copy of the script from the rack near the door and read up on the play. You'll need plenty of preparation if you are to audition for one of its leading roles."

* * *

"I can't stand him," Anderson grumbled.

"Who?" Mark asked.

"Who do you think?"

"Oh. Louis." Mark laughed, tightening his hold on the bar above him. "Him."

"Yeah, him."

"What's wrong with you?"

"I'm sick to death of how much Jeraldine approves of him."

"He seems to have grown a pair, at least in the last little while," Mark said, looking down at his watch. "At least he didn't let Louis ramble on like he usually does."

"He's getting sick of it."

"Of course. You do have to admit though, Anderson—he's a hell of a good actor."

"I never said he wasn't."

Of course, were he to pose his own opinion on the matter, he would say no, that Louis _wasn't_ the actor he claimed or that everyone thought he was. Though it had never been made clear as to whether or not the caricatures he played were meant to be satire, it seemed Louis' every role was meant to be seen as such. Oftentimes, Louis would overdramatically-enunciate his character to capture the spotlight, especially during crucial points in the score. It didn't help that he also directed the music either.

_He's the favorite._

"Him and LeRoy," he mumbled. "Who's out sick."

"You say something?" Mark asked.

Anderson shook his head. He stood as the train ground to a halt and allowed his body to move with the crowd, to roll with the walking sea of bodies until both he and his friend stood in the darkened tunnel. "What time is it?"

"About seven. Why?"

"Just wondering."

"Why don't you come over to my place tonight? I can loan you a shirt, and besides—I just got cable."

"Why did you get cable if you're never around to watch it?"

"Because when I am," Mark smiled, "I'd at least prefer to watch something good."

* * *

"You feeling better?" Mark asked, tossing Anderson a shirt as he walked out of the bathroom.

"A little," he said. He pulled the shirt over his head, grimacing as it stretched across his broad frame. "Sorry about overreacting earlier."

"No problem. We all go through phases like that."

"It'd be different if he'd actually done something to me," Anderson sighed, seating himself on the couch beside his friend. "Louis' _never_ said anything bad or backstabbed me in any way."

"I know."

"So you don't think I'm a dick?"

"Oh, you're definitely a dick," Mark laughed, slapping Anderson's shoulder. "But I get what you mean."

"You do?"

"Well, yeah. You have to admit, Jeraldine _does_ have a hard-on for the guy, though I don't really blame him. He _did_ get a good write-up in the paper last year."

_"Good?"_ Anderson laughed. "The critic was practically kissing his ass and blowing his cock at the same time."

"Whatever way you look at it," Mark said, "Louis's good for the theatre. I don't see how we'd still have jobs if it weren't for him."

"I guess you're right," Anderson said. He looked at his friend, considered the look on his face, then reached for the remote on the armrest beside him. "What've you got on here?"

"Whatever you fucking want, it's on here."

"Just for a little while," he said. "To cool off before we start reading."

"Most definitely."

* * *

The night passed in a blur of words. Come seven the next morning, after only sleeping for four hours on Mark's hard-ass couch and hardly getting any sleep, Anderson stumbled into the theatre with lines across his eyes and a throbbing ache in his spine. Following close behind, Mark sauntered into place and slapped him across the back, sending an instant spike of pain into his brain.

"Chin up," Mark said.

"Yeah," Anderson groaned. "Thanks."

"No problem, buddy."

_You may be a good guy, but you're still one of the biggest pricks I know._

Chuckling despite his misgivings, Anderson seated himself in the middle of the theatre and watched the other actors pool in through the back doors. Louis himself arrived ten minutes later, dressed in casual jeans and an undershirt.

_Too cold for New-York weather._

"Someone seems confident," Mark said, nudging Anderson in the ribs.

"Of course he is," Anderson replied. "He's Louis Décor."

"Good morning, gentlemen," Louis said, pausing at the end of their row. "Mind if I join you?"

"Be our guest."

"Quite lovely today, isn't it?"

"I guess."

"If you like the cold," Mark added.

"Cold?" Louis frowned. "I hardly noticed."

_You'd have to be an icicle not to notice._

Chuckling, Mark leaned back in his seat, stretched his arms over his head and rolled his neck about his shoulders, moaning as something in his spine popped.

"You ok?" Anderson asked.

"Fine," Mark said. "You?"

"Tired, but all right."

"I assume you were both up late reading your lines?" Louis asked, looking up from his nails.

"Yeah. You?"

"I was, but not too awfully late. Red eyes are noticeable under the spotlight. Jeraldine's a hawk."

_A hawk with a soft spot for overconfident little twats._

"He sure is," Mark laughed, giving Anderson enough cover to bow his head and cough into his hands. "Good luck today, Louis."

"You as well, gentlemen," Louis said, standing. "Thank you for letting me join you."

With a final nod, the man made his way down the aisle and seated himself in the front row, conveniently two seats apart from where Jeraldine sat reading his notes.

"He's getting the role," Anderson sighed.

"What're you talking about?" Mark asked. "It's an open audition."

"Yeah, but look." He pointed. "See that? Not even five minutes and he's already charming the pants off that guy."

"You think he does?" Mark chuckled.

"I wouldn't doubt it."

"The guy's married, you know?"

"Figure of speech, Mark."

"Oh."

Jeraldine stood. A single clap silenced the gathering crowd. "Listen up!" the man called, voice loud enough to be heard across the theatre. "Today's the day we're holding auditions for _Patronage._ As you can see, we're not doing public auditions because there's only twenty roles available. Out of the entire troupe, that means only half of you will be considered for the play, much less make it in."

The fifty-odd group of actors collectively murmured amongst themselves.

"I'm going to give all of you another half-hour to read over your lines. Pick a partner and go over your parts with one-another. Critique your partner's weak points, recommend more actions or dialogue, offer advice for improvision if you're not sure you can remember a line. Just remember one thing— _you only get one shot._ You hear me?"

"We only get one shot!" the theatre called back.

Jeraldine smiled. "Good," he said. "Now get ready. I'll be calling you by last name."

* * *

"Carter, Anderson!" Jeraldine called.

Already nervous beyond belief and unsure what to do, Anderson stood and began the long, seemingly-endless trek down the aisle. Though he was only auditioning for the lesser sub-role of the Black Crow, a part revered but not particularly recognized, he still couldn't help but tremble under the pressure of fifty-odd eyes.

_You'll be fine,_ he thought, coaxing himself through the motions. _They don't matter. No one does._

Sweat crossed his palms and made faint patches across his shirt as he turned at the end of the aisle, walked into the prop storage area, then turned again in preparation to board the stage. He took a moment to allow himself a deep breath before stepping forward and onto the stage.

_"Peasants!"_ he called, raising his deep voice high enough to allow the word a sharp twinge. "Peasants! Peasants! All the peasants! They know nothing, _nothing!_ How dare they set foot on this land in grace of the great Peacock King!"

"They know nothing," Jeraldine said, supplying the role of the Wise Owl with careful trepidation. "You need not fear, Crow—they will not come any further."

"Says _who?"_ Anderson took a deep breath. Not even three minutes into the audition and his throat was already starting to hurt. "Says _you,_ or says _the Peacock King?"_

"I said—"

"You know nothing!" Anderson called, spreading his arms and rushing forward, stopping himself at the end of the stage with his arms spread and his knees bent forward. He craned his neck as far as he could and tilted his head, attempting to dilate his eyes despite the light shining in his face. Once tilted all the way to the left, he snapped his neck into place and let out a mean cackle, prancing back into the middle of the stage with his arms spread eagle and his hands mimicking the frantic flapping of a bird caught in a mix of wire. "Wise Owl, Wise Owl, you pathetic Wise Owl! You. Know. _NOTHING!_ Nothing! Nothing! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

"Crow, you would do best to—"

"What?" Anderson asked. _"Silence_ myself? _Silence_ the words of truth?"

"You know very well that the Peacock King would not approve of your behavior."

"Not approve of _me?"_ Anderson asked. _"Me?_ His _personal messenger?_ You are nothing but an advisor bound to his throne by the claws on your feet. You move naught, you see naught, you _feel_ naught. You only _know._ _Knowing_ is _nothing."_

"Then why don't you—"

"Leave!" Anderson cackled. "Leave! Yes! Maybe I will, and maybe, just maybe, I will tell the Peacock King what you've done! Maybe, just maybe, you will not _never ever_ have to hear from me again!"

With that, Anderson let out one final cat-call and flung himself behind the curtain.

A chorus of applause sounded.

_Thank God,_ he thought, collapsing against the wall. _It's finally over._

* * *

"Dude," Mark said, scooting over so Anderson could sit beside him. "That was _awesome."_

"I tried," Anderson said, massaging the sides of his throat. "Water?"

"Right here."

"Thanks." He drank, grimacing at the chill that ran down his throat. "My throat's killing me."

"I'd imagine. I thought you'd tone it down for the audition."

"No point in toning something down if it can get me the role," Anderson said, passing Mark his bottle of water back. He surveyed the group of people whispering amongst each other and Jeraldine speaking to the actress who dared to compete with Décor for the role of the Peacock King or Queen. "Besides," he said, tearing his eyes away. "All or nothing, right?"

"All or nothing," Mark agreed. "You think she stands a chance?"

"Carmen? No. I don't even know why she's trying."

"You think Louis' going to get the part, don't you?"

"Yeah. I do."

"You okay with that?"

"If I get the Crow, I'm fine with it. Besides—that's the most fun I've had in a while."

"I could tell," Mark winked.

Anderson slapped his friend's arm. Mark laughed and slapped him back.

"Listen up!" Jeraldine called. "Décor, Louis! To the stage."

Louis Décor rose, looked at the stage, and flexed his fingers.

_Just like playing an instrument,_ Anderson thought, and couldn't help but ponder on whether or not the finger movement was conscious or not.

He didn't think on it any further.

Louis Décor was taking the stage.

* * *

He looked like a bird ready to spread its wings. Shoulders stiff, back poised, head held high and feet poised like some exotic ballerina, the bone-thin Décor raised his arms and eased himself forward tip-toe by tip-toe on his ballet shoes.

"He's incorporating ballet?" Mark whispered.

Anderson said nothing. He simply watched.

"Do you see," Décor asked, "that the world is burning bright?"

He spun, slowly waving his fingers throughout the air. One hand rose and then fell as the other turned to replace itself. He returned to his former position, but placed his feet flat to the floor, lacing the fingers on each hand together as though they were covered in web before looking back at the crowd.

"My friends," he continued, "my brothers, my sisters—we look upon an age where all is about to be lost, where all is about to be burned to the ground. Do you not see it?"

"See what?" Jeraldine asked.

"That our world is about to go to war."

Louis braced himself. He clicked his teeth twice, shifted his hips, then spread his arms and extended his fingers. He flapped once, then twice before thrusting himself forward, the motion so real and fluid that Anderson could barely see tell that he had moved his legs.

_He's—_

"Fast," Mark mumbled.

"You noticed too," Anderson said.

"We will not allow our world to burn!" Louis Décor cried, throwing himself to his knees hard enough to make even Anderson grimace. "We _cannot!"_

"What will we do?" Jeraldine cried back.

"We will save our world," Décor said, raising his eyes to face Jeraldine. "We will save our world... or we will die trying!"

As though part of the play, every actor in the audience cheered.

Anderson looked up.

Despite the lack of anything reflecting back at him, Louis Décor's eyes seemed to shine.

_This is why he always gets the part he wants,_ he thought.

The man jumped the four feet off the stage with the grace of a swan.

"Thank you, Louis," Jeraldine said.

Nodding, Louis returned to his seat and set his hands in his lap.

Anderson watched the next actor walk to the stage to begin his audition.

* * *

"You're confident you'll get the part?" Anderson asked.

"The Dove doesn't have any lines," Mark shrugged, cracking a soda open and tilting his head back to drink. "All you have to do is look scared and helpless."

"You're fine with playing a lesser role?"

"If it puts money in my pocket, yeah, I will." Mark set his soda down. "We get paid dirt-cheap anyway, so... any work with the company is good work."

"Maybe we'll get invited to Broadway this year," Anderson sighed, closing his eyes.

"Yeah. And maybe pigs will fly and bacon-maple doughnuts will start to sound edible."

"Hey—don't knock the doughnut until you've tasted it."

"That's gross, dude."

"Yeah, but it tastes fucking awesome."

Laughing, Mark stood, slapped Anderson upside the head and made his way into the kitchen, where he leaned into the refrigerator and let out a flurry of curses.

"What?" Anderson asked.

"I have absolutely _no_ food in here," Mark sighed, looking at the phone. "Ah well. Looks like I'm ordering pizza tonight."

"Make it a large and I'll split the cost with you."

"Deal," Mark nodded.

"I have to get home by tonight though."

"Why? Someone coming over?"

"Brother's coming in from Cali," Anderson smiled. "He wants to see me act."

"Awesome. But yeah—about that pizza. You okay with jalapenos?"

"On your half, not on mine."

* * *

Anderson woke to the chirp of his cell phone at four o'clock the following morning. Tired, disoriented and not immediately sure why anyone would be calling him at such a god-awful hour, he rolled over and pawed for his cellphone, first cursing as he knocked it off the end table, then as he fell out of bed.

_"Fuck,"_ he gasped, placing the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

"You all right?" his brother asked.

"I'm fine, Sam."

"You don't sound it."

"I fell out of bed."

A laugh greeted this. "You want me to catch a cab over there?"

"Of course not. I'm coming to get you."

"How soon can I expect you?"

"Half-hour, maybe. I just have to throw some clothes on."

"That's fine. I'll get a Twinkie out of a vending machine."

"Wait and I'll buy you breakfast."

"What the hell's open at this hour?"

"Fast food."

"All right. I can wait."

"Good. I'll be leaving in ten."

Anderson snapped the phone shut and went about finding a pair of pants.

* * *

He rolled up to the front of the airport at exactly five-fifty AM. Underdressed in a pair of board shorts and a Hawaiian-styled shirt, Sam Carter tossed his suitcase into the backseat and dove into the car, shivering as he slammed the door shut behind him and pulled his seatbelt over his chest.

"Shuh-shuh-shit," he gasped, teeth chattering like spilt pin needles.

"You dumbass," Anderson laughed. "You should've known it was cold in New York."

"I duh-duh-did—" A shiver tore the sentence in half, etching its way down Sam's spine and rolling off his tailbone. "Fuck, man. Turn the heater on."

"It's on."

Sam turned the vents toward him. "Ah," he moaned. "Bliss."

"How was your trip?"

"Fucking horrible. I got delayed. Twice. In Idaho."

"That sucks," Anderson mumbled, turning his attention back on the road. "You're lucky I have a car, otherwise we'd be stuck on the subway."

"Do you even use this thing to get to and from the theatre?"

"No."

"Why?"

"Because it's too big a hassle trying to deal with traffic. The subway's quicker and more convenient."

"But crowded."

"But convenient."

Sam shrugged. He reached up to scratch a sea of greying stubble at his chin and leaned back into his seat. "So, little brother, tell me."

"Hmm?"

"You get the role you tried out for?"

"Not sure yet."

"You mentioned _Patronage._ Did you—"

"No."

"I didn't even finish."

"I already know what you're going to ask," Anderson said, turning. "I didn't try out for the lead."

"Why?"

"For one," Anderson said, "I'm too broad-shouldered. And for two, Décor's going to get the role."

"That asshole," Sam groaned, rolling his eyes.

"I don't hold any ill will toward him. He's just a favorite."

"An asshole's an asshole if he gets everything he wants, Anderson."

"I—" Anderson shook his head. "Don't worry about it. Like I told my friend Mark, I'll be happy if I get the role of the Crow."

"The Crow's cool, from what I remember."

"I get to be dramatic and act like I'm on speed, so yeah, it's pretty cool."

Sam laughed. He resituated himself in his seat and eyed the neon fast-food sign that was coming up. "Burgers?" he asked.

"Burgers are fine."

"You sure?"

"Yeah. I ate pizza earlier, so it's no big deal."

"Cool," Sam said. "What time do you have to be at the theatre tomorrow?"

"Noon... ish, I think?"

"Cool. You care if I tag along?"

"I don't think it'd be a big deal, so no—feel free to."

"No sweat if I don't get up in time though. I'm dead tired and wouldn't be surprised if I turned my alarm off."

"Don't worry," Anderson smiled. "I'll wake you up. Besides—I think we're still doing auditions anyway."

* * *

Sam collapsed on the couch no more than five minutes after they walked into the apartment. Smiling and content to have his sibling in his midst, Anderson pulled a blanket off the back of the couch and threw it over his brother, grimacing as Sam mumbled to himself, then sighing when he settled back into place.

_Poor guy,_ he thought. _I hate long plane rides._

Ah well. At least Sam hadn't tried to come by bus this time. His last big expedition with public transportation had resulted in him getting stuck in some bumfuck hick town for three days while other arrangements were made to shuttle the passengers to their destinations.

_At least he's here now._

"And not stuck in Idaho anymore," he mumbled, sliding into his room.

By the time he closed his eyes, the clock had chimed seven.

* * *

The smell of eggs and bacon woke him that morning.

Climbing out of bed in only his boxers and a case of bad hair, Anderson stumbled out into the living room to find his brother leaning over the oven, three burners on and breakfast cooking upon them. Sam, who'd been staring at the food up until that moment, looked up and smiled as he noticed his brother's presence. "Hey."

"Hey," Anderson said, making his way around his brother's belongings and toward the kitchen.

"Sorry about that. I'll clean it up in a little."

"Don't worry about it. It's usually how the place looks if I don't have anything going on."

"Ah."

"How long have you been up?"

"About an hour or so. Why?"

He sought out the nearest clock. Ten-thirty showed bold and clear on the hour and minute hands. "You only slept for four hours?"

"They say an hour of sleep is eight awake."

"Who says that?"

"I don't know. Something I found on the internet."

"And you believe everything you read on the internet?" Anderson laughed.

"Ha ha," Sam chided. "Very funny. Your thirty-eight-year-old brother is smarter than you think."

"Yeah, well your twenty-seven-year-old brother thinks you're getting senile for your age."

Sam raised a single middle finger. Anderson laughed in return. "So, you little twenty-year-old shit—you hungry?"

"Whenever it's ready."

"How long's it take you to get ready?"

"Ten, twenty-minutes, half of that in the shower. Why?"

"You hearing back on your auditions today?"

"Most likely, yeah. It'll probably just be a quick trip from here to there, then back again."

"Cool. You eat." Sam pulled the food off the oven and turned the burners off. "I'll take a quick shower, then you can get ready. We taking the subway?"

"Yeah."

"All right. Just making sure."

"I'll spot you if you don't have cash."

"Don't worry about it," Sam said, heading toward the bathroom.

Anderson frowned.

When the door closed, he shrugged and headed for the food.

* * *

"This the brother you were talking about?" Mark asked, extending a hand as Anderson and Sam made their way toward the theatre stairs.

"Sure is," Anderson said.

"Mark Davis. Pleasure to meet you."

"Samwise. You can call me Sam."

"Your 'rents sure had a thing for names," Mark laughed, leading the way up the stairs.

"They're a bit old fashioned," Sam agreed, "but they're not bad names, I don't think."

"Except I always get asked if I'm really a silver fox," Anderson mumbled. Both Mark and his brother laughed. "Have the roles been posted?"

"Not yet. I think he's waiting until twelve on the dime."

"Seems like the head of your theatre department is old-fashioned," Sam mumbled.

"Yeah," Mark said. "He is, but that's part of his charm."

_Or so you say,_ Anderson chuckled, nodding to his friend as he opened the door and ushered he and his brother inside.

They navigated the short halls, first turning right at the entrance, then left of where they normally entered the theatre until they came to a crowd of people divided into small, clustered groups. Anderson, Sam and Mark stood off to the side, pressing themselves to the wall in hopes of keeping out of the way. They were soon separated when a group of women came forward and tried to push people out of their way.

_Shit!_

What a great way to start his brother's visit.

Shaking his head, he tried to both distract himself and hold his place in the crowd as people pushed forward to Jeraldine's office, which remained firmly closed and brightly illuminated as though taunting every one of them with its stoic luminescence. Anderson imagined what some might have already envisioned—the door, with its slashed-out panes, appeared to be a monster, the crack running along its side a sickly hand and the remaining panes up front its wicked eyes. Even the small globules of air that had been trapped within the first stages of the glass pane's life looked like teeth, small and dull as though it would feed on bark and other hazardous materials. _We know what you want,_ it seemed to say, eyes pulsing, teeth in place. _But we are holding the one with the answers hostage._

Anderson bit his lip, hard. He grimaced at the resulting pain.

"Come on," he mumbled. "Why don't you just—"

The door opened.

The crowd surged forward.

Anderson threw himself toward the wall to keep from being trampled.

While fifty-plus people surged forward, first as a wave, then as a few decent lines, Anderson watched the crowd and tried to discern his brother and friend from the several awestruck faces. When he caught Mark's face near the far end of the hall, he raised a hand and waved. Mark didn't seem to notice.

_Damn him and his height._

He chuckled at the thought.

Someone brushed against him. "Hello Anderson," Louis Décor said, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall.

"Hello, Louis," Anderson replied. "Have you seen the results?"

"Not yet. Too many damn people here." The man reached up to swipe a stray piece of hair out of his eyes. "Yourself?"

"No."

"Ah well. The crowd seems to be thinning. Would you like to go first when we have the chance?"

"You can go. My brother's here visiting from California. I'd rather wait and try to find him."

"All right then." Louis pushed away from the hall. He was about to step forward and make his way through the quickly-thinning crowd when a second, then third body surged forward. "Anderson?"

"Yes, Louis?"

"No hard feelings?"

"No hard feelings," Anderson replied.

Louis nodded.

He stepped forward without another word.

* * *

"Anderson!" Mark cried, rushing forward as the last few people began to make their way out of the hall. "Thank _God."_

"Where's my brother?" Anderson frowned.

"He backed out when all the people started rushing forward. Must've got claustrophobic or something. You seen the results?"

"No. Have you?"

"Not yet."

The two stepped forward. A girl of about sixteen turned away from the notice board and started down the hall in tears.

_This can't bode well for us,_ Anderson thought.

"Playing the role of the Peacock King: Louis Décor," Mark read, rolling his eyes in the process. "It figures."

"Mark Davis as the Mute Dove," Anderson read. "Congrats."

"Thanks," Mark said, pressing his finger to the list. "Where's the Crow where's the... there! Anderson Carter as the Messenger Crow!"

Anderson couldn't help but smile. "Great," he said, turning away from the notice and starting down the hall.

_"Great?_ That's fucking awesome!"

"It's not like the Crow is a leading role, Mark."

"Yeah, but the Crow's one of the best parts in the whole play."

"You think?"

"I do," Mark smiled, clapping Anderson's lower back. "Good job, buddy."

"Thanks, Mark."

"Don't sweat it."

They exited the theatre and started down the stairs. Anderson's wandering eye quickly found his brother sitting atop a concrete wall, smoking a cigarette and thumbing through something on his smart phone. "Sam!" Anderson called.

"You get it?" Sam shouted back.

"Yeah!"

"Fucking awesome!" Sam called back, standing. He looked at whatever was on his cell one last time before sliding it into his pocket. "What about you, Mark? You get your role?"

"Surprisingly," Mark said. "They usually don't give the Mute Dove to guys. It's more of a female role."

"Congratulations! Both of you!" Sam set a hand on each of their shoulders and turned toward the mass of businesses around them. "Anywhere we can go to get a quick bite to eat?"

"Tons of places," Mark said. "Why?"

"I want to buy the two of you lunch."

"You don't have to do that," Anderson said. "Really, Sam, you—"

"Shut up, Anderson. I'm buying you both lunch, even if we are only eating burgers."

* * *

"We usually come here after plays," Mark said, raising his eyes to look at Anderson. "Don't we?"

"Yeah," Anderson said, briefly surveying the layout of the restaurant. "They don't do barbecue like they do in Texas though, do they, Mark?"

Mark's tongue fell out of his mouth as though it'd just been burnt by something. Sam laughed. "I take it you're not for the strong stuff then?"

"Not really. Anderson and I went down there with his ex a while back."

"Speaking of which," Sam said, turning his eyes on his younger brother. "You still single, or you find another guy to shack up with?"

"Still single," Anderson shrugged. He let his eyes fell to his drink and stirred it with the end of his straw. "No big deal though. The guy fucked me over bigtime."

"I didn't hear about this."

"He stole a thousand dollars out of his wallet," Mark said.

_"What?"_

"Yeah," Anderson sighed. "It seemed good-ole washboard abs had a 'roid habit. Took the money and bonus I got for getting a special notice in a play and ran with it."

"Fuck that guy, A—you're better than he was anyway," Mark said, leaning forward to slap Anderson's shoulder.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Sam said, draping an arm across his younger brother's back. "I can see how that would discourage you. I'm sure you're aware that not everyone's like that though."

"Yeah, I know. Still—four months on the guy and a thousand bucks out of my wallet doesn't really encourage me to date much."

Neither Mark nor Sam said anything. They didn't have to, as the waiter came bearing their food a few short minutes later. "Thank you," Anderson said, lifting his burger and taking a big, meaty bite from it.

"How long you here for?" Mark asked, taking a bite out of his own burger. His eyes followed the waiter as he left their table.

"I wanted to see my brother act," Sam shrugged, "so I'll probably be here... what, bro? Two, three weeks?"

"About three weeks," Anderson nodded. "I told you not to take that much leave."

"I know, but I'll be fine."

"What if they decide to lay you off?"

"Fuck them. I've got another job lined up if they do."

Anderson nodded. He sipped his cola and let his eyes wander, first toward the young waiter Mark was eyeballing, then the front register, where a bejeweled child's carousel sat forever spinning before the sign-in sheet.

_The costumes are going to be great,_ he thought, hiding his smile by sliding a French fry in his mouth. _They always are when it comes to Patronage._

"What're you thinking about?" Sam asked.

"The costumes," he replied.

"Fucking A!" Mark cried, pumping a fist in the air and turning his attention back to the table. "You should've seen them last season. We weren't in it, but... just... wow. Huh, Anderson?"

"They're quite the pieces of work."

"And custom-made too! Last year's troupe got to keep theirs because they pulled in so much money."

"Let's just hope this year's does."

"You kidding? They'll come running to it. _Patronage_ is always a big hit."

"Especially if Louis is playing the lead."

"What's this about this Louis guy?" Sam asked. "Do you not like him?"

"No," Mark sighed.

"He just gets the roles he wants no questions asked," Anderson shrugged. "It's mostly just jealousy on my part though. He's a pretty decent guy. I talked to him for a little while today."

"What'd he say?" Sam asked.

"Just asked if I'd seen the board. That's all."

Sam shrugged. Mark noisily gulped down a swallow of cola. "You care if I come back to your place tonight?" Mark asked. "I'm not doing anything."

"Not tonight at least," Anderson laughed, to which Mark glowered at him and smacked his lips around his straw. "Yeah. You can hang out with us. At least, if you don't mind, Sam."

"I'm fine with it. Besides, any friend of my brother's is a friend of mine."

**2.**

**Rehearsal**

"Tyranny!" Mark cried, throwing a hand in the air while he held his script firmly in the other. "I have no business ruling these people with an iron fist, dear messenger! What do you take me for?"

"But sire," Anderson said, crossing his voice and looking at his brother out of the corner of his eye. "How will you bring the people together if you do not prove that without you, they are weak?"

"Because they will know they are weak when the plague comes," Mark said. He grimaced as he turned the page, glancing up at Anderson with a meek grin across his lips. "Because when the fire rains down and the great star in the sky begins to fall, their feathers will wither and their skin will melt."

"Pretty intense stuff," Sam said, taking a swig of his Corona. "And this play is about?"

"A society of birds falling under the sway of Monarchy after a meteor falls from space and begins to wipe everything out," Anderson said.

"It's pretty cool," Mark added, "especially when the effects director starts to use the lights."

"Sounds like it," Sam said, standing. He took another swig of his alcohol before he started forward. "So Louis is playing the Peacock King then, right? The role Mark was just reading?"

"Right," Anderson said. "Mark doesn't have lines to practice, so there's not much I can do for him."

"But there's a lot I can do for Anderson," Mark smiled. "He gets a fairly noble part in the role, as underappreciated as it is. There's another scene near the end of the play where the messenger comes bearing news of illness despite the king's rule and is killed because of it."

"How so?" Sam asked.

"How so?" Mark frowned.

"How's he killed?"

"Oh. That." Mark's face split into a devilish grin. "Tell him, Anderson."

"The peacock king slashes him to pieces with his feathers," Anderson said, looking down at his script. "It's one of the most dramatic parts in the entire play."

"One of the few where actual blood is shed."

"It sounds great, guys."

"It's bound to be good," Mark said, face dampening a slight bit. "Even if Louis is playing the lead."

"Which we're getting past," Anderson said. "Right?"

"Right," Mark agreed, nodding as though to confirm the point.

Standing, Anderson stretched his arms over his head and made his way into the kitchen, where the remnants of their fast-food venture remained. He picked his way through his brother's chicken and Mark's onion rings until he found his quarter-pounder. "I'm guessing we'll start getting fitted for our costumes tomorrow."

"At the very least," Mark nodded.

"I'd imagine they'd take some time to complete," Sam said, sliding around the counter to stand at Anderson's side. "They're hand-made, right?"

"Yeah. That's the cool thing about them."

"It'll be a neat play," Anderson said. "We just have to keep our heads on straight."

"Why?" Sam frowned. "Is something wrong?"

"The theatre is a wonderful place," Mark smiled, "but sometimes, it can make you go insane."

Anderson closed his eyes.

_No kidding._

* * *

Its eyes pierced through the darkness in his head.

Trembling, Anderson took a few steps back and tried to find something to press his hands against, _something_ to determine his location in the dark. When he found nothing, he turned, blinked, then let out a light cry when he found that the eyes had disappeared.

_No,_ he thought. _Where are you?_

A faint coo sounded directly behind him.

Anderson spun.

The eyes were directly in front of him.

_Coo coo,_ the thing said, feathers ruffling in the darkness. _Coo coo, Anderson._

"What are you?"

_Coo coo._

A long, slender feather traced his cheek from top to bottom, then along his jawline until it came down his neck.

_Coo coo, Anderson. Coo coo._

The feather slashed his neck.

A lump developed in his throat.

Anderson swallowed.

Blood burst from his lips.

He threw himself forward and opened his eyes to the darkened scape of his room.

_Fuck,_ he breathed, running a hand across his sweaty brow. _Goddamn._

Would it begin already—the startled gasps in the silent corners of rooms, the lack of breath, the horrible nightmares that came from nowhere and somewhere at the same time? It wasn't unlikely—they'd come prior to a play once before, during a production of the mafia and the true nature behind of the drug war behind it, but never before he'd actually rehearsed.

_Or been fitted for costumes._

Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, Anderson rose, opened his bedroom door and slipped out into the living room, careful to be as quiet as possible as to not wake his brother. Sam—who'd chosen to sleep on the floor tonight instead of on the couch—lay on the floor with his legs spread eagle, his arms pulled back and his hands behind his head. How he slept like that Anderson wasn't sure, but he didn't let it bother him. He slipped into the kitchen and grabbed the last bottle of his brother's Corona out of the fridge.

_It's the only thing that's going to help me sleep._

He fished a bottle opener out of the drawer and popped the cap off.

Something cooed behind him.

He spun.

A lone dove sat on the fire escape railing out the door, watching him with calm, placid eyes.

"Just a bird," he whispered. "Just a bird."

The dove spread its wings, flapped once, then disappeared into the night.

Why had the bird in his dream addressed him by name? Had it felt the need to speak his name in its human tongue, or had it done so for another purpose? Why, of all things, had it touched him, much less slashed his neck open with its tail feathers, and why did it not reveal itself when it seemed its intention was to terrify him as much as humanly possible?

_How do I even know it was the tail feathers that killed me?_

He didn't know. He didn't _want_ to know. Even if he could, he knew that such knowledge was forbidden and would drive him insane.

Shaking his head, he tipped his head back and drank.

The bad dreams wouldn't be coming back tonight.

* * *

"You've grown since last year," the old woman said, double-checking her measurements across Anderson's chest. "Have you been doing something?"

"Working out, when I can."

"Ah." The woman pulled the measuring tape back. "All right, Anderson. You may leave."

"Thank you, Lenore."

The elderly costume maker offered him a curt nod before she gestured another actor forward. Anderson stepped out of the prop room and into the auditorium, hoping to seek Mark or at least his brother out. When he found neither of them, he sighed, stepped to the end of the stage, then seated himself, dangling his legs over the side and allowing his feet to sway with the momentum.

"Already fitted?" a familiar voice asked.

Anderson looked up. Louis stood no more than a few feet away. "Yeah," Anderson said. "Yourself?"

"Of course," Louis said, seating himself beside Anderson. "Are you nervous?"

"About what?"

"The play."

"No," he lied. "I'm—"

_Coo coo, Anderson. Coo coo._

His breath caught in his throat, Anderson raised his hands and coughed, grimacing as the spell continued for more than a few brief moments. As he coughed, his eyes desperately shooting from Louis to the auditorium in front of him, his mind opened into a black hole and the eyes from last night appeared from his head.

_It was Louis' voice,_ he thought. _It was—_

"Are you all right?" Louis frowned.

"Fuh-ine," he choked out. He slammed his fist into his chest and grimaced as one final cough rebounded out of his throat. "Thanks."

"Do you want something to drink?"

"I'm good, thanks."

Louis shrugged. He seated himself beside Anderson and looked down at his knees, which appeared bony as ever even in jeans that didn't conform to his unnaturally-thin figure. "Can I ask you a question, Anderson? After you recover, of course."

"Go ahead," Anderson said, rubbing his throat with three fingers.

"Did you want to audition for the Peacock King?"

"No."

"Pray tell?"

"I knew it was no use because you were going to best me anyway."

"What makes you think that?"

_The fact that you're the favorite,_ he thought, but grinned and said, "Because I couldn't do the part justice."

Louis smiled. He seemed to take Anderson's comment as a compliment more than anything, as he leaned back into his seat and jutted his chin into the air as though pragmatic and without regard. "I'm sure you'd do the role just as well as I will, all things considering."

"I'd like to think so."

"Oh, I'm sure."

_Is he hitting on me?_

It wouldn't be completely unlike Louis—he was attractive in his own way, with his soft features, his high cheekbones and his slanting jawline. He even boasted a unique feature almost unknown to Anderson—a pair of hetero chromic eyes, one green and one blue, caused by the young man said had been a birth defect. Though Louis had his way with most any man he wanted, he wasn't Anderson's type in the least. Even if he was, there'd be no way he'd strike something up, not so soon after Travis, and especially not with such a dominant personality as Louis Décor.

_Fucking bastard, Travis, fucking with my life and my head even after you're three months gone._

"Anderson?" Louis asked.

"Yeah?"

"Would you like to—"

"No," he said, nearly automatically. He grimaced shortly after. "I'm sorry."

"I didn't finish."

"I'm not ready for a relationship right now, Louis. I... I got burned pretty bad with this last guy."

"Oh," Louis said. He didn't frown, but the way his lips pursed and set showed at least some kind of disappointment. "I'm sorry to hear that."

"It's all right." Anderson held a hand up. "Friends, at least?"

Louis raised his hand and pushed it forward. "Friends," he said.

Their hands touched.

Anderson looked into the younger man's eyes.

_Coo coo,_ the bird in the darkness said. _Coo coo._

* * *

"How'd the fitting go?" Sam asked.

"Fine," Anderson said, grimacing. The subway was packed more than usual at this awkward time of afternoon. "You ok?"

"I'm fine," Sam said. He, too, grimaced as the subway jostled, but managed to maintain his hold on the bar in front of Anderson. "Why? Are you?"

"I'm a bit shaky, but yeah, I'm fine."

"What're you shaky about?"

_A weird dream._

He didn't elaborate. He simply shrugged, at which Sam nodded and resumed to mind his own business.

_Sorry, bro—I'd tell you about it later, but not in public._

Not that he would care if a complete stranger knew he was gay—no, that didn't bother him at all. He just wasn't one to discuss his personal life, especially past breakups, in public.

_More like fuck-ups._

Regardless, he shook his head, inched forward and slapped his brother's shoulder. "We're starting rehearsals this weekend," he said. "You ready to see me act?"

"More than ever," Sam replied.

"This is ridiculous," Jeraldine said.

Lifting his head from the list of figures before him, Edgar ran a hand over his brow and turned his attention to the silhouette of the figure sitting in the corner of the room. Shadowed, save for his legs, the figure tapped his fingers across his knee and watched him with eyes hidden by shadow but illuminated by the light reflecting off his spectacles.

_They always said beautiful things have some flaws._

His star actor was one of them.

"What is?" Louis Décor finally asked, rolling the seat forward. He'd allowed his hair to fall down, pumping his already-androgynous appearance up another fifty percent.

"What you're proposing?"

"That I lead the score while I'm on stage?"

"Yes!"

"It's not ridiculous in the least," Louis smiled, flashing teeth so white they could very well end up blue upon their next treatment. "I've already explained my proposition."

"But what if—"

"They will see what I'm doing because we'll rig video cameras on the stage."

"But that doesn't mean—"

"These musicians have had worse to contend with, Jeraldine—I've told you this time and time again. The score is easy enough. While I'm on stage, playing the lead people will pay fifteen dollars a ticket to see, I will recite my monologue whilst dancing ballet, flushing my hands and fingers accordingly."

"I don't see how this will work."

"Would you like me to show you?"

Jeraldine lowered his eyes. Louis touched the tip of one foot down upon the floor and braced the other against the rolling office chair. Once in position, he stretched his arms out at his side, bowed his head, then shot it up, kicking the chair back with just enough force to send it back toward the wall. It was here that the amazingly-talented actor began to dance—on his tiptoes, no less, and in tennis shoes—and flush his fingers as a director would flush his wand in front of his audience.

"Do you not see?" Louis asked, spinning, flushing his hand the same. "Jeraldine?"

_I see,_ Jeraldine thought, but said nothing as the young man continued to spin. His arms rigid, his bony shoulders tense, his fingers flushed with the precise accuracy of a mechanical construct and his arms flowed with the grace of a swan. First in this dance his thumbs extended, stiff in their posture but proud in status, then fell flat and fluid in the air as he spun not once or twice, but three times, flushing his hands accordingly and interlacing his fingers when the score would have raised or fallen in pitch. At one point during the whole escapade, Jeraldine expected to blink and see not a man in front of him, but a bird—a beautiful, beautiful bird, with black feathers, a long, graceful neck and a pair of shockingly-intense eyes.

_They lure you, Jeraldine. They tempt you. Remember that._

"You're crazy," Jeraldine finally said, coaxing his mind down from the visual masterpiece before him.

"The brilliant are mad," the young man replied, returning to form directly in front of the desk. "But they always succeed."

"Poe died from Tuberculosis."

"And Sylvia shoved her head into an oven, but that didn't kill their work's longevity."

"You are an actor, Louis, who does his work on the stage, not before a camera."

"But that will not stop me from doing what I believe will make this the best play there is," Louis smiled. Damn how that man could smile. "Do you not trust me?"

"I trust you a hell of a lot more than I should."

"Then let me direct the score with my dance," Louis said, stepping forward and sliding a hand along Jeraldine's arm. "I promise, Jeraldine, that it will be the greatest thing you've ever seen."

"It better be," Edgar said, "because I'm taking one hell of a risk on this."

"And me?"

"And me," Jeraldine said.

He opened his lips for the young man's tongue.

They watched Louis conduct the score.

Dressed in ballet tights and an undershirt that showed the strength and power in his torso, he balanced himself on the tips of his toes and spun like a glass figurine atop an electronic display. Neck taught, arms afire and fingers flying, he spun, flourished, spun, then flourished some more. He looked like a bird up there, all dignified and poised, just like the Peacock King he was cast to play.

"He's... amazing," Sam said.

"Yeah," Anderson replied, watching the young man's movements. "He is."

Louis stopped.

The score silenced.

People began to clap.

Louis began again, this time with a more fervent intensity.

"He can't get any faster," Mark said, leaning forward in his seat. "He just—"

Spin, spin, turn, turn; flourish, spin, turn, spin, spin, flourish—at one point Anderson lost count of just what Louis was doing and the score went wild. Now it seemed as though the air around him was gathering, magnifying itself into the tornado that Louis had become in just five minutes, with sparks ablaze and lightning shooting from his fingers.

_Coo coo,_ the young man said, spinning. _Coo coo, Anderson, and hoo hoo to you! I'm Louis Décor and I'm better than you!_

"Stop," he mumbled.

_Better than—_

Louis stopped spinning and threw his arms in the air.

Stunned, the troupe of actors remained in their seats, staring at the young man who'd just stopped moving. Jeraldine was the first to stand and give applause. The scant audience followed soon after.

"Do you see?" Louis asked.

"I see," Jeraldine nodded. "That was quite impressive, Mr. Décor."

"My father and my father's father have studied the fine art of ballet since we were children."

"And it shows." Louis bowed his head. "You are excused, Mr. Décor."

"When do you go?" Sam asked, leaning into Anderson's side.

"Soon," Anderson. "After this next act."

* * *

Louis stood in the center of the stage. Arms crossed, head bowed, he would be standing within the central prison of the entire play come three weeks time—the Peacock's Nest. Home to the greatest ruler the kingdom would ever see and basked within the finest of linens and gems, the Peacock's Nest served as the final frontier for any seeking audience with such an illustrious creature. _For fear and for naught,_ a pair of canaries would say during the opening monologue of the play, _all who venture will eventually arrive, but all who go will then perish._

Standing behind the curtains, waiting for Louis to announce his opening line, Anderson drew a breath, waiting for just the right moment to step onto stage.

_It's all in the timing,_ Jeraldine had once said. _If the actor doesn't know when to begin, then the entire play is lost._

Critics said Louis had perfect timing. Whether or not that was true for rehearsals, Anderson didn't bother to ponder.

"Yes," Louis said, raising his head to gaze at the audience before him. "This... _this."_ He flushed his hand over the audience. "This will all be mine. Soon. _Very_ soon."

"Sire," Anderson said, stepping out onto the stage. He stopped as if to regard himself and his actions, then inched forward, progressively hunching his shoulders further and further as he approached the Peacock King. Louis shifted a fraction of an inch. Anderson flinched back, much to the Crow's written behavior.

"Yes?" Louis asked.

"I come bearing a message."

"What message is it you bear?"

"From the Wise Owl, sire. He says—"

"That I am weak and without true triumph. Is this not true?"

"It is," Anderson said. He tilted his head up. Even a bat of Louis' eyes was signal to flinch back, and so he did when the younger man blinked not once, not twice, but three times. Anderson would have stumbled over himself had he not pinwheeled. "Sire?" he asked.

"What is it, you ugly beast?"

"Are you... _disappointed?"_

"In what?"

"Me."

Louis laughed—a single, harsh sound. _"Disappointed?"_ he asked. "In _you?"_

"Why yuh-yes, sire. I—"

"Am nothing more than an ugly bird delivering other's messages," Louis said, flinging his arms outward. Come time for the play, he would be wearing a costume which would flush according to his body movements, which, in this case, would cause a feather arrangement to lash out at him. "Be gone, you ugly bird! You detest me with your presence!"

"But sire!"

_"GO!"_

Anderson fled from the stage.

The audience rose and clapped.

* * *

"It seems tricky," Sam remarked later that night. "To balance how skittish and forthcoming you have to be."

"I just play off whatever the other actor is doing," Anderson shrugged. "That's all I've ever done."

"Improvisation is big in this play," Mark added. "Especially when it comes to the peacock king."

"You have to be able to judge what the actor is doing," Anderson agreed.

Sam frowned. Mark raised his head and looked at the clock. "Shit!" he swore, throwing himself over the couch. "Sorry guys. I gotta go."

"Where are you going?" Anderson frowned.

"I've got a date."

"With who?"

"One of the guys from the troupe."

"Good luck," Anderson said, only having the time to smile before Mark was out the door.

"I didn't know he was gay too," Sam commented.

"You act like it's contagious."

"No."

"Well?"

"I just didn't think he was gay, that's all."

"All right," Anderson shrugged, leaning back on the couch. "Whatever you say."

"Have you guys ever... you know?"

"What? Dated? No—of course not."

"That's not what I was asking, but all right."

"You seem awfully interested in my sex life," Anderson laughed.

"No," Sam blushed. "I mean, not really. You just seem like good friends, that's all."

"As much as I love the guy, I could never be in a relationship with him. He's a bit too—"

"Spontaneous?"

"Spontaneous is a good word." Anderson smiled. "But to answer your question, yeah—we've screwed around a few times, but we've never made it the basis of our friendship. I've known him since I moved here. I respect him too much to see him as a fuckbuddy."

"I understand."

"Let's not talk about that though. How's your wife? The kids?"

"Sheline and the girls are well," Sam nodded, leaning forward in his seat.

"How old are they?"

"Cindy's nine. Amber's thirteen. They wanted to come with me, but the girls had school."

"That's understandable."

"You know, Anderson... you haven't seen your little nieces in a while."

"I don't have the money to fly out there, Sam."

"Would you go if I bought you a ticket?"

"I have to keep up with whatever's going on around here."

"I figured as much," Sam sighed.

Anderson waited for his brother to say something more. When Sam didn't, he wet his lips and opened his mouth to speak, but stopped before anything could come out. "Sam," he began, his voice a little more than low. "Come on."

"It wasn't my place to comment. I feel stupid and immature for even bringing it up."

"I don't have as much money as I'd like."

"I know."

"Hell—my apartment is gold compared to the place I used to live in."

"As you've said."

"I feel bad that I haven't come out to visit you guys, but I can't afford to _not_ have work."

"I've offered to help you in the past, Anderson. You know that."

"I know. I just don't like sponging off you."

"You're not. You wouldn't be either."

Anderson sighed. He stood and headed into the kitchen, set on starting dinner, then stopped when his brother leaned back in the second-hand recliner that served as the only other piece of furniture in the entire living room. "Sam? Can I ask you something?"

"Yeah."

"You don't think what I'm doing... acting in the theatre and all... it's not stupid, is it?"

"Of course it isn't! Why would it be?"

"Because sometimes it feels like I'm just chasing a dream."

"Listen to me here, Anderson," Sam said, standing. "Few people chase their dreams in this day and age. They're too scared to take a chance and throw themselves over the bridge and toward the gold lying at the bottom. You take that risk every time you walk into an audition, even though you could just as easily be working at Walmart or flipping burgers at McDonalds. Don't think what you're doing is stupid. If I were you, I'd want to be doing it too."

* * *

He lay awake with the stars in his eyes.

_I wish this would stop,_ he thought, suddenly uneasy at how large the world felt in front of him. _God, just let me go to sleep._

Despite his grievances about not being able to sleep, a part of him feared to do so. With last night's dream fresh in his mind and the tail feathers more than memorable, he feared closing his eyes and seeing the glowing vortexes looking back at him—and that sound, that noise. That _coo coo._

The thought of it made him shiver beneath his sheets.

_It's ok, Anderson. Coax yourself through it. Breathe in, breathe out._

"Easy comes, easy goes," he muttered, taking one deep breath and holding it as long as he could.

When the breath left his lungs, the knot in his lower back dissipated and his spine seemed to realign with the rest of his body, as did his head. The horrible feeling of being smaller than everything else around him was purged like fresh vomit after bad food poisoning.

_Beautiful analogy._

He chuckled at the thought.

Closing his eyes, he took another deep breath and tried not to think about anything.

_Coo coo._

* * *

"How'd your date go?" Anderson asked, sliding into the seat next to his friend.

"Great," Mark grinned, leaning back in his seat. "The guy's cool."

"Mind if I ask who it is?"

"Gotta keep it on the down low, if it's no big deal."

"No big deal."

"Guy's not completely set on dating other guys," Mark shrugged, setting his hands behind his head. He added, with a bit of a shrug, "He's curious."

"Ah."

"So it might not be anything long-term or anything. I'm just glad he was interested in being curious with me."

"You guys... you know... do anything?"

"Nah, man. Guy's _skittish_ as _fuck._ I tried to kiss him and he nearly lost his dentures."

"Sounds rough," Anderson mused, turning his attention to the front of the stage. A group of painters were busy touching up some of the old props and painting new ones. "You said he was in the troupe, right?"

"Yeah."

"Anyone I know?"

"No," Mark said. "Not likely. Where's your brother anyway?"

"He decided to stay at the apartment today. We got into a bit of an argument last night."

"About what?"

"He offhandedly mentioned me going and visiting him and I said I didn't have the money to."

"Oh," Mark frowned. "Sorry to hear that, bro."

"We made up pretty quickly, but I think he wants the sting to subside before we try to do anything."

"Understandable."

"Mr. Carter," Jeraldine said, stepping through the door. "Mr. Bringham."

"Hello," they both replied.

"Both excellent in rehearsal yesterday, if I do say so myself."

"Thank you," Anderson replied.

"Yeah, sir—what he said."

"It means a lot to know that the two of you have stayed with the theatre so long."

"Market's tough, sir," Mark said. "We know who we're loyal to."

"As you should," Jeraldine smiled. He tilted his head toward the stage and surveyed the work going on before pushing his glasses up his nose. "We'll start rehearing here in a few minutes. Hey, you! Painters! Take your work off the stage. We have a play to rehearse."

* * *

Amanda LeRoy stormed into the auditorium just as Anderson the Messenger Crow stepped forward to ask Louis the Peacock King if he was disappointed in him. Blonde curls askew and face paler than ever, she pushed herself down the aisle and threw herself toward the stage, mouth torn in a snarl and fist curled forward.

"You _bitch!"_ she screamed. "This was supposed to be _my_ part!"

"Pardon you," Louis said, "but it appears as though I am the one on the stage, not you."

"You _knew_ I was sick!"

"Finders keepers, losers weepers."

LeRoy screamed.

Jeraldine stepped forward and pressed a hand against her shoulder. "Amanda," he said. "You're sick. Maybe you should—"

She turned and slapped him across the face.

The troupe collectively gasped.

_They're even dramatic off stage,_ Anderson thought, crossing his arms over his chest and waiting for the rest of the scene to unfold.

"You _promised!"_ she screamed. "You said I would _have the chance to audition!"_

"I couldn't postpone the play for you, Amanda. You know more than well that I—"

"You lying bastard!"

"Will someone shut the dumb cunt up?" Louis asked, running a hand through his hair. "We're in the middle of something here."

_"What_ did you call me?" she roared.

"You heard me," Louis said. "I don't have to repeat myself."

"Why you—"

"Your subpar acting can't withstand the weight of this play or what this theatre has at stake. Is anyone even aware that we are at the risk of foreclosure? That the _Jeraldine Theatre_ is going to be repossessed if we don't make a big enough chunk of change to pay for the rent?"

"That's enough," Jeraldine said. "Louis, that was private and only meant to remain between us."

"Why us?" Louis asked. "Is our _almighty director_ afraid to let his troupe know that their theatre is about to go under?"

"Louis, stop."

"Stop _what,_ Jeraldine? Truth in a sea of little white lies? Everyone knows that Amanda LeRoy _canned_ her performance in _Arsenic and Old Lace_ as Mortimer's estranged fiancé. The critics called her _weak, lousy, disappointing in a role easy enough to—"_

"ENOUGH!"

A vein in Jeraldine's forehead throbbed.

LeRoy, who'd stormed in with enough rage to produce a fire within her cheeks, was now reduced to tears, a sad actress with mascara running down her face.

"I've had enough of your deceptive ways, Louis. All you've been trying to do since you joined the troupe three years ago is weasel your way to the top. You've lied, you've hurt other people, you've deliberately put each and every actor here into positions to reveal their flaws and weaknesses—I've had enough and won't stand for it anymore! Out! Get out!"

"You bastard!" Louis cried back. "Who will play the Peacock King if I leave? Who will save your pathetic little theater from burning to dust!"

"Anderson Carter."

All eyes turned on Anderson.

Anderson swallowed the lump in his throat.

When he saw Louis' eyes on him—when he saw the burning hate that blazed within his heterochromic eyes—something inside him said he'd just made a horrible enemy.

"Fine," Louis said, jumping off the stage and starting for the door. "Don't expect me to return when you come crawling back to me, _Jeraldine,_ and don't expect our little secret to be held up for much longer."

"Anderson will play the role of the Peacock King," Jeraldine said, sighing as the door slammed shut behind Louis. He reached up to rub his temple and bowed his head when a number of scrupulous eyes fell on him. "Mark will take his place as the Messenger Crow and Amanda, you will play the Mute Dove."

"But I," Amanda started.

"Don't _but_ me. I'm in no mood."

Jeraldine started for his office.

Anderson could only stare.

_What the hell just happened?_ he thought.

It dawned on him.

He was the Peacock King.

His face would be on every theatre billboard in town.

* * *

_"What?"_ Sam asked, his voice strained even through the phone.

"I'm the Peacock King," Anderson said, tightening his grip on the pole he was holding onto. "Louis called Amanda LeRoy a cunt and Jeraldine kicked him out of the theatre. I'm taking his place."

"That's great!" Sam cried. Mark flashed Anderson a grin from his seat below him. "God, little bro. This is fucking amazing! We have to celebrate!"

"We will, Sam. Let me and Mark get home. Then we'll celebrate."

* * *

"So he picked you," Sam said, "right on the spot."

"Right on the spot," Anderson agreed.

"I couldn't believe it," Mark said. "It was like God had just struck Edgar Jeraldine with a hammer and squished Louis Décor with his big thumb."

"Sounds like I picked a good day to stay behind," Sam shrugged, turning his attention to Anderson. "This is great news. I'm proud of you."

"Thanks, Sam," Anderson said.

"Don't thank me, little bro."

Anderson smiled.

Things seemed to be looking up for him.

* * *

The birds returned that night.

Trapped once again in the dark room, Anderson opened his eyes and cast his hands out in front of him. In one hand appeared a burning torch, the other what appeared to be a cattle prod, complete with a white-hot insignia that he couldn't care to decipher.

_Where am I?_

Anderson raised his head.

Before him, a corridor completed in stone walls extended until the hall split off into an L. With a dead end behind him and nowhere else to go, he started forward, then turned the corner.

Something shifted in the darkness in the corridor before him.

_God,_ he thought, taking another few steps forward. _Please don't let this be what I think it is._

Something shifted.

Anderson stepped into the side corridor and began to walk backward, holding the torch and the cattle prod before him. As he walked backward, his breath running in ragged gasps and his bare feet freezing against the cold stone ground, he tried not to imagine just what was in the shadows and what the torch would possibly illuminate. If the previous night's dream had been any indication, whatever dwelled there was avian—a bird, or at least something bird-like in nature. He knew no bird that could strike and kill with a single blow—save the cassowary, which lived in Australia and trace locations in Papua New Guinea—but what bird would want to kill him, save a bird that had no place in a labyrinth?

_Oh God,_ he thought. _That's where I am._

The labyrinth—normally home to the ferocious, half-man, half-bull minotaur, but now home to something far more sinister, something far more dangerous.

_Something far more avian._

The figure in the dark shifted.

_Coo coo._

Anderson screamed.

His bedroom ceiling greeted him.

"Anderson! Anderson!" Sam cried, bursting into the room. "Are you all right?"

"Bad dream," Anderson gasped, laughing. "Bad dream. Bad, bad dream."

"Are you ok?" Sam asked, helping him sit up. "You're not hurt? Everything's all right?"

"I'm fine, Sam. It was just a dream."

"You're sure?" Sam asked, seating himself on the bed beside him.

"I'm sure."

Frowning, Sam reached forward and wiped Anderson's lengthening hair out of his eyes. He smiled when Anderson tilted his head up. "Care to tell me what the dream was about?"

"Nothing in particular. I can't even remember it now."

_Which is complete and utter bullshit._

His brother didn't need to know the nature behind the dream. If he were to say something, Sam would only offer words of discouragement, the beast in the nature of someone commenting on stressful activity could create such a dream.

_You're fine,_ he thought, nodding, lying back down. _Everything's going to be just fine._

"Thanks for checking on me," Anderson said.

"No problem," Sam said. "Get some sleep, bro—you have to get up early for your costume fitting."

_Don't remind me._

* * *

"Quite a turn of events here, Mr. Carter," Lenore smiled, taking careful note of the length of Anderson's fingers. "Are you happy to be playing the role?"

"It's an honor," Anderson replied.

Lenore nodded. She scribbled down each and every measurement in Anderson's hands before turning her attention to his face, particularly his chin, jawline and cheekbones. "The Peacock King is preferred with the single black goatee," the woman said. "Will you have problems growing one in time?"

"I shouldn't, no."

"If so, we can have one ordered in. I'll do so just as a precaution."

"All right," Anderson said. "Thank you, Lenore."

Nodding, Lenore went back to surveying her freshly-made measurements and gestured Anderson to leave the room. Just as he was about to reach forward and grab the doorknob, the door opened and Jeraldine stepped into the room. "Hello, Anderson."

"Hello, sir."

"Walk with me?"

Anderson did. They started down the hallway and turned into Jeraldine's office, a place revered yet sacred among most everyone in the troupe. Anderson had only been in here twice—once for his interview to join the troupe, the other for an outstanding employee examination. When Jeraldine seated himself in his office chair and spun to look at the awards on the wall, Anderson seated himself on the opposite side of the desk, not sure what to do or say.

_So wait._

"Anderson," Jeraldine said, after a long, hard moment. "You know this has made for a troubling turn of events."

"I know, sir."

"We have two weeks before the play opens for the first day. We're paying double for three costumes to be made in half the time it normally takes to make them. At this rate, we're going to be lucky if they get here the night before the play."

"I understand, sir."

"Which is why I'm counting on both you and Mr. Bringham to do the best damn job you possibly can."

"I know, sir."

"Which brings me to my final point." Jeraldine spun his chair around. "Are you confident you can play the Peacock King?"

"Sir?"

"Answer my question, Anderson."

"I—"

_"Can you play the role of the Peacock King?"_

"Yes sir," he said. "I can."

"You're a different fit than Louis Décor is. You're taller, broader, masculine in favor of Louis' androgyny. You're going to have to work harder to impress the audience."

"I know."

"So what's your plan, Anderson?"

"To play the best damn Peacock King I possibly can, sir."

Jeraldine smiled. "Good," he said, "because anything less is unneeded."

* * *

He returned home by himself at around three in the afternoon. With fresh snow on his shoulders and newfound determination in his heart, he pulled his coat off his shoulders and set it atop the rack, scanning the room for his brother or any indication as to where he was. When he couldn't find him, he frowned, sighed, then crossed into the kitchen to pull a diet soda out of the fridge.

_If you fuck up,_ he thought, _this could ruin your whole career._

'Ruin' was a bit of a strong word to be sure. 'Scar' might be the more appropriate, but everyone knew certain scars never healed—that sometimes, they stunted an individual so much that they could no longer walk on their own two legs or think for themselves. Hell, some scars even kept you from maintaining your dignity, shitting your pants in a hospital bed for the next seven months while your family kept you in a vegetative state. Wounds may heal, yes, but they would always be remembered.

_Stop it. You're not going to fuck up. You're going to do just fine._

"Sam!" Anderson called. "Where are you?"

The toilet flushed. A short moment later, the door opened and Sam stepped out, freshly-shaved and with a towel around his waist. "Sorry," he said. "Got up late today."

"Don't worry about it," Anderson said, turning to allow his brother some privacy. "Can you help me with my lines?"

"You know I will."

"Thanks. I'm trying not to let this go to my head, but that's kind of hard at the moment."

"What did your boss have to say?"

"That I better not fuck up."

"I figured as much."

Anderson laughed. Sam's movement behind him ceased for a brief fraction of a moment before he continued dressing. "Can I ask you something?" Anderson asked.

"Shoot."

"Based on what you saw of me as the Crow," he began, "do you think I can play the Peacock?"

"I'm sure you can. Besides—you and Mark will be able to play off each other. You are best friends, after all."

"Yeah, but I'm worried we might fuck it up because of that."

"Look," Sam said, stepping into the kitchen without his shirt over his shoulders. He took Anderson's arms and turned him around, then tilted his head up so they could look into each other's eyes. _"You_ are a _great_ actor. You've got a gift that most people would kill for. Hell— _I'd_ kill for it."

"You would?"

"Yeah. So quit tripping yourself out. You're going to do just fine."

"I hope so," Anderson sighed. "Because I sure as hell don't need the critics on my back for one fuckup."

* * *

The night passed without any nightmares.

Come morning, he was sitting on the subway next to his best friend and waiting for the rest of the day to begin.

_It's all right,_ he thought, taking a slow, deep breath. _Just because it's the first rehearsal day without Louis doesn't mean it's going to be bad._

Did it, though? Did it really, _truly_ mean that Louis' presence wasn't needed, wasn't _necessary_ for the theatre to continue as it always did? Louis himself had said that he was what kept it afloat, that it was his acting that gave blood to the monster that was Jeraldine's theatre and his attraction that allowed it to move, eat, breathe, _sleep_. He'd said the theatre was failing—outright _stated_ it was—but was that really the truth?

_Based on Jeraldine's reaction,_ he thought, _it probably is._

"Something on your mind?" Mark asked.

"Not really," Anderson lied, biting the inside of his cheek to keep from smirking.

"You sure? You seem awfully quiet this morning."

"I'm always quiet, Mark."

Mark didn't reply.

_He's your best friend, Anderson—why can't you talk to him?_

It was simple, really—speaking would reveal weakness, would open him up to something that would weaken him come time for his and Mark's rehearsal. Were he to say that something was wrong—that'd he'd been having bad dreams about birds in a labyrinth that stalked and killed him—something would slip. Some strange, intricate imbalance would occur and it would destroy the entire theatre.

_If what Louis said is really true, this may be the last chance Jeraldine has._

If he fucked it up, he would have that on him for not only his career, but the rest of his life.

_You can do this, Anderson. You can do this._

"I can," he mumbled.

"Huh?" Mark asked.

Anderson remained silent.

The curves of a smile were pulling at the curves of his lips even as the train began to slow.

* * *

"Star Wormwood," Anderson said, lifting his head from its bowed position. "It falls, Crow."

"It does," Mark said, drawing closer. He leaned forward, surveyed the far lights at the edge of the theatre, then turned his attention back to Anderson. "Sire?"

"Yes, Crow?"

"I bear another message, this time from the Canaries."

"What do their all-seeing eyes say?"

"That several will die when the Wormwood falls," Mark said, shrinking back and away from Anderson. "That you may very well be one of them."

"How so?"

"Because when the people come, they will bring the plague. They will bring the very thing that you wish to protect us from."

"Then away they shall stay!" Anderson boasted, turning back to the crowd. "My nest is safe, dear messenger! It is snarled with branches and thorns. I will not allow anyone to come near it, especially not those tainted with the Wormwood."

"But sire, when the people come, what will you tell them?"

"To go home to rot and ruin, dear Crow. What else would I tell those sick and ailing with disease?"

Mark said nothing. He blinked and shuffled his arms at his side. _Wings,_ Anderson thought, giving his friend a reassuring wink. Anderson spread his arms, shook his hips, then straightened his posture. Though he could not dance ballet like Louis could, he could do just as well with quick, subtle movements, something he'd often been praised for during his minor roles.

_Critics don't know me,_ he thought, _but some like me._

"Sire?" Mark weakly asked.

"Yes, Crow?"

"Am I excused?"

"You are excused," Anderson said, "but before you go, deliver them a message."

"What?"

"That the devil follows with the Wormwood, dear Crow. That if they see him—if they see the one who looks like me—then they will have met Death himself."

Mark fled from the stage.

Anderson flushed his arm and bowed just as the curtain fell.

* * *

"Excellent, excellent," Jeraldine said, clapping as he approached both Anderson and Mark. "You gentlemen are quite the actors."

"Thank you," Mark said. Anderson merely nodded.

"I hate to dampen your spirits, but the first of the costumes arrived, though yours and LeRoy's have yet to be made."

"That's fine," Anderson said. "We just want to keep practicing. We can worry about our feathers later."

Mark snickered. Anderson playfully nudged his friend's ribs and slapped an arm around his shoulders.

"I do have one critique though," Jeraldine said, "if you don't mind."

"That's fine," Mark said.

"You need to be more shrill, Mr. Bringham, though I'm sure you're just preserving your voice for the play. Drink tea with honey before you go on stage and practice smoothing the sounds out. It'll make your voice much harsher. Other than that, you're executing your part perfectly."

"Thank you, sir."

"And to you, Anderson," Jeraldine said, turning his head, "all I ask is that you strengthen your movements, particularly when you finally do get your costume on. We'll want the costume to sparkle in the light as much as possible."

"Yes sir. Thank you."

Jeraldine bowed his head and made his way down the hall.

"Not bad," Mark said. "I figured he'd say something about my voice."

"Though you can't blame yourself for not using it. You wouldn't be able to talk if you did."

"I know, but we should probably get in at least one full rehearsal with me talking like the Crow."

"Let's wait until we get the costumes. It'll make it... more natural, you know?"

"Oh, most definitely."

Anderson looked up as someone from the back row waved to him. It took a moment for his eyes to adjust his light, but when he took notice of his brother, he raised his hand and waved back.

"You taking him anywhere interesting while he's here?" Mark asked.

"I don't know. Why?"

"You should take him to the place that makes our costumes. Who knows? Maybe they'll be making ours when you go."

"Maybe I'll do that," Anderson said. "Now that I think about it, I think I'll do just that."

* * *

"So," Anderson said, waving his hands out in front of him. "This is it."

"It's a bit much for a costume factory," Sam said, following Anderson down the aisle of mannequins and the costumes perched atop them. "I mean... if you don't mind me saying, it's a bit creepy."

True—the mannequins before them seemed to have a life of their own. While they bore no distinguishing features, much less expressions to identify themselves either through emotion or sex, the way their costumes sat across their frames made them seem unnatural, like real people who'd been melted down and remolded for the sole purpose of displaying someone's art.

_At least they don't have eyes,_ Anderson thought.

"You say someone might be here making them?" Sam asked.

"I'm not sure," Anderson said. "To be honest, I mostly wanted to show you the displays, but we can try and hunt someone down if you want."

"Not necessary." Sam paused. His eyes wandered the length of a parrot costume near the end of the aisle. "Is that—"

"One from _Patronage?"_ Anderson asked. "Yeah, but it looks kind of old."

Though old it was, the costume showed the craft and workmanship that the factory was acclaimed for. Made from the finest materials and crafted with the greatest synthetic wares, it looked as though the mannequin were a bird itself. Its feet held a complete representation of the three-toed Tridactylie, while its legs appeared to be covered in down feather, nothing more than fuzz below the broad wings which extended all the way down the mannequin's arms. It was, in essence, a masterpiece, a Picasso amongst Nothings by Janes and Johns.

"It looks heavy," Mark mused.

"They usually are," Anderson said. "It's a good thing most of the actors are in shape. I'd be at the gym now if I weren't here with you."

"You're in pretty decent shape, little brother."

"When you're wearing stuff like this, you have to be." Anderson started to reach forward, but stopped when a door opened. A mousy girl of about sixteen stumbled out of a door with a pack of black feathers in her hands. "Hello."

"Hi!" she said, her shout echoing across the factory like a bird cat-calling its name.

"You wouldn't be happening to work on the Messenger Crow's costume, would you?"

"Why yes, we are!"

"May we have a look?"

"I'm not sure," the girl said, looking toward a door on the far side of the room. "You... wouldn't happen to be with the theatre company, would you? The _Jeraldine?"_

"I'm playing the Peacock King."

The girl's eyes widened. "You... you're the star of _Patronage?"_

"Well, I wouldn't exactly say _star,_ but—"

"Eek!" the girl shrieked, nearly throwing her feathers in the process. "Hurry! Hurry! Come with me! I have so much to show you!"

* * *

"As you can see," the girl said, leading them along an aisle of young men and women working on costumes, "we're currently working on the Messenger Crow and the Mute Dove's costume, but we're on track to have these done by the end of the week. Then all of us will work together to begin making your costume, Mr. Carter."

"This is quite the work you do," Sam said, nodding at a man who looked up at them.

"It is," the girl said. She turned at the end of an aisle and offered her hand. "Sorry for not introducing myself. I'm Susan."

"Nice to meet you, Susan," Sam said, shaking her hand.

"It's such an honor to meet someone from the Jeraldine, especially the actor who's playing the Peacock King. Ah... to wear such costumes, to have such notoriety."

"I don't have much notoriety."

"You will after they see you in our costume," Susan said. "Right, Barry?"

"Right!" a bearish man at the end of the Mute Dove aisle said. He sat sewing feathers into the arms of the costume.

"We won't bother you any further," Anderson said. "I just wanted to show my brother around."

"Feel free to come anytime!" Susan called.

Anderson smiled, nodded, and opened the door to let his brother out.

"This looks like it's going to be one hell of a show," Sam said.

"I hope to God it is," Anderson said, "because a hell of a lot is riding on this opening performance."

* * *

"I saw 'em," Anderson said.

"Saw... what?" Mark said from the cell phone sitting on the middle of the coffee table.

"The costumes, Mark."

_"The costumes?"_

"Yeah. Yours and Amanda LeRoy's."

"Fuck, Anderson. How they look?"

"Absolutely amazing, buddy. Abso-fucking-lutely amazing."

Sam grinned from his place in the recliner. Anderson leaned forward and slid the cell into his hand. "They said they'll be done within the next few days."

"By the end of the week?"

"That's what she said."

_"Awesome._ God, Anderson—this is so fucking exciting. You're playing the fucking lead!"

"I know," Anderson sighed.

"What's wrong, bud?"

"I..." Anderson shook his head. Sam's forehead furrowed in confusion. "Don't worry about it. Just a little stressed."

"A little?" Mark asked.

"Yeah," Anderson said. "A little."

* * *

_Coo coo,_ it said.

From the unbearably-thin corridor of his mind, Anderson looked into the darkness and tried not to imagine the creature that had to be hiding within it. Tall, he knew, from how evenly the tail feathers had fallen across his neck, and agile, able to move within the darkness without even making a noise—this creature was perfectly crafted to move within this very environment, this very labyrinth, and would stop at nothing to destroy him, no matter what the cost.

Anderson tightened his grip on the cattle prod.

_"Go!"_ he cried, jabbing the prod out in front of him. _"Go! Go!"_

Each forward thrust summoned a flurry of sparks, each of which momentarily illuminated the figure before him. Though he saw nothing concrete enough to assure him of its identity, he did see some things that soured his soul and forced his heart into the deepest pits its stomach—its eyes, like pits of coal in the deepest mines, sparkling back at him, and its royal crown, red, purple and pink against a venomous array of green.

_Poison,_ he thought. _That's what it is._

Its tail lashed out of the darkness.

Anderson ducked.

The feathers passed right over his head.

_No,_ he thought, stepping back, tilting his body to maneuver through the progressively-tightening space. _This can't be happening. It can't._

_"It's just a dream,"_ he said. _"It has to be."_

_Coo coo,_ the bird replied.

This time, its eyes shined in the darkness, lighting its entire, pure-white face and the hollow pits of its eyes.

_Coo coo, Anderson, coo coo. I am the Peacock King, the one you wish would sing, and I am the shadow within your heart, the darkness in your mind and the rot in your brain._

_"You're nothing!"_ Anderson cried.

_I am nothing?_ the bird laughed, narrowing its body to an impossible angle. _If I am nothing, why do you run, cower,_ hide _from me like the child that you are?_

_"You're nothing!_ Anderson cried.

He tried moving further.

Pressure greeted him.

He pushed forward.

He couldn't move.

Though he knew its impossible status, Anderson wasn't able to turn his head to see that he could move no further because his arm was too broad for the passage.

_Coo coo,_ the bird said, squeezing its upper body through the passageway. _Coo..._

"Coo."

Anderson bolted upright.

The dove on the fire escape had returned to see him.

"Fuck," he breathed, sweat curtaining his eyes and soaking his eyelashes. "What the fuck is happening to me?"

"You're stressed," Sam said from his place in the doorway.

"Where did you come from?"

"I heard you struggling," his older brother said, stepping into the room and pushing the door closed behind him. "I thought about waking you up, then I thought I'd see if I could figure out just what you were dreaming about. I heard you say, 'No, no, not the feathers.'"

"Sam—"

"That's all it took for me to realize you're under way more stress than you're letting on."

"Please, just let me—"

"Let you... _what,_ Anderson? Play the part? Like hell there's stopping you from doing that, but you need to realize that this play is getting to you."

"No it's not."

"Then what is it?"

"The play is nothing about my dream!"

"Then tell me what you're dreaming about!"

"NO!"

The dove in the window cooed. The soft sound was enough to force Anderson to tears.

"Anderson," Sam sighed, moving into the room. "This... this _thing,_ this _role_ you're playing... it's too much for you, isn't it?"

"No, it's not."

"Then why are you dreaming that a bird is trying to kill you?"

"I don't know!" Anderson cried, slamming his fists into the mattress. "Stop being the Einstein and just listen to me!"

"I am listening to you, Anderson."

"I'm in a labyrinth," he said, "and I'm running away from this thing in the shadows. At first I didn't have anything, then I had a torch and a cattle prod. I couldn't tell what it was at first. All I knew was that it was a bird because it just kept _cooing_ at me. _Coo coo,_ Anderson, _coo coo._ Then, just now, I tried stabbing the thing away from me. The sparks lit it up. It _was_ a bird, Sam, a fucking big bird, but it had coals for eyes and colors no normal peacock on this planet has."

"Which were?"

"Red, purple and pink, on green and blue plumage."

Sam blinked. Anderson bowed his head to hide the shame streaming down his cheeks in thick rivulets.

_Look at me. I must look like a fucking nutcase, sitting here all alone and dreaming about birds trying to kill me._

"It's ok," Sam said, reaching out to touch Anderson's shoulder.

"No it's not ok, Sam. It's consuming me."

"What is?"

"The role."

"You just said—"

"That it isn't," Anderson said, turning his head up to face his older brother. "I know... but... Sam, whatever this... this _thing_ is... it wants me. It wants me bad."

"Bad dreams are just bad dreams, Anderson."

"I know," Anderson sighed.

That, sadly, made no difference.

Shaking his head, Anderson leaned back, let his head fall to his pillow and closed his eyes.

_Coo coo,_ the bird said.

_Coo coo._

* * *

_I have to do something about this. Otherwise I'm not going to go on that stage and act just the way I want to._

Hands braced against the balcony railing, Anderson closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Snow in his nose and frost in his lungs, he held it inside him as long as he could until he breathed it out, at which time he opened his eyes to stare at the city below.

_All those cars,_ he thought. _All that traffic._

That traffic, he knew, held people—people going home late at night, people going places early in the morning, and people he knew could very well be at the _Jeraldine_ opening weekend, popcorn in hand and Skittles in their pockets.

_They're expecting the best of you, Anderson._

"I know."

_The critics are too._

"I know."

_If you make a mistake—if you make one little, tiny mistake—it's going to reflect on you for the rest of your life. Sure, it may not be the end of your career, but it'll be a point in which everyone will be able to point at and frown._

He didn't want that. No. He wanted recognition, maybe even a little notoriety for the hard work and soul he was putting into this role. He didn't need fame from it. Quite the opposite, actually—he'd prefer to audition for something instead of get it outright. If he got a movie deal from this role—if a critic came along and recommended him to the biggest casting agent in the United States—that would be pure lunacy, because in order for anyone to hire him out of a play, they'd have to be a loon.

_Which'd mean they'd have to like the loon._

With no hope of shaking the thoughts and ideas from his head, Anderson stepped back into his apartment, slid the door shut behind him and crawled back into bed.

The birds might not go away, but maybe he could get a little more sleep.

Just a little more.

Just...

* * *

"You ok?"

Anderson blinked. "What?" he asked.

_"Are you ok?"_ Mark said again.

"I'm fine," Anderson said, readjusting himself in his seat. "Just didn't get too much sleep last night."

"Look alive, bud—we're expected for a full rehearsal today."

"I know."

"Are you sure you're all right?" Mark asked. "You didn't sound okay on the phone the other day."

"I'm stressed, Mark."

"About the role, right?"

"Yeah."

Mark clapped him on the back. "Buddy," he said, "I would not want to be in your position."

"I'd pity anyone who would."

"Even Louis Décor?"

_Even Louis Décor._

Louis Décor may have had his shining moments of grace in Jeraldine's theatre, but never once had he played the Peacock King. It had always been given to women, girls who walked into the theatre as virgins and who left as pure, full-blown fame whores. Half of them received roles in films after their auditions. _Peacock queen!_ the paper would decree. _Made right here from the_ Jeraldine!

"Take a sip of this," Mark said, pushing his drink into Anderson's hands.

"What is it?"

"Coffee."

"The good shit?"

"Mocha chappa latte what-the-fuck-you-call-it. It's good. Just drink it."

Anderson took his friend's advice and let the amber liquid flow down his throat. _The good stuff,_ just like he'd said.

"Thanks," he sighed, grimacing as his head flared with newfound energy. "Sorry."

"Don't mention it. Anything for a friend, right?"

_Anything for a friend._

* * *

At six o'clock PM, Anderson returned home from rehearsals and fell flat into bed, dead to the world and whatever nuisances it held. By the time he awoke nearly four hours later, his brother was sitting in the living room in shorts and an undershirt, reading a book set atop his knee.

"Hey there," Sam said.

"Hey," Anderson replied, rubbing his eyes.

"Looks just like the little brother who used to come into my room at night after he had a bad dream."

"None of those today," Anderson said. He blinked and looked at his brother through his hazy vision, then blinked again to clear the fog of sleep. Sam's right eyebrow raised in confusion, but Anderson shook his head and settled down near his brother. "Can I ask your opinion?"

"Yeah."

"You think I'll do all right?"

"If you sleep you will."

"I'll start going to bed earlier."

"Your boss is pushing you, isn't he?"

"As hard as he can," Anderson sighed.

"Which means you'll need all the rest you can get in the next week," Sam said, sliding a bookmark into his book. "You said no nightmares, right?"

"Good."

* * *

In full costume, Mark turned, stared Anderson straight in the face, and flicked his fingers, revealing the full effect of the Messenger Crow costume before him.

"It's fucking amazing," Anderson said, awing over the intricate details of the headpiece.

"Yeah," Mark laughed. "It is, isn't it?"

"It makes me wish mine were done."

"In time, Mr. Carter, in time," Jeraldine said, setting an arm across his shoulders. He turned his attention toward Mark and nodded at what he saw before him. "Mr. Bringham."

"Sir," Mark said.

"Looking good. Stay sharp. Practice your movements."

"Already have been, sir."

"Atta boy." Jeraldine disappeared into the side hall.

"Where's LeRoy?" Anderson asked.

"There," Mark said, pointing.

The tall blonde woman stood with her back to them, but that didn't take away any of the marvel that her costume held. Her down feathers looked like cotton candy and the sorrowful white tone of her down fluff made her look like a strange goddess in a world of normal things. She stood talking to the two canaries, each green with their own highlights of yellow.

"She dies in the play," Anderson mused, noting the erratic pattern of feathers near the curve of her shoulders.

"Yeah," Mark shrugged, "but so do I."

Anderson nodded.

"Mr. Carter?" Jeraldine called from his office.

"Yes sir?" Anderson asked.

"It's done."

"What is?"

"Your costume."

* * *

"We spent the last twenty-four hours making it," Susan the mousy girl said. "Isn't it incredible?"

_Incredible_ wasn't the word that Anderson would have used. "Susan," he said, stepping forward to run his finger along one feather. "This is... I don't know what to say."

"So don't say anything," she smiled.

He didn't. For the next ten minutes, he stood there admiring the costume like a crown jewel in a sea of gold. In the faint light piercing through the darkened costume factory, the costume seemed to glow like a thousand suns in an impossibly-faraway galaxy. Bejeweled to perfection and studded with the noblest of inseams, Anderson could hardly believe that the costume before him would soon adorn his shoulders, his naked flesh on stage in front of tens, if not hundreds of people.

_This is it,_ he thought, admiring the crown mantle of feathers before him. _This is really fucking it._

In one week's time, he would stand before the largest audience he had possibly ever acted before and play the role people would kill to get.

He couldn't wait.

**3.**

**Opening Night**

His face looked out at the crowd that began to surge in. Garbed in the Peacock King costume, Anderson's careful, regarded gaze looked out at him as he, his brother and Mark stood in front of the theatre, taking the last few breaths of fresh air they would receive in a few hours. His collar bone roughly exposed, his chin tilted up and his face done to perfection, the man that looked at him seemed nothing compared to the one he felt like now.

"It's really something," Mark said, removing the cigarette from between his lips. "Isn't it, Sam?"

"It is," Sam agreed, accepting the smoke when Mark offered it. He took a drag, puffed it out his lungs, then said, "My little brother, on the cover of _Patronage."_

Anderson smiled. He accepted the cigarette once it was passed to him.

"You nervous?" Mark asked.

"Like hell," Anderson said.

Sam gripped his arm. "Nothing to be nervous about," he said. "You'll do great."

* * *

"You nervous?" the makeup artist asked, applying yet another rhinestone to Anderson's eyelid.

"Not really," he said, making sure to move his face as little as he possibly could. "I mean... I am, but I'm not."

"Indifference."

"Yeah."

Anderson held back a cough. The makeup artist continued to apply the rhinestones across his face as though he were some exquisite cake, made specifically for the queen in a great island in the Western world. When she told him to open his eyes and examine his eye makeup, he smiled and gave himself a quick nod in the mirror. "It looks amazing," he said.

"I'm almost done," she said, taking the base powder and dusting a brush with it. "Now to just make your face white."

"All right."

"And to apply the fake beard."

_Because apparently I can't grow one in three week's time._

He chuckled at the thought. The involuntary reaction forced a scattering of powder up his nose.

_Oops,_ he thought.

When the makeup artist was fully finished—fake beard and all—he looked like a creature out of some twisted Lewis Carrol fantasy. Tall, elegant, broad-shouldered, masculine and beautiful all at the same time, he could hardly believe that he was looking at himself in the mirror. He half expected the wardrobe nearby to open up and Aslan to walk out, for the Cheshire cat to materialize beside him and ask how do you do, such was the case with not only himself, but all the other actors within the theatre, as each and every one of them appeared to be from that wonderful place.

_If this isn't Narnia or Wonderland,_ he thought, _I don't know what is._

"I look amazing," he said, turning his eyes on the makeup artist at his side. "Thank you. Really. I mean that."

"You don't have to thank me, Anderson. You'd do the same for me."

"If I could, I would."

The door opened. A burst of the crowd's excitement followed Edgar Jeraldine in before he closed the door with one stable palm. "How are things coming?" he asked.

"We're almost finished," one of the makeup artists said. "All we have left is the dove and the canaries."

"Anderson," Jeraldine smiled, stepping forward to place his hands on his powdered lower arms. "You look... absolutely amazing."

"All thanks to a certain artist," Anderson smiled.

"Excellent. Beautiful, excellent work. Now go—get yourself on that stage."

"Sir," Anderson said. "I haven't had a full rehearsal in this costume. Are you sure I'll be all right?"

"You'll do great, Anderson. Besides—all you have to do is look like you can work that costume to the best of your ability. No need to think you'll have trouble in it."

_I hope not._

* * *

"Shit," Mark said, stepping aside so Anderson could take place beside him. "You look—"

"Great?" Anderson asked.

"Hell yeah you do."

"You don't look bad yourself, Mr. Messenger Crow."

"The face makeup is a bit much, but I'm all right with it."

True—Mark _did_ look like he'd just taken a fall in a slathering of mud, but that didn't take away from the dour intensity of his costume. The feathers that crowned his head made him look dirty, harsh, like a true crow in the wild after it had just finished fighting with its fiercest foe. He'd look great tonight on the stage, regardless of whatever anyone else may think.

Amanda LeRoy stepped into the room. She looked like the saddest dove any makeup artist could possibly imagine, complete with the sagging black bags under her eyes.

"You look great," Anderson smiled.

"Thank you," she nodded, making her way up the stairs to allow the canaries room for entrance. "You do as well. Everyone does."

Mark smiled.

Anderson couldn't help but grin.

_This is it,_ he thought, looking first from Amanda, to Mark, then to the canaries and the rest of the actors around them. _This is going to be our big show._

"Ladies and gentlemen!" the loudspeaker announced. "Would you please give a warm and pleasant welcome to the owner of the theatre, _Edgar Jeraldine!"_

The crowd erupted in applause.

Anderson's bones shivered with the intensity.

_I can do this,_ he thought, nodding, licking his lips and setting his jaw. _Nothing is going to stop me._

Nothing in the world would keep him from doing the best damn job he could.

If something did... well, he'd just have to push it out of his way.

"Ladies and gentlemen!" Jeraldine cried, throwing his hand in the air as he accepted the microphone from the announcer. "It is my great pleasure to invite you tonight to my theatre for our debut presentation of _Patronage!"_

He waited for the crowd to die down before he continued. As he waited, he scanned the audience for familiar faces—the critics in the front row, the families behind them, the general audience even further behind them. Part of him wondered if maybe Louis had made an appearance, but he didn't bother to think of such things. His star pupil and mystery lover was long gone, now replaced with a newer, even brighter star.

_Anderson better not fuck up, otherwise I'll have his nuts for it._

Smiling, he raised his hand, then slowly lowered it to encourage the few cheering voices down. "Thank you, thank you," he said. "It's always great to know that an audience likes what they see. Before we begin, I'd like to announce a few disclaimers before we begin the play. First of all, please remain quiet while the actors are on stage, and please turn your cell phones off. There will be a score accompanying certain scenes of the play and unnecessary noises will not only affect our actors, but the musicians as well. I would also like to say that there are bathrooms out these doors and to your right if you so desire to use them. So... with that being said, and without further ado, I present to you the _Jeraldine's_ greatest production yet, _Patronage!"_

The crowd went wild.

Anderson looked up from the chain of hands he and the other actors had participated in.

_Come on. You're up first._

He ran.

\- - -

"I am nothing," Anderson said, looking out toward the crowd. "Nothing. Nothing at all without regard."

As haunting as these words were, Anderson couldn't think of Louis or anyone else who had previously performed them. With so much riding on this opening monologue, he cleared his head and looked toward the audience, craning his head back to reveal the ornate makeup at his neck that framed his jugular all the way down to his open collar and chest. At this, he flicked his wings out, nervous at their weight, then returned his gaze to the audience.

"What am I to do?" he asked, looking toward the shadowed shapes in the front row. "What am I to do when there is nothing here for me?"

"Sire?" a harsh voice said.

Anderson looked up. Mark appeared from the shadows, shoulders hunched down and body leaning forward. "Yes?" he asked.

"I am the messenger bearing a message for you."

"Yes? What is it?"

"The Canaries have asked me to let you know that great plight is about to touch your kingdom, our homeland." The crow straightened his posture.

"What plight is this?" Anderson frowned.

"It comes in the form of a star!" the crow cried.

"Wormwood," Anderson whispered.

_Fuck._

Though he had but a short minute to chastise himself, he tried not to think that he may have just whispered too low, despite the strength in his voice and the power in his words.

"Wormwood!" Mark shrieked, jarring him from his thoughts. "Wormwood, sire! _Wormwood?"_

"Wormwood," Anderson nodded, turning toward the audience. "Dear crow, my humble servant, my fortuitous messenger, please bear my own message to the canaries. Tell them that I have dreamed a dream in which Wormwood did fall. Tell them that our kingdom will soon be ravaged."

The curtains fell.

Anderson breathed a sigh of relief.

"That was amazing," Amanda LeRoy said.

"Thank you," Anderson said.

No one said a word as they prepared for the next act.

* * *

The end of the play came with a standing ovation and a chorus of applause. Poised in the center of the twenty-odd people in the play and hand-in-hand with his fellow actors, Anderson threw his hands into the air with the rest of his troupe, then bowed at the waist as the crowd continued to go wild.

"This is amazing," Mark said, grimacing at the intensity of the lights before them.

"It's a great feeling," Amanda commented, squeezing Anderson's hand. "I have to admit, Anderson, you did better than I thought you would."

"So did I," Anderson said, looking out toward the crowd.

As the curtain fell, signaling the end of the play and the beginning of a two-week session of presentations, the troupe stepped back and Anderson took the deepest breath he'd had since the play had begun. Sweat streaming makeup down his face and the costume suffocating him of his own accord, he reached for the zipper hidden within the breast of the ensemble and tore it down his torso, sighing as he stepped out of the costume and into his underwear.

"Anderson!" Jeraldine cried, stepping forward to embrace him. "You did great, son!"

"Thank you," Anderson smiled. "I guess I didn't fuck it up then."

"Fuck it up? _Fuck it up?"_ Jeraldine laughed hysterically. "That was _fucking amazing._ I could hardly believe I had directed this play before. It seemed so... so new, so fresh! Never before have we had a masculine lead such as yourself. You made it your own."

"Thank you, sir. It means a lot."

"Go now. Get dressed. We'll celebrate with dinner after everyone's washed up."

Laughing and hardly able to contain himself, Anderson made his way to the series of mirrors laid forward for the actors to do their makeup. Arranged there in a shape of a heart, a bouquet of flowers with a note boasting his name looked back at him, startling in its portrayal and elegant in its makeup.

Reaching forward, Anderson grabbed the note.

"What's that?" Mark laughed, slapping his back. "Secret admirer?"

"I don't know," Anderson said.

He opened the note.

_Come by the theatre at dawn tomorrow morning,_ the note said. _Signed: Your secret admirer._

"Hurry it up people!" Jeraldine called. "I've got reservations made for the dinner! Don't want to keep them waiting!"

\- - -

"That was amazing," Sam said, stepping out of the dissipating crowd to hug Anderson. "I can hardly believe I was watching my own brother on stage there."

"I could hardly believe I was acting it," Anderson sighed, leaning into his brother's chest. "Thank God, Sam."

"What?"

"I thought I was going to fuck it up. The whole time I was up there... I kept thinking about the things I could improve and the things that Jeraldine might chastise me for."

"Did he?"

"No, but..." Anderson shook his head. He pushed himself away from his brother's embrace and couldn't help but laugh. _"God._ I actually did it, didn't I?"

"I'd say you did. Everyone was talking about it on the way out."

"What?"

_"You,_ Anderson. They were talking about you. And you too, Mark."

"Thanks," Mark said. The sound of his friend's voice made Anderson jump in place. "You ok?" he laughed.

"Just a bit unnerved, that's all."

"Sorry, bro. You shouldn't be nervous about a thing. You were on fire up there."

"You think?"

"I think. And so did Jeraldine, and LeRoy. She's not easy to impress."

"Did she say anything about you?"

"We made ourselves stand out more than we usually do," Mark said, leaning against a row of seats. "I think that surprised a few of the critics, but that's not a bad thing, right?"

"Not at all," Anderson said.

"What're we doing to celebrate?" Sam asked.

"The troupe is going to dinner," Anderson said. "Come with us, Sam."

"I wouldn't miss it for the world."

* * *

"Well guys," Jeraldine said, raising the glass of wine in his hand. "I have to give it to you, you all pleasantly surprised me tonight. I'm not lying when I say that this is the best presentation of _Patronage_ I have seen in a long time."

The small troupe of actors clapped. Anderson smiled as a few eyes fell on his, Mark and Sam's table.

"There's a few people I want to thank for doing their damndest to make sure this thing got off to a good start. First off, I want to thank the three actors that took up their roles a week after they were initially cast—Amanda LeRoy as the Mute Dove, Mark Bringham as the Messenger Crow, and our very own Peacock King, Anderson Carter. These men and this woman have shown time and time again to be a remarkable part of the _Jeraldine's_ troupe and without them, this play wouldn't have been what it was tonight. So would everyone please give them a hand."

Everyone clapped. Anderson stood after Amanda LeRoy and Mark took their place as Gods among mortal men.

"With that said," Jeraldine said, calming the crowd down with both his hands, "I would like to propose a toast—not only to Amanda, Anderson and Mark, but to us, the troupe, the _Jeraldine,_ and the people who have come out to support them. To us!"

"To us!" the crowd cried.

"To the Jeraldine!"

"The Jeraldine!"

"And to the continued success of _Patronage!"_

Everyone cheered, then drank.

Anderson fell back into place alongside his brother and tried not to drown in the dizzying happiness around him.

**4.**

**The Final Act**

Jeraldine sat in his office and counted the money made from the opening night's performance. Though he had no discernable way of keeping track of the funds around him, he kept thumbing the money in his hand, mumbling to himself and silently praying that this play would save his theatre.

_All this,_ he thought, _in our opening week._

A knock came at the door.

"Come in!" he called.

Though the door opened, Jeraldine kept his eyes occupied on the money before him, counting it out as though it would miraculously disappear if he did not know its true amount. Even as the door closed and the unknown figure continued in, Jeraldine kept his head bowed forward and his eyes on the money.

_All of this,_ he thought. _All of this money—_

Something stabbed into his back.

"Take that you old bastard," Louis Décor whispered. "Take that for taking away the only thing I ever wanted from you."

Jeraldine gasped.

He had but one moment to look down and see a sword protruding from his chest before he fell forward.

In the shadowed corridor of his mind, the peacock continued to draw closer, edging its way through the tightened space in which Anderson could go no further.

_Coo coo,_ it said, wicked beak mimicking the movement of actual human lips.

The burning cattle prod long gone, Anderson could do little more than watch as the thing crept closer. Its body shrinking, its torso elongating, its neck stretching like some bizarre slinky atop a feathered body—the bird drew closer and brushed its impossible tail feathers across Anderson's face, gently stroking it down to his naked torso, then to his groin. There, in his most private of spots, the bird stroked his growing erection, laughing as it continued to coo.

_Coo coo, Anderson. Coo coo to you too._

Anderson screamed.

He didn't wake.

The bird laughed and made its depthless eyes glow again.

_I know when you're asleep, I know when you're awake, for I am the_ true _Peacock King. I am the wormwood descending upon your life. I am the one who will ruin you. I am the one who will destroy you. I am the one who will fuck your dead body once this corridor opens and bleed you open like a pig. I am the one—_

_Anderson... Anderson..._

_—who will make you regret ever living again, who will make sure when you sleep, you are never able to sleep again, when you—_

_Wake up, Anderson! Wake—_

The bird drew the closest it had been since his string of nightmares began.

Reaching forward, it tapped his nose with the flat of its beak, then tore it away with one wicked snap.

Anderson flew forward and into his brother's arms.

_"Fuck!_ Fuck fuck fuck!"

"Are you all right?" Sam frowned.

"I'm fine," Anderson said. "Another bad dream. Don't worry about it."

"You honestly can't expect—"

"I think they're going to stop, Sam."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because whatever these dreams mean, they're coming to a close... something in my gut tells me so."

* * *

Two hours later, after he couldn't sleep and the sun was beginning to rise, Anderson crept out of bed, stole into a set of clothes, then grabbed his key ring. From there, he made his way out of the apartment and down into the parking lot, where he fully intended on climbing into his car and making his way toward the theatre.

_What am I doing?_ he thought, opening the driver's side door and sliding into the seat. _What reason do I have for going there?_

Call it a compulsion, call it insanity, but something inside him said that he had to go to the theatre—if not for his secret admirer, then for himself.

Something said that if he didn't go there, the nightmares would continue.

If the nightmares continued, the bird would continue to hurt him, eating him from the outside in until it had nothing left to feast upon.

_I am the one who will destroy you, Anderson._

"I know," Anderson whispered. "Don't worry. I know."

Sliding the key into the ignition, he started the car and merged into traffic.

As he drove, trying not to think about the dream and fighting the growing paranoia in his chest, he tapped his fingers along the steering wheel and took slow, deep breaths in the hope of calming himself down. Eyes trained on the road, headlights dancing in front of his vision, he pulled to a stop in front of a red light and closed his eyes, listening to the sound of the traffic and all it had to offer.

_So peaceful. So... so..._

"Out of this world."

The lights appeared in his vision and he opened his eyes.

A car behind him honked.

He turned and merged onto the next road.

_It's six o'clock in the morning and I'm heading to the theatre. What the hell is wrong with me?_

Nothing was wrong with him, and that's exactly what he would tell himself if he continued to ask that same, inane question. Despite that though, he couldn't help but think that normal, sane actors—much less people in general—didn't get out of bed at five in the morning to drive to the theatre based on some strange compulsion.

_Isn't that life though? Compulsion?_

Some would say so, but those that did only thought of life in that way, that nothing happened with true purpose and only pure compulsion.

_Stop._

All thought ceased to exist inside his head.

Anderson sighed, pulled off the road and made his way into the _Jeraldine's_ parking lot. He killed the engine and took a moment to compose himself before he lifted his head and looked up at the massive array of steps.

_Like the White House,_ he thought. _Or the Lincoln Memorial._

He didn't bother to think if the Lincoln Memorial had steps. He simply climbed out of his car and made his way toward the theatre.

* * *

"Hello?" he asked, opening the door to the auditorium. "Is anyone there?"

As crazy as this whole escapade was, Anderson steeled himself near the door and kept his foot poised between it and the lock. The same thing in his gut that had told him to follow his admirer's will and come to the theatre told him to keep himself as close to salvation as possible. If for some reason he didn't, something bad would happen. He could taste it on his tongue, between his teeth, within the very crevices of his cheeks.

_You're crazy, Anderson. You're fucking crazy._

A pair of lights began to materialize above the darkened stage.

_No... it couldn't be._

Could it, though? Could it really, truly be the Peacock King standing up there on the stage, watching him with its glowing, bottomless eyes, or could it be something else, some trick of the light or something caused from lack of sleep? He'd been under more than enough stress in the past few days, had hardly slept a decent wink for the past week, but that didn't mean something from his dream would just materialize in reality, did it?

_Dreams aren't real._

"Are they?"

His breath caught in his throat.

Something laughed.

_Coo coo._

The lights turned on.

A figure in a dazzling costume appeared before him.

"Anderson, Anderson, Anderson," the figure said, descending the stairs that now led directly up onto the stage in front of the audience. Its long legs looked like stilts and the figure atop them appeared to be dazzled in gold. Rubies, amethysts, topaz, quartz, carnelians, garnets—it appeared wrought with every color and glowed in every light. Brilliant could not describe the way the lights reflected off its body and throughout the auditorium, no. Brilliant was too simple a word, too fickle a thing to ever describe something so beautiful that it was almost physically painful to look upon. At one point as it was descending, legs sparkling and face nearly invisible in the horrible brightness, Anderson had to shield his eyes for fear of going blind, but when the figure stepped out of the direct spotlight, he was able to see just who his secret admirer was.

It was the peacock king, though not the one he had been the previous night.

"Who are you?" Anderson called. "What do you want from me!"

"Who am I?" the figure laughed. "Why, I'm your secret admirer. You should know who I am, Anderson."

_Who could it—_

The thought cut off in his head.

_Louis._

"Louis," he breathed.

"It took you long enough," the man said, seating himself atop one of the theatre chairs and stretching his legs out to balance himself. "Hello Anderson."

"What do you want from me? And where did you get that costume?"

"This one?" Louis laughed. He still continued to sparkle, despite the fact that he was no longer in the direct light. "Why, I had this one custom-built from the one that was being made. Do you know why, Anderson? Do you know why you have come here or why I have had this costume made?"

_"Why,_ Louis? Why?"

"Because the world is my stage, and I'm not about to let anyone stop me from being atop it."

A click later and a gun was pointing directly at Anderson.

"No," Anderson said, raising his hands. "No, Louis. Don't."

"Don't... _what,_ Anderson? _Kill_ you? Why not? You've already taken everything I wanted from me."

"I didn't."

"How did you get the role?" Louis asked, stepping onto the floor and beginning to ascend the incline. "Did you _fuck_ Jeraldine? Did you _suck his cock?"_

"I didn't."

"Oh, I think you did, Anderson, but that doesn't matter anymore."

"Why doesn't it?" Anderson asked.

_That day Amanda came in. Jeraldine's secret..._

"What did you do to him?" Anderson asked. "Louis, what did you do?"

"Why, what else could I do?" Louis asked, laughing. "I killed him, Anderson. You know _why_ I killed him? Because I spent too many fucking hours in that office on my knees to get that part, and what do you and that cunt LeRoy do? You _take it away from me._ _My_ role, the part _I_ was supposed to play, the part you _stole_ from me. Everyone knows I'm a better actor than you."

"No you're not."

Louis stopped in place. _"What?"_ he asked.

"You're not a better actor than anyone," Anderson said, grimacing as Louis continued his ascension, this time at a heightened pace. "You were just the favorite. That was why you always got any role you want."

"That's not true."

"Yes it is, Louis. You know it is. You know why? Because you wouldn't have tried to control everything if you had any real confidence in yourself! You wouldn't have had to suck his cock if you weren't afraid of failing an audition!"

The gun went off.

Before Anderson fell, dazed but unsure if he was shot, he saw Louis Décor raise the gun and press it just below his chin.

"I am nothing," the man said, "without regard."

As Anderson closed his eyes, the gun went off a second time.

_Is this it?_ he thought. _Is this really the end?_

If this was, he couldn't help but laugh.

When a siren began in the distance and darkness began to cloud his vision, Anderson turned his head and looked down toward the stage.

Beyond the body—beyond the tragedy of Louis Décor—he saw the shadowy silhouette of the bird walking toward the stage.

Before it disappeared behind the curtains, it turned to look at him with its glowing white eyes.

_Coo coo, Anderson,_ it said. _Coo coo._

# Elijah

The face of beauty is never enough.

No.

In today's world, a perfectly-sculpted, biologically-manufactured face means nothing if it is not perfect. Age, stress, hormones, mutilation—the fact that so much can happen in such a short time is almost hard to imagine. It's like a ticking bomb waiting to explode. One minute it's a perfect, cylindrical tube, then the next it's a tattered piece of confetti, triggered by a man-made device that made it do the things it did.

Humans don't get to control their trigger.It explodes naturally.

At only nineteen-years-old, Elijah Elmington possessed what many would call the ultimate natural beauty. With high cheekbones, a sharp jaw, supple lips and a pair of sparkling, light-blue eyes, many believed that he bore no more a gift than he did a curse. The color of his eyes often led many to believe him blind. Unbeknownst to them, Elijah was not blind, nor had he been for a minute of his life. A spinal injury that nearly cost him his life as a child had brightened his eyes to the color of fine, virgin crystal. Those who chose to believe otherwise basked in ignorance.

Because of his beauty, men all of all shapes, sizes and ages flocked to Elijah, showering him with gifts, love and affection.

Only those men with wealth and fortune could own his heart.

Only those men ever would.

He went from lover to lover, man to man and person to person over the course of several years, many due to need, others due to necessity. He sat in back alleys, laid in strange beds, and walked on thin lines, all in order to find that one special person.

Elijah only settled down when he found him.

At twenty years his senior, Rudolph Ackles bore the distinction of a fine businessmen. Dressed in suits on the weekdays and corduroy shorts on the weekends, he spoke with a deep, rumbling baritone and a fine, elegant manner. He charmed his associates, wooed his clients, and won over his competition through decisive action and the force of will. He owned half a football team, a chain of supermarkets, and ran a beach resort in the spring.

They lived in the Florida Keys during the summer months.

In his mind, Elijah couldn't get any closer to a perfect life.

With the man of his dreams, the location of his choice and a home fit for kings, he couldn't ask for anything more.

* * *

Tropical mornings always began with orange suns. With an average temperature of seventy degrees, anyone could expect to wake up every morning in total bliss. The sun on their backs, the wind from the open window through their hair, the fluff of a feather pillow against their face and the breath of a loved one against their neck—a perfect, Florida Key morning could feel like Heaven on Earth, if only someone allowed it to feel that way.

Stirred from sleep by the shifting presence of his partner, Elijah came out of the dusk of dream and into the day of wake.

"Hey," Rudolph whispered. "You awake?"

Elijah said nothing. He tightened his grip on his partner's hand to acknowledge his words.

"All right. Just wondering."

Settling down, Rudolph pressed his chest against Elijah's back and curled his free hand under his young lover's stomach. In this position—weighted down, but not completely crushed—Elijah couldn't help but feel safe, protected from the cruel, harsh world that liked to judge without trial.

"I'm not getting up for a while," Rudolph continued, gently kissing the younger man's neck. "Don't worry—just go back to sleep."

Despite the words, Elijah already knew he wouldn't. Whenever roused from a sleep so deep and satisfying without the ability to speak or move, he never returned to the land of dreams, to the place where diamonds ran free and sparrows turned green. He may lay there—seemingly asleep, but also awake—but he never returned to that dark, wonderful place.

Beneath the folds of his lover's skin, Elijah sighed.

Tropical mornings began with orange suns.

Humid afternoons always followed.

* * *

As a catalyst to the day that would follow, breakfast always came first. Every morning at nine o'clock, Rudolph would push himself out of bed, into the shower, then into the kitchen, where he would begin cooking the morning's meal. By the time nine-thirty rolled around, Elijah crawled out of bed and made his way toward the front of the house.

Set in a place that offered a wide, expansive view of the beach, the entire western side of the kitchen was covered in windows. From top to bottom and left to right, they extended across the whole front of the room, leaving only enough space for a table and a long chain of curtains to be hung. While the view itself offered more pleasure than anyone could imagine, Elijah often found himself sitting at the table on long, sunny afternoons, watching men in shorts and women in bikinis chase after one another with the utmost abandon.

During those times, he began to long for the outside world.

"Elijah."

Startled, he blinked, clearing the fog of want over his eyes.

Rudolph stood at the opposite side of the counter, shirtless and stooped over a pan of bacon.

"Yeah?" Elijah asked.

"Something wrong?"

"No. Nothing's wrong."

"All right. Sit down—this'll be ready in a few minutes."

"At the table, or—"

"By the counter."

_The counter._

He forced himself not to sigh as he seated himself on a black, leather-embossed bar stool.

Rule one of the Ackles household—pretty boys don't get to sit in the sun.

_Because they'll get sunburnt._

Burned—not _burnt._ Rudolph always said _sunburned_ as _sunburnt,_ a vocal habit that, while not irritating, seemed to mock him all the more. It mocked the fact that he couldn't sit in the sun, for the fact that, if he did, his naturally-pale skin would be tanned, darkened to a milky shade of caramel.

Elijah learned early on that Rudolph liked his men white—no more, no less.

Looking up, Rudolph flashed a smile, one Elijah found hard to return.

_He's not that bad,_ he thought, crossing his arms. _At least he cares enough to watch out for my wellbeing._

Did keeping your boyfriend out of the sun count as caring for your wellbeing?

Regardless, Elijah didn't care. He didn't work, cook, or keep up with the chores as best as he could. He figured if he had to sacrifice one thing, a stroll in the sun would suffice.

"Here you are," Rudolph said, pushing a plate of eggs and glasses of milk and orange juice across the counter. "That enough for now?"

Somehow, he managed to nod.

Even if he asked for more than a handful of scrambled eggs and two drinks, he probably wouldn't get it. It was how Rudolph worked.

Rule two of the Ackles household—pretty boys don't get fat.

Gingerly stabbing at his eggs with a small, three-pronged fork, Elijah watched Rudolph gather up a plate of eggs, bacon and hashbrowns before walking around the counter to sit with him.

"I'm heading to the gym after I'm done," Rudolph said, stabbing a hashbrown with his knife, "then I'll be at work until around four. You have my cell if you need anything."

"I know."

"You need me to get you anything while I'm gone?"

"No," Elijah smiled. "You know me—I'm pretty good at entertaining myself."

"I know," the older man chuckled, pulling Elijah forward for a sloppy, side-of-the-face kiss. "You've always been good at that."

Nodding, Elijah turned toward the window.

You learned to be good at entertaining yourself when you had nothing else to do.

* * *

Waves used to crash in his mind whenever he thought of the ocean.

Now they didn't even exist.

Like gulls bound to the endless torture of the rise and fall of the sea, they sat stagnant out on the open water. Longing to be free—to escape both the terrible agony of encasement and the harsh torture of crucifixion—they drifted from sea to sea and shore to shore, endlessly shifting in the murky wells of life. It seemed that no matter where they went, they faced constant rejection. The back of a hand, the wires of a cage, the scream of a lover or the fist of a friend—they belonged elsewhere, away from the things they wanted but couldn't have.

Elijah belonged with those waves.

Closing his eyes, he leaned back in his seat and began to count to ten.

_Ten,_ he thought, exhaling a breath.

At the age of ten, he remembered falling in love with the sight of blue water and the beaches that barred its passages. He remembered that, on his tenth birthday, he asked to go to the beach, to see the blue and everything it had to offer. He begged and pleaded, cried and sighed and tried and tried, but no matter what he said, his parents refused to take him.

In the end, he got a cake with ten candles lining a long, milky shore, complete with blue sea frosting and sugar-coated palm trees.

Looking back on his life, he couldn't imagine why someone wouldn't want to move to the sea. With its warm, tropical waters and its long, sweeping shoreline, you could walk a thousand miles and never have to turn around. Why not eat the coconuts off the trees and the fish in the sea, if not to enjoy one last, final adventure before life took its toll.

_One adventure I never got._

Although he didn't regret his decisions, he often doubted them. On warm, late night's under Rudolph's gentle, reassuring weight, he couldn't help but think about his past and the things he'd done to get to this point. He couldn't help but remember how, on one fateful night, he walked out of a gas station only to run into a man that would eventually become his partner; how, over the course of a few weeks, he fell in love with a bearded extrovert who wrapped his arm around his shoulder in public and held him close; and how, despite his beautiful flaws, Rudolph accepted him for the person he was. In a way, it helped him realize how lucky—and cursed—he was. Lucky to have a partner who dawdled over him day after day, cursed to have one who loved him so much.

Some people waited their whole lives to be with someone like Rudolph.

Some people never got to be with that someone.

_Why doubt myself now, after I've been here for almost a year?_

He'd made the right choice. If he hadn't, he would've figured it out by now.

Standing, Elijah crossed the room and settled down at the table by the window.

Whatever Rudolph couldn't see wouldn't hurt him.

As long as he was gone, Elijah had all the time in the world.

* * *

An hour before Rudolph usually came home, Elijah pulled out a recipe book and began to look for something that he might be able to cook. Flipping through the pages with the utmost care and selfish, material abandon, he riffled through recipes of salads, jellos, omelets, anything he found he might be able to make. After what seemed like ages, he finally came across something that didn't seem to take much effort.

_Broccoli cheese soup,_ he thought, grabbing a highlighting sheet from the book's plastic sheath. _Let's see..._

Beginning with the vegetables, he ticked off the ingredients on a mental checklist until he came to the cheese. Once there, he reached up, ran a finger across his slightly-stubbly chin, and began to go to work.

By the time Rudolph walked through the door, the soup was almost done.

"Hey," Rudolph laughed, taking a deep breath of the rich, steamy air. "What's all this?"

"I cooked," Elijah chuckled. He didn't bother to turn away from his cooking, already knowing his partner would step up to the counter.

In the silence that followed, Rudolph came forward and wrapped his arms around Elijah's waist.

"What made you want to do this?" the older man asked.

"I wanted to do something nice for you."

"You know that you're all I need, Elijah."

"I know." Elijah paused. Amidst adding a block of cheese and stirring the soup, Rudolph pressed his lips to his neck and began kissing the sensitive flesh between his collarbone. Elijah couldn't help but shiver.

"I have something for you, baby."

"What?" he frowned.

"I have something for you," Rudolph repeated.

Releasing his grip on Elijah's waist, Rudolph stepped back and made his way for the door.

"Rudolph," he sighed, turning the bottom burner off. "You shouldn't..."

"Shouldn't... what, Elijah? Treat my partner to a little gift here and there?"

"I don't have anything to give you."

"I don't want anything. I already have everything I want—you."

Elijah blushed.

Grinning, Rudolph reached into a bag and pulled out a small, black box. The finely-monogrammed stenciling along the front cover echoed in Elijah's head like a harsh yell in a tight space.

"Rudolph—"

"You don't have to take it if you don't want to. Just do me a favor—look at it and tell me if you like it. It's the least you can do."

_Yeah,_ he sighed. _It is._

Reaching forward, Elijah took the box from his partner's grasp and examined the lettering along the front. Running his finger along the cover, taking in each flush and curve, he followed the name from the beginning to end, all the while trying not to set the box down and push it back to Rudolph.

_He shouldn't be doing this._

Maybe not, but he couldn't refuse the gift, not after Rudolph had already gone to the trouble of seeking it out.

Taking a deep breath, Elijah opened the case.

Only within the confines of something so dark could something be so beautiful. With its leather band and its beautiful, bold surface, it shined like a thousand stars in the blackest night as the light reflected off its surface and cast it back in his face. Though blinded by warmth and bedazzled by trust, it wasn't the leather wristband that startled him, but what lay atop it.

"Is this—"

"Yes," Rudolph smiled. "A diamond."

Crystal in clarity, it appeared to have bathed in the finest waters of the Caribbean before humans ever laid hands on it. Under the intense scrutiny of the setting sun, rainbows danced from its surface and nearly blinded him with color.

"Elijah?" Rudolph paused. Frowning, he reached up to run a hand through the hairs on his chin. "Do you like it?"

"You shouldn't have bought me this, Rudolph."

"Why?"

"Because... it's too expensive."

"How do you know how much it costs?"

"Look at it," Elijah laughed. "It's a _diamond_ for Christ's sake."

"You know there's no amount of money that could amount to what you mean to me."

"Yeah, but—"

"I know you might feel like I'm spoiling you just because I can, but you've got to understand something, Elijiah—I wouldn't buy things like this if I didn't want you to have them."

"I know, but—"

"Honey," Rudolph laughed, sliding around the counter and taking Elijah's face in his hands. "Please, quit trying to sidestep the question. Do you like the wristband or not?"

"You don't have to ask. You already know I love it."

"I'm glad."

"Thank you, Rudolph."

"You don't have to thank me," the older man smiled, bringing Elijah into his arms. "Now... if you don't mind me saying, that soup's one of the best things I've smelled in a long time. You ready to eat?"

"Whenever you are," Elijah whispered, setting his head on Rudolph's shoulder. "It's ready."

* * *

There were times when after lying awake for long periods of time, a person could hear the ocean rumbling beneath their house. Like the softness of a kitten's purr or the blatancy of a giant's sigh, the enormity of the waves quaking across the oceans could still someone's heart and move their mind. Oftentimes, the last thing Elijah would hear before falling asleep was the shifting pebbles washed ashore by a silent god who slept during the day and woke during the night, not the even, peaceful breathing of the man who slept beside him.

Closing his eyes, Elijah drew the sheet further up his body and sunk back against Rudolph's chest.

_Why have I ever doubted him?_

Opening his eyes, Elijah set his sights on the wristband resting beneath the welcoming shade of the country lamp. Despite the faint amount of light passing through the open window, the diamond that rested on the band's surface continued to sparkle, occasionally winking at the apple of its eye.

Although Rudolph's overprotective, often-overbearing habits tended to get in the way of regular life, that didn't mean he didn't care about him, did it?

_Of course he cares about me._

But if Rudolph really, _truly_ cared, why keep him in the house, away from the fun and the people in the sun?

_Because he cares._

Reaching forward, Elijah curled his fingers around the wristband.

Before he could pull it back, a sharp, stabbing pain lit the top of his hand.

Startled, he snapped his hand back just as quickly as he had pushed it forward.

Like an unwanted, uninvited guest, a crack about an inch in length reclined against the top of his middle knuckle.

_What the hell?_

Where did that come from?

Could the diamond have done it?

_No,_ he thought, _because the diamond isn't sharp._

Upon further examination, he found that to be just the case. He traced his finger along the side, over the top and around the base of the crystal—even going so far as to examine the multiple metal studs that bordered the length of the band—but nothing he touched could have broken his skin.

_The table?_

No—he'd come nowhere near the table when reaching out to examine his precious gift.

_The lamp?_

Again, his hand hadn't touched the lamp or anything around it.

That had to mean only one thing.

_Oh God,_ _please don't let it be my skin._ Please, _God—don't let it be my skin._

What would he do?

What would he say?

How would he feel when, tomorrow morning, Rudolph woke and asked about his hand?

* * *

In compliment to the previous night's worries, the following morning brought clouds and rain.

Rising at his usual time of nine-thirty, Elijah wandered into the kitchen to find Rudolph at his regular station—shirtless, over the stove, and whistling some bizarre, obscure tune he couldn't even begin to place.

Upon noticing his arrival, Rudolph smiled. "Hey."

"Hey," Elijah yawned.

"You sleep okay last night?"

"A little," he shrugged. "I woke up a few times."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

_God, I wish I didn't._

He hoped the brief glance at his hand didn't give himself away.

Shrugging, Rudolph returned to his cooking, looking up only when Elijah slid past him to get to the sink.

"I don't think you'll be doing the cooking anymore," Rudolph laughed.

"Huh?"

"Your hand."

_Shit._

This time, he couldn't help but look down at the crack in his middle knuckle.

"Oh," he mumbled. "I didn't get that while cooking."

"You didn't?"

"No. I got it in the middle of the night."

"How?"

"I don't know," he shrugged, flicking the excess water on his hands back in the sink. "I woke up and wanted to look at the wristband. When I reached out to grab it, I thought I hit my hand on something, so I jerked it back."

"That's when you found the crack?"

"Uh huh."

"Hmm," Rudolph frowned. "You're okay though, right?"

"Yeah—I'm fine."

"That's good." The potatoes in the pan sizzled. Swearing, Rudolph grabbed the spatula, flipped them over, and moved them onto the second burner. He reached up to wipe a bead of sweat off his forehead a moment after. "Shit. Almost burned your food."

"You're not eating?"

"Can't. Gotta get to work."

"But you're not—"

"Dressed? I showered earlier—all I need to do it put my shirt on."

"Are you sure you don't want to—"

"I'm sure," the older man chuckled. He pulled the shirt resting on the counter over his head, grabbed his keys, and made his way toward the door. "Don't forget to put lotion on that. You don't want it to get worse."

"Yeah," Elijah mumbled, flinching when Rudolph planted a quick kiss on his cheek and made his way out the door. "I won't."

* * *

Roses bloom.

Pain expires.

Skin dries out.

Like a fissure opening across a wide, grand plain in a foreign, third-world country, Elijah's hand continued to crack open over the next few days. Beginning at his knuckle and ending near his wrist, the lines crisscrossed the surface of his epidermal layer until nothing but red could be seen. Pain flared in his hand whenever he curled his fingers, shame lit his heart whenever Rudolph looked at him, and doubt plagued his mind whenever he tried to access the situation.

After all this time—after all this beautiful, marvelous time—he was starting to develop skin problems.

_So it is true,_ he thought, turning his eyes away when Rudolph glanced in his direction. _Beauty really is fickle._

A thorn in your side, an ache in your mind and a crack in your palm—beauty never lasts forever.

"El?" Rudolph frowned. "What's wrong?"

"My hand hurts," he murmured, somehow resisting the urge to look down or clench his fist. "It's been hurting for the past three days, Rudolph."

"What'd you do to it?"

"I didn't do _anything_ to it. I already told you—I reached out to grab the wristband and my knuckle cracked open."

"Maybe you're allergic to the leather," the older man offered, stepping forward. "Elijah, baby, come here."

"I don't want to talk about this."

"Maybe you should go to the doctor."

"And what? Get told I have eczema or some shit? Come on—be realistic."

"Be realistic? _Look at your hand for God's sake._ There's something _wrong_ with you!"

"I KNOW THAT!"

"Then why are you arguing with me?"

"BECAUSE I CAN'T TAKE THIS ANYMORE!" he cried. "I can't take this, Rudolph! It hurts too fucking bad! I can't move my hand, I can't bend my fingers, I can't _pick something up_ without it hurting."

"Come on."

"What?"

"I said come on. We're taking you to the dermatologist."

"Rudolph, we can't—"

"Don't argue with me, Elijah."

"Why—"

"See this?" the older man asked, gripping Elijah's upper arm and bringing his hand into view. "This isn't going to get any better unless we do something about it. You want it getting infected?"

"I—"

"Don't argue with me. Get dressed—we're going downtown."

* * *

"Hmm," the doctor frowned, carefully lifting Elijah's hand into view. "You said this only started happening a few days ago, Mr. Elmington?"

"Yes sir," Elijah nodded, grimacing as the dermatologist placed his hand on the cool, metal table. "I noticed the first crack in the middle of the night, after I thought I scratched or hit my hand on something."

"I see." Pausing, the doctor pulled his glasses off and ran a hand over his forehead. "Well, Elijah, I don't see what all we can do right now. We can run a blood test and a skin graph if you're willing to let me cut into you—which you're probably not, given the state of your hand—but until I have a definite answer about what this is, I can't prescribe anything."

"What do you think it is?" Rudolph frowned. "I mean... if it only happened a few days ago and it's this bad—"

"I think, Mr. Ackles, that your partner may have some form of eczema. Now don't quote me on that, because I'm not particularly sure, but Mr. Elmington's hands here show a fair amount of similarities to the condition."

"You can't give him any cream or something?"

"You mean like numbing cream?"

"Yeah."

"Hell no," the man laughed. "I don't mean to laugh at your expense, Elijah, but numbing cream wouldn't do you any good."

"Then what do you suggest I do?" Elijah frowned. "You expect me to suffer with this until the tests get back?"

"That's really all we can do at this point. Mr. Elmington, would you like me to take a skin sample?"

"Will it scar?" Rudolph asked.

"It's highly unlikely, given the state of his hand," the doctor frowned. "Why do you ask?"

"Because I'm self-conscious," Elijah said, glancing at his partner out of the corner of his eye. "I've been like that since I had my... my accident when I was twelve."

"Oh." The doctor nodded. "I see. Well, there's no need to worry—I'll only be taking a sample of the cracked portion of your skin. Once we get you a decent medication or find out if this was caused by an allergic reaction, you'll be good to go."

"All right."

"I'm going to numb you up a little, just so you don't feel this. It won't hurt immediately, but you'll feel it later. You ready?"

"I'm ready when you are," Elijah sighed, bracing himself for the needle.

A pain like this only lasted a moment.

The experience lasted a lifetime.

* * *

"What was that all about?" Rudolph asked.

"Don't start this," Elijah sighed. "We just got home."

"You weren't supposed to—"

_"I_ didn't do anything. Why did _you_ ask if it would scar, Rudolph? Huh? Because—"

"I thought—"

"Because you thought _what?"_ Elijah laughed. "That _I'd_ care? Don't give me that."

"You little—"

_"You're_ the one who always seems preoccupied with my physical condition. _You're_ the one who won't let me go out in the sun. _You're_ the one that always makes sure I eat only the minimal amount every day. _I'm_ not the one who _starves_ or _forces myself to put makeup on every morning_ before I walk into the kitchen, so don't even _think_ about blaming what you asked on me."

"Elijah," Rudolph sighed. "I just—"

"You just _what?_ Want me to be _pretty?_ Want me to be _beautiful?"_

"I just want you to be all right!"

"Well, too bad—I'm not. I had to listen to a doctor give me a possible eczema diagnosis and have part of my hand cut off today. I'm not in a very pleasant mood."

"Fine."

Elijah turned.

Hands balled in fists, Rudolph simply stood there, red and fuming.

"Fine... what?" Elijah asked, voice softening. "Rudolph?"

"If you're in such a bad mood, I'll leave."

"I didn't say—"

"You didn't _say_ —yeah, I get that, but you don't have to say anything, Elijah. I know you."

"Know me? What are you—"

"Look," the older man said, raising a hand as if to stop himself from stepping forward. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, then expelled it before returning his attention to the younger man in front of him. "I don't want to fight anymore, okay? We've already made it more than obvious that we can't get along right now. So... instead of fighting, I'll leave."

"Why can't I—"

"Because you can't drive, for one. Besides—I honestly doubt you could make your way back here by yourself. It's a small island, sure, but a small island you don't know."

"I don't want you to leave," he murmured. "I just want you to quit yelling at me."

"I wasn't," Rudolph started, then stopped. He took another deep breath to regain his composure. "Never mind—don't worry about it. Like I said, we need some time to cool off so we don't kill each other."

"Why would we—"

"Just... don't. No more, El. Go lay down, watch TV. Do _something._ We've both had a rough day."

Before Elijah could say anything, Rudolph turned and walked out the door.

Something in the pit of his stomach told him there was something more to the fight than just cracked skin.

* * *

Rainy evenings usually ended with hurt feelings.

Half-naked and entangled within the folds of his bedsheets, Elijah opened his eyes in time to see the first flash of lightning on the distant horizon. Arcing across the sky and bouncing off the clouds, the resounding, echoing light continued on for a brief moment until fading away entirely.

No more than a minute later, the rain began.

Slapping against the window, pounding against the glass, crying to get in—a banshee to his doubts, a demon to his fears, it demanded entry, shrill cry rising, then falling as its fellow brethren shrieked in the distance. Shadowy nails scratched at the siding as crystallized drops of ice began to fall from the sky.

_Perfect,_ he thought, drawing the blanket around him. _Just perfect._

All he needed was a thunderstorm to end a perfectly-miserable afternoon.

Rolling over, Elijah set an arm over his brow and stared at the ceiling. Above, the fan shifted, beginning a spin caused not by human interaction, but by the quaking in the distance.

_Giant's feet._

They'd be moving, those men in the sky. Hammers and axes in tow, they'd march across the wasteland in search for things not yet found. Stone monuments long since crumbled, bronze statues long since destroyed, mythical kingdoms and magical castles felled by the elements and those around them—nothing they searched for would be found.

The giants would be angry.

The storm would continue.

The banshee's cries would be heard.

"Great," he mumbled, grimacing as a crack of thunder shook the foundation. "Here I am, laying in bed while my boyfriend's out doing God knows what. You're such a dumbass, Rudolph—such a stupid, _fucking dumbass."_

Pushing himself up, he ran his hands over his bleak eyes and looked out the window.

A chain of lightning lit up the distant, churning sea.

_Hurricane?_

No—there couldn't be a hurricane, not with the shutters open and Rudolph out of the house.

_Goddammit._

Rolling out of bed, he reached for his shirt, pulled it over his head, and started for the door.

In the hallway, a crack of thunder shook a portrait on the wall.

How ironic that the exact picture that would noticeably shake enough to catch his eye would be a sea scene. Drowned in the midst of a storm and shaken in the wrath of waves, a far-off ship floated half-on, half-off a swell, mast torn and barely-visible windows broken.

_A chance of wind, rain, possible thunder and hail. Citizens are advised to stay indoors, wait out the storm, and expect the worst._

Hurricanes could roll in at any time in the Keys.

Last he'd heard, none had been reported.

_We hardly ever watch TV too._

The news, the occasional late-nighter—the flat-screen TV that took up half the northeastern wall sat neglected and was hardly ever on unless boredom required it.

In the kitchen, Elijah started for the phone, bad hand stretching to take the receiver.

The door opened.

Gust billowed in.

A figure stood in the threshold.

"Rudolph?" Elijah frowned. "Thank God. Where the hell were you?"

The rain-soaked figure stepped into the house and closed the door behind him. Turning, he slid his arms out of his coat and hung it on the nearby rack.

"Rudolph," he repeated. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine," the older man grumbled.

"Where were you? I was getting worried."

"Out," Rudolph said. "I was... out."

"Well... I know that. Look, I'm sorry about earlier. I was just upset about what I just had to go through. Come on—let's get you out of your clothes and into the shower. You've got to be freezing after being out in the rain for so—"

Rudolph said nothing.

Separated by no more than ten feet, the older man walked to the fridge, took a deep breath, then drew a knife out of the nearby stand.

"Ruh-Rudolph?" Elijah asked. "What're you doing?"

"Nothing."

"Then why are you—"

"You've broken my heart, baby. Now I'm going to break yours."

"Rudolph," Elijah said, taking a few steps back. "Put the knife down, babe. Come on, don't do this to me. We're good now, right? We've made up—we're sorry for what we said to each other earlier."

"You broke my rules, Elijah."

"What—"

"You sat in the sun. That's why your hand's fucked up."

_Long afternoons sitting in the sun, watching the beachgoers run through the sand and the tide. Scantily-clad bodies in bikinis and Speedos, laughing, having fun as they bathed in that one horrible, forbidden thing, the one thing he couldn't have._

"The sun."

"Yeah," Rudolph chuckled, brandishing the butcher knife before him. "So you admit it."

"I wasn't... why would you—"

"You're supposed to be perfect, Elijah. Nothing's supposed to be wrong with you."

"No one's perfect Rudolph."

"No one but you."

It took one moment for the man he loved more than anything else in the world to run forward and stab him in the side.

It took two for Elijah to reach up and slam his diamond-studded wristband into his loving madman's head.

It took three for the knife to come out of his side and lash at his throat.

Ducking, screaming in pain, he rolled behind the counter and pushed a bar stool out in front of him. Rudolph jumped back just in time to avoid having his foot smashed by the metal finishing on the seat.

"You gonna hide?" the man asked, blood trailing from the blunt wound near his temple. "Is that how we're gonna do this?"

"Leave me alone!" Elijah screamed. "Leave me alone!"

A nearby window shattered.

Glass showered the kitchen in a million starbursts.

Buffeting the house, the banshee rushed forward and slammed into Rudolph's body.

Screeching, neck muscles bulging and chest heaving, the man who used to be Rudolph Ackles threw himself forward.

Elijah closed his eyes.

_This is it,_ he thought, casting another stool in his path. _This is where your life ends._

As the knife drove itself into his chest, Elijah could only think about how much he loved the man above him.

# Dream

_Innocent things aren't meant to burn._

_In an alternate reality of a beautiful, abstract world, a swan swam across the surface of what some had once called Heaven, spreading its wings and beginning to take flight. In this beautifully-tragic world of dreams, screams and queens, creatures lived, ate and drank off the imaginations of unconscious minds, in a world where they could live and die in the briefest of moments. One moment one would live, then the next they would die, struck down by the hammer of something so powerful it was beyond the compression of even those who controlled it. Magical, some might say, were they to peer through the looking glass of a sleeping man's mind, but those who really understood knew the consequences of living in a perfect world._

_They knew._

_They just knew._

_To the south of Heaven stood what some would consider Hell. Horrible, some would say, were they to look through the looking glass of a sleeping man's mind, but those who really understood knew the triumphs of allowing such a sleeping dragon to exist. Breathing fire, pluming smoke, exhibiting its purpose in a violent display of metal—it existed for one reason, and one reason only._

_They knew._

_They just knew._

_Breathing in a sigh of noxious relief, the swan raised its head and stared at the dragon. Alarmed, but not frightened, it pumped its wings and pushed itself back, closer to the string of dying amaranths that dusted Heaven in cherry red and pink._

_In a place of green that killed all it touched, the swan knew the cherry would be safe._

_It knew._

_It just knew._

* * *

Some call dreams the result of cells firing off in the brain in rapid succession. Others call them rapid eye movements, while many believe dreams are something special, something meant to be loved and cherished for all of time. For some, dreams brought nothing more than pain and misery, a constant companion to wake up with you during the day and tuck you in at night.

Just when you thought you were safe, the dreams came and got you.

For men like Kurt Hanson, his dreams were hell.

Roused from sleep by yet another surreal and terrifying nightmare, Kurt pushed himself into a sitting position and ran his hands over his eyes, trying as hard as he could to still his trembling chest and regulate his uneven breathing.

No matter how hard he tried, nothing seemed to work.

In the back of his mind, a child screamed for the light to be turned on.

Sighing, Kurt closed his eyes.

Grown men shouldn't be afraid of the dark.

_No one should,_ he thought, leaning against the headrest. _There's nothing to be afraid of._

There were no swans in here, no dragons threatening to jump out of his closet and eat him whole. What did he have to be afraid of?

_Nothing. Absolutely nothing._

Defeated, Kurt rolled over, slung his legs over the side of the bed, and stood.

With a shake of his head, he made his way toward the door.

It didn't take too long for him to wander into the hall and make his way into the kitchen, into a place where happiness used to abound and where dreams used to be fulfilled.

_Before the swans... before the medicine..._

"Before the divorce," he whispered.

How something so little could turn into something so big, he didn't know. All he knew was that after he started having the dreams, and after he started leaving the house late at night to go see a psychologist to keep his problems from his spouse, his wife got suspicious and decided to end the marriage.

In the end, it didn't matter. He didn't need another person to suffer his dreams, especially not a woman he loved so much.

Making his way across the room, Kurt opened the fridge and pulled out a carton of milk. His choice beverage for late nights, he'd often warm it up and take it back to the bedroom with him after calming himself down. Sadly, that usually took a good hour of contemplation or a half-hour of reading, neither of which he could afford to indulge in.

"Gotta get up in the morning," he chuckled, pulling his milk out of the microwave.

As a tenth-grade biology teacher at the local high school, his job afforded him few benefits. With his meager pay and employment options slim to none, he couldn't afford to pass up any work, especially in the current state of the economy.

Raising his glass, Kurt set the rim to his lips and drank.

In the back of his mind, the boy told him to turn on the light.

He did.

* * *

"All right, all right!" he called, raising his voice over the roar of the classroom. "Settle down, guys. You had more than enough time to talk between classes."

Pausing, Kurt waited for the students to stop chattering before he turned and began writing on the blackboard. With chalk in hand, he wrote _Aves: The Classification of Birds._

"Now," he smiled, "as you all know, my main interest in biology is the study of birds—or, like I've just written, _Aves._ As we all know, all species of animals are listed under the Kingdom Animalia. Now, the kind of animals that would fall into Kingdom Animalia are dogs, cats, pigs, horses, hippos, elephants—basically, anything that isn't a virus, plant or fungus. Now, in the Kingdom Animalia, there are several different subclasses that fall underneath it. I've given you the class of animal the bird is— _Aves—but_ I'd like you to tell me what the next classification is."

As expected, the class said nothing. Some flipped pages in their biology books, while others simply dazed off into the distance, looking at things Kurt already knew weren't there. This lapse of silence allowed him a look around his class. His eyes quickly fell to Bernice Sinclaire, a young Asian woman who'd quickly proven to be intelligent beyond her years.

_Come on, Bernice. You can do it._

One of the few students who continued through their textbooks, Bernice looked up in time to catch Kurt's wandering eyes. She smiled, but quickly bowed her head back into her book.

"I'll give you a hint," he continued. "It's two words. The first starts with P."

"Phylum Cordata!" Bernice shouted. With a blush, she bowed her head. "Sorry, Mr. Hanson."

"It's all right, Bernice. But yes—you're right. Phylum Cordata is a class of animals that have backbones. _Aves,_ like I just said, is the class birds fall in, and Phylum Cordata is the kingdom that birds are in."

"I don't get it though," another boy said, then frowned. "What's the point of knowing what class or what kingdom an animal is in?"

"To split them apart to classify them better," Kurt said, crouching down to pull out a taxidermied woodpecker. "Like animals are placed into classes, they're further divided into orders. See this woodpecker here? It'd fall under the Piciforme, which is the order of bird that has two front and hind toes for clinging onto vertical surfaces. Follow me so far?"

The enthusiastic 'uh huh' that followed made Kurt laugh.

"It's confusing at first, but it's really easy once you get into it. Basically, it's broken down like this. Now, I hope you were paying attention, because I'm going to break down a bird for you."

Beginning with the Kingdom, Kurt scrawled _Animalia_ onto the board. Under that, he wrote _Phylum: Cordata_ then _Class: Aves._ He continued all the way down to the Species, until the board resembled a work of scientific art.

Stepping back, Kurt set his hand on his chin to examine his work.

_Kingdom: Animalia_

_Phylum: Cordata_

_Class: Aves_

_Order: Ciconifformes_

_Family: Accipitridae_

_Genus: Haliaeetus_

_Species: Vocier_

He could hardly believe he'd written that all from memory by the time he reviewed it a second time.

_You'd think I'd have a better job with as much schooling as I've had._

"Mr. Hanson?" Bernice asked.

"Yes, Miss. Sinclaire?"

"What do you want us to do with this?"

"I'm... not particularly sure," he frowned. "It's a bit of writing—and a lot of work, especially for someone who's never tried to classify birds—but I think it's a good exercise. At least, it was for me."

"You're not going to," a male student began.

"Oh no, Mr. Peters—I'd never give _sophomore high school students_ a challenge." Nervous chuckles followed Kurt's statement. "Tell you what—anyone who's willing to give me the bird that I've just classified will get fifty points of extra credit."

"Fifty?" Bernice frowned.

"Yes, Bernice—fifty. It's an awful lot of extra credit to pass up on, especially for those of you who are failing."

_Which is most of you,_ he thought, forcing a smile, despite the tension in the air.

"All right everyone, here's what I want you to do for today's assignment—and before you start groaning, don't worry, you're just reading the chapter on birds in your books."

Kurt couldn't help but laugh.

Even if teaching didn't pay well, at least it could entertain him.

* * *

At around five o'clock that night, Kurt collapsed into his leather recliner and nearly fell asleep five minutes later. Tired from grading papers all day and trying to arrange a successful trip to the local raptor exhibit, he couldn't help but begin to doze off.

When the smell of feathers and dust filled his nose, he shot forward and nearly fell out of his seat.

_Shit._

Gasping, he took a deep breath and ran a hand through his hair. Even his semiconscious dreams seemed to be filled with birds nowadays. Why, he didn't know, but he didn't particularly care. He just wanted them to end.

_They won't though. You know that._

"Yeah," he sighed. "I do."

The reality of his dreams and the emotions that came with them was all too real. With an anti-anxiety and sleep aid medication he'd been prescribed just before his wife left, no one could say that he suffered in vain. No one—absolutely _no one—_ could say that what he experienced wasn't real, and _no one_ could even begin to question the sanity of a man who dreamed of birds and woke in cold sweats because of it.

_Because they_ are _real,_ he thought. _Because it_ is _real._

He went to bed with them every night.

If anyone knew, it was him.

* * *

In the midst of black despair, anything and everything could happen. Your heart could give out, your mind could implode, and the muscles in your arms could tighten, all because of a simple need to be understood.

Sometimes, when anxiety took hold, you lost control of orderly thought.

Normally, Kurt would have begun his night with the usual routine—eating dinner, flipping through his planner, rearranging upcoming assignments and reading, complete with a glass of milk. Tonight, though, that whole routine had gone out the window and decided to take a swim.

Racing through his heart like a runner on the grandest of playing fields, fear took hold and broke him in two.

The conscious part wanted to go to bed; the semiconscious one wanted to remain awake.

_It'll come back,_ the voice of trouble said. _You know it will._

"No it won't," Kurt whispered. "Not if I don't let it."

_It doesn't matter if you don't want it to—it still will._

"No. I'm stronger than that."

_Stronger?_ the voice laughed. _Since when, Mr. Hanson? Since when have you graded your papers and given yourself an A-plus? Huh? Since when? When was the last time you did that, Kurt? When was the last time you went to bed without a pill? Or, better yet, when was the last time you went to bed with your wife? When was the last time you held her in your arms before she found out what you were doing at night?_

"I wasn't doing anything," he sighed, closing his eyes. "I needed help."

_Help?_ Help? _Since when has a man like you needed_ help, _Kurt? Since when?_

"Since I started dreaming and my life fell apart."

_Then pick up the pieces, old man, and put them back together. It won't be long before whatever's in your dreams starts trying to come to you._

"That won't happen. Dreams don't come to life."

_Since when?_

"Since forever."

The voice silenced.

Kurt made his way toward the bedroom.

Before he could get to the end of the hall, the little boy inside him asked for the light to be turned on.

* * *

"Sir... Sir? Mr. Hanson?"

"Yuh-Yes?" he managed, raising his head. Through bleary, bloodshot eyes, he saw Bernice Sinclaire standing in front of his desk with a paper in hand. "I'm sorry, Bernice."

"It's all right, sir. I... uh... finished the extra credit."

"You did?"

"Yes sir." She passed the paper across the desk. "You classified an African fish eagle."

One part of him couldn't believe it, yet another part of him could. The part that could knew that Bernice Sinclaire hadn't passed up a bit of extra credit in the two years she'd sat in a class, while the part that couldn't questioned why a student with a perfect GPA would want to buff her grade up past its already-outstanding one-hundred-and-twenty-percent. Was it because her shy, gentle demeanor forced her to please anyone she met, or did it have something to do with the fact that, out of all the other students, Kurt paid the most attention to her?

_Oh,_ he thought.

It all made sense now.

Bernice had a crush on him.

"Bernice," he smiled, running the edge of his thumb along the Asian girl's fine, exquisite handwriting. "I can't believe you did this."

"Why?"

"Because your grade's already higher than any other student's in the entire school. Keep this up and I'll have to start flunking you." Laughing, he returned his eyes to find Bernice's face lit with a startled expression. Upon this revelation, he couldn't help but laugh again. "Don't worry, Bernice—I'm not going to flunk you. I have no reason to."

"I know, sir." The girl looked down at her feet. Somehow, Kurt resisted the urge to glance over his desk. He would see nothing more than Mary Jane's—he already knew that.

"Was there something else you needed, Bernice?"

"No," she said, beginning to turn. She stopped in the middle of her motion and turned her eyes on Kurt. "Is there something wrong, sir?"

"No," he smiled. "I... I just didn't get enough sleep last night, that's all."

Bernice said nothing.

She returned to her desk without another word.

It unnerved him more than anything to know that even a teenage girl could see the pain in his bloodshot eyes.

* * *

On long, lonely drives home from the high school, he thought of his wife and how he lost her because he sought out medical help.

It had started innocently enough.

One night, after waking up for the third time in a row, he forced himself from the drenched, sweaty depths of his bed and decided once and for all that he would be getting help.

That help came in the form of a psychiatrist named Jane Austerson.

Jane gave him more than just pills. She gave him a divorce.

After repeated calls to his home phone when he specifically instructed that all calls should be sent to his cell, Amanda came home one night to find five different messages that hadn't been deleted from the answering machine. Because of a late night at the school supervising a local science fair, Kurt had forgotten about everything other than his job and what was in front of him.

When he got home that night, he found a note next to the answering machine.

The words still rang in his mind whenever he thought about that fateful night.

_Have fun with Jane,_ the note read, _because I'm sure as hell not sticking around to wake up alone at night._

She asked for nothing. Not the house, not his second car—nothing.

In the end, she wanted nothing more than a confession.

She never got one, because Kurt never had anything to confess.

_Nothing you can do now,_ he thought, shifting gears and merging into the other lane.

For the most part, he'd let Amanda go over the years. While he still missed her presence—her warmth in bed, her smile in the morning, her touch at night—he didn't blame her for what she'd done. Amanda had never been one to give in to ideas other than her own. Her parents had raised her that way. How could he blame a person for something so deeply-rooted in their conscience?

_Because you were the telling the truth._

He didn't bother to speak or voice his opinion.

Grown men didn't talk to ghosts of unforgotten past.

* * *

_The dragon belched._

_Spewing forth a mixture of green and brown from the bowels of its gut, the long, metal-necked creature shifted. Smoke plumed from its nostrils and heat exuded from its surface as the contaminated contents of its stomach were ejaculated into the river. The water—once blue, beautiful, and full of wondrous life—sizzled as the bile touched its surface. Parts of the tainted surface even exploded, sending chunks of debris into the air._

_Frightened, the noble swan spread its wings, trumpeting its call as the surface near the dragon bubbled and changed. Green turned to brown, then slowly turned to black as the mud beneath the surface shifted. Strangled plants that dared to grow near the surface curled in defeat as their leaves turned black and their stalks gave way._

_In the distance, ghosts with black snouts carried barrels marked with a symbol._

_A tear spilled down the swan's face._

_After all this time, they'd finally come back._

* * *

"This here's the great horned owl," the raptor center tour guide said, raising his hand to point out the large, nearly-invisible bird sitting in a nearby tree. "They stand at eighteen to twenty-seven centimeters and can have wingspans anywhere from three to five feet."

"They're also found anywhere from subarctic North America to Central and South America," Kurt added. "Right, Dr. Darian?"

"Yes," Doctor Matthew Darian said, readjusting the wide-brimmed hat on his head. "They're not usually found anywhere near El Salvador and near the southwest, but they're highly adaptable to whatever environment they're in. They've been seen nesting in rainforests, in deserts, even highly-mountainous areas. Once they choose an area, they're usually there for life."

"How come they don't move around?" a student asked.

"Well," the doctor said, "many animals are like us, young man. Once they find a place they like, they're not very willing to leave."

"Unless they come," Bernice mumbled.

Almost all eyes turned on the young Asian woman,

"Pardon?" Darian asked.

"Them," Bernice said. "You know... _them."_

"Who's _them?"_ Kurt frowned. "Bernice?"

Bernice said nothing. Instead, she raised her arm and pointed.

Hidden in the distance behind a dusty hill and a brown, dying patch of deciduous trees, the beginnings of a chemical plant could be seen extending into the sky. Like a volcano, smoke poured from its surface, breathing new life to a world that never wished to experience it.

Smokes, toxins, chemicals—all flew freely from that tower into the sky.

All it took was one path—one mechanism—for them to be freed from the hands that made them.

"Oh," Darian sighed. "I see."

"What?" someone asked.

"What's she talking about?" another added.

"Us," Bernice said. _"Them."_

"What do you—"

"She's talking about encroachment," Kurt said. He, too, sighed. The thought threatened to force images of death and terror into his mind, but he managed to supress them, forcing them into the parts of his mind that he hid from the rest of his world. How he did it, he didn't know, but he figured the process resembled the healing one; how, when Amanda and Jane entered his mind, he simply blocked them out, shoving them into the closet with the rest of his skeletons.

"Yeah," the biologist said, removing his hat and running a hand through his hair. "I can only imagine how many birds and animals died or lost their homes when they put that damned plant there."

"Many," Bernice nodded. "Too many."

_Too many,_ Kurt agreed.

A bird flapped its wings nearby.

It wasn't until he opened his eyes that he realized the air had not been disturbed.

* * *

"Mr. Hanson," Bernice said.

"Yes?" Kurt asked.

"Was I wrong?"

"About what?"

"In saying what I said?"

"No, Bernice—you weren't wrong about anything."

Seated at the front of the bouncing, shaking bus, Kurt and his star pupil remained as silent as they could. While students in the back of the bus tossed spitballs and notes, and while the few in the middle talked in hushed voices, those in the front remained silent, indifferent to the words around them. Maybe it was because of the closeness of the girl who spoke, or maybe it was because the teacher sat nearby. Regardless, it spoke so much of what had happened back at the raptor center.

_Unless they come._

"Unless they come," Kurt nodded.

"Mr. Hanson?"

"Huh?"

"Did you say something?"

"Nuh-No," he managed. "No, Bernice—I didn't."

Bernice turned to look out the window.

A moment later, Kurt understood why.

No more than a mile away, the chemical plant continued to spew its gasses into the air.

At the foot of the metal monstrosity, what was once a beautiful lake continued to exist. Like a touch of heaven, it extended across the area and disappeared behind a patch of dead trees.

Just before the lake could completely disappear from view, Kurt thought he saw a cluster of dying amaranth growing along the shoreline.

* * *

It took all his willpower to make it through the day.

By the time he got home, he was ready to burst.

Faced with the all-too-true reality that his dreams could, in fact, be real, Kurt paced his kitchen and tugged at his hair, taking deep breaths in order to keep his head earthbound. It seemed that, at any moment, it could simply pop off his shoulders and go into orbit, rotating around the Earth until it finally burned in the atmosphere.

_This can't be happening,_ he thought, tears tracing the curve of his face. _This can't be real._

The lake, the raptor center, Bernice—nothing seemed right anymore. Fifteen-year-old girls didn't magically know everything about birds, raptor centers didn't stand a few miles away from chemical plants, and radioactive lakes didn't exist in lands so tropical and lush.

_It wasn't lush though, Kurt—it was dead._

"Dead," he mumbled. "Yes... dead."

Nothing could live in those conditions. Just because he happened to see a patch of amaranths growing along a tainted shoreline didn't mean a swan swam through those lakes, endlessly drifting across a cloud of green. It didn't mean that a dragon breathed its fire and choked out its toxins, and it didn't mean that dreams—no matter how surreal or bizarre—could suddenly become real, traced from the board of a magical artist in the sky.

No.

No matter how coincidental the amaranths may have seemed, they were nothing more than coincidence.

Pushing himself through the cloud of doubt that plagued his heart, Kurt opened the fridge and pulled out a glass of milk.

He'd rather face his dreams where they belonged than in the real world.

* * *

_With its head bowed, the swan picked what little grass, twigs, and pieces of mulch it could. Every so often, it would come across a complete stalk of dead greenery that would be useful in constructing a nest, but those times were few to none. What once would have been an expansive nine feet of grass, twigs and other organic nesting matter now consisted of no more than three feet of debris._

_Though small, the swan would take what it could get, especially in these conditions._

_Settling down inside its circular construct, the swan bowed its head and continued to watch the water. Alert, yet drowsy, it barely noticed the activity taking place across the lake, mostly because it didn't need to. It'd become accustomed to the metal cats and the lumbering, sleeping dragon, as well as the ghosts that instructed who and what to where. What need did it have to watch them when they did nothing but destroy?_

_Closing its eyes, the swan began to take deep breaths._

_One, two, three..._

_By the time it reached the fourth, it issued a long, hard cry, hoping someone would call back._

* * *

An avian scream shattered a false reality.

Shooting upright as fast as he could, Kurt reached up and ran his hands over his face, desperately scrambling to remove any and all traces of irradiated water. With moisture running down his face and fear coursing through his veins, he kept at it, scratching and clawing with the utmost abandon. Eyes popping out of his head, skin melting to his cheekbones, lips sewing together with needles fitted with acid, it took less than a minute for Kurt to realize he'd been dreaming.

Sighing, he collapsed back into bed.

"God," he sobbed. "I can't deal with this anymore."

If his dreams were affecting him to the point of violence, he'd have to go back to the doctor, back to the woman who ultimately ruined his life.

_No._

Regardless, nothing would make him go back to Jane Austerson, not in a million years. She'd done too much to his life already. He needed no more involvement with her.

Rolling over, Kurt pushed himself out of bed, then crossed the room until he stood in front of the nightstand.

The beautiful bane of his existence sat no more than a foot away.

_Ambien._

Ambien—his love, his friend, the one and only thing that kept him company in the dark hours of the night. Unlike anything else in his life, it had stuck with him through all the hard times. Through the blood and sweat, through the tears and fears, through the night and into the light—whatever his situation, whatever his location, Ambien was always there, watching over his sleeping mind from the bedside nightstand.

_All good things must come to an end,_ the devil in his backyard said. _All good things must come to an end._

"Yes," Kurt sighed. "They do."

Reaching forward, Kurt grabbed the bottle and made his way into the bathroom.

Once inside, he popped the lid off the toilet and dumped the pills down the drain.

His problem was gone.

Hopefully, another wouldn't come.

* * *

Saturday mornings took the least of his effort. With no school and without any last-minute planning to do, Kurt laid in bed for most of the morning, repeatedly hitting the snooze button on his alarm clock until it stopped ringing altogether.

He only woke up because the phone rang.

Without looking, Kurt reached over and grabbed the phone.

"Hello?" he groaned. "Do you know what time it is?"

"Um," a female voice said. "Noon?"

"Bernice? Is that you?"

"Yuh-Yes suh-sir, it is."

Kurt sat up and pulled the phone's body onto the bed. He readjusted his position before speaking.

"I'm sorry, Bernice—I didn't know it was so late."

"It's all right, sir. I... I'm the one who should be sorry. I called you."

"You can call anytime you want."

_Shit,_ he thought. _I_ did not _just say that._

He could only imagine how _that_ could be taken out of context.

"I mean... if you need anything, don't hesitate to call—I'm always here for a student."

"I know." Bernice paused. A faint clicking—possibly caused by nails or a pen—echoed through the phone and into Kurt's ear.

"Bernice?"

"I don't know how to ask this, Mr. Hanson."

"Then ask however you think it should be asked."

"Can... can you... uh... tuh-take—"

"What're you trying to ask, Bernice?"

"Can you take me out to the lake?"

There—the bombshell, lit right in the middle of the hallway and detonated no more than three feet away. Connected by only a cord and activated by a girl's voice, it rattled the inside of his skull to the point of incomprehension.

"Huh?" he asked.

"I want you to take me out to the lake, sir. You know... where the... where the amaranths were."

_The amaranths._

So, despite his doubts, he _hadn't_ been seeing things.

_This changes everything._

"Bernice," he began, lowering his voice, "why are you asking this?"

"I—"

"Don't bullshit me, Bernice—I know what you saw just as well as I did."

"I'm not—"

"Why're you pausing then? Why not come right out and say it?"

"Because I saw something out there!"

"What'd you see out there? Huh, girl? Tell me! _TELL ME!"_

"I SAW IT!"

_"WHAT?"_

"THE SWAN!"

If two words could end the world, could end your life, what words would they be? Would they be the words you say on your wedding, or those you said at your grave? Would you say _I do,_ would you say _goodbye,_ then long to look at the sky?

At that moment, Kurt didn't know what to do.

His mind had locked up.

A bird preened its feathers.

An avian screamed.

The sky opened.

A dragon tried to swallow him whole.

"Mr. Hanson?" Bernice whispered.

"Yes, Bernice?"

"Will you take me to the lake?"

He didn't need to be asked twice.

* * *

"Why would they do it?" Bernice asked. "Why destroy something beautiful when there are so many other places to build?"

"I don't know," Kurt sighed, sliding up beside her. "I wish I could tell you, Bernice, otherwise I would."

"I do too," she whispered. "Then maybe I'd know why people would want to kill without mercy."

Though he didn't say anything, the answer sat on the tip of Kurt's tongue, waiting to lash out at the girl like a snake to its ill begotten prey.

_When Eve took the apple,_ he thought, _she wasn't thinking about the consequences._

Had Bernice thought about the consequence to her question? Did she consider that, since the dawn of time, men had killed for reasons so vile—so _inhumane_ —it had begged to question whether or not they were really human? Did she consider the reasons why men killed—how, in times of desperation, a man would kill his wife for money, or eat his baby for food? Did she consider that, hundreds of thousands of years ago, men killed for mercy, for honor, for glory? Did she consider that famine could take control of a sane man's mind and cause him to do horrible, unbearable things?

_Did she consider that we're the same way now?_

Kurt highly doubted it.

"Mr. Hanson?"

"Yes, Bernice?"

"Why did you yell at me when I said I saw the swan?"

"You scared me. You said you wanted to go back to the lake and I thought... I thought..."

"You thought what?"

"I thought you might've seen something."

"Something like what?"

_Something like the thing in my dreams..._ _Something like..._

"The swan," he said.

Kurt's blood chilled.

Bernice said nothing. She merely waited for him to continue.

"Bernice," he sighed, running a hand through his hair. "You've got to understand something. Now... before I tell you this, you have to promise to keep this between us, okay? I know you're smart, and I know you wouldn't intentionally try to hurt me, but I could lose my job if someone found out I was being so personal with a student."

"I'm not going to say anything, sir. You can trust me."

"I know," he smiled, "I wouldn't have brought you out here if I thought otherwise."

Turning his eyes up, Kurt scanned the nearby area. From the trees to the rocks, to the tiny, minute details of dead or dying shrubbery, he observed everything, calculating each and every detail. He used this distraction in order to better serve his purpose.

_How does a full-grown man tell a teenage girl that he needs medicine to help get him through the day?_

How does anyone tell anyone anything?

Sighing, Kurt ran a hand over his face. He turned to look at Bernice shortly after.

"Bernice."

"Yeah?"

"I've been taking anxiety medication for the last three months."

Bernice stayed silent. Whether out of indecision or insecurity, Kurt couldn't tell.

"I wouldn't have told you if I didn't think it was necessary," he finished.

"Sir," she sighed, closing her eyes. "That was when your wife—"

"Yes. That was when my wife left."

"And you brought me out here because—"

"You asked me to."

"Because I've—"

"Been dreaming about the swan too."

Again, Bernice went silent. The sparkle that lit her eyes when she turned her head to look at Kurt only confirmed his point.

"You don't have to give me the specifics, Bernice—just tell me what you see."

"Ghosts... dragons... cats with metal teeth... the swan."

"What kind of swan is it?" he asked. "Tell me."

"A trumpeter."

_A trumpeter._

Once nearly hunted to extinction for their feathers and skins in the sixteen to eighteen-hundreds, the trumpeter swan was well known for its distinctive call. Sounding like a trumpet played by the greatest of players, the birds could grow up to five feet long and live up to twenty or thirty years. They also mated for life, displaying the well-renowned heart-shaped courtship dance that was ever so famous during the Valentine season.

_So,_ Kurt thought, looking out toward the lake. _If there really is a swan on the lake, why is it here?_

The possibilities began popping into his head almost immediately. What if the creature considered the lake its home—territory destroyed, yet sentimental? Could it be flightless by genetic default or from the affect of radiation? What about its current state of health? Radiation affected animals in different ways. Frogs could have multiple legs, fish could become transparent, kittens could be born one-eyed—why not birds immune to radiation? If it just so happened that the bird somehow managed to become immune to the chemical, what could that do for human science? What could a bird—an animal, not in the least bit related to humans—provide the medical world?

_What if it's something else though? What if... what if..._

What if the bird was still mourning?

What if it had lost its mate?

_Just like me,_ he chuckled. _What if the damn bird lost its wife, just like me._

"Mr. Hanson?" Bernice asked. "Do you see something?"

"No," he whispered. "I don't."

* * *

He only saw in his dreams.

Closing his eyes, Kurt tilted his head back and exhaled. His first cigarette in years in hand, he took slow, shallow breaths, exhaling only when he felt the need to release the smoke from his lungs. At this point, the only real connection to the world he seemed to have was the burn.

If he lost the burn, who knew what would happen.

_I don't._

Taking the longest breath he'd had since he started smoking, Kurt pushed himself forward and set a hand on his knee. Slowly, and with the utmost care, he dangled the cigarette just over the edge of the recliner, careful not to singe or burn the leather.

"All right, Kurt old buddy—like it or not, you've got a job to do."

Next on the agenda—procuring a bird cage large enough to hold a trumpeter swan.

* * *

"You're looking to catch a swan?" Matthew Darian frowned, carefully bringing a blindfolded peregrine falcon onto his arm.

"Yeah."

"How come?"

"I have reason to believe there's a rogue cob living around the lake."

"You mean Heaven's?"

"Heaven's?" Kurt frowned. "Is that—"

"Yeah—that's the lake all right. It's called Heaven's." Darian grimaced as the falcon tightened its grip. Thankfully, his gloved arm ensured that no damage would be done. "It's pretty much gone to hell over the past few years. We tried to relocate any wildlife we could, but... well, you know how radiation is—there's not much you can do once you're so far gone."

"How many birds from there are here?"

"Oh... I don't know, maybe ten, twelve or so. A lot of them got transferred to other centers or zoos in the area, or were reintroduced into different parts of the area. I wasn't personally involved with the transferring. I just went out and brought whatever I could in."

"You didn't see any swans?"

"No. Not at all, which makes it even stranger that you think there's a swan still living in the area."

"It's not only me."

"Oh?"

"A student of mine says she saw the swan too."

"When?"

"The other day, when I brought the kids with me."

"Are you sure she wasn't seeing things?"

"Bernice wouldn't 'just be seeing things'—she's the smartest girl in the class. She wouldn't see a trick of the light and say that she saw a bird."

"How do you know?"

"Because she called me at home and said she saw it out on the lake. Added to the fact that she probably knows just as much about birds as I do, I think I've got a pretty solid argument, don't you?"

"Yeah. I do." Turning, Darian slipped the bird back into its cage and undid the blindfold. Once secured, the falcon hopped onto a low branch and proceeded to watch both men with indifferent, calculating eyes. "Look," he continued, sliding his hands into his pockets. "I can lend you a cage, but only under the circumstance that you capture the animal and bring it back here. Anything else and I'm highly likely to lose my job. We clear?"

"We're clear," Kurt smiled.

"Just one question... are you really going to have a student help you catch a bird that's half the size that she is?"

"I don't know," he shrugged, his mind already made up. "We'll just have to see."

Kurt couldn't help but smirk.

* * *

"I don't get it," Bernice said, taking a step back as Kurt lugged cage out of the back of his truck. "How are we going to get it to go into the cage, much less get close to it?"

"Simple," Kurt grunted. He dropped the cage down near the dead treeline and took a deep breath. "We camouflage it."

"Sir... I hate to be rude, but what makes you think the bird's going to go into an enclosed space like that?"

"Again, simple." This time, Kurt reached into his pocket, withdrew a piece of string, then reached into his other pocket and pulled out a small, ticket-sized object. Orange in color and covered in plastic, he dangled it in front of the girl's face, waiting for her to respond. "Know what this is?"

"Uh..." She paused. Without waiting for Kurt to offer any suggestion, she reached forward, took the tip of the plastic between two fingernails, and held it down so the light could bounce off its surface. "Pheromone."

"I wanted you to guess," he chuckled.

"Sorry," she blushed, relinquishing hold of the tag. "Mr. Hanson... if I may."

"Hmm?"

"What makes you think the swan's male?"

"How big did you say it was?"

"At least five, six feet."

"There's the answer to your question. The females don't get that big—only the males do."

"Oh. Right."

Crouching down, Kurt braced himself on the edge of the cage and prepared to tie the pheromone. With careful, steady fingers, he dangled the tag between the metal slats, then secured it when he felt it was in the right place. In the bottom left-hand corner, the tag wouldn't be easily seen, especially after he and Bernice began the masking process.

"Ok," Kurt said, pushing himself to his feet. "You ready for the dirty work, Bernice?"

"I... guess," she frowned.

"Good, because we've got a lot of work to do."

Without another word, Kurt turned, opened the bed of the truck, and pulled out a long strip of tarp.

"We're going to cover the cage with this," he explained," then cover the outside and inside in mud."

"Mud?"

"Mud," Kurt grinned. "Whoever said catching a bird was easy?"

"Not me," Bernice mumbled, accepting the gloves Kurt offered. "Oh well. It'll all be worth it in the end, right?"

Nodding, Kurt sighed.

They could hope so.

* * *

Downwind and more than half a mile away, Bernice and Kurt watched the scene through large, telescopic binoculars. Taking turns and switching off every three-to-five minutes, Kurt watched the opposite treeline and the area beyond it, while Bernice surveyed the water, carefully tracing the shoreline with simple but precise movements. Every minute—every _second_ —counted, especially when working on a deadline.

_By dark,_ her father had said. _Otherwise, I know who to call._

'Who to call' would be the local police department.

Kurt could only imagine the kind of hell he'd be in if he got caught with a sixteen-year-old girl on a Sunday afternoon. The _she's just a student_ excuse wouldn't fly over well, not with all the sex scandals going on.

_If the parents decided to sue._

Knowing Bernice's father's overprotective and daddy's-little-girl nature, he'd press charges in a heartbeat. It was surprising enough that the man had let his daughter go with a man more than three times her age.

_Must not think I can get it up._

A snort escaped him.

Startled, Bernice jumped.

"Sorry," he chuckled.

"What was that about?" she giggled.

"Nothing. Just thinking about old times, that's all."

Bernice shrugged and went back to surveying the lake.

_It's moments like these I wish I had a child._

Though he considered the girl to be a student and nothing more than that, just looking at Bernice forced parental feelings out of hiding and to the tip of his heart. Swimming like startled children in the midst of a shark attack, they fluttered about his heart, warming his chest and forcing a long-dead flower to bloom. His heart—his orchid—exploded, sending forth the energy which, normally, allowed the average man to decide to have children.

Sadly, though, Kurt wasn't the average man. At fifty-three, his charming expression and outgoing demeanor were quickly fading. He'd long stopped dying his hair to its normal dark color and trying to hide the laugh lines with a beard. What purpose would it serve, if only to make him feel more secure?

_I'm not out to impress anyone. Not anymore._

With the love of his life having flown from the coup, there was no reason to dye his hair or shave his face.

Like a fading memory, he would simply move forward, continuing to help whoever and whatever he could until the day he died.

"That's why we're here," he nodded. "To help the swan."

Taking one final glance at Bernice, Kurt accepted the binoculars and peered through them.

Sometimes, the looking glass could be dark.

Sometimes, all you had to do was rub it off. Then the fog would clear.

* * *

"It's not coming," Kurt sighed, shivering as the first drops of autumn rain began to fall. "We have to go."

"But what about the swan?" Bernice frowned. "What happens if it goes in the cage and gets stuck?"

"It's warm enough in there. We made sure of it. Besides, think of it this way—most trapped animals don't have the luxury of a homemade shelter to spend the night in, do they?"

"I guess not," the girl sighed, rising. "Thanks for bringing me out here, Mr. Hanson."

"You don't have to thank me."

"Are we going to come out tomorrow?"

"Yeah. We've got to."

"When?"

"After school. Your parents will be working, right?"

"Like always."

"Good," Kurt said, leading the way to his truck. "Meet me in my room after school tomorrow. That way, we can come straight out here without having to dodge around each other."

"Sounds good."

Sliding into the driver's seat, Kurt reached up and secured his seatbelt in place. Once Bernice did the same, he put the truck in gear and surged forward, back onto the dirt road that led toward the chemical plant.

For the next few minutes, neither Kurt nor Bernice said anything. With the haunting echo of the rain pitter-pattering on the windshield, nothing needed to be said. The sound alone spoke for them.

_What you're doing is wrong,_ it said. _What you're doing is against nature._

_But so is what they're doing,_ Kurt thought, trying as hard as he could not to look at the fading megalith in the rearview mirror. _What they're doing is more against nature than anything me or a teenage girl could do._

Did two rights make a wrong? Did two wrongs make a right? How about two rights and two wrongs—what did that make? Did they cancel each other out, or did they simply play their course, settling their karmic disagreement in one right and one wrong? Did those gods care? Did they care whether you took a swan from its natural habitat, and if so, would your debt be removed if you saved one from a slow and painful death?

At that particular moment, Kurt didn't care about right or wrong.

He wanted to do something right.

By God, he would.

* * *

_One by one, a bird ate pearls by the shore._

_Deliberately stepping over the catastrophic remains of rotten flesh and tattered skeletons, the swan bent its head and removed each pearl from the centers of the creatures' bodies. Oftentimes, it would simply duck its head through the ribcages and pull the pearls out unscathed, content with its reward. Those few times it suffered a wound, the bird would instinctively pull its head back, then dive back in, attacking the bones with its beak until they were all but shattered._

_In this process, the bird began to bleed._

_Because it bled, the bird gave life._

_Starting with the grass, the ground around its feet bloomed in color. First, grass would spring forth from the dead and rotten mulch that littered the ground, followed by the butterflies that had lost their wings on a long summer night. Wrought from a needle and thread in the sky, the butterflies' torn membranes would sew back together. Their wings, their eyes, their antennae and their proboscises—all would come together in the blink of an eye, as though death never kissed them and took them to his bed. These things—these beautiful, magnificent things—would start as one, then become some, then become much more._

_When the blood touched the water, something miraculous happened._

_A lily bloomed._

_White in color, with a virginal pink undertone springing forth from the base of its stigma, the flower dangled in place for a single moment before drifting toward the center of the lake. As though menstruating, the color bled throughout the whole flower, tainting it whole until it finally turned a vibrant, bright pink. Once one flower matured, another was born, birthed from the gift of blood and the power of sin. They continued to bloom like this until, finally, the whole of the lake was covered with lilies._

_As the swan continued along, plucking pearls from the corpses of long-dead animals, its spirit began to wane. Its eyes glossed over, its feathers started to fall and its skin began to rot. Starting with the chest, the membrane evaporated away until a beautiful viscus could be seen underneath. Pumping organs, bleeding veins, throbbing muscles and pulsing tendons—all dwelled beneath a surface meant only to reflect, not to be seen. In this act of kindness—in this act of pure, malevolent violence—the swan raised its head._

_A pearl clasped between its beak, it began to cry._

_Blood poured from its eyes and ran down the naked remains of its body as it slowly turned to dust. Bones broke free of a musculature structure and collapsed to the ground. Once settled, they'd burn, sizzling like summer on a long, hot day until, finally, they disintegrated completely._

_When the bones fell until, finally, only the spine, skull and legs remained, the swan closed its eyes._

_Its skull collapsed._

_The pearl fell._

_When it hit the water, the world bloomed._

_All the swan ever wanted was a home—a beautiful, beautiful home._

* * *

A disturbing prospect rocketed Kurt's mind as he made his way toward Bernice's home, sending his thoughts into overdrive and his functions into failure. Dressed in his Monday's best, he tried not to think about the dream and what it might have meant.

What if—by some odd, bizarre chance—the swan was already dead and gone, torn apart by the chemicals that rested in the water and grounds surrounding the lake? What if it managed to carry itself into a place he would never find? A hole, a tree, a rock, a hollow—it could be anywhere if it happened to die overnight.

_Don't think about that,_ he thought, drumming his fingers along the curve of the steering wheel. _You're not stupid—you wouldn't have set that trap up otherwise._

Then again, what instinct had he followed? Not logical, because logical instinct didn't govern itself by what a teenage girl said, and not mechanical, because a single part of his life didn't rely on the existence of the swan.

If not logical or mechanical, what instinct had he followed?

_Natural?_

Could he even begin to question natural instinct when he was on an anti-anxiety medication? Could he possibly, _truthfully_ allow himself to wander in that direction, led by the hand of a drug that altered his mental state in order to make him feel happy?

No. Not in a million years.

Regardless, he hadn't been the only one to see the swan.

Bernice was the key—the key to the lost, forbidden kingdom he had no chance of entering.

Pulling in alongside an old, beat-up suburban, Kurt disengaged the vehicle and cupped his face into his hands. Although he tried as hard as he could not to cry, he couldn't help but shed a tear or two over the claw tearing away at his chest.

_Get a hold of yourself, Hanson! Not now, not in front of a student!_

Grunting, Kurt hurled his head back, only to slam it into the window that covered the back of the compartment.

_"Fuck!"_ he screamed. "Fucking _fucker!"_

"Mr. Hanson?"

He jumped and hit his head on the ceiling.

"Oh, God!" Bernice cried, running to the driver's side window. "Sir! I-I'm so sorry! I didn't mean—"

"It's not your fault," he groaned, reaching up to rub the back of his head. "Don't worry, Bernice—I'm fine. Just having a little breakdown, that's all."

"Are you okay?"

"Don't worry—I'm fine. Just get in the truck so we can get this over with."

"What's wrong?" the girl frowned. "Why are you upset?"

"No," he sighed, shaking his head. "Just... just get in, Bernice. I'll explain on the way."

The girl did as asked.

Not long after, Kurt started the truck and pulled out of the driveway.

* * *

He mowed his way through mid-afternoon traffic. In and out, up and down, left and right and side to side, it seemed that whatever way he went, he ended up stuck again, lost to the roads of the higher, mechanical gods.

"Goddammit," he whispered, grinding his teeth together. "This is just what I need—to be stuck in traffic."

"You could go out the back roads," Bernice offered.

"What?"

"I said you could go out on the back roads."

"Oh... okay."

"You never thought of that?" Bernice laughed.

"Uh... no," Kurt said, returning his attention to the road as the traffic in front of him moved forward. "To tell you the truth, I'm not much of a back-roads driver. I get lost too easily."

"Isn't that what a GPS is for?"

"Let me let you in on a little secret," he chuckled, lowering his voice as though others might hear him. "Teachers don't make near as much money as they should."

"I figured that."

"I couldn't afford a GPS to save my life."

"Better safe than sorry," she shrugged. "I guess you'll be staying on the main roads then?"

"At least until we get out of town. From there to the lake is pretty much a straight shot through."

"All right."

"Bernice... before we get there, I want to tell you something, something that we'll most likely run into with the bird we're trying to rescue. Are you listening?"

"Yes, Mr. Hanson. I'm listening."

"I don't know what's wrong with this bird or why it's staying in a radioactive area, but whatever it is, it can't be good. I'm only telling you this because I'm not sure what we'll run into. For all we know, the bird could be growing extra legs or rotting from the inside out."

"You think we have a chance, Mr. Hanson?"

"A chance at what?"

"Saving it."

_God, I hope so,_ he thought, taking one last glance at Bernice.

He didn't know what he'd do if he had to tell her the swan was dead.

* * *

Kurt waited for the needle to drop the moment he pulled off the road. Like a constellation set only to appear once every few years or a comet that passed the Earth every other century, disengaging the vehicle and preparing to step out of it felt like the last thing he would ever do.

In a minute, he would be out of the truck and on the ground.

In two minutes, Bernice would be at his side, waiting for him to lead them forward.

In three, they would find out whether or not the swan had wandered into their trap.

_Come on, big guy—you can do this._

What would stop him, if only himself?

_Nothing_. _Nothing at all._

They'd come too far to turn back now.

The only place to go was forward.

"You ready?" Kurt asked, looking up when Bernice appeared beside him.

"I'm ready when you are, sir."

"I'm ready."

_Ready as I'll ever be._

With the thought fresh in his mind, Kurt gestured Bernice forward and began to lead the way toward the lake, taking extra care to direct them around the juts and dips in the path. Signs of human presence could be seen almost everywhere they looked. Litter blanketed the side of the road, chemical burns smiled from the safety of tree bark, and long-abandoned nests lay in trees, suspended by branches and only moving whenever the wind came up. Kurt imagined what this place might have looked like three or four years ago, before he moved into town and before the government decided to plant their roots.

_It would've been beautiful,_ he imagined, _with flowers in bloom and grass on the ground._

Greenery would extend as far as the eye could see. Amaranths would grow along the shoreline as they did now, but in abundance, while squirrels and other rodents would chatter in the trees, chewing nuts and speaking to one another in ways only rodents could. Birds would fly above, deer would graze in the distance, and swans would glide in the water, spreading their wings and bellaring cries of just, for this land was theirs and theirs alone.

Once upon a time, the world dreamed it could never be taken away.

Once upon a time, man evolved from simple, stupid apes and took control of everything.

_We don't deserve to live here. We don't deserve to tear down forests to make our homes. We don't deserve to dump our oils into the seas or pollute our breeze. We don't deserve to crack the ground, fill it up and break it down. We don't deserve to make our marks in the rocks or send our bombs to make our shocks. We don't deserve this—we don't deserve anything, not when we kill without mercy and eat with gluttony._

In the end, what _did_ they deserve? Surely they didn't deserve a home, because if they truly desired a place to live, they would've made room for the ones that came before them, and surely not space, because if they really, _truly_ wanted somewhere to go, why not the sky, up in the mile-high? Their towers may grow and their explosions may blow, but never once had the sky been filled with filth. Never once had the sky been filled with foreign bodies to the point where they couldn't populate it. Long gone were the giant birds of prey and the large whales that played. Long gone were the machines of legends, of dirigibles and steam-powered planes and cranes. Long gone were the shadows of time and the light of past, and long gone were the things of dreams, of physical rainbows and magical play bows. Long gone were the things that inhibited them, the things that, up until the twenty-first century, had restricted them from doing anything they wanted.

Long gone were the guilty inhibitions man had once harbored.

In the day and age they lived in, choices could be made.

Beautiful things didn't need to die.

Nature didn't need to be destroyed.

Homes could be made elsewhere, if only in the sky. Gasses could be natural, energy could be pure, and lives could be saved, if only they tried.

_This is it,_ he thought, turning to look at Bernice. _This is where the world ends._

A man named Frost once wrote a poem about how the world would end. In that poem, he talked about heat, cold, the disease of mold. He talked about what they'd do, how they'd be, how they'd see; and in that poem, he tried to warn them about the things they would do, about how they would bring about the end of the human race.

In that poem, Kurt had found meaning.

In that poem, Kurt had found hope.

And last but not least, he found a message, a message that everyone with a right mind should have already learned.

"Are you ready?" he whispered.

"I'm ready," Bernice whispered back.

Reaching back, Kurt spread his fingers and took the girl's hand.

Together, they walked forward, into a future that lay upon one simple swan.

* * *

Darkness shrouded the inside of the cage, blocking out any wary, unwanted eyes. In the midst of a clouded, darkened place, Kurt couldn't help but feel a sense of dread growing inside him, locking onto his heart and pulsing like a rotten, black tumor. Every few seconds, a pair of tiny spiders would crawl up and down his spine, wreaking havoc on his mind and threatening to send his legs out from under him.

All it would take was one bite for him to pass out.

If nerves could kill, his surely verged on the edge of a heart attack.

"Well," Bernice said, drawing her word out to get Kurt's attention. "Do we just grab the tarp and pull it up or... what?"

"I'm... not sure," he frowned. "Give me a minute."

Of course, he didn't intend on using the minute for decision. He already knew how he and Bernice would be removing the tarp. Just as the girl said, they'd simply dig underground, grab the secret, hidden flap, and pull it up, thus revealing something—or nothing—in all its glory. The fact that he wanted to use the minute as an excuse to waste more time did nothing to bolster his confidence.

_It's all right, Kurt. Whether it's something or nothing, at least you tried._

"At least I tried," he nodded, falling to his knees to begin the dirty task. "At least we tried."

Reaching forward, he buried his hand in the mud.

Kissing, grappling, molesting, the ground wrapped around his fingers and began to make love.

A worm slid across his finger.

A rock scratched his hand.

A particle drank his blood.

The process completed, he tightened his grip on the metal rung of the tarp and pulled it out of the ground.

"Remember what I told you," he said, pushing himself to his feet. "If it's dead..."

"Don't worry," Bernice smiled. "We tried."

_We tried._

Two words that seemed so little, yet meant so much.

In the last minutes of his normal life, Kurt thought of three things and three things only—his wife, his pills, and Jane Austerson.

When he lashed out and pulled the top of the tarp with him, he had one thing and one thing only on his mind—the swan.

_The amaranths._

_The park._

_The lake._

_Matthew Darian._

_Heaven._

_The dreams._

_The swan._

In the blink of an eye, your world can change.

Kurt Hanson's world changed when he turned and looked at the cage.

Inside, curled into a fetal position with its head resting near the front of its body, was the swan.

Bernice cried out in joy.

The bird ruffled its feathers and let out a low honk.

_There it is,_ he thought, trembling, legs shaking and knees buckling. _It's here._

"There," he whispered, bending down beside the cage. "It's all right. We're not going to hurt you."

The swan brought its head away from its body.

In place of normal, white feathers, mute, tan skin lay under its eyes, crossing its cheeks until it finally faded from its jaw.

_Tears._

The swan had been crying, just like it had in his dreams.

Bernice joined him at his side.

"Is this it, Mr. Hanson?" she asked, setting the palm of her hand on the front of the cage. "Is this the swan?"

"Yes, Bernice. This is it. This is the swan."

* * *

"How bad is it?" Kurt whispered.

"I'm not sure," Darian sighed, reaching up to wipe a hand over his brow. "For the time being, we'll just have to wait for the blood tests to come back and keep a close eye on it. There's nothing else we can do other than that."

"What's wrong with it?"

"Radiation burns, as you've already pointed out. It also seems to have some feather damage near the proximal and a weakening of the calamus. Its feathers are just barely hanging in there."

"Is it going to be okay?"

"Again, I'm not sure."

Turning, Kurt looked up at the nearby cage the bird rested in. Head to its breast, it slept soundly and without a care in the world.

_Probably for the first time in months, maybe even years._

"Will you be able to tell how long it's been in the lake?"

"Maybe, maybe not. Depending on how and why the bird was able to live in such drastic conditions, it might be immune to the radiation altogether."

"What about the chemical burns and the weakened feathers?"

"Again, maybe just an uncomfortable side affect. I highly doubt the bird would still be alive if it didn't have some kind of advantage."

"I guess you're right," Kurt sighed.

"What about the girl?" Darian frowned. "What's her deal?"

"She's been helping me catch the thing."

"Why do you need her help?"

"If you haven't noticed, Matthew, I'm nearly fifty-three-years-old."

"That's not what I meant."

"I know," Kurt laughed, slapping the doctor's shoulder. "She's the one who spotted it. Besides—like I said, it's getting harder for me to move around. She did most of the work when we were disguising the cage."

"A girl who's not afraid to get dirty," Darian nodded, reaching up to rub his chin. "Sounds like a future wildlife specialist to me."

"No kidding."

Bernice looked up from the outside lobby. She smiled when she caught Kurt's eyes, then returned to flipping through her magazine.

"What're you going to tell her if the bird dies?" Darian frowned.

"Just what I told her before," Kurt said, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall. "At least we tried."

Darian nodded.

Before he turned to look at the swan, Kurt caught a smile on the man's face.

* * *

Over the next few days, Kurt made repeated visits to the raptor center in order to keep an eye on the swan's progress. During these visits, he would accompany Matthew Darian into the observation room, help tend to the ailing creature, and survey the results of the tests and X-rays whenever possible.

"I don't know how it's survived all that time," Darian said, setting a sheet of test results on the nearby table. "It's... just... wow."

"It's _what,_ Mat?"

"Unreal is the only word I can think of."

"Why?"

"Well... given the amount of radiation that's in its system, it should be dead at least three times over."

"What the—"

"Don't ask me," Darian shrugged. Sighing, he slid the paper into a manila folder and turned his eyes down it. Across its surface, S – 001 was scrawled in neat, if somewhat-scratchy handwriting. "Kurt... can I tell you something?"

"You can tell me anything you want to, Mat. You know that."

"I don't think the swan's going to make it much longer."

Kurt stayed silent.

What could he say to such a revelation?

"How do you know?" he finally asked.

"Just... the way it's been acting. It hasn't eaten since you brought it in a few days ago."

"Why didn't you tell me this?"

"I didn't want you to worry."

_"Didn't want me to worry?_ Are you fucking _nuts?"_

"Kurt—"

"I've spent the past three months _dwelling_ on my life and you're telling me _not_ to worry?"

"Look," Darian sighed, shaking his head. He grabbed the folder, walked around the table, and opened a file compartment. He slid the folder into its specified, alphabetized block. "I'm sorry, Kurt. I didn't want you to stress on this, so I let it slide. If I'd've known you'd react like this, I would've never kept it a secret."

"It's all right, Mat. Don't... don't worry about it."

Crossing the room, Kurt stooped down beside the cage and set his hand against the glass. Though not awake, the bird sensed his presence and ruffled its feathers, briefly shifting in order to compensate for the disturbance.

Like Dr. Darian had said, the swan had barely touched its food or water.

_Why?_ he thought. _Why now, after all we've been through?_

The swan opened its eyes.

It blinked.

A crystal-colored tear slid down its face, perfectly lining with the burned gap of its feathers.

"It's crying," Kurt whispered.

_What?_

"I said it's crying."

"No it's not."

Kurt jumped.

Darian kneeled beside him, watching the swan with curious, intense eyes.

"How long have you been there, Mat?"

"Just as long as you have."

Startled and unsure, Kurt turned his eyes back on the swan.

Like it never even opened its eyes in the first place, the swan continued to sleep.

_Living,_ Kurt thought.

_Breathing..._

_Dreaming._

* * *

That night, he sat at the kitchen table with the single, overhead light bulb on. Dangling from a lone strand of wiring, it swung back and forth like a pendulum waiting to seal a Renaissance man's fate. Like that Renaissance man, Kurt's fate—and wellbeing altogether—hung in the balance, suspended by a single piece of string attached to a lit, burning switch.

Any moment now, the string would catch fire.

When the spark reached the trigger, it would explode.

Who knew what would happen after that.

_Nothing's going to happen. Your life doesn't depend on what happens to a swan._

Maybe not, but it sure felt that way.

Lifting his glass, Kurt took a long, hard swig of milk, then stood and made his way to the sink. There, he ran water through the glass, all the while thinking of the creature and why it wouldn't drink.

_Can it even drink anymore?_

He thought of his dream and how the swan turned to dust. Starting with its skin and ending with its bones, it collapsed from the inside out, eaten alive by something not living, yet not quite dead.

_Chemicals don't live,_ he thought, _and they don't die either._

To think that everything that happened to the lake had been caused by man was almost unbearable. An entire ecosystem—an entire _paradise_ —gone, all because someone decided to build and dump on it.

_Why?_

Why did they do it? Why, of all things, did people want to cause suffering, especially to creatures that had no comprehension of what was happening?

"Why?" he growled. "Why why _WHY?"_

With each word, he slammed his fist on the counter, sending vibrations through the woodwork and an ache up his arm. Lacing through his nervous system like a bat out of hell, the pain connected to his brain in a series of electromagnetic shocks, forcing him to realize his action.

_Stop._

"I did."

The little boy tugged on his shirtsleeve.

_Mr. Hanson?_

"Yes?"

_It's time for bed._

Kurt nodded.

Taking the child's hand, he let the boy lead him back to the bedroom.

He didn't forget to turn the light off.

He left it on.

* * *

"Bernice?"

"Yes, Mr. Hanson?"

"I want to tell you something. Are you listening?"

"Yes. I'm listening."

"The swan might die."

"What?"

"I said the swan might die."

"I heard you. I mean... why..."

"I don't know. All I know is that it might not last much longer, maybe not past the week. I want you to come to the raptor center with me after school today."

"But my father—"

"Now's your last chance, Bernice. We have to say goodbye... before it's too late."

* * *

Bernice wanted to say goodbye.

Trudging through the throng of after-school crowds, she made her way to Kurt's truck and clambered inside without a word. When she offered no greeting, Kurt gave no reply. When he offered no reply, she made no comment.

He didn't dwell on the silence.

He started the truck and pulled out of the faculty parking lot.

Through the streets, across the canal, over the bumps and around the ridges, he made his way out of town and toward the raptor center. With the radio on low, nothing could be heard except fading static and voices as they left the vicinity of radio towers.

White noise filled his ears.

A swan skull entered his mind.

He blinked to clear the vision.

_Why is saying goodbye so hard?_

Omniscient gods could answer the question. Goodbye was hard because there was never another hello, never another hug or kiss. Goodbye was hard because you would never see the someone or something you loved so much again. One minute it was there, the next it was gone, just like that. What happened when grown men wanted to sleep at night but couldn't because the little boys inside them wanted the lights on and teenage girls accepted the world face-forward without question or doubt? Really, what happened? What source of right and wrong skewed itself in order for such a thing to be possible?

_Life? Death? Both?_

Kurt expelled a held-in breath.

Bernice jumped.

"I'm sorry," he said, shifting gears so he could slow down. "I would've never gotten you involved in this if I'd've known this was going to happen."

"How could you have known? It's not your fault."

"Still... I feel guilty."

"I know what it's like to lose people, Mr. Hanson." Bernice paused. She looked down at her hands. What once used to be freshly-manicured fingernails were now only stubs of their former selves. "Do you remember what you told me, sir?"

"What?"

"That, regardless of whatever happened, at least we tried."

"I remember."

"Don't think this is your fault, please. We already know whose fault it is."

Kurt nodded.

He needed no explanation.

* * *

"Kurt?" Darian frowned, looking up from his desk. "Miss—"

"Sinclaire," the girl finished. "Bernice Sinclaire."

"What're you doing here?"

"We're here to say goodbye," Kurt said, draping an arm across Bernice's shoulders. "We figured it would be better to do it now than later."

"You're right. It's better you came now than later."

"What's wrong?" Bernice frowned.

"It's on its final breaths," the doctor sighed.

Neither of them said anything.

Standing, Matthew Darian turned, arched his back, and gestured for them to follow.

The whole while they followed the wildlife biologist, Kurt tried not to think about the swan and how, within a few minutes, it could easily die. He tried not to think about how he would feel, Bernice would feel, or what Dr. Darian would think when the swan took its final breath. Of all these things, he worried about the swan the most.

_Is it suffering?_ he dared to ask. _Is it in pain?_

Knowing Matthew Darian, he wouldn't have let the swan suffer. At this point in time, it'd probably be so full of medication that it didn't understand where it was, much less that it was slowly but surely dying.

"This is it," Darian said. "Are you ready?"

"I'm ready," Kurt replied.

Bernice merely nodded.

With a final, reassuring tip of the head, Matthew turned and opened the door and let them inside.

Resting inside its glass cage and attached to a ventilator, the swan lay on its side, neck stretched out along the length of the floor. A low wheeze could be heard with each rise and fall of the bird's chest. It didn't take a scientist to know it was the machine doing the work for it.

"I'm sorry you had to go through this," Bernice said, resting her head against the glass. "But you know what happens next, don't you?"

The bird blinked. Whether it acknowledged or heard Bernice's words was up for debate.

"There's a place in the sky," Bernice continued, "where all the beautiful birds and ugly ducklings go."

_Heaven._

If not a lake, where?

"I'm glad you got to spend the last of your life around people that cared about you," the girl sighed, closing her eyes as a tear slipped from beneath their folds. "Thank you for reaching out to me. Thank you for letting me believe that anything is possible."

Tears in her eyes, Bernice walked around the examination table and made her way out of the room. She didn't bother to look back at her teacher or the doctor.

"Well, buddy," Kurt said, taking his place in front of the cage. "I guess it's time for us to part ways now."

The swan nodded.

Kurt watched as a tear made its way down its face.

_I don't know who or what you are,_ he thought, pressing his hand to the glass. _All I know is that you changed my life._

"Thank you."

The swan opened its eyes.

_Thank you, Kurt. Thank you for giving me one last chance._

With one last, final breath, the bird closed its eyes and passed into another world.

He thought he heard wings beating in the distance just as the ventilator went dead.

* * *

_In a world of beauty, life and love, the innocent things aren't meant to be burned. They are meant to take flight and never look back, to settle down and never leave again. They are meant to be happy, carefree amongst their kin. Their mothers, their fathers, their daughters and friends—they're meant to look upon one another and see that, for the first time in their life, they really do care. They are meant to see that despite their differences, despite their trifles, they are meant to be as one._

_From the ashes of a fallen empire, a creature rose from its depths._

_Spreading its wings, the newly-christened swan took flight._

_Behind it, another flew._

_Together, and with the utmost care in the world, the swans flew into the distance, toward the land of the sparkling sea and the never-ending sun._

_It didn't matter where they went._

_They had all the time in the world._

# War is in the Hearts of Men

On an early morning in late March—when it had, surprisingly, not rained or snowed—I rose to a day I could not begin to contemplate. John, the late riser of the two of us, remained in bed, unaware that I had departed to face the day emotionally alone.

As usual, I made my way into the kitchen and started breakfast. Today, eggs, bacon, and moderately-burnt toast would greet our plates. It would be no different from normal days.

_Of course._

Chuckling, I greased the pan, cracked the eggs, and started the oven, sighing when the sharp sizzle of yolk started up. It would only serve testament to how the rest of the day would go.

"Hey."

I looked up. John stood in the threshold, hands braced against both sides of the wall. His dark hair matted to his face, his nearly-silver eyes watching me from behind a mess of fringe, he waited for me to respond, eyes trailing to the egg.

"Hey," I smiled.

One thing he'd always been able to do, despite my mood or the circumstances of my day, was make me smile. I'd learned over the years that, if you're with a good person, and that person can read you without even opening your cover, a man can make you smile with his very presence.

"I didn't know you were getting up this early."

"Why not?" I asked, flipping an egg. "Why wouldn't I get up?"

"I don't know," he said. "I—"

"It's your special day, John."

He said nothing, just like I'd expected him to. Instead of standing there, waiting for me to possibly say something further, he crossed the short distance from the arch that led from the living room to the bar, where he took his place, rubbed his eyes, and waited for breakfast.

_You could at least try to talk to me,_ I thought, sighing as I turned to replace the eggs with bacon. _It's not like I'm trying to shut you out._

If anything, I tried to do the opposite. What was the point of having a partner who didn't talk to you, or couldn't communicate? John knew I'd talk; he knew I'd listen.

"Here's the eggs," I said, dumping them out onto a plate large enough to feed both of us. "Eat as much as you want."

"Thanks, Markus."

I nodded. The bacon—sizzling worse than the eggs—taunted me. Like John, it would burn if I didn't treat it carefully, so I made sure to pay extra attention to it between quick glances at the man who sat at the table, gingerly spearing eggs on the tip of his fork as though they would jump up and bite him.

"You okay this morning?" I decided to ask.

"I'm fine," he said. "Thanks for asking."

"You don't want to talk about this?"

"Please, don't badger me, Markus."

"I'm not badgering you," I said. "I—"

He let his fork fall from his hand, storming off before it could clang against the plate. I swore, turned the oven off, and tossed the underdone bacon into a tray, running out into the hall to find the bathroom door open only a sliver.

_He never shuts the door,_ I thought, _even if we've had a fight._

Steam rolled from its opening, wafting into the hallway like water from a broken sink. It pooled at my feet when I stepped up to the door, then constricted my ankles when I stood in front of it, like an anaconda waiting to swallow me whole. I entertained myself with this bizarre—if somewhat morbid—fantasy for a few short minutes, then leaned against the door, raising my hand to knock.

"John?" I asked, gently rapping my knuckles against the oak wood. "Can I come in?"

"Yeah."

I pushed the door open and stepped into the room, grimacing at the heat that rolled from the shower and against my skin. Like it usually did after a fight or troubling disagreement, it forced droplets of water from under my skin—particularly my eyebrows, which liked to collect it before dropping it into my eyes at choice moments.

"I know you're not going to talk to me about this," I sighed, leaning against the wall, "but please, don't shut me out."

"I'm not shutting you out." He parted the shower curtain, watching with me solemn eyes. "You have to understand something, Markus—I'm not doing this because I want to, I'm doing this because I have to."

"You don't have to do anything."

"Yeah, I do."

He stared at me, waiting to see if I would reply, then closed the curtain. I crossed my arms over my chest, fighting off the thought of whether or not to undress and step into the hot water with him. I didn't think it would matter if I did or not, because showering with him wouldn't fix the fight.

"Are you getting in?" John asked, pulling my eyes from the floor.

"Do you want me to?"

"I'd prefer if you were in here than out there."

Sighing, I stepped out of my underwear and slid into the shower. I leaned against the wall—as I usually did—allowing what water that didn't hit John to coast down my back and off my tailbone. John set a hand on my shoulder once he felt he could.

"Hey," he said, lifting his other hand and tilting my chin up with two fingers. "Don't bum out on me, please."

"I'm trying not to."

"No you're not. You're going to let this eat and eat at you until you're so depressed you won't even talk to me. I'm not stupid, Mark—I know you."

"I..." I shook my head. "It's not worth it anyway."

I wrapped my arms around his waist and leaned against him, kissing his shoulder. He reached out and ran a bar of soap across his chest and under his arms. He warned me when he put shampoo in his hair, just like he always did.

"I won't be gone for more than an hour, two tops," he said, tilting his head back to let the water wash the shampoo off his face.

"I have to work until three anyway. I won't see you until I get home."

"I forgot."

_Of course,_ I thought, but didn't say anything.

I ran my hand down his spine, shivering as I felt the bones that connected to each other. I'd always been afraid of human mortality, especially John's. While hardened by life, his body seemed fragile, held together by only a canvas of skin, and despite the muscle that lay beneath the surface—solidifying the structure of his work of art—it would do nothing to stop the things he would eventually face.

"John," I said, setting a hand on his arm.

"Yeah?"

"Don't do anything you'll regret."

"I won't," he whispered. "Don't worry."

He laced our fingers together.

Our rings touched.

* * *

We ate breakfast and parted our ways—John for his day, I for mine. From roughly eight in the morning to three in the afternoon, I stocked shelves, ran the register, and dealt with unhappy customers in a local supermarket. The drive itself took about ten minutes—depending on the traffic that coagulated the streets from the morning, lunch or night drive—but I enjoyed it.

Despite the reassurance I had that morning, after the shower and during breakfast, I spent the first part of the day dwelling on John and the business office he would be at, talking to a man that he didn't know, but would remember for the rest of his life. I imagined that man asking him questions—who he was and what he stood for. And John, being his usual, polite self, would say his name was John, and that he stood for the goodwill of the American man. I married him for that reason—or 'joined,' as the legal system liked to point out. I couldn't refer to John as my husband in a legal sense, like at a bank or when filling out an account the both of us planned to use. I'd have to say 'partner,' because if I didn't, I'd be corrected and shamed with other people present.

That afternoon, after spending most of the morning groveling, being as pleasant as I possibly could, and cleaning the disgusting employee restroom, I worked the register, cashing people's items, asking them how their day had been, and wishing them to have a good afternoon. I took an overpriced, twenty-dollar DVD from an elderly woman, desperately wanting to tell her that she could get it at the video store for at least half the cost, but unable to for fear that I would lose my job.

"Thanks," I smiled, accepting the twenty-one odd dollars and change, after tax. "Have a nice day."

"You too," the woman said. She turned to grab her purchase, but stopped. Her eyes lingered from the bag to my face, where she stared at me for a long moment. "Is something wrong, dear?"

"No," I said. "Why?"

"You look troubled."

_Of course I look troubled, ma'am—the man I love is going to war._

"I'm all right," I said, pushing her bag forward so she wouldn't have to stretch over the counter to take it. "Thank you for your concern though. I appreciate it."

"Everything will be fine," she said, taking the DVD in hand. "Don't worry."

"I," I began, but paused soon after. "Thank you."

With that, the woman turned and walked away, leaving me to think about life, war, and how John fit in with all of it.

* * *

At lunch, I returned home and slid into the kitchen, where I reached into the fridge and pulled out sandwich ingredients. With knife in hand, I cut fresh ham, cheese and tomatoes, then arranged them between two slabs of bread. I cut the sandwich into two neat halves before arranging three pickles between them on the plate.

_Why not just put them_ on _the sandwich?_ John had laughed, when we'd first started dating. _Or, better yet, why not eat chips?_

_I don't like chips,_ I'd said. _They're too salty._

The memory made me smile, and—most importantly—lit a place in my heart that only John could. Before, when I'd dated, lived and slept with other men, that place had never lit, nor had it burned so long it sometimes hurt. At times during those relationships, I'd questioned _why_ I didn't feel those things, the things that the romance writers and the love movies talked about. I'd wondered why I never shivered when his finger traced my back or smiled when he stepped into a room. And even now—standing at the kitchen counter, remembering something that had happened fifteen years ago—I still wondered why it took me so long to realize that what I'd felt had been true love.

Lifting one half of the sandwich, I took a bite out of it, then bit the head off a pickle. I rolled the two in my mouth—glad that the vegetable hadn't bittered the taste of the sandwich—and repeated the process until the first half disappeared. I ate the second pickle by itself, then started on the third.

I half expected John to come in the door that very moment, laughing and teasing me like only he could.

_John,_ I sighed.

If he left—if he really, truly decided to get on a plane and depart for a desert land far, far away—I didn't know what I would do. Half the time, I depended on him to hold me together; to calm me down after a particularly-frustrating day, or ease my spirits when something troubled me. I ate breakfast, lunch and dinner at his side, showered, went to bed and woke up in the morning with him, repeating the process daily. I couldn't imagine how his absence would feel.

_I don't know what I'll do if you leave,_ I thought, somehow feeling guilty that I was eating without him. _Please, John—_

_Markus—_

_Just listen to me, please!_

_I've already decided—I'm going._

_You don't_ have _to go though!_

_Yes I do. My father—_

_Your father wouldn't want you to be away from me._

_My father doesn't know I'm with you._

_That's my point exactly! What would he think about you leaving if he knew you were with someone? Huh? What would he think if he knew you had a man at home—a husband, one you never told him about—that didn't want you to leave? If you enlist, you'll be gone for months, maybe even years._

_It doesn't matter. I'm_ going _to enlist, and you're not going to stop me._

I stopped fighting with him after that. Of course, I'd tried to persuade him to stay, but I never actually _fought._ Before, I'd bore claw and tooth, armed to the core with emotions only a husband could have, but the strain it put on the both of us forced me to realize something—fighting, especially about something as complicated as enlisting in the military, would only break our stability and, most likely, destroy our relationship in the long run.

With the guilty thought out of my conscience, I finished my sandwich and remaining pickle, then crossed the short distance to the sink. I turned the water on, but snapped my hands back as scalding liquid bit into my skin.

"John," I chuckled, casting a glance at my reddened hands.

He always had a bad habit of leaving the hot water on after he washed something. He liked to 'kill the germs' before he put anything in the dishwasher, or drank a soda he'd bought from the store. To think that he put so much effort into making sure the both of us were safe, then to enlist in the military and put himself in even more danger.

_Quit._

I grabbed a dishtowel, dried my hands, and yawned, fighting a wave of drowsiness that threatened to bring back thoughts of last night. Sleep hadn't come until the knots in John's back had loosened, not until his shoulders had slumped in rest.

A quick glance at the clock brought a grimace to my face. I'd taken five minutes too long for my lunch break.

Turning, I slid my hands into my pockets to make sure I hadn't dumped my keys off somewhere, then left the house.

As always, I locked the door behind me.

There was no reason to let the neighbors in.

* * *

The remainder of my shift rolled on smoothly, secured by both the old woman and the fact that I would see John later that night. I left work feeling as though tonight—regardless of how tense it could be—would turn out all right.

Traffic, as usual, jammed the roads, congealing them with rust and metal. And, much to my displeasure, the streetlights seemed to turn green only once every ten minutes. I could move no more than a few feet before I had to stop to avoid rear-ending the person in front of me.

_It's all right,_ I thought, drumming my fingers against the steering wheel.

John would be at home by now, eating a TV or microwaveable dinner he'd heated up himself. Or, maybe, he made dinner for the both of us, so I wouldn't have to worry about doing it myself.

_Not that it matters._

Releasing my hold on the break when the traffic inched forward, I fumbled for the radio, grimacing as blare of static, electronica and voices exploded out the side speakers. My ears rang for the next half minute before I finally got the radio situated. A man with a deep, pleasant voice spoke to someone else, though I could only catch his tone, not his exact words.

"There's something I don't understand," he said. My ears perked in response.

"What's that?" another man—this one light-voiced—asked.

"We've got these gays, right?" Deep Voice said. "They want marriage, they want adoption, they want to be able to walk into a hospital and see their partner. That's fine—because as far as I'm concerned, people should get those rights, regardless of whether you're black, brown, or the color of the freakin' rainbow—but I don't see why they have to serve in our military."

"They can't, remember? Don't ask, don't tell."

"Yeah, I remember _that._ But there's a big deal going on about that war. War... hell, if you could get out of it by saying you're gay, why not do it?"

"Isn't that like faking a medical condition?" light-voice asked.

"I thought the Pentagon _had_ homosexuality listed as a medical condition?"

Both men burst out laughing. I couldn't help but growl and swipe at the tuner. It scraped my hand, spun, and landed on a static channel before it went completely dead.

_Assholes,_ I huffed, pushing the car forward another few feet. _Why do you care if a person's gay and wants to go into the Army?_

As far as I'd been concerned since the day I could understand the 'don't ask, don't tell' policy, if a gay man—or woman—wanted to serve their country, why couldn't they? Were people so afraid of being flirted with in the showers or propositioned in the barracks? Any self-respecting gay man wouldn't offer his straight companion a blowjob, and he sure as hell wouldn't try to flirt with him.

"Straight men aren't game," I sighed.

_But it'd sure as hell make the world a whole lot easier if they were._

Closing my eyes, I thought of John and what he'd gotten himself into.

Would he lie about his background if they want to check his marriage license? And if they did, what would they say when they found Jonathan Alexander Markinson to be 'joined' with Markus Peter Burrows, who'd held a ceremony over the border in order to avoid discrimination?

At that particular moment, I didn't know what he'd do. I simply took a deep breath, lifted my foot off the gas, and continued down the street, stopping every so often in order to avoid hitting the vehicle in front of me.

_All's fair in love and war,_ I thought.

What bitter humor we all knew.

* * *

Home stood its ground on the outer edges of town, bordered by neighboring houses just like it. During the summer, I maintained a garden to keep in the spirit of things, while John mowed every Sunday, glad for the peace Mass offered. At night, the lilies that skirted the edge of the stepping-stone path leading from the driveway to the door glowed like irradiated mushrooms, brought to Earth by some foreign, alien race.

I disengaged the engine, made sure I hadn't forgotten anything important in the passenger seat, and crawled out of the vehicle, locking it with a simple click of the key-fob. From there, I made my way up to the door, where I knocked before entering.

"John?" I asked, closing the door behind me. "You here?"

He didn't respond. Odd, considering his car rested in the driveway right beside mine. I figured that, if he wasn't home, he'd be at one of the neighbor's houses or a friend's, talking about something or other.

After locking the door, I slid my shoes off my feet and stepped into the kitchen, where I immediately went for the fridge to see if he'd made dinner. Sadly, only a few cinnamon rolls remained from several days back.

_Better than nothing._

I plucked one off the plate and bit into it, sighing when orange flavoring exploded in my mouth. John always enjoyed sweets, but in moderation. He once said that, as a teenager, he suffered from childhood obesity and had to diet for around three years to get all the weight off. Along with exercise, he said it nearly killed him—both emotionally and physically. I could imagine being fat, but then again, I couldn't imagine John ever being heavier either. He had bulging muscles and a slim, lean torso devoid of any kind of stretch marks.

_Just goes to show you what you should be thankful for,_ I thought, sliding a hand under my shirt.

"John!" I called, shoving the last of the cinnamon roll in my mouth. "Are you here?"

"I'm here."

I jumped, startled at his sudden appearance. He slid into a bar stool and rested his elbows on the counter, cupping his face in his hands.

"You okay?" I frowned, turning to wash the grease off my fingers.

"I'll live," he sighed.

_Okay._ I swallowed a lump in my throat, drying my hands with a dishtowel. _Something happened._

"Did the interview go okay?" I asked.

"Oh, it went fine," he said, "until the guy who interviewed me pulled out my 'marriage' certificate."

_If you could get out of it by saying you're gay, why not do it?_

"What did he say, John?" I frowned, not sure whether or not to reach out and touch him or just leave him be.

"He said, 'The United States does not accept gays or lesbians in their military.'"

"Did he say why?"

_"No,"_ John growled. "I don't see why you care anyway. You were the one who wanted me to stay here."

"I _wanted_ you to. I didn't say you _had_ to."

"What's the difference?"

"Me _wanting_ you to stay home means that I'd rather you not go to Iraq and get your head blown off. Me saying you didn't _have_ to means that I would've supported you no matter _where_ you went."

John said nothing. Instead, he chose to bow his face into his hands and take slow, deep breaths. Every part of me willed to reach out and touch him—to tell him that everything would be fine and that he didn't have to worry about anything—but something stopped me. My hand, which had almost passed the top of the cupboard, jolted against my side, subconsciously telling me to leave him be.

"It doesn't matter," he finally said, looking up at me with moisture in his eyes. "I failed Dad."

"You didn't fail _anyone,_ John. Don't say that."

"You don't understand, Markus. He... he wanted me to enlist so bad. It... it was his last wish."

_Markus,_ John said, what seemed like so long ago. _Can I talk to you about something?_

_Yeah. Of course you can._

_Dad's in the hospital. He... his heart disease finally got the best to him. The doctors said he wouldn't live if he had another heart attack. I have to go to Maine, to say goodbye one last time._

The sight of John crying spurred the memory to mind faster than I could have ever imagined. The image of him standing in the doorway to our bedroom—crying, phone dangling from his hand by only the cord—summoned emotions that I hadn't felt since that fateful night four years ago, when John's life had forever changed. He'd idolized his father since he saw him leave in his Army uniform the day he turned twelve years old. The man's death nearly destroyed him.

"No, John." I leaned forward and took his face in my hands, tilting his head up so we could look one another in the eyes. "His last wish wasn't for you to leave the man you love for a war we're not supposed to fight."

"But Markus... he—"

"What would he have said if he knew you loved someone? What would he say if he knew you loved that man enough to travel thousands of miles to Canada so we would know in our hearts that we really, truly got married? John... your dad knows you tried. Don't you think that's what he'd want to know? That you _tried?"_

"I... I don't know." John swallowed the lump in his throat. He released a wail that had to have been festering in his chest for hours, days, maybe even years, then buried his face in my neck and clawed at my shirt, desperate to attach himself to the one and only thing that seemed real in this world. "Yes, Markus. Yes. That... that's all he'd care about."

"You can't help what they did," I whispered, running my hands through his hair. "You can't help they tried to use you as a weapon."

"But they didn't," he said.

"I know," I sighed, closing my eyes. "And that's all that matters."

I rested my face in his hair, took a deep breath, and realized for the first time that war meant more than just bearing arms and traveling to countries where the sand always blew and the sun always seemed to shine.

At that moment, I realized that war could exist in the hearts of men.

John's war had just ended.

I couldn't ask for anything more than that.

# Beautiful Woman

"Am I beautiful?" she asks.

Marty is unsure how to respond. At seven years old, his mother has taught him to always be polite to a person, but she's never mentioned what to say when someone asks you if they're beautiful. Naturally, he's inclined to say yes, that she is very pretty, but isn't sure how to go about it. He's never been asked this question before.

_What do I say?_ he thinks. _What I do a say to a lady who's very pretty?_

Should he say yes?

Should he say no?

_What,_ exactly, should he say?

Glancing up, the child begins to take in the woman's appearance, from top to bottom. She's wearing tennis shoes much like his own, but black and with white laces. Her pants are brown, but her coat... it's a funny color. He knows the word in the back of his head, though he's not sure how to say it. He _does_ know, however, that it starts with a B and ends with an E.

_Bei... Guh._

Beige is the color of the woman's coat.

Satisfied with himself, Marty smiles and looks up—expecting to see the face of the pretty neighbor he has not yet met—but frowns when he finds that, like a doctor on TV, she is wearing a white mask. He thinks she might be sick, but he quickly shakes that off and looks at her eyes.

They're dark.

They're very dark.

Finally, he comes to her hair, which looks as though it's been brushed thousands upon thousands of times. That's how straight it is, and what's more is that it glows, like the earrings his daddy bought his mommy for her birthday.

_She_ is _beautiful._

Satisfied with his answer, he smiles and nods.

"Yes," he says. "You're _very_ beautiful."

Marty expects the woman to smile, just like everyone should when they're told they're beautiful.

His mommy smiles when his daddy says she's beautiful.

But instead of smiling, or her white cover moving like he expects, the beautiful woman reaches up and lowers her mask.

Marty screams.

He is unable to run away as the woman lunges forward, pulls a hook from her coat pocket, and cuts his mouth open from ear to ear.

* * *

A child has died today.

Erik is tired of hearing it from his mother. She's been going on about it over and over again, as if it's the worst news she's ever heard. Worse than the towers falling, worse than the bridge collapsing, worse than the war exploding—but here, in her moment of panic, she's talking about a child, about a little boy who makes no impact on the world beyond his own family.

The original shocked excitement of hearing the little boy's mouth had been slashed open quickly wore off when his mother wouldn't shut up.

_"ERIK!"_ she shrieks. "Where are you _GOING?"_

"Out," he says, as though she hasn't just screamed at him.

"You can't go out! There's a killer on the—"

"I'm a big boy Mom. I can handle myself."

"Erik Daniel James Crawford, you get your sorry little ass back here right now or I'll—"

Erik walks out the door.

He knows it's not an open threat. His mother _never_ punishes him. She has no reason to. He gets straight-As in school, is one of the best players on the soccer team, and hasn't been in trouble for the past year. There's no reason for her to ground him for the next three months over going outside.

_And on the porch, no doubt_.

Sighing, he leans against the porch railing and takes a breath of fresh air. He looks out at the nearby street and imagines how the little boy was killed. First he would have been walking alone, without his parent's permission and with all the neighbors' windows closed. Next, the killer would have stepped out of an alley, or walked down the street as though nothing were amiss. And finally, after all the dramatic buildup that would have been tingling in thin air, the man would have rushed forward, grabbed the little boy, and cut his face open.

_But why would someone cut his face open?_ Erik frowns. _That won't kill him._

Unless, of course, you didn't get to a hospital on time—otherwise you'd die from blood loss.

The little boy had been nowhere near a hospital.

Reaching up, Erik feels his face, giving in to the imagination that runs wild in his head. What would it be like to have your face cut open, or to have someone come out of an alley or down the street and do that to you?

He doesn't really want to know. He'd rather go in and listen to his mother complain than have anything like that happen.

Looking up, Erik smiles as he sees his father's car pull into the driveway.

_Thank God,_ he thinks. _At least_ he'll _be able to put some sense into mom._

After all this time, he knows what his father is capable of.

* * *

"Did you _hear?"_

Erik is unable to control his sigh.

_Here we go again._

"Hear what?" Benjamin Crawford asks, tucking a kerchief into his shirt. He winks at his son before reaching for his sandwich.

"A little boy was murdered today."

"Oh? Who was it?"

"A little boy named Marty."

Erik's father chokes on his sandwich. He takes a moment to regain his composure before speaking.

"Marty _Crenshaw?"_ he asks.

"Yes—that was his name."

Erik swallows a lump in his throat.

It isn't until just now that he knows his father's best friend's son has been killed.

"Little Marty?" Erik frowns, spiders crawling through his chest. "Adam's son?"

"No, it couldn't be," Benjamin says, standing. "I would've gotten a call, I would've _heard_ something about this, I—"

As if God has heard his father's plea, the phone rings.

"Benjamin," Erik's mother says, hand cupped over her mouth. "It's not... it couldn't..."

Benjamin walks to the phone.

He takes the call, leaves the room, and doesn't return for nearly ten minutes.

When he comes back, his face is pale and his eyes are red.

"Marty's dead," he says, the first tear slipping down his face. "They don't know who did it."

* * *

Erik sits with his father in Adam Crenshaw's living room.

Tea—the common drink around the house—sits in fine china in front of them, waiting to be drank.

So far, no one has made a move to touch any.

Not sure how to respond to anything going on around him, Erik remains still, listening to the small, whispered conversation between his father and his friend. He'd like to say something—anything—to help improve the mood and possibly put the man at ease, but doesn't. He knows he'll just screw something up or make something worse if he opens his mouth.

_Poor Dad,_ he thinks, watching the forced composure on his father's face. _Poor Mr. Crenshaw._

The man's usually-cheerful, bright brown eyes are muddled. Like holes drowned with water, nothing but black reflects on their surfaces. It's expected though. The pronounced lines around his mouth, the darkness in his eyes, the color drained from his face—all signs of grief, pulled from the deepest and darkest places of the human heart.

"Where was he?" Benjamin asks. "When... when it..."

"Walking to a friend's," Adam says. "Just walking to a friend's."

Nothing more needs to be said. Marty was often seen walking the streets of their small town in Maine, en route to a friend's or to the local candy shop. Normally, everyone looked out for him; some even went so far as to walk out onto their porch and watch the boy as he passed their houses and until he cleared their roads. But for some reason, no one seemed to be around earlier today. No one stepped onto their porch, no one walked out to their mailbox, and no one said hello to the little boy who could.

Erik takes a deep breath.

He tries not to cry.

His tears come anyway.

"It's all right, Erik," Adam says.

"No it's not," Erik says, reaching up to wipe his eyes. "No one should have to go through something like this."

"No," Adam nods, "no one should."

_But it's happened,_ Erik thinks.

Standing, he walks to the nearby window, both to distract himself from his emotions and to let the men talk. From here, he can see nearly everything—their garden, their mailbox, the pier that rests at the very end of the road. He wants to see boats pulling in from a long day of adventure. He wants to see the shock on the men's faces when they come to find that someone—especially a child—has been killed.

With his second sigh of the visit, he closes his eyes.

He knows that won't happen.

* * *

"That didn't go well," Erik says.

"No," his father replies. "It didn't."

Erik's mother is standing in the kitchen, talking to a friend on the phone while Erik and Benjamin try to recover from their trip. While no more than a few tears were shed on their end, it doesn't help that they've just visited a father who's lost his son. Erik's been to few funerals—mainly the ones of his grandparents on his father's side, but nothing more than that. He remembers the way it felt to lose a grandparent—how that, after a while, you don't begin to think about them on a day-to-day basis, but you still remember that they're gone. He can't imagine how it feels to lose a child, someone born of your love, flesh and blood.

"Dad," he says.

"Yes, son?"

"Why would someone want to kill a little boy?"

Benjamin narrows his eyes. In Erik's fifteen-and-a-half-years, he's asked his father many questions—some simple, some complicated—but nothing like this. He knows he may have crossed some forbidden line, but some part of him wants to know _why_ someone would want to kill someone like Marty, and _why_ someone would want to do it.

"Well, son," Benjamin says, setting his hands on his knees. "People will kill each other for a lot of reasons."

"I know _that,_ Dad. I was asking why someone would want to kill _Marty."_

"There's no easy way to answer your question, Erik. Maybe whoever killed Marty was sick."

"Sick?"

"Sick." Benjamin taps his head for emphasis. Erik 'ohs' and nods, gesturing for his father to continue. "Honestly, if you want to know my opinion, I think anyone who kills another person is sick. Some doctors say that the people who kill without meaning to—like someone who gets charged for manslaughter, for example—do it because the part of their brain that tells them what's right and wrong stops working for a second."

"So it's not their fault then," Erik says.

Benjamin doesn't immediately reply.

There is no right or wrong answer to that question. That is already obvious.

"But some people," his father continues, leaning forward so their faces are only a foot apart, "aren't able to tell what's right or wrong, or what's real or imagined. Some people are born that way, and some get like that because of things that have happened to them in the past. But you want to know what I think, son?"

"What?"

"Some people don't have that part of their brain," Benjamin says, closing his eyes. "They never have, and they never will, no matter what they do."

* * *

That night, after his parents have gone to bed, Erik lays awake pondering what his father said earlier. While he does this, he places his hands behind his head and stares at the ceiling, tracing the uneven lines of paint back and forth across the room.

_Some people don't have,_ he thinks, _and never will._

The thought chills him to no end.

Even on a warm, summer evening, the idea that a person can be born to kill fills him with ice.

Throwing his legs over his bed, Erik rubs his eyes and looks out his window. Here, so far away from the road, a person would have to cross onto their lawn and step over his mother's rock garden to get anywhere near it. He's never pulled the curtains over it, but he's always kept it locked.

His mother once told him when he was four that strangers could come up to your window and get inside if you left it open.

She's never mentioned anything about anyone looking in.

* * *

"You're not walking to school today, Erik."

He says nothing. He's more than willing to let his father drive him to school.

After a few tense moments, he finally replies. "I know." He slugs his pack over his shoulders. "Don't worry, Dad—I don't care."

"Good," Benjamin nods, sipping his fourth cup of coffee. "Are you almost ready to go?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"I have to go to the bathroom."

"All right."

Smiling, Benjamin slips out of the kitchen and into the living room, where he leaves Erik to adjust to the slowly-rising light of the morning sun as he makes his way toward the bathroom.

_That's all right,_ Erik thinks. _At least I won't have to walk._

He usually sits on the couch and watches TV for another half-hour, then makes the nearly mile-long trip to school. However, with his father having to leave early for work, he's unable to laze on the couch. As far as he sees it, morning TV is no big loss.

"All right," his father says, clapping Erik's shoulders. He laughs when his son jumps. "Scare ya there, son?"

"Yuh-Yeah," he smiles. "You did."

In the back of his mind, a faceless man traces his face from ear to ear.

He's more than ready to leave.

* * *

The principal is standing at the front door when Erik steps out of his father's car. Frowning, Erik turns to say goodbye, only pausing to tell his dad that nothing's wrong when he notices his frown.

"I'm ok," he says, forcing a smile, despite the fingers sliding down his back. "I was just wondering why Mr. Barniff was standing outside the door."

"Just a precaution," Benjamin smiles, patting his son's hand. "Have a good day at school, buddy."

"I will. Thanks Dad—love you."

"Love you too. Bye."

Waving, Erik turns and approaches the principal, only stopping to look over his shoulder and make sure his father has truly left before turning to face the man.

"Sir," he says. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes sir, mister..."

"Crawford," Erik finishes. "Erik Crawford."

"Ah. I thought I'd recognized the man dropping you off."

He nods. His father's a well-known and respected real-estate agent in their small town.

"There's nothing to worry about, Erik. We're just making sure that everyone gets in safe and sound."

"All right. Thank you, Mr. Barniff."

"You have a good day today, all right?"

"I will," he says. "Thank you—"

He doesn't finish.

His voice is lost in a pool of whispers, laughs and giggles.

* * *

The process is repeated as he leaves. Teachers—at least three—stand on the long, concrete path that connects the jagged U of the road. All men, he realizes. They wouldn't leave a female teacher in a vulnerable position, especially not with a killer on the loose.

"You hear?" his father asks, leaning over to open the passenger seat, as he always does.

"Hear what?" Erik frowns.

"Curfew at six."

"Tonight?"

"Uh huh. Six at night 'till seven in the morning. Anyone caught out past then'll get taken in for questioning."

"Shit."

"I know," Benjamin laughs. "Watch what you say. Your mother'll lay an egg if she hears you talking like that."

"Sorry, Dad."

"Nothing to be sorry about. I honestly don't care—it's her you'll hear it from."

Nodding, Erik pulls his seatbelt over his chest and waits for his father to pull out of the parking lot. He expected him to be a little late—by at least ten minutes, maybe even twenty. Apparently though, Benjamin Crawford has left his illustrious offices early to pick up his son.

_Figures. Mom wouldn't even_ begin _to let Dad think about letting me take the bus._

"Thanks for picking me up, Dad."

"No need to thank me, Erik. I'm more than happy to come get you."

"I thought you worked until four?"

"I do. Dropping an hour off my schedule isn't going to hurt business any."

Erik shrugs.

"That is," Benjamin continues. "if I still have any."

"What?"

"The word's spread, son—our town's got a killer on the loose, and no one's going to move somewhere where they be murdered."

"You mean—"

"Yeah." Benjamin takes a deep breath. "Five clients I was supposed to meet today cancelled. They're looking elsewhere."

Erik swallows a lump in his throat.

Nothing good will come from this.

* * *

His parents have been fighting all day. His mother's been saying, _He shouldn't be going to school,_ while his father's been adamantly replying, _Yes he should._ It got to the point previously in the evening where Erik had to flee to his soundproof room to escape the noise, less he go nuts from the sound of their harsh voices.

Waking to the sound of silence, Erik sits up and opens his eyes to find the room dark. Confused, he blinks, wondering how he got here. This confusion lasts for about a minute before he realizes that, earlier, he succumbed to a nap after lying down to drown his thoughts away.

Pressure weighs on his bladder.

He needs to pee.

Rising, he gives himself a moment to gain his composure, then crosses the room and slides out the door.

In the hallway, he listens for the sound of his parent's voices, or the buzz of the TV.

He hears neither.

Thinking they went to bed early, he gives into his body's inhibitions and dashes for the bathroom, quick to empty his bladder and flush the toilet, but dreading the sound it will make. The sound—not loud, but not quiet either—will wake his father, whose light sleeping and unease in the wake of a killer will seek him out at this ungodly hour of the night.

_Oh well,_ he thinks. _What's the worst that could happen?_

He flushes the toilet, then waits—one minute, two, three, then four.

The sound of his father's footsteps do not come.

Relief coursing through his system, he exits the bathroom, glances down the hall to make sure neither of his parents have risen, then heads toward his room.

Just before he enters the bedroom, a figure slides away from the window.

Erik's heart drops.

_Oh God._

His first and only instinct is to scream for his father.

* * *

"Are you sure you saw something?" Benjamin asks, taking hold of his son's trembling shoulders. "Erik— _Erik!_ "

"I saw someone," Erik nods. "I wasn't seeing things, Dad. I'd already been up for five minutes."

"Are you sure your eyes weren't playing tricks on you? You weren't just seeing light reflecting off anything?"

He shakes his head.

"Damn it," Benjamin swears, running a hand through his hair.

"You're all right though," his mother says, "right?"

"Yeah Mom. I'm fine."

"Thank God."

After his mother kisses his face more times than he can bear, Erik pulls away and follows his father into the living room. His mother—most likely as traumatized as he is—remains in the hallway. Erik isn't sure whether or not she's already retreated to her and his father's room.

"Dad," he says, "it's ok. Don't worry—I'm fine."

"I know. You just scared the hell out of me, son."

"I didn't know what else to do. I mean, I know I shouldn't have yelled, but..." Erik sighs. Despite seeing someone who could possibly be the person who killed Marty Crenshaw, the guilt of screaming still remains. A man—even if he is an almost sixteen-year-old boy—doesn't scream when something startles him. He may yell in surprise, but he does not scream, not even when he sees a killer.

"Erik," Benjamin sighs, wrapping an arm around his son's shoulders. "Scream or no scream, at least you got me up."

"Thanks Dad."

"No problem, son."

Erik waits, expecting his father to say something more. When he doesn't, he slides out of his father's grip and looks at the living room windows. Like his own room, their drapes aren't drawn.

"Dad," he whispers.

"Yes, Erik?"

"Can we close the curtains tonight?"

"Yes," Benjamin says. "We can."

* * *

A police officer arrives at six the following morning, sporting a casual, undercover attire and a calm, reassuring grin. When Erik answers the door—dressed in boxers and an undershirt—he blushes, surprised at the man's presence.

"Excuse me, sir," he says, looking down at himself. "I didn't know you would be—"

"It's all right, son. It's Saturday—a boy deserves to walk around in his underwear."

Erik smiles, not the least bit humbled by the man's words.

"Your father called last night and said his son saw someone outside his bedroom window. I assume that was you?"

"Yes sir—it was."

"What's your name?"

"Erik. Erik Crawford."

"Ah," the officer smiles, extending his hand. "I figured I recognized this place. Sorry I didn't introduce myself earlier. I'm Officer Rudy Daniels."

"It's nice to meet you, sir."

"Pleasure's all mine."

Stepping aside so the officer can enter, Erik closes the door and calls for his father. Benjamin arrives in the same type of attire, sans a shirt.

"Oh, hello," Benjamin smiles, but cocks unimpressed eyes at his son. "I'm sorry—I didn't know someone was here."

"It's all right. You're Mr. Crawford, I assume?"

"Yes sir."

"Officer Rudy Daniels. I'm here to take a statement from your son and walk around the property."

"All right. Do you need me to—"

"Actually, Erik's the only one I need to speak to, since he's the one who saw the lurker."

"Ah... All right then. Would you like some coffee?"

"It's not necessary, but if you'd like, I'll have a cup after your son has shown me his room."

"Ok. Thank you, Officer."

"No need to."

Taking his cue—both by the officer and his father's wandering eye—Erik leads the policeman down the hall and to his room, which he hasn't bothered to step into more than once this morning. He slept in the living room with his father last night, both out of safety and the overwhelming fear of waking up and seeing the person again.

"You don't have curtains?" Rudy Daniels frowns.

"No, sir. My mom used to tell me not to open the window when I was a kid. She never mentioned anything about putting curtains in here."

Rudy marks this down. His pen speaks silent words as it dances across the paper.

"What time did you see the person, Erik?"

"At around midnight, I think."

"Was it a man or a woman?"

"I... I couldn't tell," he frowned. "It looked like a man, but I didn't get a good look. Whoever it was slid away from the window before I could look at them."

"Anything you remember?"

_Brown against his bedroom window._

"They had brown on," he mumbled. "It looked like a coat."

"Long, short hair? Height?"

"Long, past the shoulders; maybe my height."

"So about five-eight?"

Nodding, Erik approaches the window, but stops short.

Something about the closeness of being where a possible killer stood bothers him.

"Did you need me to go outside with you?" he asks. "Because if you need me to show you where they were, I can—"

"There's no need to," Rudy smiles. "Besides—the crime scene investigators are coming to see if they can get anything off the ground. None of you went out in the garden, did you?"

"No."

"Then we should be set to go." Rudy extends his hand. "It's been great talking with you, Erik. Thanks for all your help."

"No problem," he says.

As he watches the officer leave the room, he can't help but feel like he could've done something more.

* * *

"What'd he say when he walked out of my room?" Erik asks.

"Nothing," Benjamin says. "I gave him a cup of coffee, walked him around the house, and talked about what happened while the crime scene investigators came and took a look at the area. Why? Did something happen?"

"No. Nothing happened."

"All right. Just making sure." Benjamin stands to get another cup of coffee, but stops. He swears under his breath and turns to his son.

"What's wrong, Dad?"

"We're out of coffee."

"Oh."

Frowning, Erik starts to sit at the table, but stops, crossing the room to stand by his father's side.

"You don't work today," the boy mumbles. "Do you really need it?"

"No, but it's nice to start off the day with a little caffeine, you know?"

"I guess."

Benjamin chuckles and slaps an arm around his son's shoulder.

"Nothing to worry about, Erik. Hey—you want to go do something today?"

"Like what?"

"I don't know. The mall, grocery shopping, a walk—something simple like that."

"Would you really want to go for a walk with someone hanging around the house? What about Mom?"

"I think she mentioned something about going to a friend's house. You don't remember?"

_No._

He doesn't bother to think about what he might have done if he'd been alone and someone had tried to break into the house. Instead, he nods, forces a smile, and says, "Sure—let's go do something."

"Honey!" Benjamin calls. "We're going for a walk!"

"Who?"

"Erik and I."

"All right," she says. She steps into the room, slides her shoes on, and slings her purse over her shoulder. "I was going to go to Connie's anyway."

"Sounds good." Benjamin turns, sets a hand on Erik's shoulder, and smiles. "Ready, buddy?"

_Ready as I'll ever be,_ Erik thinks, sliding his jacket and preparing to follow his father out the door.

* * *

The neighborhood is empty. Like a ghost town in the middle of a desert, the only thing that seems to move is the wind and the trees that border the road. The feeling of isolation is enough to force Erik closer to his father.

"You ok?" Benjamin asks.

"I'm fine," Erik says, sliding his hands into his pockets. "Just the wind, that's all."

The wind would be a good-enough excuse. He doesn't need his father to think that he'd _intentionally_ moved over to be closer to him.

_Not that it would matter. Dad wouldn't care._

If anything, his father would only smile and throw an arm over his shoulder.

"It's a nice day, isn't it?" Benjamin asks, turning to look at his son.

"It's ok," Erik shrugs.

"What do you mean 'it's ok?' It's beautiful."

"There isn't anyone out here, Dad."

"Oh." Benjamin frowns. He stops in midstride to look up the road, shoving his hands in his pockets in the process. "You're right."

In the moments following the awkward realization, Erik steps forward, reaching for his father's arm, but stops before he can fully touch it.

He sees a figure approaching from the end of the street.

"Erik—"

"Shh," he whispers. "Be quiet, Dad."

Benjamin does as asked.

As the figure approaches, Erik can't help but feel an overwhelming sense of dread. The weight of the world is on his shoulders, as it was when Atlas first carried it. Stones are tied to his feet, sand is thrown in his eyes, and water is filling his ears with each and every passing moment. It is he who can speak out, he who can make them turn to leave the scene of what might become a horrible crime.

In the back of his mind, he sees a brown-colored coat pressed against his window. But in front of his eyes—in front of his cold, blue eyes—he sees the figure that looked in his window last night at the stroke of midnight.

He sees a woman with long, black hair and a shining, white mask.

"Dad?"

"What is it, Erik?"

"That's her."

"What?"

"That's her."

"Who's _her,_ Erik? What're you talking about?"

"She's the one who was looking through my window."

_She's the one who killed Marty._

As forbidden as his thought is, he can do nothing to restrain it. Marty, walking down the street with a bag of change in his hand; a woman, beautiful, with an Asian face and a white mask; a hook, long, sharp and curved, slicing through a child's cheeks—all are forbidden, all are secret, but all are true.

How he knows the child's demise, he does not know. All he knows is that Marty's killer is making her way down the street, mask and hidden hook in toe.

"We've gotta go, Dad."

"What're you talking about, Erik?"

"We've gotta go! Now!"

"Erik—"

"She did it!" he cries, grabbing his father's arms. "She killed Marty!"

"Get a hold of yourself, Erik. Just because you think you see someone who might have looked in your window doesn't mean—"

Erik doesn't listen.

With one mighty tug, he pulls his father a foot down the street.

"Erik!" Benjamin cries, half in surprise, half in anger. "Let go of me!"

"NO!"

"Boy, you let go of me right now or I'll—"

He can no longer hear his father. Sound is distorted as the woman comes closer, face bereft of expression and hands limply at her side as she takes each individual step. She doesn't step on the cracks, nor does she stop and carve a symbol in the air when a black cat passes by. She is not superstitious, nor is she afraid of the screaming man and his son before her. Erik knows this because he _feels_ this—that this woman, as normal as she may seem, is anything but.

She is mute.

She is calculating.

She is unreal.

In but a moment-and-a-half, she will be no more than a foot away from Erik and his father.

"Erik," Benjamin whispers. The boy blinks. How long has he been unable to hear anything? "Let me go. Now."

"Dad—"

_"Now."_

_You can run, you know? If you run, he'll_ have _to come after you. You know he will. You know he won't just stand there as his son's running off at a million miles per hour. You know what you have to do, Erik. You know that you have to run._

"No."

"What'd you say?" the man growls. "What'd you just tell me, boy?"

"Let's go home, Dad. I-I-I don't want to go for a walk anymore."

"We're already half a block away. Why don't we just keep going and—"

Benjamin stops speaking.

The woman has stepped in front of them, silencing any words that might have been spoken.

_No..._

"Please, excuse us," Benjamin says, ripping his arm away from Erik's grip. "My son and I were having a slight disagreement. He doesn't normally act like this in public."

"Am I beautiful?" she asks.

Taken aback, Benjamin frowns.

Erik stares at his father.

_She killed him,_ he wants to say. _She did it, Dad. She—_

"I'm sorry," Benjamin sighs, taking a step back. "I'm in no position to answer that question. I'm a married man."

"Come on Dad—let's go."

"Erik, would you give me one goddamn—"

A flicker of movement distracts Benjamin from finishing.

Erik turns in time to see the woman's eyes widening, pupils dilating like a deer trapped in a pair of headlights.

"Miss, I'm sorry about my son. He's not usually like this. He's a well-behaved boy. He's just a little nervous about being outside when there's been a killer going—"

Her hand shoots in her pocket.

The hook appears a moment later.

Rushing forward, Erik barely has time to push his father out of harm's way before the woman can lash out. Hook in hand, she slashes at his father's face, barely missing his mouth by an inch.

"ERIK! _RUN!"_ Benjamin screams.

"I'M NOT LEAVING WITHOUT YOU!"

"GET OUT OF HERE BEFORE SHE—"

The mask comes free of the woman's mouth as she attempts another slash at Benjamin's head.

Like Marty, her face is open, mouth exposed in a disfigured ear-to-ear grin.

Erik can do nothing but stare as the woman eases toward him.

"Am I beautiful?" she asks, bringing the hook back for another slash. "Am I beautiful?"

"Don't say anything," Benjamin whispers, easing toward Erik as slowly but carefully as possible. "Don't answer anything she says, Erik."

"I'm not going to, Dad."

"Just follow me, son. Don't turn around, don't run away—just keep... backing... up."

Slowly—as to not run into his father or trip over a crack or break in the concrete—Erik begins to take his first few steps backward, all the while watching the woman advance on him. The simplicity of such an act frightens him. How could someone, especially a killer, move so slowly, so _purposely?_ How, despite each tenacious motion, has she never lost her footing or broken the lock on Erik's frightened eyes.

_Because she wants me..._

"...to say something," Erik whispers.

"Erik," Benjamin warns. "Don't say a single thing."

"I'm... not."

_But what is she?_ he wonders. _She can't be human._

How could something so haunting be human, or could have ever _been_ human?

He doesn't know, but now, he doesn't care.

"Am I beautiful?" she asks.

"I don't know," he whispers, closing his eyes.

Seconds, moments, minutes—all pass within what seems like a blink of the eye.

When he opens them, the slit-mouthed woman is nowhere to be seen.

"Dad? Are you there?"

A hand touches his shoulder.

He jumps.

"Yes," Benjamin breathes, pulling Erik against his chest. "I'm fine, son."

"Where did she go?"

"I don't know, but I'm not sticking around to find out."

_No kidding,_ Erik thinks.

Taking his father's cue, Erik begins down the street, just as a voice in his head begins to whisper.

_Am I beautiful?_ it says, dangling a hook in front of his face. _Am I beautiful?_

# The Girl With the Origami Swan

There are some that say there is a natural beacon that speaks to us, a divine source in the sky. Others believe that talent can only be artificially wrought by a set series of equations or events that happen in an exact place at an exact time.

For one little girl, this talent—neither naturally taught, and with no chance of being supernaturally given—would test the boundaries of what she, her parents, and everyone around her thought.

Anna Marqes, a seven-year-old who attended the local primary school, could make origami swans. The sad and mysterious fact was, no one had taught her this peculiar talent, nor had it been directly effected by any influence at home. The family owned no books, not a single television set, nor a radio for which instructions could be heard. The local school—though as prestigious and well-thought-of as could be—did not teach the children how to make such things. Anna's teacher had said so herself, right after she'd called to ask her mother where Anna had learned origami.

In the end, the Marqes had but one explanation—that despite their disdain for anything supernatural, and despite their nonbelief in things or forces higher than them, God had given the little girl her talent.

They would soon learn that folding a piece of paper wasn't all that Anna could do.

* * *

Over the next few years, the Marqes began to notice that not all of Anna's creations would remain in the places they put them. Oftentimes her mother would set a freshly-made swan on the china cabinet only to find the creation gone the next time she turned around. At first, she thought nothing of it, believing it to only be Anna taking back the creations that rightfully belonged to her. But, soon enough, she began to realize that the little girl made too many swans for them to simply be hidden.

Anna's mother began to wonder whether or not her daughter's swans meant more than met the eye.

At sixteen, Anna entered puberty, a bizarre and painful period for any teenage girl, especially for a late bloomer such as animal. First came the breasts, then came the blood. Hit with both in rapid succession, Anna's body wreaked havoc on every bit of her. At times her eyes would dilate as though a rabbit had been caught in the headlights of a car and her limbs would seize up in violent struggles, as though a demon inhabited her body. She would go into fits of rage, screaming at the top of her lungs and hurling things across the room with seemingly-supernatural strength. The violent, painful outbreaks eventually got to the point where Sincere, fearful for her daughter's life, rushed her to the hospital and into the emergency room.

Each and every time, they told her the same thing—Anna, a normal teenage girl, had entered puberty, and that the violent muscle spasms in her arms were caused by nothing more than stress.

They sent Sincere home with a bottle of muscle relaxers and bid her a good day.

Sincere knew better than to believe such things.

Her daughter may have entered puberty, but not the kind she herself had gone through.

* * *

At home, three days after Anna's seventeenth birthday, Sincere looked up to find her daughter reading a book at the kitchen table. On its white, sweat-stained pages, a woman stood in full nudity, the inside of her body charted out with red, white, and purple. Anna's eyes darted over the diagram, engaging each and every part of it with full attention.

"Anna," Sincere said, taking a step forward. "Would you like something to eat?"

Surprised, the girl looked up and tilted her book away from her mother's eyes.

"Yes Mom," she whispered.

Nothing above a whisper had come out of Anna's mouth since her sixteenth birthday, and, Sincere suspected, nothing ever would.

Watching her daughter with somewhat-calm eyes, Sincere turned and walked to the fridge, where she opened the bulbous contraption and pulled out butter and jam. She pulled a piece of bread from the drawer, slathered it in butter, then pulled another and smoothed a copious amount of jam over the surface. Once finished, she set the sandwich on a plate and spun to face her daughter.

Anna was nowhere to be seen.

"Anna?" she asked. "Where are you?"

When no response came, Sincere stepped forward, set the sandwich on the table, and made her way into the living room.

She found nothing but a single swan inside, sitting on the middle of the glass coffee table.

"Hmm," she mused, plucking the creature from its resting place.

She'd found that, once in a great while, Anna would leave a room without saying a word and disappear to make swans in some random part of the house. Whether she was in her bedroom, the basement, or the attic, Sincere did not know. The place changed each and every time.

"Anna!" she called. "Where are—"

A flicker of movement crossed her wrist.

Instinctively, she jerked the appendage back.

The swan soared, then came to land on the carpet below her.

"What in the world?" she breathed, looking for any trace of the insect that had just crossed her hand.

Frowning, Sincere crouched, picked up the swan, and set it back on the table.

For a moment, she simply stood there, perturbed at what had just happened.

She turned, looked at the swan, and felt a presence touch her body.

* * *

She found Anna in the garden, accompanied by a rabbit, a turtle, and an arrangement of teacups set on a small rock.

"There you are," Sincere smiled. "I was looking for you."

"You were?"

Anna turned her head up, surprise lighting the surface of her green eyes.

"I was," she nodded. "I've made you a sandwich, if you're ready for it."

"Maybe in a minute," the girl said. "We're having tea."

"You are?"

"Uh huh."

Not sure what to say, Sincere returned her eyes to the rock Anna's origami creations sat on. The rabbit, the turtle, and the cups from which they imaginarily drank out of had all been folded and birthed in green paper, the special kind Anna's grandmother bought at the craft store. Sincere still couldn't imagine where her daughter had ever learned to make the things. The turtle and the rabbit were understandable. A simple textbook—which Anna could have easily procured at school—would have taught her how to make them. The cups, though... something about their size bothered her. Anna's fingers, while not large, could not possibly have made them.

"Well, you've done a great job," Sincere smiled, setting a hand on her daughter's back. "Come inside when you're ready, honey."

"I will. Just wait until tea's done."

"I will," Sincere said, at a loss of what to say to her daughter. "Don't worry, honey—I will."

* * *

At noon, after tea ended and Anna ate her sandwich, Sincere began her daily chores. Cleaning the counters, wiping the sinks, sweeping the floor and vacuuming the living room floor—all part of her day, all part of the routine she set into after she married her husband. He didn't ask for much, other than a clean house and a good dinner at night.

_Because he doesn't_ want _any more than that._

She stopped caring about sex around last year, when he stopped asking for it. At first she got suspicious, then stopped caring. Who was she to question a man's virility? Jacob _was_ almost fifty, after all.

_You shouldn't have married him,_ her mother had told her. _He's too old for you, Sincere. He's old enough to be your father._

"I know," she whispered. "I know."

The front door opened. Startled, Sincere brought the broom to her chest to find her husband standing in the doorway, graying hair windblown and glasses askew.

"The wind's blowing like hell out there," Jacob laughed, sliding his arms out of his coat. "It won't be long before it starts raining."

"So soon?" she frowned.

"What?"

"Anna was just outside, she—"

A clap of thunder exploded overheard. The lights dimmed and lightning flashed a moment later.

"It doesn't take long for them to blow in once they get started," Jacob said, brushing up against her as he made his way into the living room. He paused in midstride, sliding an arm across her chest and setting his hand on her opposite shoulder. "Has she been well?"

"Anna? She's been fine. Why are you—"

"Did she have tea today?"

"Jacob, I don't think that really matt—"

Jacob walked into the living room before she could finish.

Sighing, Sincere closed her eyes and went back to sweeping.

If anything, she wanted him to leave her daughter alone, to her strange, childish habit that caused no harm.

* * *

She woke in the midst of a storm. Harsh, cruel, forcing the old tree to scratch the window with its long, jagged branch, it shook the windows in their panes and made the ceiling crackle with each patter upon the roof. Amazing, how such an old house could withstand such a violent storm, and frightening, how something she couldn't control could destroy them in a moment's house.

_It's a strong house,_ she thought, drawing the blankets around her.

Jacob shifted, settling his back against hers. He mumbled something in his sleep, but didn't wake or turn over.

"It's all right," she whispered. "It's just the storm."

Across the room, on the vanity mirror, an origami swam crafted from blue paper winked at her as lightning lit up the outside world.

_Where did that come from?_

Rising, she pushed her legs over the bed and crept toward the vanity mirror, extending her arm to take the swan in her hand.

Before she could get there, a crack of thunder knocked her off her feet.

Out of the corner of her eye, the swan went flying.

She thought she saw its wings flapping before she ran and threw herself into the bed.

* * *

_No. There's nothing wrong Anna. There isn't. She's just a normal, teenage girl, just a normal—_

"You ok?"

She jumped. Jacob laughed and set a hand on her shoulder.

"I'm fine," she said, taking a deep breath. "You scared me."

"Sorry. I was just going to say, I woke Anna up. She'll be down in a minute."

"You don't have to work today?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"Company holiday. Something about the boss giving the employees the day off."

Sincere shrugged. She cracked an egg on the side of the pan, grimacing as it hissed and sizzled.

"Is something wrong?" Jacob asked, wrapping his arms around her waist.

"No."

"You seem a little slow this morning."

"I couldn't sleep."

"The storm keep you up?"

_No,_ she thought, but nodded anyway.

What kept her up wasn't the storm, but the swan that got away just as thunder struck. It couldn't have flown, it just _couldn't_. She had to have been seeing things. Paper swans didn't fly, especially not when you tried to catch them.

"Sincere?"

"What?"

"Move."

She did as asked.

Jacob flipped the egg just before it could burn.

"Let me make breakfast," he said, glancing up from the morning's meal. "Go sit down. Read a book, watch TV—let yourself wake up."

"Jacob—"

"Morning Mother."

Sincere jumped out of her skin for the second time that morning.

"Good morning," she said.

"Is something wrong?" Anna asked.

"No," Sincere said. "Nothing's wrong, honey."

She started for the living room, but stopped, reaching out to touch her daughter's shoulder.

When she couldn't, she knew something really was wrong.

* * *

While Anna went to school and Jacob tapped away at the keyboard in the upstairs office, Sincere walked into her daughter's room and faced down an origami army. Swans, frogs, bunny rabbits and unicorns adorned each and every object in the room. Over Anna's bed, on her TV, resting atop spare books that she hadn't and probably would never read—anywhere something could sit, an origami creation did.

Taking a deep breath, Sincere reached out to touch what looked like an elephant extending its trunk in friendly greeting.

_What are you?_ she thought, touching the top of its head. _Can you move?_

No. Origami animals couldn't move. Not like the swan did in her bedroom last night, and especially not like a normal, breathing thing.

_Get a hold of yourself! There's_ nothing _wrong with Anna!_

What about puberty though? What about the muscle spasms that threatened to send Anna into an epileptic fit? Where had those come from? And how, of all things, had she learned origami?

_Something she saw on TV, in a book—_ something!

A little girl didn't just see something and make it out of paper, did she?

No. Little girls couldn't make swans out of origami, not unless someone showed them how.

_Or something._

Sincere stopped.

Something flickered in the background.

She turned just in time to find that every single piece of origami had turned to face her.

"No," she whispered, backing toward the door. "It can't—"

She couldn't finish.

Something caught her foot and sent her to the floor.

* * *

"Sincere... _Sincere..._ Honey? Are you all right?"

"Jah...Jacob?" she asked. "Is that you?"

"Yes, honey. Open your eyes."

Slowly, and with all the strength she could manage, she opened her eyes, then closed them almost immediately when the overhead lights blinded her. After a moment, she forced them open again and waited for them to adjust before focusing on her husband.

"What... what happened?"

"You tripped over this," Jacob said. He lifted a swan almost as big as his head.

"Where did that come from?"

"I don't know, but quite frankly, I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, it can all go the moment she walks through the door."

"Jacob—"

"Don't _Jacob_ me, Sincere. These stupid pieces of paper could've killed you!"

"But how did I trip over it? It's just a piece of paper."

_"Just_ a piece of paper?" Jacob laughed. "You've got to be kidding me. It's as big as my head."

"How did she make it though? We don't have paper that—"

"Again, I don't care. It's going the moment she gets home."

Preferring not to argue, Sincere lifted a hand and accepted Jacob's grasp. Once on her feet, she reached back, felt the back of her head, and sighed when she found nothing but a small bump.

"You feel all right?" her husband frowned.

"I'm fine," she said. "Don't worry—it's just a bump."

"All right. Go lay on the couch. If you need anything, I'll be in the kitchen, working on some papers."

"Ah... Ok."

Jacob didn't wait for her to start for the living room. He ushered her himself.

* * *

She heard them fighting over the sound of her throbbing head. Words like, _They have to go_ and, _No, Daddy_ flew back and forth. Eventually, the fight escalated to a screaming pitch. A door slammed, a voice echoed, and a screech sent Sincere to her feet.

"What's wrong?" she asked, hurling herself toward Jacob. "Jacob, what'd you—"

"She wouldn't throw them away," he said. "So I did."

Crushed and torn inside a garbage bin were the remains of Anna's creations. Elephants, squirrels, rabbits, unicorns, crabs, donkeys, horses, elephants—all seemed to cry out at her. Sincere thought she seen some moving—a wing fluttering here, a trunk moving there—but took it as a result of her head.

_I hit it too hard,_ she thought, paper animals moving across her vision. _I had to have hit the wall, or fallen into something. I couldn't have—_

"NO!"

Anna stood in the threshold.

Wild, beautiful, eyes raging and mouth in a snarl, she balled a hand into a fist and reached behind her back.

"Go to your room," Jacob growled. "I'm done with you for the day."

"YOU CAN'T THROW THEM AWAY!"

"We've already had this discussion, Anna. It's one thing to have them strewn across the house, but another when people start tripping over them. Now, I'm going to ask you nicely one more time—go to your room and _stay_ in your room. If you don't, you're going to wish you never started making these stupid little—"

Jacob didn't finish.

A swan flew out of Anna's extended hand.

Living, breathing, flying, it flew toward Jacob's face and struck him in the eye. Screaming, he threw the garbage bin into the wall, shattering a collection of family photographs in a spray of glass. Remnants of other animals crawled or limped toward Anna, animated by strings laid forth by a magical puppeteer.

_It can't—_

Anna laughed.

Jacob screamed as blood gushed from his eye.

"NO!" Sincere screamed, hurling herself toward her daughter.

A unicorn, as large and stocky as a normal barnyard animal, walked out of the hall. A silver knife gleamed from its forehead.

"Go away Mother," Anna said, raising a hand. A group of seven swans flew from the debris of Jacob's rampage, all in various states of destruction. "I won't hurt you if you leave me alone."

"Call them off him, Anna! You can't do this!"

"He hurt them," she whispered, looking up at her unicorn. "And now... now... I'm going to hurt you."

"Nuh-No, Anna. Don't do this. _Please!_ I didn't hurt them!"

"Yes you did. You hurt Charlie."

_Charlie?_

The swan, the one she'd tripped over, the one that Jacob tore from piece to piece.

"Anna," she whispered. "Please."

A unicorn barreled toward her.

Its horn pierced Sincere's heart.

There are some that believe magic exists.

For others, it's more than just a belief.

# Jossiah's Bones

The man hung from a construct of evil. Arms and legs spread eagle, suspended in midair by thick chains that entered his wrists and ankles, his chest lay open, flesh pulled back like an exposed butterfly ready to meet the world for the first time.

Jossiah Harpman was the result of a madman's desire to learn how to grow bones while still inside the human body. Because of this madness, Dr. Mauk Popearae had kidnapped him to test out his cruel experiment.

He couldn't remember how long he'd been in this dull, dank dungeon that the doctor called his 'lab,' but it didn't really matter. What mattered was that, after all this time, he had not been released, his wounds—though checked—had not been managed, and he'd been forced to live in a state that he considered not dead, but _undead._

_A zombie,_ he thought, looking up at the instruments of torture that lay on a nearby table. _That's what I am. A zombie._

How he stayed alive, he didn't now. Dr. Popearae had told him not to worry about that because he 'kept close eye' on his condition. He regularly injected something into the veins on his arms, something that—supposedly, the doctor said—grew bones.

Doctor Popearae had not come in today, and he probably wouldn't until much, much later.

Although Jossiah could not see the clock, cast in the shadow of a strange but otherwise-meaningless stone artifact that lay on the wall, he knew the time had not come. The doctor said he came in 'early, but not early enough to make anyone suspicious.'

That also bothered him.

No one knew he was being experimented on.

No one knew what Doctor Popearae did in his spare time.

No one—not a single, living soul—knew about the bone-growing experiment a madman carried out in his lab.

No one knew about the way Doctor Popearae grew Jossiah's bones.

* * *

At a time Jossiah couldn't discern, the door opened. A small, short man with graying hair and a handlebar mustache walked down the stairs, opening his arms as though ready to embrace his captive.

"Jossiah!" he beamed, cheeks rising to make way for a grin. "How are you, my boy?"

As usual, he didn't want to respond. The doctor took pleasure in having him answer such questions. Most days, he would just stand there—arms open and face lit in a derisive grin—until he answered.

"I..." he stopped, then breathed. "Fine."

He tilted his head back and closed his eyes. If he looked down, he would be able to see his chest. He'd see his lungs expand with each and every breath and his heart throb with each and every pulse. That first fateful time he had looked down and saw his chest—opened like the butterfly that he so often thought about—he had screamed so hard that his whole body had hurt.

"That's quite good," Popearae said, grabbing a nearby clipboard and scribbling something down. They were notes, Jossiah knew, fresh with details about the patient's health. "Are you feeling well?"

"No."

Single-word answers. Most of the time, they were the only way he could manage to talk. For some reason—whether it be from his chest laying open or as the result of the shots the doctor administered—he couldn't speak in full, concrete sentences. He could think just fine, but not speak.

"Does anything hurt?"

He responded with a second no.

"Are you sure?" the doctor asked. "Because if you have _any_ kind of pain, you _must_ tell me."

A shake of the head answered Popearae's third question.

"You've got no lesions," the man said, obviously referring to inside his body, not _outside_ it. "And I see nothing of particular concern."

Jossiah opened his eyes to see Popearae sliding a pair of rubber gloves over his long, thin-fingered hands.

"I'm just going to examine your bones," he said, reaching forward.

The man's hands slid into his chest, expertly moving around his lungs, heart, and other internal organs. When Popearae touched his back, Jossiah grimaced. It felt strange, being touched that way. He could even go so far as to say he was being molested by the mad doctor, except in a more inhumane way.

"There."

Popearae's fingers rubbed over the stubs of bone that were just beginning to sprout from his spine.

"They're starting to grow," the man smiled. "This is quite good. Pretty soon, I'll be able to prepare a paper that will _convince_ the scientific department that I've found a way to grow bone from human cadavers."

Though Jossiah didn't speak, he pondered on the idea of the doctor writing a paper and claiming that he was a human cadaver. Whatever he was doing to keep him alive—because there sure wasn't any blood inside his body—he didn't know. In a way, he still felt that the injections in his arms kept him alive. At least once a week, the doctor would grab a needle and slide it into the base of his spine and inject something there. Then, when the medicine started to take effect, he would sleep for days in the worst medically-induced coma he had ever experienced.

"I think it's time for another shot," the doctor said, sliding dampened but bloodless gloves off his hands.

"No."

Jossiah's single word came up his throat in a croak. He stared at the doctor, watching him, waiting to see how he would respond.

"No?" Popearae asked. "Why not?"

"I..." he breathed, "cannot... keep... doing... this."

"And why not?"

In a slow and laborious process, Jossiah said, 'You can't keep me here. I have a life. Please, grow back my bones and let me go. I won't tell anyone what happened, I'll let you publish your research. Please. After my ribs are back in place, sew me up and let me go.'

When he finished—out of breath and throat burning from effort—Popearae watched him, eyes sparkling with interest. Jossiah didn't trust the look that lay behind the horn-rimmed spectacles. Those cold, black eyes could watch him endlessly without any change in appearance. Jossiah knew this, because there had been a day when the doctor had studied him for what seemed like hours, scratching on a clipboard without even looking down. Did he know what he was writing when he set his ballpoint pen to the paper? Did he know where the exact locations his notes were placed, or did he just write without conscious thought, preferring to have the notes wherever he could or not at all?

"Please," he said. "Stop."

"You're much too important, Jossiah. You've produced astounding results. My previous patients never made it past the first procedure."

He shook his head.

_No._

"You've produced _twelve sets_ of rib bones for me. You know how many bones that is in total? _Two-hundred-and-eighty-eight._ I can't just let you go now. You're _much_ too valuable."

_But it hurts,_ he mouthed.

"And you think I care?"

This time, it was Jossiah's turn to stare.

"I'm making _money_ off of your bones. Do you know what you can do with bone marrow? They think it can _cure cancer and AIDs._ The Chinese say they can be used for medicine. And, maybe someday—with the help of _my_ research—they may be able to be used for _bone transplants._ Imagine it, Jossiah! Imagine having _your_ bones saving _countless lives._ Does that not make you happy, knowing that you are helping?"

_Show me who my bones are saving,_ he said, _and I'll believe you._

"Not yet," the man said. "I'm sorry, Jossiah. Everything's just... not ready."

The man turned, settling down at his desk. Complete with a computer, printer, and all the research manuals he could need, Doctor Popearae could look up at him anytime he desired and observe anything he may or may not see.

The idea left Jossiah with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep.

* * *

"Jossiah... open your eyes."

Popearae's face appeared as soon as Jossiah's lids parted.

"Good," the man smiled. "I need to administer the shot."

Jossiah shook his head.

"I assume you don't want to speak?" the man asked.

He nodded.

"That's fine with me," Popearae said, turning and grabbing a nearby needle. "But, in all actuality, you can't stop me from giving you the growth serum. You know perfectly well that the chains go through the bones in your wrists and ankles. If I decide to let you go, I'll have to cut them apart and surgically remove them from your body. But, really, that doesn't matter right now. What matters is that you're held in place."

"I'll... thrash." He gasped, inhaling a few breaths. His throat burned.

"I don't care. In the end, it'll only cause you more discomfort."

Popearae walked around the manmade structure that held Jossiah in place, setting a hand at the base of his back.

"All right," he said. "Don't move."

The needle—though thin—was enough to make Jossiah scream. When it slid into his spine, warmth sprouted near the area and travelled up the stem of his body before it hit his brain. There, something happened. Jossiah felt as though he had just worked a long, hard day, or had exercised for far too long at the gym. In response to this sudden pressure in the middle of his forehead, he shut his eyes, ever so slowly falling into a state of drowsiness that he wouldn't be able to fight.

"Sleep well, Mr. Harpman," Popearae said, stroking his back.

With that, Jossiah closed his eyes and fell asleep.

He thought of bones and needles just before he could fully fade away.

* * *

_"Ronda! Ronda! Wait!"_

_His date—Ronda Cranberry—ran ahead in three-inch heels. How she accomplished such a feat was beyond Jossiah, but he didn't particularly care. He had just said something stupid—something along the lines of her asking if her skirt made her hips look fat, to which he'd replied with an 'uhuh.' His distraction had been a 2007 Hybrid they'd been broadcasting on TV._

_"Ronda!" he cried. "Come back!"_

_He gave chase, pushing people aside when necessary, grabbing nearby items when he felt he would slip. How ironic for the rain to start just when his date decided to run off on him._

_She turned around the corner. Jossiah increased his speed, jumping over a box of items a man was preparing to push into a nearby store. Though the man screamed at him, Jossiah rounded the corner without a word of apology._

_Ronda was nowhere to be seen._

_"Aw, fuck!" he growled, kicking a nearby trashcan. Garbage spewed onto the street. He increased his pace—not to a run, but to a brisk walk—to avoid being charged with littering. "The fucking bitch!"_

_Of course, his reaction to a date running off was_ always _to call her a bitch. Obviously, Ronda had been the one to ask the question while he'd been distracted, so he could blame her. He grabbed his hair, tugging at it. He needed to find her. He'd picked her up and driven her to the restaurant, had sat with her under a booth while waiting for her to text a friend, had waited for a cab to take them the next street over so they wouldn't have to get soaked. How big of an ass would he be if he left her stranded in the rain?_

I'm not going to do that, _he thought, shoving his fingers into his armpits._ I'm not that kind of guy.

_He kept going, glancing into buildings to see if Ronda had gone inside to escape the rain. After a while though, he realized she wouldn't be in one of the buildings—unless, of course, she didn't mind going into sports stores or gyms._

_"Come on, Ronda!" he called, raising his voice as loudly as he could. "I'm sorry! I didn't mean to say that!"_

_He stopped short._

_Had that been her fleeing into the alley?_

No, it couldn't have been her.

_Why, of all places, would she go in an alley? There wouldn't be any protection there. At least, not unless there was some kind of outcropping, which he didn't think there was._

_Instead of just standing there, he took a few steps forward and looked into the darkness._

_Nope. No one had run down there._

_"Ok," he thought, pushing his hands into his pockets. "I just gotta—"_

_His fingers slid over his wet cell phone._

_"Shit. I hope it's not broken."_

_He walked under a nearby business' door jut and slid it out of his pocket. It showed that he had a text message—from Ronda, no less._

_I gt a ride hm. Leav me alon, u ass._

_"What the fuck ever," he said, shoving the phone back into his pocket. I don't need her either."_

_He walked out from under the jut and down the street, where he intended on getting in his car and going home._

* * *

"Wake up, Jossiah. Wake up."

Doctor Popaerae stood in front of him the moment he opened his eyes. Jarred from the sudden vision of his date with Ronda, Jossiah recoiled, crying out when the chains prevented him from moving.

"It's just me," the man smiled, reaching out to brush some sweat away from Jossiah's eyes. "It's Popaearae."

"Fuck," he breathed, "you."

"That's not very nice, now is it, Mr. Harpman?"

He said nothing.

"Now, now," Popaerae said, reaching out to touch his shoulder. "There's no need to do this to me. It's time to clean you out."

_Please,_ he mouthed. _Just kill me._

"Ah." The doctor reached out to brush Jossiah's hair out of his eyes. "So you're not talking anymore."

_It hurts._

"It doesn't hurt, Jossiah. Your esophagus is just raw from the exposure to air."

_Kill me, you bastard._

The next thing he knew, Popearae slapped him with his open palm.

"The first time may be cute, but the second time isn't."

Wanting to rub his stinging cheek but unable to, he watched the doctor turn and walk into another room—where, he knew, the man kept his sponges and sterilized water. It didn't take long for Popearae to return with a bucket and a light cloth.

"You know what I'm doing," the man said, dipping the cloth in water. "It's just to make sure your organs are hydrated."

_How are you doing this?_

"With the shots, of course."

_But those grow my bones._

"Yes, Jossiah, but they also keep you alive."

The doctor slid his hand into the open cavity of Jossiah's chest. Bracing the organ with his other hand, Popearae dabbed the heart with slow, gentle pads. The simple awareness of feeling his heart pulsing against the man's hand forced tears from his eyes.

"There's no need to cry. I'm not hurting you."

_Yes you are._

"I've taken care of you for this long, haven't I?"

Again, Jossiah said nothing.

As Popearae continued to clean his beating heart, Jossiah closed his eyes, hoping that, somehow, he could will himself to die.

* * *

_"Damn that bitch."_

_He stopped walking and slid up against a nearby wall. Protected from the rain under a slanted roof, he waited for the urge to walk to come back. For some reason, he couldn't bear to continue walking back to the car._

Yeah, I'm an asshole.

_Regardless, he was a cold and wet asshole, one that wanted to go home and forget about the whole night._

_"This_ really _fucking sucks."_

_"I'm guessing your girl ran out on you, son?"_

_An older man—possibly no older than his mid-forties, with a head of silver-grey hair, a jaw lined with the same color of stubble and a handlebar mustache—stood in front of him, umbrella poised over his head. The rain slid out and around him in a circular shape that made him look like a dark angel whose body water dare not touch._

Oh...kay, _he thought, but merely nodded._

_"Yeah. My girl ran off on me."_

_"It's a shame. You look like a nice young man."_

_"Thanks?"_

_Smiling, the older man slid his hand out of his pocket._

_"My name is Mauk Popearae, son." The man extended his hand. Before Jossiah could reach out and grip it, Popearae added, "Would you like to have coffee with me? It's colder than hell out here."_

_"No," he said, but shook the man's hand anyway. "I mean, I don't have time for coffee. I need to get going."_

_"Where's your car?"_

_"It's not too far away." He pushed himself away from the wall. "Thank you for your offer, sir. Have a nice night."_

_"You too, son."_

_When he was sure that Popearae had disappeared into the building, Jossiah increased the pace of his walk to a jog. While not one to be afraid of an overly-friendly stranger, he didn't want to get involved with one either._

He's just a short old man.

_Still, short old men normally didn't offer to buy coffee for twenty-year-old men they didn't know._

Perv.

_With a snort, he continued jogging down the street, catching odd glances from people sitting behind the safety of glass windows and from his fellow, umbrella-toting passerbys. He stopped at the end of the block and turned, looking up and down the street before crossing._

_Just as he reached the halfway mark, a silver car rolled by, as if making a move to parallel park alongside the street. He gave the car little notice until the passenger window rolled down and Popearae's face came into view._

_"Are you sure, lad?"_

_"Leave me alone!" he said, easing away from the street, closer to where the buildings stood. "I already said I didn't want a ride."_

_"Hey, I'm only offering." Popearae raised his hands._

_"Yeah, but I don't want any help."_

_He turned and continued walking back to his car._

* * *

The next time Jossiah opened his eyes, he started to wonder how he had truly ended up in this underground laboratory. The last thing he could remember was telling Popearae that he didn't want a ride. He couldn't even remember turning and continuing down the street.

_Did he give something to me?_

Had the old man somehow followed him and Ronda to the restaurant, then slipped something into his drink? Was that why he had accidentally called Ronda fat when he had been too busy watching the car commercial on the television sets across from them?

"Sir," he croaked.

"I'm here."

Rising from his place at the desk, Popearae crossed the room and stood before him. For a long moment, the man stood there frowning, as if he had found something amiss. Then, slowly, he reached out and set a hand on Jossiah's arm.

"What is it?"

_I don't feel good._

"You don't feel good?" the man breathed. "What's wrong?"

_My stomach..._

"What's wrong with you, Jossiah? Tell me!"

_It hurts, like I haven't eaten anything._

"Dammit!" the doctor screamed, throwing his hands in the air. "Damn _fucking_ it!"

"What—"

"The medicine isn't keeping you fed anymore!" Popearae roared, holding a fist up in the air. Blood fled from the knuckles, bleaching them white. Anger coursed through the madman's veins, so much so that his face turned beat red and his eyes sparkled with hurt. "I can't _do_ anything about it unless I get you off that... that _construct."_

_You... you'll let me go?_

"Oh, no. I can't let you go, not now. You're _far_ too important."

_Please..._

"Don't _please_ me!"

With a final scream of anger, the man threw himself across the room, toward his table of instruments. There, he picked up the needle he used to inject the bone-growing serum into Jossiah's spine, swiping a bottle of clear liquid and driving the needle into it.

"You gotta get down," the man laughed, tilting his head back to reveal manic eyes and a terrified grin. "You need to lie somewhere where you can get better. That's the only way I'm going to keep you alive."

_Keep on laughing, fucker,_ he thought, not even bothering to fight the tears that coursed down his face. _It'll be a sad, sad day when I leave the fucking planet and your ass in jail for illegal human experimentation._

He'd since stopped caring about whether or not he would live or die. It had been a long time since he'd kept track of time, and it had been an even longer time since he counted the days he'd been chained up like this.

So long...

Now, though, maybe it would finally end.

Sliding around the metal construct like a thief in a market, the doctor slid the needle into Jossiah's spine.

He barely felt it.

He slipped.

And fell.

* * *

_Violet junipers grew along the eastern field near his small apartment. The_ Juniper Falls _apartment building sat atop a large rise that allowed anyone an almost-perfect look at the Hollywood Hills, minus the cost._

_Ronda stood in the nearby bathroom, half-naked in only her underwear. Jossiah, somehow, managed to keep his eyes away from her body and looked out at the country. From his apartment, he could just barely see the road and the cars travelling along it._

_"Hey, Jossiah," Ronda said. "Do you know a small old man that lives around here?"_

_"Uh... no." He turned to face her, eyes gaining a will of their own and traveling along the length of her back. "Why?"_

_"Because he was snooping around before I got here. When he saw me, he looked at your apartment number and made off like he'd been looking for someone else's place."_

_No old men lived around here—at least, not as far as he could remember. The only neighbor he had any real contact with was his friend Marcus, who lived in the flat above him._

_"No," he said. "I don't know anyone like that."_

_"Don't you find it creepy though?"_

_"No... I don't."_

_His girlfriend slid into a skirt and ran her hands through her long, straight hair._

_"You think I should get a perm?"_

_"No, I like your hair straight," he muttered, easing into the bathroom. "Why do you think the old man is creepy though?"_

_"Because he was_ snooping _around your place. He was looking at your apartment number when I got here. Who knows what else he could've been doing_ before _that."_

_"He wouldn't have seen much. Well, except me in my underwear. That's it."_

_"That doesn't bother you?"_

_"Maybe this old man's a perv who likes looking at hot twenty-year-old guys," Jossiah chuckled, running his hands along her ribcage._

_"Jossiah," Ronda giggled, squirming under his tickling fingers. "Stop that!"_

_"What? Tickling you, or saying I'm hot?"_

_"Both."_

_He laughed and pulled his hands away from her._

_"Anyway," Ronda said. "Come on. Let's go."_

_"I thought you were going to put a shirt on."_

_"Wouldn't you love if I didn't." She smacked the back of his head, running a nail through the thin stubble on his cheek. "I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying, don't worry."_

_Grabbing her blouse, Ronda slid it up onto her arms and buttoned it up, showing just a small bit of cleavage._

_How beautiful things only seemed to last for so long._

* * *

Metal burned his entire back side.

Moaning from the initial realization, Jossiah opened his eyes and looked around. He'd been placed in a different room, one with white tile and blue counters. It took him a moment to realize that his chest had been stitched up.

_What the..._

When he reached up to finger the skin, a throbbing pain flared in his wrists. They, too, had been stitched, hiding any trace of the rings that had once threaded them.

_He let me go._

Taking another glance around the room to see if Popearae might be sitting at a nearby desk, he tried to sit up, but stopped when an immense pain struck in his upper body. The scream that followed bounced off the tiles, echoing at least three times before the sound dissipated.

_The bastard. I can't move._

The doctor, while mad, was not stupid. But, really, who would be stupid enough to leave a valuable test subject in the position to run?

_Not me, and definitely not Popearae._

"Sir!" he called, chastising himself for even beginning to think of asking the man for help. "Are... are you... there?"

The plea left him out of breath, but at least he could lie there and rest. For the first time in—weeks, months, a year?—he finally had something solid under his body.

_Just lay there. It's not like he's going to come rushing._

Regardless, the doctor _did_ run into the room.

"What?" Popearae asked. No emotion lay in his voice. Apparently, his manic episode had passed with time.

"What," Jossiah started, then stopped. His throat burned, so he continued by mouthing, _What's wrong with me?_

"Your bones still haven't grown. But don't worry—as long as you lie there, you'll be all right."

_Are you making them grow faster?_

"In a way, yes. I ran an IV in you earlier, but if your stomach keeps acting up, I might have to do it again."

_Where am I?_

"Do you think I'd tell you?" Popearae laughed, slapping his thigh and leaning against the wall. "Let's just say we're in a nice, secluded place, with no one around but me."

Jossiah looked up at the tiles in the wall. Littered with cracks and slightly discolored, the building had to be old. Maybe Popearae's lab lay on the outskirts of town, near where the old hospital used to be.

_Unless we're in the old hospital._

The thought made him swallow. If they were in the basement of the old hospital, that meant they were right under the unstable structure of the building. Roots, bugs and water damage had made the building unstable and, technically, unsafe. It'd become a favorite hangout for the druggies, pedophiles and teens in the last few years, a place for lost or troubled souls to come and escape their lives, either in their own worlds or those of others.

Keeping his idea to himself, he turned his eyes back on Popearae. He smiled, knowing that he had one-upped the doctor after all this time.

"I'm guessing you're pleased with your current situation. Correct?"

_Yes sir,_ he said.

_Yes I am._

* * *

Over the next little while, Jossiah rested on the table, while Popearae remained distant. He'd come in twice a day, helping Jossiah relieve himself and feeding him through the IV, then disappear for the rest of the day. The lights would remain on, constantly reminding him of his current situation.

He planned on waiting the whole thing out, because if he could wait, he could escape.

So far, he'd been perfectly fine with waiting.

There wasn't anything up there in the real world he much cared about anyway.

_Except Ronda, but she ran off on me._

Would his girlfriend be looking for him? _Had_ she gone looking for him after he didn't call to apologize, after he didn't meet her for their usual morning coffee before work? Though he couldn't be sure, he figured that his girlfriend's heart of gold would lead her to find him, regardless of what had taken place on the night of their last date.

Glancing around the room, his eyes came to rest on the IV tube that, essentially, gave him life. The golden liquid snaked down the tube and into his hand, where it channeled to the rest of his body. Without that liquid, he knew, he would be dead, but that wouldn't really matter.

_I've got to hold on, if only for Ronda._

If he ever got out of here, he _knew_ he would ask her to marry him.

After all the hell he—and, possibly, she—had gone through, they deserved a little happiness.

* * *

"The bones are coming in quite well."

Hands poised on each side of his chest, Popearae traced the lengthening bones from underarm to nipple. Jossiah—watching the doctor with careful eyes—lay and waited.

_Is something wrong?_ he mouthed.

"Not at all, son. It seems as though your bones are coming in just fine."

_You don't know?_

"I can only go by what I can feel. Before, when your chest was open, I could examine the growth. This, though—"

"I'll," he began, but stopped before he could finish.

"There's no need to speak. Tap my arm if you want to say something."

Of course, he wouldn't—why touch the man who turned his life into a living, scientific nightmare?

_I won't,_ he thought, nodding to reassure the man that he had heard.

"Good." Turning, Popearae scratched a few notes on one of his several clipboards, then grabbed an intravenous drip and switched it out with Jossiah's current one. "All right. That leaves my work done for the day."

_Are you leaving?_ he asked, managing to fake a frown.

"Yes. Why? Did you need something?"

He shook his head.

"Ok, Mr. Harpman—you be good while I'm gone, and stay out of trouble. You hear?"

Once again, he nodded.

Popearae turned and left him to his meaningless existence.

* * *

He dreamed of Ronda and of how they'd met. At college a year or so back—before Jossiah had stopped going after he found he couldn't afford it—they'd met at a party one of the fraternities had been throwing. Clad in a sexy black dress and red heels that seemed to bleed sex, she'd been speaking to a few of her girlfriends when he first laid eyes on her. Jossiah—unsure of how to approach a girl who seemed so confident and sure of herself—had stepped up to the plate with little more than a greeting.

Just before his vision could continue, a chill crept over his chest and settled in at the stitching, touching him in a way he never thought a person could be touched.

He opened his eyes to pitch black darkness.

_What in the—_

Popearae _never_ turned the lights off...

_Unless they found out what he was doing and turned him in._

If that really was the case, where would it leave him? Here, in the dark, he had no way to move, much less feed himself with the IV bags. If they only took the doctor in for trespassing or snooping around the property, how would they find him?

"They... will," he gasped.

Using all the will he could muster, he fought an approaching panic attack that threatened to destroy the little bit of sanity he had managed to build over the last few weeks. This, here, was it. He _had_ to be found, now that he was closer than ever.

_What... what does that mean though? If I get out and my bones are only half-grown..._

Could doctors somehow regrow the bones, or maybe make artificial ones out of metal wiring? Or, after all this time, would his chest be a birdcage, created not to keep something stable, but to force something in?

No.

It couldn't be.

Popearae _couldn't_ get caught... right?

_He's human. He can get caught._

After all this time, how could he even _begin_ to consider the old man human? His cruel, savage nature set him apart from the average person, from the norm of society. What man would kidnap someone just to strip them of their bones, sell them to the Chinese, and make money off them?

"Popearae!" he called, forcing the word as hard as he could. "Sir!"

What was he thinking? Even if the man _was_ here, how would he come to the rescue in the dark?

_He won't,_ he thought, closing his eyes, balling his hands into fists. _He won't..._

Closing his eyes, he tried to fill the darkness with light.

If he couldn't, he didn't know what he would do.

* * *

"Damn you, Popearae!" he screamed. "Damn you fucking—"

Before he could fully finish, he started coughing. It took him several minutes to try and get it under control, but even after he did, he started sobbing.

The IV bag had stopped feeding him some time ago. The tight pain in his stomach had recently started up, which made him question how long he'd actually been in the dark. It had to have been days, because he couldn't have gotten hungry in just a few hours, could he?

_I'm sick and malnourished. Of_ course _I could be hungry in a few hours._

Looking around the dark space, he decided to try something that could potentially do more harm than it could good. Slowly, he pushed himself into a sitting position, doing his best to ignore the pain in his chest. The excruciating fireball only seemed to get hotter and hotter until it finally exploded in a torrential firestorm when he sat fully up.

_Oh, fuck yes,_ he thought, crying, but still happier than hell.

If he could sit up, he might be able to walk.

Easing his legs over the side of the metal table, he touched ground and tested the amount of weight his healing ankles could support. With hardly any pain at all, he reached down, felt along his hand, then pulled the thin layer of plastic away from the IV before sliding it out.

The little bit of blood that came shocked him into reality.

_This is really it. You can get out of here._

_If,_ he reminded himself, his body held him.

Slowly, he eased down off the table and gripped it with a steady hand, careful not to step away from it too quickly. If he fell, he'd have no way of judging his direction and might run into something he might not want to.

_If I don't want to?_ He laughed at the thought. _I'm_ going _to run into things._

Hopefully, those things he ran into wouldn't hurt him any.

After making sure he could take a few steps without his legs caving in on him, he took his first few steps forward, releasing his grip on the table and reaching out in front of him. Blind as a beggar, he felt for a wall, a counter, _anything_ that might help him judge where he was.

His hand came to rest on a smooth surface.

"Wall," he whispered, tracing one of the tiles with his fingers. A perfect square, just as he'd thought. "Now we're getting somewhere."

The storage room—while large—had only one way in. The large, square arch that opened up into the empty space where Popearae kept his construct would be easy to find, considering he'd slid off the table on the right side.

_Now we go left._

Fingers tracing the wall, he made his way left, hoping that the room didn't hold a surprise drop-off that would send him to his knees. With his ribs only half-developed, he couldn't afford any kind of accidental collision.

He knew that if he ran into something, his ribs would not be there to absorb the blow.

His heart or lungs could easily explode.

With sweat coursing down his face, open air greeted his hand as he tried to ease himself further along. While still gripping the wall, he stepped forward, and—finding no sudden drop—took another step.

_Why wasn't I paying attention when I was chained to that goddamn thing?_

He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the taste of salt on his lips. Tears, sweat, whatever it was, reminded him of the outside world, of how it felt to run along the shore of a pond or to wrap himself in a blanket and push his face into clean, lavender-smelling laundry. His fear—which had fueled him away from the table and out into the open—could turn the tides and do whatever it wanted, if only it chose to destroy what little bit of confidence he had left.

_Come on, Jossiah,_ he thought, touching the large room's wall. _Ease to the right. You know the drill_. _Slow, baby steps. Don't turn around though, otherwise you might confuse your right and lefts._

Back facing the tile, he eased himself along, extending his right hand first, touching the wall, then easing his right foot over and making sure he wouldn't trip over anything before moving his left side along. He kept repeating this until he came to the far right wall.

_Good,_ his conscience coached, the lightheaded angel on his right shoulder. _Now you should be able to walk forward a little ways and come to where some stairs are. Guide yourself along the wall with your right hand while you feel with your left._

If he remembered correctly, the stairs had been placed right up against the wall, allowing anyone who made their way through the double doors to go either straight, left or right, depending on which area they wanted to wander into. Popearae's desk was at his left when he'd been chained to the construct, so that would make his desk right around...

_The right side of the room,_ he nodded. _Right near the stairs._

The clock would be above the double-doors, so he'd have to listen for ticking. If he heard that, he'd know he was close.

Taking his next few steps forward, he did as his conscience instructed, guiding himself with his right hand while his left felt for the railing.

_It won't be much longer,_ he thought. _It won't—_

The double doors opened.

A single, long bar of light went on above the door.

As quickly as he could, Jossiah eased his way into the thin space between the stairs and the wall, curling up into as small a shape as he could bear. Above, Popearae whistled a tune while he descended the stairs, snapping his fingers.

_Oh God, please don't be coming down the left, please—_

Popearae's tune lessened in pitch.

He had to have gone to his desk. He _always_ went to his desk.

_Come on, you motherfucker. Get what you need and go._

Just then, he realized Popearae had come in for one purpose—to switch his IV tube.

_He was only gone for a day, but the lights, he wasn't... he—_

Now, he knew, was the time to fight or flee.

Turning, he eased away from the wall and peeked out around the last few stairs, waiting for the doctor to disappear into the storage room.

At that moment, he gripped the railing and forced himself to run up the stairs.

Ankles protesting the force, they screamed bloody murder, like they'd just been hit with hammers. Fresh tears coursed down his face as he made it up the last stair. Turning, he saw a light come on, then heard the most horrifying scream of anguish he'd ever had the pleasure to hear.

_"JOSSIAH!"_ Popearae screamed.

Jossiah gripped one of the double doors and pulled it open.

_Homerun,_ he thought.

Slipping out of the building that had held him hostage for God knew how long, he ran up the stairs with speed he couldn't imagine, adrenaline piercing his heart with its thick needle and filling him with strength he could never imagine. At the top of the dirtied stairs, his toes squished into deep, gooey mud, but he took little time enjoying the luxury of actually feeling something other than pain.

In no more than a few moments, Popearae would be up the stairs and chasing after him.

The man's car—hidden behind an open chain-link fence—would not offer any options. Even if he did find the key, where would he go—home, a hospital, a police station?

_Don't think._

_Run._

That single word forced his mind into overdrive.

Taking a deep breath, he sprinted right for the fence.

Something crashed not too far behind.

"COME BACK HERE!" Popearae screamed.

Jossiah made his way out of the enclosure and turned, slamming the gate shut and padlocking it behind him. Though he knew it wouldn't slow the doctor down for no more than a few moments, at least it would give him a little extra time.

A long, dirt road would serve as his guide while he ran through the woods. Low branches reached out to embrace his skin, tearing gashes in his naked flesh. The wounds—though many—would do no more than bleed, and wouldn't slow him down any.

_Oh, no. The woods, the stumps, the logs, the—_

"YOU CAN'T GET AWAY FROM ME! I KNOW WHERE YOU ARE!"

_He won't follow me in the woods. He wouldn't_ dare _, not after all he's done to me_.

Though injured and weak, Jossiah had the element of surprise. He'd already made it into the woods by himself, and he'd already slowed down Popearae a good deal by locking the gate behind him. If he could just keep going, if he could just keep _moving,_ he could make it back to the road and wave someone down for help.

_Would they help me though? A naked, bleeding man who just walked out of the woods?_

Regardless, he had to keep going.

What seemed like hundreds of miles away, the sound of a gate being bashed into a fence rang strong in his ears.

"I'LL GET YOU, JOSSIAH! YOU WON'T GET AWAY FROM ME!"

No. Popearae _wouldn't_ catch him. He'd make sure of it.

Easing himself along the tree line—but not close enough to be seen by the road—Jossiah watched the ground, keeping his hands pushed out just in case he came into contact with a longer branch. Moonlight illuminated the woods in rough but visible patches, making even the darkest areas visible with just a bit of grey. Rocks the size of children's hopscotch stones littered the ground, but didn't give him any real trouble. The only thing that slowed him down were his ankles. While burning and in excruciating pain, the area where the metal ring had exited his foot near the sole seemed to hurt the worst.

Outside the forest, Popearae screamed and cursed things that Jossiah could only imagine were in some foreign language.

_You're not going to get me, Popearae. I'm too far gone for you to even begin to find._

Stopping to take a breath, Jossiah sighed and realized that he was truly free.

Now all he had to do was get back to the road.

* * *

Exhausted and near collapse, Jossiah stumbled out onto the nearby road. He checked to see if Popearae's car had followed him, then to see if any cars were coming. A mile down, a larger vehicle—probably a truck or SUV—rolled at a slow, leisurely pace.

_I gotta get in front of them,_ he thought, easing toward the northbound lane. _They won't stop otherwise._

With the possibility of Popearae coming out from the road and capturing him bright in his mind, he couldn't afford to waste any more time. With his arms spread and his head held high, he stepped out onto the road, waving at the approaching vehicle.

"Help!" he sobbed, tears of blood and sweat coursing down his face. "Please, _please!"_

The vehicle—which had since come to reveal itself as a truck—slowed into a stop. Now, no more than a few feet from rescue, Jossiah waited, watching a man in the driver's seat talk to his companion before stepping out of the vehicle.

"Sir," a young man, possibly around Jossiah's age, said. "Do you need help?"

_"Yes!"_ he cried, stepping forward, hands instinctively curling as he started to breathe fast. "He tuh-tuh-tried to kuh-kuh-kill muh-me."

"Who did? Who tried to kill you?"

_"POPEARAE!"_ he screamed, grimacing when the man jumped back. "No, please... I... help me. I need help."

The young man came forward and wrapped an arm around Jossiah's lower back. His passenger—a slightly older man with a scruff of orange beard—jumped out of the truck and came around to help.

"What happened?" the scruffy man asked his friend.

"Someone tried to kill him," the younger man said. "Sir," he then added, setting a hand on Jossiah's back. "We're going to help you climb up here, ok? We're going to turn around and take you to a hospital."

"Yes," he sobbed. "Thank you."

With one hand on Jossiah's upper arm and the other around his back, they hoisted him into the backseat. Jossiah's nearly-nonexistent ribs throbbed in pain, forcing a scream out of his body.

"What's wrong?" the younger man cried. "Are you ok?"

"It... it hurts," he sobbed. _"Please—"_

"Get in the truck, Adam," the bearded man said. "I'm driving."

"What are you—"

Before the man named Adam could respond, his friend jumped into the truck. Adam soon joined him.

As the two strangers sped him off to a hospital, hoping to save the man they'd found on the road from a most certain death, Jossiah set his hands on his chest and sobbed.

"Ronda," he said, picturing his girlfriend's face in his mind. "I'm sorry."

In the blink of an eye, his world went dark.

* * *

On a warm, summer day in the middle of July, Jossiah opened his eyes to find himself in a clean, white room. Burgundy chairs and couches adorned the one side of the room, while the other side had been arranged as a dining area. An octagon table and chairs shaped in the number eight stood no more than a few feet away from him, while a TV broadcasted the news of an eleven-year-old boy who had just won a local singing contest.

"Mr. Harpman?" a man asked. "Are you awake?"

"Wha... where am I?"

"You're in the hospital, sir. Two men brought you here a few nights ago."

"Is he... is he gone?"

"Is who gone?"

"Popearae," he said "The man that did this."

"Don't worry. You're safe with us."

A young doctor reached out and set a hand on his shoulder. Jossiah found himself reaching up to place a hand on the man's other arm, but stopped when he found a layer of bandage wrapped around his wrist.

"Something tells me you went through major hell with that man," the doctor said. "Your wrists... your ankles... your ribs."

"Are they—"

"I don't know how you managed to survive without them, much less get away from wherever you were being held, but they're fine. We had a metal cage built to fill in what hadn't been removed."

"So I'm ok," Jossiah said, more stating than asking.

"You're going to be just fine, sir."

The doctor stepped over to the window, where he closed the blinds a slightest bit.

"Please," Jossiah said. "Open them."

"You want them open?" the man frowned.

"Yes," he said. "I was in a very dark place for a long time."

Complying with his patient's request, the doctor opened the windows to let the sun in. Jossiah caught the flicker of his photo ID, which showed his name to be Peters.

"Dr. Peters," he said. "Where are the men who brought me here?"

"They went home after they brought you here, but not until after they were questioned by police. They'll want to ask you a few questions as well."

"I won't be able to tell them much, other than what the man looks like and what he drives."

"You can't tell them what he did to you?"

"Yes," he said, shaking after he said the word. "I don't want to, but I'll tell them anything they need to know to catch that mad bastard."

Doctor Peters nodded. He stepped away from the window and walked to Jossiah's bedside.

"Do you need me to call someone?" the man asked, setting a hand on his shoulder. "Anyone at all?"

"My girlfriend," he said. "Ronda, Ronda Cranberry."

"Can you give me her number?"

After he recited the number and the doctor scratched it down on a piece of paper, Dr. Peters made his way for the door. Turning, as if entertaining a second thought, he tilted his head and looked back at Jossiah.

"Everything's going to be ok," he said. "No one's going to hurt you anymore."

* * *

"Jossiah... Jossiah. Wake up, baby. It's me, Ronda."

The moment Jossiah opened his eyes was the moment he pledged never to say another mean thing to her again. The woman he loved leaned over him, a smile shining through the thickest of tears.

"I love you," he said, reaching up to touch her face.

"I love you too," she said, wrapping her arms around him. "I'm so glad you're ok."

"I didn't think I would make it," he said, bowing his head into her hair. He smelled lavender and closed his eyes, breathing in the scent as deeply as he could. "I almost didn't make it."

"The doctor told me what you said and what the men who brought you in told him, but he couldn't tell me anything else. Jossiah... what happened out there?"

"I'll tell you," he said, "but not now. I... I just want to hold you."

Sitting up, he wrapped his arms around his girlfriend and brought her as close as he could.

"Will you marry me?" he whispered.

"Yes," she whispered, in the silence that followed. "I will."

# The Glass Doe

Ray Andrews noticed someone had left the water running at five-forty-five in the morning, when he woke from a fitful sleep to go to the bathroom. At first, he ignored it, thinking that his wife would soon rise and begin to water her flowers. Then he realized—with utter annoyance and a tinge of malice—that she would, most likely, blame him for it.

_Fuck,_ he thought, tangling a hand through his hair. _I don't want to go out there, not at this godforsaken hour of the morning._

Nauseated—both from a stomach ache and insomnia—he preferred to return to bed than go outside and turn the water off. But, as he already knew, that would not be the case. He _would_ be leaving the house, and he _would_ be turning the water off, whether he liked it or not.

Flushing the toilet, Ray turned and made his way back into the bedroom, where he pulled his jeans up his legs and a flannel over his shoulders.

_It'll only take a minute,_ he thought, pulling the blankets up over his wife's shoulders, then pushing his way out into the hall.

Once in the kitchen, he stopped to make sure he'd unlocked the door before he stepped outside. At nearly six in the morning, all he needed was to be locked out of the house. People slept in on Saturday and didn't take kindly to being woken up by arrogant neighbors.

Outside—in the cool, crisp morning air—Ray shivered and drew his flannel tighter around his body, both regretting and bathing in the action. One part of him _hated_ the chill, while the other adored it. Two sides to one half, his father—or, more preferably, his wife—would have said. At that moment, both of his halves would rather be in bed, sleeping off an ache that ate at his stomach like raw, uncooked hamburger meat.

_Only one minute, Ray. Don't worry—it's right out back._

Turning, he crested the lilacs, the bleeding hearts and the daisies, making his way around the side of the house and between the hedges that framed it. His wife always liked the look of hedges flanking the house, but she'd never stopped to consider how much work it would be to trim them. She had no reason to care—she wasn't the one that trimmed them every other week.

"Just shut the fuck up already," he groaned, setting a hand on his forehead.

Satisfied that his incessant, nagging wife had left his conscience, Ray squeezed through the last bush and came out the other side, annoyed but otherwise pleased with himself. This time, he would go through the back door, aided by the key they kept on top of the nearby light.

"All right," he said, quickly locating the source of the flow.

At the west end of his house—where what should have been a backyard sat situated amidst a series of rocks, small shrubs and a fishpond—the pumps that fed water into the hoses protruded just above a flowerbed, where insistent and determined vines climbed the walls like snakes in a rainforest. It seemed like every time he came back here, he had to fight off some kind of plant, whether it be a wayward flower or a tangle of vines. The vines he could get away with; the flowers... not so much.

_Well, there aren't any flowers to_ accidentally _break in half today, so there's nothing to worry about._

Crouching, Ray reached forward and turned both knobs until the flow of water ceased to spout from their iron pipes, pleased with what he had accomplished. If the wife woke, he could simply say that he'd stepped out back for a minute to admire the fishpond and all the hard work they'd put into it.

I _put into it,_ he thought, shaking his head.

Ray started to rise, but stopped as a flicker of movement caught his eye. Immediately, he pushed himself against the wall, knowing—but not thinking—of how stupid his action had been.

_Dumbass. Good way to get yourself chomped by the neighbor's dog from hell._

When he opened his eyes, Ray didn't see a dog, nor did he see a silhouette in the sky or a passing shadow from a shifting tree.

What he saw he would not ever begin to forget.

Standing near the fishpond with its head bowed, a deer-like creature made entirely out of the finest, bluest glass drank from the pond, clear tongue lapping at the water before it. Its eyes—also clear, but with a tint of green—caught sight of him, but did nothing more than blink with lids the color of its skin.

At first, Ray didn't know what to do, so he simply stood there and watched the impossible creature with a sense of both awe and fright. After a moment, it soon became apparent that what stood before him _did_ , in fact, exist, and it drank from his pond just like any other large animal that happened across his backyard. Beneath the nearly-still surface, koi the size of Ray's fist swam back and forth, startled by the anomaly's presence. Ray found himself feeling like the fish at that moment. He wanted to run back into the house—to scream for Pam to get the gun and to call animal control—but knew that would not be an option.

God had a reason for putting this thing in his backyard.

Whatever that reason was, Ray would not doubt it.

"Heh-Hello," he managed.

The doe turned its head up, watching him with a bemused expression. The light from the rising sun caught the surface of its skin and reflected it in all directions, nearly blinding him with a kaleidoscope of color. Ray raised his hand—if only to shield his eyes from the early-morning spectacle—and found himself staring at something he hadn't seen until that moment.

Inside the doe's blue, glass body, a red heart beat, giving life to a thing that should not exist.

Just as he began to comprehend the doe's meaning, it turned, jumped over the fence, and disappeared into the woods.

Ray's heart stopped beating for a moment.

Then he thought of Pam and everything she had gone through in the past six months.

* * *

A heart attack, they said—caused by cholesterol, stress, and lack of proper nutrition. What a surprise it had been to find out that his seemingly-healthy wife actually existed in a way that could kill her. The cholesterol had come from genetics—her mother, who'd died the previous year from heart failure. The stress—fickle and apparent as may have seemed—came from a stillborn they'd had earlier that year. A baby boy, the doctors had said, just as they pronounced Ray and Pamela's unborn child a stillborn. And the nutrition... well, who could say that a person would want to actually eat anything after their newborn son had died? Ray himself had lost twenty pounds over the span of a month. Pam hadn't stopped losing it.

The heart attack had occurred on an Easter Sunday, when Jesus was supposed to have been resurrected from his untimely death. Pam had wandered the kitchen that morning, making breakfast and tidying things that didn't need to be tidied. Ray witnessed her fall just as he'd stepped out of the living room to get himself a glass of milk.

_Pam!_

The scream—fresh and always lingering in the back of his mind—continued to haunt him daily, just as it had when he threw himself to his knees and pressed a hand to her face. He knew something was wrong, so wrong that, in fact, he'd picked up the phone, dialed 9-1-1, and screamed into the mouthpiece, _MY WIFE IS HAVING A HEART ATTACK!_

The ambulance pulled into the driveway no more than three minutes after he'd called, and the paramedics rushed into the house no more than a minute after that. One had fallen to Pam's side and forced an oxygen mask over her mouth, while two others raced in with a stretcher. By the time they'd strapped Pam to the stretcher and rushed it into the ambulance, only seven minutes had passed from time of call to time of rescue.

A simple diagnosis had been given—heart attack. And that simple diagnosis had been enough to force Pam to realize that time meant more than just existing day to day, destroying one's soul piece by piece over a child they had never known.

Ray took on a second shift, while Pam stayed home and took care of herself. She took vitamins to supplement her nutrition and stopped eating hundred-calorie snack cakes in favor of an apple or an orange. Fruit, they said, and vegetables, would keep Pam strong.

Six months later, everything seemed back to normal.

That is, until just ten minutes ago.

Settling in a chair at the kitchen table, Ray framed his face with his hands and stared at the crumbs from last night's garlic bread, unable to process what had just transpired. He knew that a doe had graced his backyard no more than a moment ago, but a glass doe? Could such a thing exist—an animal made out of manmade material?

_No._

In his mind—and in the minds of every other normal, sane human being on the face of the earth—there was no such thing as an animal made of glass. Not even a fantastical creature born from the mind of the greatest imagination could begin to exist, not in their universe.

"Slow, deep breaths," he whispered, coaxing himself through the motions. "One... two... three."

Rich oxygen filled his chest and expanded his lungs, filling the rungs and cavities which occupied their surfaces. Each breath felt wonderful, like a miracle on Earth or a tequila at sunrise. He desperately wanted a drink, or at least a cigarette, but he'd quit after Pam's heart attack for fear of his own health.

_The pleasures of the body aren't meant to be taken lightly._

"No, they're not."

"Ray?"

Her voice alone ceased the storm within his mind.

Pam stood in the threshold, short, blonde hair messed as his most likely was.

"Are you ok?" she frowned, stepping into the kitchen.

"I'm ok," he smiled, forcing a laugh. "Dog scared me."

"You mean the neighbor's dog? Demon?"

"Yeah."

"That dog shouldn't be running loose in this neighborhood," she said, heading toward the phone. "I'm going to give them a call right now and—"

"No!" he cried, jumping to his feet. Pam frowned, started to say something, but stopped, pursing her lips. "Sorry, hon. I mean... no, don't worry about it. It ran back home."

"All right," she shrugged. "If you say so."

She crossed the room, reached into the fridge, and pulled out a small creamer. She pulled the freshly-made coffee from its automated machine and poured them each a cup. Hers she drank with the slightest amount of sugar, which she measured and poured with a tiny spoon.

"You sure you're ok?" Pam frowned, setting his coffee before him.

"Yeah," he smiled. "Just a little shooken up, that's all."

* * *

He stood in front of the pond, watching the koi swim under the water with innocence only a fish could have. Occasionally, they'd bob to the surface and watch him with bulging eyes, quickly splashing back into the depths whenever something moved. The slightest bit of wind, a falling leaf, his shadow shifting unconsciously—any and all movement scared them back into the darkness he'd built for them to disappear into.

If only he could disappear.

Sighing, Ray slid his thumbs into his pockets and continued to stare at the water, willing the fish to return to ease the absence of company. Despite the fact that his wife stood in the kitchen—more than willing to offer him company in his darkest, most surreal hour—he found he couldn't go. For some reason, just the thought of touching his wife after seeing something out of this world frightened him.

_What was it?_

He didn't need an answer—one was already present.

He'd seen a doe this morning, a doe with shining glass skin and a red, beating heart.

Wind tracing his back, he turned to face the house, but stopped as he saw the water running.

_I turned that off..._

Didn't he?

Then again, who could blame him if he somehow hadn't managed to shut it off? _Anyone_ would be spooked after seeing something that wasn't supposed to exist.

Trudging forward, Ray bent down, grasped the handle, and turned the spigot until it would turn no more.

One final shiver crossed his back.

He didn't need to turn around to know that something had returned.

* * *

"Ray?" Pam frowned. "Are you all right?"

"Yes," he mumbled. "I'm fine."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes, dear—I'm sure."

Stoic as ever, Pam pressed forward, asking the same question again and again. When Ray finally looked up and gave her a dirty look, she shut up and returned to making breakfast.

_Look at you,_ his conscience taunted. _Big, bad bully, being mean to your wife._

_I'm not being mean to her._

_Then what_ are _you doing, Ray?_

_I'm upset._

_Sure you are..._

Growling, Ray stood, walked up behind Pam, and slid his arms around her waist. She jumped upon the initial contact, but soon settled down and melted against him.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, kissing the nape of her neck. "I wasn't feeling good this morning. I'm still not."

"Stomach problems?"

"Yeah."

"Maybe you should go to the doctor, Ray. Your stomach's been bothering you for the past—"

"It runs in the family, Pammy."

"Still... it might be best to get it checked out."

"I guess."

Even though he wouldn't, the words would reassure his wife that everything was going to be fine.

Kissing her neck one last time, Ray relinquished his hold on his wife's waist and took a few steps back. With his back to the counter, he crossed his arms over his chest and looked out the window, breathing in the cool, spring air that wafted through the partially-cracked window.

"We shouldn't leave the windows open at night," he mumbled.

"It wasn't open overnight."

"It wasn't?"

"No. I opened it when you went outside."

"Oh."

"Are you sure you're all right, Ray?"

"Yeah. I'm sure."

"Go get dressed. By the time you're done, I'll have breakfast made."

"All right," he said, turning toward the threshold.

Before he could step into the living room, he turned, looked at his wife, and whispered, "I love you."

After that, Ray made his way to the bedroom.

* * *

Thoughts of glass animals wrecked his conscience as he made his way to work. Seated in a sixty-nine Ford with scratched leather seats and a slowly-dying engine, he did his best to calm his nerves, not wanting to walk into a jewelry store with shaky fingers. Sometimes, given the right circumstance, nervous people would break things—expensive glass vases, bowls, display rings that boasted zirconium and their key to the jewelry world. No one would steal the rings, of course, since he'd installed leather cable that connected them to their display rack, but the right individual could lose hold and send it sailing into the counter.

Real diamonds didn't break. Fake ones did.

Pulling into the parking lot of the jewelry store, Ray pushed himself out of the truck and mentally prepared himself for the day. Smoothing out his suit sleeves, reaching up to make sure he'd shaved and popping his knuckles, he took a deep breath and made his way into the building.

"Ray!" a coworker, Michael, called. "About time!"

"What?" he frowned.

"You're nearly a half-hour late."

"Shit. You're kidding?"

"I'm not." Michael lifted a nearby pocket watch. The time clearly showed nine-thirty.

"Sorry, Mike. I had a rough morning."

"Stomach problems?"

"Yeah. I didn't want to get out of bed."

"Maybe you should go to the doctor."

"Pam's been telling me the same thing."

"Well... why don't you?"

"Because I hate going."

"So do I, but it's not going to help your wife any if you wake up and start throwing your guts up."

_No kidding, Einstein._

Ray made his way up to the counter and slid his way behind the front desk. There, he reached under the counter and pulled out a password-coded case.

"So, what's on the agenda today, Ray?"

"Not a whole lot," he grunted, sliding the case open. "Just fixing this ring here."

"What's wrong with it?"

"The owner wants me to add his children's birth stones in it."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. February, July and October."

"Sounds fun."

"I guess."

"Whatever floats their boats, right?" Michael laughed, slapping his back.

Nodding, Ray forced a smile and slid the ring out. He was just about to turn and make his way into the jeweler's office before something caught his eye.

A small, blue-colored glass doe sat on the corner of the counter, green-colored eyes winking at him.

"Wha-When did that come in?" he stammered.

"That?" Michael frowned. "Some lady custom-ordered it."

"Uh-Oh."

"Something wrong, buddy?"

"No," Ray said, encircling the ring in his palm. "Nothing's wrong, Michael."

"All right," Michael shrugged. "You sure you're ok, Ray?"

"Yeah," he managed. "I am."

_If only he knew,_ Ray thought, making his way toward the office. _If only he knew._

* * *

That night, he slept with his arm around his wife's waist. Though the closeness comforted him, it did nothing to chase away the vision of a glass animal drinking out of his fishpond. With its long, graceful snout, its gleaming green eyes and its beating red heart, it seemed that, at any moment, it could spring out of his dreams and into his bedroom. It could gawk at his wife with its emerald eyes, puff its crystal snout at the air, then sniff the ground with its whitened nose. It could do any and everything it wanted to, all because some higher power allowed it to exist.

_What is it?_ he thought, drawing closer to his wife. _Why is it here?_

Even though it didn't necessarily matter, its presence left an imprint—not only on his property, but his life. Men didn't just see glass animals in their backyards, and Gods didn't make them only to let them frolic in the land of mortals.

The doe had a reason for appearing.

What reason that was, Ray didn't know.

He hoped he wouldn't come to find it.

* * *

It returned the following morning.

Standing in his front yard as though not a person or a passing car would care, it padded through the arrangement of flowers and sniffed the fresh dew on the ground. Occasionally, its ears would flicker, once again proving its existence beyond the inanimate.

"What are you doing?" he whispered. "Why are you here?"

The doe raised its head.

Ray froze.

Clear, translucent lids blinked.

"You're not real," he continued, reaching forward to grip the counter in front of him. "You _can't_ be."

If it wasn't real, what was it doing in his front yard, frolicking amongst his wife's flowers and licking dew from fallen leaves?

_You're just imagining things._

True—he _could_ be imagining things, but he didn't think that was the case.

Unsure what to do, Ray made his way out of the kitchen and back to the bedroom.

Hopefully, nothing but sweet dreams would follow.

* * *

"Ray?" Pam frowned. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah," he yawned. "Why?"

"You slept in."

Looking up, Ray sought out the nearest clock, sighing when he realized that he would, once again, be late if he didn't hurry.

"I'm all right, Pam—don't worry."

"You've either been sleeping in or shaken up these past two mornings. Are you sure nothing's wrong?"

"Yeah, I'm sure. Don't worry, Pam; I'm fine."

Pam said nothing.

Sighing, Ray settled down at the kitchen table and cupped his face into his hands, trying as hard as he could to take slow, even breaths. Anything more than the even one-breath-in, one-breath-out approach would set Pam's red flags off.

After everything that had happened in the past six months, she didn't need anything else to worry about.

_Especially not something I'm going through._

"Ray?"

"Yeah?"

"Breakfast."

Toast, eggs, sausage and muffins—all part of Pam's normal, routine breakfast.

"Thank you," he said, spearing a piece of sausage on his fork.

"Would you go to the doctor for me if I asked me to?"

"Maybe."

"Is it your stomach, honey? Is that's what's been wrong these past two mornings?"

_If only you knew,_ he thought, shaking his head. _If only you knew, Pam._

"No. My stomach's been fine."

"Then what's wrong? Is it work, friends, me—"

"Don't _ever_ think you're the cause for any of my problems, Pam."

"I'm just—"

"Worried, I know." He set his fork down and took a deep breath, somehow managing to force a smile in the process. "I'm ok, babe—you've got nothing to worry about with me. If anything, you should be worried about yourself."

"I am, but I'm worried about you too. You're my husband."

"Just like you're my wife," he said. "Just like I worry about you."

Reaching forward, Ray set a hand over his wife's and smiled.

Pam smiled back.

Ray wouldn't know what to do if something took that smile away.

* * *

She fell ill a day later.

Stricken with a fever of one-hundred-and-three degrees, Ray was forced to take the day off in order to care for his ailing wife. At first, nothing but pure and utter fear struck his heart, plaguing him with doubts and worries. But after a quick call to the doctor, and after a reassuring conversation that said she would, most likely, be fine unless her temperature increased, he calmed down enough to sit down and think things through.

_Ok,_ he thought, tangling his fingers through his hair and bowing his head between his knees. _The doctor said she might go through this in the months after the heart attack._

Frailty, weakness and anxiety weren't uncommon after a heart attack, nor were fevers and bouts of depression. So far, Pam had managed to elude them, but no one could expect her luck to last forever.

Like a rose with its petals and a clam with its pearl, all things lost eventually. Grand kings fell, high mountains crumbled, and flowing rivers stopped running.

All it took was a matter of time for everything to stop.

Eventually, Pam would too, whether he liked it or not.

In a fit of frustration, Ray threw himself from his chair and into the middle of the living room. This _couldn't_ be happening. Not to him, not to his wife. People's hearts didn't stop beating, people's minds didn't stop thinking, and people's arms didn't stop rowing, because in the end, everyone had a light to guide them through the darkness.

Life wasn't supposed to be this hard.

Life wasn't supposed to be this complicated.

Life wasn't supposed to be this _painful._

_"No!"_ he sobbed, tugging at his mess of black hair until it hurt. "This isn't supposed to happen to her! Not _her!_ Not _my wife!"_

A flicker of movement caught his eye.

Standing at the window, nearly hidden in the dense shrubbery of his wife's tropical plants, the glass doe pushed its snout at the window until both eyes appeared from behind the leaves.

_No..._

It couldn't have.

Could it?

In the back of his head, something made him start to reconsider the doe's true purpose for being here.

* * *

"Pam," Ray whispered, bending down beside the bed. "Are you all right?"

"Hmm?" she mumbled. "Ray?"

"Yeah, hon—it's me."

"What time is it?"

"Almost noon. Don't worry, I'm doing the chores."

"Why aren't you at work?"

"I wasn't going to leave you at home, especially not after—"

_Not after your heart attack._

"After what?" she frowned. Eyes cracking to thin slits, she looked around the room until she found him at eye-level. "Ray?"

"After you told me you had a fever."

"Oh," she paused. "Ok."

"Do you need anything? Some soup, something to drink?"

"I'm all right," she whispered, closing her eyes. "Ray?"

"Yeah?"

"I love you."

"I love you too," he whispered, brushing her hair out of her eyes.

By the time he leaned forward and kissed her forehead, she had already drifted off to sleep.

* * *

After three hours passed with nothing more than the sound of his own footsteps, Ray walked into his bedroom to find that his wife had stopped breathing.

"Pam?" he frowned. "Honey?"

The initial, blunt shock held him in place. He couldn't move, he couldn't breathe, he couldn't _think—_ he couldn't do _anything_. His minutes blurred to seconds, then his seconds blurred to nothing.

At one point in time—as a child, or maybe during a harsh, epileptic fit—time had seemed impossible, a thing measured not by numbers, but by the color of the sky, or the green or yellow of the grass. When the trees died, when the dog got old, when the pet gerbil turned over and aimed its feet at the sky—all were told in events, not numbers. So when Pam stopped breathing—when she truly, _utterly_ stopped breathing—Ray's natural instinct threw his body at the phone and dialed three simple numbers.

_"9-1-1,"_ an androgynous voice said. _"What's your emergency?"_

_"My wife's not breathing."_

_"Have you started CPR?"_

_"No."_

_"How long has she—"_

An hourglass turned in his head.

Red liquid spilled forth.

Not sand, not water, not cherry-flavored slush—blood.

In but a fraction of a minute, his wife could be dead, if she wasn't already.

After the phone fell from his grasp and dangled from the window-side counter, Ray's hands slammed one over the other, thumb over thumb, and began pumping life into Pam. One two three, four five six, seven eight nine, ten eleven twelve; one breath here, one breath there, one over that way and another over this way—each and every action supplemented the life-giving act of cardiopulmonary resuscitation.

_"BREATHE!"_ he screamed. _"BREATHE, PAM—BREATHE!"_

A sharp inhale broke the horrible silence of a heart attack.

The front door shattered inward.

It only took three minutes and thirty seconds for the EMTs to get to the house.

By the time they pushed their way through the bedroom door, Ray's legs gave out and his world went black.

* * *

_"Mr. Andrews... Mr. Andrews. Wake up, Mr. Andrews... Mr. Andrews?"_

_Pam._

Ray shot upright so fast he nearly hit the nurse standing beside the bed.

"Where is she?" he breathed, lashing for the nurse's arms, crying out when an IV cord tugged at his skin. "Where's my wife?"

"She's fine, sir. She's resting."

"What happened? Why wasn't she breathing? What's wrong with her?"

"Slow down, Mr. Andrews."

"Tell me what happened to my wife right now or I'll—"

"Sir, please—calm down. Your wife's just fine."

"What happened to her? Goddamn it, tell me or I'll—"

"Your wife had a heart attack. We estimate she stopped breathing for three minutes before you began CPR."

Words escaped him. Breath didn't.

"What?" he asked. "No. That's not possible. She _couldn't_ have had a heart attack."

"Why not, Mr. Andrews?"

"Because she's been doing so good these past few months. Her exercises, her medicine, her diet—she—"

"Just because someone exercises, eats healthy and takes their medicine doesn't guarantee that they won't have a heart attack, sir. It's quite common for first-time sufferers to have multiple heart attacks, especially when they're having fevers."

"I was told that she'd be all right, god damn it! The doctor said—"

"The doctor most likely assumed that the fever would go down. Mr. Andrews, you have to understand something—we're not able to monitor our patient's health unless they're present at the time of their illness."

"Get me out of here," he growled. "I want to see my wife."

"Mr. Andrews—"

"If you don't let me out of here, I'll rip the goddamn IV out myself."

The nurse needed no further encouragement.

Stepping forward, he slid the plastic sealant off Ray's hand and gently pulled the needle out.

Before the nurse could turn to grab a bandage and a piece of cotton, Ray was already out of bed and making his way toward the front desk.

* * *

He'd never seen anything more fragile than a newborn kitten until he saw his wife in a hospital bed. Like some alien, mechanical structure, tubes ran into her arms, mouth and nose. Her hair—grand, sophisticated, cut like tomboy queens—lay strewn behind her head like snakes. It seemed that at any moment, any part of her could simply come alive. The tubes could shoot from her arms, oxygen could pour from her mouth, and venom could fly from her hair, all because of a tragic event of the human body.

_Fragile,_ Ray thought, _like a newborn animal or child._

The thought forced a tear from his eye.

Pam endured this once before—why again? Why now of all times, when things seemed to be going so well? Why now, when he nearly managed the store; why now, after Pam had just started getting back to health?

_Why now?_

"Why?" he asked. "Why?"

With tears in his eyes, Ray stepped forward and fell to his wife's side.

"Everything's going to be all right, Mr. Andrews," the male nurse said. "Everything's going to be just fine."

If only Ray could believe that...

If only he could.

* * *

Startled awake by the presence of his unconscious wife, Ray opened his eyes to find the room dark and empty. Save for the glow of the Holter monitor and the occasional flicker of a passing nurse, nothing and no one existed beyond the two of them. A barely-awake man, an unconscious woman, a beating heart monitor and a closed window—they and only they could be heard, living, breathing and beeping.

_She's ok,_ he thought, watching the Holter rise and fall with each breath. _You did it, Ray—you kept your wife alive._

What would have happened if he'd been a moment later? Would she have lived, returned home a normal woman, and breathed, ate and slept like everyone else, or would she have died—in mind, body and soul?

The thought—so disturbing and unreal—forced sweat from the back of his neck. It trailed the curve of his spine, then slid under his jeans, tracing his tailbone before it soaked into the denim. Even the moisture didn't seem real, like someone had dangled a wet finger over his collar and let a drop of water fall into his shirt.

_There's no one here,_ he thought, closing his eyes. _There's no one here, Ray._

Not a doctor, not a nurse, not even a lonely fruit fly stood in the darkness, watching him in his most intimate of moments.

No one except he and Pam lay in the room, shrouded in darkness and bathed in the glow of machines.

No one watched them.

_No one._

For the first time in the past three days, Ray was able to close his eyes.

All was well, if only for the time being.

* * *

"Ray?" Pam whispered.

"Yes, honey?"

"What happened?"

How so much could ride on two words, Ray didn't know. He stopped pondering on such hidden meanings a long time ago, after his unborn child died and after a glass deer appeared in his backyard to drink out of his fishpond. Why the sky was blue, why the glass was green, why bluebirds sang—what was the point in trying to decipher life's each and every hidden meaning when it got you nowhere?

_There isn't one,_ he thought, _because there doesn't_ have _to be one._

"Ray?"

Again, his thoughts wandered to how a heart beat inside a woman's chest; how, inside her body, atria and ventricle contract and relax in order to create a rhythmic pattern. Without the heart, there would be no blood, and without the blood, there would be no oxygen supplying the brain, giving life to something that couldn't exist on its own.

_"Ray?"_

Glass animals danced in the yard behind his house. Deer, elephants, donkeys, zebra—like a wild, glass menagerie, they twisted and twirled around trees and shrubs, touching any and everything they could. Grass turned blue, water turned green, and hearts that weren't supposed to exist beat inside their chests, giving life to fantastical, imaginary things sprung forth out of a children's storybook."

"Ray!"

"What?" he asked, startled.

"What happened to me?"

"You..." He paused. Tears broke the surface of his eyes. "No one's been in here yet?"

"No. No one's been in here since I woke up a few minutes ago."

"Honey—"

"I had a heart attack, didn't I?"

He froze.

Instead of his wife's calm, brown eyes, he saw glass, emeralds protruding from the face of a four-legged mammal made of ocean-blue crystal. The image startled him so much that he nearly overturned a chair when he jumped back in surprise.

"What's wrong, Ray? Why won't you talk to me?"

"You had a heart attack," he nodded, clutching the armrest in a death grip. "Oh God, Pam. I'm so sorry."

"What are you—"

"You weren't breathing for three whole minutes. If I wouldn't have come in when I did, you would've... you would've..."

He couldn't say the word.

Four letters was just too much.

Bowing his head, he broke down in tears.

He loved his wife too much to say she could've died.

* * *

They went home a few days later.

Blanketed in the serenity of a friendly environment, Pam immediately went to the couch, intent on catching up on past soaps and other TV shows, while Ray wandered down the hall and into the bedroom. There, he collapsed on the bed and stared at the ceiling, taking slow, deep breaths.

_It's all right,_ he thought. _You're home now._

With Pam on newer, stronger medication, the doctors had told him such a scare would most likely never happen again. Along with a vitamin regimen—consisting of the basics, along with the essentials—they'd said her heart would heal.

Maybe she would beat heart disease.

Maybe—just maybe—it would fade with age, like roses in a glass vase.

_Or,_ he thought, _Pam will fade._

"Like a rose in a glass vase."

Closing his eyes, Ray began to count backward from ten, hoping that the routine would work and that all his troubles would go away.

Something in the back of his head told him it wouldn't.

He stopped counting at seven.

_What's the point? You know it won't help, so why do you do it?_

"Because that's what you do," he whispered. "That's what you do."

_When you want to go to la-la land._

No. He definitely didn't want to go there, not when things that weren't supposed to exist were already appearing in his backyard, drinking his water and scaring his fish.

_They haven't been fed for a week,_ he sighed. _Hopefully they're still alive._

Sitting up, he threw his feet off the bed and stood.

At the door, he grabbed the tube of fish food and took a deep breath.

He didn't need a pond of dead fish.

Things didn't need to get any worse.

* * *

To Ray's surprise, his collection of koi had managed to survive on their own for a week. The pond—though mostly free of moss, algae, and other water debris—looked the same. Even the occasional leaf that was usually present was nowhere to be seen.

"At least you're alive," he smiled, squatting down to watch them feed. "Thanks for not dying on me, guys."

_You don't know how much it means to me._

One Koi in particular—Ray's favorite, which he had named Shadow—swam forward and tipped its head out of the surface. Its sleek, black surface could barely be seen in the gloom of late afternoon. At times, Ray would come out with only a flashlight at night and catch the koi's eyes in its beam. They would gleam and sparkle, bobbing along the surface for a brief moment before retreating under the water.

"Hey, Shad. Miss me?"

The fish slid under the water, eyes watching Ray from the safety of darkness.

"I know," he sighed, running a hand over his forehead. "Pam's not doing so good. She had to go to the hospital, but you probably already know that. They had to break the door in, after all."

Laughing, Ray stood, stretched his arms out, and let out a breath of air, silently thanking his neighbor for coming and replacing the door. Good will always did a person good, especially when life usually paid them back.

_Which it always does._

"Sometimes."

What bitter humor a man could have.

* * *

Beautiful agony laced through the veins of every man at least once in his life, regardless of his age, ethnicity or occupation. One moment he could be happy, then the next he could be sad, an emotional rollercoaster controlled by vertigo-afflicted plastic horses on a merry-go-round. It didn't matter who you were, what you were or what you ate—once in your life, a part of you would die, then slowly be reborn.

Ray died once when his child died in the womb.

He died a second time when Pam's heart failed.

He died for the third time when Pam stopped breathing.

Pushing his way not only into the house, but away from good emotions, Ray slipped his shoes off at the back door and made his way into the living room. There, he found Pam lying lengthwise across the couch, feet propped up on a pillow and head resting against the armrest. She smiled when she saw him.

"Hey," she said. "You ok?"

"I'm fine," he said, forcing a smile.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, why?"

"I wasn't sure where you went."

"Oh. That." This time, his smile came without force. "I went out to check on the fish."

"Are they ok?"

"Yeah—they're fine. I was sure at least a few of them would have been dead, but Bill must've fed them for me while we were gone."

"Bill's a good guy."

"He sure is."

Ray settled down on the floor beside his wife and took her hand, stroking the length of her long, bony fingers.

_She's so bony._

"What do you want for dinner tonight?" he asked. "Anything you want, I'll make."

"You don't have to do that, Ray."

"I know I don't _have_ to—I _want_ to, Pam."

"Still—"

"Still nothing." Ray stood. "What's the one thing you've wanted for a long time? Anything you want, I'll make. If we don't have it, I'll get it."

Though no immediate response came, Ray could see the thought in Pam's eyes. From the way they rolled to the ceiling to the way they blinked every few seconds, contemplation stained their surfaces like blood on a coffee table.

Finally, after a moment of thought, Pam smiled and turned to look at Ray.

"Chicken salad," she said, "with artichokes and garlic bread."

* * *

He spent the next hour-and-a-half in the kitchen, preparing the chicken, cutting up the vegetables, and splashing them with the appropriate sauce. Pam preferred Italian, while Ray himself preferred raspberry, but would eat either depending on the situation.

_It doesn't matter what I like,_ he thought, lining the edge of the plate with tomatoes. _Tonight's about Pam._

Having scraped the artichokes into dip and arranged the extra on the plate opposite the tomatoes, he stepped back to view his progress. All looked well, but he could do more—he knew that.

"All right," he mumbled, turning toward the fridge. "Let's see what we've got here."

Teas, bottled waters, sodas, wine—all could be drunk, but what would be best? Wine might not be the best choice so soon after a heart attack, and soda wasn't an option. That left tea and water, neither of which would pique Pam's interest.

_Lemonade. I'll make lemonade._

Would that go good with a salad though?

_Who cares?_

Pam sure wouldn't, and Ray didn't care about what he drank. As long as he had something cold, he could deal with most anything.

_Except whiskey,_ he chuckled. _I don't need any of that._

He'd had a bad-enough drinking problem as a teenager—he didn't need to start back up again.

_Especially after seeing what Pam's gone through._

Even if fate didn't lead him directly down the path of heart disease, he didn't need anything to help him along.

Filling a pitcher with water, he grabbed the lemon at his side, then reached for the squeezer, intent on reaping the fruit for all it was worth.

A flicker of light drew his eyes toward the window.

Nothing but the shadow of a falling leaf greeted him.

Sighing, he gripped the handle with one hand and began to squeeze.

If anything, he could take his aggression on a senseless piece of fruit.

* * *

"Ray," Pam breathed. "It's... it's..."

"Dinner," he smiled, sitting the plate before them.

"Why did you make so much, Ray? Lemonade, tomatoes, extra artichokes and sauce? This is too much."

"Nothing is too much when it's for someone as special as you, Pam."

"Ray—"

"Shh. Don't talk—just eat. I didn't make all this food for myself, you know?"

Laughing, Ray winked and settled down beside his wife, lifting his fork and spearing a piece of chicken.

In the nearby window, a low, blue light began to pulse. It winked to life like a flashlight bursting to light, then faded almost as quickly.

"Is someone here?" Pam asked.

He blinked.

Her head had been turned. She hadn't seen a single thing.

_She thought it was someone coming up the road,_ he thought, heart hammering in his chest.

"No," he whispered, bowing his head into his salad. "There isn't."

He knew better though. He knew what was outside the window.

This had to end.

Tonight, after Pam fell asleep, Ray would walk to his closet, get his gun, and go outside.

He had a feeling the doe would be waiting for him.

* * *

Never in a million years would a man have experienced such a sight were it not for the abstract concept of nature. Twins could be born conjoined, creatures could die young, and entire ecosystems could collapse into themselves all because of human interaction, but nothing could compare to the unimaginable dream that stood in the clearing, watching Ray with eyes that glowed with the intensity of ten-thousand aurora borealises in the Northern hemisphere. Like a lost child in a supermarket aisle looking for her parent, the doe remained still, legs spread and ears arched in confusion.

_Does it know?_ Ray thought. _Does it really,_ really _know?_

Could dreams know that they would one day exist? Could they really, _truly_ know that one person could say, 'I have a dream' and then one day achieve it? If so, did they understand that they could be destroyed? Did they really, _truly_ understand that one person could end them with just a pull of the trigger? Did they understand that, one day, they might be worshipped—that, one day, they might be revered, martyrs that sacrificed themselves for the better of mankind?

Did they?

_Could_ they?

Regardless of what dreams thought they could or would accomplish, some dreams weren't meant to exist.

His child, Pam's health... glass animals...

Raising his rifle, Ray peered into the scope and took aim.

Hidden within its blue, misty depths, a red heart beat.

Once upon a time, he'd had a dream.

That dream had died when the doe appeared in his backyard.

Nature deemed fit that survival was meant for the fittest.

Only one of them could win.

Reaching forward, Ray tightened his grip on the stock and set his finger on the trigger.

Life could change in an instant.

In exactly three seconds, Ray's life would be changed for the better.

_All it takes is one,_ his father had said. _That's all it takes, Ray—just one._

"Just one," he whispered. "Just one, Dad."

"Ray?" Pam breathed.

He blinked.

"Pam?"

His finger slipped.

The trigger snarled.

The doe exploded.

In the times of kings, queens and golden seams, men used to dream of rain so grand and succulent it would bring them fortune. Like that rain that farmers dreamed would fall from the heavens and shower them with the greatest of crops, fragments of what once used to be a beautiful, impossible creature cascaded through the air and into the surrounding area, gleaming in the fading light of death.

A scream rang in the air.

Ray turned, startled.

Clutching her chest with a single, gnarled hand, Pam went down.

At first, Ray was unable to believe what he had just seen. It was as though the last fragment of his life had just slipped from his hand and into the sea to be forever lost to the depths. Half of him knew that he could do nothing, while the other half yearned for him to do something— _anything._

The other half caved in.

Ray ran.

Throwing himself at his wife's side, he took her face in his hands and began to cry.

"Baby?" he whispered, stroking the hair from her face. "Pam? _Pam!"_

His wife didn't move.

She didn't breathe, she didn't speak, she didn't _blink._

Nothing Ray could do or say would bring her back.

Pam was gone the moment she hit the ground.

_"NO!"_ he screamed. _"NO!"_

It took one minute for him to start CPR.

It took two minutes to start crying.

By the sixth and final minute, he stopped trying to bring her back to life.

Slinging himself back, Ray leaned against the wall and closed his eyes.

He screamed.

Nearby, a fragment of the doe continued to glow.

The final piece of its red heart continued to beat.

Then, slowly, it too died.

At that moment, Ray began to realize that some dreams were meant to come true.

# Uncle

Timothy Artsun, retired from a hard life of work, stands on the balcony that juts out from his two-bedroom apartment, watching the cars and people pass just feet below. At this early hour of the morning, people are rushing to work, stopping at the local Starbucks just across the street and secretly wishing ill to those cars ahead of them, who seem to only further jam the already-coagulated streets.

On most ordinary days, Tim would have already left his apartment and walked across the street, where he would stop at the nearby cafe and order the regular—a toasted cheese and tomato sandwich. As he ate, he would browse the classified sections, seeking single females who are looking for someone to share their apartment with.

His habbit, as perverted as it would seem for an elderly man, is not without reason. He's been a widower for nearly ten years now. His wife—a beautiful woman who had once been known as Sherry Artsun—died while crossing the street. Ironically enough, she'd been hit while fetching the morning paper.

That same newspaper dispenser still stands on the corner of the street, decrepit from age and wounded by the local hoodlums' baseball bats. Surprisingly—despite the damage that has been done—its red paint remains, a testament to the woman whose blood it has once tasted.

_That doesn't matter now,_ he thinks, rubbing the bridge of his nose. _She's gone._

Sherry has been gone for ten years.

It's time to leave the house and head out into the world.

* * *

At the cafe, he reads the paper while waiting for the toasted sandwich, marking entries in the classified section with a red pen. He's surprised to see how many ads are without phone numbers, considering that the women—all eighteen to their late twenties—are looking for homes.

_How many would want to share an apartment with an old man?_ he ponders, glancing up when he sees a waitress. He sighs when he realizes she is not approaching with his sandwich.

Turning back to his paper, he examines the classified ads he has circled, then crosses out the ones he deems inappropriate. Single-White-Female (24) Seeks Female; Pregnant Mother of 3; College Student; Foreign Exchange Asian Woman—all are crossed out, if only out of necessity.

What seems like hours later, a young woman approaches, carrying a single plate with the toasted sandwich.

"Here you are, sir," she says, setting it before Tim.

"Thank you," he smiles.

When he looks up, he finds himself looking into the face of a young, attractive woman. Normally, older women with horribly curly hair or teenage boys with bad acne serve him, not someone as young or beautiful as this girl. Her long, black hair—dyed, badly at that—curls down one shoulder and stops at a prominent breast.

"Did you need anything else?" the young woman asks.

"Uh... no." He blushes, lifting his pen to tap the paper in hopes that she has not noticed his stares. "Thank you."

"You're welcome," she says, about to turn. The tilt of her body shifts her hair, revealing her nametag for the first time. It reads, Shelby. "Hey... wait a minute. Can I ask you something?"

"Of course."

"You wouldn't happen to be the man in the classified sections, would you? The man who's renting out his extra room?"

"That would be me," he smiles, offering his hand. "Timothy Artsun at your service, ma'am."

"Oh, thank God," she sighs, taking his hand in both of hers. "I'm Shelby, Shelby Donald. I've been looking for a place to stay for months."

"I'm guessing your search hasn't gone well then?"

"No, not really."

"What made you assume I was the one renting out the room?"

"You were crossing out names," she shrugs. "I... I guess I just assumed."

"You assumed correctly," he says, reaching over to grab a napkin. "Tell you what. If you'll give me your name and phone number, I'll get an interview scheduled."

"You're a lifesaver," Shelby sighs, accepting the napkin when Timothy offers it. She scribbles her name and number down, then slides it back to Tim. "Thank you. When can I expect a call?"

"By tonight, at the latest."

"Thank you, Mr. Artsun. I appreciate it."

With one last nod, Shelby turns and darts for the kitchen just as someone begins to yell for her to get back to work.

Timothy looks down, smirks, and slides the card into his breast pocket.

_Yeah,_ he thinks. _She's the one._

* * *

Upon arriving home, Tim sets the card beside the phone and begins the ever-dreadful waiting process. Naturally, he's learned patience throughout his life, but he'd be the first to admit that even he would have a hard time waiting to call a very attractive, very young woman.

_Remember,_ he thinks, _just because I've got her number doesn't mean I'm going to accept her._

Just because a woman is attractive doesn't mean she has a lot of money.

Then again, she could always be working the streets.

He chuckles at his thought and makes his way to the fridge. There, he pulls out an amber bottle filled with brew from his friend Mat. His friend's alcohol always seems to hit the spot, especially since he's able to special order it at the liquor store right across the street.

After settling down in his recliner, he turns the TV on and browses through the guide until he comes across the painting channel. From there, he leans back, tips the bottle to his lips, and sighs as a man begins to sketch the rough lines of a sunrise over a mountain with a lead pencil.

_I need to paint more,_ he thinks, taking another swig of the cherry-tasting brew. _I don't do it enough._

His will to paint seemed to have died when Sherry passed. He still doesn't know why, after all these years, but he's always held hope that it might come back. In his younger days, he'd been quite the painter, even going so far as to display his art at local exhibitions. He'd been praised for his talents. A critic had even gone so far as to write an article about him—Timothy Artsun, a young, 'budding' talent that was 'sure to take the world by storm' in a few years time. He'd sold most of his paintings in an auction after Sherry died. Some he kept to himself, while others he donated to good cause. Mothers Against Drunk Driving, The City for Better Safety Improvements, the people who came to help him in his time of need.

As he thinks about his past and how most of his livelihood went to the grave with his wife, he remembers Shelby, the girl who wants to move in with him. He thinks about the way he looked at her badly-dyed hair and well-endowed breasts and how Sherry would feel had she been alive, and how he would have felt should he have been caught.

_It doesn't matter now. Sherry's gone... forever._

He tips the bottle, if only in memory of his wife.

* * *

Hours later, he opens his eyes as he awakes from a drunken stupor. Amber bottle still in hand, he pushes the recliner's footrest back into its mortal tomb and staggers into the kitchen. There, he sees the Memory Café's business card that Shelby wrote her phone number on.

_I have to call her,_ he decides, setting the bottle down.

It seems as though the glass has become a part of himself, as he feels distant when he sets it down on the opposite counter. He stares, mesmerized by the slight amount of liquid that rests on the bottom, but doesn't extend his hand to grasp it. There's no need for alcohol—not even a slight sip—when he calls Shelby.

Picking up the cordless phone, he lifts the business card, squints—cursing himself for not grabbing his glasses before making the trek into the kitchen—and begins to dial the number. A one, a few fives, and a three later, the phone is ringing in his head.

Ten rings later, just as Timothy is ready to hang up the phone, it clicks.

"Hello?" Shelby asks.

"Hello," Timothy says. "This is Tim Artsun, from earlier."

"Oh. Hi, sir. I was wondering when you'd call."

"Sorry, that's my fault. I fell asleep."

"It's ok. I mean, it's not like I've been sitting by the phone waiting for you to call. It's just... I... wait, I mean—"

"It's all right," he laughs, reaching up to scratch the mess of stubble on his chin. He makes a mental note to shave. "I'd love for you to come over and see the apartment. It'll give you a chance to check the place out, and besides—we can get to know each other a little more."

"All right... where do you live again?"

"It's the apartment building right across the street from Memory. I'm on the third floor."

"I didn't know you lived so close," Shelby laughs. "I won't even have to drive to work anymore. I mean, if you decide to let me live with you. Not that I expect you to just pick me or anything, sir, because I would never do that. I—"

"Don't worry," he smiles. "I'll expect you in... a half hour or so?"

"That'll work," the young woman says. "Besides. I need to shower and get ready anyway."

"All right. Thanks, Shelby. See you then."

"Thank you, sir. Goodbye."

He clicks the off button.

* * *

"Hey, Mat," Timothy calls, rapping on the glass door with his fist. "Open up!"

"Who is it?"

"It's Tim!"

Mat—a middle-aged man of forty with graying hair and too-dark beard shadow—makes his way out of the shadowed depths of the liquor store. He sets a hand over his eyes, glances out the window, and smiles when he sees Tim.

"Don't be a stranger," the man laughs, opening the door to let him in.

"Yeah. I've been a bit of one lately, haven't I?"

"You have," Mat agrees, "but that's all right. What can I do ya for, old man?"

"Ha ha, very funny." Tim smiles and walks to where Mat keeps his wares. He sets a finger to one of the glass bottles and traces its edge, marveling at the smoothness. "Got anything I'd like?"

"I've got any and everything you could possibly imagine. Why? You lookin' to have a party?"

"Something like that."

Mat raises his eyebrows.

"What?" Tim laughs, taking a bottle from its rack.

"Tell me what you've got cooking in that old head of yours."

"I've got someone coming to the apartment tonight."

"Oh? And who might this someone be?"

"A young lady that works next door."

"Hot damn," Tim laughs, bending to clap his knee. He whistles soon after, a habit Tim has come to detest. "You've got a girl comin' over?"

"For your information, she's a perfectly-grown woman," he says, lifting the apple-green bottle so he can read its flavor. "I hate the way you call women girls. It makes us old men sound like perverts. And why the hell are you starting to name your drinks after women? 'Snow White?' What's next? One for each dwarf?"

"Oh, that'll come later," Mat grins, slapping an arm around his friend's shoulder. "Tell you what. Since you've got a lady coming over, I'll give you this bottle for free. It's mixed with apple extract. Tastes just like juice, but rolls over your tongue like pudding."

"I assume that's a good thing?"

"Hell yes it is!" Mat slaps Tim's back, pushing him toward the door. "Go on, get back home, you crazy old bastard."

"All right, all right," he laughs, raising the bottle in friendly toast. "I'll get going. Thanks again, Mat."

"No problem, buddy."

Tim leaves the store wondering just how people could come up with such stupid names for alcohol.

* * *

Shelby arrives later that evening, dressed in a short-sleeved blouse and a skirt. Timothy smiles when he opens the door to her young, unsure face.

"Hello," he says, offering a hand. "It's good to see you, Shelby."

"It's good to see you too, sir."

She grips his hand—not hard, but firm. The confidant handshake reminds him of his wife.

_No,_ he thinks. _Don't start thinking about that._

All he needs is to think about Sherry at a time like this.

"So," he says, making his way into the kitchen. "I suppose I should ask you to elaborate on why you're looking for an apartment."

"My mother," Shelby says, starting to seat herself in one of the bar chairs. She stops when she realizes her action. "May I?"

"You may," he smiles, already pleased with her proper language.

While Shelby settles into her seat—welcoming herself into an environment that may soon be her home—Tim opens the fridge and pulls out the bottle of Snow White.

"You never said why you were looking for an apartment," he repeats, looking up at Shelby as he reaches for the bottle opener.

"Oh... that." She sighs, brushing an arm across her brow. "I might have mentioned it earlier in the restaurant, and I started to mention it now, but my mother. She's... she's very overbearing. She thinks I need to get a real job, but as far as I'm concerned, I'm lucky to have the job I've got."

"It's a miracle anyone can get a job in this economy," he agrees, setting the bottle and the opener on the bar in front of Shelby. "Would you like a drink?"

"Oh, no, I couldn't."

"And why not?"

"I... uh... I've never—"

"Ah," he smiles. "Then you're in luck. I've got something with a mild taste."

He doesn't bother to reveal the nature of the alcohol, nor does he bother to mention that the store which he bought it from is well-known for its strong drink. He grabs the opener, drives it into the cork, then stops, glancing up at his guest.

"Why don't you open it?" he offers, pushing the bottle forward. "Might as well make your first time memorable."

"Doesn't the cork fly off though?"

"If you're not careful."

Shelby smiles, taking hold of the bottle with one hand and the opener in the other. With one firm tug, the cork pops off, foam erupting from the base of Snow White's neck in the process. The young woman laughs and pushes it away when the form starts to run down the sides.

"It'll stop in a minute," he says, walking to the cupboards. He has to stand on the very tips of his toes to reach for the cabinet in the corner, where he keeps his wine and champagne glasses. He pulls the two most expensive—and ornate—ones from the center compartment. His and Hers, they had once been, when his wife had still been alive. He shakes the thought from his head and sets them on the bar before closing the cabinets. "Thank you, Shelby."

"For what?"

"Well, for one," he says, allowing her to fill his glass, "pouring us a drink. And for two, coming to visit me this evening."

"I told you I would. Besides, I don't have much choice in the matter, if I want to get away from my mother."

"Why does she think you need a real job?"

"She thinks I need to pay off art school as soon as I can."

"So you're a student," he smiles, sipping his drink. "What medium do you specialize in?"

"Painting, mostly."

"Ah. I admire you, ma'am."

"Why?"

"Because an artist who actively pursues his or her talent and continues to improve it is one who cares about their art. It's not often you see someone so dedicated."

"I'm not dedicated—just bored."

They both laugh. Shelby glances at Tim, reaching for her drink with tentative fingers. They tap their glasses as though playing a piano before taking their first sips.

"I'm not just shooting that off the top of my head either," Tim says. "I really do admire you. I used to paint once."

"Once?" she frowned. "What happened?"

"My wife. She passed."

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you, but there's no need to apologize. "

"It's sad when someone loses someone they love. You can't help but feel for them, you know?"

He nods and lifts his glass. He makes no attempt to disguise the length of the drink he takes.

"If you want," Shelby says, "we can paint together. I always carry a set of paints, so all we'd need is a canvas."

"You carry paints in your purse?"

"Some people carry cell phones, other carry chihuahuas. I just happen to carry paints."

Tim watches her for a moment, trying to discern her purpose. When he finds no ill intent behind her hazel eyes, he nods.

"All right," he says. "Let me go get my canvases. They should be in the back room here."

* * *

It's the first time he's painted since Sherry died. Like a fish out of water, he struggles, first attempting to wet his brush, then dip it into the paint. Gradually, with Shelby's gentle coaxing and encouragement, he is able to do the thing he has always wanted to do.

Slowly, and with effort that seems to come out of nowhere, he traces the edges of a far-off mountain, making sure to add its jagged peaks and ledges before moving to the foreground. There, he arranges a field, adding minute details as they go along.

"Do you live nearby?" he asks, looking up at Shelby. She's since pulled her badly-dyed hair back into a ponytail. Grey and Robin's Egg Blue speckle her face.

"The next town over," she smiles, reaching up to scratch her chin with the end of her brush. "If you want to know the truth, I'm not just trying to get away from my mother. I've been looking for my uncle as well."

"Your uncle?"

"Uh huh. He said that if I ever needed anything to go to him." She stops to consider what she's said, then sighs, indifferent to the older man she's now confessing to. "Well, so far, I've had very little luck."

"He lives in the area then?"

"I think so... at least, he said he did. It's kinda sad when you don't even know where your own family lives, huh?"

"I suppose so."

He shrugs, glancing at her painting—which appears to be a haunted seascape—before returning to his own. He lifts his glass and sips from it, just as Shelby has for the past few minutes. A buzz—starting at the base of his forehead—spreads its gelatinous tendrils, grasping for the deeper parts of his mind. He knows this angel of mercy will soon knock him down—not dead, but out.

"Are you having fun?" Shelby asks, smiling when she catches him looking.

"I... I guess," he frowns, looking at his painting. "I'm a little rusty, but I think I'm getting there."

"Rusty?" she laughs. "If that's rusty, I don't even know what mine is."

He glances at her painting, but doesn't say anything. Hers is beautiful, with its smooth strokes, blues and greys. His, however, seems rough, with its jagged edges and its unintentional splotches of color. He stops to consider how an artist is always wondering, comparing his old work to his new. The new, while better, always seems to lack something the old has, at least until it settles within the dark expanse of an artist's oceanic mind. Ideas sift from the bottom, floating to the surface, then spring into action, crawling onto land to evolve their arms and legs. That idea, once stably planted in the artist's figurative world, continues to evolve until it becomes sentient and can speak for itself. Maybe that is why he believes he is rusty. Maybe it's because he believes these strange, new places in his mind cannot be compared to the old, deserted places that have long since fallen into another man's hands.

"It's starting to get to me," he chuckles.

"What?"

"The alcohol."

Shelby says nothing. A quick glance at her face shows her insecurity. From her pursed lips to the slight squint of her eyes, it's obvious his words have had some impact on her sense of calm and home.

"You can stay here tonight," he says, setting the paintbrush in its cup of water. "I have to get to bed."

"I can leave."

"There's no need to drink and drive," he says, walking toward the hall.

"Which room is it?"

"Second on your right."

He slides into his bedroom without telling her goodnight.

Soon after, he climbs into bed, wondering why he can't shake the image of tearing Shelby's clothes from her body.

_The alcohol,_ he thinks. _Yeah... that's it._

He falls asleep with that same thought and image.

* * *

The following morning, he wakes to a silent apartment. It's not uncommon—considering he has lived alone for so long—but with a guest in the house, he expects something—the coffee maker running, the TV blaring, the whisper of bare feet across the kitchen linoleum.

He hears none of this.

Instead of dwelling on this perturbing silence, he rolls out of bed and heads for the master bathroom. Once inside, he peers at himself in the mirror. Harsh, grey stubble lines his cheeks and jaw, while his hair lies in disarray, pressed to his scalp on one side, standing on the other. He reaches up to scratch his chest and nearly shivers when he feels the tickle of hair against his fingers.

_It's nothing,_ he thinks, glancing down at the thin layer of grey that covers his broad chest.

For a moment, he wonders why he's shivered, but doesn't dwell on it. He turns, parts the shower curtain, and starts the bathtub first, as always. He bends and lets his hand rest under the running water, waiting until it becomes lukewarm before running the shower. It's a habit he's religiously had since his teenage years, when he'd stepped into a scalding-hot shower without first testing its warmth. Faint blotches still line his arms where the water ate away at the upper layers of his skin.

Reaching down, he slides his underwear down his legs before shrugging them off his ankles. Once at the end of one foot, he kicks it into the corner—his official dirty laundry basket—before stepping into the lukewarm water.

With the faint touch of water on his face come the memories of last night. He and Shelby, drinking and painting, talking about her long-lost uncle and how she's been searching for him; his first painting in years, a bleak sunrise against a harsh mountain; and hers, a lonely sea that threatens to swallow any who look at it whole. He breaths in the faint mist that rests in the air and sighs when he feels it dampen his throat. It's been years since he's filled a glass of water and set it on his nightstand. The refreshing moisture is heaven after a long night.

Once finished with his shower, he shaves, brushes his teeth, then walks into his bedroom and dresses before returning to the bathroom to comb his hair. Afterward, he steps out of the bedroom and into the hall, where he walks into the kitchen and grabs a cup of coffee.

It isn't until he turns to face the living room that he finds Shelby.

Naked, bloody from the waist down, she lays sprawled along one of the couches, head tilted to one side. He drops the cup in his hand and doesn't even blink when he hears it shatter. All he sees is Shelby, sprawled out along the couch, blood painting her nether region and a thick layer slime coating her chest.

Without a moment's hesitation, he bounds into the room and to her side, but stops before he can crouch to take her pulse.

Scrawled across her chest in thick, red paint, the word 'uncle' starts on her right breast, the U encapsulating her right nipple in an incomplete sphere before the rest of the word continues across her chest. The final letter—E—fully captures her left nipple, which appears to have been gnawed or torn off.

"Oh my God," he breaths.

He thinks of how he should have grabbed the phone and dialed 9-1-1, then remembers the episodic events of trauma that enter a person's mind after a tragic event. When he heard of Sherry's death, he had not been able to leave it. He'd asked the state trooper who'd came to his door if he was sure it was his wife who had been in an accident and adamantly refused to believe so until the man showed him Sherry's bloody driver's license. He'd collapsed with the truth—had fallen to his knees and stared at the floor, tracing lines of dirt that had been invisible until then—and still hadn't been able to believe what he had heard.

_Sherry,_ he whispers, lips tracing the name in silence. _No._

It isn't Sherry who lies on the couch, brutalized and long since dead—it is a young woman named Shelby, whom he met at the café across the street just yesterday. He'd eaten a cheese-and-tomato sandwich served by her very hands no more than twenty-four hours ago, had painted, spoken, and drank with her last night. How could she be dead? And how, by all means, is she covered in blood?

_You know,_ he thinks, but doesn't want to believe what he thinks.

Uncle—that single word—is written across her chest, the paint long since dried. Her eyes—glazed over in death—stare at the ceiling, while her tongue bloats inside of her mouth, peeking out from between pale, red lips. Her stomach—once smooth—is distended, pregnant with her child of decay.

Taking a few steps back, he turns and locates her purse, which sits on the counter near the microwave. He grabs it without hesitation, not bothering to stop and consider what the police will say as he tears through its tiny compartment, coming away with extra brushes, her driver's license, and a portable phonebook.

Then, as if something has struck him with divine intervention, he pulls out a small, hardback journal that has 'Visual Diary' written over the front. Below its title is a picture of Shelby herself, with the words 'My Life in Color' scrawled in gold cursive just beneath it.

_This is,_ he thinks, but stops, not sure whether or not to open it. _Yeah. This is it._

Taking a deep breath, he closes his eyes to gather his nerve before opening the diary.

Inside, as with all diaries, is her information—her name, her age, her hometown, her current address. The latter has been erased, messily at that. The word 'Maple' stands out at the very end, right where he supposes the word 'street' is supposed to be. The next page reveals a picture of Shelby as a young girl—a teenager with bad acne and braces. 'The start of my visual diary' is written off to the side. A bad attempt at a smiley face sits below it. He ignores this and continues through the pages, only briefly glimpsing at pictures of horses, friends, and what looks to be bra burning, until he comes across the final completed pages.

A woman—captured in rage and surprise—is the centerfold of one page.

'My mother,' the caption reads, 'is a witch.'

Tim shivers, suppressing the urge to reach down and rub the gooseflesh from his arms. He does, however, reach up to scratch an itch that rests below his left eye, the one he's always seemed to have trouble with.

_Your bad eye,_ his father used to whisper, the memory so alive the man's breath is on his ear. _Watch the girls, sonny—you only got one chance to put your pecker in its place._

"Quit it," he says, reaching up to rub his temple. "It's not... not that."

He looks up at Shelby and wonders. Could he have killed her? Could he have stripped her of her clothes, raped her until she bled, then possibly strangled her before writing his message across her chest?

_Why uncle though?_ he thinks, trying as hard as he can to not look at the dead woman in his apartment. _Why—_

It hits him, hard, like a bullet to the brain. He stops moving, breathing, thinking, even moving as the revelation begins to sink in.

Shelby—a girl of nineteen—looking for an apartment in the city to find the uncle who said he'd help her through anything.

A woman—accused of witchcraft by her daughter—infuriated on one page of the diary.

_Your sister always had a bad temper,_ his father whispers in his head, gripping the back of his hair like he used to when drunk. _Lucky. You don't seem to have that._

With hesitation he has not felt in years, Tim turns the page.

A picture of Shelby's mother and a man with graying hair slides out from between the two pages.

'Gotta remember,' the caption reads, 'that uncle's been a wreck since aunt Sherry died.'

The diary slips from his hand, where it lands beside the broken remnants of the coffee cup. The picture—which had revealed itself in the blink of an eye—seems to float, gliding on invisible currents of air as it comes to rest at his feet.

"Shelby," he breathes.

Shelby, who sat in his lap at family reunions; Shelby, who used to show him Picassos when she was five; Shelby, who, after her first menstrual cycle, came knocking on the door in the middle of night. She'd been twelve then, and her mother, crazed with religion and mental disorders, had expelled her from the house, claiming the devil had come to take her child into the pits of hell. He'd lived in the country then, almost ten years ago.

_Shelby..._

He'd moved after saying goodbye. His sister had barred contact. He hasn't seen Shelby since her thirteenth birthday.

_How?_

Before he can finish the thought, he sees it pinned to the fridge—a note, scrawled in almost-illegible writing.

_Change of prescription,_ it reads. Signed, Dr. Greene.

# An Amorous Thing

He was never loved until the day he died.

Cast into an alley by a dark, handsome woman who bade him no good, the man landed in a tangle of limbs and a fit of agony. Throat torn out, hand extended to stop the bleeding and leg possibly broken, he twisted and turned, clawing with one hand while holding his neck with the other to try and make it back out into the street.

With his life flowing free, it didn't take long for him to die.

After he stopped struggling, he closed his eyes and imaged love and how it could be.

A four-letter word with all the connotations in the world, a man who struggled to crawl out of an alley died without ever experiencing what it was like to be held in the arms of another.

Not long after he stopped moving, the smell of blood brought the dogs in.

Snarling, barking, baring teeth at one another in a violent exhibit of dominance, one dog ripped at his neck while another went for his leg. Soon after, a feast commenced and the alley drank blood for the first time in years. They ripped most of him away, from the flesh of his arms to the clothes on his back, before departing, bellies full and faces covered in masks of blood.

When the dogs left, the bugs came next.

Flies—blow, household, fruit—flew in by the dozens, then the hundreds to bear the fruit of life. They buried their young in the places the dogs would not touch. His eyes, his nose, his ears, his mouth, below his torn fingernails and in the destroyed confines of his genitals and anus—anywhere and everywhere they could, they burrowed, securing places for the next generation.

When something died, that thing's life didn't matter anymore.

When death took hold of something, it wanted something else to live.

In the back alley of an old bar long since forgotten by those who cared, a man died and gave way for new life to be born.

_Love,_ he sang.

Arm curled to his chest, boneless fingers touched a heart that no longer beat.

* * *

Men and women in suits and masks came the following day.

Scouring the area for hints and clues, some dusted walls, while others took pictures and wrote on their clipboards. Few touched him—even fewer wanted to be near him—but those that cared decided to help. They closed his eyes, covered his corpse, and lifted him with the care that a mother would with a child. They tended to his broken, mangled body, cradled it in the arms of a metal beast, and soothed his sorrows as those around him began to sigh.

_Death,_ they whispered.

Eyes downturned, mouths set in confusion, hurt and sorrow, they began to clean the area as the beast started moving, toward a place of life, love, and death.

* * *

A woman took a knife and cut him open.

In life, some would've called the act torture, while others would have seen it as a thing of utmost beauty—a bond only few experienced. But in death—but in beautiful, solemn death—the act of cutting a person open could only be described as the truest of loves. One mounting the other, the other lying prone, they would create a rhythm many enjoyed but few ever experienced. Orgasms could be reached and bliss could be obtained, but never once would love be found.

In life, mindless acts of pleasure meant nothing more than pleasure.

In death, mindless acts of torture meant love.

As the woman cut him open, first revealing his chest, his stomach, then his abdominals, she poked and pried, twisted and cut, moved and removed, but never once did she hurt the real, physical him. She took his heart in her hands as though it were a diamond, a priceless artifact not meant to be touched by man, and she stroked his fingers as though he were dying, an old man confined to a bed with a worm digging its way through his mind. She did things that others couldn't even begin to imagine.

How, some would ask, could you touch a man's heart, or stroke his dead, skinless fingers? And how, others would wonder, would you do this with a simple, even mind?

Regardless, what others thought meant nothing.

She loved him for who he really was—a man, not something dead.

* * *

He slept in darkness while waiting for friends to come. In his bed of metal and chill, his hands lay prone, as if numb and comforted by his confines. A sheet covered his body to keep him warm and a nurse stood no more than three feet away, waiting for things and people to arrive.

In this home of death and decay, he felt more welcomed than he ever had in his entire life.

A part of him that could no longer move smiled.

That same part felt warmth.

* * *

They did nothing to cover the wounds that ravaged his body, nor did they display him in the utmost authority of funeral. They dressed him in the finest suit and gave him the whitest shoes, but never once did they offer to open his chest for others to see. His body, though mortal, looked nothing as such. He—a cadaver, a corpse—was no longer human in the eyes of normal men. Some saw it while others didn't, but those that did knew a scope of human recognition unlike any other.

When they placed him in a coffin to put him to rest, when they set his hands over where his heart used to beat, they looked down at him, sighed, then closed their eyes.

Even those that didn't know him cried.

He didn't know why.

* * *

Rumbles, shakes, quakes—he hardly moved at all, even though his transport shook to and fro. A pillow comforted his head and a mattress secured his body, but nothing assured where he would be going. A part of him knew that he would soon leave the mortal world of love and light, but until then, he would not speak. Only after they buried him would he ever open his mouth.

* * *

He felt it when they closed his tomb and when the dirt began to spill. A concrete wall, the things that speak and those, the weak—he, dead, they, alive, ensured that he would not fade for the longest of times. While they did this, and while he began to settle in for the greatest, longest haul, he exhaled a breath of air from lips long since torn off.

_Tomorrow,_ he thought.

Tomorrow, everything would be better.

* * *

It rained.

Chill burrowed deep, but not deep enough.

Outside, silence ruled the world, while inside, darkness ruled his. Warmth surrounded his being as though his body still exuded such a thing. A fickle, funny thing, warmth, but it didn't matter. Comforted inside his prison, he continued to wait for it to warm, for his barriers to come crashing down.

_Tomorrow._

Tomorrow, maybe it would be warm.

* * *

Two days passed, yet nothing happened.

_Why?_

How would he know? How would he be able to sense when the things caved in and the monsters came in? How could he prepare? How could he defend himself?

_Tomorrow?_

Would it be better tomorrow?

Would it?

* * *

Three, four, five, six; seven, eight, nine ten—eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen; days, weeks, months, years.

How long would it take for things to go back to normal?

How long would it take for memories of earth to return?

How long would it be until he felt damp, and how long would it be until he felt dusk?

* * *

Eternity—one word that meant everything.

After so long, how could he know anything anymore? The past, the present, the future—what did it mean when he had nothing to experience?

_Nothing._

It meant nothing.

Did it?

* * *

One long, jagged crack.

After so many years, the first crack in the eternal seal appeared. Created by creatures, things, and nature, it appeared on the side of the concrete slab and began to spread. First slowly, then more quickly as things started to change. Floods, quakes, natural movements so far below the earth that he couldn't even begin to feel them—these things moved him in ways he couldn't begin to understand.

Eventually, things he couldn't understand would begin to free him.

* * *

A break so shallow it could hardly be seen opened in the concrete wall.

The first chill began to creep in, followed by the first bit of tiny things he'd only experienced a few times in his life.

Though no more than bones, something wanted to be with him.

How romantic could these things be?

* * *

Slowly, things began to love.

He loved them.

They loved him.

In his prison of concrete, wood and dirt, things made their way into the confines of what he once considered his prison. They began to free him—slowly at first, then more quickly. They ate the wood and the earth continued to destroy the metal, thereby exhibiting an act of kindness not displayed to him for years on end. These things, so small and fickle, crossed his bones and lived in his sockets.

His eyes gleamed with kindness, his mouth curled in smiles.

_Finally,_ he thought. _After all this time._

* * *

The passage of time proved to be the most important thing of all.

Unlike anything he had ever felt before, the feeling of finally returning to the earth could only be described as surreal. Like a star falling from the sky or a first kiss from a lover's lips, his world faded, existing only as a dream which could not possibly be real. In this new, undiscovered world, he quickly found himself wanting to fade even deeper into it. His conscience begged for release, his thoughts yearned for freedom, and his body—his poor, dead body—longed to forever be gone; not in the stomachs of animals or in the minds of people, but unquestionably, truly gone.

Would he ever get this? Would he ever have the absolute feeling he longed for?

It didn't matter, not anymore.

With his world slowly fading to black, what was left of the corpse settled down and began to die.

For the first time in his life, something had truly done an amorous thing.

# Gwenny

It was a sad day when they lost Gwenny Knox—not just for the world, but for the singer's biggest fan. It came on a day so casual and ordinary it seemed that nothing could go wrong. April, early spring, with birds in the air and bees buzzing amidst the cropping of freshly-sprouted flowers, something so dark and ominous came trotting through one woman's life in a way that could be seen as ironic. Everything seemed to be going fine—perfect, even. Fresh out of college and with a potential boyfriend that appeared to have it all, how could anything go wrong, especially in a world so loving and caring?

The day of April seventh, Nineteen-Ninety-Two, Diana Newborn turned the TV on expecting nothing but the usual.

Later, she would realize how little it took to change someone's life.

Scrolling across on the bottom of the screen in a sickly blood-red, the words 'Singer Gwenny Knox found dead in apartment' would plant itself in Diana's mind and haunt her for the rest of her life.

An ornate China cup slipped from her grasp.

When it shattered on the floor, she did little more than blink.

It took less than a minute for her to lose the strength in her legs.

Backward she stumbled, landing in a chair she spent the rest of the afternoon on.

One contemplation came clear as day. Surprisingly, despite the fog that lit her brain, it pierced the atmosphere of despair and begged one question from Diana's reeling mind.

How could such an amazing singer—such an amazing talent—be gone, just like that?

One week later, she watched her idol be put to rest. For two whole hours she listened to a preacher's sermon. He dealt with the specifics, but not the vague and chaste. He spoke of Gwenny—how, as a singer, she touched the world with her voice in a way that no other woman had previously done. He spoke of lives she had changed, but ultimately saved, and how her passing would affect the years to come.

She once vowed to bring world peace.

Given her youth, she could very well have succeeded with her dream.

After the preacher bowed his head and said amen, the camera faded back, away from the porcelain-white coffin and the single heart-shaped wreath of roses that adorned it.

A choir sang hallelujah.

The friends and family cried.

Viewers at home mourned in a way that only those who loved someone they never met could.

"It's a sad day indeed," an anchorwoman said, wiping away tears as she unexpectedly came back into frame. "The world will never be the same without Gwenny Knox. She will never be forgotten."

The broadcast finished, the funeral ad finem, Diana turned the TV off and walked to her room.

All she could do once she spread out along her bed was stare at the picture of Gwenny on the wall.

_Keep it up, Diana,_ it read. _Your friend, Gwenny._

* * *

A long trip can never mean a short fall. Darkness shrouded Diana's life in the days after the funeral. So dark her life became she went to the doctor and asked for something to save her life.

Her answer?

_Twice a day, morning and night, with milk._

Milk made her remember Gwenny. She'd always aspired to make the world a better place. Come rain or shine, Gwenny's presence lit the world in a way that not many lights could. Children especially looked up to her. A Saxon beauty with fire-red hair, she often appeared on the cartoon channels with a glass of milk in hand. Upper lip painted white, she would smile and tell the world's youth the benefits of drinking milk.

All of this sadness, all of this milk, made Diana cry.

She took a few days off work, hoping for the pain to go away, though she knew she wouldn't.

Two weeks to the day of the announcement, Diana stared at the ceiling and sobbed as Gwenny stared back at her.

A poster advertising her album took up a twelve by twenty-four-inch space on the ceiling above Diana's bed.

Gwenny had really skydived to take that picture.

If only she were still alive. Maybe then Diana could go on with her life.

* * *

Every Monday, as she always did, Diana went to the post office. The Monday after a doctor saved her life, she received a package addressed to her, but without a return address.

She asked one of the clerks if she could take it home.

_Why couldn't you?_ he had asked.

_There's no return address,_ she had replied.

_It was sent to you. It's yours._

At home, she sat the package on the glass coffee table and prepared to gut it with a knife. In this preparation, the crude paper wrapping appeared to stare at her, as though questioning what she wanted with its forbidden contents. To who it belonged, Diana didn't know, but to who did it remain? What could it mean? Having a package mailed, but without the ability to be returned?

Lips pursed, Diana pushed the knife forward.

Tip poised at the package's belly, she thought of secrets and what all could they hold.

_This isn't mine,_ she thought, reality eating her heart. _I'm not supposed to have this._

_It's yours,_ the mailman had said.

She swallowed a lump in her throat.

In one fell motion, she gutted the package like a pig.

Inside was a brown, leather-bound journal.

Its surface lay inscribed with a name, finely embossed and stenciled in gold print.

_Gwenny._

"Gwenny," Diana whispered.

For reasons she couldn't describe, she didn't drop the journal. It could have been because of the knot that tightened in her stomach or the bile that rose in her throat. It could have been a number of things. Regardless, she couldn't still the tremors that flowered across her body.

Who would commit such a cruel, sick joke? Who could even begin to lack the unfathomable amount of conscience it would take to realize such a crime?

Though the exact person could be questioned, the perpetrator could not.

Diana's thoughts immediately went to her workplace.

It drove her coworkers crazy. To hear Gwenny Knox day in, day out, whenever the assistant manager graced the ribbon shop's halls? For those who hated Gwenny for reasons selfish and inane, it would take little to exact vengeance on someone who adored her so much. A beat-up journal, half price at _John's;_ stenography, light and prerendered; coloring, cheap and affordable—a collective effort could produce such an immoral thing at an astoundingly-low price.

Her coworkers once protested for all traces of Gwenny to be removed from the store.

Diana had refused, and the leading manager agreed.

Hate brewed in places small and chaste. Those within it were tainted oh so easily.

"It can't be real," Diana whispered, tracing the lettering. "It just can't be."

The bottle inside her opened.

She reached out to open her offering.

She found the book was locked.

Troubled, disheartened, and almost about to cry, she set the journal down and began to walk away, but stopped when something flashed back at her.

A key, taped to the bottom of the leather, smiled in the fading afternoon light.

_Do I really want to?_ she thought. _Do I really want to see the things they did to me?_

Indelible demons ate at her.

Diana returned to the couch.

Finger pressed to key, she slid the tape up, over and off, then took the kingdom between her fingers.

Could something so small hold so much?

She decided to find out.

Diana pushed the key into its lock, twisted its hilt, and breathed when the world before her opened its gate to allow her passage.

Pushing the clasp aside, she opened the journal to find a note addressed to her.

* * *

_Diana,_

_I hope this has come to you easily enough. I'm so, so sorry I've taken this long. I know how much you loved me, and I know how heartbroken you must be to know that I am gone. Even from the distance apart we now so truly are, I have felt your pleas, your cries and your sorrows. My mortal heart and eternal soul have yearned to offer you the answers you desire._

_I will not leave you to wander alone._

_Within this journal I chronicle my life. From the day I became a woman, to the night before I died, I told a story that no one except you will ever see._

_My life is in your hands._

_Your friend,_

_Gwenny_

* * *

The moment she stopped reading, abandon took Diana's soul.

It forced her into her room.

It made her pull everything off her shelves.

From CDs, to posters, to personally-signed pictures and to the autobiography that another man wrote, Diana stole the memory of a woman through her handwriting itself. Embedded into her head like calculations meant to fulfill the very nature of life, she examined the words and their letters—how Js and Ys curved, how Ds weren't sharp, how Cs looked like half moons and how Xs appeared not slashed, but crossed. In doing this, the world brightened and the rain stopped falling.

The journal, the pictures, the CDs, the autobiography...

Everything matched.

The leather-bound tome now sitting the other room could only belong to one person.

_Gwenny._

"Gwenny."

Before Diana rose, one question that had huddled in the back of her mind came forward when the storm of others were answered.

Who sent the journal—Gwenny, or someone else?

* * *

She read for the next ten hours. Nestled in a recliner under an amount of blankets that would not have suited her on a normal, warmer night, Diana gleaned a dead woman's words from pages that she should have never seen.

Balanced on her lap, scrutinized under the intense glare of an almost-dead lamp, flowery, nearly-calligraphic print smoothed pages out in a way a machine would have never been able to.

Faint fingerprints here, ink smudges there, the slight stain on a page where something would have been spilled—you would have thought a woman of such dignity and class would write in her journal under the cover of night, in bed or at a desk. You would have thought her to write stooped over a journal in an almost-comical manner. Hair pulled back, glasses poised at the tip of her nose, makeup removed to reveal the hazards of age—you would have imagined her as many things, anything but sloppy. How would be a given, but why would be a testimony.

In truth, many thought celebrities to be godlike—creatures to be looked upon and reveled within.

In reality, women like Gwenny Knox were just like everyone else. Sure—they might have nicer clothes, prettier diamonds and bigger houses, but deep down, they were all the same. The master plan had ordained such. They may put men on pedestals and give them complete and utter control, then raise women on thrones and call them goddesses of the mortal world, but they were all the same.

_Men are created equal,_ they said.

If only it were true.

Raising her head, Diana took a deep breath and rubbed her eyes, troubled by the contents that lay within the book before her. It seemed wrong, to know each and every intimate detail about a person's life. Whom they loved, whom they hated, whom they despised and whom they wished would die—brutal honesty lies only within the confession of something another is never supposed to see.

Three years ago—at the height of her career, when it seemed that nothing could put her down—Gwenny wrote of a performance in Pennsylvania, when she performed the National Anthem to a group of twenty-five-thousand people.

_I don't know what I'm going to do,_ the entry began, handwriting slightly skewed by the tension wrapped within the words.

* * *

_I don't know how I'm going to go out there and sing the greatest song in American history without screwing up. It's bad enough to be playing at the biggest event I've ever been to, but to know someone's out there, waiting to watch me fall?_

_I saw a few of them just before I came into the stadium. The paparazzi are heartless when it comes to seeing a flaw that they can sell. Just yesterday, I saw a starlet trip over a hose and a man take a picture of it. He caught her stumbling into her security guard and catching his shirt to keep herself from falling over. What's it going to say in tomorrow's tabloid? "Drunken Veronica stumbles into security guard?"_

_What are they going to say if I mess up? What if the track skips on the record and I'm stuck mouthing the words? I can't sing live. They told me not to. They said to 'preserve the integrity of a pure recording' and not to 'risk a false line in a song meant to give the players hope.' But what if I don't have hope? What if something happens and the world thinks I'm fake?_

_I don't know. I could have someone turn the microphone off, or down, so my voice doesn't rise over the recording, but I don't think it would be much help. At best, they could cross the lower audio off as a technical malfunction, but the paparazzi and tabloids would still latch onto that._

_The one..._

_He's watching me, always waiting for me to screw up. I saw him run up a flight of stairs and throw himself into the media box before anyone else could get in. He'll be there watching the whole thing, recording my performance with a camera and scrutinizing each and every action._

_Tomorrow, after the show's over, he'll watch my three-minute performance dozens, maybe hundreds of times, only to find one little flaw._

_I don't want to go out there and sing, not while he's there._

_They're watching me, waiting for me to fail._

_Let's hope I prove them wrong._

* * *

A wave of hurt washed over Diana's chest. In their strange, brave world, it was still hard to believe that anyone could feed off another in such a cruel, violent way. To hurt physically was one thing—to leave a wound that would eventually heal, then scar over—but to harm emotionally? The verbal insult of a misogynistic moron could hurt for days, while the deceit of a friend could last months, maybe even years, but to have your undeniable talent questioned in front of thousands, possibly millions of people?

Diana couldn't imagine what Gwenny must have gone through. Words on a page could only convey so much.

Reaching forward, Diana prepared to turn the page and continue with Gwenny's life, but stopped.

She originally sat down intending only to read a part of the journal.

Ten hours later, her head throbbed, her eyes burned and her back ached.

She had to sleep.

Setting the journal on her bedside table, Diana rose, arched her back, and crawled into bed.

When the world went dark, she closed her eyes.

Tomorrow was another day.

Gwenny's journal would still be there.

* * *

The first line she read the following morning after she rose, showered, and ate was, _It's amazing, what people can do to you._

Settled at the bottom of the page like some ugly thing that crawled out of its grave and died, the words corresponded with a notion that could not have otherwise been explained. Pinned to the following page, during which the entry continued, was a picture of Gwenny standing beside a man Gwenny had referred to as 'John.' Arm around his waist, body pressed against his in admiration, not love, Gwenny appeared to be as happy as can be, while John smiled a smile that could only be done with his mouth. In his eyes lay a form of animosity not seen in most ordinary people. The _I don't care_ for strangers seemed oddly present, but something else lingered there too—hate, maybe, or zeal in an awkward manner.

Regardless, John's presence in Gwenny's life came with a purpose, a purpose so deviant and maniacal it merited its own form of distress.

The entry continued.

* * *

_It's official—John started a rumor that I was cheating on him. For what reason, I don't know, but I'm hoping his lack of celebrity isn't going to contribute further to anything he's saying. It's bad enough to have someone as famous as me say something, but him, a nobody?_

_I don't know what's going to happen._

_My record label said my album sales are dropping. Fly isn't at the top of the billboards anymore. They said the spike in sales dropped right after John sold his story to a tabloid. "Gwenny cheats! Boyfriend John left heartbroken!"_

_I'll confess. I bought the tabloid even though my manager told me not to. He said it wasn't worth it, that it was all full of lies and rumors. It doesn't bother me that he said I'm cheating on him. He's needy, he's greedy, and all he's wanted from the beginning was to be a celebrity. It's not the infidelity that bothers me at all. No. It isn't. It's what he said in the article that hurts the most._

_'I know what you think,' he wrote. 'You think Gwenny's this amazing person who can write songs that change the world and the way people think, but you know what? I know better. I know she doesn't write the songs. She pays someone else to do it.'_

_This is what hurts the worst. This is what makes me cry at night and break down at the idea of performing at another show or concert. He says I have no talent, but what he says isn't true._

_I guess it doesn't matter._

_It's getting to be too much. I don't know why, I don't know how, and I don't really care, but I just wish he'd go away. I know he won't though._

_My lawyer said I should sue. They have proof that the album sales dropped the day after the tabloid came out. I went from three to twelve in less than a day. They don't think it's even the tabloid that did it, but the news reports from people following the story._

_I don't know._

_I really don't know._

_It's too much. It really is too much._

* * *

Diana closed the book.

Fuming, once again near tears for the first time in days, she put the book on the table and walked into the kitchen.

She couldn't read until her anger died down.

If, somehow, she picked that journal up again, she knew she would tear the book apart and throw it in the trash.

That couldn't happen.

Gwenny's story was almost over.

* * *

Three days after Diana had last attempted to read from the journal, she turned the TV on to find a news report from the same channel that had broadcasted Gwenny's funeral.

"This just in," Chelsea Dashborough began, more poised than she had been during Gwenny's funeral. "The coroner's office has released a statement saying that celebrity singer-songwriter Gwenny Knox did not die as a result of an accidental overdose or suicide, as was originally believed at the time of her death. It is with both relief and sadness that we say Gwenny Knox's death was the result of a heart complication that occurred while she slept. As troubling as this news is, friends, family and fans can finally find peace in the fact that Gwenny died of natural causes.'"

* * *

One week later, Diana opened the journal and read the last thing Gwenny had ever written.

* * *

_I don't know how to express the way I'm feeling right now. I have this pain in my chest that won't go away. I took an Aspirin, but it hasn't helped. It's this low, dull throb in the middle of my chest that starts, fades, then starts up again. In a way, it feels like someone pushed their hand into my chest and started squeezing my heart. It might be stress, but it might not be anything at all._

_I haven't said anything to anyone yet. My security guard is in the basement, making sure that the paparazzi don't try to break in like they tried to the other night, but I'm starting not to care anymore. If someone breaks in and shoots me, it won't matter to me. I just hope that whoever does it has a good aim, because it better kill me._

_I don't need anyone hurting me anymore._

_John's ruined my career. There's no way I'll ever get it back, not after all these people are talking. I don't think I want it back anymore. Even if for some reason I manage to get past this, someone's just going to say I'm a slut, a whore that sleeps around._

_I don't want that._

_Sometimes, after a long, hard day, I start writing in this journal hoping to expel everything that's inside me._

_There's no way of getting rid of this._

_It hurts._

_I don't want it anymore._

_Maybe I should just give up._

* * *

Diana closed her eyes.

The final entry of Gwenny Knox's life ended with a sentence so illegible it would never be read. To what it addressed would be forever lost along with the life of a woman who died too young.

Fighting back tears, hoping and praying that, somehow, she would realize where the answers to all of her questions were, Diana pushed the journal back and prepared to close it for the final time.

_This is it,_ she thought. _This is the end._

She closed the journal.

A single piece of paper fell from between its folds.

Diana picked it up without conscience.

Her name graced the note's front.

Without much thought or consideration in mind, she unfolded the note and placed it on the table.

_Diana,_ it began.

* * *

_Now that you've poured your heart, mind and soul into this diary, only to be given nothing in return, I'm here to answer the question you've been wanting answers to for weeks on end._

_I died of a broken heart._

_Should this be a burden to your immortal soul, I am sorry that I have pained you so, but should this be a relief, know that in my passing, I felt no pain. It's true when they say that the greatest relief in life is to finally, truly be free of the mortal world. I am here to tell you that after I fell asleep, I merely did not wake up._

_I wanted to deliver this message to you, Diana, because I know you were the one who was truly heartbroken over my passing. No one cried as much as you when you heard that I was no longer here. No one felt as though their life would end without my presence. No one went to the doctor and asked to be saved, as you did with a simple but tragic pain in mind. No one has ever mourned as you have. No one ever will._

_You were my number-one, Diana. I'll never be able to replace all the letters you sent me, all the times you came to see me, all the things you tried to do. I'll never be able to replace any of that._

_You were the one person who really, truly loved me._

_I've left something for you. I wish it could be more, but it's all I'm able to offer that you no longer have._

_Spread your wings, Diana. You'll fly with me one day._

_Gwenny_

* * *

Through a haze of tears, Diana opened the journal and turned the last page.

Sure enough, an envelope waited, taped to the back of the journal where no other pages remained.

Carefully, she peeled the tape away, took the envelope in hand, and opened it.

She pulled out a folded poster.

When she unwrapped it, she nearly burst into tears.

Printed on its surface, in color, clarity and posture that no living, mortal thing would have been able to capture, was her last meeting with Gwenny. At a time when Diana had not brought a camera to take a picture with, she'd taken comfort in the fact that she would see her idol again, come time for her next concert. It wouldn't have been long. A week and a day to the signing, Diana would have been in the third row, waving her arms in the air to the sound of the most beautiful voice on Earth.

When the world robbed Gwenny away, that last meeting would have been forgotten, had someone not taken this picture.

In the corner, next to the slight amount of black space from another fan's coat, was Gwenny's message.

_Thank you for being the last thing I thought of,_ it read. _Thank you for being there when I fell asleep. Thank you for comforting the girl with the hollow, glass heart._

Diana closed her eyes.

She could not contain the tears that followed.

"Thank you, Gwenny," she whispered, holding the poster close to her heart. "Thank you for everything."

Sliding the poster in the envelope, she placed it in the back of the journal and locked away the rest of Gwenny's life.

Her heart on her sleeves and her pain on her face, she took the journal in hand and went to her drawer. There, she placed it next to every piece of Gwenny she had. Among CDs, DVDs, pictures, posters and other items, the journal stood out as something plain, something so unlike the woman she had come to know and love from the day she turned thirteen.

With one last look at the contents within, Diana pushed the drawer shut.

As she turned to walk out the door—not only to her life, but her future as well—only one name lingered on her mind.

_Gwenny._

# Bellaerama

**1.**

* * *

Take me home, beautiful—take me home.

* * *

**2.**

* * *

Bellaerama.

I speak your name on my tongue as though it is fruit yet to be tasted. As cotton candy flows from between my lips, whispering of the deviant urgency of my love, I reach out to you in the hopes that somehow, someway, you will answer.

You are an amazing, beautiful creature.

Please—don't ever let me go.

* * *

**3.**

* * *

A woman is standing at the doorway. She is not my mother, but someone who shows just as much, if not more, concern. Though I cannot see her, and though she is standing on the other side of the door, I see her hand rise. Her knuckles curl in preparation for the act she is about to partake in. It is beautiful, what she wants to do, but it's something that cannot, nor ever will, happen.

Some would go as far to say that she loves me.

I cannot begin to believe in such things.

To believe in love from another person is to commit acts worse than polygamy.

My love is for you, only you.

_Bellaerama._

Kiss me.

* * *

**4.**

* * *

I have known you for all the years of my life. There is little you do not know about me, as there is little I do not know about you. You know that my name is Jennifer, that I'm five-foot-five and weigh one-hundred pounds. You know that I am currently classified under the American Psychological Association as having anorexia. They say that there is no cure, that there is no one and no thing that can free you from the hold it has on your body. They say it is a chameleon, changing from day to day, month to month, year to year. They say it is a silent killer that is born in your mind when someone tells you something you should never hear, something that no mother or grandmother would ever want their daughter or granddaughter to imagine.

They say what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

* * *

**5.**

* * *

The woman who is not my mother and not my friend returns the next day. To her, it would be Tuesday, but to me, it would be Friday. Friday is a day where things are supposed to end, where stress becomes less and less becomes chess. There is not much to do on a Friday, but the anticipation of Saturday leaves you well and willing. On Fridays, girls go to prom and boys masturbate for mom. Girls listen to what Daddy says and boys listen to what Mommy says. As Cinderella bends over, waiting to take it up the ass, and as Prince Charming waits for the Fairy Godmother to straddle, then impale herself on him, old men love their wives and admire their grandchildren.

Friday is a beautiful time.

If only some would play for dimes.

Outside, the woman who is not my friend raises her hand.

Bellaerama touches my shoulder.

_Roll over,_ she says.

Dead, I do.

She touches my lips and makes me breathe.

_I cannot live without your eyes._

Slowly, I push myself forward.

Outside, the woman who is not my friend curls her fingers.

Carefully, I crawl out of bed.

Outside, the woman who is not my friend knocks on the door.

She has broken the pact.

It must be done.

Stepping forward, I open the door and stare at her face. She is ugly—old, wrinkled, gnarled by age and destroyed by sage. There is little she has not seen in life. She has been to every continent, every world, every galaxy. She has seen every man, woman, bird and child lie. Likewise, she has seen them die. It is the nature for her to come.

_Bellaerama,_ she says.

I shake my head.

_No._

_Bellaerama,_ she repeats.

I shake my head.

_No,_ I say, again.

The woman who is not my friend opens her mouth. Though ready to speak she is, what is is not ready to speak. Instead, a light begins to shine. It is beautiful—glorious, even, with all the colors of the rainbow and everything in between. There are things wrong with this rainbow. It is black, white, grey—all the ugly colors in the world.

This woman is not Bellaerama. She is not my friend.

_Bellaerama,_ the woman wants to say.

Before she can, I shake my head.

_No,_ I say.

I close the door.

The woman who is not my friend is gone.

* * *

**6.**

* * *

Bellaerama comes to bed at six o'clock, like she does every night. It is with open arms and peace of mind that I accept her. She is the happiness that always exists, the essence between my lips. She is the maker of fakers and the faker of makers. She is the one. She is mine.

_Doll,_ she whispers.

She always whispers. It is her way. Should she speak too loudly, others might hear and try to come. The woman who is not my friend comes often. She has experienced Bellaerama, has come to know her in ways strangers do when exchanging names and numbers. She has tasted things that she should not have tasted. She is one. She is many. In the end, she is all the same.

Those who cannot have always want.

The woman who is not my friend wants Bellaerama.

_What?_ I say.

_Taste me,_ she replies.

I do.

* * *

**7.**

* * *

Dawn is the greatest tribulation. It is when men try to rise from bed, only to fall instead. It is when women wake, only to shake. It is when children scream and babies dream. It is a time when all is well when the rest is hell. It is a time when things begin to dwell.

Dawn is the greatest time.

I wake with a need—for the greatest, utmost greed.

Bellaerama is standing in the corner of the room.

She looks up only when I rise.

_Doll,_ she says,

_Come,_ I cry.

She steps forward, but almost immediately stops. A barrier exists between us that should not, but does. It's a cruel, uneven aspect of the world, but it is something that cannot be done.

Reaching forward, I take her in my hands and hold her close.

_Don't worry,_ I say. _I'll get you out._

* * *

**8.**

* * *

The woman who is not my friend is standing outside my door.

Bellaerama wants her gone.

_There's something you can do,_ she says.

_What is it?_ I ask.

_You know what it is._

I need little more than look over my shoulder to see what she has planned. In her hand she holds a hammer.

_She won't leave,_ Bellaerama says.

_She will,_ I say.

_No,_ Bellaerama says. _She won't._

Looking down, I take a moment to contemplate the situation, then make a decision.

Reaching forward, I take the hammer in hand.

The woman who is not my friend cannot try to be my friend anymore.

* * *

**9.**

* * *

I open the door.

The woman who is not my friend looks up.

_Bellaerama?_ she says.

I shake my head.

_No,_ I say. _Never again._

I raise my hand.

As she has done before, I curl my knuckles.

A moment later, I knock.

It is not the door I knock.

It is her head.

I knock as many times as I can—repeatedly, endlessly, over and over again.

The woman who is not my friend is dead.

Bellaerama is mine.

* * *

**10.**

* * *

_Bellaerama,_ I say.

She stands in the corner of the room, watching me from the barrier that exists between the two of us. I've fallen. I can't get up. She is unable to help me in my time of need.

Cotton candy flows from between my lips.

When I close my eyes—when the world goes black and I begin to believe I'll never return—she is there for me.

# Camera Shy

"Are you taking _another_ selfie?" Oliva asked.

"Yeah," Carter smiled, angling his phone so the forward-facing camera wouldn't catch the light. "Gotta give the people what they want."

"You?" she snorted. "Unlikely."

"Ha ha, very funny." He took the picture, lowered the camera, then frowned at the result. "God. The lighting here _sucks."_

"You're the one who wanted to camp out in grandma's cabin."

"And you're the one who has finals next week," Carter replied, quickly snapping another photo and hashtagging it _hangingwithfriends_. "You wanted somewhere quiet. You got it."

"Still," Oliva sighed. She pulled a pot of simmering noodles from the stove and turned to drain them in the kitchen sink. "I never said it had to be in the middle of nowhere."

Rather than engage his friend further, Carter seated himself on the couch and quickly browsed through a series of filters on the _BroadCast_ app. Once he selected one that rectified the horrendous interior lighting, he clicked _Post,_ then watched it appear on his profile.

_At least the coverage is good,_ he thought.

It'd been years since he'd stepped foot in the small town of Walker, Minnesota—long before the advent of modern smartphones and 4G. The most he'd remembered was bugs, deer, trees, and the occasional bear that kept the locals from walking around alone at night. He'd been too young to even consider the isolation, let alone how far they were from the rest of civilization.

"I can't believe you dragged me out here," Olivia murmured under her breath.

"Do you need help?" Carter asked, lifting his eyes from his phone.

"No. I'm just talking to myself."

_I know you are,_ he wanted to say, but kept quiet.

He scrolled through the notifications rolling in from the _BroadCast_ app and nodded as noted the likes and _reCasts._ Though the picture wasn't monetized, it was still good to keep up appearances during the downtime between projects. His last sponsor hadn't picked him up for a second gig, and he needed all the views and followers he could get.

_Views mean money,_ his manager had once said.

"Carter," Olivia said.

"Yes?" he asked, turning to face her.

"Could you get your ass off your phone and help me?"

"I thought you said you didn't need help?" he grinned as he walked through the living room and into the kitchen.

"Not then, but I do now."

He set his phone on the countertop and went to work helping Olivia—drawing fresh water, chopping up vegetables, cutting chicken into chunks and then dumping the pieces into the pot. When their work was done and the soup was left to simmer on the stove, Carter leaned back against the counter, sighed, then craned his head back to stretch his neck.

"How's business?" Olivia asked.

"The usual," Carter replied, rolling his head to look at his friend.

"You only say that when it's going bad."

"It's not bad _per se..."_

"But you didn't pick up another sponsor," she finished.

Carter sighed. "Yeah."

The young Asian woman slid up alongside him and crossed her arms over her chest as she considered the garlic bread toasting in the oven. "It'll happen," she said, nudging him with her hip. "Don't worry."

"It's not that I'm worried," he said. "It's just—"

His phone buzzed.

"What was that?" Olivia asked. "A _reCast?"_

"It doesn't buzz until someone's trying to call," Carter said. "Which is weird, because I thought I disabled it—"

"After that last big advertisement," Olivia finished.

"Yeah."

Frowning, Carter pushed himself away from the counter and approached the island cautiously. The app had a horrible habit of answering calls by the slightest touch and, at times, even by voice—a fact he'd bitterly complained to support about after the geo-location popped on and nearly revealed his address to a random caller. Though she'd only been a fifteen-year-old girl, he knew that, in today's day and age, it'd only take one mishap for his dead grandmother's address to end up on the internet.

_And her house burglarized,_ Carter thought, grimacing at what his extended family would think.

He leaned forward, pressed the _End Call_ button, and waited for the application's automatic answering system to kick in.

"Is it done?" Olivia asked. "Are we safe?"

"I think so," Carter said.

His friend stepped forward and viewed the app's homescreen—waiting, like Carter expected, for the message to end and then be delivered to his account. When nothing came after several long, tense seconds, he sighed.

"Guess that solves," he started saying, only for a message bubble to pop up and cut him off mid-sentence.

"That," Olivia finished with a chuckle.

_"God,"_ Carter groaned, running a hand over his face.

"Just click on it, see what they sent, then disable incoming calls," Olivia replied. "Easy as that."

Carter tapped the bubble and watched a black screen fill his smartphone.

"Is it a video?" Olivia asked, leaning forward. "Or a picture?"

"I think it's a picture," Carter replied, watching the screen for any signs of movement. "There's nothing but a..."

A grey shape flickered in the background.

"You see that?" Olivia asked.

"Yeah," Carter replied. "Probably someone just butt-dialing."

"To your account?"

"Hey, it's possible. You never know with these apps. Sometimes all you have to do is say hello and—"

A white blur filled the screen.

The caller's phone pulled back.

And a mask—resembling a rabbit's face but with no discernible holes for the wearer's eyes—appeared.

"What... the fuck?" Carter asked.

The individual on the other end—who thankfully could not see he or Olivia—held the phone steadily in place as they considered whatever they were about to say. Low, shallow mouth-breathing filled the microphone, causing sharp bursts of static to cut through the silence of the otherwise-quiet home.

"Creepy," Olivia said. "Are they gonna say anything?"

"I don't know," Carter replied. "I—"

"Hello," the caller said, their gender obscured by a voice-distortion device.

The message ended and the screen went blank.

Carter lowered his phone and stared at the _BroadCast_ app's homescreen. "What the fuck was that?"

"Probably just someone screwing with you," Olivia said. "Hasn't your profile been on the front page since last month?"

"Yeah," Carter said, scrolling through the app's menu. "But that doesn't explain why my settings were changed."

"Update, maybe?"

He shook his head as he thumbed through the various aspects of the app's security features—searching, without pause, for the panel that could disable incoming voice or video calls. He was just about to select the function when the screen flashed and an _Incoming Caller_ logo with a YES/NO option filled the screen.

"Who's calling?" Olivia frowned.

"Someone named... _Camera Shy,"_ Carter said.

Olivia jumped as the oven beeped. _"Shit!"_ she hissed. "Goddamn oven!"

She spun to face the stove while Carter considered the smartphone in his hand.

_I can't move,_ he thought, frozen, watching the _Incoming Call_ signal and the name _Camera Shy_ flash in green letters across the touchscreen. _If I set it down, it might pick up. But if I reject the call and it reads that I'm accepting it instead..._

Carter stabbed the screen with his thumb before he could think further.

The _Incoming Call_ notice disappeared.

He quickly privatized incoming calls once the screen faded before anything further could occur.

"I think you're worrying about this way too much," Olivia said as she pulled the pan of garlic bread from the oven and set it on the countertop cutting board. "It's just some troll trying to get a rise out of you."

"The last time it happened," Carter said, "my address was almost leaked."

"Yeah, but it didn't, right? So... nothing to worry about."

"Until the app _changes my fucking settings."_

Another green message bubble popped up.

The urge to swipe it off the screen was almost too great to ignore.

"It comes with the territory," Olivia said, pushing him aside to lift his phone. "It's not like you haven't done this before."

"But again—"

She clicked the message bubble before he could continue.

This time, the rabbit-masked individual's face filled the screen.

"You didn't answer," the caller said. "Are you shy?"

The message ended and the screen went black.

"See?" Olivia said. "Troll."

She exited the app and placed the phone on the countertop.

"Doesn't make it any less creepy," Carter replied.

"Hey, I've got an idea! How about we eat and just ignore this whole fiasco?"

"Deal," Carter said.

He'd come out here to have a relaxing evening. He didn't need some rabbit-faced troll getting the best of him.

After serving himself a healthy serving of the chicken noodle soup and a slab of garlic bread, Carter settled down at the kitchen table alongside his friend and brought the TV to life with a simple click of the remote.

"How long's it been since you were last out here?" Olivia asked, blowing air on a spoonful of soup before sliding it into her mouth.

"Since before I graduated high school," Carter replied, thumbing through the channels.

"So... five, then?"

"Four. I graduated early, remember?"

"Oh. That's right."

Carter let the channel fall on the local news before he gave up trying to find anything interesting. "Sorry I spazzed out," he said. "It's just... after what happened last time..."

"Have you ever considered just uploading videos on their desktop site?" she asked.

"Yeah, but I get more views and have more control through the app, especially if I upload pictures."

"But at what cost?"

_My sanity,_ he wanted to reply, but kept his mouth shut and instead crammed a piece of garlic bread into it.

His phone buzzed on the countertop—once, then twice.

"Text?" Olivia asked.

"I don't know," Carter replied, standing. "I—"

A flash of green entered his peripheral as he turned to look at the screen.

_No._

"Fuck," he breathed. "You've got to be kidding me. I disabled incoming calls."

"Is it—"

_"Camera Shy?"_ He swallowed. "Yes."

"Uninstall the app," Olivia said, standing. "I don't care if you have more control. This is getting fucking creepy."

"So much for their 'high security features,' huh?"

They waited—both as silently as possible and without approaching the kitchen island—for the phone to stop ringing. Once it did, Carter reached forward and snatched it into his hand, but not before the bubble could appear onscreen.

"Don't open it," Olivia said. "Don't—"

The rabbit face popped up.

"I said don't open it!"

"I didn't!" Carter snapped. "I—"

"It's okay to be shy," the person leaving the messages said. "I used to be shy too. Until I met more people. Maybe you'd like to meet me?"

The message ended.

Carter uninstalled the app before Olivia could even comment.

"Fuck!" he cried, tossing the phone onto the nearby couch with a flick of his hand. "Just... _fuck."_

"Now that that's over with," Olivia said, settling back down at the kitchen table. "Let's eat."

"I'm not sure I'm hungry anymore."

Olivia lifted her eyes and gave him the nastiest glare he'd ever seen. "Don't," she started, _"even."_

"Liv—"

"Eat, Carter, before you pass out."

"Doesn't this weird you out too?"

"Yes, but you uninstalled the app. What's done is done. Email the company, let them know your security's fucked up, then resume when necessary. Easy as that."

"What if someone's hacked my account," Carter asked, "and is continuously disabling the security features just to call me?"

"Well, they can't anymore. Right?"

"Right."

"And they can't get a hold of your bank information without your bank password, so... chill the fuck out."

"But what if—"

Olivia lifted her head and shot him another look. "Carter," she said. "I swear to God, if you don't _shut up,_ I'm going to—"

Her spoon slipped from her hand and went clanging onto her plate.

"What?" Carter asked. "What's wrong?"

"Uh-Uh-Out suh-suh- _side."_

Carter spun to face the windows.

Nothing but darkness could be seen.

"I don't see anything," he said.

"The light came on," Olivia continued, "and then—"

The exterior light flickered to life—once, then twice, before blinking out.

"What'd you see?" Carter asked, not willing—or wanting—to turn and face his trembling friend.

"Someone," she said. "Standing outside the window."

"What'd they look like?"

"I—"

The light flickered again, its usually-bright fixture waxing the pale orange of electrical death.

Carter waited—not moving, not _breathing._

He was just about to start forward and draw the curtains when the light flared to life.

A person—wearing a long, dark coat and a rabbit mask—came into view.

Olivia screamed.

Carter cried out.

The bulb outside exploded and the entire house went dark.

There were moments—after the embers from the broken glass expired and Olivia's cries turned into sobs—that Carter considered that this was all a dream: that he'd simply passed out on the couch while waiting for Olivia to finish preparing the noodles and that he was trapped inside his head. It wouldn't be outrageous, considering their late start from Minneapolis and their long drive into the country, but was it true? _Could_ this be a dream? Or was he living through what could only be considered his worst nightmare?

"Carter?" Olivia managed, her sobs fading as sniffling took place.

"Yeah?" he asked, still unable to move.

"Does your grandma have a gun?"

He considered turning to reach for his cell phone, then remembered he'd thrown it on the couch—directly near the panorama of windows.

_Shit._

"I don't know," he said, struggling to breathe as the isolation closed in around him. "I don't—"

His smartphone's screen came to life.

The words _Camera Shy_ appeared just beneath the _BroadCast_ logo.

_"Fuck!"_ Carter screamed. _"FUCK!"_

The call connected.

The person in the rabbit face answered.

"I'm right outside your door," the individual said, turning their smartphone around to display his grandmother's residence—complete with the house number—to their unsuspecting victim. "Are you going to invite me inside?"

"GO AWAY!" Olivia screamed.

"Is that any way to treat a guest?"

Three knocks came at the door.

Carter tensed.

"I'm right outside," the person said. "Knock knock. I know you're home. But who's gonna answer?"

"Grab your phone," Carter said.

"What?" Olivia asked.

"Your phone! Dammit! Call 911!"

"They won't come," the person said. "You have no service."

"Then how are you—"

The sardonic laughter—amplified by the distortion device hidden somewhere on the person's body—cut through the house and made the hairs on Carter's arms stand on end.

A short moment later, the call ended.

The knocking began anew.

Olivia scrambled into the kitchen—nearly tripping on the rise in the flooring—and dove for her purse.

The handbag flew.

Its contents scattered.

Carter watched—in mute horror—as Olivia's phone fell to, and then shattered upon, the floor.

_"NO!"_ she screamed. _"NO!"_

"GRAB IT!" Carter screamed. "It might still work!"

"No it won't!"

"How do you—"

The knocking ceased.

Carter lifted his eyes.

A silhouette appeared in the window directly across from him.

"Come on," Carter said, taking hold of Olivia's shirtsleeve and backing into the kitchen.

"Where are we going?" Olivia sobbed.

"Somewhere they can't see us."

He dragged her through the kitchen, into the opposing hallway and into his grandmother's bedroom. Once inside, he locked the door, grabbed the dresser, and pushed it across the threshold, effectively sealing them inside the windowless room.

"What are we supposed to do now?" Olivia asked.

"Wait," Carter whispered.

"But what if they get inside?"

Carter fell to his knees, stretched an arm under the bed, and fumbled about until his fingers found purchase on a wooden baseball bat.

_Thank God._

"No one's gonna get inside," he said, pressing the bat into Olivia's hands.

"How do you know?"

"I don't," he said. "I just—"

Glass shattered somewhere outside the room.

Olivia whimpered and pressed herself into the corner.

Knowing that they'd little time to secure themselves any further, Carter scanned the darkened room until his eyes on the far wall. "The closet," he said. "Go."

"But what about you?"

"Don't worry," he said. "I'll be fine." Carter pressed his hands against his friend's shoulders and gently pushed her forward.

After several minutes of fumbling along the wall in search of the doorknob, she opened, then shut the door.

The footsteps that followed were, undoubtedly, the worst sounds he'd ever heard.

_They're not going to get in,_ he thought, desperately searching for a weapon in the darkness. _The door's locked, the dresser's right in front of it. They'd have to break through to get in._

But who's to say they wouldn't? They'd already broken into the home. A flimsy wooden door wouldn't stop anyone truly determined.

When he bumped into an end table, he almost swore, but somehow managed to refrain from doing so.

Instead, he pawed around until he found the base of his grandmother's antique lamp, then pulled it free of the socket.

The footsteps were getting closer.

Soon, the intruder would leave the hardwood flooring and cross onto the carpet separating the bedrooms from the kitchen. When that happened—

Carter stopped.

He didn't move, didn't breathe, didn't _think._

All noise had stopped.

Whoever was inside had either come to a halt, or was directly outside the door.

Carter tightened his hold on the lamp and waited.

_One,_ he thought, unsure how long he could hold his breath. _Two... three..._

A knock sounded outside the door.

The air escaped his lungs in one great whoosh.

"Knock knock," the intruder said.

Carter tried not to respond to the muffled cries he heard coming from the nearby closet.

The doorknob jiggled as the intruder attempted entry.

"You didn't invite me in," they said, their mechanically-masked voice filtering through the cracks like static from an unresponsive television. "I know you're shy, but that's okay. I'm here to play."

Carter swallowed as the doorknob jiggled harder.

_"Let me in,"_ the intruder said. _"Let me in."_

A thumping began—first light, as if attempting to dislodge a stubborn jamb, then increasing in rhythm as it became evident they were locked out. Eventually, they began to slam their full weight against the door, shaking the hinges and rattling the dresser. Carter heard the sickening crack of wood and then, breathlessly, waited for them to break through.

Carter crawled atop the bed and across the mattress.

The door cracked.

Carter pressed himself against the wall.

The door began to cave in as it succumbed to the intruder's weight.

Carter reared his arm back in anticipation for the coming assault.

The pounding stopped.

It was in his moment of shock that the intruder slammed their foot into the door and broke a hole straight through it.

Their hand came through, the door was unlocked.

Carter slammed himself against the dresser just in time to prevent the intruder from forcing the door open.

"You can't stop me," the person said. "I will get in."

"No you won't!" Carter screamed. "Go awa—"

A blinding light flashed through the hole in the door.

Carter recoiled.

The door burst open and the dresser was forced aside.

Carter swung.

The cord flew, the lampshade missed.

A second flash, followed by the third, burned grey spots across his vision.

"I just wanted a picture," the person said.

A light—likely from the phone—illuminated the intruder's rabbit-masked face.

"Say: _cheese!"_

The bark of gunfire and flash of muzzle flare lit the room for but a moment. Then Carter went down—bleeding, profusely, from the bullet that'd struck his neck.

"See?" the person asked, the forward-facing camera shining blinding light onto Carter's face. "I told you. I only wanted a picture."

Carter tried to reply, but only managed to produce a mouthful of blood.

"Think of it," the person said. "You won't have to make any more videos. You'll be famous, Carter. _Famous._ Can you imagine? _"_

_"Fuck,"_ Carter gargled, _"you."_

The intruder laughed, then lifted both the phone and the gun.

_"BroadCast's_ most watched video," they said. "Carter Hunter's murder."

The last thing Carter heard was the beep from the _Record_ button.

# Baby Monitor

"She hasn't been sleeping well the past few nights," Elise said as she looked in on their sleeping six-month-old toddler.

"She's probably just having nightmares," her husband, George, said.

"Nightmares?"

"Yeah. Nightmares."

"Isn't she a little young though?"

"Why else would she be waking up?" George said, running a hand along the door-jamb. "We've already checked the room to make sure it wasn't anything else."

They'd spent the whole morning and part of the afternoon to ensure that their daughter wouldn't have any more of what the pediatric nurse had described as 'nightly episodes.' Babies, she'd said, were susceptible to even the slightest of stimuli. For that reason, the branch outside the window had been cut down, new curtains were freshly installed. The creaky door-jamb had been oiled and the flickering night-light with the hummingbird heartbeat was gone. To Elise, the room was nothing short of perfection—picturesque in its pink hues and white trim, with its white cradle with pink down. Their daughter should've been fine. She shouldn't have been waking up at night. She shouldn't have been—

_Screaming,_ Elise thought, _like someone had broken in._

She'd voiced these concerns to George, who in turn had laughed and said that was ridiculous. They lived in a nice neighborhood in the middle of town, with a picket fence and a police station right down the road. There was absolutely no reason for anyone to break in, and even if anyone _tried,_ it would've triggered the alarm system, which in turn would have scared the potential thief off and woken the entire household.

When she'd mentioned the possibility of someone looking through the window, George had only given her a doubtful look. _It's the second story,_ he'd said. _How would anyone look in?_

_A ladder?_ she'd prompted.

George had assured her that it would be too much work for anyone to not only haul a ladder through their yard, but to prop it against the paneling in a manner safe enough to scale it to the second story. He'd even, to ease her worries, gone out and examined the paint, which had been undamaged and good as new.

Sighing, Elise ran a hand over her temple and tried to push back tears as she looked in on their daughter. Cara should've been awake, eating breakfast and watching cartoons, not sleeping like she was now.

Hard as she tried, she could not fight what days of stress had done.

"Hey," George said, stepping forward and bracing his hands along her upper arms. "It's okay. Everything's fine."

"No it's not," Elise said, melting into her husband's grasp. "Our daughter should be _awake,_ George. Not sleeping until nearly noon."

"We're going to get through this," George whispered. "Everything's going to be fine."

Elise balled her hands around her husband's shirt and closed her eyes.

Somehow, she knew this wasn't over.

She just knew.

* * *

She woke at three AM to bloodcurdling screams.

She was out of bed before she could fully process it—passing through the open doorway and into the hall. George was right behind her: groggy, mumbling, not yet truly awake. Her mind was a constellation of thoughts as she entered their daughter's room and took the baby into her arms. _How? Why? What? When?_ The baby trembled in her grasp, nearly flailing from the exertion. George had just entered the room when Elise broke down in tears.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

_"What's wrong?"_ she replied. _"What's wrong_ is that we _don't know_ what's wrong!"

George began scouring the room while Elise attempted to console their frightened child. Cooing, whispering, stroking the small of her back, holding her close to her chest—she tried to push back her own fears while attempting to nullify her daughter's own and watched as George checked the windows and wireless baby monitor, peered out the curtains, scanned the walls for wandering shadows and jiggled the night-light to ensure it was properly working. When he finally finished, and Cara was just starting to settle, he approached with a blank face and even blanker eyes, shoulders rising, then falling in a hopeless shrug.

_What's happening?_ Elise thought. _Why is Cara crying?_

She did her own quick search, mirroring her husband's movements with her eyes and intuition, trying to gauge _what,_ if anything, might be terrifying their baby daughter. She peered at corners, looked at crannies—tried, impossibly, to pull from sheets of wallpapering the monsters that lay hidden in the dark.

Nothing.

She could find absolutely _nothing._

"Check the baby monitor again," she said.

"We heard her loud and clear," George replied, but started toward the dresser nonetheless.

"I want to know if we missed something," Elise said. "If the room creaks or the passing traffic is too loud."

"It looks fine," he said.

"Is the battery okay?"

"I changed it right before we went to bed."

"Are you _sure?"_

"Of course I'm sure," he laughed.

"Was it new? Or the ones you pulled out of the drawer?"

"Honey," George said.

"Just answer the question!" she barked. Cara mewled in response and Elise began to bounce the baby in her arms.

"It's new," George sighed, pressing a hand against his face. "Remember? We looked on the manufacturer's website. The app specifically said _AAA."_

"I know."

"We bought it because they said it was the best Bluetooth monitor on the market."

"I _know,_ George."

"And because it had the best connectivity and wireless streaming."

"George—"

He sighed, parting his fingers to look at her. "I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this, Elise."

"And you think I can't?"

"Maybe we should take her back to the doctor, see if there's something they can—"

"No." Elise shook her head. "Nothing's wrong with our daughter."

"I'm not _saying_ there is, but—"

"You're _saying_ we need to _take her to the doctor._ _Therefore,_ you think _something's wrong."_

"I never said—"

Elise turned, unable—or unwilling, she wasn't sure—to look at him. Now that Cara had calmed down, the initial panic was beginning to fade, dissipating into tendrils of anxiety that wafted about her body and set fire to her every nerve. Though her baby had calmed, she had not, and with each passing second she felt even more like she was failing as a mother.

_This isn't how it's supposed to be,_ she thought. _This isn't—_

George set a hand on her back.

Though she tensed at first, she soon relaxed beneath his touch.

"I think," he said, "we should at least call the nurse and see if she has any advice."

"Okay," Elise replied.

* * *

"She's still crying?" the pediatric nurse, a lady by the name of Lupita Hernandez, asked.

"Yeah," Elise replied, glancing at her daughter out of the corner of her eye—who, though tired, was more than determined to fit a square cube through learning block's circular fixture. "George and I don't know what's wrong. We've already fixed everything we thought might be causing the problems. Now he's contemplating sound-proofing the rooms."

"It may just be a phase," Lupita replied. "She's perfectly healthy, so there's nothing to indicate any health problems that may be causing these outbursts. You said you feed her before she goes to bed, and you normally don't have to change her diaper until early in the morning, so she shouldn't be hungry or waking up screaming because of an accident."

"So what's wrong? What are we doing wrong?"

"You're not doing _anything_ wrong, Elise. You and your husband are doing just fine."

"She shouldn't be having nightmares though. She shouldn't—"

"Just out of curiosity," Lupita cut in, "do you let her watch TV?"

"Yes," Elise replied, taking a moment to process the odd and unexpected question. "But only the cartoon channels."

"Do you watch them with her?"

"Sometimes, yes. Why?"

"She could be dreaming about something she's seeing on one of her shows," Lupita said. "Or it's possible that she's picking up on stress in the household."

"The only stress we're having is over this," Elise sighed, pushing her hair back from her face.

"I would recommend turning the television off for a little while; see if that does anything for her nightmares. I'm sorry you and your husband are having to go through this, Elise. Being a parent is tough."

"No kidding."

"I would know. I've raised three myself."

Elise smiled as her daughter successfully fit a cube through a square receptacle and screeched in approval. "Thank you so much, Lupita. I really appreciate it."

"It's no trouble, Elise. Have a good day."

"You too, Mrs. Hernandez," Elise said.

She ended the call and set her smartphone on the table beside her—content, at least, that she'd found a potential solution to her daughter's problems. She'd never considered that the nightmares could be inspired by the cartoons Cara watched, but it made sense, in theory. It was even possible that her fears were manifesting in the shadows that played across the room from passing cars. She'd watched the monitor feed from her smartphone to try and validate these concerns, and though _she_ hadn't seen anything, that didn't mean _her baby_ couldn't, nor _wouldn't._

With that thought in mind, she picked the remote up, turned the television off, and settled down on the floor beside her daughter, who looked up at her with a confused expression.

"It might be scaring you," she said, pointing at the TV.

The baby tilted her head to follow Elise's finger, but was distracted and looked down as a triangular learning piece fell from her hand.

"Let's go eat lunch," Elise said.

The baby laughed as Elise lifted her into her arms.

* * *

"So we have a potential solution?" George asked as he loosened his tie and popped the first few buttons at his collar.

"Possibly," Elise said, smiling as she saw Cara reach out to her father from her place at the kitchen table.

"I take it you talked to Lupita?"

"I did."

"That woman's a lifesaver." George lifted Cara from her booster seat. "Hey sport. You keep Mommy busy?"

The baby replied with an enthusiastic smack of her slobbery lips.

"Someone's a little messy," he laughed, lifting a washcloth to wipe her mouth.

"There's dinner on the stove," she said, accepting the baby as George passed her off, much to Cara's disapproval. "I would've waited a little longer, but she was fussing and I figured I'd start."

"No trouble," he replied, starting toward the kitchen sink. "Everything else go okay today?"

"Yeah. You?"

"The usual. Taxes. Paperwork. More taxes. More paperwork."

"How thrilling."

"Only when I get to leave the office, babe," George laughed. "Oh, that reminds me." He reached into his pocket and set a pack of brand-new AAA batteries on the countertop. "So we can change 'em before we go to bed."

"I take it you were having seconds thoughts?" she asked.

"A little," he sighed, his eyes indicating possible guilt or remorse. "I mean, yeah—I hate that I can't sleep, but I hate that _she_ can't sleep even more."

"Lupita suggested we keep her from watching cartoons for a little while. See if she's having nightmares from something she's seeing on TV."

"Makes sense," George shrugged as he began spooling lasagna onto a plate. "Want me to clean up when I'm done?"

"That'd be great," Elise said.

"Cool. That'll give you time to put Cara to bed and for me to finish eating." He paused as he turned, plate in hand, to look at her. "Maybe things'll go back to normal tonight. Then it'll have been the perfect day."

"Yeah," Elise smiled, hopeful. "The perfect day."

* * *

They changed the batteries in the baby monitor and laid Cara down for the night in the hopes that everything would be all right. After lulling the baby to sleep, they opened the bedroom doors, turned off the lights, crawled between the covers, and eventually drifted off to sleep.

Everything was fine—perfect, even.

That was, until Elise thought she heard something.

She initially thought she was dreaming, given that she'd fallen into a deep sleep and had woken slowly at the sound of what she assumed were the dream people in her head. Soft, barely audible, speaking in a whisper clouded by distance and with a voice distorted by white noise—it began inconsequently enough: with a _hello,_ repeated once, a, _How are you?_ and then a pause, followed by another _hello._ She rolled over, vaguely thinking the voice would stop once she ignored it. Then she heard the words that ripped her from sleep.

_Hello baby._

Her eyes shot open instantly.

It was the middle of the night—three-thirty to be exact. The room was dark, the air chill, the blankets askew across her midriff. Her husband had not stirred and made no signs to indicate that he'd sensed or heard what she had. She briefly recalled her childhood—when, during her teens, she'd experienced bouts of sleep paralysis that had left her trapped in the most agonizing states possible—and thought for a moment that this was simply one of those cases: that regardless of the years that had passed without them, they had returned, and with it the sense of dread that could only come when waking suddenly and being unable to move. Slowly, however, her breath returned and her joints creaked with life. She was just about to rise—if only by second nature—when she heard it again.

_Baby,_ it began. _Baby._

Within seconds she was airborne—literally flying from the bed and across the room and into the hall. She estimated that it took only seconds to run from their room to her daughter's, but each felt like hours—millennia, even, with the knowledge that someone had broken in and was now standing in their daughter's room.

She came to a complete halt at the open threshold and stared.

There was nothing there.

She watched—waiting, in complete and utter terror, for the figure to appear from behind the door with a knife or a gun and aim it directly at her.

But there was no one there. No one at all.

She was just about to turn when she heard the slight, mechanical creak of the baby monitor's wireless camera turning to face her.

_Hello Mommy,_ the voice said.

The fear returned—crippling, without notice, a shock to the system like whiplash when thrust from one emotion into another. This time, she knew that someone was there. They just weren't in the room. They weren't even in the house. They—

The sound of the mattress shifting, then the bedsprings squeaking cut through the silence of the night.

_Someone's coming,_ the voice said.

The camera shifted, its black eye winking as it caught the light from the nearby nightlight.

"Elise?" George asked, stumbling forward. "What're you doing up this late?"

"Ah-Ah-Ah-Ah-I—"

She pointed.

George stopped.

Her trembling wrist—her staccato breath—spoke for her.

Her husband had just stepped up alongside her when the camera adjusted itself again.

_Hello Daddy,_ the voice said. _._

"What the fuck?" George asked.

The phantom intruder—who was now, and had apparently been watching them for the past several days—laughed.

"It's coming from the baby monitor," Elise said.

"Your phone," George replied. "Your phone!"

He hurled himself into their bedroom just as Elise found the strength to step into the nursery.

The camera—still focused toward the upstairs hallway—lifted to view her face. _She's quite pretty,_ the voice, which Elise was more than sure was male, said. _How old is—_

The voice cut off.

The blue lights around the lens blinked out.

Cara began crying.

George walked into the room—Elise's smartphone in her hand—and looked at her. "We're calling the police," he said.

* * *

They used George's smartphone—for fear of reactivating the wireless device—to contact the authorities. An officer was at their door within minutes.

"You say someone was _inside_ your house?" the older, portly man said, sweeping the living room from entryway to stairwell with his eyes.

"Someone was _looking_ into our house," George clarified.

"Through the baby monitor," Elise added.

A second, younger officer stepped through the open doorway and turned his flashlight off. "I didn't see anything, Cliff," he said.

"There apparently wasn't anyone to see," the older, white man named Cliff replied.

"Sorry?" the younger black officer asked.

"Someone was looking into their daughter's room through the baby monitor."

The second officer—whom Elise could identify only by his last name, Collins—stopped mid-step. "What?" he then asked.

Elise quickly recanted the tale while George led the older officer up the stairs, trying her hardest not to tremble in the face of what was undoubtedly a frightening and unusual occurrence. The younger man—who couldn't have been much older than his early twenties—nodded the whole time, all the while glancing around the house and at the curtained windows.

"I'm... not sure my partner and I will be able to do anything," Collins said just as Cliff and George began to descend the stairs. "This sounds like something the guys in tech would have to look into."

"All these gadgets," the older man said. "Fancy, shmansy wireless shenanigans."

"We may have to contact your service provider," the younger cop explained, "though I'm not sure what all we'd need until we report this to our cybercrime division."

"Until then," Cliff said, patting the baby monitor at his side, tucked under his arm, "you probably won't mind until if we keep this."

"No," Elise and George both said at the same time.

"We don't," George finished."

* * *

The following morning—after the roughest night of sleep she'd ever had—Elise stared out her daughter's bedroom window and at the street that bordered the front of their house.

_Who?_ she thought. _Why?_

It didn't make sense. To hack into someone's baby monitor, to watch a complete stranger's house—to look, without permission, into not only someone's personal lives and intimate affairs, but at their _baby?_ She knew there were some sick people in this world—knew, without a doubt, that predators would use any tools necessary to get what they wanted—but what kind of person would do that? Did they want to rob them, kill them, or worse—abduct her daughter?

A series of knocks sounded along the door-jamb, drawing her from her thoughts. "They still haven't got back to us," George said as he entered the room. "Are you all right, honey?"

"I'm just trying to figure out why someone would want to do this," she said.

"Honestly," George replied. "Who knows?"

"You checked the house, right?"

"I did."

"None of the plants disturbed, no scuffs or marks along the paint or siding?"

"Nothing," George said. "Which I feel is the most disturbing thing of all."

"So someone hacked the baby monitor without even knowing where we are," she said, then paused, a flicker of trepidation crossing her heart. "Right?"

"I wish I could answer that, honey."

"We did everything the instructions told us to," she continued. "We secured the network, we password-protect our phones, created a new password for the app. The only thing I can think of is that someone hacked the device."

"Because the connection was bad when we set it up," George nodded. "Because we thought it was a network error."

"And it defaulted to a regular password," she said. "Or didn't set a password at all." Elise sighed and crossed her arms under her breasts. "I mean... it's not like we named the monitor _'baby monitor'_ or anything like that."

"Whatever sick fuck did this probably has a list of device names written down and memorized. We didn't do anything wrong, Elise."

"I know. It's just..."

"What?" George asked, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

Elsie blinked as she watched a car pass by. "It feels like we failed our daughter."

"The feeling's mutual," he said.

Elise closed her eyes and reached up to set her hand across her husband's.

"They said they'll get back to us as soon as possible," George whispered, bowing his face into her neck. "Until then... we just wait."

"Yeah," Elise said, once again staring back out the window.

_Wait._

* * *

"What do you mean _you couldn't trace the hacker?"_ George asked.

Elise froze where she knelt playing with Cara in the living room and waited for her husband to continue—her breath drawn, her chest tight, her fingers trembling around a pair of dolls in both hands. Cara—who couldn't understand a word of what was happening—batted one of the dolls with a plastic dinosaur and scared Elise so bad she nearly jumped to her feet.

"So you're telling me," her husband finally continued, after what had to have been at least five minutes of silence, "that there's absolutely _no way_ you can find out who was looking in our house?"

Another bout of silence came, but this time was punctuated by the sound of her husband moving around the kitchen, brushing papers off the mail station and fumbling through pens in the plastic cup atop it. When he finally spoke again—when he finally, _truly_ stated, with clear authenticity, the word that would finally end this conversation—he said but three simple words: "Thank you, officer."

He then hung up the phone.

Elise allowed the dolls to fall from her hands as she rose and crossed into the kitchen—anticipating, but not expecting the severity of, the sheer unease upon her husband's face. Sweat beaded his brow, and his eyes—narrowed at the blank piece of paper he held in his hands—were but two empty pits of darkness.

"George?" she asked, unsure how to approach.

"They can't find them," he said.

"What?" she replied.

"They had some kind of... _jammer._ IP blocker. _Something_ that kept the police from tracing the hacker's location."

"How is that even possible?"

"Something to do with _remote viewing_. The furthest they got was to the application's last login, which was _after_ we went to bed. _With_ a default password."

Elise's heart stopped beating. "The password we entered," she began.

"Didn't take," George finished. "Just like we suspected."

"So there's nothing we can do," she said.

"Other than uninstall the app? No. There isn't."

Elise closed her eyes and felt every one of her anxieties come crashing down.

"The officer in the cybercrime division told us that we shouldn't worry," George said. "That this was likely only a one-time thing."

What if it wasn't?

What if, whoever had been watching them, now knew where they, and their daughter, lived?

She couldn't know. George couldn't know. And, most frighteningly, the police didn't know.

Elise looked out the nearby window—at the street and the big, wide world outside.

She'd never felt more afraid of being in her own home.

# Garmantua

It was the blood that signaled that another end had begun.

She tried—without success—not to look, but in the end, she couldn't help it, and wailed.

A mother always cried when she lost a child.

This would be her third.

And now she would stand trial.

She struggled to maintain her composure as she knelt by the river and watched as the blood slid from between her legs and into the waters below. Her reflection—that of a woman who had lost it all—looked back at her, all green skin and black eyes. Tortured were her features, ugly in the throes of mourning, and though she tried her hardest not to gaze into the abandon that was her grieving reflection, she could not help but see the one thing she could have never imagined.

_Fear._

Fear—for having lost yet another; for her body betraying her once again; for having, in _their_ eyes, 'sacrificed an unwilling life to the Gods.' It was an emotion that had only been painted on her features a few times—once, when it had happened, and again, when it had happened a second time.

Now, on this hallowed morning, she would return to her tribe and declare that she had lost her third.

Then it would all begin.

She tried, without success, to maintain control of her emotions as she held what little of it remained, a fragile being of unformed tissue. This was to have been a person, had she been able to carry it to term. But the Gods had seen fit to plague her with yet another.

_An unborn,_ she thought. _My curse._

"My child," she said.

She wailed, then, and bowed her head, almost into her bloodied hands, as the emotions threatened to overwhelm her. She knew she had to be quiet—that she had to keep from summoning others. Yet the pain—it was unbearable. It was not even the physical aches that pained her so. No. It was the emotion—that of which she often refused to feel—that tore her world asunder, that carved into her flesh the thoughts of the tribe. Women weren't spared here, not when they could not carry children. And it was for that reason that she mourned.

She struggled for the next several moments to regain her composure—knowing, above all else, that she had to give what little there was of her child a proper, Orcan burial. With that in mind, she rose and began to cross the river, her bare feet disturbing the minnows that had come to feast upon her blood and the shifting waters amongst her ankles causing them to dart away. The strength in her legs was all but gone. But she had to do it—for him, for her, for _the third who had not survived._

She reached a point near the forest's edge—near where, in years past, she had buried the others. Their graves could no longer be seen. Unmarked, they could never be found. And undisturbed they would remain for the test of time.

It was this that she found solace in as she entered the wood, then bent to deposit the remains of her third child in the cloth wrapping that had once adorned her sex. With trembling hands she began to dig through the soft, fertile earth between the roots of the deciduous trees above—preparing, with painstaking progress, a grave fit for a child so small. Once she deemed it large enough to fit—and deep enough to where the child would not be ravaged by the blights of the world—she took the cloth with the remains in her hand and lowered it into the earth.

She tried to summon words to her lips—to conjure an image of something great and everlasting, of something grand and demure, of a time and place splendid and pure. Instead, all that she could say was, "I'm sorry."

The child could not—and would never—speak back.

It was for this reason that, through tears, she parted the earth over the remains and then topped it with rocks to keep the beasts of nature at bay.

When she withdrew, she looked upon the base of the tree and cried.

It was here where the other two had been buried, and it was here where the third would remain.

As she stepped out of the wood, toward the stream that separated her tribal grounds from the rest of the island, the Nameless Orc set her eyes on the campfires in the distance and began to make her way forward.

She would face them, regardless of what she felt.

And when it came time for her punishment to be delivered, she would accept it wholeheartedly.

She was the one who could not give birth.

What an injustice it was.

* * *

She stumbled along the edge of the campgrounds until she came to the hut that housed the healer. Defeated, both emotionally and physically, she entered, then slumped to the floor, tears in her eyes and blood on her legs.

"Child," the healer said, taking the Nameless Orc into her arms. "What's happened?"

"My third," the Nameless Orc said.

It only took one look between her legs to know what the Nameless Orc had meant. "Come," the healer said, helping her to her feet and then atop a series of furs that served as a bed. "Let me tend to you."

The Nameless Orc didn't know why the healer even bothered. She was to be sentenced to death for her inability to carry to term. It seemed worthless to tend to her—to clean her wounds, to ease her pains, to dull the burdens upon her body. To the Nameless Orc, it seemed akin to cleaning a pig before the slaughter.

"Don't," the Nameless Orc said as the healer conjured upon her hands green light.

"I mean to ease your pains," the healer replied. "Please, child—let me do this."

The Nameless Orc said nothing as she closed her eyes, but grimaced as the healer guided her magicked hands along her body in an effort to assuage the pain from her abdomen. The feeling was intense—like bathing within sunlight upon a hot rock—and did little to actually ease the pain, most of which wasn't physical. Rather than complain, however, she allowed the healer to do this, then closed her eyes when the sensation of being kissed by the overhead sun passed.

"Stay here," the healer said.

The Nameless Orc didn't need to nod or say anything as the healer left the hut and disappeared into the outside world. She knew what was coming—the judgment that was to follow. It would likely come on swift wings, stampeding into the hut to berate her for losing yet another. But she wouldn't dwell upon that. Instead, she merely lay there and cried.

Her sobs—most of which had escaped her during the initial phases of her miscarriage—eventually faded away until they were nothing more than startled whimpers and sniffles. She was fading—edging her way into the mists that were dream. If only she could escape into them, be free of this feeling for but one moment, maybe then she—

Their footsteps were what roused her from thought.

"Another?" the rough voice of an Orc by the name of Boar's Talon said. "A goddamned ' _nother?"_

"She cannot help what her body does," the healer replied. "Please, Boar's Talon. Let her sleep. She has just suffered an immense loss."

"She will sleep when she dies," Boar's Talon replied, his deep voice punctual and filled with biting malice. His harsh breaths filled the silent space and caused the Nameless Orc to squirm—not in pain, but anticipation for the beating that was to come.

He kicked her, once—hard.

The pain was enough to make her scream.

_"Another?"_ Boar's Talon asked as he took hold of her dreadlocks. _"Another?"_

"I'm sorry," the Nameless Orc said. "I didn't... I tried—"

"You didn't try hard enough," he said, then dropped her with a thud.

The Nameless Orc tried to curl into a fetal position to avoid anymore beatings, but found herself unable to do so for the pain that wracked her midsection.

It was his child that she had lost, his baby whom she'd buried in the far woods. His anger was palpable—even reasonable, in a wicked sense. Her body had betrayed him just as much as it'd betrayed her. Yet what could she do but mourn?

She opened her eyes to find Boar's Talon, chieftain of the Bloodkin clan, staring right at her. "You will be executed when the sun rises tomorrow for your incompetence," the bull said.

The Nameless Orc said nothing as she stared into Boar's Talon's pitch black eyes.

Then he was gone—out the door and away from the hut.

"I'm sorry," the healer said, cradling the Nameless Orc's head as she began to sob once more. "I tried to keep him at bay."

"It was your duty," the Nameless Orc replied. "Your purpose."

"I understand. But he was cruel, and he was callous. Surely he could have spared you when you are already in so much pain."

The Nameless Orc said nothing. Rather, she allowed the healer to guide her dreadlocks from her face and down the curves of her bony shoulders and remained silent as she struggled to breathe evenly.

Her death was to occur in less than a day.

Her incompetence—it was unrivaled.

Other women could bear children. Why couldn't she?

_Because I'm cursed,_ she thought. _Because the Gods gave me a body that does not wish to birth._

As the healer drew away, settling her head into the furs and stroking her hands over her pronounced cheekbones, the Nameless Orc closed her eyes and sighed.

What could she do but await her death?

* * *

She lay in the healer's bed for what felt like hours, processing the feelings rapidly cycling through her mind as the sun fell across the horizon. Morning faded, noon came, evening fell. Soup was offered but was refused and the Nameless Orc pushed herself from bed.

"You shouldn't go," the healer said.

"There are others you could tend to," the Nameless Orc replied. "Hunters. The other women. The children."

"You are the one whom I am caring for at this moment. Please—rest. Your body will thank you for it."

"I will be dead once the sun rises."

The healer sighed and gestured toward the furs. "Please," she said. "Lay back down. Humor an old Orc."

The Nameless Orc did as the healer asked, settling upon the furs and drawing them around herself. The fire that burned in the center of the hut flickered as a breeze blew in through the hide surrounding them and threatened to be extinguished, but wasn't. Instead, it merely continued to burn brightly—much like the Nameless Orc's pain for having lost yet another child.

"You know," the healer said. "There is one way you could spare yourself."

"Why would I wish to avoid the consequence of death?" the Nameless Orc asked. "I am useless without my body."

"Never say such a thing, child. You are only useless if you believe yourself to be."

"But I—"

The healer pressed a finger to the Nameless Orc's lips. "Now," the aging Orc said, drawing her hand away. "Will you be silent and listen?"

The Nameless Orc nodded and waited for her elder to continue.

The healer settled back down into her own assortment of furs and sighed as she looked into the fire. "There is a way," she began, "that you could live, and through living, give back to the children you were unable to give birth to."

"How?"

It was this question that brought to life a smile upon the healer's lips. "You could hunt," she said, "one of the great beasts, and gain title by slaying it."

"But the Great Hunts are reserved for the bulls," the Nameless Orc said.

"But are not refused to the mares if they truly wish to seek it," the healer replied. She settled her deeply-set black eyes on the Nameless Orc and once again sighed. "You would be offered a timeframe in which you could slay this creature, if you could decide what it is you wish to slay, but it must be a great beast, and must be something you feel you could conquer."

"But what beast is there that has not been claimed?" the Nameless Orc asked.

The healer didn't reply. She merely stared into the fire and watched the flames dance.

The Nameless Orc stared into the fire alongside her healer and considered this option wholeheartedly. Though she did not wish to die, she felt herself incapable of hunting in her current state of being. Her body was weak, her emotions fractured, her mind threatening to break from the pressure of it all. To find, and then slay, a great beast seemed an impossible task, let alone one she could even begin to conquer. What beast could she claim for a Hunt that was not already claimed? The Fish were taken, the Boars first among many, the Bears and the Wolves only seldom claimed. That could only mean—

The Nameless Orc paused as she considered the final option.

"I see you have come to terms with what I have said," the healer started, turning her dark eyes on the Nameless Orc.

"The spider," the Nameless Orc replied.

"Garmantua," the healer nodded. "The Great Mother."

She was a being of immense power—of fortitude that would not be challenged even by the greatest of their hunters. She lived in the tunnels to the south of their encampment, preying upon the lesser creatures of the woods and even, at times, their children. Everything had been attempted to drive her from her nest and into the open to be slain. Swords, arrows, fire—nothing had worked. Her tunnels ran deeper than most expected—and that few dared to even enter.

"But how would I," the Nameless Orc began.

"You would claim this beast as your Hunt," the healer replied, "and be given a chance to slay her in kind."

"But I am weak. Sullied. Heartbroken."

"You are the very creature who can usurp this queen's throne. I know it."

"Why are you helping me?" the Nameless Orc asked.

"Because you have suffered losses greater than many of the women—and even the men—could have ever imagined. To have lain to rest three children." The healer shook his head. "How you have not gone mad I do not know."

_Maybe I am mad,_ the Nameless Orc thought, _and just don't know it yet._

Was her task even possible? _Could_ she drive the spider from her nest? And if not, could she _enter_ the tunnels and make her way back out of them alive? They said her bite was death, that her kiss was scarlet, that her venom could be sprayed and that her webbing could capture even the most clever of creatures. Surely if she were to enter her lair she would be killed, but would it be any different if she were to die by the sword? At least in battle she could die a warrior.

As the outside wind drew alongside the hut and once again ruffled the flames of the fire, the Nameless Orc looked upon the healer and said, "Why me?"

"Because life is precious," the healer replied, "and your story has yet to be written."

"Do you really think I could slay the spider?"

"I think _someone_ has to try, and who better than someone who will lose it all anyway?"

That was a point that couldn't be argued.

Standing, the Nameless Orc stumbled to the edge of the hut and looked out at the darkness beyond. "Thank you," she said, "for caring for me."

"Would you not like to stay the night?" the healer asked. "I will keep you warm, fed, _sheltered."_

"I need time to think," the Nameless Orc said.

The healer only nodded. "Very well," she said. "Then off you go."

The Nameless Orc turned and started out of the hut, but not without casting a glance back at the woman who had tended to her so well. "Thank you," was all she found fit to say, before she turned and started into the darkness.

* * *

Sleep did not come easily to her that night, nor did it wish to. Rather, it seemed to elude her in that it would come, stay, then flutter away spontaneously,. It became so apparent that she would not be able to sleep that the Nameless Orc merely lay there in the early hours of the morning—watching as, from her place in her bed, the light brightened and her coming trial drew near.

By the time first light crowned the horizon, the sound of footsteps were already plaguing the air.

Hesitant to rise but knowing that she would be forcefully dragged out anyway were she to resist, the Nameless Orc pushed herself to her feet, stood before the empty fireplace, and awaited the bulls that were to escort her to the ceremonial grounds.

There were three in all, all with title and bearing upon their bodies the scars and marks to prove it. They declared their intentions boldly with grunts and snarls as they looked upon a mare who could not bear children and awaited for her to step forward. The Nameless Orc did this willingly, and accepted the hands that took hold of her gladly. She had expected this—was waiting for them to inflict their own form of gruesome brutality upon her—and wasn't about to refuse them the privilege of dragging her through the camp like the battered mother she was.

She relinquished herself to them willingly, and followed as they began to drag her—forcefully, and with much greater strength than they needed—through the camp.

"Bitch," one of them said.

"Stupid whore," another added.

The Nameless Orc kept as solid a face as possible as accusations began to fly at her. That she was unfit, that she'd done something wrong, that she'd sabotaged her pregnancy because she was unwilling to be a mother. All of them were untrue—all bold lies that were not to be taken seriously—but with the wound so fresh and gaping, it was hard to ignore their words, barbed as they were. Her tears were what they wanted, and her tears were what they got as she sniffled and tried her hardest not to let too many fall down her face.

As they dragged her through the camp, she was met by stares from the other pregnant women that were a mixture of volatile oppression and complete sadness. Their children—which were plentiful—watched behind their mothers' legs or from their arms as she was forcefully dragged toward the Culling Grounds where she was supposed to be executed this morning.

_But what if they won't let me? s_ he dangerously thought.

No.

The healer would not fill her with false promises. They would let her hunt, especially if it meant disposing of her in a way that did not have to stain their hands with blood.

They came to the Culling Grounds upon which the rocks stood scarred and vacant and awaited Boar's Talon as he stepped forward with the axe in hand. "Bitch," he snarled, narrowing his eyes at her as she was pushed, roughly, to the ground, her head forced against a rock and her eyes turned to face the man who had raped and impregnated her three separate times. "You know why you're here."

"I'm aware," she said.

Boar's Talon guided a finger along the sharp edge of the headsman's axe and smiled as his finger slipped away from its blade, drawing the slightest fraction of blood. "I will enjoy killing you," he said as he hefted the blade over his shoulder. "I'll avenge my children that you killed."

"I did not kill them," the Nameless Orc said. "I would never."

"Lies!" Boar's Talon cried, taking hold of the axe in both hands. "Deceit! I will kill you where you lie, you pathetic wench."

"I wish to invoke the Great Hunt."

The crowd gasped as one.

Boar's Talon—armed and ready to remove her head with but one blow—tensed and then lowered his weapon until its blade touched the ground. "You?" he asked, a laugh in his voice. _"Invoke_ a _Great Hunt?"_

"I wish to kill Garmantua of the Silver Hills."

Again, a gasp from the crowd, but this time Boar's Talon snarled and dropped his axe to the ground. "Bitch!" he roared. _"BITCH!"_

The hands that were holding her to the execution stone released her. The Nameless Orc then stood and faced Boar's Talon head-on. Though their height difference was minimal, he still towered over her in presence alone. As the chieftain, most of one's power came from intimidation, and Boar's Talon could intimidate like the best of them.

"I wish to invoke the right gifted to all Orcs by our forefathers," the Nameless Orc continued anew. "I declare Garmantua—Great Spider, Queen of Poison—of the Silver Hills as my Hunt. How long do I have to slay this beast?"

Boar's Talon tensed—the large vein in his neck throbbing with rage. "One fortnight," he said, the snarl in his voice calming as his silent rage took over. "As chieftain of the Bloodkin clan, I hereby allow you to hunt Garmantua of the Silver Hills. Heed this," he then said to the hunters who had gathered at the edge of the camp, "and know that any who threaten this mare's hunt will be executed on sight."

The hunters nodded solemnly, then drew back as the Nameless Orc began to make her way back toward her hut.

"Orcess," Boar's Talon said.

The Nameless Orc turned to face her rapist and chieftain.

"If you do not slay the beast in a fortnight, I will ensure your death will be long and painful."

"I understand," she replied.

She turned and walked away, all the while wondering just how she would kill the beast that lived within the tunnels of the Silver Hills.

* * *

Back at her hut, she lay quietly while outside the world around her churned. Still struggling with pain and knowing that she would be for the next several days, she tried her hardest to reconcile with herself the fact that she would likely need to visit the healer and found herself grieving once more.

_You're doing the right thing,_ she thought. _Standing up to the bull like that._

It hadn't felt like it, then, but it did now. It coursed through her like adrenaline—like a victory fought and won and then claimed accordingly. This feeling was what would drive her to flee the Bloodkin grounds and toward the unclaimed Silver Hills—where Garmantua reigned supreme.

_And where I will gain my independence from the breeding stock that are the mares._

She trembled, then, as a wave of pain overwhelmed her, and curled into a fetal position while gathering the fur-lined hides around herself. Though it was hot, she felt oh so cold, and for that reason desired nothing more than to slip into sleep and escape the tumultuous chaos that were her thoughts and emotions.

No matter how hard she tried to think otherwise, she could not help but think of all the things she might have done wrong.

The walking—

The running—

The working—

The hunting—

The strenuous labor expected of those not bulging with pregnancy—

All could have contributed to the miscarriage that had occurred no more than a day ago. But _what,_ she wondered, had been the cause? She'd tried to be careful—tried, religiously, to make sure that her body was not overwhelmed—but still, it had happened, and once again she was the grieving mother who was expected to shake it off and recover.

Tears burned at the Nameless Orc's eyes as she thought of the futures her children could have had—the battles they could have fought, the children they could have sired, the magic they could have cast or the beasts they could have slain. She would know nothing of their lives now that they were gone. It was, in a way, as if they'd never existed.

_But they had,_ she thought. _I held them in my hand, buried them in my woods, beneath my tree._

She let out a long, low wail, not bothering to care who or what heard her.

Let them think she was weak.

She'd just lost a child.

She expected no bull to understand her pain.

* * *

By nightfall she'd wandered from her hut and began to make her way to the healer's tent that lay on the opposite edge of the encampment. Ignoring the stares that followed her and the taunts and jeers from the men who admired her body for its physical prowess, the Nameless Orc walked with her head down and her hand braced over her abdomen, signaling to any and all who looked upon her that she was a mare in pain and that she was not to be trifled with. Normally, someone would have come to assist her—as they'd done in the past. But with her body having betrayed her a third time—and her intents for title declared to the entire tribe—she was left to fend for herself during a time when she was fighting for her life moment by moment.

_I just need a little longer,_ she thought, grimacing as a wave of pain moved throughout her uterus and into her abdomen. _Just a little while longer._

The pain would dissipate, as it always would, and she would resume life as she had in years past. She was young—barely of proper breeding age when the hips were wide and the breasts full and proper. Her body would recover, eventually.

Outside the healer's tent, she rang the bone bell that had been meticulously crafted by one of their artists and waited a moment before saying, "Healer."

"Child," the healer replied, drawing forth from the darkness. "Please, come. Lie down. You should not be on your feet."

"I need to gather my strength," the Nameless Orc said. "I can't afford to waste time."

"Garmantua will wait for you. She isn't going anywhere."

Still, the Nameless Orc didn't want to be lying on her back awaiting her punishment for the next fortnight while trying to decide on what would be the best tactic to drive the queen from her lair. She had to act—and soon. If it was believed that she would not be participating in her Hunt, someone could contest her claim and possibly steal it out from under her.

_If she dies,_ the Nameless Orc thought, _and I'm not the one who slays her—_

Then it would be goodbye to life as she knew it.

As she lay down, spreading herself across the furs and awaiting the healer to administer the healing light treatment that she'd become accustomed to in years past, the Nameless Orc sighed, closed her eyes, and tilted her head up to look at the stars that could be seen peeking through the top of the circular hut.

"There now," the healer said, guiding her magicked hands along the Nameless Orc's abdomen. "How does that feel?"

"Better," she said, her words mere breaths from her lips.

"You will be weak when you go to hunt Garmantua, child. I want you to understand this."

"I know."

"You are smart, though. Clever. Cunning. You will find a way to outmaneuver the beast when you enter her lair."

"I do not worry about the actual Hunt," the Nameless Orc replied. "I worry about the battle that will come as a result of it."

"Do you know which weapons you will be taking?"

She'd a bow back in her hut—primed with years of use and honed with the practice she'd received from her own mother in her youth—but would a simple arrow be enough to take down a creature such as the spider queen? It seemed unlikely, and for that reason she would need more than just projectiles in order to defend herself.

"I've knives," the Nameless Orc said. "A bow."

"That won't be enough to kill a queen," the healer said. "You need something stronger. Sturdier. Something that can give you distance between you and she."

"I've no weapon lengthy enough for that."

"I could offer you my sword, if you would be willing to accept it."

"I," the Nameless Orc said, then stopped before she could continue. The healer had drawn toward the far edge of the hut and was unwrapping from its hide a weapon of considerable length. When she returned, the healer revealed to the Nameless Orc a dusky weapon that resembled the clouds in the midnight sky—a blade that was at least three feet long.

"It served me well in my youth," the healer said, passing it into the Nameless Orc's hands.

"Thank you," the Nameless Orc said, clutching the hide-wrapped hilt of the weapon with newfound strength. She tested the weight of the weapon in her grasp with a few simple swings before allowing it to rest at her side. "You may have just saved my life."

"It is not the blade that will save your life, child, but your prowess in battle."

"Do you know of her? What she's like, how she hunts?"

"I only know that she is active at night," the healer replied, "and that that is when she is seen the most. She is large—roughly the size of the bulls we see grazing in the nearby fields—and that she is black in color with violet accents along her fur. She... is truly formidable, child, and though I have not seen her with my own eyes, I know better than to think that she will be a willing victim."

"Thank you. For the sword, and for your description."

"I am unaware if she has a mate," the healer said as Garma's eyes began to narrow with exhaustion, "but if others like her are any indication, he would be much smaller, and far less dangerous."

"I understand."

"Now sleep," the healer whispered. "You need your rest. I will keep my eyes on you while you rest."

The Nameless Orc closed her eyes, drew the fur-lined hides more tightly around her body, and waited for sleep to take her.

It turned out she did not have to wait long.

* * *

She slipped out of the healer's hut in the early hours of the morning, during which time twilight had only just begun and the sun had yet to rise upon the horizon, and returned to her hut, careful not to draw attention for fear of further assault. With the healer's sword in hand and her sights set on venturing toward the Silver Hills, she stooped and began to gather her personal affects—first her leather armor, which she slid over her chest and around her waist, then her bow and arrows, which she allowed to hang loosely from her torso. She prepared a day's worth of rations from her personal stockpile of jerky and then began to slide her assortment of daggers into their various sheaths along her boots and ribcage. Finally, she clipped the sword to her side.

By the time she was finished, the Nameless Orc was ready for the hunt.

_Remember,_ the healer had said, _your training._

Years of hunting experience had taught her that one always had to anticipate their prey's next move—be it a wolf, a bear, or even the boar that wandered the woods. If the prey evolved past the stage of the hunted—and as a result became the hunter—then one would most certainly be in a world of trouble.

_That isn't going to happen,_ the Nameless Orc thought. _I'm ready._

Her quiver was full, her blades sharpened, the healer's sword ready to be drawn at her side. All she needed to do was slide the pack over her shoulder and depart for the Silver Hills.

It would take her several hours to navigate the woods and eventually break free of them to reach her destination.

Was her body ready? Was it really, _truly_ ready?

_There's only one way to find out,_ she thought.

After flexing her muscles, tightening her core, stretching her legs and shrugging the pack over her shoulder, the Nameless Orc turned and made her way out into the dawn of the new day.

No one was up at this hour of the morning, which gave her the perfect opportunity to sneak away unnoticed. Not that she'd mind being spotted—at least by the women, anyhow. It was the bulls she had to be concerned about. In her current, weakened state, she wouldn't be able to fight off one, let alone more.

_You just have to be quiet,_ she reminded herself. _No one can hear you so long as you keep your steps light and your breaths calm._

Light had yet to breach the horizon, which gave ample cover in spite of the fact that she walked directly in the middle of the road—exposed, in a way, that would have left her completely vulnerable during the daylight hours. In this twilight morning, though, she felt perfectly content—not safe, for she knew that she would not be unburdened until she left the Bloodkin grounds, but comfortable enough to where she felt she wouldn't be attacked.

_Or raped,_ she thought.

Having experienced it before, it was her greatest fear, her greatest shame. She'd fought and fought the first two times it had occurred, but no mare could compare to a bull. Their height was enormous, their strength unparalleled. They were, as the bulls were always eager to say, _pathetic weaklings_ in comparison. Because of that, she had simply relented when it had occurred the third time, during which she'd merely lain there, prostrating herself to Boar's Talon. She'd never considered herself simple breeding stock, as she could fight and hunt like the best of them, but she was still female, and as a result, destined for life as a breeding machine.

_Unless I gain title,_ she thought.

If she gained title, she would be removed from the Bloodkin's breeding stock—and even allowed, if she so desired, the choice of any female she wanted. Not that she wanted a mare of her own—or, as the bulls were so horrible to call them, a _personal bitch._ She didn't need someone to prepare her meals, or clean her home, or chop her firewood or stoke her fire. If anything, she might take a mare as a platonic companion, if only to save another from a life of relentless breeding.

The Nameless Orc sighed as she passed the banner that declared the edge of the Bloodkin camp and made her way into the woods—crossing first over the stream that she had shed blood into in days prior, then into the woods where her three children were buried. She briefly considered stopping to mourn them—or at least offer words of comfort to souls that had forever passed from this world—but realized it would be pointless in light of what she was doing and continued onward.

_Remain calm,_ she said. _Clear your mind, your heart, your soul._

Still, she felt tears pulling at the corners of her eyes, threatening to send her into yet another fit of wails. But it was too early. The light was only just beginning to shine, and should she reveal her presence through sound, the queen may hear and anticipate her arrival.

"Garmantua," she whispered, testing the word on her lips.

It would be a fitting name, should she be able to kill the wicked beast that lay in the Silver Hills, and she would wear it as a badge of honor that could not be ripped away regardless of whomever thought was better than she.

With a nod, the Nameless Orc continued her way through the woods, all the while scheming how she would kill the creature whose name she wished to claim.

* * *

It was early morning when she finally reached the Silver Hills—named as such for the webbing that crossed their surfaces and caught the light to reflect it back at whomever looked upon it. Outside the tunnels there existed many cocoons in which the unfortunate had been wrapped. Some were decaying, revealing the skeletons and flesh matter within, while others appeared fresh and were writhing. Though part of her was tempted to free whatever creature dwelt within—awaiting, in the later hours of the day, their final departure from the world—the Nameless Orc knew that that would serve very little purpose. She had to use the utmost of caution while she was here, and to do that, would need to be completely silent.

Drawing her bow from over her shoulders, the Nameless Orc nocked an arrow to her bow and began to advance into the field leading up to the Hills.

Fertile grass—ripe for burning should lightning strike its surface—brushed against her boots, threatening to reveal her presence if the queen were truly not in her dwelling.

_Calm thyself,_ she thought. _Do not be afraid._

Death was not a lingering curse she wished to face, but she knew that if she were to die—and if it were to occur at the hands of Garmantua the spider queen—it would be long, painful, and drawn-out. She could not afford to be incapacitated by her fangs and the venom within and then be wrapped within her wicked webs. She would rather face death by the headman's axe than be liquefied alive.

She approached the Silver Hills gingerly, with caution she knew was warranted but would likely be useless once she began to step on the webbing. Though she knew little about the intricacies of her webs, she knew spiders sensed their prey when becoming ensnared within their traps. How far these webs spanned she didn't know, but as she stepped onto one of them, then lifted her foot to pull away the silvery mess beneath, she shivered as the wind shifted and began to blow her scent due east, away from the Hills in the north.

She drew back the arrow on her bowstring.

She drew a bead along the surface of the tunnel.

Then she waited, for what seemed like hours, awaiting the beast's summons.

When Garmantua did not appear, the Nameless Orc slid the bow back over her torso, then drew a torch with an oil-soaked cloth around its surface before striking flint to stone.

Flame burst to life at the end of the torch.

She drew her sword.

She started forward.

The webs shifted beneath her feet.

She paused only briefly at the mouth of the tunnel to consider what she was about to do before she continued

The flames licked the surface of the tunnel as she started in, drawing smoke along the ceiling and producing an acrid odor within the air.

_Shit,_ she thought.

She lowered her torch, then, and brandished her sword in front of her like a spear, only occasionally trailing her eyes toward the sides of the tunnels in order to view the landscape around her. The topography was slight—straightforward in that the tunnel had been meticulously hollowed out and that it only branched in three other directions—but it was forward where her senses drew her, where her eyes caught sight of discretions in the webbing that revealed a recent evacuation and then return.

It would be sooner, rather than later, that she would meet the beast.

The Nameless Orc swallowed the lump that developed in her throat.

She paused.

She waited.

She considered the many outcomes that could occur as a result of her meeting the creature.

She heard her rather than saw her at first—shuffling along the landscape that was her personal domain and shifting the webbing along the edges of the tunnels. Though her movements did not indicate that she was awake, it did determine that Garmantua was slightly active, which could prove deadly if she were not careful.

Holding her torch forward with the knowledge that fire could drive back any beast, the Nameless Orc stepped forward, into the nest.

Then she saw her.

She was the size of a small cow and bore black fur whose accents could be determined as violet within the light streaming from the Nameless Orc's torch. Beautiful in that she was a stunning creation of nature but deadly in that her wicked fangs could be seen gleaming from her jaws, the Nameless Orc stepped forward and pressed her foot down as hard as she could on the webbing to summon Garmantua's attention.

The spider jerked.

The Orcess lunged.

The spider turned and knocked her over with a sprawling leg.

The breath left her lungs as she hit the ground and a jarring pain tore through her uterus. Unable to pause to catch her breath, she rolled over, torch in hand, and set the webbing in front of her ablaze as the spider reared her ugly head and her glimmering purple fangs.

"Ugly wench," the Nameless Orc said. "I will kill you and take what is rightfully mine—my life and my name!"

The spider screeched and stumbled back, waving her feelers in an effort to subdue the fires before her. As she did this, the Nameless Orc got to her feet and stumbled, sword in hand, toward and then through the flames.

The spider lunged.

The Orc dodged.

She tore her sword along one of its legs and was met with green blood.

The spider roared—if that were even possible, though Garma did not know—as the pain cut through her body and as she rotated to face the Orc. Lunging, ever so carefully, over the flames, she stabbed her fangs down toward the Nameless Orc's back and just barely missed delivering a killing blow.

Liquid stung the Orc's back.

She winced as the liquid began to bubble along her skin.

_Poison,_ she thought.

She thrust the torch into the creature's face and was rewarded with flame.

Her sword came next, arcing over her head and into the creature's eyes.

Blood exploded from the ruined eyeballs.

She stabbed the torch into the gaping wound and was rewarded with yet another scream.

It was now or never, she knew. The creature was enraged. Her lunges had become less calculated, more aggressive. If she were to deliver a killing blow, it had to be now.

Stepping forward, the Nameless Orc hurled the torch under the spider, watched the webbing below burst into flame, then lunged.

Sword pierced exoskeleton.

Bubbling blood ran down her blade.

The Nameless Orc screamed as she tore the blade along Garmantua's abdomen.

Within moments it was over.

The spider convulsed in death throes, then fell to its side—defeated.

The Nameless Orc—who was now, by victory through combat, named Garmantua—pulled her sword from her Hunt's abdomen and reached out to draw a sword along her fang.

She sawed.

She stumbled.

The fang came free.

As she held it in her hand, nearly hard as rock and resembling a wicked weapon of its own, Garmantua considered the burning webs around her, then looked back up at the spider cooking in front of her.

"Thank you," she said, bowing her head. "Through your death my life has been saved."

She turned, then, and began to make through the tunnels.

As she exited the Silver Hills—and as she considered the conquest that would prove she had slain the creature—she realized something that nearly reduced her to tears.

She was no longer nameless.

She would no longer die.

She was, undoubtedly, alive.

Her name was Garmantua.

And she had survived.

# The Diary of Dakota Hammell

**–Day 1–**

* * *

My life used to be normal. Like every other kid, I used to get up in the morning, go to school, come home and do homework. Occasionally, something new and exciting would happen—I'd get an A on a biology test I thought I'd flunked, or I'd get hit on by someone who the rest of my sophomore class had deemed 'exponentially attractive,' but miraculous things usually don't happen to people, especially not to me.

I ran away from home when I was sixteen. Why isn't exactly important, at least not now; and even if it were, I wouldn't be talking about it right off the bat. For now, though, I'll simply explain it like this: Things had been going well up until recently. Sure, I had my ups and downs. I've stood on enough street corners to know how little it takes to get ten dollars, but how much it takes to get to that point, and I've crawled into enough strange cars with enough strange men to know that I could just as easily not wake up the next morning when I'm offered a drink. There's not much else you can do about it when you're hungry and don't want to risk getting sent back home just because you walk into a homeless shelter. My dad made sure of that.

When you're cold, alone, and not sure what else to do, you learn to use what you have to your advantage. It just so happened being sixteen and underage was a bigger advantage than I ever thought it could be.

I know how easy it is for your life to change. It happened to me the night I was raped.

I'm not going to go into that either, at least not now. I'm trying to gauge my current situation to see just how much I should reveal and how much I shouldn't. With that said, you're probably wondering just _why_ I'm writing about this when I don't have to.

Long story short: I recently met a psychologist named John. He found me sitting in the alley with half my face swollen up and my right eye so badly bruised that I couldn't even open it. Even now, as I'm writing this, I'm trying not to get too long-winded. It hurts to move, let alone write. John said I could wait until the morning to write something, or just tell him a little about myself, but I'm strong. I can do this.

John said that for every journal entry I write, I can stay at his house for one day.

My name is Dakota Hammell. I'm 5'5", 120 pounds, have short blonde hair and a tendency to speak my mind when I'm not supposed to. I guess you could say that's the reason I got beat up, but I'm not going to go into that.

I guess this is it then.

The start of something new.

* * *

**–Day 2–**

* * *

John's in the kitchen making dinner. I'm feeling a little better, but not a whole lot. As of writing this, I'm swimming through a haze of drug-induced painkillers, but it isn't a bad feeling. Hopefully this entry will make at least a little sense. If not, oh well—I can't help it.

When I showed John the journal last night, he was surprised at how well I could write. I watched him sit in his recliner while he read my entry, glasses set at the end of his nose and a cigarette dangling from his lips. He looked like a psychologist you'd see on TV—poised, dignified, aristocratic. Then again, you'd most likely never see a psychologist dressed in an undershirt and a pair of boxer shorts on TV, but that doesn't much matter. All that mattered was that after he got done with it, he nodded and said that I'd done well, that he was impressed with my writing and that I should keep going at the pace I was. I kind of got the impression that he'd still have let me stay in his house even if I didn't write my entries (at least, not yet,) but whatever. I guess my English teachers were right about one thing—I was a good writer. At least I have one thing to my name.

I'm not sure what else to say. John offered to let me sleep in his guest room the other night, but after I laid down on the couch, I wasn't feeling up to getting up. He's set me up with a comforter and one of those fancy pillows you get when you buy the bedding packs, and I've got the TV all to myself. He says he's going to take me to the doctor tomorrow to get a checkup and to get tested for STDs. He guessed my question, and apparently knew I was going to say something, because when I opened my mouth right after he told me, he said that I was 'his stepson.' I feel a bit uncomfortable with being labeled as his kid, if only by marriage, and going to the doctor under the stipulation that I was beaten and raped, but oh well—I'd be going to the doctor for the same reason anyway, sans being his stepson.

I think he just finished dinner. He's calling me. I'm not sure whether I'm supposed to get up or not, but this is better than nowhere to stop.

* * *

**–Day 3–**

* * *

I just went to the doctor.

The jury is in.

I have the following wrong with me: Two broken ribs, several hematoma on my face (including in my swollen-over eye,) a sprained ankle and, most embarrassingly and obvious of all, an anal fissure. I expected something had happened during the rape, mostly because of the overwhelming pain I'd been experiencing without the painkillers, but I wasn't sure that it would be _that_ bad. Thankfully the doctor reassured us that everything would be fine and that all I needed was bed rest and warm baths, but it didn't make the experience any less embarrassing.

On the way home in John's car, I confessed my feelings to him. When I finished, he asked me a question I didn't expect.

"Are you embarrassed because you think you should be, or because you are?"

At first, I didn't know how to respond. I was so blindsided by the comment that I could hardly even think. John, per his usual self, had continued driving without a word, while I simply sat there with my hands in my lap and my heart hanging halfway down my sleeve. When he came to a stoplight, he slowed to a halt and turned to face me, his kind eyes the calmest I'd seen them in a long time.

"Well?" he'd asked.

_I don't know,_ I'd responded.

I never did answer his question—at least, not directly, or to his face. Now that I think about it though, I'm not necessarily sure why I was embarrassed in the first place. Maybe I was embarrassed because society deems people who are the victim of such crimes as dirty, unwanted creatures, things that crawl around in the mud and turn their heads up to look at you with sour eyes; or maybe it's because the personal belief that once you are raped, you are nothing is so strong, it often overwhelms you to be in another person's presence. I don't feel either of those things—I could care less about what society thinks and I've felt like I was nothing since the day my dad pushed me out of the house. To that, though, I can't say why I'm embarrassed. That's easily the simplest answer I can muster up without dawdling over it for an indefinite amount of time.

Anyway, I'll get past that any keep going.

After we got home, John helped me get situated on the couch before he disappeared into the nearby hallway. He was gone for a long time before he came back out and gestured me to stand. I'm not unable to walk, but it's something I'm still struggling with, particularly with my fissure and my broken ribs in combination, not to mention my ankle. John quickly noticed my struggle and laced his arm around my back, then guided me into the bedroom.

When I stepped inside, I nearly gasped. The sight of the freshly made-up bed, the rollaway TV, the open-threshold bathroom and the portable fridge nearly forced tears in my eyes.

"It's yours for as long as you're here," John had said, then helped me into bed.

I'm here now, lying in my new bed while writing this journal entry. It's still a bit hard to believe, going from sleeping on the ground to reclining on a nice, soft mattress. I have the TV playing in front of me while John prepares lunch for the two of us in the kitchen. I'm supposed to take my painkillers with something in my stomach, so until then, I guess I'll just lay here and watch TV.

At least now I know this isn't a temporary proposition.

* * *

**–Day 4–**

* * *

I had nightmares last night. I can't really remember what they were about, mostly because they were the kind that you can't recall a few minutes after you wake up, but I _do_ know that they didn't have anything to do with getting raped or beaten up. That was what surprised me most about the whole episode—none of the dreams revolved around my life or anything that happened to me recently.

When I talked to John about it, he said they were 'stress dreams,' then asked me about my sleeping schedule. I confessed that I'd been having trouble sleeping the past few nights, to which he nodded and said that he'd noticed, particularly because of the color of my one eye the past few mornings. I wouldn't have noticed anything because I haven't bothered looking in a mirror since I got here, so when I asked if he had any suggestions about helping me sleep better, he merely shrugged.

"Not much I can do," he'd said. "Gotta deal with it on your own."

He wouldn't prescribe me sleeping pills, nor would he go and buy me some from the store. His reasoning? _They wouldn't help with your nightmares anyway._ Of course, when I said that at least they'd help me _get_ to sleep, he said that running away from the problem wasn't any way to deal with it—at least, not in this instance. The way he said it implied that running away was, in fact, a way to deal with a problem sometimes.

I'm not sure what else I should write about. I started a bit earlier in the day because I woke up so early, and John's been at work all day and won't be back for at least another hour, so I'll probably just watch TV until I hear the front door open.

Hopefully I won't have any more nightmares tonight.

* * *

**–Day 5–**

* * *

I had another nightmare.

It was about my mother.

My mother's been dead since I was eleven.

Even now, hours after I woke up, I'm struggling to put together her picture in my head. It was so vivid in my dream, so vivid that, in fact, she didn't seem dead. That was probably the most startling thing about her—she looked so young, so alive, so _real._ She looked not a day past dead in her long, flowing nightgown and with her beautiful, blonde hair spilling down one shoulder. Dad used to say I looked so much like her before he started drinking. Her soft brown eyes, the speckling of freckles across her cheeks and around her eyes, her soft chin and her soft skin—she seemed so real, so alive, so vividly here.

Maybe that was the other part of the dream that scared me. She was standing in the doorway, hands braced against the doorjamb, a picture perfect image of my childhood wrapped within a single moment.

I haven't talked to John about it. He's sitting in the chair in the corner of the room now, reading from a big binder that he always takes to and from work. I haven't really bothered to talk to him at all since he announced his presence and said he was going to sit with me while he read over some stuff. I guess it doesn't really matter, considering he's going to read this later, but I'd probably feel better if I could talk to someone.

That's the funny thing about this whole situation. It scares me how easy it is to talk to him, but it scares me even more that I actually _want_ to talk to him. I know you'll be reading this, John, and it isn't anything against you, but I've never had someone who's cared about me as much as you do since—well, since forever.

Sorry I trailed off there. I had an epiphany.

I guess maybe that's a good thing, right? To know that I have someone to talk to and someone who understands me, if only slightly?

I think that's a good thing.

Actually—

I know it is.

* * *

**–Day 6–**

* * *

I talked to John this morning. He said everything was just fine.

When I first sat down at the table this morning, I didn't expect to hear _that._ At first, it took me a moment to try to understand what he was saying, then I saw my journal sitting on the kitchen counter and sighed.

"Everything you're going through is normal," John had said. "You're breaking through a barrier that you had to put up to protect yourself."

_Normal_ wouldn't be the exact word I'd use, but I could understand his point—as in, the point of having to consciously and subconsciously strip layers of protection away from yourself in order to open your heart to another person. When I'd first been propositioned in that alley almost a week ago, I could hardly believe someone would try to get a hookup with someone who looked beaten to within an inch of his life. Now, though, I can easily see how willing I'd been to turn someone away just because they offered help.

John is, as he usually is after he gets home, in the kitchen. He says he's going to cook something more than just hamburger helper or spaghetti tonight, seeing as how it's Friday night, and that he wants the two of us to sit down and watch a movie or something—TV at the least. I'm fine with that. I've since navigated out of the bedroom and onto the couch on my own with the help of a cane he offered me. My ankle isn't as bad as it was earlier in the week, but it still hurts. I'm just glad it isn't broken. I don't like the idea of not being able to walk around. It keeps you from being able to run when you need to.

I'm trying to figure out what else I should write about. Other than talking to John about my feelings about being here this morning, not much has happened. He was at work all day, I laid in bed watching TV, took a bath, some medication, ate a sandwich or two—that was pretty much it. I should say that I'm looking forward to watching TV with John and what he's cooking for dinner tonight. Whatever it is, it smells good. My stomach's already rumbling.

* * *

**–Day 7–**

* * *

John said he wants to get to know me a little better, so he wants me to write about my childhood. He said that it doesn't matter what kind of story it is, good or bad, but he would prefer to hear something good, particularly because he doesn't want to upset me in any way. Even though I already told him that I would be fine with writing about whatever he wanted me to, he said to write about something good, something that made me comfortable and wouldn't push any sore spots. With that in mind, I guess I'll start.

My parents took me to the beach when I was little. I had to have been only five or six, just barely old enough to experience something enough to possibly remember it. Back then, the family was still together, wholesome in comparison to how life was after mom died. I remember waking up one morning to the sound of my parents in the kitchen. Dad was still young back then, before the alcohol and anger set in, with silky black hair tinged with a handsome streak of grey. He used to drink coffee in the morning before he switched to alcohol—always dark, no sugar. My mother was still as gorgeous as always, even more so compared to how she'd looked when she was standing in the doorway in my dream. She didn't like caffeine, so her mornings were usually spent in harsh disarray, her hair in knots before her usual shower. That particular morning, they'd been talking about something casual, though my dad seemed to have been the only one keeping the conversation. My mother, eyes bleary and makeup still unapplied, hadn't realized I had woken up, so it was no surprise when dad swung me into his arms upon noticing my presence in the foot of the kitchen.

The first words out of his mouth to me were, "You wanna go to the beach?"

An hour later, we were rolling down the road in the family car with a freshly-loaded cooler in the back seat.

If I were to take a picture of the area we lived in and the resulting drive to one of the most important places in my young life, it would look like this: A two-story house in a small, suburban neighborhood seated at the edge of a sprawling metropolis. Thirteen years ago, it would have been one of the greatest places in town to live in. At the time I left though, the city was having such a hard time with the invasive coniferous plant population that no one wanted to live there. Much of the once-beautiful maple trees that used to cover the neighborhoods now bore the fruits of human ignorance. At the age of seven, I once pointed to a tree in our front yard and asked why there was another tree growing out of it. My mother said not to worry, that the 'tree' I thought was growing out of another tree was simply a branch and there was nothing wrong. Why she told me such a thing, I don't know, but I can only imagine she wanted me to believe that there was nothing wrong with the tree, that all was well and that whatever strange anomaly it bore was nothing more than normal. I, however, knew better. Within the next three years, the pine tree growing out of its maple host uprooted the entire structure and my father had to call a factory to take it in. The once-perfect living area eventually faded into obscurity and settled neatly into its new place as the backbone to the big highway which led to the beach. Once you got on that road, it didn't take much more than a look outside to judge how long it would take to get to the beach. On those rides, I was always quick to point out that we would soon be at the beach on those seemingly-endless trips.

_We're almost there!_ I would happily cry.

"We know," my parents would both say, often at the same time.

We would all laugh and things would be well, happy times that happened before the bad times came.

The first day I went to the beach, I was the happiest little kid alive. Little did I know it would be the last time I would ever see it again.

I know what you're thinking, John—I used to live on the coast. I'd be wrong to say that I didn't, but the 'beach' we went to was never really a 'beach' beach—it was a small pond turned into an attraction so homeowners would buy the properties in the neighborhood I used to live in. It worked, for a time, but after 'it' happened, no one ever went back. No. There was no going back to a place filled with such hate and misery.

To put it simply, the trip to the beach itself went just fine—I swam in the shallows, my dad stood just a few short feet away, and my mom alternated between reading a book and taking pictures of me and my dad. There was nothing immensely impacting about the visit that could have traumatized me in any way at the time, as I was just a little kid and would not have known any better. The actual unease would come years later, after I entered my teens and learned about what had really been happening at the beach all those years ago.

Once, during my joyous rampage through the shallows, I tripped and almost fell face-first into the water.

When I opened my eyes, a face looked up at me.

I screamed, hurled myself from the water, and ran to the shore, all the while crying that someone in the water was looking at me.

My dad told me there was nothing to worry about.

My mom said I was just seeing things.

Weeks later, after I'd forgotten the event and told my parents I wanted to go back, they said we couldn't, that they'd drained the lake because something had happened to the water.

The truth behind the story?

Someone really _had_ looked up at me from the shallows, but that someone wasn't alive. That someone was dead.

There's not really much more to say, other than that someone had been killing people and dumping them into the lake. Sure—I could go on a lengthy tangent to say how it could have affected me and how it could still be affecting me, but there wouldn't really be any point. It might serve its purpose, sure, but it almost might not do anything more than just make me feel stupid for writing it.

I know you wanted me to write about something good, John. I'm sorry I ended up writing about this, but I think it's at least in part good. It helped me remember that there was, in fact, good times in my childhood, and I _had_ experienced my share of happy moments, regardless of the things that were destined to come.

I don't know what else to say. I've written almost two pages. Hopefully you won't be disappointed.

* * *

**–Day 8–**

* * *

I'm in a bit of a disorganized mood. I woke up this morning with my head by the footrest and my ribs in screaming pain, so it's not hard to say that today hasn't gone very well. John told me that he came in once during the night because he'd heard me struggling, then tried to calm me down so I wouldn't end up hurting myself. I vaguely recall waking up, panicking, then hitting him in the face before passing out. His black eye this morning proved it.

It's about three-thirty PM right now. John's been at work since eleven and I've been up since ten-something. I don't remember when exactly, but it doesn't particularly matter. Right as I got out of the shower and wandered into the living room this morning, John had been scrambling to get out the door. He'd said hello, told me about what happened last night, pushed his other arm into the loose sleeve of his jacket and picked up his suitcase before he walked out of the door, yelling that he'd made me lunch as he ran down the driveway.

Lunch was, and technically still is, two mayonnaise-tomato sandwiches and the remnants of the vegetable salad he made the other day (the night he said he was going to 'make something special.' We ended up watching some Lifetime movie about a boy and his dog.)

I don't think John's read my journal entry from last night yet. If he has, he didn't mention it, but I'm guessing he didn't from the way he didn't bother to mention anything about my journal when he walked out the door this morning. It's usually the first thing he comments on when I walk out of the bedroom and sit down at the kitchen table, but not today. Then again, that could just be because he was in such a big hurry to get to work, but I don't know.

The whole journal thing is starting to make me feel a little weird. When I stopped writing last night, I felt like I was just dumping my problems on someone who didn't really need to hear them, at least in the sense that they didn't initially want to hear them, but ended up _having_ to hear them because the person (being me) forced them (being John) to listen. This'll probably come up shortly after John reads this, because I know he'll have something to say about it, but before it does, I want to say something right now—I know I'm not forcing any of this on you, John. If you didn't want to hear about what I'm going through, you wouldn't ask to read my journal. Hell, I wouldn't even be here if you didn't care to read about my life, but I guess that's how the world works. If you want to learn about something, you have to read about it. If you don't want to learn about something, you don't read about it—you just let it go. I guess that's why I feel a bit weird talking to a journal, even though you're usually always reading it and giving me nearly-constant feedback. I feel like I'm dumping stuff on you that you don't need to hear.

I liked the prompt you gave me yesterday. I know you haven't mentioned anything about it yet, but it really gave me a sense of direction when it came to yesterday's journal entry. I know a prompt a day might be a little much, but maybe a prompt a week or something would be good. It gives me a security net, but pushes me to climb the rungs when I'm forced to. Not that I'm necessarily being forced into anything, but you get my point.

Sorry my journal entries are getting longer. It doesn't seem like I have a lot to write about. It seems like I'm mostly rambling.

* * *

**–Day 9–**

* * *

I dreamed about a pelican flying across the sky. The sun was setting and it looked like a supernova was exploding in the distance. The outer rim of the sun was a shade of pink and the inside looked like hot, melting wax. At the end of this day in my dream, just as the sky above was turning a shade of purple and the stars were beginning to twinkle to life, the clumsy pelican desperately flapped its wings, awkward in its attempts to carry its huge weight across the sky. It was no real bird, that much was for sure. Its wings were too ornate, with their intricate, swanlike flourish at the end, and its body looked like the cockpit of a small private plane than anything else. Whoever I was dreaming about was walking with his grandmother. He asked her if she saw it and she said yes, then he called to his family, to which they looked up and awed over the clumsy creature floating across the sky.

I don't know what the significance of the dream was, but I thought I should mention it, just because it was such a beautiful, awkward thing.

John read my journal entries last night. He got caught up with work the past two days and wasn't able to read them, but this morning, after I got up and sat down at the table, we talked about stuff—the dream, me hitting him, my unease about writing to a journal. He apologized for not keeping up-to-date and said that it probably would've helped if he'd read it before he tried to calm me down. After a moment of hesitant laughter, he reached across the table and gave my shoulder a brief squeeze, then returned his hand to his side.

"It's weird," he'd said, then looked down at his hands. "Writing about what's going on, I mean."

I wasn't sure what to say, so I simply waited for John to continue. When he didn't, I let out a long exhale and closed my eyes, grimacing when my ribs flared up in response to the action. John's first reaction was to ask if I wanted some medicine, to which I replied yes, but he didn't speak further on the topic of my unease while he combed through the cabinets. It seemed like he was deliberately taking his time with looking. Why, I'm not sure, but when he came back with the painkillers and a glass of water in hand, he reseated himself, took a deep breath of his own, then looked me in the eyes.

"I used to have the same problem. You know what I did? I told myself that no one had to see it except me. I know I've been asking to see your journal, but if at any time you don't want me to see it, just tell me. I'll respect your privacy."

_But what about me staying here?_ I'd asked.

"I trust you. I know you'll keep writing."

It seems almost impossible to think that you can become so close, so _comfortable_ with someone in such a short amount of time that you'd be willing to give them everything—your life, your home, your deepest, darkest secrets. I used to never be this unguarded. Now, though, I'm not particularly sure. I mean, I'm completely comfortable with John, otherwise I wouldn't have been here for as long as I have, but I'm a bit uncomfortable with how low I've let my barriers fall. I'll probably get another talk about this, John, so hopefully you have something to tell me. I just hope it isn't any of that 'people are good by nature' bullshit, because if people really were 'good by nature,' I wouldn't have been homeless for as long as I was.

* * *

**–Day 10–**

* * *

"People aren't good by nature," John said. "They're good by nurture."

When he initially said that, I wasn't sure what to think. Now I think I'm getting it.

He read my journal earlier this evening after getting home from work. At first, I wasn't sure if he was going to, because he looked like he'd had a bad day. His eyes were bloodshot and he had bags under them. When I asked him what was wrong, he simply shrugged my comment off and ran his hand through his hair. He stood in the doorway for a moment, suitcase still in hand, then closed the door before crossing the room and settling into his recliner to read my journal. It took him a while to get through the entry, mostly because he kept pausing to rub his eyes and temple, but when he finished, he nodded and walked into the kitchen. It wasn't until after dinner was done that he sat down at the table and said the words I opened this entry with.

"People aren't good by nature. They're good by nurture."

He explained that it wasn't in our nature to be good to one another, that if that had been the case, the human race wouldn't have survived for as long as it had. He said that had we always been nice, and had we always chose to accept one another, we would have never gotten anywhere. I was quick to repute, asking why blood had to be shed in order for someone to get anywhere, then he said a few simple words that changed my entire perspective on my opinion.

Those words were simple.

Those words were: "You're here, aren't you?"

Even now, a few hours after hearing those words, I'm still shaken. The moment he'd said it, every part of my body had started hurting—my ribs, my ankle, my eye, most of my face. I hadn't fallen, I hadn't tripped, I hadn't had a train run into me and I hadn't had something fall from the sky. The only thing I'd been hit with was a realization.

"You're here because you got beat up," John had said, "because if you wouldn't have been an inch away from death, I would have never stopped to ask if you needed help."

He said that the majority of the homeless never leave an impact in your mind because they all look the same—dry, washed up, sad with maybe a long, grey beard and dirty clothing. He said that society has become so accustomed to seeing such people that we don't think twice when we see them, that they're simply invisible blips on the map of overall success. Some succeed, some fail, but we're always a part of that map. He said that the one thing that will get someone's attention, regardless of time or place, is blood.

"You were bleeding. You were hurt. You looked like you were about to die."

So he helped me. That's why I'm here. Because I was almost dead.

* * *

**–Day 11–**

* * *

John's not going to be here for the next three days. He said he has to go on a business trip and that I'll be here alone. When I asked if he was all right with me staying here, he said that yes, it was fine, that just because he's going on a business trip doesn't mean he's going to kick me out of the house.

"Keep writing," he said, "because I'll be looking forward to your entries when I get back."

I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do while he's gone, but I'm sure I'll figure something out. He's got a library full of books and a catalogue's worth of DVDs on a shelf under the entertainment center. He also said he's got some free movie-on-demand thing that he can show me how to use before the night is over.

At least I won't be bored while he's gone.

At least, I hope not.

* * *

**–Day 12–**

* * *

I spent the better part of the morning wandering around the house. It's hard to believe that I've been here for almost two weeks and still haven't seen most of it, but I guess I can't blame myself, seeing as how I haven't been able to walk very well. It seems like my ankle's almost healed and my ribs are hurting less and less every day, so I decided to use my newfound strength to explore my surroundings.

I'll get this out of the way right now, John—I went in your office. I won't lie and say I didn't touch anything, because I did, but I didn't take anything. I'm not much of a thief anyway, seeing as how I have a guilty conscience, and even if I was, I don't think I'd take anything from your office. Not that I'm saying I'd know if I would or not, because I can't know because I'm not a klepto, but I didn't take anything.

For personal recollection's sake, I'll start at the beginning: At about nine-thirty this morning, I wandered into the kitchen and went through the cupboards. Cans, medicine and other essentials filled most of them, but I found some pots and pans on the lower shelves (which killed me to bend over to open. That moment pretty much killed any relief I'd had in my chest.) They'll come in handy if I want to try and cook anything while John's gone, but I doubt I'll be doing it, seeing as how I'm still in my awkward injury phase. The discovery of the pots and pans isn't really essential though, so I'll keep going, less I bore myself and John. I wandered through the kitchen for a little while afterward, looking at knickknacks and other personal objects, before leaving the kitchen to walk down the long hall that my room is in. The door after my room (the second in the hall) holds a guest bedroom. I didn't bother to go in there because there didn't seem to be anything of interest, and mostly because I knew from the lack of presence that no one usually slept in there. I then proceeded to walk down the hall to the third and fourth door, the third of which John sleeps in, the fourth of which is the office, positioned directly at the end of the hall.

I'll tell you, John—when I first looked at the doorway, I felt like a kid going to Narnia. When I opened it, I felt the exact same way.

There's a giant desk in John's room. Atop it are a varying assortment of objects, the most prominent in particular being the Chinese dragon that spans the entire front edge of it. I was immediately gravitated toward it the moment I set foot in the room. I ran my hand over its intricate head, its scaly back, its rough legs and its sharp claws. His red scales and his hypnotic, golden eyes were so beautiful that I could have spent the next hour awing over him, but I eventually pulled myself away and looked around the rest of the office. I briefly saw the library when I watched him open the door one night while going to bed, but until this morning, I hadn't realized that the whole western wall was one complete shelf. Most of it is covered in psych books, but the bottom half holds a world of fiction, completely alphabetized by author and, in some cases, by the individual date of each edition's release. I found it funny that the first book that I laid eyes on was the Narnia collection, seeing as how I'd felt just like those kids when they opened the wardrobe upon stepping up to the office door, but I didn't dwell on it. I seated myself in the office chair and spun around the room, taking in everything—the wood paneling, the shelf on the wall opposite the books which holds rows upon rows of intricate sculptures and pictures, the cupboards just below that shelf, which I didn't dare open. Just sitting in there made me feel so important, so special, so _honorable._ To think that a man of such stature would open his home to me, a runaway, and trust me with his personal belongings was such an amazing feeling. There's been few times in my life that I've felt truly special. Right now is one of them.

Hopefully I didn't overstep my boundaries.

If I did, I'm sorry.

* * *

**–Day 13–**

* * *

Day 2 of John being gone. I can already feel the pressure of being here all alone. I'm not used to not hearing him in the morning, getting up to take a shower or cursing the coffee maker. I'm not used to hearing his footsteps in the hallway. I'm not even used to the door not being cracked open every morning before he leaves so he can check on me.

It's scary.

To be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about this. I never used to be so dependent on someone. Before, I used to just sit under a bridge and stick my thumb up in the air to make my way around or stand on a street corner to make a few extra bucks. It's so—different, having someone who cares about you and is willing to help you do whatever you need to do. In a way, I like it, but in another I'm wondering if I'm just using it to my advantage because I've always had to do everything for myself. I don't think I am, but it's not hard to wonder, especially when I'm still worried about my guard falling down and personal feelings getting in the way of better personal judgment.

(To John—sorry about this again. I'm just being honest.)

John's only going to be gone for one more day. Come Saturday, he'll be back in the house and here for a three-day weekend. Maybe I'll ask him to take me somewhere, maybe a movie or a bookstore. A movie might be easier, since I'm still having trouble walking, and at least in a darkened theater no one will be able to see just what my face looks like.

It'll heal.

For now, though, I'd just rather no one see me if they didn't have to.

* * *

**–Day 14–**

* * *

John's going to be home tomorrow. I can't even begin to describe how happy that makes me feel, especially since I just spent the last few hours combing the house for Tylenol. I discovered I was out this morning and panicked because my face was throbbing. It only made it worse when I had to scour the house for it. Thankfully I found some in John's room, but now I'm sore everywhere and feeling miserable as hell.

Thankfully he's going to be home tomorrow.

I hate having to depend on him for everything. The past three days have been a wreck, both physically and emotionally. It's even worse that I have to admit it because John's going to be reading it here shortly. I don't want him to feel like he has to do everything for me, but right now, that's pretty much the circumstance I'm in. I had to have him help me use the bathroom when I first got here, I had to have him help me shower, he has to cook for me and, up until recently, he had to bring me my drugs. The fact that I've been walking around is a miracle unto itself.

I don't know.

Before, all I had to do was stick my thumb in the air if I had to get somewhere or stand on the side of the street to make a few extra bucks. Considering I lived off fast food for nearly three years, I'm surprised I'm not heavier than I am. Then again, I've always been rail thin. Dad used to joke that I'd grow up to be just like Mom when I was younger—rail-thin and with a pretty face. He got the rail-thin part right, and even though I didn't grow up to have a 'pretty face,' I must have grown up to have _something,_ considering it was so easy to get a hookup.

He'll be home tomorrow. I won't have to worry about anything then.

* * *

**–Day 15–**

* * *

John's home. He pulled into the driveway about three hours ago and has been lazing about the house ever since. He hasn't read my journal yet, but I don't expect him to, especially after seeing the look on his face. The first thing he did when he came in was collapse on the couch beside me, but he said he was all right, regardless of the fact that he looked exhausted and that he could hardly keep his eyes open.

"The pollen up there is bad," he'd said, upon noticing me staring at his bloodshot eyes. "Don't worry—I'll be fine."

Three hours later, he's sitting in a recliner with a binder in his lap and a cup of coffee at his side.

Coffee at five in the evening—that's unheard of. Then again, I don't really blame him, considering the way his face looks.

(Nothing of real importance, but he just looked up at me after I finished writing that sentence. A bit awkward, but funny at the same time.)

He says he's going to have me put some cold compresses on my face, particularly over my eye. He thought the swelling would have gone down over the weekend and just told me that the doctor wanted me to come back in if my eye didn't get better within the next two weeks. Well, it's been twelve days, which means that by tomorrow morning, I'll most likely be sitting in a doctor's office waiting for Dr. Bishop to look at my face.

Oh well.

I just want my face to heal up and the bruising to go away.

* * *

**–Day 16–**

* * *

Dr. Bishop prescribed cold compresses three times a day and Tylenol until the swelling goes down.

"It shouldn't take too much longer. It's already healing."

True—the purple part of the bruise has nearly dissipated and the skin is mostly just red and puffy, but I still can't open my eye. Dr. Bishop forced it open at the clinic and I could still see out of it (though not very well, given the fact that he had to physically pry my top lid open,) so I shouldn't have any problem with that regard.

Afterward, John took us for ice cream. It was a guilty pleasure of his, he said, and while we were sitting in the parking lot, he with his vanilla, I with my chocolate, he looked over at me and offered a small, unprovoked smile. When I asked what that was for, he simply shook his head and picked a piece of cookie out of his shake with his spoon.

_John,_ I'd said.

"What?" he'd replied.

_What was that for?_

"Does it have to be for anything?"

Up until then, I'd always thought that there had to be a reason to smile. Smiling is what you do when you're happy, or when you see someone you love or when you laugh at something you think is funny. I've never known anyone to smile out of natural impulse, especially unprovoked, so when John looked over at me and smiled, it scared me.

Whenever someone's smiled at me in the past, it's always been because they had something to gain.

I know I didn't talk about it earlier, John, and I know that this is probably an awkward and inappropriate way to go about explaining it, but I can't remember if anyone's ever smiled at me like the way you did. I mean, I know my mother smiled at me at one point, and I know my dad used to do the same before he lost his mind to drugs, but I always thought that your parents smiled at you because they were supposed to, because they loved you and it was their job to make you feel wanted. Strangers smile sometimes, sure, but it's out of awkward impulse, and sometimes someone who likes you smiles, but only because they're unsure how to directly approach you.

Smiling has always been a strange thing for me.

I'm glad to know that when you smile at me, it isn't for some personal gain.

It means a lot.

* * *

**–Day 17–**

* * *

The cold compresses are making my face hurt. This probably won't be a long entry, but I just wanted to say that after going to bed early and waking up early, I have a bit of a better understanding about why John smiled at me other the day—'for no reason at all,' like I put it.

He cares about me.

It's a simple realization, but I don't think it's a bad one. I've used the word 'care' a few times throughout the entirety of this journal, but I don't know if I've ever really meant it as more than a passing glance, a word to write down when I wasn't sure what exactly to say. It's always weird to come to a realization about something you should have known all along, but were afraid to truly understand for fear of it somehow destroying you.

I'm not sure what else to say.

John's going to be home here in a minute. He said he didn't feel like cooking, so he went to pick up hamburgers from the place around the corner.

"It's close enough to walk," he said. "I won't be long."

The car just pulled into the driveway.

I'll stop.

* * *

**–Day 18–**

* * *

John placed a bottle of Saint John's Wort in front of me last night. He asked if I'd ever had any problems with my mood and if at times felt anxious for no reason. "Judging from your recent journal entries," he'd said, "you might have a mood disorder."

I wasn't sure what to think. I'm still not.

John offered to take me in for psychological testing, but I'm still not sure if I want to do it. I mean, he'd be paying for it, so it wouldn't be a penny out of my pocket, but I'm not necessarily sure I like the idea of knowing if something's wrong with me if something really is.

Funny, isn't it? We're obsessed with knowing whether or not we're sick, but whenever someone poses the question and thinks you might be, you get scared. Is that because we're all secretly afraid of having something wrong with us, or is it because we'll _know_ that something is wrong? I'm not sure, but both questions are running through my head at this very instance and have been since last night.

I haven't decided if I want to go in for the testing. John said it'd be a combination of Q and A and some blood work. When I asked about talking to a psychologist, he simply smiled and said, "I am a psychologist, Dakota."

It's no wonder he's always carrying that binder around. He's probably got a book on me and I've only been here for eighteen days.

Oh well.

I'll talk to John about it a little more tonight. Maybe he can ease some of my insecurities and convince me that going to the doctor won't be the worst thing in the world.

* * *

**–Day 19–**

* * *

I asked him to wait until the three-week mark on the psychological testing. I never was able to figure out why I'm so scared about going (whether it's me worrying if something's wrong with me or me being afraid to _definitely_ know something is wrong with me,) but regardless, the extra time will help me get my head in order and help me decide what exactly I'm going to do.

Last night, after I finished writing my journal entry, I sat John down to ask him some questions about what he thought I could have. It basically went like this:

"Do you hear voices?"—No.

"Do you go from being suddenly happy to being suddenly depressed for no reason at all?"—No.

"Do you get anxious for no reason?"—I'd mentioned this before in a journal, and to him specifically, but I said no.

"Do you have any overwhelming fears that keep you up at night?"—Not particularly. I told him I worried about being here and how I might be a burden on him, but I said I never had any overwhelming fears about him kicking me out.

"Do you have trouble interacting with people?"—No. If I had trouble interacting with people, I would've never been able to hitchhike or serve as a travelling prostitute.

After he finished quizzing me on the brief, off-the-top-of-his-head conditions, he told me what they were in the order he asked them in—schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorder (for questions three and four,) and social anxiety disorder for the fifth. He also asked if I had issues with my body (a big red flag for body dysmorphic disorder) and if ever had problems with headaches, heart palpitations or nausea (for increased blood pressure,) but I answered no to all three. With his questions asked and my answers given, he simply stared at me for a moment, then let out a deep breath.

He asked a question I didn't expect.

"Do you think you have Autism?"

Most people think of someone suffering with Autism in one way—a stupid, mentally-impaired person who lacks conversational skills or the ability to do the most simple of tasks: in essence, a retard. Up until that point, I had had the same idea about the condition, but John explained a variation of Autism that most people aren't even aware of until later in their lives.

"It's called Aspergers," he said. "People with the condition are known to have trouble interacting with people and to have repetitive behavioral patterns and interests."

He said the one thing that might set me apart from the normal spectrum, if indeed I had it, would be my innate ability to write. He asked if I'd ever been taught formal writing and I said yes, in school, but no one teacher had ever taught a class on how to compose a journal or write a story. When he asked how I'd gotten so good at it, I said one thing—practice. All of my old writing is at home, hidden under the loose floorboard under the bed in a binder inside a shoebox. I'll probably never see it again. I guess it doesn't really matter. None of it was ever of any real importance to me. None of it means anything.

Nothing meant anything until now.

This book—this _journal—_ means something.

* * *

**–Day 20–**

* * *

I ended up taking some of the Saint John's last night. After laying in bed for nearly three hours without any hope of falling asleep, I ended up crawling out of bed, going into the kitchen and popping one of the little green pills.

I was out an hour later.

They look like little seeds, the insides of the pills, plants squished to the point of dust. I'm not sure if it's meant to look reassuring, but I guess I can't help but feel that it does, at least to me. Maybe I just have a defeatist mentality. Regardless, though, I ended up falling asleep at around one in the morning.

I just woke up. My writing's probably a bit disjointed and I already know I look like a mess, but it doesn't matter. John's been at work for three hours and won't be home for lunch for at least two. He won't stay long—he never does. I think he only comes home to check on me, seeing as how he never really eats anything when he gets here. "I'll pick up a scone on the way back _,_ " he says, but never tosses a receipt in the trash when he gets home. It's a bit worrying, thinking that he foregoes eating in order to come check on me, but I guess I can't obsess over it.

I should probably stop writing.

I've got the rest of the day to think about whether or not I want to go in for psychological testing.

Let's see how this works.

* * *

**–Day 21–**

* * *

We just got home.

It's three in the afternoon.

I'm mentally exhausted.

For nearly four hours, I sat in a hospital alternating between both a doctor's and a psychologist's office. The doctor drew blood, asked about symptoms, drew some more blood, asked about hereditary illness in the family, questioned me about my eating habits, to which I replied I'd only just gotten on a substantially-healthy diet, that I'd only been eating well for the past three weeks.

When the man asked why I wasn't eating well before that, I shrugged and said I was homeless.

The doctor had frowned, then looked down at my arms. He seemed disappointed when he saw nothing other than fading bruises.

"Drug use?" he'd asked.

_No,_ I'd replied. _My family kicked me out._

He asked about the rape and if I'd been tested for STDs. I said yes. He pulled up my record and said that everything should be fine, disease-wise, then checked my face (which is still partially swollen up,) my ribs (which still hurt, but not to the point of agony) and my ankle (which has since stopped hurting entirely, though I still walk in favor of my left side.)

"Do you have any questions?" the doctor had asked.

_No,_ I'd said. _But thank you._

He directed me down the hall and said to wait in the chair by the door marked 'Dr. Anderson.' I thought of only two things before I left the office—a buxom-blonde with big tits and a silver fox on the six o'clock news.

I waited for at least a half-hour before the door to Dr. Anderson's office and the man himself ushered me into the room.

"Hello," he'd said. "My name is Doctor Anderson. You must be Mr. Hammell?"

_Yes sir,_ I'd said, trying not to stare at his face. He had a scar running down from his hairline and over one eye, like he'd been in a war and had a piece of shrapnel glance off his skull, and hair so white it looked as though he'd been born from the depths of the frigid snow. He wasn't bad looking—not in the least—but he wasn't extraordinarily handsome like John. Maybe that's what happens when you have scars on your face—you instantly become less attractive, at least physically.

I was only able to pull my gaze away when he started laughing.

_Sorry,_ I'd said.

To which he replied, "Don't worry about it. Sit down. Let's talk."

And talk we did, for nearly three hours. He asked me to tell him my story. Much of it was abbreviated—I told him little about my childhood, nothing about the experience at the lake, and nothing about my past as a prostitute. It might be wrong of me to say this, John, but I didn't tell him a whole lot of anything. I said my father kicked me out three years ago because he was going out of his mind and I'd been living on the road ever since. You know how it is, telling people about your story when you're not sure how they'll react. With you I'm an open book (which is rather ironic considering,) but with others—

I don't know. I guess I'm like a sleeve that's torn off pieces at a time, but with the threads left intact.

I should probably stop going on about sleeves and threads and open books and get to the point.

He ran a few minimal tests on me. He started with a general Q and A, much like the doctor before him had, but asked me things I hadn't expected. He asked me what my favorite color was (red) and to explain what I thought it meant (passion, like blood when it's spilling out on the highway.) He wrote this down, then asked me what my favorite animal was. It took me a while to think about it, but I finally told him the stag, a beautiful creature with a strong posture and with a head always hung high.

He asked why the stag was my favorite animal. I told him because it was the strongest image of perseverance I'd ever seen.

Doctor Anderson looked at me for a moment, as though examining my features for the slightest flaw, then asked me if I'd ever killed one of them.

_No,_ I said. _I would never kill something just to take its life away._

He asked if I was vegan. I said no. He nodded, shrugged, then wrote something down on his clipboard. I caught _sympathetic_ and _thoughtfully caring_ before he set his hands back in front of him and continued to watch me. He waited several long moments before he smiled, leaned to his right, then pulled a folder from a compartment on his desk.

"Do you know what a Rorschach test is?" he'd asked. I'd immediately nodded. "Would you like to take one?"

I asked him if I had any choice. He said that I was here for my treatment, not his, and that I could choose to do whatever I wanted to.

I told him yes.

He said he was going to show me five ink blots and to tell me what I saw in them.

I saw a castle and two knights in the first one.

I saw a heart with wings in the second.

I saw a cat sitting on a hill in the third.

I couldn't tell what was in the fourth. There was no consistency to the ink, just splashes of color in a strange, nonsensical pattern, like someone had simply tipped a vial of paint over in the attempt to make something out of nothing. I stared at it for a long time before I finally told him that I saw nothing other than ink.

"You're sure?" he asked.

_I'm sure,_ I said.

"Look closer. See if you can see something inside it."

I looked closer, expecting to see something else. The way Anderson asked me to look at it a second time made me second-guess myself, so I tried to find anything I could that I'd possibly missed the first time around. I expected to see grey ink, or at least specs of white interlaced throughout, but I couldn't see anything.

Just as he was about to put it away, I held up my hand and told him to stop.

I leaned back in my seat.

Further away, I could see small spots of white, like bubbles floating up from the bottom of the sea. I could also tell that the ink had been applied in layers, splashed in ways still nonsensical, but resembling actual patterns.

I told him that I saw volcanic vents at the bottom of the ocean, producing bubbles instead of ash.

He nodded, smiled, then held up the fifth and last image.

I told him it was a deer.

"Everyone says that," Anderson had laughed. "Even I see it."

Afterward, we continued on with the Q and A, made small talk about certain things when they came up in conversation, and played a 'what comes to mind when you hear this word' game. We first played it with similar, then with opposites. By the time John knocked on the door, I had been in the office for a little more than three hours.

"You ready to go?" John had asked.

I nodded, stood, then shook Doctor Anderson's hand.

He told me not to worry, that everything would be fine and that he would get the results back to me within a week or two.

To you, John—I know you won't read this until later, and I know you'll be disappointed with me for not sharing more than I did with him, but I want you to know that you're the only person I trust in my life.

Thanks for helping me.

You mean more to me than you could ever imagine.

* * *

**–Day 22–**

* * *

I asked John if we could go somewhere when I woke up this morning. When he asked if I was feeling up to it, I said yes, but I wanted to go somewhere dark, somewhere where I wouldn't have to be seen for more than a few minutes at a time.

He asked if I wanted to go see a movie.

I said yes.

He pulled up a list on the internet and had me look through it.

We ended up going to see a film about a woman who'd lost everything.

The actress reminded me of my mother, with her golden-blonde hair and her nice, soft features. I remember seeing her walk onto screen at the beginning of the movie and feeling tears rolling down my face. I didn't pat them away, because I didn't want John to look up and see what I was doing, but I did bow my head at one point to fake sneezing, then brought my shirt to my face and wiped them away.

We got home about an hour ago. We'd discussed most of the movie on the way back, but got into it a little deeper when we were sitting at the kitchen table, eating chocolate ice cream John had bought the day before. He asked me if I took anything away from it and I said no, that it was a good movie, but I couldn't relate to the woman in any way.

John asked if I knew how the woman in the film though when she lost everything.

I said no. I'd never lost my husband, my child. I'd lost my home, but it wasn't much of a loss, and I had no friends to lose in the first place. He asked if I'd lost my happiness like the woman had and I said no, that I was happier than I'd ever been in my entire life.

That made him smile.

It's nice to know that I can make people happy, if only for a moment.

* * *

**–Day 23–**

* * *

I asked John if I could keep taking the Wort. When he asked if I'd been having trouble sleeping, I said yes and that the medicine helped knock me out within an hour each time I took it. He then asked if I was taking it just as a sleeping medication or if I was taking it for other reasons.

I fessed up and told him that I'd been worrying about stuff while I was lying in bed.

He asked what I was specifically worrying about. I told him that I wasn't worrying about anything in particular, that something got in my head and kept me from going to sleep.

John reached forward, gripped my hand, and said that everything would be fine. He also said that I could keep taking the Wort. I just hope I don't become dependent on it.

* * *

**–Day 24–**

* * *

The swelling in my face is almost gone. The cold compresses have really been helping with the pain, but they've been getting rid of the discoloration most of all. As I've been healing, John's said that it looks like a lot of blood vessels were broken when I was attacked. He tried not to ask what exactly had happened, but I eventually told him that I'd had my face slammed into a wall. He apologized immediately thereafter. I told him that the only reason I didn't have a broken nose was because I was able to turn my head and raise my arm just enough to absorb most of the blow.

I'll get around to telling him about it eventually. I'm not sure if I'll actually tell him in person or write about it, but it'll most like be the latter. After this morning, I realized that talking about it is a lot harder than I thought. It took all I could not to cry in front of John, but I eventually caved in and did so after he left for work. I know it isn't his fault (and when you do read this, it _isn't_ your fault, John,) but—

I don't know. I thought maybe I would have been over it by now. It's almost been a month now and I'm still breaking down over the slightest recollection of it.

Maybe I should start talking about it, piece by piece, when John gets home at night. It doesn't have to be a lot at a time—it can be little pieces here and there without any real definite story, just enough for me to feel comfortable talking about it and not have to break down while trying to tell the whole story.

I'll write about it eventually.

I'm working up to it.

I know that, eventually, I'll get up the nerve to ask John to help me get through this. He's helped me get to the point I'm at now, which I know wouldn't have happened had he not taken me in. I owe a lot to him. I probably would have died out there on the streets. They would've come back, or I would've gotten an infection, one of the two.

If I were still on the streets, would it have been less painful to die from a beating, or from an infection? I've heard that you eventually go numb and can't feel anything both ways.

I should probably stop writing here.

I don't want to go down the path any further than I already have, at least not now.

Maybe later.

* * *

**–Day 25–**

* * *

John read my journal.

He gave me a hug tonight after he got home from work and said he was sorry for bringing up something I wasn't ready to face.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, leaning in close as though other people could hear us and he only wanted me to listen. "What I said was inappropriate. It won't happen again."

He's kept his distance for most of the night. I've been trying to get him to talk to me, but he keeps shying away, as though he's crossed some kind of invisible barrier that he wasn't supposed to step into.

I'm not mad at you, John. I'm not upset either. I was last night, but not at you—at myself. I hate the fact that I'm still so weak after all this time. I know it's hard to conquer your demons, but it's not hard to lift your sword and at least try.

* * *

**–Day 26–**

* * *

I don't think he's read my journal yet. That, or he hasn't said anything about it. He has, however, come back around. He asked me to go with him earlier when he said he was going to get tacos. We ended up having to detour and take the scenic route through the park, but it wasn't a bad drive. I'm always surprised when people say that they don't like driving at night. It's so peaceful, so quiet, so—so alone. It seems like whenever you're sitting in a car in the dark that you're in another place, in another time in another world. You seem one to yourself, or whoever's sitting in the seat behind you.

I asked John to pull over at one point. When he asked why, I said that I just wanted to sit in the car for a moment and enjoy the night.

He did just as I asked.

We sat there for at least ten minutes in complete silence. I remember closing my eyes, taking a deep breath, then looking over at John to find his head tilted back and his lips pursed, eyes set on the top of the tree line in front of us. The moon made the foliage shine like shards of silver embedded in the side of a mountain, miniature crescent-Luna fallen to Earth to mark the planet as its own.

It was a beautiful thing to see.

The tacos were good.

I'd forgotten how much I liked fast food.

* * *

**–Day 27–**

* * *

The first thing I noticed this morning was that John had read my journal. When I got up at around one in the afternoon, I stumbled into the kitchen and found it lying on the table, a completely foreign place than where I normally put it on the countertop. At first, I wasn't really bothered, particularly because I've known John to leave my journal in odd places after he's read it, even though he's usually fairly good at putting it in a place that I can find it. However, when I walked up to the kitchen table and reached out to close it, I found a sticky note stuck to the blank page just after the last entry.

"Everything's fine," it said. "I'm sorry for being so selfish."

It's three o'clock in the afternoon. John's not scheduled to be home for at least another two, if not three hours. "Clients," he said when I asked the other day. "There seems to be so many people that need so much help nowadays."

I wasn't sure how to take it when he said it. Even now, more than twenty-four hours after the words first left his mouth, I'm still not sure what to think. It seems like everyone needs some kind of help nowadays. This woman's on welfare because she can't take care of her kids, this man's on life support because he's dying— _rotting—_ of AIDs from the inside out, this little girl's got Leukemia and she's going to die by her fifth birthday. Me? I'm staying with a man who was a complete stranger a little less than a month ago, eating his food, wearing his clothes and sleeping under his sheets.

Everyone needs help, I guess. Maybe that's the reality of the situation.

I don't know.

To John—I'm sorry that I overreacted to what went on the other day. I feel really shitty that I made you feel like you've done nothing wrong when in reality you've done nothing more than help me. Like I said before, give me a while—I'm coming around. At least, I think I am. I'm holding more than a few secrets, some that are slowly digging from beneath the surface, others that are festering deep inside, but they're starting to come out. They're like Egyptian beetles in that movie with that lady named Evee and that Jack Conner guy who are killing all those mummies—they've dug their way in, but something's making them come out.

I don't know.

Maybe you're my magic potion. It's a corny analogy, I know, but it seems like you're bringing out the best and worst of me.

I guess that's not a bad thing.

In the end, all that matters is that I'm comfortable around you.

I am.

* * *

**–Day 28–**

* * *

John's given me a proposition that I'm finding a little hard to deal with. Though he said that I don't necessarily have to start right away, he said that the sooner I can, the better, and that if I can get a head start on my recovery, I might as well.

The proposition?

Starting November 30th, I begin my transition toward recovery—the end of my pain, the slaying of my demons, the start of my new age.

I'm not sure what I think about it. I mean, I can understand why John would want to get this started, considering that my face is almost completely healed and that I've been here for almost a month, but—

I don't know.

To be perfectly honest, I'm scared of facing it. The past few weeks have been—well, not perfect, but pretty close to it. Going to the movie with John, riding with him to get food, sitting in the park at night and watching the moon rise up over the trees—it's been perfect, to say the least, and I don't want that to go away.

Oh well.

They say all good things come to an end.

One foot in, one foot out—

I think I can do this.

* * *

**–Day 29–**

* * *

When I got up this morning, the first thing John said was that I didn't have to do it if I didn't want to.

"This is your life," he'd said. "I just want what's best for you, and right now, what I think might be best for you might not be what you think is best."

I'm not even sure what might be best for me. Right now, I'm so fucking scared of facing what happened that I feel like I should just get the hell out of here. I know better though. I know that won't do me any good, because if I leave now, with broken ribs and a sprained ankle, I'm apt to end up back here in a week, begging for John to let me back and to give me a second chance.

I'm not sure.

John—

Fuck.

I can't even think straight right now.

Give me a little. Just—

Fuck. _FUCK_ it. Just _fuck_ it! I can't let this thing get the best of me. I can't. I've gone through too fucking much and am too fucking strong to let some jackasses who wanted to push me around get the best of me. I. Am. TOO. _STRONG._ To. Be. Pushed. Around.

My dad did it once, the people I tried to ask for help from did it twice, and the jackasses who beat and used me in ways that another person should never be used did it over and fucking over again.

I'm done with it.

I'm starting, tomorrow.

John—I'm doing it. I'm going to fucking do it, and if not for you, then for me, because tomorrow's the start of a new day, a new week, the end of November and the beginning of the new _me._

I'm not letting this take control of my life anymore.

Never again.

Never.

_Fucking._

Again.

* * *

**–Day 30–**

* * *

I guess the best way to start is to tell the story of what happened leading up to the attack. I'm not sure how exactly this will go or if my writing will be as strong as it normally is, but I'm hoping I can just stick to the point and not stumble too much. I know there's going to be some scratches, some extra lines and some other issues, but oh well—we'll see how this goes.

I'm going to try my best, John. That's all I can do.

Nearly six months before the night I was attacked, I was walking along the side of the interstate with my thumb in the air and my backpack over my shoulder. Colder than I'd ever been and praying to some God that someone would stop and pick me up, I pulled my hood over my head and tightened the drawstrings that hung down near my shoulder, hoping that the fabric would somehow absorb the heat coming out of my head and keep me from freezing to death. Five degrees outside: my teeth tasted like chalk and it seemed like there was blood in my mouth every time I went to spit. My ears felt like they were about to fall off and my nose was running unlike it had ever run before. It was so cold and it hurt so bad that I thought I would start crying, regardless of the fact that I'd been walking in the frigid weather for the past three hours without even stopping for a breath. At one moment, it seemed like I wouldn't be able to hold my arm up anymore, as my shoulder started throbbing and the naked tip of my thumb seemed like it would fall off at any moment. However, just as I thought no one would stop for me—just as the vehicle that had continually passed, then fallen back into pace with me more than a dozen times slowed down—a man in a white pickup truck pulled over to the side of the road and rolled his window down.

"Hey!" he called out. "You ok, kid?"

How he knew I was a 'kid,' I didn't know. Not that I'm a 'kid' by any stretch—I'm a grown man in fifty states in the U.S.A, but when your ears are burning cold, snot is running down your nose and your eyes are redder than hell, you can look like pretty much anything. However, whether or not I was a kid didn't matter at that moment. I raised my head, shook it, then stepped forward, hoping that he wouldn't get scared and drive off. (You would be surprised how many big, grown men stopped to ask if I was all right, then would drive off when I started walking toward the truck. I guess all the hitchhiker legends scared even the burliest of guys off.)

I said, without much dignity in my voice, _I'm cold._

To which he replied, "I can tell."

I stood there in what he would later say was below-freezing weather, teeth chattering and nose throbbing, watching him with eyes he said were so cold that frost adorned my lashes. In this time, I took notice of not only his face, but his features—his strong nose, possibly of Italian heritage, with dark brown eyes that seemed to pierce out at me from the cold white winter and a beautiful, strong, almost-square chin. Red hair fell from beneath the hat on his head and the beard that covered his face unarguably made him warm. In doing this—taking note of his features—I watched him for five minutes, wondering just what he would do, only to break down when he leaned over into the passenger seat and opened the front door.

"Get in," he said.

So I did.

I pulled my knuckle gloves off my hands, shrugged my soaking wet shoes onto the floor and stripped out of my drenched shirt the moment I settled into the passenger seat. While he leaned forward to turn the heater on, hands fumbling with the dashboard and eyes darting between my face and my chest, I asked if I could take my pants off. I was freezing and couldn't bear to have them on anymore, but knew from personal experience that a lot of men, even those looking for a hookup, were uncomfortable with the idea that a cop might pull up alongside them and see a naked guy (who could very easily be underage, as he was only nineteen and could be mistaken as being younger to some) sitting in their vehicle. The man stared at me for a moment, watching me with his brown eyes, then shrugged and told me to go ahead, that I would probably 'freeze my nuts off' if I didn't.

When I was stripped down to my underwear and my clothes were on the floor, he reached into the back seat, pulled a blanket out and handed it to me. He then asked how long it had been since I'd eaten anything, to which I replied a day, before he reached into the center console and pulled out a Twinkie. "It's not much," he'd said, "but it'll do."

And do it did, at least until we pulled over to the gas station and he ran in and bought each of us a toasted submarine sandwich. He bought me ham, cheese and tomato, "the casual and fairly diverse," he said, which was fine with me because I would've eaten sushi if he'd've been so inclined. All I wanted was something warm and that would fill me up, so getting any kind of food was a relief.

When we settled in and finished eating, he told me his name was Josh and offered his hand. I told him mine was Dakota and shook his in turn, then he asked me where I was headed. "Anywhere," I said, to which he replied, "Where is anywhere?"

Knowing full and well that I could potentially play this situation into my hands based solely on his mannerisms, his attention to my body and his wandering, sidelong glances, I said the one thing that had charmed dozens of men before him into taking me wherever I wanted to go: 'Anywhere you're going.'

Three hours later, we were lying naked in a hotel room bed with a used condom on the floor.

I know what you're probably thinking—I'm gay, but I'm not: at least, I don't think I am. For the most part, I've just done what I needed to do in order to keep myself going for the last three years. I'm not gay, I'm not straight, I'm not anything as far as I know. I mean, I enjoy sex—I can tell you that much right now. The physical act of enjoying another's naked flesh against you and feeling him inside you is an amazing feeling, but it's not necessarily a psychological one, at least not for me. Whenever a guy fucks me, I get hard, and whenever he fucks me good he can throw me over the moon and back without me even knowing what the fuck is going on, but I've never remotely had a sexual interest in another man, much less another woman. I tried that once, being a callboy. It didn't work out, so if you want to refer to me as anything, you can refer to me as 'not straight.' I guess that's the best thing to say. _Not attracted to women,_ written on the resume of my life.

Anyhow, getting back to the story—after Josh fucked me, we laid in bed for a long while talking about stuff: where I was from, what I was doing, why I was walking along the side of the interstate with my thumb in my air. I told him I was a runaway and that my dad had tried to kill me because I was gay (a complete lie, but it gave me an alibi,) that where I came from didn't exactly matter and that I'd been walking along the interstate because there was nowhere else to go. When I asked about him, he said he was from New Jersey and that he was heading south to see his parents. He also said that he was worried about me (particularly because of how red my hands were) and that he wanted me to go to the doctor. I instantly refused, saying that I didn't want my dad to get called in based on the fact that I was a runaway whom had likely caused the governments thousands of dollars in rescue fees, to which he immediately sobered himself, then asked if I wanted to go south with him.

"My folks live in a beachhouse," he said. "You can come live with me for a while. You're what? Eighteen, nearly nineteen? I'll say you're my new boyfriend. They don't need to know anything."

No one needed to know anything, which was exactly why I agreed to go south with him, toward Florida and where the oranges grew wild.

The following morning, after he paid for the room and we grabbed breakfast in the cafeteria, we started heading down the coast toward the North Carolinian border. At about noon, we stopped at a thrift store and he bought me a few pairs of clothes, particularly board shorts and tank tops because "it was warm down there" and "he thought I looked hot in them." Playing the game that I did, I smiled, nodded and told him thanks, but even back then, when I was charming the pants off of men and the money out of their wallets, I still felt a sense of guilt for conning them into giving me what I needed. Josh was a nice guy—a nice, misguided guy, tall at six-three and good-looking with red hair and a wild, albeit attractive scruff of beard. I climbed back in the truck and we continued down the coast, passed into North Carolina, then got as far as Atlanta before, again, we stopped.

'Why did we stop?' I asked as we pulled into another motel.

"I want to screw around," he said.

It didn't surprise me. Few things surprised me, considering what men asked me to do or what they asked me to let them do to me, so I simply shrugged it off and walked into the hotel with him. We fucked for about two or three hours, on and off, until the sun went down and it got dark, before we walked around the corner to pick up burgers and fries. We then returned to our room, ate and laid in bed, him with his arm around me and me feeling like I had some close connection to this guy, even though I'd only met him the day before.

While we lay there, him stroking the curve of my shoulder and me with my head against his side, I wanted to ask him if he really cared about me, if he liked me for me and not just my ass. I didn't though. Obviously, that's more than clear, because asking a guy who picked you up on the side of the road if he's in love with you is corny and more than stupid, but when you're in my situation and you're with a guy who makes you feel like you're not actually doing it for the money or the need, you feel the urge to ask those kinds of questions.

The next morning, we woke up, ate breakfast again in the cafeteria, then crawled into his truck and started down the road. Two hours later, we were in Florida, and an hour after that, we were pulling into his parents' driveway. His father was out front, mowing the lawn, when we pulled in and Josh disengaged the vehicle. Josh crawled out the minute his dad killed the lawnmower and I quickly followed suit.

The first words out of Josh's mouth?

"Dad, I want you to meet my boyfriend, Dakota."

So began the next year of my life.

Obviously, this part of the story is long, drawn-out and extremely complex, and I think it requires more attention than one entry can detail. I spent an entire year with this guy and his family and it marked (and still marks) an incredibly important period in my life, so I want to do the story justice, because I think I owe it to him (and, most importantly, to you) to give it as much detail as I possibly can.

Wondering what happened next?

I'll give you a hint—the story didn't end well, at all.

* * *

**–Day 31–**

* * *

December 2nd. It's started to snow and this morning, while sitting at the kitchen table, John was skimming through my journal with wide eyes and an even wider mouth. Several times, he looked up to ask how long I had spent on this entry, but I shrugged and said it only took me about an hour or so to write. He also said that he hadn't read it, but from some of the things he caught, it was important progress, progress that he thought was important to the next steps of my life.

Before he left, he asked about Josh and whether or not I loved him, or still do.

I don't know.

When you 'love' someone, does that mean you have an overt amount of affection for them?

I guess I'll have to keep going with my story, but right now, I don't think it merits it. I still plan on continuing, John, but it's Monday and I'm trying to calm myself down before you get home tonight. Hopefully you'll be fine with taking the night off to spend some time with me. I always hate it when you end up coming home from work only to end up doing more of it. You work too hard to come home to just start over again.

* * *

**–Day 32–**

* * *

John didn't read my journal last night. He did like I asked and sat down and watched TV with me after he made and we ate dinner. I think he might be under the impression that I don't want him reading what I'm writing, especially since I'm starting to get so personal with my life, but I hope he doesn't think that just because I'm getting deeper doesn't mean I want to have my oxygen supply cut off.

Funny—it seems like I'm using allegories more and more often, especially as the days go by.

Oh well—at least it gives John (and, hopefully, my future self) something to relate to.

Last night, after we ate the beef stroganoff he made (from scratch, I should add,) we sat down in the living room and watched TV for about four hours, first a documentary about wildlife, then a crime special on the Black Dahlia. It's odd to look at something like that on TV. You know it's real, but at the same time, it's become so sensationalized that it doesn't seem that real at all, more like fantasy encapsulated in the world of reality (John said that's called 'magic realism' when I mentioned it. He obviously reads more than I do.) It makes me wonder if people like the Dahlia are kept alive simply because of the way she died and not because she was a budding young talent who was brutally murdered. I mean, yeah—it ties into the same thing, but keeping someone alive because of _how_ they died is far more cruel than keeping someone alive just based on the fact that they did.

Oh, yes, this young woman died.

Really?

Yes! Don't you know? She was cut in half.

That poor, poor thing.

Same thing, same story, same reaction each and every time—once you tell a person someone was murdered, they react with shock, then when you tell them she was cut in half, they're mortified, like someone's just kicked a kitten into the wall in front of their four-year-old daughter and expected her mother not to react.

Seeing that last night, it makes me wonder if they would have had the same reaction if John hadn't have come along and I had died in that alleyway. Knowing the public though, they probably wouldn't have bat an eyelash at a homeless person being beaten to death in an alley. In today's day and age, you have to die tragically to end up on the news, or at least accidentally. A biker can fall into a culvert whilst riding his magical unicycle and get his fifteen minutes of fame, but a man who gets shot will never end up on the news.

That's the way life works, I guess.

It sucks.

If only people were more caring.

* * *

**–Day 33–**

* * *

I'm not sure if John's read my journal. If he has, he hasn't mentioned anything about it, though I don't think it necessarily matters right now. He may not just be saying anything for fear of upsetting me or bringing about any unnecessary feelings, or he may just not have read it at all. I wouldn't put it past him, considering how he's been returning from work the past few nights, but I guess that doesn't matter. Regardless, I guess it's time to continue, even if I don't necessarily want to revisit this time in my life.

(To John—I'm working toward it. Hopefully this backstory, if you have or when you do read it, isn't detrimental to the process.)

His father's name was Lenore. His mother's was Theresa. I only found out their last name was Camble later the evening we arrived, while we were sitting in the living room and someone came asking for the senior Mr. Camble. Even now, writing this, I'm not too sure I would've ever found out the family's last name had that man not come to the door wanting to 'cause trouble,' as Josh so kindly put it. I'd never snooped in their mail, checked their records or ever found anything that could indicate what their last name was. At the time, it didn't necessarily bother me, as I was simply playing a role in order to put myself into a better situation and not thinking much of it. It 'wasn't necessary' was always what I told myself whenever I got a wild hair and tried to find out more about them. Now, though, it makes me uneasy to think that I could have lived in that house for all that time and have never known Josh's last name.

Anyhow, I'm distracting from the point.

As I was saying, we were sitting in the living room making small talk and watching the tide roll in when a knock came at the door and the stranger asked to speak to the senior Camble. Almost immediately upon turning to look at the front door, Josh had wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me close, as though the stranger posed some threat to his livelihood and the relationship he purported we had. When I asked if something was wrong, he simply shook it off and said not to worry about it, then his father went out the front door and his mother stood and made her way into the kitchen. Shortly thereafter, Josh beckoned me to my feet and we went to his room to retire.

You can probably imagine I didn't sleep very well that night. It was hard enough to go along with the whole ruse—playing 'boyfriend' and 'the new man in the family' and all—but it was even harder to think that something could possibly be wrong and you couldn't do anything about it.

Sometime between the time I first crawled into bed and the moment Josh pulled me back against his chest, I stopped caring and pushed the thoughts out of my head. I didn't fall asleep until sometime after midnight.

At six, Josh woke me up and asked if I wanted to go out on the beach. I said I was tired and didn't feel like it. He rose and told his mother that I wasn't feeling well. When she asked what was wrong, he said that we'd had a long drive up here and that he thought I may be catching a cold. However bogus the response was, it kept me in bed for another four hours before I dragged myself out of bed, into the shower and out into the living room in an open vest and a pair of board shorts.

That morning, I learned the first things about my new family—his father read the morning paper, his mother made cinnamon rolls and toast and brought them out to the men in her family and Josh liked to lounge around without his shirt. It established a routine that I came to follow over the next six months.

I didn't ask about what had happened last night. Though Lenore seemed decent enough, even going so far as to ask if I was feeling better after Theresa asked if I wanted her to run down to the store for some medicine, I didn't necessarily trust either of them, particularly because of the family matter that hadn't personally been explained the moment I walked out the bedroom door. No apology, no insight, no excuse for having left the room to leave me and Josh to retire to bed—in some strange, maybe even sick and twisted way, I couldn't help but feel as though there was a deep, dark secret lying beneath the floorboards, festering like malignant cancer that has been undiagnosed by the world's greatest physician. That kind of thing doesn't earn you bonus points, especially when you're new to a family and they're already pushing things off the table for the cat to chew on.

As nice as they were, I couldn't trust either of Josh's parents. Oddly enough though, I felt as though I could trust Josh, even though he picked me up off the side of the road only to fuck me two times before we got to his parents' house.

It might be best to start here. I need a while to process how I should tell the next part of this story without overwhelming you beforehand.

* * *

**–Day 34–**

* * *

The tests came back.

I have absolutely nothing wrong with me.

When John came home from work earlier, he walked into the kitchen with a smile on his face and a torn envelope in his hand. At the time, I couldn't help but feel a little anxious and worried. He's never as manic as he was at that moment, with his face seemingly ready to rip apart at the cheeks and cheeks so red from what was probably laughter he could have beaten a cherry tomato in a ripeness contest. At first, I wasn't sure if I should ask what was wrong (or if anything was wrong for that matter,) but before I could, he slapped the envelope down in front of me and grabbed both my shoulders in a death grip.

"Look at it!" he cried. _"Look at it!"_

Him crying with joy at the top of his lungs didn't help much either. I didn't mention that the shaking kind of hurt my ribs, though it doesn't really matter because it was only a dull pain and it lasted for a brief five seconds.

Anyhow, back to the point—after John had let go of me and began to prance about the kitchen, pulling pots and pans out of the cupboards and throwing random spice and ingredients from the displays, I pulled the letter out of the envelope and started to read over the information laid out in the graphs. In one row were my levels, while the other held the standards that a healthy nineteen-year-old like me should have. A few of my levels seemed off—iron, protein, and a few others I can't remember—but a note in the margin said that the 'improvement in my diet' was standardizing my body and that was why they were partially off (though thinking back on it, they were barely off in the first place.) After reading that, I quickly flipped the page, read a few brief typed sentences on different variations, then let my eyes scramble down the page, toward the rows of initially-blank lines that held both doctor Anderson's and the blood analyzers notes.

_Results do not indicate abnormalities of any kind,_ said the analyzer's notes.

_No mental disorders associated with answers,_ Anderson's notes began. _Gifted, intelligent, sharp. A brilliant young man whose only troubles are the ones from his past._

Below, written in finely-flushed writing, were the words 'Counseling recommended.'

I had just finished reading the line when I felt John's hand touch my back. I jumped so high I could have knocked both of us to the floor.

"You have absolutely nothing wrong with you," John said, leaning forward to look at the paper over my shoulder. "You're just as normal as the rest of us."

'Normal' wouldn't be the word I would use to describe myself, but I guess it doesn't matter. I'm not sick in any way, shape or form.

In response to John's words, I folded the papers, slid them into the envelope, then glanced over my shoulder as he started for the sink.

_John,_ I'd said.

"Yeah?" he'd replied.

I said only two words: _Thank you._

Those are two of the few words to express the way I feel.

* * *

**–Day 35–**

* * *

John had the day off today, so he asked me if I wanted to do something. At eight o'clock in the morning and still half-asleep, I wasn't sure what all to do other than to ask what he was doing in my room. He laughed, slashed the blanket halfway down my naked back with the palm of his hand and said that he wanted to make plans if I had any I wanted to make.

Still nearly asleep, I narrowed my eyes, pushed my elbow into the bed and propped my head on the palm of my hand.

_Let's drive,_ I said.

So we did.

After showering and eating a scant breakfast of blueberry muffins, we hopped in the car and started into town, toward the thrift shops, antique stores and all the other wonders of the big-city world. When we got there, John pulled into a vacant parking lot and asked me where I wanted to go.

_I don't know,_ I'd said.

"You don't know?" he'd frowned.

_Not really._

"I thought you said you wanted to..." He trailed off there, then smiled before reaching up to run a hand through his hair. He then said, matter-of-factly and as though he'd just been struck with the stupid hammer, "Oh."

At first, I wasn't sure how exactly to respond. Thankfully though, he laughed shortly thereafter and continued, "You wanted to _drive,_ not go anywhere."

I corrected him, saying I moreso wanted to ride along than actually drive.

"Not much of a difference," he said, switching out of park and making his way out of the parking lot. He took a moment to glance up and down the long stretch of downtown road before flipping his right turn signal on. "You want a ride, we've got one."

Nearly eight hours later, we're sitting in a hotel room, eating decent but not great hotel food and watching TV.

As I'm writing this, dressed down to a pair of pajama pants John had picked up for me at the souvenir shop (they promptly and tactfully have 'I stayed at the Roadside Escape!' written across the ass. That's sarcasm, for future reference) John has the it-outlived-the-dinosaurs television set to a cooking channel and is picking at the remnants of his burger. He's reaching for the phone and asking if I want more fries because he's ordering for more, to which I just replied _Sure,_ but I'm not sure what else is going to go on after I finish writing this. I'll probably just climb up into bed with him (we got a single) and watch TV until I pass out. It seems like this is going to turn into a weekend excursion—not that that's a big deal, because I'm having the time of my life, but I didn't really expect this.

You'll read this later, John, so I just want to say it now: This is the most fun I've had in a long time. I'm glad you let your hair down and decided to do something like this. It's nice to see your more relaxed side. You needed a break anyway.

* * *

**–Day 36–**

* * *

We were on the road again today. Like yesterday, we rose around the crack of dawn, crawled in the car and started toward the nearest biggest city, roughly two-hundred-and-fifty miles away. John said it'd take up about three or four hours to get there, given the lengthy stretches of road we'd have to take and the amount of traffic in some of the smaller towns, but we arrived in the city at about eleven-thirty AM, booked into a hotel, then started wandering around the city.

"Where to?" he'd asked.

I didn't know 'where' we could actually 'go to,' so I simply shrugged and continued to lead the way, stopping at streets, pushing pedestrian crossing buttons and leading him around corners. At one point I thought we might have to double-around for fear of not being able to walk back to the motel, but John only shrugged and said to keep going.

"Might as well enjoy the walk," he'd said.

After about a half-hour of wandering the city, we came across the official state aquarium. Almost immediately, John asked if I want to go.

_I've never been,_ I'd said.

"All the more reason to go," he'd replied, patting my shoulder and leading me across the street.

It cost a measly amount to get in, which surprised me, considering most aquarium ads I'd ever seen showcased entry ticket prices of at least twenty dollars. John later said that they were having a public event and had halved the ticket prices, hence the reason for the whole experience only being fourteen dollars.

_That's a lot cheaper than I thought it would be,_ I had told him.

"Don't start worrying about money," he'd said, then added, "I make more than enough to cover myself three-times over."

I've never been one to speculate on how much he made. Then again, John doesn't exactly live a marvelous lifestyle, so I've never been one to wonder how much silver lined his pockets. His house is a one-story, three-bedroom building with three bathrooms (the second of which isn't held by the other guest bedroom,) an office, a decent-sized living room and a small kitchen. He drives a car that looks to have walked out of the seventies and doesn't have a significant other, children or even a pet goldfish. It's just him—

Well, correction: us, now that I'm here. I've never asked, but I'm sure he owns it, which cuts out the majority of the house payments, and the electricity is barely on—his living room is practically its own window and at night he lights candles.

I guess it doesn't particularly matter. I went off on a tangent.

Anyhow, we started into the aquarium and first looked at fish that could have been seen in a pet store—goldfish, snails, angel fish and a variety of other things. There were clown fish in some of the exhibits (or at least fish that looked like clownfish. An exhibit said otherwise, as they were mimickers,) but I'd seen them before. I was starting to get disappointed before we rounded the corner and came to a tunnel that said, 'The Atlantic Ocean.'

"This'll be where it gets good," John had commented at that very moment, then started forward without me.

I stared at the sign for about a minute before I followed suit.

Almost immediately, I saw a shark skirting away from the tunnel. Being underwater was the worst part of it.

_What if the tunnel breaks?_ I'd asked.

"It won't break," John laughed. "Besides—if it does, we'll just run out that way." Then he pointed to the entrance and I nodded, even though I couldn't help but imagine getting chomped by a shark while trying to run out of the aquarium. "You're not scared of them, are you?"

_What?_

"Sharks?"

I'd said no. 'Admire' is the more correct word, and by admire, I mean 'from a distance,' not up close, which made the experience all the more surreal when the creature doubled back around and came back to view the people entering the aquarium.

"It's a White Tip," John had said, looking up at the creature's dorsal fin, as if to confirm his point. "It says here that a ship called the _Nova Scotia_ was sunk by a German submarine off of South Africa and that many of the people who died were eaten by these guys."

_Which is why I 'admire' them,_ I'd replied. I made sure to enunciate 'admire' full and well.

"Come on," John laughed. "Let's keep going."

The most impressive part of the whole display was the sharks—I won't deny that at all. We gradually advanced through the various oceans and through parts of South America and Africa until we finally exited out the other side. About that time, it was one-thirty and both of our stomachs were rumbling, so we stopped to eat at the restaurant housed inside the aquarium and ate submarine sandwiches and French fries before we left the place.

From there, John asked if there was anything else I wanted to do. I said I wanted to go back to the hotel.

We're here now, as I'm writing this. John's in the shower, probably waiting to see if there's anything else I want to do while we're here. I'm not particularly sure what else there _is_ to do here, so I guess I'll ask if there's anything else he thinks I should see before we come back to settle down in the motel for the night.

I'll let this journal go from here. I'll probably write more about what we did today tomorrow, but for now, I'll stop. My hand's starting to cramp and I think I just heard the shower turn off. Pretty soon here, after the weekend ends, I'll have to start writing more about what happened while I was living with Josh, but for now I'll just enjoy the weekend. Might as well.

* * *

**–Day 37–**

* * *

After a two-and-a-half day excursion across the state, we're finally on our way back home. As of writing this, I'm trying to keep my hand as steady as possible so I don't fuck up and have to start over, which is no easy feat considering the road we're on is torn to hell and the cliff to the side looks like it could fall over at any minute. I keep having to look down at my journal to distract myself from the rocks, but even that isn't helping.

John just laughed at me.

"You afraid of heights?"

_No,_ I just replied, shaking my head. _It's the rocks._

He said "not to worry" and that we'll "be away from them soon." I highly fucking doubt that, but oh well. Not much else I can do except grin and bear it. I had the same problem on the way up, but I managed, somehow.

I think I'm going to stop here. The bad thing about looking down at something in a moving vehicle is that I'm likely to get carsick, though so far I've been doing pretty well. The knots in my stomach are nerves, not nausea, and my chest doesn't feel tight. I can still breathe, so that's a plus.

It's just anxiety.

I'll get over it.

* * *

**–Day 38–**

* * *

We're out of cliff country and sitting in the exact same hotel room we were in on the way up. I'd commented on the irony of it earlier, when we'd stepped into the room to see it set up the exact same way we left it, but John said irony was far and in between what we were now looking at.

"Irony is something that seems familiar in an awkward circumstance," he'd said, collapsing onto the bed just like he had the last time we were here. "People mistake it for something sinister all the time."

I guess that makes sense, all things considering. I'd once thought of John as ironic when he walked into the alley to find me nearly beaten to death, but I guess I never considered the fact that the familiarity of the whole thing was what made it seem sinister.

When John had first stepped into that alley, I thought he was a psycho who wanted to fuck my mouth. I guess things really are ironic when you think about them. A bird is born but cannot fly, thus is her irony as she can never leave her nest, while a gazelle is grazing in the grass and sees a lion but does not run, thus is her irony as the beast rips her to shreds—both ironic, in a way, but most people probably wouldn't see it as such.

I should probably stop before I get myself in over my head. I'm not even sure if I'm using the word ironic correctly, but oh well—I guess that happens sometimes. John might or might not correct me on the usage later, but that's all right. We're going to be home sometime tomorrow. I guess then I can get back to living my life, as ironic as that might seem.

* * *

**–Day 39–**

* * *

We got back at about eleven-thirty PM. John had to go to bed almost immediately after he scrambled for something to eat, but I'm still awake, writing a journal entry that has little bearing over anything that's happened today. We got up at around six, crawled in the car, stopped for egg and sausage sandwiches and continued on throughout the day, only stopping twice for gas and food. The day was, and still is, perfect.

Thirty-nine days ago, I could have never imagined living with a man who wanted nothing more than to help me. Now, though, I know what true kindness really means.

The past four days have been amazing—long, but amazing.

Thank you for taking me on this trip, John. I promise I'll keep writing about what happened with me and Josh tomorrow, after I've slept and have a better mind frame. I know this entry was mostly sappy and without any real meaning, and I know I tell you how much I appreciate everything you've done more than you can probably bear, but I know it means a lot to hear it.

Every time you smile, I know just how much it means.

* * *

**–Day 40–**

* * *

Time to keep going, I guess.

The first time we went to the beach together, Josh locked his arm around my shoulders and led me along the shoreline. The tide was going in and out, splashing against our feet, and the seagulls overhead were cawing at us like they do in fast food restaurant parking lots when they want French fries or something similar. There were a few people around, mostly families, their children and a few odd teenagers, but other than that, the beach was completely ours.

"Are you nervous?" he'd asked.

_About what?_ I had replied.

"About how close we look."

Truth be told, I'd been a little more than nervous at the time. Back where I used to live, you didn't go about with your arm around another guy's shoulders if you knew what was good for you, so it wasn't hard for me to immediately establish a level of consciousness about Josh's public display of affection. When he asked that, I didn't answer right away. That didn't seem to bother Josh much, as he continued to lead me down the shore without much care in the world, but I knew I would have to eventually answer, so I bucked up and said, _A little._

At that moment, Josh stopped, released his hold on me and settled down on the ground, just far enough away from the shore so the water could touch his feet. I stood there for about a minute, dumbstruck and not sure how to feel, before he gestured me to sit down beside him.

"You must've lived in a pretty shitty place," he'd said.

_Yeah,_ I'd replied. _I did._

We sat there watching the children play, the dogs chasing after rubber balls and mothers taking pictures as fathers dove in after their sons and daughters. In the distance, a dolphin jumped, spun, then squeaked before falling back into the ocean, much to the delight of a group of teenage girls, one of which reached out to the dolphin as it approached. I have a distinct memory of wondering just how it would feel to touch one, but I didn't voice my opinion. Instead, I simply watched, laughing when the six-foot creature bumped its head against the girl's side and began to wade through the other children.

"I'm going in," Josh had said, stripping his shirt over his head to reveal his hairy, muscular chest. "Come on."

_I'm fine,_ I'd replied.

"Come on, Dakota. Live a little!"

Up until that point, he wasn't aware that I was afraid of sharks, though I didn't necessarily voice my opinion until after I'd stripped my shirt off and stood ankle-deep in the water.

"You coming?" Josh had asked, laughing as he turned to face me while he continued to wade deeper in the water.

_I'm afraid of sharks, Josh._

"There's no sharks here. Besides—we've got a dolphin. He'll protect us, right, squeaky?"

The dolphin squeaked in response, then butted its head into Josh's side hard enough to knock him into the water. That was all it took for me to join the man I considered to be my boyfriend in the water, dolphin and all.

I'm not sure if this is the most appropriate thing to write about, John, but I'm getting there. The story's unwinding, slowly but surely. This is one of the few really good things that happened between me and Josh while I was staying with him in Florida. I'd rather cherish these memories than put them away.

* * *

**–Day 41–**

* * *

Josh's family had problems.

That's easy to say when you're an outsider and as such have an outside perspective, but it isn't hard to pick out the little awkward things when you're living with someone for such a short amount of time. Usually it's hard to pick those things out—the way your boyfriend's mother would tap her nails on the counter when her husband walked into the kitchen, the way the father would read the paper, stop, then sigh before folding it up after he heard someone moving around in the house. Little things like that cross your radar often when you're first living with someone, but after a while, the pieces start falling together and the puzzle begins to start building itself on its own.

To say the least, the first month-and-a-half of living with them was wrought with tension.

Funny—I say wrought like it's some fancy word that should be used to describe an average thing.

Let's get on with this.

When the two-month line of my stay began to broach the calendar, I decided to hit Josh up about his parents' problems while we were walking home from the burger joint a few blocks up the road. I'd started off simply enough—a _Hey Josh_ to break the ice, then a _Can I ask you something_? to get things going. When he looked up and replied with a simple "yeah," I took a deep breath, prepared myself for the awkward conversation that I knew was to come, then decided to take the club and beat the gopher over the head with it.

_Your parents have problems, don't they?_

I still remember the look in his face the moment I finished the sentence. His forehead filled with lines, his mouth turned into a giant frown, the corners of his cheeks puffed forward like a chipmunk's mouth filled with too many acorns. It scared me to see such a reaction, even though it wasn't an obvious one, but I knew nothing bad would come of it. Josh wasn't violent to say the least, unlike some men I'd run into, but everyone knew that asking a question about a touchy subject could go just about any way it wanted to.

After what seemed like an eternity, he finally said the three words I'd been waiting to hear: "Yeah, they do."

With that said, I wasn't sure how to reply. I expected him to elaborate further on the subject—to at least say his parents had marital problems or to mention some underlying issue that prevented them from living a fuller, happier life. That, however, did not come, which forced me head-on into the position of the farmer with the burning cattle rod.

_What's wrong?_ I'd asked.

"Nothing," he'd replied, his normally-calm voice filled with hurt. "We're just having money problems, that's all."

I expected something similar. It takes innocent things that don't seem like such a big deal to turn good families into raging infernos, but I didn't expect Josh to act so hurt about it. He was a good man—he worked a good job, was able to see the whole country and had decent wage. Even now, while I'm writing this, I'm still surprised at how strong his reaction was.

That doesn't necessarily matter though. When we were more than hallway to the house, I asked if he was all right, he said he was fine, and I concluded the topic by saying I was just worried and wanted to know if something was up.

"Don't worry," he'd said. "Something's up, and there's nothing I can do about it."

* * *

**–Day 42–**

* * *

I didn't find out what was up until two months later.

"Someone's been stealing money," Josh had said. "Mom thinks it's the gardener."

Usually when you think someone that's working for you is stealing money, you do one of two things—confront them or get rid of them entirely. However, when I asked Josh about this, he simply sighed and shook his head. He said there was more going on that he wasn't comfortable talking about in the house, but when I asked if we could go take a walk (my suggestion at the time had been to go get pizza,) he'd simply shaken his head and said he didn't want to deal with it right now.

He didn't want to deal with it until two weeks later, while we were walking home from our usual hangout at the burger joint.

"The reason we can't get rid of the gardener is because he's got some shit on Dad," Josh had begun. "Dad's had a bit of a rough past. He's cheated the government out of some money and he's afraid if we try to get rid of the gardener, he'll stab us in the back."

I asked Josh just how much his father had cheated the government out of. Josh said he "couldn't count it," which I guess translates into "he couldn't remember because it's such an extreme amount."

While we continued walking, Josh with his head slightly bowed and myself with my hands in my pockets, I tried not to think about my place in the family and just what might happen if the gardener tried to get a little too close for comfort with me. No one knew who I was—I'd never been broadcast as a 'missing child,' at least as far as I know, and I'd never heard people talking about the kid who went missing. Back then, I assumed that Dad had just let me run off without a care in the world and didn't bother to try and get me back because I was so close to being an adult. Now I'm not even sure if he's alive. Even if he isn't, that doesn't necessarily matter, but I distracted myself from my train of thought.

The point was, at the time, that the gardener was known within Josh's inner circle to be wrong, a bad seed planted within the perfect tropical paradise.

I asked if something was going to happen to me.

Josh plainly asked the only thing he could: "What?"

I then elaborated: _Will your parents force me away because of what the gardener's doing?_

Josh said no. I wasn't too sure. I guess what happened is pretty much clear.

* * *

**–Day 43–**

* * *

The tension eventually became so thick that sometimes, I swore I could cut it with a knife.

Around the three/four-month mark, after I'd pretty much established myself as Josh's live-in boyfriend who helped cook, clean and manage the small property, things started to get bad. The fighting that happened between Josh's parents wasn't just hushed whispers and startled bursts of sound—they were full-out brawls. They never actually fought (Josh's dad was too old to throw a punch and too good a man to ever lay his hands on a woman, much less his wife,) but their arguments could be heard throughout the house on choice mornings, afternoons and evenings. I was always the first to leave— _To take a walk,_ I'd said, _and clear my head._ Josh, as always, would follow. He knew that the fighting was starting to get to me.

One night, he asked why I couldn't stand listening to them argue.

I said it was because it reminded me too much of my dad.

This is going to be a first for you, John, and it's going to be a first for me too, because I've never really talked about my dad in this journal. I've said he stopped caring about me, sure, but I never mentioned that he used to beat me during his alcoholic rampages. When Josh first questioned me about it, I was afraid to answer because the memories that were flooding back were almost too much to take. Even now, writing this, it's hard for me to even put into words what it's like to have your vision go red over the amount of blood in your eyes, but I'm getting to it.

The conversation went something like this:

"It reminds you of your dad?"

_Yeah._

"You haven't—"

_My Dad used to beat me, Josh._

"But how is this—"

_He used to rant and rave just like your parents do before he got his belt out._

My dad called these beatings 'growing pains.' Every time I would disobey him, he would make a tiny cut into the leather and refine the tips just enough to make them sharp. When whipped, these teeth would break apart from the main part of the belt and slice down, much like an animal when it's biting you out of defense. He would give me the amount of lashings equal to what he thought was punishment—two for talking back, three for disobeying, four for arguing, five for crimes he felt were 'Beyond his mechanism of control' and 'Disrespectful to him in the greatest degree.'

The last time he beat me, he didn't stop at five—he only stopped when I turned to try and get him to stop and the belt slashed my forehead.

Some would probably say that seeing your child's bleeding face would cause you to stop everything and to help that child in any way you possibly could. That wasn't the case for my dad. When he saw the blood running down my hairline and into my face, he stood there for a moment with his eyes wide and his own blood dripping down from where he'd bit his lip before he turned and slashed the belt at the ceiling. The light bulb exploded and the room went dark, much of what usually happens when it's eight-thirty at night and it's pitch-black outside. The darkness didn't deter him though—he kept slashing the belt across the kitchen, destroying everything he could. This went on for I don't know how long before everything just stopped. Like the calm after the storm, he simply sighed, took a deep breath, then told me to go to my room.

After I finished telling Josh this story, he brought me into his arms and started bawling. "I'm so sorry," he'd sobbed. "I feel like a jerk for everything I've done to you."

This might have been the point where he saw me as more than just a fuck buddy and more as someone he actually cared about. In those four months, he'd never explicitly said he'd loved me. Sure, he'd say it as we were having sex, when my legs were over his shoulders and his dick was eight-inches inside me, but he never once told me outside sex that he loved me.

At this point in our relationship, two months before I eventually left Josh and his family behind, he pushed me away from his chest and planted one gentle kiss on my lips. It was then and there that he said, "I love you."

* * *

**–Day 44–**

* * *

At this point, I'm not exactly sure what I should write. The final chapter, maybe? The big finale, the last crescendo? I don't know. I'm trying to figure out just what I should start talking about next, because seeing as how there's two months left, there's a few things I could write about: How Josh's parents and their fighting started getting worse and worse, how the knocks at the door started to become more frequent, how the whispers that used to come from the living room while Josh and I were asleep started to become more frantic, more desperate, more secretive.

I don't know.

Maybe I should just put it this way: The last two months I stayed with Josh can basically be described as purgatory, hell in the sense that I could barely stand being in that house.

What happened at the very end?

I think I'll have to brace myself for that.

Sorry, John—let me get myself together a little more. If I can mentally prepare myself to write out what happened, it'll be easier for me to do it without stuttering throughout the journal.

Sorry.

* * *

**–Day 45–**

* * *

The final chapter.

One night, while Josh and I were lying in bed, I heard his parents discussing my presence in the house. This wasn't the casual banter they usually had—about where I came from, how long I had been with Josh and how close we seemed to be for such a short-term couple, that sort of thing. That night though, they weren't talking about that. They were talking about something else.

"Have you noticed," his father said, "that things seemed to get worse since Dakota arrived?"

Those words were enough to freeze me in place. When Josh suddenly paused as well, I thought maybe my skin had taken an icy chill, as his fingers drummed across my stomach, then stiffened before they fell back into place. However, he quickly fell back into an even form of breathing, much to my relief.

From that moment on, I listened to everything they said. I don't think it's necessary to reiterate the exact conversation, even though I do remember it to a perfect T, but hearing what they said made me realize how much of an idiot I had been for leaving my wallet out for something to find it. They knew whose it was—it had my name scrawled across it in a cowboys-and-Indians-style leather piece, so it was only natural for them to pick it up, maybe even shift through it.

What sealed my fate and what ultimately made them think I was stealing money?

The fact that I had a thousand or so dollars in my wallet.

Money was disappearing. There was a new person in the house. There was a lot of money in the new person's wallet. Connect the dots is an easy game when you only have three possible marks to draw a line between.

The following morning, they didn't say anything. My wallet was sitting in the exact same spot I'd left it in under the lamp on the end table. Things seemed normal, peachy even, and they both greeted me as though they held no ill will in their hearts.

That night, while Josh was sleeping and his parents had gone out for the night, I wrote a letter to Josh and said that his parents thought I was stealing money and that it was best if I left. I said to stay here, in Florida, and that if I got my life together, I might come back one day.

I didn't end the note by saying I loved him.

Now, while writing this, I'm not sure if I should have.

I abandoned him without saying goodbye.

If I've ever regretted anything in my life, it was that I never told Josh goodbye.

To John—hopefully this suffices for that part of my life. The next part of the story is coming up here soon.

Shortly, my entire life story leading up to you finding me in the alley is going to come into a complete circle. Hopefully it won't snap my head off when it does.

* * *

**–Day 46–**

* * *

I took to the road like a bird its wings shortly after its mother teaches it to fly. I walked down the road, toward the nearest bus stop and stuck my thumb in the air. One-hundred bucks and a trucker later, I was headed toward my next destination—obviously, here.

I didn't initially intend to stop here. I didn't. What I'd wanted to do was to cruise around and try to make a couple hundred more bucks before I started off again. At the time, my goal had been to accumulate enough money to open a bank account and to establish myself somewhere where I could get an ID, a job, etcetera. However, when the trucker dropped me off at the nearest gas station and said he was supposed to pick someone else up and that I'd be suspicious if I stayed along, I had little more to do than hop out of the truck and start heading into town.

You're probably wondering, and yes, John—this is it. This is where it happens. _Happened,_ I should say, because it isn't happening over and over again. It _happened_ once, and it'll never happen again, because I'll never allow it to happen again and because I will never walk alone at night, not anymore, not in that part of town or _any_ suspicious part of _any_ town.

With that being said, this is what happened the night I was beaten, raped and left for dead:

I was walking down the street with my backpack over my shoulders and my eyes set on finding a place to sleep. I'd known I was in a bad part of town based on the way people would look at me whenever I passed them. A woman pulled her blinds shut when I walked past her window. A group of children playing in a front yard were ushered into the house by a wary father. An elderly woman smoking on her porch looked at me, tilted her head up, then grabbed her cane and walked into her home. It seemed to be the perfect setup for something bad to happen: Little Dakota Hammell, ex-boyfriend and now full-fledged traveling prostitute, is walking alone at night while trying to find a place to sleep. Unbeknownst to him, something is about to happen. A monster is about to come out of the darkness and change his life forever.

And it did.

The black sedan seemed to morph out of the shadows in the alley before me.

At the time, I wasn't sure what was happening. I thought maybe the alleyway led to a group of apartment complexes and that the sedan was simply leaving, or that maybe someone had detoured through a broad alley so they wouldn't have to take the long way to wherever they were going. However, when the doors opened and five guys came out, I knew I was in trouble.

"Hey," the one guy had said.

"Hey," I'd replied.

That's when someone pulled a switchblade out of their pocket and another one dragged me into the alley.

I don't think I have to describe exactly what happened. It'd be too graphic and gruesome, and I know for a fact that you don't want to read about what they did to me. All I'll say is that after they asked if I had any money, and after they painstakingly tried to navigate the several pockets on my backpack for the wallet I'd had hidden in a secret pocket in the inside of my pants, someone punched me hard enough to knock me out, undressed me, then started having their way with me. The five guys took turns beating and fucking me until they had their way. At the end of it, someone pulled a baseball bat out and hit me in three places: my chest, my ankle and my arm. I'm surprised he didn't crush my bones with that bat. He probably would have if the guy who'd been driving hadn't stopped him.

After all that time—after beating and fucking me for however many odd hours they did—they finally stopped.

I didn't believe in a God until that moment, when a cloud of peace came down at the moment the guy stopped beating me with the bat. I'm not sure if _the_ God exists, but it doesn't matter, and I'm starting to stray away from the point.

When the bat stopped raining down, everything stopped.

"He's good, dude," the leader guy said. "We got off. Let's go."

That's what happened that night.

I saw the sedan leave before I passed out.

The following morning, I woke to the sound of someone walking toward me in the alley.

You know who that was, John?

It was you.

You saved me that morning.

When you took me in your arms and helped me into your car, when you drove me home and offered me shelter, you did the one thing a dozen other people probably wouldn't have—saved me.

Thank you.

I don't know if I've ever told you this, but I love you. You're the greatest friend and one of the best men I've ever known. It's because of you that I'm alive right now.

Thank you for helping me.

Thanks for helping me fight this until the very end.

* * *

**–Day 47–**

* * *

It's December eighteenth. Eighteen days after John told me that I would start fighting this thing until the very end, I've conquered just that. It's kind of crazy to think that I've been here for forty-seven days, but it's even crazier to think that I'm almost completely healed after such a short amount of time.

I'm not sure what else to say.

John hasn't read my journal. I think he's been swamped with pre-Christmas clients and has been too tired to read my journal because of it. That's all right though. I'm okay with it. Right now, I'm just happy that I accomplished what I set out to do—to fight it, the memory, to conquer it and to start to put it behind me. Now that I have, I'm not sure what else I have to do.

I guess John will give me the next step.

I hope that now that this journal is over, it won't become meaningless.

I hope I'll keep writing.

I hope something will keep me going for however much longer I'll be here.

* * *

**–Day 48–**

* * *

Six days until Christmas. John asked me if I wanted anything. I could only tell him that I wanted to stay longer.

"You know you can," John had smiled.

I learned a long time ago that Christmas wasn't just about presents.

When I was eleven and mom died, Dad took me to see Santa at the mall and I asked him for only one thing: For my mom to come back to life.

Obviously, that didn't happen; and obviously, I stopped believing in Santa after Christmas day came and my mom wasn't under the tree. She wasn't sitting there, smiling with a camera as I unwrapped my presents, and she wasn't hidden in a box, a mummy in a brightly-wrapped sarcophagus waiting for the tree robber to defile her grave. No. My mother was gone. She wasn't anywhere to be seen.

That year—on my eleventh Christmas—I learned that Christmas wasn't about presents. I would have learned that it was about spending it with the people you loved had Dad not gotten drunk and passed out on the couch, only to rise later that night with a hangover that brought out the bad side in him.

It's sad to think that I have such a bad memory of the holiday. Oh well though. I guess there's not much I can do about it.

* * *

**–Day 49–**

* * *

I'm starting to run out of ideas, so I guess I'll start counting down the days until Christmas.

_Five._

John's been at work more and more the past few days. Maybe it's because of the holidays. People say the holidays are bad for violence. People drink, get riled up, set off fireworks, pull out guns to 'salute the Big Guy up in the sky.' I've heard a few noises since yesterday. Maybe people are counting down just like I am, or maybe people are ending it so they don't have to count down anymore.

I dunno.

To John—hopefully you won't have to go into work within the next few days. I'd hate to think that you have to work to the bone right before the holidays.

* * *

**–Day 50–**

* * *

I can't believe I've been writing in this journal for fifty days. It's already more than halfway full. If I keep writing at this rate, I'm going to need another journal come time for the eightieth day.

Four days until Christmas.

A part of me is starting to miss how much snow we used to have at home. Another part of me is thankful for the temperate weather and the fact that it's not freezing cold here right now. Regardless, it's a bit different, not being all the way back—well, there, I guess I should say.

It doesn't really matter where I came from, not anymore. I'm here now. That's all that matters.

* * *

**–Day 51–**

* * *

Three days until Christmas.

John's been coming home the past few days dead-tired and with lines running through his eyes. "So many people," he'd said, "so little time."

He then proceeded to pass out in the recliner for three hours.

Now, as of writing this, he's in the kitchen scrounging up some dinner for us, but he's moving like a slug. His shoulders are hunched like he's hurt his back and his movements are so slow he seems like a sloth navigating its way through the Amazon rainforest. Not that I'm sure sloths live in the Amazon—I'd imagine they would, but I don't know. I guess I'll have to look that up sometime.

Ah well.

Even if sloths don't live in the Amazon, there's one in the house right now, swearing at the burners for not lighting when they should. I guess I should stop and offer some help before he burns himself.

* * *

**–Day 52–**

* * *

Two days until Christmas.

I'm not sure what all to say. I mean, Christmas has always been a weird thing for me, at least for the past seven years. After Mom died, the magic seemed to die with her. Sure, there were always presents under the tree, and Dad still had a few years of sanity left before his head became completely consumed by the alcohol, but—

I don't know.

I'm having a hard time writing this. I never imagined Christmas would be this hard, but I don't know. Maybe it's just because I don't have a lot of focus right now.

Maybe John will give me a prompt.

(Hint hint.)

I guess I'll end this here. There's no point in trying to summon magic when there isn't any left in the world.

* * *

**–Day 53–**

* * *

John wants me to tell him about the best Christmas present I've ever received. He said it doesn't have to be a long entry, but seeing as how it's Christmas Eve and the holiday is almost upon us, he wants to inspire a little cheer in me, even if it might bring up some past memories.

So, without further ado, here we go:

The best Christmas present I ever received was a stuffed deer when I was seven. That day is still vivid in my head, even though it's eleven years later. I remember waking up, jumping out of bed and running into my parent's room only to barrel-dive on top of both of them. I scared my mother half to death. She screamed, then laughed when she saw me wiggling between her and my father, who laughed and shrugged me off with half-sleep disregard. My mother asked me if something was wrong. I only said it was Christmas.

_It's Christmas, Mom!_ I'd cried.

"I know!" she replied. "What did Santa bring you, Dakota?"

I hadn't run into the living room to see if anything had appeared during the night. My mother's few simple words had me running from the bedroom.

To keep this entry down a little bit, I'll explain what happened in a nutshell: I opened all the presents in the room, from the largest to the smallest, until I had only one left. I hadn't noticed this one at first because it hadn't been under the tree—it'd been sitting atop a coffee table, completely unannounced and almost missed entirely.

_You missed one,_ my mother said.

I'd unwrapped it with such fervor that the paper came off instantly.

When I opened the box, I couldn't believe my eyes. It was a stuffed deer, fresh and new with beady black and brown eyes.

On my seventh Christmas, my favorite present was a stuffed deer, one which has sat and probably still continues to sit in my room back home. I'll probably never see him again (I'd named him Rudolph, because I believed him to be one of Santa's reindeer, even though he was only a regular white-tailed deer,) but I guess that doesn't matter.

That was my favorite Christmas present.

It still is.

My favorite Christmas.

* * *

**–Day 54–**

* * *

This morning, when I woke up and walked into the kitchen, John pushed a small, gift-wrapped box across the table toward the chair I usually sat in and told me Merry Christmas.

_This is for you,_ he'd said, just after I started saying that I didn't want or need anything from him. _I don't care if you don't want anything. I got this for you._

I couldn't argue with him. John was my savior, my Godsend, I guess you could say. So, in ways Christ-like and whatever else you can manage, I seated myself in my usual spot, unwrapped the present and opened the box.

Inside that small, little box was a gold-colored necklace, a heart with a stag standing proudly in the center in it.

"I found it at the store," John said, "when I went out to get last-minute groceries."

There's little I can say about it. I feel guilty for not getting him anything, but I guess I really can't. I didn't go to the store. I didn't have any way to get him anything. When I mentioned this, John told me not to worry about it, that Christmas was for kids and I was a kid one last time when I was nineteen, but still—

I can't help but feel touched.

I _am_ touched, actually.

To John—thank you. You've made this one of the best Christmases ever.

* * *

**–Day 55–**

* * *

It snowed Christmas night.

It looks beautiful outside.

I'm trying to keep these journal entries longer than a few choice words, but right now, it doesn't feel particularly easy. It's like I'm trying to force things out when they shouldn't be forced out to begin with. Is that wrong? To think that your journal is winding down to a close after such a short period of time?

I don't know.

John and I are going to the store today. He says he wants to get a few things for me, particularly a cell phone, as the one at the house has been acting funky and he wants me to have a little more independence. I'm not sure how much longer I'll have to write in this, but I figure I'll stop before I get any further.

John's ready to go. He just said so.

I'll stop here.

* * *

**–Day 56–**

* * *

Another day without much to talk about. I got a cell phone yesterday and a few pairs of new clothes. John's finally caught up on the last few pages of my journal and says that he's incredibly proud of me, even going so far as to give me a hug when I woke up this morning.

It's nice—to be hugged by someone who means it. It makes me wonder whether or not Josh ever meant it.

I probably shouldn't be thinking about that. It'll only upset me if I get myself too far into it and try to figure out what exactly I'm feeling.

I guess I'll stop here.

* * *

**–Day 57–**

* * *

I'm not sure what to say.

I woke up this morning without a whole lot on my mind. I got up, took a shower, brushed my teeth and walked into the kitchen expecting things to be normal, but when John looked at me with a huge grin on his face, I immediately knew something was up.

The first few words out of his mouth?

"Someone wants to publish your journal."

I was floored instantly. Shock was the first emotion to take me over. Then anxiety quickly replaced it.

_What?_ I'd asked, hardly able to believe what John had said.

"I have a friend in the publishing industry," John had said, passing a paper across the table to show me. "I've been transcribing your journal so there'll be more than one copy. I erased your name and showed it to him. He wants it."

_Wants it?_

"For the world to see, Dakota. For the world to see."

John said that I don't have to use my real name in the journal. I'm not sure about that though. I guess that'll be something I have to decide within the next few days. I could easily say no, that I don't want anyone to know about what's happened to me, especially not my dad, but if what John said is true—that I don't _really_ have to use my real name—then I guess that means it doesn't matter, right?

This is making me nervous.

I should stop before I keep going.

* * *

**–Day 58–**

* * *

It's two more days until the new year and I don't have much to say. I obviously still have stuff on my mind, considering what all John has propositioned, but I haven't really thought about it concretely. Publishing the journal is one of those fleeting thoughts that never really stay in my head for more than a few minutes at a time. I'm trying to think about this rationally. On one hand, someone may read it and get nothing out of it. They might even throw it away, thinking it's complete fantasy. I mean, what kind of stranger would just let a homeless kid into their house and leave them there and expect them to not steal anything? Then again though, some might see it as what it really is—the truth: the pure, God-honest truth about a man who took a homeless kid in and nurtured him back to health.

If it's under an alias, will it help people? I'll never have to give an interview, I'll never have to have my picture taken. Hell, I won't even have to ever admit to writing the journal.

I still feel a bit weird about John sharing my personal journal with someone, but if he really did wipe my name from it, like he said, it's not like anyone's silently judging me from afar, right?

"It won't be edited," John had said. "Just checked for spelling and that sort of thing."

I guess this is something I should consider.

I'll stop here.

* * *

**–Day 59–**

* * *

I have my cell phone in my pocket, charged and filled with minutes, and my backpack packed with clothes. John's at work and it's slowly ticking down to the new year. I'm taking the last few minutes of my time here at John's house to say goodbye and to tell John that I'm not abandoning him, just going back to something that I think might be right.

John: You are the most important thing that's ever happened to me, and the most important person that has ever been in my life. _You_ are the one who saved me when I was hurt, nurtured me when I was sick, brought me back to health and made me feel as though I was more than human—a God, someone to be touched, admired and made human just like the right of everyone else. I hate to leave you like this, but last night, while I was lying awake in bed, I realized something that I should have known all along.

A few weeks ago, you asked me if I was in love with Josh.

I am.

I'm leaving you this journal with my blessing and permission for you to have it published. I realized that if someone like you can help me recover like this, maybe someone will someday read this and realize that people really _can_ heal, that people _really_ can be who they want to be and _can_ recover from a lifetime of hardship and trial.

I just wanted to make sure that you knew everything was all right.

I have two-thousand dollars in my wallet. My number's written on a piece of paper that's hanging on the fridge. Call me when you get home—I'll probably be on the road by then, in some guy's truck heading back to Florida. I'm not doing the prostitute gig anymore. You've made me realize that I'm above all those things.

Thank you for being my friend, John, and thank you for helping me realize that someone like me is really worth more than dirt.

Thank you.

You mean the world to me, John.

I'll never leave you behind.

# Wraethworld

**A.**

**The First Interlude**

* * *

_There is many a thing that can be said for children with extraordinary powers of perception. Be it a natural instinct that they are gifted with from the very beginning of time—when, for all purposes, they are delivered from the safety of the womb and into real world—or a curse of which is imposed upon them by the body, it can be said that intuition, as powerful and all-encompassing as it seems to be, can be with its faults. A marble can be chipped, a diamond flawed, a mirror broken—and in these marbles, these diamonds and these mirrors, it can be said that there are moments in which time becomes reality: in which clocks start turning, in which an hourglass fills on one side and is empty on another, and when the Sun goes down and the Moon comes up. It is these moments, and many more, that ultimately define who we are as infants, as children, and who we will eventually become as adults, whether we are right or wrong or nowhere in between._

_This is the story of a little girl named Mary. Born disabled not in body, but in mind and spirit, she lives a life fractured and disjointed from not only her family and community, but herself. Many of time she feels unsure, insecure, worried or frightened at the world around her, but that is not to say that she is without a remarkable ability. No. To deny her this luxury of ultimate perception would be to strip her of the power she holds over the world that is around her, and to do that would be to destroy the one thing that makes her different from everyone else._

_The story of little Mary Matthews begins on one lonely night in her bedroom—when, out of the darkness, she learns that there is another world that exists beside our own... one that is in terrible, terrible danger._

* * *

**1.**

**Fish Girl**

* * *

_Wake up Mary. Wake up._

She opens her eyes to find the world lit in blue. Startled, afraid, unsure of her surroundings and of the light blooming within the open space, she seeks out the source of the luminescence with her wandering vision—first to the night light, which has long been dead, then the doorway, where no light shines. It's supposed to be open, because it has always been promised, but tonight there is no light. There are only shadows cast across the room—like water slowly drifting across the sea.

Her first thought is to scream. The voice is here— _here—_ somewhere in the room. Where it is she doesn't know, but at that moment, it doesn't particularly matter.

She wants to cry.

The light continues to swim across the room.

Mary is afraid.

Blankets up to her chin, feet as far away from the edge of the bed as possible, she turns her eyes up to look at the ceiling.

It's there.

The light.

She closes her eyes, then opens them.

Slowly, she is revealed.

She is a dandelion in a long green field, a ballerina on a big wide stage, a princess walking down the aisle with a crown on her head; she is a snake in a garden, tempting the eve; she is a figure in the night drawing in the sky figures of light of which all children can stare—she is everything beautiful and wonderful in this world, crisp and pure and full of life. She is, as Mary sees, a little girl.

However—it soon becomes apparent that she is no ordinary girl.

As she comes into view, the light rapidly dimming from the spherical shape it has appeared in and the trace amounts of luminescence flickering across the walls, Mary can see that this little girl suspended within the sphere is not normal. Her skin is blue, her eyes are white, her lower half is a fin like a mermaid and her arms are small—there are gills on her cheeks, her sides, and there is webbing between her fingers. She looks like a fish, this little girl in Mary's room, but she is not. Mary knows this because fish, no matter how beautiful, cannot talk.

_Mary,_ the fish girl says.

Mary cannot speak. She is petrified. She knows it is because of this creature, this thing, this _little girl_ who _looks like a fish,_ and she knows that should she try to speak, she will forever be lost to the fantasy of this world.

This can't be true. This has to be a dream.

_Mary,_ she says.

The floating apparition of the little girl who looks like a fish seems to be swimming in the air. All around her there is mist—waves, fog, light in which her form is shrouded. It is this light that illuminates the room, that makes Mary think that she's in a swimming pool, and it is this light that makes her feel as though she is suffocating.

She cannot breathe.

She cannot move.

She can't even utter a cry.

In waiting for a response from Mary, the little girl who looks like a fish spreads her arms and reveals to Mary the dorsal fins that line her elbows and back.

_I don't have long,_ the fish girl says, _but I need you to listen to me, Mary. Our worlds lie on the brink of destruction._

On the brink of destruction, Mary wonders. What could that possibly mean?

_Do you hear me, Mary?_

Mary nods, finally able to move.

_Beware of the train,_ the fish girl says, _beware of the train, beware of the train with the beluga whale stain._

The fish girl lowers her white eyes. _Help me, Mary,_ she says. _You are the only girl who can save my world._

In the blink of an eye, the fish girl disappears.

The world goes bright.

The world goes dark.

All Mary can do is scream.

* * *

**2.**

**School Trip**

* * *

She stands in line with a menagerie of school children who are preparing for their day of fun. Some are girls, some are boys, but all are preparing for the trip Miss Kitty has been talking about for weeks.

"Now now," Miss Kitty says, raising her hands up and down as if she is a bird flapping her wings to soar to the greatest of heights. "Settle down everyone. We'll be leaving soon."

No one is being loud. They are all as silent as a bell, so why is Miss Kitty telling them to be quiet?

Rather than ponder on these things, Mary locks her hands behind her back and clicks her heels together, all the happier to hear the sound of the leather singing in the warm afternoon day.

When it seemed as though everyone is prepared and ready to go, Miss Kitty turns, waves her hands, and gestures them along.

It was to be the trip of a lifetime, this place Miss Kitty wants to take them. Mary knows from the way her classmates have reacted. Their cries, their screams, their laughs, their dreams—all spoke of things magical and exciting, of fun in the sun and of hurdles to run. She doesn't know where they are going, as she was never told what exactly the trip will be about, but Miss Kitty had said something about a park.

_Don't worry Mary,_ Miss Kitty had said. _It's going to be great._

Great it would hopefully be.

As they progress up the street, past the school and toward the place where the big buildings stand, Mary looks up and marvels at their structures, their ingenuity, their grace. They seem like animals, these things in the sky, all so tall and oh so wide, and it is in looking at them, at their shivering forms as if they are cold, that she begins to feel small. She is a fly, she knows, on the world's largest apple, slowly but surely advancing up its slope and toward the top of the world. In thinking of this, she comes to realize that this is her world, her town, her _city_ where she has grown up all her life, and for that alone she smiles.

The children around her don't notice the things that she is noticing. Why, she doesn't know, but she imagines it is because they are too focused on Miss Kitty, who is tall and pretty and wears bangles on her arms that clink and chink whenever she walks. The notion isn't untrue, because Miss Kitty is the greatest teacher Mary could possibly imagine, but it makes her wonder just whether or not her classmates are aware of what they are doing and where they are going.

Ahead, looming in the distance, is a street. Lined with red-brick buildings that appear to be nothing like the shiny figures that haunt them from overhead, it extends forever into the distance and seems to go on for eternity before, eventually, the road going forward ends and then swings to the left and right. There are two ways they can go, she knows, but where this place she is going is she doesn't know.

Sighing, Mary stops to consider herself, then clicks her shoes together.

The sound makes her happy.

_Mary,_ a voice says.

Mary raises her eyes.

Where could that have come from?

For but a moment, she stands there waiting for the voice to continue. Then she remembers.

She came to her last night. A dandelion in the field, a ballerina on a stage, a princess with her crown—she appeared from nowhere and spoke of worlds to be saved, of things to be done, of trains to be seen and dangers to beware. It was she that had made the world swim, as though trapped beneath the ocean, and it was she that said that only Mary could save her world. The memory is stark, fierce, like Missy Kitty slapping a ruler on a table to make everyone in her class be quiet, and it is everything that seems horrible and dreadful within the world.

In her head, Mary knows that something is wrong.

_Beware the train, the train,_ the fish girl had said. _Beware the train with the beluga whale stain._

A shiver runs through Mary's body.

The wind picks up, blowing her dark hair over her shoulder.

She looks ahead and finds that both her class and Miss Kitty are far, far ahead.

Stepping forward, Mary begins her trek up the road to catch up with her classmates and begins to feel within the air a sense of urgency that terrifies her. It is like the time she stumbled into the neighbor's backyard when the fence broke and she was confronted by the dog. Big, mean, slobbering at the mouth and with eyes like cold ice—there had been a moment when staring into its eyes that Mary considered the reality that something bad was about to happen, that she was about to get hurt and that once that happened, she would go to the hospital, where she would be poked and prodded with pins and needles and have blood drawn from her body to be put into the machine that makes things better and everything right. It feels, in this moment, while she is standing in the road with Misss Kitty and her class far, far ahead, that she feels just like that, though why she can't be sure. Everything should be fine. Miss Kitty and her class are only a few feet away.

In the back of her head, she knows it will take but a moment for her to catch up.

She begins to run, then stops. Her shoes click like nice lizards on the largest of television screens.

Her mother told her never to run. _You'll get hurt,_ she had said.

Hurt is not what Mary wants to be.

Slowing her pace, she takes a deep breath, looks at the class in front of her, then continues forward—slowly this time, so as to not fall and skin her shins or elbows.

The breeze kicks up again, drifts around her dress, raises the tails of her skirt, then shifts it across the front of her legs.

Mary stops.

Something is wrong.

_You are the only girl who can save my world._

The fish girl's voice is coming from up the road, in a space where the wall is open and where, she knows, there is an alley.

Stepping forward, but careful not to trip off the sidewalk and into the street below, Mary looks forward, toward her class and where Miss Kitty are directly ahead.

It won't take her long to catch up if she tries.

For a few moments, everything seems fine. The birds are chirping, a dog is barking in the distance, and ahead the class is laughing, so loud that even from such a vast distance Mary can hear them clearly.

When she gets to the break in the wall that begins the alleyway, Mary stops. Eyes set ahead, shins cold and hands trembling, she feels around her legs the breath of the wind and realizes that something is wrong.

There should be no wind coming from her side. There is an alley there, nowhere for the wind to come from.

Mary turns.

It opens before her like a portrait into another world. There is no brick, no sand, no mortar, no concrete, no side of a building or a sign that warns her not to enter. There is no yellow tape, emblazoned with the words of the police, and there is no barricade that forbids her to enter. There is nothing to keep her from entering and there is nothing that stops her from looking. No. Instead, there is a bridge—light, mahogany, with red-colored planks and intricate rods that rise up and create overhead the support for the entirety of the structure—and in the distance there are hills that rise up out of a vast field of green. Golden light spills from this place, so beautiful and pure, and wind that smells of flowers and lavender drifts forward and overwhelms her senses. But perhaps the most striking thing of all is the road that starts at the end of the bridge that leads down into this place. Winding through the hills, passing through one great plain, leading toward what could only possibly be what she believes is the rest of this place. It is everything beautiful in this world, this place, her dreams, and it is not until she raises her head and looks forward, into the sky that lies beyond the clearing of what should be a wall, that she realizes something.

There is a sign—curved, like a rainbow, flushing across the front of the bridge. Its letters are many, its message important, its purpose meant.

Mary stares.

The letters begin to form together.

_W...R...A...E...T...H..._

Mary closes her eyes.

The wind shifts her skirt once more.

When she opens them and looks at the final four letters, she realizes it is a word she already knows: world.

_Wraethworld._

It is in but a moment that a notion so terrible and unreal begins to take her body that Mary begins to shiver. Cold, as though in the snow, on a morning when the temperature is low and the trees are dead, she stands before the entrance to the amazing world before her and feels within her head a sense of urgency that she realizes can only come from something or someone telling you something. There's a similar feeling when her mother tells her to clean her room or her father yells for her to come to dinner, saying it will soon be cold if she doesn't come now. In both cases, there is a sense—a _feeling_ —of haste, that of which can fuel the mind and deliver heat within the chest, and in standing before this world, dressed only in a short blue-and-white dress and a pair of Mary Jane's, that Mary knows that something is really, truly wrong.

Though she has no concept of this place or just what it could be, she knows this is where the fish girl lives.

She takes a breath, expels it, then steps forward.

Her feet rest upon the border between this world and Wraethworld.

Mary closes her eyes.

She once more smells lavender.

When she opens her eyes, she realizes that there is something she has missed before—a track, it seems, that runs along the bridge and eventually continues on to the world, where she sees its path all but disappear as the dirt road continues on and begins to wind through the hills.

Though it seems like the most heinous thing in the world, Mary steps forward.

Her feet pass onto the bridge.

The planks crunch beneath her feet.

The shot of footsteps sound behind her.

Mary turns.

Miss Kitty is standing there, breathless, her mouth agape and her eyes wide with fear. "Mary," she says. "You're not supposed to be—"

It is here, in this moment, that Miss Kitty stops speaking. She appears lost, as though she knows not what is going on. Her eyes twinkle, her mouth quivers, her hands flush at her sides and her skinny frame begins to tremble. She takes her first step forward into the alley just as Mary takes her first step backward, into the place called Wraethworld and away from the place she has known as home.

"What is this?" Miss Kitty asks.

Mary does not know, nor can she answer for she knows nothing of this world, this land, this place called Wraethworld, but it is in response to such a question that she continues to step backward. Reflexively she stumbles back, toward the side of the bridge where the railing prevents her from falling over, and watches her teacher slowly but surely advance upon her.

"Mary," the teacher says. "You can't—"

Miss Kitty stops speaking as her foot steps down into Wraethworld. She pauses, looks down at the planks, then back up at Mary. Her face pales and her eyes fall to the tracks that lay directly upon the center of the bridge.

Mary steps back.

Miss Kitty steps forward.

They are both fully in Wraethworld within the next few steps.

"We need to go," Miss Kitty says, extending her hand toward Mary. "This isn't right, Mary. It's—"

The scream of a whistle cuts Miss Kitty off midsentence.

Mary raises her eyes.

The head of a white monstrosity barrels through the invisible wall that separates the worlds.

_Beware of the train,_ the fish girl had said, _beware of the train with the beluga whale stain._

Miss Kitty looks up.

It is in but one moment that the end of her life occurs.

Miss Kitty has always had a penchant for wearing jewelry. Hoops in her ears, bangles on her arms, rings on her fingers and chokers around her neck—it is no surprise that on the day when Kitty Isabella Wrightwood, age twenty-five, kindergarten school teacher and recently-single steps into the place called Wraethworld that she would be wearing an ensemble that bears upon its breast and torso a series of chains and other miscellaneous lengthy jewelry. It is this fashion statement, this casual attire, that is caught when she tries to throw herself to the other side of the bridge, toward Mary and the place she now safely stands. A chain ensnared, her head thrown back, her body propelled forward and into the air—Miss Kitty is thrown several dozen steps into Wraethworld and is propelled up and over one of the support beams that make up the bridge they now stand upon. It is here, in the crux of this moment, that she falls down, suspended by her chains, and is instantly set directly in the path of the beluga whale train.

Mary has but a moment to think before her teacher is severed at the waist.

As blood rains through the air, staining not only the pristine wood beneath them, but the head of the beluga whale train sailing down the path, the two halves of Miss Kitty's body sail through the air. Her bottom half, still twitching, lands in the normal world, where it convulses once before stilling all together, while the second half of her body is lost in the air to Mary's eyes for a series of undeterminable moments. It is in these moments that she begins to cry, lost to the world and unable to know what to do, and while they pass she feels as though she has done something wrong. It is her fault that Miss Kitty was hit by a train, that she was most-obviously killed, and had she never stepped foot into this place called Wraethworld nothing would have ever happened.

Tears snake down her face.

She is almost unable to breathe.

Behind her, something falls to the bridge.

Slowly, and with more fear in her heart than she can imagine, Mary turns.

What should have been the upper half of Miss Kitty's body appears to be nothing of the sort. It is long—stretched, morphed, transformed into something completely inhuman and bearing upon its body scales and skin grey and the color of ash. It is this Mary notices as she steps forward, around what has just fallen from the sky and to her feet, but it isn't until she rounds the creature's oozing upper half that she sees what it truly is that Miss Kitty has become.

Where Miss Kitty's head would have been is now ensconced in the shape of a fish—ugly, with huge black eyes and with a faintly-pulsing mouth that resembles something of a bottom-feeding plecostomus.

Mary stares.

The train continues to barrel on.

In the distance, hundreds upon hundreds of blackbirds disband from the trees and go sailing into the air.

The fish has but one moment to blink its eyes before it ceases to move.

Alone, frightened, unable to believe what she has just seen before her eyes and trembling as though she has never trembled before, Mary turns, her eyes searching for the train that killed Miss Kitty.

Ahead, near the very end of the bridge, lies a body, its head all but gone and what appears to be a slick mass of red and grey matter covering the wood panels. In its hand it holds a gun—short, sharp and silver.

Mary breathes.

Something begins to materialize into being above the corpse.

Stepping forward, around the dead fish that used to be Miss Kitty, Mary trails her eyes along the bridge and notices, upon the ground, the remnants of Miss Kitty's jewelry. Rings, glass, severed hoop earrings, the balls and chains that used to make up her shirt and dress—all glitter faintly in golden light streaming down from the sun above. These are not what trouble her, as she is easily able to navigate around the shards of broken metal and jewelry. It is the beads that are trailing from the top of the bridge. White in color and resembling something of pearls, they trail from the topmost support beam and cascade to the ground in a perfectly-strung line until they are wrapped around one of the railing beams at the side. These reflect rainbows, and as she steps forward, toward the body of the man whose head is now gone, she watches as a scroll of parchment comes into view directly above the corpse—golden, glowing, and beckoning her forward with but its presence alone.

Careful to step over the arm and hand that holds the gun, Mary stares at the golden scroll, then raises her hand.

Something beckons her to touch it.

When her palm is pressed against the parchment, it begins to unfurl before her eyes.

There is but a name upon its surface, emblazoned in black.

_This is the story of Adil Amna,_ a disembodied voice says, _and this is how he came to Wraethworld._

* * *

**3.**

**Adil Amna**

* * *

Adil Amna was not an ordinary man. Born Muslim-American and brought up with a harsh religious upbringing, he considered much of his later childhood and teenage years to be wrapped in a horrid display of God and judgment that tormented him during his waking hours and gave him nightmares when he tried to sleep. His mother wore a veil until the day she died, all black as if she were attending a funeral of a family friend, while every day his father would roll out the mat and pray to the great and grand Mecca, five times a day—standing, bowing, hands raised beside his head or prone and to the ground. It was for this reason—that torment, those nightmares, those thoughts of doubt and those notions of regret—and because of the fallacies of his religion that failed to secure within him a belief in a higher power that Adil existed in a state of perpetual hell. His father would often chastise him for such behavior, and as he grew older and more resilient to his personal tormenter's oppression, Adil found himself locked in a state of agony, of depression and of the saddest things in life.

Come time for his eighteenth birthday, Adil—intelligent beyond all means and steadfast in his pursuit for a higher education—left home to attend university, but it is not without the past that we shape the future. As such, he became haunted—first and foremost by his mother, who'd often sat by and watched with sad eyes from the only exposed portion of her veil, then by his father, who lingered within his mind at all times, imposing upon him the penance only deserved for those believed to be Infidels.

Disparaged by his past and unable to move on to accept his future, his once-astounding grades began to plummet and his superiors began to bear down upon him. Such pressures, both external and internal, eventually led him to drop out and take a lowly position as a gas station attendant.

It would have seemed, to anyone looking upon the situation, that Adil was a sad man—a tormented soul who could not recover and face the world almighty.

It was not until his nineteenth birthday, when he began to delve into the reality and the physics behind the possibilities of alternate realities, that things began to peak. With a predisposition to depression and the sadder things in life, it made perfect sense for Adil to venture toward such things—blindly, he imagined, hand extended and with a lantern in the other. He would walk these tortured halls, he swore, and he would avenge upon himself the idea of a life where he did not suffer and where his aspirations to be one of the leading medical surgeons in the world had succeeded.

For many years Adil studied the likelihood and the equations related to the multiverse, of the Big Bang and the fates of the Universe, and in his studies he found himself to be happy—ecstatic, even, for the fact that every day it seemed he was getting closer and closer to the reality he so happily dreamed of. In his dreams, he imagined himself born not of Muslim decent, but of American, if only because of his overbearing father's religion, and in these dreams he imagined his mother a woman free of her veil, with a life of her own not meant to serve her husband. He saw her face, her beautiful dimples, and he saw the wrinkles upon her forehead and a smile upon her face when he returned home from university every semester with high grades and at the top of his class.

Things seemed to be going perfectly well.

Things were not, however, without their doubts.

It was within his studies that in the capital Adil began to research the idea that an alternate reality could exist—that within his city, there very well could be an opening to a world divine and pure. He knew not whether this world was to be a parallel of his own or if it was a universe unto his own, without his family and possibly within a different timeframe, but it was with that notion that he began to scour the city for any possible openings. Deep wells, the insides of caves, within the confines of clocks old and dead and pressed places that seemed small but vast—everything he could possibly find that could relate to alternate theories came under scrutiny, as if he were an archaeologist searching the deserts for the missing link.

Eventually, however, his pursuits became null, devoid. Clinical depression set in and a psychiatrist diagnosed him with obsessive-compulsive disorder. It was without dignity or clarity that she said that Adil was desperate for a way out of this world, and for that alone he should be put on medication.

When given a prescription for a series of anti-psychotic and depressant tablets, Adil blindly threw the receipt away and went wandering one day with a gun in his jacket and an idea set within his head. If the world would not accept him for who he was, and if another world would not take him from the place that haunted him so, he would end it all and jump to the one universe he so firmly believed in—Hell.

It was during that walk, of which could be called the suicidal guideline, that Adil discovered upon happenstance a world completely unlike his own. The plane broad, the scope wide, he first craned his head into the alleyway that he stumbled across to view the sign that so very clearly read _Wraethworld,_ then turned his attention to the single wooden bridge that led into what appeared to be a valley vast and wide and full of what appeared to be poppies or something similar.

Upon stepping into this world, free and at last devoid of the past and the reality that haunted him so, Adil realized that he could very well go on in this magical and wonderful place. For that alone, he began to search, climbing high and low, in nooks and crannies, but when he found nothing similar like the world he had so grown to hate that would make his living convenient and therefore safe, he came to a conclusion that would ultimately cut off his existence and therefore drive him back to the entrance of the world called Wraethworld. He walked the long path, trekked through the forest, passed the field of poppies and wound his way through the hills, all with the intent of returning to the world he had been so eager to leave behind. He would return home, he said, to his mother and father, and he would adopt into his heart the God Allah and pray for his salvation. He would not burn in Hell, he knew, if he repented, and he would find within himself a sense of peace that he would not have had before this whole endeavor. He would take his prescription and swallow his pills, if only in private and away from his parents, make himself a better man and return to school. He would become the very doctor he so desperately wanted to be and save children from the tragedies of war.

They say that once a choice is made, it can never be undone.

Adil came to realize that upon finding the bridge he'd entered the world on.

In this place where, it seemed, the worlds bridged, and upon which he had discovered the Wraethworld that seemed to be completely devoid of people, animals or foods nourishing, he came to find that the bridge simply ceased to exist after a moment—that, beyond the curved flourish of wood that declared its name, there was nothing, save for hills and a vast, endless blue sky.

It was, without conscience after that moment, that Adil pulled the gun from his pocket and placed the mouth of the pistol to the bottom of his head.

The beads glowing around him, reflecting miniature rainbows that cast their reflection off the metal of his gun, he pulled his trigger and ended his life in but a moment.

Adil Amna entered the world of Wraethworld to escape his conscience.

He died by his own inhibitions.

* * *

**U.**

**The Second Interlude**

* * *

_Those of whom are able to discern within the world the power of sound are without consequence the most righteous of champions, for upon the wind, from the lips of many or the mouth of one an individual can spool into their mind the concepts of the world without thinking once or twice. As infants we learn to quickly identify what it is we are supposed to know. Loud sounds are identified as threats, the soft the hum of plenty, the words which begin with one letter and end with another to make a complete word that is a name—these are the things that all individuals granted with the gift of sound are able to discern even from an age in which they are no more than a few moments old. Sometimes this is the only gift we have, while at others this is the gift we are so viciously denied of. It is for this reason, and more, that the ones afflicted with such beautiful recognition are able to realize what it is for a bell to chime, for a dog to bark or a cat to meow for its milk. For that, it seems, this is the greatest gift of all._

_However—it is not the gift of sound that make us able to champion our cause. It is the ability to_ create _sound that is so revered throughout the land that we are brought to our knees at the sound of one man's call._

_It is at this point in our story that our heroine, little Mary Matthews, is tasked with her first challenge—that within the virgin depths of Wraethworld, while scared, alone, and completely unsure of herself, she begins to advance toward a time and place which she cannot decipher. Some may call this the first leg of the journey, the first embarking, the beginning of the quest or the time in which Arthur pulled the sword from the stone. But it need not matter what it is the beginning of this happens to be. As Mary advances, toward the place in which the road curves and lies between two hills, she will come to realize that there are powers within her that even she isn't aware of—and that, though once taught, were not given physical consequence._

* * *

**4.**

**The Hills**

* * *

When Mary's mind comes free of the glowing scroll of parchment and the message of Adil Amna disappears into the air, she isn't necessarily sure where to go. A growing sense of dread that reminds her of being punished for a crime of which she committed leads her to believe that she should turn around and return to the classmates that were likely waiting up the road. Another sense of ease, however, tells her that, were she to venture within this world, she would be perfectly fine—that this place, as cruel as it seems to be, is not really as terrifying as she is making it out to be. Sure—her teacher may be dead behind her, and the body of a man whom most likely had died by his gun rests just a few feet near the end of the bridge, but that does not necessarily mean she herself would have harm befall her.

It is with that notion in mind that Mary takes her first step off the bridge, onto the path that is lined with grass and that kicks up dirt as she slowly makes her way into the place called Wraethworld. There are no birds, she notices, beyond the ones she has previously seen, and there seem to be no animals which inhabit this place. There are not even any bugs that swarm around her to try and bite at her flesh. There is nothing, it seems, save for the path that leads toward the hills.

Unsure of herself and just what it is she is supposed to be doing, Mary stops, turns, then looks toward the entryway to Wraethworld.

It is with horror that she finds that the entrance to the alleyway has disappeared.

What will she do, she wonders? She cannot leave now that the way has been closed, and she cannot simply remain, as she knows soon she will grow hungry, but she isn't necessarily sure if the road is safe, or even if it will grow dark sometime soon. It seems that there will be plenty of daylight left, as the sun above is only halfway across the sky, and while the road seems the best course of action, she isn't sure if following the path that the train took will be the best course of action.

After several moments of indecision, in which she tries to contemplate whether staying near the bridge is a good idea or not, she decides, with sadness and a bit of worry, that going forward is the only thing that will help deliver her into a place where she may, in fact, be safe.

Stepping forward, but taking extra care not to loiter near the center of the road for fear of the train magically returning from its place of nowhere and everywhere, Mary begins her trek into the place called Wraethworld.

It seems, in but a moment, that the path will be clear—that the place, though frightening and beginning with death, may very well allow her safe passage free of harm.

As the afternoon wears on, Mary sets her eyes on the hills, toward the globes that border the road in the far distance.

It is there, she knows, that the path will dip and something new will begin

With her head held high but her heart resting all the lower, she continues onward.

Beneath her, as the day progresses and her ever-expanding path seems to lengthen, her Mary Jane's begin to gather dirt. Slowly, it seems, they are building familiarity with this world, this place, this wonderful and terrifying world called Wraethworld, and as Mary looks down at her shoes, she feels a certain amount of remorse for the fact that her clothes, freshly-bought especially for this trip, will likely not survive the adventure she imagines will unravel in front of her. Her mother, she knows, will cry when she sees her shoes are a wreck, while her father will simply shake his head, as he always does when it seems as though she has done something wrong. Mary is only aware of this reality because it has happened before—when, the day they had the neighbor's dog over, her brand new dress was torn and covered in mud. _Oh Mary,_ her mother had cried, _how could you?_ Her father, meanwhile, had done what he'd always done—shaken his head. It is such things that are ingrained within her memory and is likely ingrained in everyone's. She imagines this to be true, as she believes that her fellow school children may very well have endured this form of punishment. It is, however, without remorse that she casts these thoughts away, as it seems that they are useless in a world where not only do her classmates not exist, but where her parents are nowhere to be found.

The sun falls across the sky ever so quickly as she continues to advance up the path. Like a star across a great black horizon, its tail trailing so cosmically and its presence becoming all the less present as it continues on, it seems to be forewarning her of something to come. Its rays, radiating across the cloudless sky, mark her skin in trails of sweat. Her collar feels stifling, her knees begin to ache, and her feet begin to feel as though she has walked thousands upon thousands of miles. She compares it to walking to her grandmother's house with her parents on a long hot day. Mama Grandma has always lived very, very far away, and on choice days when the car is broken, they usually walk. Always when she arrives her feet hurt.

In remembering such a thing, Mary begins to cry.

Mama Grandma may never see her again if she doesn't keep walking.

With tears snaking down her face and her heart hurting in her chest, Mary stops, reaches up to wipe the tears from her face, then takes one long, hard look up the road.

In the distance, there are two knolls. Both are barren, like ice cream fresh from the container. Between them lies the road. It seems ever so far away, the entrance to what she knows will be the new frontier, and in looking behind her shoulder to seek out the bridge she entered the world in on, she finds that she is very, very far away.

It is, in that moment, that she imagines she has already walked the distance to Mama Grandma's house.

Her ankles ache.

Her eyes burn.

Her lip quivers.

However—despite the pain and fear that so openly weighs down upon her body, she knows that should she not keep going, and should she remain here, on the road, in what is unarguably in the open, something bad might happen.

The sun is getting closer to the opposite side of the world. Soon, she knows, it will be dark.

She does not want to know what lies in the darkness.

Her mother once told her that monsters don't exist.

For some reason, Mary believes otherwise.

* * *

She continues on until the sun grows weary in the sky. When its rays finally begin to bleed away—when the world turns pink and orange and red and even white in places—Mary begins to grow afraid.

She has been walking for a very, very long time. Though she can't tell time, she can imagine, based on what her father once said about hours, that she has been walking for far too many hours. Her feet feel like they are ready to fall off and she can't feel her toes within her shoes. A part of her wants to take the Mary Jane's from her feet and simply cast them aside, as they are seemingly becoming too much a burden for them to be convenient, but another part tells her that doing so would be wrong. She knows it is not her mother inside her head telling her that doing so would be such a bad thing—it is something else, something more internal, she knows, that is telling her to keep the shoes, as soon she will need them.

At this moment, Mary can't imagine why she would need her shoes. She is on no more than a dirt road.

After a moment, she realizes something.

Things can change in but a moment.

That seems to become all the more true when the world begins to lose its light.

It begins in the far distance, to the place she knows as left. A darkness, like a series of lights being turned on, first by dimming, then by extinguishing altogether. In this darkness there is a fog—a smoke, she could say, that is slowly making its way to her left. It is a monster devouring the horizon, a creature born to make her journey hard. It is not slowly that the sky fades from blue and begins to turn to black. It is with haste that she can never imagine, and in staring at it, Mary feels as though she is small, an ant that is standing at the bottom of a hill and hoping to travel its surface by nightfall.

In stopping to look at the darkness, at the horror that is slowly unveiling itself, Mary begins to cry.

This is it.

In but a few moments, it will be dark and she will have no light to guide her.

With the knowledge that she may very well not be able to see the path before her, Mary begins to run—slowly at first, as if she is simply chasing after a friend, then much quicker. Running, swiftly, like a horse, a stallion, a champion mount she has seen on TV that seems as fast as the wind and even faster than the things around her, she pumps her legs as hard as she can as above the light begins to fade and the darkness devours everything whole. Her feet are numb, her knees weak, her chest is heaving up and down and her mouth and throat are desperate to draw in breath. She is a body of pain, a little girl with ruby red slippers, and it is without mercy that behind her the monsters are coming, ready to bite her ankles and tear her to the ground.

In one final moment of mercy, Mary screams, hoping that birds will fly from the trees and assure her that all is well.

There are no birds.

Nothing flies, nothing runs—no living thing even stirs in the world around her as the sun goes down and the world goes dark.

Defeated, Mary falls to her knees—crying, mercilessly, for the light she has lost.

There seems to be nothing in the world except her, her tears and her fears.

It takes no more than a brief second for her to feel as though there is something in the darkness watching her.

Mary raises her eyes.

There are things with red eyes looking at her from upon the hills.

At first, she isn't sure if they are real—that they are only things she is seeing because she is scared and alone and unsure. Then she sees that they are moving. Their heads are shifting side to side, left and right, and at some points it seems their necks turn all the way around so that their heads are upside-down without actually being upside-down. They do not make any noises, do not seem to make their way down the hills, and do not seem to care for the fact that she is simply a little girl alone in the dark and that she holds no bearing or ill will toward them. They simply seem to be watching, as if there is nothing more in the world to do on a long warm night when there are no clouds and is no moon or light.

Sniffling, Mary raises her hand to wipe snot from her nose.

One of the things on the hill laughs.

Her heart begins to beat faster in her chest.

Though something tells her that she has no need to worry about the things on the top of the hills, she knows that staying where she sits would probably not be the best idea.

Standing, but taking a moment to compose herself on her own two feet, she pushes her hands out to her sides, pinwheels, then takes a few steps forward.

Both of the things on the hills begin to laugh.

They sound like a clown who has lost control of his breath. His nose is too big. He can't breathe. His shoes are too wide and his gut is too large.

Mary begins to shake.

Though it is not cold, and though there is no breeze, there seems to be snow falling all around her.

While taking her first few steps forward, toward the place haunted by the things on the hill, the snow that seems to be falling around Mary thickens—warps, distorts, makes everything in the world appear as though light and covered in a dull sheen of grey. It's like her room at night back in the real world when the night light used to work. The rocking horse would stretch, its eyes would bulge, its neck would split in two and its torso would lunge forward—such an innocent thing would turn into something malevolent and she would have to hide beneath the covers, as the thing that used to be her rocking horse but was now nothing more than a monster seemed much too frightening to look at. In thinking this, and in examining the world around her, she begins to make out shapes lingering in the distance—trees, it seems, on both sides, that have appeared out of the ground come nightfall, and the knolls in the distance with the things with the red eyes atop them. These are now clearly visible in shades of grey and white, and though it seems as though there is static or some sort of ash like from a fire clouding her vision, she takes solace in the fact that she can finally see.

Above, on the hills, the things with the red eyes turn their heads upside down, then laugh.

They must be playing some kind of game, Mary thinks, because there really is no reason to be laughing so late at night—unless, of course, they were laughing at her because they thought she was funny, walking all alone in the dark.

At the thought, she once more begins to cry.

A moment later, Mary stops, then looks at the things in the distance.

How desperately she wants to scream for them to stop, to tell them there is nothing funny and that just because she is a little girl and she is walking on the road alone in the dark there is no reason for them to be laughing. When she realizes that screaming would do nothing more than make her sad, however, Mary takes a few steps forward.

Her Mary Jane's click together.

The creatures on the top of the hills stop laughing.

Mary frowns.

She clicks her heels together again.

They instantly turn their heads rightside-up and stare at her.

What could they be thinking, she wonders, as she once more clicks her heels together and watches as both of their heads rise, then fall. Do they like the sound that she is making and have stopped laughing because of it, or are they afraid of it and therefore have changed their opinion about looking on at her as though she is something to be admired? It seems to be one of the two reasons, as they have since stopped making any sort of noise whatsoever, but in that respect she cannot, nor does she feel that she wants to know.

Mary stops.

The creatures raise their heads.

She clicks her heels together.

One of them screams. The sound is like a hawk diving in for the kill.

The creatures' heads fall so low that Mary believes they are descending down the hill—that, with haste that she cannot imagine, with speed that she imagined herself to have no more than a few moments ago, they are descending upon her as though they are dogs ready to attack the rabbit that she is at the bottom of the hill. She cries out, stumbles back, falls to the ground. Dirt flies around her and into her mouth. She cannot breathe, cannot think, and in her current position cannot see, so she reaches up to claw at her throat as if she can pull the dirt out and finds that even though she is trying nothing she is doing will work. It seems that she will not be able to get up and run away as the red eyes begin to come closer and closer and as the figures begin to appear faintly upon both sides of the road, and while crawling back, stumbling over both her feet and her hands, she believes that she will be gone in but a moment's time.

Her mother, her father, Mama Grandma—what will they think?

With one last, final push for breath, Mary reaches up, smacks her throat as hard as she could, then gasps as dirt flies out of her mouth.

The creatures with the red eyes stop moving.

Mary freezes.

Alone, in her spot in the middle of the road, she waits for something to happen.

The creatures tilt their heads—the one on her left to the right, the one on her right to the left.

They both make a noise.

Every inch of Mary's body begins to shiver.

Reaching up, she runs her hands along her arms as if her touch will warm them and begins to cry as both of the creatures with the red eyes begin to take their steps forward.

If only she hadn't come into the world, if only she hadn't listened to the voice, if only she hadn't felt the wind—maybe then she would not be here: cold, alone and trapped in Wraethworld.

As she waits for the creatures to descend upon her, she thinks of her family and what they will think when she is gone.

The creatures draw ever closer.

Tears snake down Mary's face. She tastes salt on her lips and knows that she will never again taste a hamburger and fries.

When the things with the red eyes come into the center of the road, they stop, jut their lengthy necks forward, then raise their elongated hands, limp at the wrists and bowing to the earth as if they are tired and afraid.

Mary waits.

The things in front of her tilt their heads to the side.

Unsure what to do, Mary crawls a few steps back.

Her heels scrape together.

No. She can't make a noise. They might get angry.

She closes her mouth, takes a breath, prays just like her mother taught her that nothing bad will happen within the next few moments.

The creatures laugh like the clowns they seem to be.

Their mouths black, scowling and pursed, they take a few steps forward.

Mary crawls back.

They take another few steps forward.

A breath of air comes out of Mary's chest and the creatures chuckle again.

Why her?

The tears slick on her face, Mary looks from her shoes, to the creatures, then back again.

With more fear in her heart than she could ever possibly imagine, she stretches her legs forward, almost to where she can see the creatures' feet standing, then braces herself for what is about to come.

She closes her eyes. She holds her breath. She clicks her heels together.

The creatures do not make any noise.

Mary clicks them together again.

No sound comes.

When she clicks them for a third and final time, she believes that this will be the moment before the creatures do whatever it is they want to do to her.

After expelling the breath she has held in for so horribly long, Mary opens her eyes.

The creatures are nowhere to be seen.

She begins to cry.

They are gone. They are finally gone.

* * *

She walks until she feels she can walk no more. It is at this time—when the black, moonless sky seems to begin to lose its white haze of clarity—that Mary stands before the two hills that she has seen since she first entered Wraethworld. Tall, round, awesome in scope and terrifying in prospect—they seem to hold a secret that she knows she will never be able to understand and for that she feels as though sleeping, at this time, may be the wrong thing to do. But since her body is almost ready to fall over and her head seems to swim, she pauses in midstride, then turns her head to look at both sides of the road.

The hills seem to beckon her.

She begins to step forward, then stops.

Her mother once told her never to step off the path. _You may get lost,_ she once said, _and something may get you._

It is not without cause that her mother had said this, and though young and ignorant in most respects Mary was well aware of the reality of what can happen if you step off the path—when, in the woods around her city, little boys and girls went missing and were never found again. In standing before the hills, on the road that seems never to end, Mary feels as though what her mother said is sound advice, something that may very well keep her safe from anything that may be wandering off the beaten path.

After settling down on the road and spreading out directly in the middle, where the train tracks no longer run, Mary closes her eyes and takes a deep breath of fresh air.

For the first time since entering Wraethworld, she does not feel afraid.

* * *

Morning comes in but a blink of a moment.

When Mary opens her eyes, the sun shines on the far side of the world—distant, to the left and lighting the hills in splendid, golden glory.

After rising to her feet and brushing the dirt off her dress, she turns her attention to the road in the near distance and lets out a breath of air she seems to have been holding for the entirety of the night.

Nothing happened while she was sleeping.

Things seem to be perfectly normal.

Unable to resist the urge to smile, Mary steps forward and looks up at the world before her.

It will be no more than a few short moments before she sees what it is that lies beyond the great knolls that she was able to see upon entering Wraethworld.

With a few short breaths, Mary closes her eyes, tries to inspire within herself the confidence to continue onward, then takes a few steps forward.

Dirt crunches beneath her feet.

The monsters' footprints are nowhere to be seen.

The sun is marvelous in the sky.

It seems, when stepping forward and between the two hills, that birds will fly forth and summon upon their wings the happiness that all things upon wings carry.

When she steps forward, however, she sees something she does not expect.

She seems to be on top of the world. Between the knolls, beneath their shadow, within a place where sun does not shine and where her presence seems all the smaller, the world extends into a sweeping plain of flowers in hues of red and purple—where, briefly, patches of clear grass can be seen just before the world dissolves into a forest where black trees seem to extend far into the sky, their branches broad and their fingers extending into the air. In standing there, and in viewing the sight before her, it seems that the path before her is too harsh—that, within its drop, and within the curves of which seem to not be travelled by feet, but by sleds in the slow, there is a sense of danger that cannot be rivaled by anything she has yet encountered. The beluga whale train, the man with the gun, the never-ending roads or the creatures on the hills—none of these things rival what it is she is currently seeing, this grand, sweeping plain. Not even the flowers that seem so pleasant are enough to make her smile, nor are the smells enough to make her feel as though things will be fine.

It is in standing there, between the hills and on top of the world, that true fear begins to reside within her heart.

Something tells her she can't do this. That something tells her to turn around—that even if the entrance to Wraethworld and the beginning of the real world is no longer there, that maybe it will open sometime soon.

In thinking these thoughts, Mary begins to cry.

She begins to turn, ready to take her place on the side of the road and away from the hills, when she sees something on the ground.

She steps forward and narrows her eyes.

A pair of lonely wings rests on the side of the road—torn, it seems, from their original owner.

A glowing scroll of parchment begins to materialize in the air as Mary steps forward, then slowly unravels.

There is but one name on it, emblazoned in black.

_This is the story of Baby Jason,_ a disembodied voice says, _and this is how he came to Wraethworld._

* * *

**5.**

**The Boy Who Thought He Could Fly**

* * *

Baby Jason always wanted to fly. From the time he was born and saw his first eagle he wanted to be in the sky. Arms spread high, lips pulled aplenty, his teeth would shine and his eyes would glimmer as within the clouds, within the atmosphere and within the place that existed above the resting world, birds flew and creatures of metal origins coasted the sky as they made their way from one place to another. He was barely one month old when, within his mother's arms, he looked into the air and saw his country's pride and glory soaring overhead. He was but two when he began to take his first steps and, when clumsy and falling, he fell and began to cry, longing for wings and the things they could so assuredly do for him. Then, when he was three, he boarded a plane with his family and went to a place in the world he did not know, and in looking outside, at the clouds and the world below, he knew he wanted to be a bird. However—since the world would not allow such a thing, as he was not a bird, but a boy, he would dream of a day when, one day, he could fly.

Baby Jason lived with his family in Adrian, Michigan. Surrounded by so much water, it was wondered by family why, of all the things a little boy could possibly be, he wanted to be a bird. There seemed to be so much magic in fish, in a world where water was boundless and where most anything could live, but it was not Jason who was unsure, but the people who was telling him he should be a fish. He wanted to be a bird, he said, because the world was much larger in the sky—because, with wings, you could go anywhere. Even at such a young age he said that fish could not go anywhere, that the world eventually stopped and that there were sometimes rocks in the way.

His mother once said that, in the ocean, the water never stopped—that even though there was land, you could eventually go around it.

Baby Jason said otherwise. Birds could go on forever, he argued, because there was no land to stop them.

Afterward, there was no arguing that baby Jason wanted to be a bird.

It was on his fifth birthday—when, at an age, he was on the crux of childhood and bordering the time where soon his world would change for the good or the worse—that his father, an aviation expert and a man whom worked with planes and cranes, came home from work one day with a costume that had wings on its back. _You can be a bird,_ his father said, _for Halloween._

It could have been the happiest moment of his life. Here he was, five years old and wanting to fly, and so very close to the thing he so desperately wanted to be. He could not, his father said, really fly, as there was no way for the wings to substantially hold his body afloat, but he could be the closest that he could possibly be.

There was no argument on Halloween day baby when Jason put his winged costume on and went trick-or-treating with his father.

The world is boundless. Baby Jason knew this even from a young age when looking at birds and how they seemed anywhere to go. But it was without purpose or intent that most people are aware that on certain days, the worlds can bridge—that portals to other places can open, that other planes can be revealed, that alternate dimensions can surface in the simplest objects and different realities can cross over and merge with the one most people currently live in. Halloween exists on one of those days when, it is said, the spirit world comes to the physical as one, and it is on those days that miraculous things can happen. People can be born, people can die, and people can cross over into places that only the wildest imaginations can dream of.

It was while walking with his father down a long road in Adrian, Michigan that baby Jason discovered Wraethworld.

It was in the most simplest of objects, a thing that had fallen from a woman's purse and that had landed on the side of the road. Had baby Jason been a moment later, and had his father not wandered away to chat with a friend who stood just a few feet away from the sidewalk, there would have never been a bridging of the worlds. Baby Jason would have remained in the real world, his father would have continued to take him trick-or-treating, and his mother wouldn't have received an urgent and frantic phone call that her son had just been kidnapped.

It takes but a moment for the world to change.

Baby Jason's world changed in one of those moments.

Within a mirror that had fallen out of a nice woman's purse, and within its oval contours that looked so fine and fancy, baby Jason saw upon its surface a place that looked magical. He did not, as he had expected, see his reflection, nor did he see the sky or the stars that twinkled above him. Instead, he saw a world that looked magical—a place with two hills and a wide, open space where it seemed he could fly.

When baby Jason saw this place, his heart began to beat frantically in his chest.

He would have cried out in joy before he stumbled. He did not, however, fall to the street, as would have been expected for a boy who took a tumble. Rather, he fell into the mirror, into a place whose name he did not know but whose name was really Wraethworld.

It seemed to take a long time for him to fall. He did not fall directly from the sky, as that would have possibly hurt him far worse than he could have ever imagined, but he did fall a fair distance from the ground, since when he impacted he cried out in both surprise and utter terror. How, he wondered, could he have gotten here, in this place, just by falling?

When baby Jason opened his eyes, he saw before him a road filled with dirt.

As he rose to his feet, he discovered, to his utter enjoyment, fascination and fear, that he was standing within the very place he had seen within the mirror.

It took him several moments to realize that he was in a completely different place, within a completely different area and within possibly a completely different time. It did not cross his young mind that he could possibly be within another world. Such things are impossible, it seems, except in books, in games, in movies, on the TV, and for that he didn't even stop to consider such a thing. For that reason, he merely stared on ahead and at the world below—at the road, the poppy fields, and the dark forest directly in front of him.

In but a few moments, baby Jason began to worry.

Where was his father and how, he wondered, would he get out?

After looking up into the sky and seeing that there no longer was a way to get out, baby Jason began to cry.

Something behind him shifted.

He turned to look at the most beautiful thing ever.

She was a woman who looked as though she was carved from marble. Red in color, with white lines running across her skin, with a mouth painted black and a pair of blue eyes so bright they seemed to reflect the sea stretching on forever, she was dressed in a fine black robe and appeared to be something like a lady from church—except for the red and white skin. He couldn't remember what exactly they were called, as the name sounded much too confusing, but it took very little for him to smile at her.

_Hello little boy,_ the lady in black said, her mouth moving but no audible sound coming out her lips and entering through his ears. It, instead, felt as though she were speaking in his head. _What is your biggest wish?_

Baby Jason thought long and hard. His first wish was that he wanted to go home, as he knew his mommy and daddy would soon begin to worry about him now that he was no longer at the end of his sidewalk, but for reasons he couldn't necessarily understand that seemed wrong. It was not, of course, his biggest wish, as something told him he would eventually get home anyway and that he wouldn't have to worry about it. He would appear at the end of the sidewalk, be hugged by his daddy, continue trick-or-treating and then go back home to his mother, who would cry and ask just where he had been when he had disappeared off the road. He would then tell his mommy that he had went to a world where there were two big hills and two fields of flowers, then say that a woman who had red skin with white lines and blue eyes had helped him get back to his world. With that firmly implanted within his conscience, and with his mind still running amok, he began to think of the one thing he really, truly wanted in life, the one thing that would make him the happiest little boy in the world and would eventually make him feel as though the world was his and that he had nothing in the world.

Slowly, it dawned on him, like the sun rising over the mountains and lighting his world whole.

"I want to fly," baby Jason said.

_All you have to do,_ the lady with the red skin said, _is believe._

"But how?" he asked.

The lady with the red skin said nothing. There were stars in her eyes, so beautiful they shined, and they twinkled and sprinkled as though they would soon erupt tears onto the pleasant and vulnerable world. In that regard, she was beautiful—very, very beautiful—and when she turned to sand when a breeze came up and began to disperse across the horizon, baby Jason turned to look at the expanse of land that lay within the far distance.

All he would have to do, she had said, was believe.

Baby Jason spread his arms.

Like the birds he'd seen so many times before, he jumped and pumped his hands.

He began to fly.

He was doing it, he thought, as he began to coast the air and his wings spread out from ahead of him. He was doing it, he was actually doing it!

_Little boys can't fly,_ his mother had once said.

If little boys couldn't fly, then just how was he flying?

Laughing, baby Jason pumped his arms, then bowed his body to direct himself toward the woods that lay beneath.

The sound of tearing fabric filled his ears.

In but a moment, he realized something.

His father once said that people couldn't fly because they were too heavy.

Above, the fabric of his costume continued to rip.

Baby Jason screamed.

His wings came free.

He began to fall.

He hit the ground and continued to roll. Bouncing, he imagined, in the brief moments he could think, like a ball being thrown across the room, his body came down again and again as he rolled down the hill that seemed to go on forever and ever. At one point, it seemed, he would stop, as within his hands he held the earth and the things that made it up, but when he continued down the hill in pain so great and fierce it felt as though nothing in the world could rival it, he tried to cry, but found himself almost unable to do that. The pace of his pain continued to escalate until, finally, it stopped, dead at the end of the hill and at the one place where it seemed everything would cease to exist.

Above, floating through the air like a bird, were his wings.

At the top of the hill, baby Jason saw the lady with the red and white skin and blue eyes standing on the road.

She raised her hand and waved, then disappeared once more as sand.

Baby Jason reached to the sky as he watched his wings begin to fall.

Baby Jason entered the world of Wraethworld to try and reach his dreams.

He died by his own limitations.

* * *

**T.**

**The Third Interlude**

* * *

_There are powers within each and every individual that are often left untapped solely because they are not aware that they exist. For those who are knowledgeable of these gifts, and who are able to use them to their own advantage, they often find that within troublesome situations they have a heightened advantage over the dangers that are often present. In these cases, they are able to rise above the smoldering ashes of defeat and stand proud and tall when around them others have succumbed to the lesser inhibitions of their world._

_In the current point of our story, when little Mary Matthews has surpassed the beginning of the world known as Wraethworld and has faced her first gruesome challenge, it has become increasingly apparent that she possesses an advantage over the creatures that inhabit this world. Be it because of a stroke of luck or a natural intuition that she was born with, her quick thinking and fast rationale have saved her thus far. However—it is not without consequence that one who shares advantages over another is offered free reign over their place in the world, be it the real or the metaphysical. For that, it would seem that Mary has only briefly touched upon the dangers that exist within this alternate universe and has therefore left herself open._

_As she descends the hills, slowly making her way toward the place where the field of poppies begins and the rest of the world opens up, there rests a danger amidst the flowers that is unseen and troubling in all respects._

_With nowhere else to go, it is up to Mary to rely on her own intuition in order to make it past the next broad scope of Wraethworld._

* * *

**6.**

**The Poppy Fields**

* * *

She descends the hill with more speed and grace than she could have ever imagined. One foot forward, another the other, she makes her way forward as though she is a man climbing the biggest mountain in the world and takes extra care to avoid taking too many long steps. Here, it appears, it is very steep, as with one step down she slides a few feet, then with another she almost goes stumbling, and it doesn't take much to see that should she not be careful she will very likely end up propelling herself forward and down the hills. The idea alone summons the thought of baby Jason and how, when his wings failed and his mortality came aplenty, he fell from the sky onto this very hill and rolled all the way down. _Jack and Jill went up the hill,_ her classmates once sang, _and along came a spider who once tried to bite her and he went swimming down the telephone drain._

Mary isn't exactly sure if there is such a thing as a telephone drain. It seems possible, considering that when placed to the ear there are sometimes things that go in the phone—voices, sweat, tears, sometimes the red stuff that she hates but knows is blood—but to think that a spider would go swimming down a telephone seemed almost impossible. Most spiders were much too big to fit inside the tiny holes that telephones had. Ants, maybe, could fit inside a phone, but not a spider.

In thinking this, she takes a moment to consider her place on the slope she is currently on and looks out at the field of flowers before her. They're beautiful, and smell like spring after warm winter's rain, and remind her of home—of the grand, sweeping fields that she often sees out in the wild, untamed country of the place that she has lived in throughout her entire life. Most importantly, they remind her of her mother and how, whenever she would find a flower, Mary would pick it for her and offer it without so much as a second thought.

_It's beautiful,_ her mother had said, each and every time Mary picked a flower and offered it into her small but big hands.

If only her mother were here, Mary thinks. Maybe then things would be just a little safer.

Sighing, her breath a plume of air from lips and teeth that have not been brushed since the day before, Mary continues down the hill.

The sun is high in the sky.

Her shins are dirty.

Her feet hurt.

* * *

The trek down the hills is almost as painful as the walk toward them. Ankles hurting, legs clumsy and upper body shivering despite the fact that it is not cold, Mary tries to console herself with the fact that soon, she will be off the hill and in a position where she can rest without having to worry about much of anything, where there are flowers and the smell of spring will lull her to sleep. Regardless, though, these thoughts seem to do little, as it seems in that moment that all that exists is pain—deep, scarlet pain, that stabs her shins with needles at the doctor's office without the nurse ever offering her a cartoon-character band-aid in return. It's almost enough to make her cry. The world is against her, she knows, this place called Wraethworld, and there seems no respite, no moment in which she can stop and recover and just be the ordinary girl that she really, truly is. Something tells her that this is the way this world operates—how, in theory, its sole goal is to make her feel as though she is small—but in thinking such things, she knows that the thoughts are too horrible to bear. As such, she stops thinking altogether and continues down the hill.

Above, the sun passes overhead, winking its one cyclopean eye every so often behind clouds that she has only seen today.

The day progresses forward, unbeknownst to the fact that a little girl is suffering just beneath it.

Near the bottom of the hill, and near the point where Mary wants to cry because her legs and feet hurt so badly, she decides to settle down on a slight outcropping in the hill and crosses her legs Indian-style, like Miss Kitty always asked her class to do before they entered Wraethworld.

Miss Kitty—poor, poor Miss Kitty.

The thought of what happened to her kindergarten teacher is almost enough to make her cry.

_It will be ok,_ her mother's voice once said, when the roly-poly she named Mr. Bill died in his little glass of dirt. _Mr. Bill is in Heaven now._

Could Miss Kitty be in Heaven now, even though she wasn't in the real world when she died? Mary isn't sure—doesn't think she _can_ be sure, as she is only aware of the fact that Heaven exists somewhere in the real world, high in the sky and possibly beyond the stars—and in thinking about it her nose begins to drip. Snot slides from her septum and over her upper lip to where she can almost taste it—that tangy, putrid thing that really tastes like nothing but always makes her want to be sick—where, eventually, it travels down the expanse of her chin and hangs there like icicles in the winter. She imagines herself as a house with a big brown face and a nice broad grin. Her hair is the snow, her face the roof, her chin the shingles and the things that hold it all together. She is a construct, she knows, of human hands, and as the water begins to drip down, over the shingles and toward the ground, it freezes mid-stride and becomes a thing of pain, of horror and agony that, if disturbed, and if poised above a little girl, may fall and kill her.

In sitting there on the hill—looking out at not only the field of beautiful flowers, but the dark forest that lingers in the distance—Mary begins to feel as though she will never complete her journey.

How far, she wonders, will she have to walk until she gets back to the real world?

Though unable to know, and though doubtful of the fact that she will ever return home to her mommy and daddy and Mama Grandma, she finds peace in the fact that, at least for now, she can rest.

Leaning back, Mary closes her eyes and takes a deep breath.

She knows that she can't be anywhere near the hills by the time the sun falls.

Something tells her that if she does, the things with red eyes will come back.

* * *

Near dusk, at the time where the sun is near the right side of the world and the sky is once again bleeding as if it is some great crystal in the sky, Mary decides to forego the path and begins to wander through the field of poppies to the right side of the hill. The grass is short and only scrapes across her ankles occasionally, whispering of life that exists beyond the world of intelligence, but the poppies are tall and come up to her waist. They are, she imagines, much too tall to be regular flowers, as no flower that she has seen beyond the sunflower is taller than a little girl, but she imagines that might have something to do with the fact that this isn't the real world, but Wraethworld, a place where people enter never to return. That, however, doesn't concern her, as in walking through the flowers she remembers what her daddy once told her when they were wandering through Mama Grandma's garden.

_There might be snakes,_ daddy had once said, _and spiders and frogs and other things that bite._

Could there be things that bite here? Surely if there were such things she would have felt them. So far she has only seen one animal that she remembers from the real world—the blackbirds. Beyond the things with the red eyes, there seems to be nothing here. This land is barren, a wasteland where nothing exists. To think that there might be more animals here makes her feel uncomfortable not because she herself is afraid of the animals, but because she is afraid _for_ them. Where did the birds go when they flew into the sky? Did they try to leave this world and hit the glass bubble that Mary feels surrounds them, only to break their necks or wings and plummet back to the earth, or did they simply vanish, never to return again?

Rather than think about the consequences of her current actions, Mary sighs and runs her hand along the tops of the flowers to her left.

When she pulls her hand back, beautiful blue pollen lines her palms.

Though she brings her palm to her nose, and while she expects to sneeze, nothing happens.

How strange could this world be? No birds, no planes, no kids for her to be ashamed—if not these things, then what, she wonders, is here, if not monsters and things that went bump in the night?

In the middle of the field of poppies, Mary looks down and tries to see her feet. Though she can only see the tips of her Mary Jane's, she can tell that they will likely not last much longer, especially if she continues at the pace she's going.

With a short exhale out her nose and an even quicker inhale through her lips, Mary crouches down until she is all but hidden in the flowers and begins to close her eyes.

Sleep tugs at her consciousness.

She opens her eyes to find the world stark and almost devoid of light.

It is in looking at the sun, which is slowly-but-surely falling to the right side of the world, that she realizes that she is still dangerously close to the hills.

Sad, but all the more aware that she cannot stay here any longer than she has, Mary rises to her feet and starts to make her way across the field, hands at her sides and fingers spread to grace the flowers as they pass her by.

Before she can make it further than but a few steps, something stirs in the flowers ahead.

Mary freezes.

A row of flowers bows as if touched, then right themselves almost immediately.

A bead of moisture slides down the back of Mary's neck. Eclipsing her spine, it travels down her back until it all but disappears into her dress.

Before her, the same row of flowers shifts.

A breath of air catches in Mary's throat.

Whatever is disturbing the poppies begins to come forward.

The flowers flush to the left and right as though they are dancers slowly bowing atop a stage. Their stalks bent, their heads flushed forward, their inner parts revealed to show the red-and-white-peppermint center they all have, they seem to be beckoning her forward as from the near distance the thing disturbing the flowers begins to grow closer. They are dancing, she thinks, for the queen, the king, the prince and the princess and the duke, and they are beginning to descend as though they are mean birds to a poor innocent cat. The cat will run, the cat will scream, the cat will cry and the cat will fight, and though he might not necessarily die, there is the distinct possibility that he will be brutally injured. The thought alone is enough to make Mary believe that she herself is the cat being attacked by birds—as in that moment it seems impossible to simply stand there, let alone turn around and begin to run in the opposite direction—but somehow she is able to hold her ground, as Mama Grandma always told her not to run away from the things you are afraid of. _Even if it is a dog,_ she had once said, _or a lion, a tiger, a bear, oh my! never run. Never, ever run Mary, because when you start to run, the things in the dark will chase you until the end of time._

Standing there, her ground held and her heart beating a thousand times over, Mary balls her hands into fists and prepares to defend herself against whatever it is that is currently rushing toward her.

Breath short and labored, joints harsh and hurting, she waits for the thing to reveal itself for what it really is.

The flowers flush forward.

The wind comes up.

Mary's teeth sink into her lower lip and her body begins to tremble.

For but a moment, everything stops. The wind, the flowers, the trees in the distance, the grass at her feet—not a soul moves as whatever it is that is in front of her comes to a stop.

Then, slowly, it reveals itself.

He was born of many colors and seemed to have fallen from an olive branch. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet—he is a rainbow of color and an Armageddon of purpose. His head is a triangle, his tongue is forked, his eyes are harsh, without color and glaring right at her—he rises back on his long body and begins to wave his head back and forth as if he is entranced by an Indian man who holds within his hand a pipe long and wooden. He appears dizzy, in this moment, in hovering above the poppies and looking right at her, and it seems as though he will fall—dead, it seems, to the ground, without ever doing whatever it was he was supposed to be doing. However, much to her disappointment, Mary knows better than this. She knows that he will not fall dead, that he is not dizzy and that he is not being charmed by an Indian man with a flute in his hand that is long and wooden. No. She knows that he is waiting for her to respond, for her to cry out and for her to run, as it was he who fell from pride and glory and abundance and peace, not she. It is for that reason that Mary stands her ground, her hands balled into fists and her eyes set straight ahead.

As the one with many colors continues to wave his head back and forth, Mary summons within her mind the image of Mama Grandma and knows in her heart that he will not tear her down. _Do not be afraid,_ Mama Grandma says, _for he cannot hurt you as long as you believe._

Believe she does, and believe she will, Mary stands her ground. She is no longer afraid of the thing before her.

The one with many colors stops moving. His triangular head comes to a standstill and he blinks his eyes, the clear film of white flashing over his black scleras before his attention is set directly back on her. It is as if he has sensed that Mary is no longer afraid and is unsure what to do, as he merely stands there waiting for her to respond. In hindsight, Mary doesn't understand why she was afraid of him in the first place. He is merely dumb, a thing fallen from grace, and though he appears intimidating in both size and posture, he is really no more than a small thing in a very big world.

Mary takes a step forward. The one with many colors slides back. Mary takes another step forward and the one with many colors slides back once again. She imagines this process will continue throughout the field if she so willingly led the two of them together, a leader directing a follower in a grand dance, but she knows she does not have time for that. The sun is going down, the light is bleeding from the sky, and the left side of the world is slowly growing dark. There is no reason for this to continue any further.

When both she and the one with many colors come to a complete stop, Mary extends her arm and reaches forward.

Her palm touches the flat of his chest.

His mouth opens and a scream erupts from the depths of his being.

Mary presses forward.

The thing with many colors recoils and slides back into the poppies.

It is in but one moment, as she sees him disappearing into the flora, that Mary realizes she is much more powerful than she initially anticipated herself to be.

She can do this. She knows she can.

While the sun continues to fall down on the right side of the world, she begins to make her way forward, all the while knowing in her heart that there is nothing to be afraid of.

* * *

It is beyond dark by the time she settles down.

In the middle of the road, legs crossed and heart unsure, she stares straightforward and dares not turn her head in the opposite direction for fear of seeing the things with the red eyes on the tops of the hills behind her. In this darkness, so pure and absolute, things seem even more devious—sinister, even, for it is here that she cannot see anything, as there is no grey film in the sky that allows her to discern images upon the horizon. She cannot see the flowers at her sides, though she can easily smell them, and she cannot see the dark forest that lies in the far distance. That in itself is probably a blessing, considering that she already feels as though they are beyond dangerous, but being blind is never a thing a person wants to be. No. If she could see in the dark, things would be much better. She could be a cat, she could be a bird, she could be a dog, hog or frog—anything to see in the dark and at least secure within her a belief that would allow her to know that things would be just fine.

The wind is blowing tonight. Not harsh, but not gentle, it tousles her hair in her face and makes her dress shiver around her knees. She wishes she had a blanket so she could curl up and go to sleep for the night, as this eve is much colder than the previous and completely unforgiving. That, however, is impossible. She knows this to be true because there seems to be no earthly things in this place, save for the things left behind, and only once has she seen Adil Amna. Baby Jason she could not find, though in this instance she feels as though that is a good thing—a grand gift from the men and women in the sky to keep her from crying.

Taking a deep breath, Mary allows herself a moment to consider her surroundings, as dark as they may be, then spreads herself out in the middle of the road, careful to keep her eyes closed when her head lies on the road where she could just as easily see the things on the hills with red eyes if they so truly happen to be there.

In but an instant, her head begins to swim.

Pain lives behind her eyelids. Cherry blossoms bloom along her vision and bleed tears down her face.

Her mother, her father, Mama Grandma—all of them, gone, nowhere to be seen.

As her mind begins to slip into the dark places—where, she imagines, not even the monsters can be seen—Mary begins to realize something.

She may never see home again.

* * *

She once more makes her way into the field of poppies come the following morning unafraid and not in the least bit terrified of their prospect. The one of many colors is long gone. He will not come back. She knows this in her heart in a way she imagines all little girls know that they are loved by their mothers, their fathers, their Mama Grandmas, and for that she is confident in the fact that nothing will stir her emotions unless she finds something that is more confident than the thing that fell from the olive branch. She imagines there are much greater things in this world than the one with many colors. The things on the hills, though afraid of her sound, were much more terrifying. The thing she encountered yesterday was merely a jester, a thing afraid of touch and the mortal implications that came with it. If she is to progress further, and she truly knows she has to, there will be much more terrifying foes to encounter.

Shaking her head, not wanting to deal with the implication that soon there will be even greater danger afoot, Mary straightens her posture as much as she is able to with her aching feet and back plaguing her and continues forward, hands flourishing amongst the poppies and her eyes trailing over the somewhat-small but still-vast section of the hills.

It won't be much longer until the fields of flowers end and the dark forest ahead begins.

Its trees are tall. There appears to be sharp needles protruding from many of their branches, though a good amount of them are dead, stretched forward like she so horribly imagined dead people attempting to grasp something final in life. These are the trees that make her worry. They are ancient, she knows, and when trees are devoid of leaves or needles or blossoms she knows them to be one of two things—dead or dormant. Since trees are not normally the latter in warm months, which she knows this place to be, she knows they are dead, but from what she can't be sure. Her mommy once said that bugs can kill trees by burrowing inside them until the things that transfer light and energy into their roots are all but gone. If there truly are bugs here, they must be awesome, because just looking at the trees ahead makes her feel like she is entering a place where there are graves and the dead are six feet under. She's only been in a place like that once—when, with Mama Grandma, she went to visit the Papa Grandpa she never knew—but in being there, she learned that the dead really can speak, if one is so inclined to listen.

Sighing, Mary continues forward.

It isn't long after her revelation is dead that she comes across a ring of grass.

There are no flowers that grow here, no bowing dancers to grace the stage or no ones with many colors to stalk her beneath the cover of stalks. There is nothing, one could say, if only by looking on this place, but grass. The ring, though small compared to the field, extends a fair distance away from where she stands—where, she imagines, a small car could park if one so truly desired. Within this ring there are a series of shoes. Some are heels, some are sneakers, others are sandals and some are boots. All, she knows, belong to children, as their size indicates that they are only her age or only partially older than she.

Mary steps forward.

A part of her expects nothing to happen.

However—when a glowing scroll of parchment begins to materialize in the air, shifting out of shadows that cannot be seen and emerging into the world that she knows as Wraethworld, her heart catches in her chest and her breath stops short within her throat.

Slowly, it begins to unravel.

There are but a few words on it, emblazoned in black.

_These are the stories of the little boys and girls who didn't know who they were,_ a disembodied voice says, _and this is how they came to Wraethworld._

* * *

**7.**

**The Little Boys and Girls Who Didn't Know Who They Were**

* * *

There were little boys who looked like girls and little girls who looked like boys. The boys wore dresses and had long hair. The girls wore suits and had short hair. How they entered Wraethworld is not the reality behind the story, as their entrance was simple and plain and without any real merit. Rather, it is the venture into the place where realities could change and appearances could be altered that tells the story of these three boys and these three girls, these six children who didn't know who they were, and it is for that reason that, come time when they fully began to accept their new position, they truly realized they were one and part of Wraethworld.

Their names were simple and plain. The boys were Arnold, Gerald and Karson. The girls were Susie, Molly and Helga. Six in all they were, each five to seven, and each came from various locations around the world. All knew English—could speak it very well—and all could understand the dialects in which one another spoke. It need not matter that some were not in the same countries as the others and that some were younger and others were older—the universal language of children is that, if given the opportunity, they can learn, oftentimes much quicker than adults. It was in that reason that, upon entering Wraethworld, and upon coming into contact with one another, they each became very good friends, those of which could depend on one another in the most sinister of circumstances. So it was from the very dawn of the world—from the beginning of the bridge to the hills and beyond—that they wandered, in search of answers to the questions they so desperately had, and it was in this search that they all came to realize that they didn't know who they were.

Their problem, as complicated as it seemed to the adults who once nurtured them, was simple to those six boys and those six girls. The boys wanted to be girls and the girls wanted to be boys. They were, as they so desperately tried to explain once upon a time, trapped in the wrong bodies—that the little boys who were really boys wanted to be girls and the little girls who were really little girls wanted to be boys. Their parents scoffed at this idea, saying it was just a phase, while their teachers merely considered them as doing nothing more than playing games to further express their conflicted gender identities. To a psychologist, however, they would have said that they were one thing—transgendered, or possibly troubled with their current place and position in the world by being trapped to gender standards that the world so sadly places upon those even at birth.

It was during this time, when talking, that the little boys and little girls came to realize that they were all more similar than they really seemed to be, so it was for that reason that—in front of each other, and without shame—that they began to undress. The boys took their shoes and boots off, the girls took their heels and Mary Jane's free, and the boys undressed from the suits they wore and the girls the dresses that garnished their beings. They then exchanged clothes based on size and height, and while they weren't particularly-perfect fits, their newfound joy in being who they really wanted to be spurred them on to a new direction. One of the girls found a pair of scissors and asked the boys to cut their hair, and over the days and weeks and months they spent in Wraethworld the boys grew their hair until it was long and wavy. They did not hunger for food, oddly enough, and they had no need for water or anything else to wet their throats. It was as if they had stepped into their own personal dream land and were now able to live as they see fit.

Their journey was slow, their progress short and their prospects high. They wandered the barren fields of grass before the entrance of Wraethworld for many long weeks before eventually they began to advance toward the hills. It was natural that they feared the things atop them, as with red eyes they watched the six as though they were something of a spectacle, and because of that they feared to go forward. It was, however, one of the boys who urged them onward, as he said he smelled on the air flowers that reminded him of mints and beckoned them forward with but a wave of his hand.

They continued thereafter toward the hills slowly so everyone could keep up. It took many days and even more nights, as when they stopped many of them cried when the things on the hills would laugh like clowns who had lost their breaths. This reason, and many more, was what kept them from continuing on. Many of them argued that the road was growing longer—that somehow, someway, the time they spent travelling seemed like nothing. A few even questioned whether or not they should step off the path and travel on the grass instead. It was argued, in such plain and adult manners, that since the grass was not a purposed path, it could not keep going for one reason or another. This idea was quickly shot down when, on one morning's dawn, they saw footprints from strange creatures that resembled something like gigantic chickens, and for that they continued forward.

It took days to reach the hills, likely weeks, possibly months. By the time they arrived they were haggard—old, some would have described them as, and dirty, with dust on their pants and their shoes almost worn to just the soles. It was there, at the crux of it all, that they looked down and saw just below the fields of flowers that extended from the ends of the hills to the beginnings of a dark forest.

At this point, something compelled them to take their clothes off. What they couldn't be sure, but when they did they came to find something astounding—that their genitals, once poor and astounding within their poor trapped bodies, were gone. Instead, there was nothing—just smooth, pale skin, that of which did nothing to identify them as the boys or girls that such things most often do. This was it—this was really, truly _it._ They were no longer little girls and little boys. They could be whoever they wanted to be.

With their clothes off but their shoes on, the children descended the hills with haste almost impossible. There was no need to worry about the bumps in the road, how steep the path had become or how there seemed to be rocks and other unnecessary things in the way to trip them. Instead, it was one straight shot down—a single, direct route in which they could make their way to the poppy fields they so desperately knew was theirs.

Once in the fields, the children began to run.

It was a sight that could have never been imagined.

They traversed the field as though there was nothing to be afraid of. There was no need, no worry, no fear, trial, horror or action, no deceit or bar or any one thing that need be in their way. There was no man or woman to stand idly by, no monster or foe to prey on them from afar, and there was no distance they could not travel. They wore their shoes, their boots, their heels, their Mary Jane's; they kept their hair long and short as to what they believed themselves to be and they walked hand-in-hand as if they were all brothers and sisters naked and unabashedly unafraid as if they were at the beginning of time and clothes did not exist. Flowers parted at their waists and the grass beneath their feet seemed soft and warm—blessed, they could have said, by the fact that they were no longer afraid of the world or what it had to offer. It was as if it had been doused with water of the greatest value and proclaimed to be something more than what it really was, like the men in the black coats said in the times in which they doused heads beneath the water and proclaimed them sane. That alone was enough to make each and every child feel confident about the things they so openly professed, nakedly and without regret.

It would have seemed perfect to see six children so open in their display.

That, however, was not the case, as happiness and freedom are not always offered.

It came from the sky on swift wings of darkness and hatred. Its feathers broad, its eyes harsh, its beak glistening in the blood of innocents and within its talons the construct of innocence—it descended upon them from the sky in but a moment's notice and shattered before them the world and the ground beneath it. Flowers died within its presence and wilted into nothing more than ash, while the grass itself smoldered as though burnt and cast with sparks. The smoke that ebbed from said grass drifted forward and before the creature's vision, casting its eyes in shades of light so harsh and feeble that the children began to scream. Many began to run, breaking the chain that seemed to protect them so, while others held their ground in terror as the creature once more ascended into the air. Each one it took it freed of their shoes, which fell to the ground perfectly as though they'd just been placed there, and into the sky it would go until it could not be seen. It would then emerge from the clouds without the child in toe and take yet another, and as the children continued to run in circles, trying desperately to escape the sphere of death and fire that prevented them from passing, the creature came back and plucked each one off the ground.

Slowly, but surely, it took the children into the sky and never returned.

When all their shoes sat in a perfect circle, the grass still burning around them and the flowers wilted and dead within their presence, the creature did not return.

The little boys and girls who didn't know who didn't know what they were entered Wraethworld to escape the persecution the world offered.

They died in the face of their freedom.

* * *

**I.**

**The Fourth Interlude**

* * *

_We are all, at birth, given the innate ability to voice what it is we so desperately wish to say. As infants we cry; as toddlers we begin to speak; as children we laugh and talk unabashedly and as adults we converse as though there is no end to the flow of words that ebb and whistle from between our lips. It is a gift granted upon most everyone who is born into the human world and is allowed to flourish within the beginning of our lives. There are, however, those who do not have such a gift. Those whose vocal cords were burned, whose box in their voice stopped working, whose brains cannot process the words from the chest to the throat into the mouth and then out through the lips—there is many a person who suffers from this sort of thing. Often called 'dumb,' they are stigmatized throughout society and are forced into small niches in which they suffer throughout the entirety of time. There is no freedom, no salvation, no burning tide on which they can ride, and for that it would appear as though there is no hope, for if there is no freedom, no salvation, no burning tide on which they can ride, there is no way to continue forward—to converse, to interact, to make a place within the world with their voice and mouth and words and tales in order to make themselves as part of a society whose methods require the ability to speak like it is for a person to speak._

_For Mary Matthews, born disabled in not body, but mind and soul, she is cursed._

_It would be at this point in the story when the stakes are raised and the consequences for actions are increased tenfold, as without one of the five dominant senses it would seem as though she will not be able to continue forward. This world appears, for all intents and purposes, to run off the prestigious powers of mortals who exist outside of Wraethworld, and who are able to use them of their own accord. It is, however, not a hindrance to one such as Mary. Gifted with the extraordinary power of perception, she has conquered the previous horrors she has faced in Wraethworld without so much as even using her voice. Her conscience is strong, her actions bright, her decisions made with haste that are uncanny and far beyond those who have entered the world before her—she is, by all definitions, a girl who holds the golden wool, and whose string follows her intently and without regret, and with this wool she believes that should she be lost, she will be able to find her way back, as there is but one path within Wraethworld that she knows does not divide by twos or threes or even fours and fives._

_However—it is at this crucial point in Wraethworld where, as has said before, the stakes are raised._

_The dark forest lingers ever so close._

_This is the beginning of the end of Wraethworld._

* * *

**8.**

**The Forest of Spiders**

* * *

She comes to stand before the forest by the time night falls and feeks within her heart a sense of urgency that she has not experienced since entering this world. The trees are tall, the grass is dead, the path is grey and the world before her shadowed not in light of grey or golden consent, but by darkness absolute and petrified—there is no one with many colors, no dead bodies, no beluga whale train or the things with red eyes at the top of the hills. There are none of these things and yet she feels so afraid. Standing on a path, waiting for something to happen, trying to decide whether to step forward or step back—she knows in her mind and soul that she has to continue forward, if only because the path behind her is long and the entrance to this world had long since closed, but in standing here, it seems as though a weight is pressing down upon her from the sky, willing her to crawl onto the ground and curl up and die. Were she to do that, she imagines she would become small—much, much too small—and would eventually be reduced to tears.

Why, of all things, was this place terrifying her so?

Unable to know and not in the least bit willing to find out, Mary holds her ground.

The dirt crunches beneath her Mary Jane's. The breeze shifts her dress and upends her hair. The silence is so deafening that it seems as though a million electrical devices are sounding all around her. She wants to reach up and cover her ears. It is that loud, that deafening, that _horrifying._ She has never experienced such silence before, and had she the opportunity to choose, she would say no—that this silence, this _thing,_ is not truly silence, but agony inflicted upon the ears and stabbed into the mind.

The path before her seems to grow long.

Mary takes a few steps back.

She hears behind her what sounds like cackling and turns to survey the world behind her.

As she has expected, the things with red eyes at the tops of the hills, though distant, are watching.

What would they do, she wonders, if she tried to go back? Would they descend upon the road again, no longer afraid of the gesture they so purposely thought would hurt them, or would they merely wait there and disappear until morning? Whatever the case, she doesn't want to find out, though she knows she very well could not stand here and wait to find out.

Turning, she looks at the forest and tries to make a decision.

To go into the forest at night, in absolute darkness, would possibly not be the best idea. There will be animals, she knows, of the most dangerous degree, as such imposing figures upon society or nature are always wrought with terrors known and unknown. However, in hindsight, there is a thought that lights behind her head like a bulb in an attic and makes her wonder whether or not waiting to enter during the daylight hours would be the better alternative of her ideas. She had seen, in the distance, when atop the hills and in the field of flowers, a darkness that seemed to shadow the forest. It could have been nothing more than a mirage—a spot of water along a long dark road on a long hot day—but for some reason Mary doesn't think that's the case. It would be too obvious for it to be a mirage, a trick of the eye and a flicker of the heart. No. This darkness is absolute. Even during the day she would have trouble crossing through, as above the trees not dead are tall and wide and spread their branches and needles across the sky. That alone is enough to confirm her belief that there would be no difference in crossing the forest in the dark or during the daylight hours.

After crossing her arms over her chest, Mary considers her feet, her legs, her back, her entire _body_ and how much she hurts.

She has been walking so long today. Maybe she should stop.

It takes several moments for her to come to a decision, as one part of her is fighting to go forward and another is demanding to stay put. However, when the decision is made, and when her conscience finally begins to die down, Mary defeats the ultimatum within her head and begins taking her first few steps forward.

It is within but a moment that she is within the forest.

The world goes dark.

Despite the fact that she cannot see more than but a few feet in front of her, she continues on.

* * *

There comes a moment while walking that she feels as though this is hopeless. This trek, this endeavor, this journey, purpose, mire—what is the point, she wonders, if she will never find a way out? There seems not to have been portals that could have deposited her back into the normal world—back, where, she can find a man or a woman or a boy or a girl and find her way back home—and for that it seems there is no reason to continue onward. Her body aches so badly that she wants to collapse and cry, to curl into a ball and wish the world away, and her mind screams to be freed from the mortal agony it exists within her skull. She imagines her brain cracking a hole in her head and sliding out until it is nothing more than sludge before her, a clump of pudding of the mortal variety. That is almost enough to defeat her, and in that moment of weakness tears slide down her cheeks and cross the scope of her face.

It isn't until she sees something before her that her thoughts begin to change.

It is a glistening in the distance, a crescent upon which the world is shards of light that pierce through the night and reflect through the old and greying bark of the trees alive and dead, a reality in which the land is bright with concept and the woods are perpetually grey. It is a miracle, a memory, a chance, a moment in which all is lost and which everything is given, when the clocks stop turning and the things known as hours and minutes cease to exist and thought is lost and conscience falters. It is this, Mary sees, that brightens the world before her, that gives light to a world that is dark and harsh and shallow and filled with remorse. In looking at it, she begins to feel hope—a dandelion sense of chance that allows her to believe for but one moment that nothing is wrong: that everything is fine and that infinity is at her disposal.

She steps forward, one foot in front of the other.

Were she able to see her eyes, she imagines they would probably sparkle, and her teeth would shine as her smile broadens and the bones inside her mouth are revealed to the world. Her blue dress, though dirtied, would shimmer, and her Mary Jane's, though scarred, would twinkle. She would look perfect, she knows, because in this moment she is in Heaven, a place where all is good and nothing can go wrong.

In looking upon the shards of light before her, a sense of happiness that seems unmatched begins to bloom in her heart.

The flower reveals itself. Its petals open. Its anthers contract. Its stigma vibrates and its pollen is spilled across the horizon.

The world is beautiful for but a moment. Then something shifts upon the horizon.

Mary's sense of wonder is gone in but an instant.

Her heart begins to beat inside her chest.

A drum sounds within her head.

Her first inclination is to run.

When she turns and sees nothing but darkness behind her, she is petrified into place.

There is nowhere, she knows, to go but forward.

She begins to take her next few steps.

It is all revealed in but a moment's notice.

They are white and glistening in color. From their abdomens they spin silver thread throughout the trees and create an art of which the abstract becomes one with nature. Their bodies are crystalline, made of what appears to be hundreds of thousands upon thousands of tiny pearls, and their legs glimmer like daggers slicing through a dark night to an old king's throat. From these daggers they weave through the trees their constructs of creation, their nests of beauty, their exhibits of cleanliness. There is not a rough within the diamonds within the sky, as between the trees they skitter back and forth removing any and all debris that can be seen. It is, as Mary can describe it, a colonial act, in which things that appear to be insects but could not be anything of the sort make their way back and forth in order to perpetuate their need for survival. In staring at them, she can't help but remember the things back in the real world that look so similar—when, suspended on webs, they would descend from the ceiling, only to be swatted away or crushed beneath her daddy's hand.

Had her daddy been here, she mused, he wouldn't have been able to crush these.

Her sense of fear is soon replaced by a growing feeling of bewilderment as once more her body becomes autonomous and moves her forward. One foot in front of the other, over and over again, she is led, seemingly, on a rolling rail through the forest and beneath the monoliths within the sky. They are castles, she knows, of the greatest variety, and it is within this kingdom of web and thread that she knows that there is something magical here—an essence, a peace, a normalcy in which the way this world truly operates when there are no humans or things to truly harm them. Why she is afraid she does not know, but as she continues forward, that growing sense of fear continues to escalate: growing, pulsating, turning into a tumor within her heart and becoming fleshier by the second.

In standing beneath the glowing silver threads that traverse the world above her, it seems as though she is in a place where everything seems fine—that these things, as horrible as they may seem, are nothing more than beautiful creatures who are trying to make their way in the world.

Above, a giant moth the size of a small dog appears in the clearing.

Mary watches, mystified, as it flutters around the area.

It seems for but a moment that the moth is intelligent—that despite the fact that most things like it are stupid, it will avoid the glowing thread and continue into the forest unharmed. It isn't until its body collides into the webbing does Mary let out a breath.

Immediately, one is upon the moth.

It begins the process of mummification first by injecting a single pair of glistening fangs into the moth's body. Twitching, pulsating, thrashing about the web, the spirited creature of beauty and freedom squirms beneath the gargantuan creature's body as it tries desperately to free itself from the mortal prison it has managed to get itself into. It is, however, with regret that the thing cannot free itself, and as the creature of pearls and many shades of white continues to inject within its victim a poison that is likely paralyzing it from the inside out, Mary feels in her chest a tremor of unease that begins at the center of her torso and branches out to her arms. This eventually creatures an impression of biting cold so deep within her body that it feels as though her bones are shivering. In looking at the creature, and upon the sad spectacle before her, she imagines this is likely what the moth feels as the pearlescent beauty continues to feed upon it—liquefying, as Mary understands from school, its interior organs, then pumping them back into its body. She knows the creature will not feed for long. This is revealed to be the case when, but in the next moment, the beautiful monster detaches itself from the moth and begins to spin it in its web, slowly but surely creating an imperfection upon its home that, to such seemingly-vain creatures, should be impossible in such colonial behavior.

While watching the creatures, and in trying her hardest not to make a noise for fear of attracting their attention, Mary's teeth begin to chatter. It is here, she knows, that it is winter, for beneath a forest so dark and dreary there are creatures of frost and spite—monsters not born of warmth and plenty, but of death and destruction, who are spewed from the womb of mothers after they have killed their fathers and carried on their backs until they are old enough to sustain themselves. It seems impossible for her to merely stand there and watch, as in but a moment one of the creatures could descend onto the ground and take her into its web, but somehow she is able to maintain hold on her emotions and merely watches as the creature wraps the moth in its tomb.

Slowly, as to not disturb the creatures above her, Mary takes a step forward.

One of the creatures making its way along a silver thread stops to view the progress of its brethren's mummification.

Mary freezes.

The creature shifts, blinks its many crystalline eyes, then rotates along the web until Mary can see the entire scope of its body. Spread eagle, it appears to be as large as a pig, if not bigger. Its daggers of legs flash in the light radiating from the webs and reflects miniature beads of color along the clearing, creating the impression that she is under a globe that has many holes and is filled with a light bulb in order to cast radiance across the room.

Not sure what to do, Mary simply stands there.

The creature rotates once again until its head is facing Mary.

A breath escapes from her throat.

The monster lifts its two front legs and begins to fiddle with fangs that just recently had been within the moth's body.

She continues to stand there, staring off with the creature which very likely wants to eat her, and tries her hardest to hold her ground and not make another noise. A part of her mind tells her that these creatures, like the things with the red eyes atop the hills and the one of many colors, will be vulnerable to such human things—because, she knows, they are not used to such sounds, such touches—but she isn't sure whether or not these creatures will be susceptible to the power of her Mary Jane's or even of the touch of her palm. She most surely doesn't want to touch them, as they seem hairy even though there appears to not be a shred of fibrous material on them, and though she could very easily click her shoes, that doesn't guarantee this thing will go away and leave her alone.

At this point in time, during which Mary has been staring at the single monster for several moments, its companions begin to gather around and watch. They are like settlers, she thinks, from a foreign land. Perched atop trees, heads lowered, arms hanging limply at their sides—they are Bonobos waiting for their great destruction, for the final battle in which their entire race will succumb to genocide, and they will stop at nothing in order to protect not only themselves, but their friends. They will raise their tools, arm their constructs, hurl rocks through the air and slash her with twigs—there is absolutely nothing they won't do to protect themselves, so it is no wonder that they are staring. They are likely waiting for the first reciprocatory response, but what she can do Mary doesn't know. In that regard, she is as vulnerable to them as they are likely to her.

After taking a slow, deep breath, she decides the only thing she can do at this given point in time is to attempt to move forward and leave them behind.

Stepping forward, Mary holds her hands steady at her side and keeps her attention set on the road illuminated by the thread above.

Movement shuffles in the webbing above her.

She does not dare look up. If she does such a thing, one will descend, only to impale her with its fangs and strike her dead. It will inject within her the poison of a thousand pains until she cannot move, and when she ceases to exist, she will be wrapped up within a coffin: imprisoned, chained, and ensnared within a beautiful thread in which the world and all its nature is entailed. She does not want to die—not here, of all places, and definitely not now, especially not for monsters such as them.

As she continues forward on the seemingly never-ending road, beneath the chandeliers of thread that seemingly span the entirety of the current area, she begins to hum beneath her breath a tune that she believes will keep her at peace. _Dun dun dun duh, dun duh dun duh. Dun dun woo woo, dun dun woo woo._ It is the tune in which the world she initially came from operates on—when, in school, at big assemblies, they play the sound in which their world was born of, of which it was conquered and which it was rebuilt, and in this sound she feels safe, like an iron cage is around her and nothing can get in. No fish, no pig, no shark, no lark, no animal of which is born of the regular or of Wraethworld can feed upon her in this very place, and shall they try, they shall be struck down, because they cannot transpire the iron and wood, the metal and electrical, the fist and the thorn. It is this, she feels, that keeps her safe, and this is why, she knows, she will not be harmed.

Keeping her pace brisk but slow enough to where she is not truly running, Mary continues on along the path like she has been for the past two days and tries not to let the burdens of her body get the best of her. It had seemed, up until the point where she continues walking, that her legs had ceased to hurt and that her feet no longer troubled her. Now, however, she can't help but wonder just how it is she will keep going, especially considering the fact that she is growing so deathly tired. Regardless, however, she knows she cannot stop here, especially considering the fact that the beautiful creatures above were still shifting—and, likely, following her.

With a brief sigh, Mary turns her head down to look at her feet, where she sees at the tips of her toes cracks in the leather. It won't be much longer until they begin to fall apart.

Above, something shifts.

Mary lifts her head just briefly so she can see the path in front of her.

Before her is a sight horrible and completely catastrophic.

It is a web that has descended from the trees above and has collapsed into the clearing—a place where, unbeknownst to those who have not entered, the world is a wreck and things within it are all but dead. Coagulated, mixed, fresh with dirt that makes its radiating appearance appear grey and dull and resembling something of a haystack in which several kittens have just taken play—it is an ugly sight to behold: a place where, obviously, the creatures above have not followed to try and repair the damage. It would have appeared from explicit behavior alone that these things preferred to be of the sky, of the heights and the world above. It is for this reason that Mary does not feel afraid to approach the web, which is all but wrapped around the trunk of a massive tree and is slowly but surely fading without the attention and proper care of the things that manage it so. It is not that, however, what bothers her about this web, this place, this mortal tragedy of a world called Wraethworld. It is the distinct shapes of two obviously-mummified figures that trouble her heart and make her breath skip a beat.

When Mary steps forward, what sounds like a voice of a dearly-departed angel begins to sing.

A scroll of parchment begins to come into view.

Slowly, it begins to unravel.

There are but a few words on it, emblazoned in black.

_This is the story of the Littleton twins,_ a disembodied voice says, _and this is how they came to Wraethworld._

**9.**

**Shelly and Abby Littleton**

* * *

Shelly and Abby Littleton were average little girls. Twins, aged seven, born of rich, secular parents—they lived on the outskirts of a large town in the woods near a place where a stream ran free right alongside their home. They were, as most anyone could have described them, quite happy, and the best of friends. They had no animals, save for a few wild kittens that may or may not have been of domesticated descent, and they had not an ounce of electricity within their life. They played no games, watched no TV, listened to no music, the radio or any other sort of electronical device that could have, for lack of a better phrase, 'fried their brains stupid.' Their parents were quite clear on the fact that they were not going to evolve with the real world and therefore remain complacent in the past. So instead of turning to the electronical and the magical, the twins read of heroes and heroines for their entertainment. They helped their parents cook and clean, ran the property around their house and often pretended to be princesses in the small cabin home they lived within. Their lives were quite average, to anyone looking upon their situation, but there always comes a day in which the average becomes skewed—altered, distorted, changed and unraveled into a piece of violet tapestry upon which the whole world could be shrouded. It was because of this unrepairable law within not only the universe, but the world that one day, while running through the woods at the back of their home, Shelly and Abby Littleton came across something miraculous.

It began simply enough. With a game of tag, a promise of the last chocolate chip oatmeal cookie and the declaration that whoever won the game would get to blow out the candles that night, they set out from their starting position of their front steps and began their mad pursuit through the woods. Their routes memorized, their locations secure, their knowledge of plants and animals bad and abolishable more than clear within their minds, they took the route less travelled alongside the fast-running stream and made their way into the woods as deep as they possible could. Trees flying by, woodpeckers hammering in the distance, landlocked birds scattering when the girls ran forth and a few choice deer skittering along the bushes—quite realistically, it could be seen as magical: as a thing and place and time and moment in which nature became one with the real world and that little girls, who could not possibly be animals, could grow fangs and teeth and horns. It was for this effect that nature often has on little girls that Shelly and Abby Littleton began to make sounds like wild animals chasing after one another. Shelly would caw, flapping her arms like wings, while Abby would growl and jump through the air as if she were a cat hunting the bird Shelly so proclaimed to be. Their play seemed to be anything but of the real source, as the animals who looked upon these children would often stare in bewilderment before vanishing, but it was soon declared through their pursuit of the woods that something indeed was horribly wrong. Normally on such a day they would see many more animals—foxes, more deer, even the landlocked birds that they'd just scared before. On a day like this though, there was nothing at all and not a thing to disturb them.

Unbeknownst to the danger that could very well be within their midst, and unaware of the fact that they'd wandered much too far away from home and where their parents could easily find them, the twins continued forward through the forest and along the stream until they came across a range of rocks that bore within them a single rounded opening.

Upon seeing this, both the twins stopped and looked at the opening before them. Their parents had always said never to go into caves—that animals like wolves and bears and wild dogs often lived there—but based on past exploration of several mounds, hollow trees and nooks and crannies, there was but one solution to the problem of determining whether or not there was something in the cave. With little more than a shrug, Shelly Littleton crouched down, grabbed a handful of rocks, then began to hurl them at the opening in the side of the rock. Abby joined her sister soon after, and it was in doing this, and seeing that no animal was going to come out to investigate, that they exhausted their supply of ammunition and determined that there was absolutely not a thing in the world that would disturb them on their way.

The girls, unaware of what rested within the cave, ventured forth, hand-in-hand and feet shuffling the rocks beneath their feet.

It is not without punishment that little girls earn their rewards.

When they entered the cave, quite awestruck at the fact that it was so warm and even more bewildered by the fact that there seemed to be carvings on the wall, they began to look around the area directly before them and traced beneath their fingers the paintings in the wall. Some looked like people, others like dogs and cats, while some of the figures looked like nothing they had ever seen at all. They, instead, looked like monsters—like blobs of color so dark and faded they looked to be nothing more than spots of jelly upon a piece of very burnt toast and creatures like bugs who wove within their legs the fruits of labor. The girls examined these figures for a very long time, marveling over their ingenuity, before they noticed at the end of the tunnel something miraculous.

In the very near distance, the cave opened up once more—into, what appeared to be, another clearing, starkly-lit in vibrant white colors that made it look like the hottest day in the world.

"Should we go?" Abby asked.

"I don't know," Shelly replied, then frowned and added, "maybe we should go home."

"Why?"

"Because Mom and Dad will worry."

"We'll be back soon enough. Come on—let's go."

It was with utter trepidation that Shelly, the better-natured of the two, began to make her way deeper into the cave with her twin. No longer did they hold hands, nor did they stray close together in order to share the warmth and comfort of one another's body. Instead, they continued forward, toward the opposite side of the cave that opened up into a beautiful and marvelous world.

They knew not what they were stumbling into.

It just so happened that Shelly and Abby Littleton had found a bridge between the worlds.

They stepped out into the place called Wraethworld with no knowledge that they had left the real and physical world. They did, however, immediately pick up on the fact that this place was different—that the trees, much taller, were darker, and that the light, though vibrant above them, did not come from the sun, but instead something that glowed overhead. Both twins craned their heads up and saw directly above them what appeared to be glowing wire upon which trapeze artists could walk or balance or move or shake. It spanned the trees in perfect flushes, was thicker in some places than others, and appeared to be completely nondescript in regards to danger or anything supernatural. Neither of them were necessarily afraid, nor were they worried about getting home to their parents who were likely very troubled. Rather, they were mystified at what they saw before them—at the very things that looked so beautiful but also seemed so very haunting.

It was Shelly who made the first suggestion. "We should go," she said.

"Why?" her sister asked.

"It's... not right here."

Abby did not reply. She took a step forward and tested the ground beneath her feet, as if unsure of where she stood, then turned and spread her arms wide, as if she were about to fly. "There's nothing wrong here," the little girl said. "It's normal."

_Normal,_ Shelly thought, wasn't exactly the way to describe it. She could not for the life of her understand how it had become so dark all of a sudden, nor could she discern why the strands of what appeared to be wire glowed overhead. She'd only been to a circus once—had, with her mom, passed one outside town to meet one of her mom's friends—and though she hadn't particularly been paying attention to what was happening overhead, she knew for a fact that wires did not glow: unless, of course, there was electricity, a thing so foreign that she almost couldn't explain why she was thinking of it now. Were these wires, these things in the sky, made of electricity, or were they something else, something less _'normal'_ then her sister wanted her to believe?

It was in thinking this, and trying to figure out just what exactly was going on, that Shelly almost didn't realize it as it began to descend.

It was beautiful—far too beautiful for it to be stared at for too awfully long—and resembled a chandelier with many crystals hanging from its surfaces. From its rounded body protruded several branches upon which beads of light shined. These, Shelly knew, were its structure, its marvel, its mechanical purpose, and in looking at them and seeing them move, she began to wonder just what it was, as at that moment it appeared to be far too inspiring for it to be an animal or anything of the sort. The fact that it didn't move, merely dangled also didn't help its case, but when the tips of its branches began to move up and down, then forward, as though a fly twiddling beneath its forelegs a piece of debris, Shelly's eyes widened and her mouth dropped open in surprise. Her sister, meanwhile, merely stared, her face a portrait of disbelief and even more horrifying shock.

"What?" Abby asked.

"It... it... it..."

There was but one moment to say a word before the thing descended and took Abby within its branches.

Abby screamed.

Shelly looked on in horror as a pair of glistening white fangs descended into the back of her sister's neck.

Abby convulsed. Mouth frothing, eyes bulging, legs flailing spastically, arms twitching—her body became a choir of pain and her gaping mouth whispered cries that could not be heard but could easily be seen. The creature, whatever it may be, wrapped its forelegs around Abby's body and pulled her close to its body, then slowly retrieved its fangs from the back of her neck.

Before Shelly's very eyes, she watched as the creature took her sister into her arms and began to reel her back up, into the tapestry of what she now knew were webs above.

So horrified was Shelly by her sister's fate that she did not see a similar creature descending directly behind her.

A spark of pain entered her neck, then nothing.

Shelly and Abby Littleton entered Wraethworld on pure chance at the height of an amazing game.

They died for the mistakes they made.

* * *

**S.**

**The Fifth Interlude**

* * *

_There is an abstract notion that exists within many cultures around the world that there is an extrasensory perception that we develop over a series of time. This perception, that is said to be gifted to us from the moment we were born, is the innate aspect to dream. It is a subconscious mechanism defined by the rapid movement of eyelids when we are unconscious. It is, however, a fickle gift. Some dream constantly and are visited by fantastical images every night. Others never dream at all. It is for this reason, and more, that it is a constant struggle within the world of humanity—that dreams are sometimes called revelations, precognition, and that they are often called nothing more than fantasy._

_In our story, little Mary Matthews has conquered many things—the things on top of the hills with the red eyes, the one of many colors and the things that shined like a million pearls beneath the light. Each of these has posed a challenge to our heroine, and as such each has been impacted by the various ways of human senses. These beings are the creatures that are susceptible to such human behavior, but what is one to do when something cannot be defeated by mortal means? What if, by some odd chance, there are creatures within this place called Wraethworld that do not suffer from sound, from touch, from song? How is one to defeat such a thing if it has no vulnerable weakness?_

_This is the question that will confront Mary within the coming hours—when, after she leaves the forest and steps into an ever-sweeping plane, she will confront a being that takes the form of another._

_The greatest monsters in the world are the ones who are supposed to help us._

_Mary will learn this lesson soon enough._

* * *

**10.**

**The Sweeping Plains**

* * *

Like most everything within this world, the forest seems not to end. Always for the past night and the beginning of what she feels is today has she kept her eyes forward—not up, not down, not left or right, but directly forward and upon the path before her. She knows, both within her mind and heart, that should she look up, and should she dare lay her eyes upon the terrible beauties that lie in the webs above, they will come down and take her whole. This feeling of paranoia is great not only because of the fact that she has been here, but because she has heard the story of Shelly and Abby Littleton, of two girls who may have only been two years older than her but who both ended up in the exact same situation as she is in. Both were taken by the beautiful creatures, and though they'd both stopped to pause not only out of fear, but disbelief, they'd been captured by the very things that had hunted them so. It is, for this reason, and without regret, that Mary continues forward.

The path stretches before her endlessly.

Her body is tired. Her feet ache, her legs feel like pins upon a doll which has been stretched too far, her torso a Barbie that has been twisted and turned into unnatural positions. It is her body that hurts like an old man in a chair that rocks, but it is her mind that truly feels the pain. Her head feels as though it is a weight, her eyes the dumbbells that lie in the gym, and her mouth is parched. She should be unaware of this mortal pain she feels, of hunger and water, for she was told in the story of the little boys and girls who didn't know who they were that they need not feel such things within this world. It is different, it has been explained, and operates on a completely different level. She should be immune to such a thing.

In thinking these thoughts, Mary stops to consider something that has not crossed her mind until this instant.

What if she hasn't adapted to this world? What if, quite possibly, she has not been trapped here—that somewhere, in the distance or possibly nearby, there is a portal to the real world, to the place called Earth and the big blue world they live on?

The thought, as unexpected and warranted as it seems to be, thrills her to no end, so it is with haste that she begins to run forward, that her Mary Jane's click beneath her feet, that her dirty robin's-egg-blue dress shifts about her knees and her hair swings side to side like a monkey in a playpen. She is invincible in this moment, a man with an upside-down triangle and an S upon his chest, and it is for that that she feels no pain. There is nothing, in this moment—no sorrow, no hurt, no joy, no catastrophe or bliss. There is nothing at all, nothing except her and the road.

It seems like forever that she runs. Her feet above the ground, her mind within the air, her heart deep in her chest and her emotions flying high in the sky—she doesn't need to look anywhere but forward, for there is nothing above, below, to the left or to the right. Instead, there is only what is forward—light, it seems, that is not white, but golden, that is spilling across the horizon and lighting what appears to be the world before it.

Mary quickens her pace.

Her heart thunders within her chest.

Her lips are chapped.

Her feet feel like weights that are trying to wear her body down.

She begins to near the exit of what she knows is the Dark Forest.

Slowly, light begins to stream through the needles overhead.

She dares but one look up.

There are no webs, no creatures, no shadows or darkness that darkens the world and makes everything appear solemn and hollow. There is nothing, she sees—nothing except green needles, the dead branches of trees, and the light that is shining through the foliage alive and dead above.

Her heart begins to soar. Had it a will, she imagines, and a purpose capable of action, it would have flown out of her chest and toward the place that it would likely call home.

She breaks free of the forest.

Her heart stops beating.

It is a plain that extends forever into the distance. There are no trees, no shrubs, no foliage to speak of and the grass on the ground is pale and yellow. It seems to merge with the road in places, like creeping hands extending forward as if reaching out to embrace the dirt which makes the path through this world, but eventually tapers out before it can get there. It is but an illusion, she knows—nothing more than a trick of the eye—but the fact that the grass is high in the distance, much like the poppies were before when in the fields, doesn't settle her conscience any.

With tears of joy in her eyes for the fact that she is no longer beneath a canopy of creatures that could descend at any moment and feed on her, Mary collapses to her knees and cries as though she has never cried before.

Shortly after, she falls forward.

Her head spins.

Her world becomes shallow.

Everything goes dark.

* * *

She wakes in darkness.

Her first recollection when she opens her eyes is that it was all a dream—that her trek through the poppies, her journey into the forest and her encounter with the beautiful creatures made of millions of sparking pearls was nothing more than a carnival of activity inside her brain, a menagerie in which all the animals have been let out and the circus has been destroyed. This recollection, and the feelings that come with it, are what force Mary to raise her head, and it is this combination of several factors that forces her to her feet and makes her look around. There is, like she has come to know, no moon in this world, and there is no grey haze within the air that allows her to see her surroundings. Instead, there is only darkness, pure and absolute, that extends forever and beyond. There are no things with red eyes on the distant horizon, as there are no hills for them to stand upon, and though she is very near the forest there is no light that emanates from the darkness. She could be on the surface of a rock far, far away and not see a single thing. No flag, no debris, no construct of which brought them to a place where man first stepped down, when it was first one small step for man but one giant leap for mankind—nothing would be there, in this place of rock and ash, and it is nothing here and now that exists within this world.

It is in standing here, looking out at the darkened world, that Mary once again grows afraid.

How much longer will it be until the sun rises—when, from the left side of the world, the ball of light within the sky brings forth the radiance that spills over the world? And how long, she wonders, has she been asleep? Her body aches as though she has been sick for several days, and her head is clouded, filled to the brim with muck, and though there is no snot within her nose, there seems to be a pressure there, slowly blooming like an orchid plagued with spots that call it a tiger. These things alone should be warrant enough of the fact that she has been asleep for a very long time, but how long exactly? A few hours, a day, a week, maybe even a month—at this rate, it is hard to determine, but regardless her throat is still parched and her stomach still rumbles for food.

With a brief shake of her head, Mary takes a step forward.

Dirt crunches beneath her feet.

A faint gust of wind brings to her nose the scent of water.

Looking up, Mary seeks for the clouds and the lightning in the sky that should be spilling from them. They should be there, in the distance, forming slowly like ants to a piece of candy, but they are not, so far as she can see. Then again, if she honestly thought about it, she wouldn't be able to see anything in this lack of light, especially not clouds. But lightning—she would for sure see that. A glimmer of hope, an arc of reason, a trust of nature and a sign of God—it is but one light in the sky that she needs to see to heal her heart, to marry her mind, to secure her judgment, but there is none. In that regard, it would seem as though she is alone, that no God or Gods or nothing exists within the air, but something tells her that she is wrong: very, very wrong.

Standing there, waiting for the rain to come and for the wind to settle, Mary begins to cry.

Why her?

Why was she chosen to save the little girl who looks like a fish?

* * *

She loses track of time sometime during the night. When she can't be sure, as beneath a moonless and starless sky there is no wish or sign for time and surprise, but that does not necessarily matter. Forward she continues, not once looking back or to the left or right, as within the middle of the road she knows the path will continue, stretching forth endlessly and through the plains that she has seen but the day before. There is nothing to stop her.

When it begins in the sky, it weaves its thread through her heart and her mind anew.

It begins slowly. First it ascends the horizon in shades of blue that seems to spill like ink across a piece of parchment, then it begins to bleed as though cut and sliced by a dagger. Slowly, carefully, meticulously oozing across the horizon, pink turns from blue and red from pink, then orange begins to overpower everything and wastes forth all that has come before it. It is only then, and truly then, that the orb begins to rise—that the king has ascended, that the queen has fallen, that tyranny has ruled all and monarchy has collapsed within the world. The dogs are running and the women crying, the children sobbing and the reindeer falling from the sky. The peasants are killed within the streets and the ugly men are theirs to keep. It is horrible, she thinks, this act of self-deprivation, but oh so beautiful, and it brings her happiness that she could have never possibly imagined.

Before her the yellowed plains are revealed in splendid glory. The grass glows gold.

Empowered by the very thing she knows that fuels most, if not every part of the world, Mary stretches her arms over her head, arches her back and lets forth but one single sigh from between her lips.

It is here, and now, that she can continue—forward, into the world that she knows may swallow her whole should she begin to doubt herself.

With one step, Mary begins into the plains.

* * *

A growing sense of dread begins to pound itself upon her conscience as the day continues and the sun crosses the sky. It begins with a depression that slowly and seamless begins to coalesce her being, first by swallowing her mind with a maw of unease, then by escalating the nerves within her heart to a fever pitch. Several times, her skin stands on end and gooseflesh rises across her arms. Added to this are the unconscious tears she sheds, which swim down her face and eventually drip down her jawline and to the ground below. Together, these things create a portrait of terror that seems needed only for the most desperate of situations—for the things with red eyes on the hills, the one with many colors and the things that sparkled like a million tiny pearls. Why she feels this way she can't be sure, as throughout the entirety of her time in Wraethworld she hasn't felt any form of emotion like this. It could only, she imagines, harbor ill intentions.

Pausing in midstride, Mary turns her attention to the distance and the continuing, rolling plains that extend across the horizon.

The road goes on forever. It sometimes winds in peculiar patterns, much like rivers do when rain is spilled and there is no dry land to catch it, while at others it simply continues straightforward—like here, where she stands looking upon the world and all its glory. This fact, and the reality that there is nothing before her, makes her wonder just how she is going to continue forward and just where, if anywhere, this fish girl could be. She smelled water last night—when, after she woke, she began to cross the plains—but that didn't necessarily mean that there was an ocean or any place of water where fish girls or people could live. Wind drove home scents of smoke and ash, of rain and pain and oceans and salt, could do so for several miles or even vast distances at a time. But if that were the case, and if she had indeed smelled water on the wind, that had to mean it had come from the left—where, in the vast nothing before her, the plains continued on with no breaks or dips in land whatsoever.

Her teeth sink into her lower lip.

Her heart begins to flutter like a butterfly in her chest.

Her stomach convulses, seems to flip, then settles back into place with a growl.

Frowning, Mary turns her attention back to the road and tries not to imagine just how much further she has to go. Surely something will lead her in the right direction or show her just where it is she will be going, and if that's the case, then something will have to reveal itself eventually and guide her forward. This world, though seemingly simple, is far too complex to simply allow her to wander down a road. Such a thing is only a precursory attempt to instill within whoever wanders here a sense of hopelessness that there is nothing when, in reality, there is much here. A world like this can't repeat itself more than once, can it?

Unable to know and not sure if she wants to, Mary takes a step forward, then locks her hands at her sides, tangling her fingers in her dress and trying her hardest to maintain control of the unsurety that threatens to send her into another crying fit.

She's been here for at least three days now—alone, lost, and without companionship or protection. What will her family think if not fear, torment, pain and agony? She was not captured, was not forcibly coerced into coming into this world or even given the suggestion as to what, if anything, she was supposed to do. She had nothing more than a dream that, to her, could have been nothing more than a dream—a vision, one could say, of monstrous proportions—so for anyone to believe that she had been taken by a man with a gun would have been wrong. The knowledge that she is here, mostly-unharmed but still emotionally-damaged, should be settling, at least in her mind, but how is her family to know that she is in a different place within a different time in a completely different world?

Once more the idea that she will not be able to get out of this world enters her mind.

She will not cry—not here, not now, not in such a vulnerable position.

She steels her mind and forces herself forward.

Something begins to sound behind her.

Thinking that she is hearing things, Mary turns.

There is nothing in the near distance.

Once again she continues forward.

The sound grows louder—more audible, more eager. It sounds like the sirens from a police car blaring on the street, but surely there can't be a policeman or his police car here, as that would be far too normal for this world.

Believing that it is nothing more than her imagination playing tricks on her, Mary clenches her fists together until the knuckles on her fingers begin to pop, which sound like gunfire like on TV when the cops take down the robbers holding the people hostage.

The sound continues to escalate. It rings in Mary's ears.

Her eyes begin to water.

A series of small rubber honking sounds enter her consciousness.

Mary turns.

There are two little girls with bright blonde hair and regular nondescript clothes riding bicycles on the side of the road. They are, as Mary would describe them, quite happy, and at the front of each of their bikes is a cart that appears to hold a lunchbox of some kind. The idea of food and water, of juice and sandwiches makes her mouth water, to the point where, upon seeing them, Mary begins to falter. She wants to cry out and ask for them to stop—for them to pull over so she can have a little bit of their food—but a part of her tells her that something is not, in the clarity of the situation, right. Why, she tries to imagine, are there two little girls like her in this world, and why, she can't figure out, are they riding bikes? Did they come in on them like girls atop the mightiest of ponies, or did they find them somewhere? And what about the lunchboxes—did they come in with them as well, or what? No matter how hard she tries to look past the situation—to hope and feel and love and grace the fact that there are two little girls that look just like her—she cannot rest easy with the fact that they have suddenly showed up.

In light of this new and terrifying situation, Mary grounds herself in place and looks upon the two girls that are slowly riding alongside the road.

The little girls in nondescript clothes continue to pedal their bikes until—at the brink of it all, near where they are at the side of the road—they stop and consider Mary for the first time since they have appeared on the horizon. Both are blonde, blue-eyed, pale-skinned. There is nothing remarkable about either of them, not even down to the way they've dressed, but in looking upon the two of them, Mary can't help but wonder if these little girls really are what they appear to be. If her mind has its own way, she imagines they are nothing like little girls—that beneath it all, the skin and clothes and hair and eyes, they are really ugly creatures who look like blobs of jelly that eat everything in their path. Such a thing isn't entirely impossible, considering that she is here, in Wraethworld, but a horrible and uncalculated part of her wants to believe that the two little girls might actually be someone who can help her.

No longer willing to deny herself the pleasure or the possibility that something right could come of this, Mary steps forward.

The two little girls stare.

As Mary reaches the side of the road, no more than a few short feet from where they sit atop their bikes, the two little girls descend to their feet and begin to make their way toward Mary.

The three of them are two ships bound for a harbor but unable to control their notions. Their captain is dead, their crew drunk, their controls off-kilter and their courses set and determined—they are full of people and in each of those people is a soul that longs for safety. This safety, however, is not possible, as when set forward and calculated two things cannot be torn apart, and as each of them draw closer—she, Mary, and they, the two little girls—a sense of haste is inspired within Mary's body. It's as though she is sitting at a table in a restaurant with an idea so great it could change the world. It is as though, at any given moment, something horrible will happen, and it is in such a moment that the ships begin to draw closer. Their sirens are ablaze, the people are abrupt, the world as they know it is a giant constellation in which everything is drawn without lines or colors—they are on a course bound for destruction and there is nothing neither party can do about it.

When both Mary and the little blonde girls stand no more than a few feet away from one another, the little girls raise their hands and wave. Both do so at the same time.

Mary frowns.

"Hello," they say, both at the same time.

"Are you hungry?" the one on the left asks.

"You look hungry," the one on the right adds. "Here—eat with us."

Before Mary even has a chance to respond in any way, the little girls turn and walk the few short feet back to their bikes—where, there, they both bend down at the same time and retrieve the lunch boxes within their carts at the exact same moment. Each of their motions is fluid—mimicking, Mary could have described, the most exquisite of behaviors—and they both move in the exact same way as the other. Even their steps, usually not so easily synchronized, are balanced, and each moves forward with their lunch boxes swinging at the exact same in the exact same way. They blink together, their smiles expand across their faces in the same fluid motion, and their fingers even tighten accordingly around their lunch boxes at the exact same time. It takes but a moment for the two of them to come forward together, at the exact same time, and when Mary blinks, they, in turn, do the same. Their smiles falter and their lips close together, then they fall to their knees and beckon Mary down with them with but a single flush of their hands.

"Eat with us," the one on the left says.

"We have sandwiches," the one on the right adds. "And orange juice."

Orange juice: how great that would taste; and sandwiches: how amazing it would feel to have something solid and filling within her mouth. Mary's mouth once more begins to salivate at the thought, but like before, she feels as though something is wrong—that once again these little girls are no more than gelatinous blobs that cross the countryside and swallow any and everything whole. This form and notion is enough to make her feel that it would be wrong in joining the two of them to eat, but she is so hungry—so very, very hungry. Her stomach rumbles and her throat feels more parched than ever.

Would it hurt, she wonders, to eat just one little piece of sandwich, to drink one small sip of orange juice?

Mary takes a few steps backward, then turns.

"We can wait," the little girls say.

Their monotonous voices are haunting in the warm afternoon day.

While Mary begins to look out at the distant horizon on the right side of the world, trying her hardest not to say anything or to respond to the little girls behind her, she hopes to find a message upon the sky that will allow her to decide just what it is she is supposed to do. She surely can't eat with them—that would be far too convenient—but could she possibly just abandon them by lying and saying that she is not hungry, that she feels not the need to eat or drink or sleep? The idea is very probable, and in standing there she believes very evenly that she can do it, but what of the little girls on their little red bikes and their little red lunch boxes? Will they follow her to the ends of this world, to the Heavens and Hells that exist within this place called Wraethworld, or will they simply disappear to wherever they've come from?

In thinking these things, Mary hears the little girls rise behind her.

"Give us a moment," the little girls say.

When they turn to return to their bikes—likely, she thinks, to fetch something more—Mary turns, falls and opens the first lunch box on her left.

The meal looks exquisite. A sandwich, a cookie, a small plastic bottle of orange juice—it is a lunch that she has been dreaming about since the first day, when her stomach first began to rumble and her throat began to feel dry and without any moisture: a thing that, though simple, is remarkably-beautiful in purpose. It is, without any consequence, a magical thing, but as such is ordained by the laws of nature, both human and not, there is an evil that exists within it, and it is in a small little vial that clearly has marked upon its surface a skull and crossbones symbol that signifies death. Mary knows this because she has seen it before—when, in school, and visiting Mama Grandma at the hospital, items with such notices were warned away with a single sign: a single black or red skull and crossbones that, even to little children such as herself, spell things worse than simple punishment.

In looking upon this vial, and in seeing the little girls with blonde hair and blue eyes in the distance, Mary knows in her heart and mind that there will soon be trouble coming if she is not careful.

With that thought process firmly grounded in her head, Mary takes the small vial with the skull and crossbones and uncorks it, then takes the orange juice and pours it in.

A sizzling sound rises from within the bottle of orange juice.

Mary opens the other lunch box and pours the other vial of poison into the other bottle of orange juice, then takes both vials of poison within her hand and tosses them off the road, into the tall grass that stands in the distance waving like friends to one another.

Soon after she has committed her act, the little girls come back. "Oh," they say. "Are you ready to eat?"

Mary nods.

The little girls fall to their knees and begin to unwrap their sandwiches.

It is with grace and dignity that she could never possibly imagine after committing what will soon be an act of dangerous proportions that Mary takes half of each of their sandwiches and begins to eat. The ham, the cheese, the tomato, the white sauce that she thinks may be mayonnaise but isn't quite sure—all are exquisite within her mouth, within her throat and then, after swallowing, within her stomach. She soon accepts a half of each of the little girls' cookies, as they seem to know that she is hungry, and she devours them hungrily, the oats, the chocolate, the peanut butter and all. It is, however, with regret that she shakes her head when they offer their orange juice, as taking a drink would surely spell death.

The little girls tilt their heads back and drink with plenty.

Mary sighs.

It is in but a moment that they both begin to convulse.

They are like dogs, trembling on the ground with their hands around their necks and their eyes bulging out of their sockets, as from their mouths come froth the color of orange juice that bubbles from between their lips and pours down their necks. They twitch, they spasm, they roll, they gargle—it is without mercy as Mary watches them that she sees in their faces portraits of madness and evil. When their eyes turn from the color of blue to pitch-black darkness that flowers their whole sclera in both eyes and their nostrils expand far too wide for two little girls they are revealed to be something else—more, Mary knows, than little girls on little red bikes with their little red lunchboxes. They are, instead, monsters: creatures whom, by all definition, have taken the form of innocence in order to prey on those who really, truly are.

In standing there, watching the little girls who aren't little girls die, Mary begins to cry.

A siren begins to blare.

She looks up.

It barrels from down the road and begins to fly right toward her.

Mary turns and begins to run, but it is without purpose, as soon it is upon her at the side of the road near very where she has killed the two little girls who are not little girls. It is a creature of monstrous proportions, of metal and agony, with two bright eyes that shine at the front of its person and two dorsal constructs that flash the colors of pain and serenity overhead. It is hollow inside, much like all transportable constructs, and within its driver's side compartment is a man wearing a police uniform. He is fat, he is bald, he has a thick mustache that resembles a handlebar and a double chin. There is drool down his chin and fire in his eyes, a hat on his head and a badge on his breast, and it is swiftly that he transitions from the side of the path onto the very road before her, that he begins to rev his engine up as if it is a purpose of terror that is meant only to scare little girls who have only done the right things to save themselves. It roars, like a lion, and charges forth, toward her and the place of which can only be described as madness.

When it comes far too close for comfort, Mary jumps.

She sails through the air.

She covers her eyes just like her daddy once told her.

She lands, on the ground, in a fit of rolls that scrape her skin and send her skirting through the tall grass on the right side of the road. She could have screamed, were she given the opportunity to, but the fact that she may so very easily die here, in this very moment, keeps her silent.

The police car continues on for several more feet, propelled forward by its engine and the parts within it, before it stops completely.

Mary freezes in place. Knees screaming, joints throbbing, she remains as still as possible and breaths only through her nose.

Things seem to be calm—perfect, even, despite everything that seems to be going wrong.

Then it happens. The siren stops blaring, the lights stop shining, and the horrible growl that emanates from this creature's metal throat dies altogether.

Ahead, a door opens, then closes.

Mary purses her lips.

"You've been a bad little girl," the policeman says, and while Mary can barely see him through the thick and high grass, she can make out the fact that he is rounding the vehicle with ease that seems chilling—calculated, even, despite the fact that he, like the little girls, is probably a monster made of gelatinous nothing. "Come out, come out wherever you are."

The man's high-heeled boots come down on the ground with a crunch that Mary imagines will be her bones should he come anywhere near her.

While the policeman continues to round the side of the vehicle, each foot crunching dirt beneath its surface as if it is a giant walking across the grandest of plains, Mary's breath soon becomes even—slow, surly and almost impossible to imagine. She at first tries to control her breath, as she feels it will do her better in the long run if she can at least maintain a grasp on her bodily functions, but it soon becomes apparent that she cannot do any such thing. Even her eyes—which, up until this point, have not faltered—begin to weep. Thankfully her nose is almost always good at keeping the snot away for the first few minutes, otherwise she would start sniffling, a thing any good policeman would surely catch.

_Do not be afraid,_ Mama Grandma said.

She will not be afraid—not for herself, not for her family, and especially not for the policeman who seems so intent on making her feel as though she is small and helpless.

The policeman with the big black boots shifts, then turns his body to the side. Mary sees within his hand a gun much like the one Adil Amna had when she first entered this world.

A thought occurs to her soon after.

Did this policeman, like the two little blonde girls, come into this world the same way she did? And did he, she wonders, take Picarazio's gun? Unable to know and desperate to maintain her anonymity, Mary hunkers down and presses herself as flat to the ground as possible. It seems to work, as when he turns the policeman's eyes do not linger on the place where she is hidden, but how long will she be able to keep this up? She can't move, she can't breathe, she can't fall asleep, for surely if she does any of these things the grass will move and the policeman will see where she is going. Added to this danger is the possibility of the grass rustling. It is not green, but dead—yellowed and pale. Surely it would make a noise if she were to try and crawl away, like an old cat yowling when it has not been given its milk, but even if she could, where would she go from there—to the right of the world, where she knows there is nothing but an open plain, or forward, where she could very likely get caught by the policeman?

Before Mary has the chance to continue pondering on her horrible ultimatum, the policeman grunts.

Mary turns her eyes up.

From her place in the bushes she can see that he is changing. Much like the little girls whose eyes turned from blue to black and whose nostrils flared like a bull's, the policeman's face begins to become an art of destruction. His jaw extends, slopes down, drops until his upper and lower lip are a good fist-length apart, and his skin begins to pale. It first pales to a shade of grey, then black, then putrefies until it becomes a sickly green. The gun in the officer-thing's hand drops to the dirt below while his legs begin to lengthen, soon turning him into a titan of epic proportions. Mary desperately hopes and prays that the officer-thing will not see her as he grows, as in her current position she is highly likely to be discovered within the grass, but it isn't long after that the policeman uniform begins to tear and break. Muscles vast and expansive bulge up along the thing's chest and arms and eventually gives way for the same green skin that looks so grotesque. It isn't, however, the skin that scares Mary. Instead, it is the eyes that turn and look across the vast plain that frighten her to no end—those deep, dark pits of nothing that seem to speak of everything and more at once. _I am here,_ the thing's eyes seem to say, _for you._

"Come out little girl," the creature says, its voice now so deep it hurts Mary's chest to listen to it. "Come out, come out wherever you are, or I'll huff and puff and blow your house down."

Her house, Mary thinks? That's ridiculous. She is in no house, no place of protection or warrant or respect. No. She is here, in the grass, trying her best not to run or crawl or even die.

It is in but a moment that the monster's body stops lengthening and it stands as tall as a giraffe. Its hands—long, bone-thin and with sickly appendages upon its fingers—flush through the air and its jaw grinds together, making a clicking noise much like some large bug would if unsure of its current position.

Mary holds her breath and begins to count as slowly as she can.

One-one-thousand, two-one-thousand, three-one-thousand...

She has learned from experience that it takes but one moment for things to change—that for every time a little boy drops a dime a person on the other side of the world enters a place where monsters are real and where prison is but a laughing matter; that a kitten skips along the side of the street and encounters a rat that it soon becomes friends with; that a little girl, dressed in a school-day's best, walks along the side of the road with her class only to discover upon happenstance the entrance to a world that is horrible in all respects and nature. It is for that reason, and that reason alone, that in hiding within the grass—in hoping, praying and wishing that this creature of monstrous proportions will go away—she begins to wonder just whether or not she will make it out alive.

Her short life flashes before her eyes.

Her mommy, her daddy, her Mama Grandma and all the cousins and friends—she will never see them again, she knows, because in but a single moment the thing with the sickly skin and the horrible black eyes will find and destroy her.

With a short exhale of air, Mary closes her eyes as tightly as she could.

Her mommy once said that monsters can't get you if you closed your eyes as tightly as you could.

Mary begins to hope.

The inside of her skull throbs, her cheeks expand, her eyes begin to water and within her head a pain beautiful and visceral begins to spiral before her conscious matter as if it is a flower woven with beads and sweat and tears. There is yarn, she knows, that connects it, that has not been chewed by kittens or puppies or any of the magical things in the world, and it is this yarn that has not been touched by the witches—by the evil kids and all their ditches. There is nothing here, she knows, but good, and in seeing it spiral before her, all her pain disappears in but an instant. There is nothing that can stop her, nothing at all—not even the monster with the green skin and pitch-black eyes—and it is with that she knows that everything will be ok, that there are no golden wires and no scissors of which to cut the world asunder, no hags that will laugh and no dogs that will cry. It is, purely and simply, the reason she knows she can continue on.

When Mary opens her eyes, she expects to see a world magical—a place where, though the grass is dead, the innocent run free and the terrors are exiled from the world. What she sees instead, however, destroys her world, her freedom and her cause.

The thing that is as tall as a giraffe with the green skin and the pitch-black eyes has found where she has hidden and now leans forward with its back hunched and its neck elongated to the point where it seems as though it is a piece of putty that has been stretched to all infinity. Whether or not it can see her Mary does not know, as within its black eyes she can see no film which could reveal its problems and the things of which are blind. It does, however, seem to smell her, as its nostrils expand constantly and without apprehension. Even its mouth—which, in this instance, seems not to beckon any real sense of gravity—shifts. Saliva drips from its lips and its teeth gnashes through its gnarled flesh. It smells of death and destruction, of children lost and of rabbits sworn. Most importantly, it smells of carrion and of birds on swift wings—of buzzards in the air sweeping down from within the deserts in far-away lands to eat the things that have been killed on the road.

In looking into the horrible creature's eyes and seeing nothing but hopeless abandon, Mary can't help but wonder whether or not she will be able to move—if, by any slight whatsoever, she will be able to run before the thing that was once the fat, bald and handle-mustached police officer can eat her.

Mary purses her lips.

The thing tilts its head to the side, then parts its lips. A single, long tongue, dripping-wet with bile the color of pale honey slides forth and affixes itself to the side of her face.

She whimpers.

The thing laughs.

The tongue's suction-cupped tip pulsates along her cheek.

Closing her eyes, Mary begins to dream.

She sees within her head the thing that is standing before her slowly but surely walking away. Its tongue retracts, slides back into its mouth, is caught between its teeth and freed from its mortal prison in a splash of blood. It screams, a sound of agony and pain, reaches up to embrace its jaws, trips backward, hits its head on the ground. It lets out a mighty groan of which shakes the world and makes the grass trip and falter and eventually begins to die down—loudly, but quickly, as if it were impaled by a sword and not truly killed by the rock which its head has fallen upon. It takes but a few moments for the thing's life to eclipse its body and escape into the air above. Its eyes flicker one last time before, beneath its head, a sickly matter begins to spread and kill all the grass around it. It is like the bird that took the little boys and girls who didn't know who they were—a deathly omen which, with a single touch, can destroy everything around it. It is this dream, and hope, that spurs Mary on—that makes her open her eyes to see whether or not her wishes have come true—and it is this moment that seems will destroy the world and all its entirety.

When Mary opens her eyes for but a second time, she sees before her the image of which has played within her head. The thing stumbles back, its tongue goes free, its body goes down and its head strikes the rock which seems ancient, of magical proportions that can kill on contact and spread within the world the essence of which is the end of things alive and willing.

The king is dead, she thinks, as she looks upon the body of the slain, and he no longer bears his crown.

Rising to her feet in a fit of agony caused not by pain but sorrow, fear and just, Mary stumbles out of the high grass and back onto the road to find the police car still standing in place, its dorsal lights still shining and its eyes still beaming into the distance.

Maybe, she thinks, she can take refuge in the vehicle tonight.

Slowly, she begins to remember.

_Never sleep in a car that's running,_ her mother once said.

The gas was said to kill.

It is with grief and sadness, of youth and inexperience that Mary begins to walk forward—toward, what she imagines, is the great nothing before her.

* * *

**11.**

**The Great Nothing**

* * *

It expands endlessly and without any need. It is lost—a treasure which the queen has abandoned and knights have searched for time and time again—and it is without purpose that it is never to be found. There are no men with sights and glasses, with pins and needles or shovels or picks; there is no longing, no just, no mortality or virtuous lust. There is no greenery here, no trees to bear the fruit, and there is no life that seems to exist beyond her sides. The grass is long and dead, like girls on islands shaking their hips, and there are no shrubs which sprout from the ground like giant mushrooms that little men could sit on and laugh all day. There are no birds, no salamanders, no butterflies to grace the afternoon sky. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, in this great place of marvels and wonders, and it is for this that, while walking, Mary begins to cry.

For each moment that passes her hope grows worthless.

There is nothing here—nothing at all.

She has long since passed the terrain where she has left behind both the little girls in nondescript clothing and the bald, fat and handlebar-mustached man that turned into the thing that looked like a giraffe. No longer can she see the eyes of the mechanical construct that beam out into the afternoon and light the road before her, nor can she smell the ocean that so comforted her last night. She imagines that, come nightfall, she will be able to turn and see the eyes that beam into the darkness. She does not know if she will be able to smell the ocean though. She imagines not, as it seems in this great nothing there is no respite. For that, there appears no reason to continue forward.

It takes but the span of a breath for Mary to stop in the middle of a road, then a second for her to collapse to the ground—crying, uncontrollably, for a purpose that seems hopeless and punishing.

In the middle of the road she cries as though she has never cried before. Her eyes puffy, her lips trembling, her teeth chattering within her mouth as if she is in the cold and waiting for her mommy to come get her—there is nothing innocent about the situation, about the cause and about the need, for she is nothing more than a little girl in a big big world which seems to want to swallow her whole. Already she has passed the green plains, the great hills, the descending fields of poppies and traversed through the forest of darkness, and in each of these places she has faced monsters which could have eaten her alive. It is here, however, within the great nothing, that things seem lost—that purpose, as magnificent as it was, is divine, and reason, as needed as it may be, is all but gone. There is only one road to walk, but many paths to take; there are but two fields of dead grass that extend forever and beyond, hopelessly wishing for the things that need be present; and for all her longing—for all her prayers and sorrow—there are but two shoes upon her feet, those of which are likely to fall apart if she is to continue this venture. She has been clumsy, she knows, and very unpractical. She has fallen, she has ran, she has walked without looking and has paced as though there is everything in this world worth waiting for. It is for this reason she cries, that as she sits in the middle of the road she wishes to die, and for that, it seems, her intent is lost.

There is nothing here, she knows—nothing but two great, wide plains and one long, winding road.

In thinking about such things, everything seems hopeless.

She might as well give up now.

The overhead sun is cast in shades of gold and white that, to look at it, blinds Mary not of sight, but thought. In staring at the creation that lights the world above, that makes the world grow warm and which brings about on Earth the plants and the animals that propagate it so, she feels no harm, no pain, no gravity, no shame. She feels absolutely nothing at all in looking at this thing of two single colors, this thing of one single name. It should have been apparent to anyone who saw such a thing that it was a sign—a moment of purpose and a sign of clarity—but most ordinary people would have never seen such a thing. Mary imagines this to be true because such testaments to nature are noticed far too often and given far too little acknowledgement. The sun, she knows, comes up each and every day to light the world, to feed the plants, to grace the animals, and it falls each evening to give way to rest of which men and women and children would not normally have. The world offers air for them to breathe, food for them to eat, friends for them to cherish and people for them to love. Such things, when given thought, are quite magnificent, but it is without regret that most normal people forget; so in looking at the sun overhead that, to Mary, lights this beautiful and marvelous and horrible place called Wraethworld, she feels within her body a message of perseverance that could very well have been misplaced had she not the opportunity to look upon it.

_Go,_ this message says. _She is waiting for you._

When Mary rises to her feet to dust off both her shoes and her dress, she knows that she can continue forward.

For Mommy, for Daddy, for Mama Grandma and for the long-gone Miss Kitty—she will go forward, into the abyss, and conquer any monster that stands in her way.

* * *

She walks until night has fallen and her feet have begun to hurt. She tests beneath her heels the impact of earth and feels along her flesh bumps and ridges that were not there the day before. They hurt and burn, as if she has just cut her hand open and allowed the blood to run free, and make walking terribly agonizing if she truly concentrates on the wounds that placate her body. It is because of this that once more, for almost no reason, she begins to cry—not because she is afraid, and not because she is in more pain than she can handle, but because it once more seems hopeless.

Though she has no clock or way to tell the time that has passed, she knows she has been walking for a long time—far, far too long for any normal person to have endured it, much less than a little girl.

With her heart depressed within her chest and her stomach rumbling likely because it now wants more food, Mary settles down in the middle of the road and starts to cross her legs, but stops when her knees protest the effort by sending spikes of pressure into her thighs.

She sighs.

The wind skirts along the land from the left. As she expects, there is no smell of the ocean, no salt or water which could assure her that she is heading in the right direction. That in itself should have given her cause for defeat, as she is more than significantly sure that she is supposed to go to where the water is wide for her to rescue the little girl that looks like a fish, but she decides before her thoughts can force her to tears that she is doing the right thing in following the path. All roads, her daddy once said, lead to somewhere. They can sometimes lead to a friend's house, to a community park, oftentimes toward a school. They can lead to where waters cross beneath a bridge and where cities and boundaries begin and end. Most importantly, they eventually lead somewhere. Where that somewhere is in this world Mary doesn't know. She feels, however, that if she continues walking, and if she continues forward with only occasional pause, that something will soon begin to rise in the distance, thus marking her path through Wraethworld and, ultimately, to rescue the little girl who looks like a fish.

Though she knows she is a vast distance away from where she has abandoned the bodies of the little girls in nondescript clothing and the thing that looked like a giraffe she can still see, in the distance, the police car's eyes radiating their light across the road. They look, from here, like candles in a living room, constantly flickering likely because the vehicle is dying and will soon no longer be able to sustain itself on the electricity and gasoline that surely has to run through it. The thought is enough to console her—given the fact that, soon, she will have nothing to worry about from the dead policeman and his running car—but also intimidates her, as she will soon no longer have light.

With a frown, Mary spreads out along the middle of the road and blinks, trying to discern within the sky the film of grey or white that before had allowed her the luxury of making out shapes. When she finds no difference, however, she caves to her body's desires and once more closes her eyes.

Candles can flicker out in but an instant.

Like those candles, Mary's consciousness grinds to a slow halt soon after.

Then she begins to dream.

* * *

There is but one shining beacon of hope the following day as first the sun comes up and then as it crosses throughout the sky. It is in the form of something flickering on the horizon. Tall, distant, with a peak which seems to resemble a mountain but is shadowed over not by fog or mist but seemingly by the sky itself—it twinkles within the air like a falling star slowly eclipsing the horizon and plummeting into a grand desert on the planet Earth and beckons any and every to look upon it. The sight alone inspires within Mary a sense of accomplishment that she feels, in that instant, is merited. Given how long she's walked and how far she's come, it's any wonder that she hasn't collapsed dead either from lack of food or water. Like this world, however, she is strange—foreign, obsolete, needed in a grand scope of things but not the matter of justification—and for that the forces that be have seemed to allow her but the time to cross the great nothing to eventually make her way toward what she feels is the very end of the world. How she knows this is, pure and simple, _the end_ she isn't sure. It's a feeling trembling throughout her being like a great shiver after a nasty insect has crossed the surface of one's spine. There is first the initial shock that comes from the base of the neck, then the rolling wave that eclipses the spine until, finally, it hits the tailbone—where, there, it all seems to make sense. If that isn't reason enough for her to feel as though this twinkling in the sky is something remarkable then she isn't sure what is.

It is during the midafternoon half of the day—when, in the distance, the twinkling continues only occasionally—that Mary begins to quicken her pace. Her feet are pinwheels upon which the flesh is torn and the nerves spun aplenty, her breath a wheel in which many hamsters run, but still she continues forward. She eventually is able to ignore the pain completely and begins to go as fast as she can—sprinting, it seems, like the fastest animal in the world: a cheetah, which can only do so once every few days in order to catch the gazelle. Unlike that cheetah, however, Mary has no need to catch a gazelle. It is for that reason that she is able to keep running for a very, very long time, as her body—her chest, her legs, her knees and her poor haggard feet—allows her to do so without penance.

Anyone with any slight rationale in this world would have imagined such a feat impossible—that little girls, as worn and destroyed as they were, would not be able to run after a near five-days' worth of travel without sustenance. Given that this world is strange, though, and that gifts of plenty are bestowed upon those who survive their initial encounters with the demons of this place, it seems perfectly obvious that she would be able to run as she is in this instance.

She continues forward in her awesome journey for a great part of the day, never tiring, never slowing, never stopping to catch a breath as one is never wasted and they are always replenished. The sun, as always, crosses overhead. There are no clouds to block it, no birds to fly across its expanse and no butterflies to mar its surface. The grass, while dead, continues to shake, and the wind, though slight, is always present. This seems to make it apparent that whatever is in the distance is not, in any way, shape or form, a mountain or any other treacherous formation that could block the wind. This pleases her to no end, as it seems in possibly a day or so she will have reached the place she is supposed to go. She will find the ocean, save the fish girl and possibly enter a castle in which a kind man lives to offer her shelter and a way back home.

With a smile beaming across her face, Mary continues to push herself forward.

Things seem perfectly reasonable up until an undetermined moment—when, in but an instant, something happens.

She loses control of her footing.

She falls.

She lands in the dirt and goes sprawling forward.

Her lip, cut by rocks, begins to bleed.

Mary looks up.

It appears in but an instant.

It is not a mirage that was made by water or a constellation of glowing lights in the sky, a trick of the light that could have resulted from the overhead sun, nor is it a confusion in her mind caused by the miraculous horror which overcame her in looking upon its face. No. It is none of these things, so simple and pure, so boundless and plenty, because it is without accord and reason that she stares at it as slowly it materializes in the sky. Suspended in midair, held taught by imaginary ropes that do not exist, glowing as though it is a scroll of parchment used to foretell the events of Wraethworld and the consequences of those who had entered it—it is, quite simply, a message: an omen which can destroy the world, a belief in which all is shrouded, a desperation in which the willing all stretch forth.

It is something Mary can hardly believe she is seeing.

It is a sign in the sky that says: There is Nothing Here. There is No Hope, No Just, No Reason for Existence of the Plains on which All were Sewn. There was no Adam and there was no Eve, no woman that ate from the Leaves, and there was no Abel and Cain in which were birthed. There was no Rock, no Plight, no Might or Betrayal. There is no Man in the Sky. There is Nothing.

It is a statement impacted upon her mind as if it is a dagger sliding through loose flesh. First penetrating the skin, then molding into one, blood pours from the wound and creates upon her body the succession of death. It is thick, it is molted, it is dark, impure, unchaste and completely unforgiving—it is sticky and wet, slimy and gross, and permeates her being as if it is water that has been touched by the red man's hand. A curse, a whisper, a fabled promise Arthur was given when he was sent to Avalon to recover after the Battle of Camlann—it is everything in her world that is wrong: a thing that, while completely unimposing, is threatening with its presence alone.

Stunned, frightened, and not in the least bit willing to cave in to lesser inhibitions, Mary crawls to her feet, then reaches up to finger her lower lip, which has since swollen from rock and teeth imprints.

_There is Nothing Here,_ the sign continues to say, even as she begins to once more progress forward and up the road that leads to the end of the world. _No Hope, No Just, No Reason for Existence of the Plains on which All were Sewn._ It is menacing in respect, terrifying in nature and even more frightening in aspect, as to look upon its surface means to deny all of which she has been taught by her parents and the men in the nice long cloaks, by Mama Grandma and by the men and women who know it all. There is, however, another side of this, that of which Mary considers while walking—that this place, this land called Wraethworld, may not necessarily have a Man in the Sky, a Something or Other that Ordains and Defines it All. If that is the case, then really, she cannot be scared—marred, of course, by its proclamations. That is enough to convince her that things will be all right, that things will be ok, that nothing can defy her and the things that she so truly believes in.

In thinking such things, and in denying the aspects which the sign proclaims, Mary reveals from her inner self a power of which no man, no monster and no thing can destroy—her faith: her pure, God-given faith.

Her mother once said that if you believe in Him, He will protect you and He will keep from you the Devils that haunt the world. If that is the case, then surely nothing here will be able to harm her.

With the knowledge that the Man in the Sky will keep her safe, Mary closes her eyes, takes a deep breath, then comes to a complete halt.

When she opens her eyes once more, the Sign proclaiming All is nowhere to be seen.

She continues forward.

She has defeated a thing that has once more attempted to stop her.

She is strong.

* * *

It is night before she stops, and once again the thing that Proclaims it All is floating in the air. It is no longer a hindrance to Mary's being or conscience, her brevity or her sin, as in the current circumstance she knows that such a thing can do nothing to shake the testament of her being. If anything, it serves a use. With light pouring from its surface to Proclaim all there is to Say, it illuminates the scenery around her, casting the surrounding area in a pure white glow that reminds her of a night light she's not had since she's been in the real world and reveals unto her conscience the truth of a world which is almost always hidden by dark.

It is dark and diluted, painful and obvious, torn and wrought with things that appear to make it sad—a woman whom, at her lover's side, cries with roses in her hand. The grass, which was dry and pale yellow during the daylight, appears green—wet, she could say, with perspiration, as if it has developed a life of its own and sweated out its own insecurities. Even the road seems to have taken on a different hue, as in this current position it no longer appears to be the color of a fine beige coat, but of a muddy terrain that has just been doused with rain. Why the area has come to look like this she can't be sure. It feels no different than it has before. There is no moisture, no dew, no rain that could have impacted her surroundings, so for it to look like this is completely baffling. That, however, seems not to matter, as in settling down on the road for her night's rest she feels not damp earth beneath her feet, but pure, solid ground.

With a breath in her nose and out her mouth, Mary pushes her hands behind her head, spreads out along the road, and considers the starless sky above her.

It is poignant and vain, decrepit but sane, modest in youth and agonizing in portrayal. This creature overhead, which is blind but should be looking down upon her with a thousand kind eyes, is a million years old. It should know all the knowledge of the World, of the Seas, of the Mountains, Lakes and Rivers. It should know the Roads that she travels upon, the Path which leads to Nowhere and Everywhere at the same time. But, she wonders, for what reason? Is She, the Sky Above, Blind because she has been Blinded—because She, by all respects, has been stabbed with a Trident—and if so, what is it that They have to hide? The Ones who Blinded Her surely are not the things that rule this World—the Ones whom, by all respects, have Secrets to keep away, for if they were why would they let a little girl through who could save this world? Why, she wonders, make passage for those from the Other Side, from the Planet that is called Earth in the system that is known as the Milky Way? Is it because they demand Those to Honor Them, to bring forth from the Other Side the things of which they Do Not Have, or is it because they are evil, lewd and vile—things whom, slowly but surely, will eat the Innocent and the Ones that Run? It is quite possible, considering that, along the way, Mary has found in this world called Wraethworld messages surely meant to ward the weary away, but if that is the case, then why are there not portals or entryways leaving this world? Do they just not exist, or are they just hidden—placed, firmly, in solid ground that cannot be cracked not even with the mightiest Hammer?

In thinking such things, and in pondering over just what it is she is supposed to do and how she might happen to get out of here once she saves the little girl who looks like a fish, her eyes begin to grow weary. They droop, quickly, together, then eventually seal shut as if they are grand doors upon a pyramid's frame. This action eventually forces her breathing into even, regulated patterns that raise her chest up and down. Sleep, she knows, will come soon, but when? Will it be when the Night is Old and They are Restless, or will she not fall asleep at all and instead remain away for the rest of time?

Sighing, Mary opens her eyes.

Above, the Sign that Proclaims It All begins to flicker, as if it is a store display that is being turned off for the night. She has but a brief moment to consider just what it is doing before the lights go off entirely.

In the distance, something shrieks.

Mary bolts upright.

Panicked, heat hammering in her chest, she looks left and right to see what it is that has made the noise.

Tears slide down her face.

Her teeth sink into her lower lip.

Her heart, quickly beating, begins to slow.

Sweat slides down her neck and into her dress.

Surely whatever it is that has shrieked is merely an animal of some kind, much like the things with red eyes on the tops of the hills. Perhaps it screamed merely because it was excited or overjoyed—or, maybe, it is coming for her, on swift wings to take her away to the nest on top of the mountain to be fed to its young.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Mary pushes herself to her feet.

Whatever it is that shrieked before shrieks again. This time, however, it spikes every piece of flesh on Mary's body.

What is it, she wonders. A bird? She knows that birds like owls hunt during the night—search, desperately, under the cover of darkness for rabbits and rats that it can eat—but she's seen none of those creatures here, at least not in the real, present world.

Unless...

Mary closes her eyes.

Could the bird who took the little boys and girls who didn't know what they were away be coming for her next?

She decides, at that moment, that it is best to move forward.

Mary takes a few steps up the road.

In the distance, she sees, through the film of grey that seems to have permeated the air from the Sign's presence, the road that winds like a river throughout the dead grasslands. She has seen this point in the road before—when, from far away, and atop a slant in the road, she looked upon the world and wondered just what it was—but whether or not it is significant of something she doesn't know. All she knows is that if she doesn't continue moving forward, something bad will happen.

Her breath caught within her throat, Mary reaches up to grasp her hands around her trachea.

Her heart begins to hurt.

Overhead, something flies on grand wings.

Mary looks up.

She sees not what exactly it is but for its wings—large, massive, that extend across the horizon like a great plane that carries men from place to place. It is, however, enough to drum horror through her heart.

Without much thought, Mary jumps.

She falls into the grass, then begins to crawl—slowly, carefully, through the weeds, until she settles down in a place which she is sure that no thing, flying or not, will be able to see her.

Though she is not sure where it is, it lands somewhere nearby.

She passes out almost instantaneously.

She could have died from fright.

* * *

When morning comes and the sun is once more bleeding into the world, Mary rises and pushes her way out of the grass and onto the road—where, nearby, she sees the impression left by its presence. They are long, drawn-out marks, much like what one would expect when dragging their shoes through the mud. In this case, however, they also appear avian—sharp, obviously made by talons purposely to mark its appearance in the world. There also appears to be scars in the earth where, it seems, a fire has been made, or at least ignited in an attempt to draw from the ground warmth that could and should not exist. These scorch marks extends for the next several feet until, in but one grand flush, they disappear altogether. Because of this, Mary imagines that, were this world normal, and were she several hundreds of thousands of years back in time, there would have been men here—wielding, of course, clubs and canes—and they would have tried to start fires. They would not have yet mastered the wheel, as that would have had to have been many years after, but they would have started these fires, sat, ate, maybe even talked. They would have had a jolly good time, as if nothing was wrong. Then they would go to hunt the elephant and leave only their mark upon the world and nothing more.

Startled by this new development in the world, Mary takes a few steps forward.

When she stands no more than a few inches away from the edge of the first scorch mark, she crouches down, then begins to drag her hand through the impressions.

Fresh ash the color of silver parts between her fingers.

Mary gasps.

The remnants of the fire that has occurred no more than last night glimmers in the light as if they are thousands upon thousands of splendid diamonds.

Mystified and unsure what it is she is supposed to do now that this revelation has been bestowed unto her, Mary continues to crouch there for the next several moments, sifting ash through her fingers and trying desperately to understand her purpose in the world. It takes but a moment for her to come to a conclusion, one so admirable and honest that she feels as though it would have earned her a purple star in Miss Kitty's class had Miss Kitty still been alive and well.

Standing, Mary takes one last look at the ash, then begins to advance up the road.

The ash tells her to go on.

* * *

There are moments in time in which things are revealed to the world and from upon the horizon give hope to those who advance on. Those things, as small or trivial as they seem to be, may be one of many things. They may be a road on which all students walk, a path which all men take, a step-stone route where little girls skip to make their way to ponds that give to the world the essence of life. They may even be trenches boys dig to hide from the martyrs, from the bullets and the steel and the rash and the ill. Regardless of their nature, regardless of their intent, there are but many things in life to spur men, women, boys and girls forward—things that, while seemingly-fruitless to many, may hold a shroud of truth for some. It is in one of these moments—when, upon reaching the top of a hill that was so high and wide that Mary could see nothing beyond it—that Mary's entire outlook on her situation begins to change.

Things are, as she sees fit to describe, almost perfect. They are, however, quite frightening, and it is for that reason while looking on the horizon that fear once more begins to drum in her heart.

She sure was a long way from home.

The structure before her is enormous and preposterous in nature. It is cold and toiled in appearance and black and jagged in color, and into the air it extends like a great chasm that has been inverted from the earth and spirals constantly as if it is a strand of matter that makes up all things. At its highest peaks are jagged ends which appear to be sharp knives that are meant to cut the sky and reveal in its place the insides of everything that exists, and along its loops and coils are remnants of the past that appear to show that, once upon a time, there were things here. The stone, even from a distance, is distinguishably scarred—broken by axes, Mary imagines, when the rest of the world fell—and while it isn't necessarily an ugly feature, it does make the sight before it appear frail: tired, she could say, and ready to collapse. Such a thing seems possible, as when the wind kicks up the tower seems to shift side to side, left and right, but something tells her that the act of insolence itself would not be inflicted upon this sole piece of architecture within the world. That, of course, would be too simple. What use would a dying landmark be if it did not stand in the air?

In looking at the twisted spire and the way it ascends the air like a brisk hallelujah, Mary almost fails to notice the thing that separates the two of them by but a few thousand feet.

It progresses onward, spiraling forth like the eighth character in a series of numbers that mark upon the world a juxtaposition which is meant to secure within everyone who looks upon it a sense of remarkability. It is beautiful, this strange thing, and impresses upon her the finality of the situation—that, before her eyes, and in the near distance, is a castle wide and tall, of which she knows is the end of the world, this journey, this place. No longer will she have to sleep under cover of darkness, afraid of things with red eyes, the one of many colors, the things that sparkled like a million pearls or the thing that looked like a giraffe, nor will she have to worry about visions of horror that could destroy her mind, heart, body and soul. She will have to worry about none of these things, as in but a few hours it will be over. She will, she knows, rescue the little girl that looks like a fish, find a portal that leads out of this world, and return home to her mommy and daddy. Grandma Mama will sing and the police will stop looking. There is absolutely nothing in the world to be afraid of.

Mary raises her eyes.

As what appears to be lightning strikes in the distance, cracking the sky like a great hammer when the man raised his fist and declared that the world would be his, it becomes increasingly apparent that things will soon go back to normal.

With but one step, Mary begins to descend the hill.

* * *

**12.**

**The Twisted Spire**

* * *

It begins to grow taller as she gets closer and closer. Whether or not it is because she is actually nearing the structure she can't be sure, as whenever she looks up it seems to continue extending into the sky, wrapping around itself over and over like a snake bound to the large trunk of a tree. It could, she knows, be because she is small—because, in her current state of frame, she is but five feet tall—and because this twisted spire is an icon upon which all things were built, but something in her heart tells her that is not probable. To think such things would serve to misjudge her rationale and therefore dissuade her from believing in things that may actually be true. It seems too perfect, too _convenient_ for the spire to simply appear bigger, and in this place called Wraethworld, there seems not to be a lack of superstition that could make normal things whole. For that she chooses to believe that this thing really is growing larger, and that the secret within most would be so horrible and tainted that it refuses to acknowledge itself in but a small state.

As she continues along the path, taking extra care not to trip over herself as to her sides there are now jagged and grey rocks, Mary begins to wonder just how long it will take after she enters the spire for her to get home. She knows that this is the final frontier, that this is land where settlers crossed through and where the other side of the road was revealed, but does that mean the way back to the real world will be in plain sight? Will she have to play a game, she wonders, or solve a riddle? Such a thing would not be out of the question, considering the circumstance she has been thrown into. If that happens to occur, however, will she be able to solve said riddle? She's never been one for tricks, for games, for puzzles jigsaw or not, but that doesn't mean she'll be unable to do it, does it?

Rather than risk the consequence of overburdening herself before she can even get to the place where she knows the world ends, Mary raises her head and tries not to let her eyes wander the spire's wispy and oftentimes-moving surface. Instead, she concentrates on the world around her and the agony that seems to have been inflicted upon the earth.

They have come with forks and hammers and cut into the ground jagged chasms that descend forever and beyond to where there are no glimmers of hope within them. The rocks are grey, the earth black, the individual respite where grass or other weeds should have grown stained white as if they have been marked by paint. It is these spots that is the blood of the innocent, the rule of the plenty, and to think of the notion is to deliver into one's mind the idea that this place was once beautiful—that this land was fertile, that there were cows and moons and mice, and that there were people in fine houses in a grand city where everything was nice. What happened could be anyone's guess, but were she to imagine it, she thinks that something fell from the sky—the great, cosmic sky, of wood that stained the waters and killed all who drank it.

These thoughts, and more, continue to haunt her as she progresses up the road.

In the shadow of the monolith, hope seems all the more futile.

Maybe, Mary thinks, it is because she's drawing closer to the valley in the shadow of death.

* * *

It seems like the path is stretching ever forward and tempting her to stop and rest upon its surface, as it takes her seemingly all day and well into the night for her to break any real progress on her advance toward the spire. When she finally stops for the night to consider the possibility that she may very well not make it until sometime the following morning, her feet are tired and the sores on her ankles are weeping. Blood wells in her shoes and makes squishy noises whenever she walks, her stomach rumbles even though she has eaten a day or so before, and her throat is all the more parched with the lack of water. Pain, it seems, exists here, as do physical, mortal burdens. That alone is almost enough to dissuade her, but had she not the purpose, and were she devoid of the inclination, she would have fallen to the ground and began to cry. However—as big girls do not cry, she merely stands there shivering, her arms crossed over her chest and her heels, though bloody, clicking together.

In but a few moments' time, Mary begins to contemplate whether or not continuing toward the spire is a prospect better left until tomorrow or acted upon now. If she waits, her body may protest—her heels may grow too horribly-painful to walk on and her stomach may throb as if it demands into its confines the entirety of the world and all its fruits. If she goes now, however, she may be able to reach the spire before any real sense of pain begins to set in.

Sighing, Mary takes a few steps forward, then glances at the rocks on both her left and right.

Once again, lightning cracks overhead, spilling blue across the horizon and lighting the spire in a wicked glow that seems to exist even after it all but disappears in the sky.

Mary frowns.

Is there any sense in going forward now, she wonders, especially if it will soon rain? All she wants is one drink—one little, single drink.

With a quick shake of her head, Mary skips forward.

Pain shoots from her heels and into her knees.

She screams.

Had there been birds, they would have erupted from the spire and into the air.

In the moments that follow, during which she feels as though the world will end and her body will cave to the pains that wreak havoc over it, Mary doubles over with her hands on her knees and her eyes weeping fresh tears. The sensation of agony shooting up and down her legs is nearly enough to make her throw up, but somehow she is able to refrain from doing so, likely only because she has not eaten nor drank anything in the past two days. She takes several moments to recover from the episode, as with each passing moment the pain seems to grow worse, but when she finally does and is able to take another step forward, she once again realizes something.

Like she's thought before, with each step she takes toward the spire the pain begins to grow worse. Does this mean she is getting closer and closer to the real world?

Choosing not to believe in such things if only because she does not want to disappoint herself, Mary sinks her teeth into her lower lip and tilts her head up to look at the sky. The spire, still illuminated by the faint, radiating traces of blue lightning, appears like a monster—a titan which can only be found in Wraethworld and who, in appearance alone, summons the gift of pain and imparts it upon anyone who steps too close.

Each step forward is agony. Her blisters pour blood into her shoes. Her stomach convulses within her torso. Her throat symphonizes accordingly to the dire forward motion toward the tower and tears within the confines of her trachea gashes that trumpet unease. It is not pain she feels, but terror, which dries her mouth to an almost unbearable hue, and when she tries to make spit and swallow it her tonsils burn and dangle at the back of her throat. All of this, and more, create a maelstrom throughout her being, a typhoon within her conscience and a whirlpool within her person. She has never felt so weak in her life and, she imagines, never will again, as it is with this advance that she knows that she will never leave home once she returns to the real world, never step foot outside, never leave the confines of her room or her bed or even the blankets that are spread atop it. She will do none of these things because she has known true pain. She understands that, once she gets to the real world, things will never be the same as they used to be. Always and forever will they be different—scarred, she knows, by Wraethworld, and for that she knows her journey is not without consequence.

In walking forward, tearing herself apart piece by little piece, she knows that, soon, things will be just fine.

It seems like eternity that she walks the road that leads up to the twisted spire.

Mary begins to cry.

Slowly, it dawns on her.

She turns her head up.

She is no more than but a few feet away from the entrance to the place she now knows as the end of the world.

Heart hammering, heels pulsing, stomach throbbing, Mary closes her eyes and sobs.

It is with all the trepidation in the world—with all the agony, distrust, unease and complete terror within her head—that she takes one final breath before she begins to run forward.

Everything hurts so bad.

She feels in but a moment she will simply collapse and die where she really, truly stands.

It takes no more than a second for her to cross the distance that lies between her and the entrance to the twisted spire.

Mary opens her eyes.

The moment her feet cross the threshold all pain ceases to exist.

Her sense of reality falters.

If this is the end of the world, then why is she not in so much pain that she can no longer stand on her own two feet?

Disheartened beyond belief, Mary turns her eyes up and looks into the darkness that lies beyond the entrance to the twisted spire.

She will not be able to see until morning.

She collapses to her knees—then, slowly, curls up into a ball and wishes for the world to drown away.

* * *

Dappled sunlight pours in through the cracks and scars within the wall and lights the inside of the twisted spire in tones that reminds her of early morning—when, just as the sun has risen in the real world, energy from the new day spills across the confines of plastic-based windows and casts the room in a melody of happiness. Coupled with the grim prospect of the twisted spire, it seems impossible for this to be true. There should be no happiness here, no relief, no calm which she can exploit to make herself feel better about the world and all its principles. That, however, seems not to matter, as in looking upon the light and the interior of the spire she feels more at peace than she has since she first stepped foot into Wraethworld.

It is old and cold in here, cracked and chipped as if the Things Above have dragged their Spears and Tridents through the stone and created impressions meant to dissuade anyone from entering. There is little that seems even remotely like the old world this place must once have been. On the walls there are torch holders that are long since gone. The floor, though hard and dry, sings memories of carpet, of furniture that once roamed these halls. And the ceilings—they're perhaps the most magnificent of all, as from their surfaces dangle what appear to be the remnants of chandeliers and upon their faces bear the faint whispers of paintings that can no longer be seen but in shards of color alone. This was, Mary knows, once a beautiful place, as upon each and every surface there are passions which could have only been created by the kind, benevolent benefactor who created this structure. Whether it twisted or turned, rolled forth or curled aplenty, this place, this _twisted spire,_ had been designed with the utmost intentions in mind, so to see it like this is enough to make Mary feel sad and bewildered. Just what could have happened to destroy such a beautiful place, to curl within the aspects of the world evil and violence that surely must have destroyed all who once settled here? To think such things is uncomforting, but to experience them is another sensation completely, one of which she does not want to feel within her heart.

After rising to her feet, Mary takes a deep breath and tests beneath her body the strength of her heels. When she feels no pain, she decides then and there that now is the time to continue forward.

While she knows not the reality of this world, something tells her that she will make it, if only because of the confidence which spills within her heart.

* * *

The path is straightforward and without pause. For each forward advance she takes there is a curve within the spire that beckons her to the left. Always, endlessly, she walks to the left, taking not a moment of her time to reflect back on the spire and the history it surely must have endured. It is useless, she knows, because there is nothing she could think in order to better justify the fact that this place, she feels, once suffered a great tragedy. It is in the walls and within these floors, within these stripped, broken chandeliers that hang from the ceiling and these halls that she inhabits. It is a song which tells the story of the world, a melody which recants the tragedy that destroyed this place and took everything beautiful and solemn from it. It is an old song, one which would have been sung from a grand deity's throat, and it would have echoed across the horizon and lands as if it were a trumpet of ease. All would hear, all would bow down, and all would take a moment to listen to the thing that told their story and gave remembrance to the beautiful things that created this world. That, however, exists no more, and it is with sad reality and conclusion that Mary begins to understand that she must block off any and all sympathy she has for this place, if only to better serve herself.

She takes the path for hours, never stopping to recant, never pausing to catch a lost breath. She feels, almost scarily, nothing within herself. Not even the breath that she normally feels enter and leave her body is present within her conscience. This reality is so chilling that when she does take into her body a deep breath and expels from it a long exhale it feels almost wrong—that this creation, _her person,_ has progressed to operate on a mechanical level, one of which needs no human interaction whatsoever.

In lieu of this strange and terrifying reality, she begins to count the rotations she takes around the spire.

One... two... three...

_Four... five... six..._

She eventually reaches ten and begins to feel weathered, like she has climbed a grand mountain without water or nourishment to fuel her being. It is this feeling that beckons her to stop—to settle down on the ground and take a moment to compose herself for the journey ahead. She knows, however, that she cannot stop, as in this place of curves and bends, of downward slopes and endless drops, she will very likely stumble and go soaring back down—falling, she knows, like dominos, until she is at the very beginning and has to start all over again.

After composing herself yet again, Mary straightens her posture out and continues forward.

It is on the thirteenth floor, and within the twelfth rotation she has taken in order to get to this point in the spire, that she begins to hear a sound. It is soft and hollow, as if the inside of whatever it is making the noise is without density, and it whispers across the walls and echoes off surfaces and into her ears. It's pleasant at first—calming, even, to her shattered nerves—but eventually it becomes more of a nuisance than anything. In time it builds to the point where Mary lifts her hands and covers her ears, but in doing so she only begins to hear the nursery rhyme in which her name was so cleverly pulled from, the one that was played so heavily during her infancy that she sometimes even hears it in her sleep.

When she can take it no more, Mary throws her hands into the air and lets out a tiny sigh of frustration.

It isn't until her frustration clears and the cloud of film lifts before her eyes that she sees that she is no longer in a rotating room, but in the threshold of another—a straight, box-shaped construct that seems completely unnatural for the shape of this twisted spire.

Standing there, unsure what to do and shocked that she has discovered something that may make her journey much easier, Mary doesn't notice much of anything until the sound once again begins to play in her head.

She lifts her eyes.

She looks into the darkness.

She sees a figure step forward.

* * *

**13.**

**The Little Blonde Girl**

* * *

She is a polar opposite like the caps in the north and south, a parallel universe in which two completely different worlds exist, a dab of chocolate atop a cream of vanilla that makes it marvelous and completely-unnecessary treat. She is a creature of delight, a thing of innocence, a construct of reality that is shaped in the greatest formation that has ever taken the world. She is a little girl that looks just like her, and in looking at her, Mary thinks for but a moment that she is looking in a mirror—that on the opposite side of the room, there is a pane of glass that reflects everything and nothing back and then again. It isn't long before she begins to reconsider just what she is looking at and takes everything into more detail, as when the figure steps forward she reveals to the world the source of the noise. She is, of course, a little girl that looks just like her, right down to the faint freckles that cross her noise and the pale pink hue of her heart-shaped lips, but her hair is blonde and there are bells braided into it. Her dress is also a different color—scarlet, like the letter given to the queen who was adequately shamed—and it echoes things that Mary feels are wrong and completely threatening. She does not come forward, this Other Mary, and she does not shift or slide. Instead, she merely stands there and watches her—unmoving, unblinking, and completely unforgiving.

There are moments during the time that she is standing there looking at her other self that Mary feels self-conscious. It is as though she is looking into a mirror and seeing the greatest flaws within her person. Her dark hair, natty and seemingly-unkempt; her dark eyes, ugly and without color; her fair skin, an anonymous standard of beauty—even the set of their eyes seem different and the height of which they stand seems diluted: stretched forward, into infinity and beyond, but compacted to the point where even from so far away they look alike. These things, and more, are what frighten her, as she soon realizes that she is not looking at herself, but something beautiful—an ideal, one could say, that the world would like to see.

With tears threatening to break the surface of her eyes, Mary lifts her hands.

In a parallel of moments, she expects nothing to happen—that the reflection directly across from her will merely stand and wait for something to happen.

It doesn't take long for this fact to be disproven.

In but a moment, the Other Mary lifts her hand.

Mary stops, then lowers her fists to her sides. The Other Mary does the exact same.

Taking care to watch her movements, as it seems that whatever she will do her Other Self will do as well, Mary blinks and watches, before her eyes, as the Other Mary does the same. She lifts her hand, runs it through her hair, watches as the Other Mary does the same, then lowers her hand and witnesses the action repeated just the same. Even the shuffling of her feet, back and forth and then again is repeated down to the exact moment, which is so chillingly-calculating that Mary can't help but shiver.

When she reaches up to rub her arms, the Other, blonde Mary does the same.

What could this mean, Mary wonders, as she continues to play her fingers across her arms as if they are a clarinet sung forth from the mightiest of woods? Could this mean that she has truly reached the final frontier—that in order to escape this world, she must face the cruelest aspect of herself—or is this simply a test on which she must score the highest grade? She sees no teacher within the hall, her chalk stick raised and her hair done plenty, and she sees no peers which she can relate to, but does that really mean anything? When it really, truly comes down to it, does seeing none of these things really mean that she is, in fact, in the clear, or is this façade merely a curtain in disguise—a little girl with bells in her hair meant to dissuade her from stepping forward and leaving this place behind?

Scared, disgruntled, and not entirely sure what to do, Mary takes one single step forward and waits for something to happen.

The Other Mary takes a step forward.

Mary takes a step back.

She hops forward and then back again.

They are two dancers atop the greatest of stages, a boy and a girl with their hands intertwined and their legs twisted about their bodies. They are flying through the wind, a song of paradise and wonder, and they are swimming through the channel in which crocodiles dwell and wait to devour any who come close. There is a castle in the distance, slowly growing closer, and as they near its passage, atop which archers stand with bows and arrows, there comes from its depths a dragon—a cold, black creature which spews from its mouth green fire in the name of queen maleficent who within her robes holds the damndest of men—and in this dragon the world collides and then again. Stars explode overhead and raise the dead, while dogs run away and children are here to stay. It is a brilliant dance, of a knight in shining armor who has come to slay the dragon, and as this knight raises her sword to slay this creature from Hell, she thinks for but a moment that things could be wrong—that this battle should not be fought and instead should be discussed with biscuits and tea, with crème brulee. It is for that reason, in hopping back and forth, that Mary comes to a complete standstill and tries to imagine just what, if anything, she can do.

With her heart creeping slowly up her throat, threatening to dissolve her into a pile of mush, she begins to open her mouth to form what she knows will be impossible words.

Then it happens.

A voice comes forth. It says, "So I see you've met Mary."

* * *

**14.**

**The Thing That Looked Like a Snake**

* * *

The figure is tall and imposing, with a billowing cloak that descends around its knees and eyes at could have slain the world and then again. Its eyes—yellow, slit-like, and appearing much like that of a cat—look upon her in a way that makes Mary's skin crawl. It is as if she is the doe and it is the lion, the bold creature that strides across the plains to slay the gazelle that drinks from the golden pool, and it appears as though at any moment it will lash out and attack her—cold, brutally, and with an intensity that would have been akin to several exploding mushroom clouds in the distance. Such is the appearance of its eyes that she has a remarkably-difficult time even looking upon it, as it seems she will simply be swallowed whole, and for each moment she spends looking into its horrible eyes she is filled with a sense of apprehension that makes her weak at the knees and shake at every joint. But it is not its eyes that disturb her to the point where she feels as though every ounce of happiness within her has simply erupted and vanished into the thin air. No. Perhaps its most terrifying feature, however, is its face. Serpentine, with impossible angles not imposed upon creatures that climbed trees and waved through deserts, its cheeks are hollow, its jaw strong, its chin cleft, its lips painted. The tongue which pools from its mouth to taste the air is forked in three and flits before her eyes as if it is a diamond prize plucked forth from the greatest mine in the most exotic of countries. This appearance, coupled with the voice which had spoken no more than a few moments beforehand, startles Mary so much that she takes a few steps back. She stumbles, quickly, and would have fallen had she not pin-wheeled her arms to steady her posture. But somehow, someway, despite the thing before her, she is able to maintain hold on her ground.

_Do not be afraid,_ Mama Grandma had said. _Nothing you don't fear cannot hurt you._

She holds this truth to be evident, to the point where she realizes that should she be afraid, she will only feed into the thing's sick desires, so she holds her ground with her hands balled at her sides and stares straightforward as if she is looking at the things before her.

Several undeterminable moments pass in the time which she stands there. Nothing transpires, at least to her knowledge, though with each passing moment the air grows cold and the dappled, golden sunlight dilutes until it is nothing more than grey. The walls grow impossibly tall, shadows stretch, time seems infinite in a place where it is most obviously not. The world, as she knows it, is shifting—transforming, extending, morphing into something that is so horrible that not even the most terrifying of soldiers could have protected her. They were nothing, she knows, in but their size, their strengths, their humble weaknesses and their exhausting prowess. This is what makes her feel as though this thing—this _monster—_ is the master of everything, the man which holds the golden scepter atop which there is an emerald gem and the girl who bears upon her feet the ruby slippers. That alone delivers the opinion that she should not be able to conquer this thing—that if for some reason she is unable to pass this monster, her Other Half and the walls which they stand within—there will be no chance for her to ever go home.

"Speak," the tall, imposing thing says.

It is an ultimatum which she cannot recognize, a dice which has been rolled and cast upon its sides a single one, a black cat that has crossed her path and three false Os with tails upon their tops. She wants to scream, wants to cry out, wants to call within the most serene of voices that she wants to go home, but words are objects which cannot be used, which cannot be formed, cannot be said. She is a fish above water, a loon without a cry, a cat without its meow and a dog devoid of its bark—she is everything wrong with her world and then some. There is, in this moment, absolutely nothing she can do.

The knowledge concrete, the truth defined, the voice of reason is all but silenced.

Mary begins to cry.

The thing with the serpentine face steps forward. The Other Mary tries to follow, but the creature that holds no name or staff or even title pushes its hand that is shrouded in black back to hold the construct in place. The porcelain being pouts, stamps her feet, then tries to step forward.

Mary's mouth opens.

In but one moment, the creature turns and slams its shrouded hand into the Other Mary's face. There appears but one crack upon her porcelain surface. Then she explodes in a cloud of dust that instantly disperses within the air.

"You cannot speak," the thing with no name says. "You cannot talk, cannot laugh, cannot sing. If you can do none of these things, than what are you?"

What is she, Mary wonders? She is a little girl. Her name is Mary Matthews. She is five years old. She attends a primary school in one of the greatest places in the country and was taught by Miss Kitty before she met her ultimate demise. She lives in the city with her mommy and daddy, goes to see Mama Grandma occasionally, and has a dog named Scooter, who's quite funny when offered treats and his belly is scratched. She lives in a three-story house that is red on the outside and blue on the inside and is quite happy with the existence she is in. She is all these things, but for some reason she believes that this is not the answer to the nameless thing's question. It would be too simple, too direct and straightforward in a way which everything could be so easily recognized. She knows that this world is not simple, and answers, though often fruitful, are not the same. For that, she knows, this is not the question she is being asked.

Mary takes one step backward.

The nameless thing takes a step forward.

"You cannot answer," the nameless thing says, "for which you were born. You cannot answer," it continues, "for which you are not."

Mary's foot broaches the entrance to the threshold that separates this room from the endlessly-rotating spire she stands within. Dust lies there, the remnants of the Other Mary, and sparkles in the greying light that is all but disappearing. She knows it wants her to leave—wants her to flee back into the other world called Wraethworld—but if she does, she will never make it home.

She is so close, oh so close. To turn and run now would mean that all her progress would be lost.

The nameless thing continues to come closer.

Mary, in but a moment of strength, holds her ground.

Mama Grandma once told her that nothing you fear cannot hurt you—that monsters, beneath the bed, cannot climb the post unless they have claws; that giants, who do not have eyes, cannot see you from far distances; that animals, without encouragement, cannot attack in the dead of night. She'd said these things on a long, cold night—when, outside, the world was revealed in shades of blue and white—and near the fire, before which they were wrapped in blankets, she learned that fear is an instinct: that nature, without nurture, is but a secondary notice, and that actions, without consequence, are never given any reward.

It is in this moment—when, it seems, the entire world will begin falling down—that Mary realizes she cannot be afraid.

As the nameless thing continues forward, encroaching upon the ground which she stands upon without fear in her heart, Mary reaches up and presses a single hand to her chest.

Beneath her palms she feels the life of which she is.

She comes to a realization.

If she believes, then she can conquer anything.

The nameless thing's footsteps echo across the room.

Mary raises her eyes. Hate lines their surfaces.

The walls begin to burn.

There is a belief that says thought is the greatest weapon—that feelings, when given life, can create the world. Shadows can be born of memory, light the means of confidence, destruction the fruits of consequence, and nature, once given the greatest of meanings, can impose upon the world flora and fauna that can propagate the world one time over. Babies can be born, puppies can cry, children can meow and adults can sing; animals can laugh and stand upright and dress in people's clothing and deliver unto the world their own form of government which has been established after securing their own nation on the farm after they have driven its owner away. It is this belief, in which Mary feels her power is all but supreme, that she casts upon the world around her a fire that surrounds the entirety of all the things that she fears. The world is lit in brilliant light, in orange and red and white and blue, and the nameless thing, so tall and imposing, is set ablaze like a candle atop a birthday cake. It screams, its mouth a purpose of destruction, and it raises forth as if it is praising something high above for the sake of which Mary knows is salvation. She fuels everything she feels into this fire. Her fears, her doubts, her insecurities, her pains, sorrows and frustrations—she implicates all of these things, and more, into the flames that cast the world afire, and it is no surprise when in but a moment the nameless thing that was so tall and imposing with yellow eyes and a serpentine face collapses into nothing.

It takes an eternity for something to be created.

It takes but a moment for everything to be destroyed.

When the fire begins to die down—when the world, so vast and impure, begins to fill with golden light—Mary takes a step forward.

It begins to descend.

It is a blue orb in which the entirety of Mary's focus throughout this past week has been channeled.

_Mary,_ she says.

The little girl that looks like a fish is leveled from the ceiling to the ground before her. The orb dissolves, when broken by Mary's thought, and the little girl that looks like a fish hovers in thin air and waves her arms and legs as if she is swimming. There is no smile on her face, as Mary knows fish cannot smile, but there is a sense of relief within her blank white eyes that Mary knows signifies the truth that she is thankful for. That alone is enough to fill her with a sense of relief for all that she has done.

_You have saved my world,_ the fish girl says. _There is only one thing I can do for you._

At the very end of the room, where there is but one single hall that leads to what appears to be a dead end, a sphere of blue light appears where which there is the outside world that Mary knows is so beautiful.

_You can go home now,_ the fish girl says. _Thank you._

Mary steps forward, then stops just as she passes the little girl that looks like a fish.

How, she wonders, will the fish girl get home?

_Do not worry for me,_ the fish girl says. _I know the way back._

It is with those words alone that Mary begins to run.

It takes but a moment for her to cross the room, then for her to step into the portal.

There are moments in which things are defined—where tragedies can be opened, where wounds can be sewn shut, where memories can be forever imprinted into the minds of people whom certain events have impacted. It is within this moment—when, Mary assumes, she is transitioning into the real world—that everything begins to fall into focus.

The portal into the other world, Wraethworld; Miss Kitty; Adil Amna; the things with red eyes on top of the hills; baby Jason; the poppy fields; the thing of many colors; the little boys and girls who didn't know what they were; the thing on swift black wings; the forest of darkness; the things that sparkled like a million tiny pearls; the Littleton twins Abby and Shelly; the little girls in nondescript clothing and the police officer who turned into the thing that looked like a giraffe; the scars in the road within which there was dust the color of silver; the eternal nothing and the twisted spire in which she met her Other Half and the tall imposing thing with the yellow eyes and the billowing black cloak—all happened, she knows, for a reason, and all were meant to each her a lesson. These things, these people, these stories, triumphs and consequences—they were meant to show her that things, as horrible as they may seem or appear to be in the real world, are not really as frightening as what reality may wish to impose upon the world.

Nightmares, she understands, are the consequence of all our desires.

It takes but a moment for Mary to realize it all.

The sky opens.

Stars explode overhead.

Her body succumbs to torturous pain and her life falls into focus.

As she falls into an alley, at the beginning of which there is a yellow tape with swirls and flourishes that mark the entrance to one of the greatest crimes that has ever been committed upon the human race, she realizes what all has just happened.

When she feels as though she can continue on—when her body, though pained, allows her but one moment to suffer it all—she rises to her feet and begins to make her way out of the alley.

Nothing can stop her.

She now knows that she is strong.

* * *

**M.**

**The Final Interlude**

* * *

_It is with the utmost intent that within the Twisted Spire and the Final Frontier of Wraethworld that our heroine, little Mary Matthews, discovered the most crucial gift of all—faith. Bestowed upon her by her Mama Grandma, by the things she said one cold winter night and by the words of which she granted, it was within a few words that Mary was told that monsters can never hurt you: that faith, if prevalent within one's being, can save the world and the people within it. This notion has encompassed many a moment within the world known as Wraethworld—when, while making her way toward the hills, Mary began to falter; when in the dark forest she continued forward; and when, while facing the police officer who turned into the thing that looked like a giraffe, she conjured within herself a dream. These are actions that are defined by the notion that a greater power beyond ourselves exist—that in the Sky, in the Boat, in the Universe or on the Island, there are places in which grand sources of triumph exist that we may call upon at any given time. When exploited, these things can do many a thing—save a life, save a person, save a world._

_Despite how great these things are, however, this is not the point of the story. Those of you who have followed Mary Matthews from the time which this story began all the way up until this moment are likely wondering just what happened after she escaped from Wraethworld and landed in the exact same place she entered through. It is here, dear reader, that you will learn her fate._

* * *

_For hours Mary wanders when back in the real world. She knows not where she is going, where she is, if she is even in the place she calls home or if there are really people that live here in this place she knows as the Real World. It is for that reason, and for her pain, that she begins to cry as she wanders the streets. So deserted are they of people and even animals that she feels as though there is nothing she can do—that regardless of her triumph, despite what she has accomplished, she has only ended up back in a place where no one and no thing exists._

_Defeated, at last, by both the elements and her emotions, she collapses in the middle of the road._

_It is there, in those short moments that follow, that a police car shows up._

_They know who she is the moment she raises her head. She is a power, an icon, a testament on which all happiness is bound, and she is sitting in the middle of the road with her head raised and her eyes brimming with tears. Her dress is torn, her ankles are bleeding, her shoes are all but gone and her hair is in disarray—her skin is sallow, like pruned flesh when left under water too long, and her eyes are screaming for help. The policemen know who she is. She is Mary Matthews—five years old and missing for a week—but they do not know what has happened to her._

_Immediately, they disembark from their construct of salvation and step forward, their nice boots clicking and their badges shining in the light._

_They are, for but a moment, illuminated by the lights piercing through the darkness of the night. In that moment Mary sees the ringlets hovering over their heads—soft, stark, but completely golden. It is a sign, she knows, that these men are good—that though they have been stripped of their wings, they are harbingers of life._

_When both men step forward and crouch down to greet her, they say only one thing:_

_"Mary Matthews?"_

_It is with horror and the utmost humiliation that she has ever experienced in her life that Mary realizes she cannot speak, for once upon a time there was a man in the big blue sky with his big white birds who delivered in their big brown beaks the cradles of which all infantkind was born, and this man said, "This is Mary Matthews, and she will not speak because she need not use words to tell the world her story." It was this man in this big blue sky, with his big white birds and their big brown beaks that touched her head and bid the birds to go, and it was on the winds of the big blue sky that she was delivered to Donna and Leonardo Matthews, her mommy and daddy who loved and love and will always love her very much. So desperately she wants to say the things that she needs to say—that she lives on a street, near a hill, in a yard with one big tree and a swing made out of an old tire—but she knows that she cannot, and for that she begins to cry. The policemen both looked stunned at this reaction. Neither of them seem to know what to do, since they don't reach out to touch her, but one reaches down and takes from his belt a Walkie-Talkie and speaks into it the phrase that she has wanted to hear for so long._ We've found her, _he says, and that is when Mary screams and her world goes dark._

_When she awakens, she is in a big white room. There are tubes running into her arms and a thin white sheet over her body. There is no pain, no agony, no fear of which can terrify her so. Because of that, she does not scream._

_From the front of the room comes a rustle of movement._

_Instinctively, Mary curls her hands into two tiny balls._

_A nice lady in a white suit comes forward and settles down at the end of her bed._ _"Mary Matthews?" she asks, and when Mary nods she smiles and says, "Your family is on your way. You don't have anything to be afraid of now."_

_It is there, in the moments that seem undeterminable, that the world goes dark._

_When she opens her eyes again, the world is lit in white. Startled, afraid, unsure of her surroundings and of the light blooming within the open space, she seeks out the source of the luminescence with her wandering vision—first to the machines at the side, who seem so bright but are so soft, then to the door and the light that shines under it. It's supposed to be open, she knows, because it has always been promised, but tonight there is no light. There are only shadows cast across the room—like water slowly drifting across the sea._

_It is in but one moment that Mary knows what has happened._

Hello Mary, _the voice says._

_Mary opens her eyes._

_The little girl who looks like a fish is hovering in the air at the end of the bed—suspended, it seems, by wires from the ceiling. But there are no wires, Mary knows, because like her, the little girl who looks like a fish is special._

_In the short moments that follow the little girl who looks like a fish's declaration, Mary feels within her heart a rush of warmth, one that spreads across the entirety of her body from the top of her head to the tips of her toes._

I just wanted to thank you, _the little girl who looks like a fish says._ Thank you, Mary. Thank you for saving my world.

_It takes but one moment for the world to fade away—for the fish girl to disappear and for darkness to return to the room._

_Mary closes her eyes and goes to sleep._

_Sometime during the night, her parents arrive, then in the morning Mary cries. The doctors say there has been a miracle—a 'miraculous healing'—and that none of the wounds that Mary had the previous night are no longer there. They pressure them to stay, but Mary knows better—knows that the little girl who looked like a fish has given her one last gift—and shakes her head. It is then that the doctors let her go, and when in the car, and while driving home where Mama Grandma waits, Mary looks out the window at the afternoon sky and realizes something, something so great that she begins to cry just as the sun dips behind the clouds and shadows the world in grey._

_She is home._

* * *

_It is here, dear reader, that our story ends. Whether or not Mary Matthews will live an ordinary life is up to anyone's discretion. She has seen much throughout her time in Wraethworld—has seen tragedies and torments of not only men and women, but of children and the fates they have suffered all for their inhibitions—and for that it will be any wonder if she truly can recover, if she will lead a normal life or if she will ever be able to walk by an alleyway without hearing from its depths a voice or a bell or even feel a breath of wind shift her skirt. Whether such things will occur, however, do not matter._

_As things draw to a close—as our curtain begins to fall and our heroine begins to sleep once more—a faint luminescence begins to twinkle in an alleyway far away._

_Is it there that another will suffer Mary's fate?_

_Only they can know._

# The Devil Is A Man in Red

The Devil is a man in red. With eyes like amber and lips like honey, he seeks his prey as if he is a man desperate and hungry—and longing, it would seem, for his salvation.

On this night, so horribly cold out of the summer blue, he searches for his next victim on the streets of Austin, Texas. Tongue laced with fire, heart made of ice, he walks the road called 6 with abandon that comes naturally for a creature with his affliction. His eyes dance between the landscapes of buildings tall and broad, bright and dim. His gaze falls upon buildings modern and old, brick and mortar, lit and unlit, until eventually he comes upon the clubs where young men dance until they go home with one another.

If one thing is for certain, it is that the Devil does not care who his victims are. He has, throughout his years in America, made it a point to prey upon those whose hearts are filled with pain and suffering. These are the easiest victims, he knows, because no matter who they are—young or old, black or white, poor or rich—they are always tempted to succumb to him.

He stares upon the series of clubs upon the place known as 6th Street with knowledge only a creature such as he can hold. He knows, just from looking at the building before him, that his victim is here. He can almost taste his flesh through the walls.

This is why, after taking only one moment to consider his actions, he enters.

His satisfaction is almost immediate.

The strobing lights that dance over the glistening bodies of men young and old make it almost impossible to see. Arranged, haphazardly, upon the ceiling, and revolving with a mind of their own, they shine light upon those unwilling to take note of the tragedy that will come, or the suffering that will follow.

As he has anticipated, it does not take long to find his victim.

He is a twenty-six-year-old man named Daryl. Long, lean, with hair like fire and eyes like rain, he leans against the wall and breathes effortlessly the stench of alcohol and sweat. The Devil is not unaccustomed to such vices, but seeing his prey falling victim to them will only make his job easier.

Stepping forward, he approached Daryl with a charming demeanor and a smile on his face. "Hello," he says. "How are you doing tonight?"

"Fuckin' bored out of my mind," the young man named Daryl replies. He tilts his head to the side to view the Devil and adds, "Who are you?"

The Devil smiles and says, "A friend, if you would like to have one."

Daryl looks at him with eyes unsure and cautious. Then he says, "All right. Sure. I could use a friend."

There is a brief exchange between them. Hands, eyes, lips. They are on the dance floor shortly thereafter, dancing and grinding and kissing to the sound of Madonna and 80s electronica. Stubble scrapes stubble. Bodies touch. Hands roam.

In less than an hour they are leaving the club and returning to Daryl's home.

There is no intricate way to describe the coupling between two people, but were the Devil to offer his own opinion, he would describe it as beautiful. Sin, in any form—flesh or otherwise—appeals to him, so to strip off a young man's clothes and feast upon the pleasures of his body is magnificent to say the least. But it is not delight in one's flesh the Devil wishes to take within tonight. No. It is, by all respects, the body.

What few fail to realize is that humankind is a species, capable of rising and falling and as such spreading disease. They are, like rats, perfect vectors for transmission. This is why, on this night, the Devil begins to orchestrate his plan.

As he couples with the young man who bears little effect on the world at present, he impresses upon him a curse that will one day bear three letters, and will eventually become to be known as The Plague.

The act is gruesome in its savagery, brutal in its intent.

By the time it is over, Daryl is breathless—and lying, face-down, on his bed.

"Damn," the young man says. "That was the best I've ever had."

But the Devil doesn't care. For all intents and purposes, his mission has been completed, his seed sowed in the body of another. As such, he begins to gather his clothes—first lifting the dark jeans, the flamboyant shirt, the decorative overcoat. He is soon dressing and walking out the door.

* * *

The Devil's greatest sin is avarice. Filled with greed, rife with hunger, he is unable to resist the temptation of watching the fruits of his labor as they grow. This is why, as he stands upon the roof of an opposing building, looking in on an apartment in which he'd been no more than a day beforehand, he watches the young man named Daryl as he trembles upon his bed. A blanket is wrapped around his body, but there is no way to stave off the chill. Daryl's suffering will last for several hours, possibly even a day, until his body begins to capitulate to the disease that it has just been exposed to.

In three days or less, Daryl will feel absolutely fine. He will believe that his random bout of illness was nothing more than a 24-hour flu that took him by surprise at the club.

He will forget about the Devil.

But one thing is for certain: the Devil will not forget about him.

* * *

Two to four weeks pass, and the Devil is still watching, but from a distance. Daryl, at this point, is sick—very, very sick—but he does not understand this. A rare case in his own right, he suffers not the flu-like symptoms that many of his peers would. It is because of this, on weekend nights, that Daryl goes dancing and takes home men that he does not know.

The Devil watches one chance coupling from his place upon the opposing apartment's roof. Aroused by the suffering taking place, he watches with a sense of pleasure only the wicked can experience and takes pride in the fact that his work will only seamlessly multiply from here. One will become two, two three, three four, then so on and so forth.

The beauty of the Devil's work is that it's silent and is almost always too late to be seen.

The ability to detect his work will not come for another few years, thanks to a government who believes his work to be a contained case within a fragile and misunderstood community.

He smiles.

Then, he waits.

* * *

He watches Daryl for several years. A college degree, obtained; a career, found; his health, succumbing. It is during this time that the infection within his body begins to multiply at an exorbitant rate. He finds himself succumbing to illness far more quickly, but does not consider this to be a problem that cannot be combated with Vitamin C and dietary changes. He _is,_ after all, in his opinion, _getting older._

One day, while watching Daryl walk into the home he has acquired through hard work and due diligence, the Devil notices a lesion upon his victim's lower back. It is revealed in but a moment—when, as the young man stretches his arms over his head, his shirt rides up, displaying a simple black splotch that some would believe to be skin cancer along his lower back.

But they don't know. Not at all.

* * *

The Plague begins to hit national headlines only when it has affected too many to count. Cancers, unknown; candidiasis, spotted; pneumonia, exposed—these, and more, are labeled by leading doctors as opportunistic infections, caused by a disease that is primarily being spread throughout the gay communities within America.

It is given a simple anagram, but a deadly sentence.

_H-I-V._

Otherwise known as the Human Immunodeficiency Virus, it is a work of perfect design: incurable and, at this point in time, untreatable. It works by attacking the immune system at its heart—by infecting cells meant to fight infections and replicating within them—and spreads without control throughout the body until it begins to succumb to even the simplest infections.

It is here, during the seventh year after the Plague has officially begun, that the Devil watches Daryl panic. He turns to his partner—a common-law husband by his own right, whom he has been with for five years—and says, "My God."

There is a test now to determine if one has been infected with this illness.

Daryl decides that it would be best to admit himself to the hospital.

* * *

It is determined, by doctors conducting a groundbreaking test known as ELISA, that Daryl is indeed infected by the illness.

There is little he can do in the hospital but scream.

The Devil watches in tandem as nurses approach in an attempt to console the young man who has just been given a death sentence. Afraid to approach, but knowing that they must, young men and women who know nothing of the Plague offer sympathies and condolences. But at this point in time, there is little that can be done, and less than can be offered.

Additional blood work will be required before Daryl will know his true outcome.

However, he and his nameless partner already know that things will not be good.

* * *

It comes to light that Daryl has infected his partner with the incurable illness shortly after his diagnosis. Unable to remain within the relationship, the nameless partner leaves, never to speak to Daryl again.

Daryl only finds out that his ex-partner has committed suicide when he looks in the obituaries a week later.

Still, Daryl holds out hope, despite the fact that there is little that can be done in its current state.

_They'll find a cure,_ he thinks. _They have to._

But when will that be?

It's already 1985.

How long could it possibly take?

* * *

Daryl's blood work comes back two weeks later, and reports that the viral levels in his body will slowly destroy his immune system.

Still, he holds out hope.

* * *

The black spot on his lower back has multiplied and has spread exponentially across his body. It can now be found on his arms, his legs, his buttocks, genitals, and even the inside of his mouth. It is considered a cancer and is known as Kaposi's sarcoma.

Doctors say it will kill him before they can find a cure.

But still, Daryl holds out hope.

* * *

Three months pass, and Daryl is dying. Nurses flock to his bedside, friends pass by in mourning. There is no family to speak of, for they have all abandoned him, and medical treatment is impossible due to his already-suffering immune system. All they can do, doctors say, is wait.

And they do.

* * *

Daryl dies on October 3rd, 1988—eight years after he contracted the Plague from a stranger who approached him in a club. His family abandons him, even postmortem.

It is only by the kindness of a stranger that he is buried.

The Devil watches this funeral alone, at which a single woman stands bearing a flower. It is a rose, white in color, beautiful and fragile and delicate in all its nature. She drops it within the grave and waits for those men around her to begin burying the young man who met the Devil on a Saturday night. Dirt is delivered into his grave ceremoniously. The woman's heart is torn, for she already knows that she will bury more men like Daryl in the weeks to come.

As the man who helped begin his reign of terror is laid to rest beneath the grace of a God who appears not to be listening, the Devil smiles and turns away.

* * *

Thirty years later, the Plague is but a memory in some people's minds. Close to 636,000 people have died from the illness since 1981. Approximately 15,529 died in 2010 alone. And through it all, the Devil has watched, silently waiting for something to come of it.

Medications have been created to help treat the infections, but a cure has not been developed. People are always working, though—in clinics, hospitals, lobbies and more.

He wonders, frankly, if one of his greatest achievements in suffering will ever be cured.

He does not know.

But he also does not stop.

In clubs, on street corners, in bars, online, and in person, he continues to approach those unwary.

The Devil is a man in red.

And he is always watching.

# The Town That Hides at Dusk

I live in the town that hides at dusk.

This is a ritual repeated daily, and has been for as long as I can remember. Ever since I was a little girl, young and small and full of fear, my family has locked our door, shuttered our windows, brandished our weapons, and lit our candles, all before the day has expired.

Tonight is no different.

As the sun begins to fall, and the people retreat into their homes, I consider, for just one moment, what might happen if I stepped outside after dark.

Then I remember the code.

_Never look._

_Never interfere._

And above all: _never go outside at night._

They are simple enough rules to follow, as upon each window there is a shutter, and within each home many locks. Remaining inside is often the most difficult task, however, because the being that stalks our lands is not of this earth, and has a way of seducing the weak-minded into leaving their dwellings.

I have never seen it. My mother has never seen it, nor my father. My brother, though—he saw it, once, when he was just a child. When he dared to the crack the door to look outside.

It changed him.

Peter doesn't talk anymore. He may look toward the window at night, and he may follow my father and his orders, but he no longer speaks of the things that little boys do.

On this early evening, so dull and dreary but filled with fright, my mother looks out the window at the crimson sunset and watches my father and little brother as they tend to the final chores of the day.

"Mother," I say, lifting my eyes to watch her. "Is everything all right?"

"Yes, Sabrina," my mother replies. "Everything is fine."

I wrap my fingers around my simple dress and stare into the distance—where, beyond the long road, and the village that borders it, the valley extends below the high mountain. I wonder, briefly, if there is life beyond this nightly terror, but realize that is probably not the case.

Standing here, in this house, which in theory should be so safe and sound and feel like a home, I feel nothing but despair. It is an emotion I have grown accustomed to throughout my life.

The sky darkens.

The men and boys come in.

My father enters the home, with Peter shortly after him. He kisses my mother on the cheek, then turns to look at me and says, "Sabrina."

"Yes, Father?" I reply.

"Fetch the matches."

Though I move to do as asked, the shift in sunlight causes me to turn my head toward the window as I take the box of matches in hand.

For a brief moment, I stare with a mixture of awe and horror.

Then the window is shuttered, and my trance is broken.

I begin lighting the candles soon after.

And thus begins another night.

There is little I can say to describe how these nights are. Cold, morose, filled with tension and fear, it is always my mother whose face is uneasy, and my father whose eyes are unconcerned. Given that this has occurred for as long as I both I, and he, can remember, we rise during the day and go to bed at night as if this is nothing new. It is my mother, however, who is not as fortunate. She did not grow up in this land, and has always feared the thing that walks the night.

But do I?

I ponder this thought as I light the final candle, and as I set it down upon the fireplace mantle. Though a part of me _wants_ to believe that I am scared of it, if only because of the influence it holds not only over my life, but the lives of those in the village, enough knows that is not the case.

_I am strong willed,_ I am quick to think. _Good of heart, sound of mind._

They say the creature could not sway the minds of the weak. But that does not mean that it does not try.

My father's sigh from the dining table causes me to avert my gaze from the fireplace. I trace his steps, one after the other, as he walks to the rifle that is propped against the wall, and watch him check it before he removes his shoes from his feet.

Peter tugs at my mother's dress.

"It's time for bed," she says.

He tugs at her dress again.

"I said: _it's time for bed."_

The boy looks at her with his wide eyes, but simply sighs before turning and sauntering to where he sleeps in the corner of the room.

"Sabrina?" my mother asks. "Is everything all right?"

"Just in thought," I reply, and blink to clear the haze over my vision.

"All right." She turns her eyes to my bed. "You should go, too. We know how these nights can be."

"Yessum," I reply.

In moments, I am drawing the blankets over my body and lacing my fingers together.

I can barely begin my prayer when the monster outside begins to bay.

_Our father in Heaven,_ I think. _Hallowed be thy name. Your will be done. On Earth as it is in Heaven. Please keep my family safe on this horrible night and deliver us safely from the creature that dwells outside. Though it bids no harm to those who follow, its temptation is great and wrought in sin. Amen._

"Amen," I whisper.

My mother and father—who have seemingly been reciting their own prayers—say "Amen" as well before tucking the covers beneath their chins.

Though I want nothing more than to sleep, I know its nightly summons will soon begin.

_Come to me,_ it seems to say. _Come to me._

No, I think, though I wish to say it rather than think it. I will not give in to the shadow of the light, that walks in darkness, that bays at the moon as if it is carrion. I am strong.

But am I strong enough to face the evil that walks our lands?

I consider this as the sound of footsteps begin to echo outside. Loud, heavy, thudding with intent, and filled with purpose—the creature, who comes to our village from a place beyond our lands, scrapes along the outside of our home and makes the shutters on the windows vibrate as its body presses against the glass.

_Lord be with me._

"With us," I whisper.

From the darkness of the home, Peter begins to cry.

_"Quiet, Peter,"_ my father says.

He cries again.

_"I said—"_

The creature outside stops moving.

_No,_ I think.

Surely it could not have heard him, and if it had, would not bother us. Would it?

The creature begins to shift along the house once ore.

The shutters bow.

My mother begins to cry. _Why did I have to love him?_ her tears seem to say. _To live with him? To have children with him?_

Truth be told: I don't know why she didn't pressure my father to move us away. On horseback, we could have made ample progress. But my father—he is sentimental, and always claimed that the road is too long, that the creature's territory too vast.

_Come to me,_ the voice whispers. _Come to me._

"No," I whisper, shaking my head. "I won't."

"What's wrong?" my mother asks. "Sabrina? Who are you talking to?"

"No one," I reply. "I'm—I'm not talking to anyone."

"Oh, dear lord," my mother says. "It speaks to her, Robert. Oh, why oh why did you have to keep us here?"

"You know why," my father says.

"No, Robert. I don't."

I reach up to press my hand over my ears as my mother's crying intensifies.

_Ignore the beast,_ I tell myself. _Ignore the beast and you will be free._

For a moment, there is nothing but silence.

Then, I hear it speak again.

_Come to me,_ it says.

Then, as if I have no will of my own, I move my hand to remove the covers from my person.

"Stop," I whisper, as my fingers snarl through the linens, as they part the covers from over my body. "Please. Stop."

"Sabrina?" my mother asks again. "What're you doing?"

"I don't know," I reply, as my feet slide off the edge of the bed. "It's like... like I can't control my body."

"It's controlling her," my mother says, as outside something begins to tap on the door. "Oh, God who is in Heaven, _please,_ hear me—"

The creature taps once more.

I move to stand.

My brother slides from bed and takes hold of my arm—

But I shrug free.

Then, slowly, I start toward the door.

I know I shouldn't open the door. I _know_ I shouldn't. But I want to. Oh, yes. I want to—desperately at that. Like seeing an apple in a tree I want to pluck it free: to taste its fruits, to feel its passions, to know its secrets, to test its knowledge.

I start toward the door.

My mother runs forward and takes hold of my arms.

"Mother," I say.

_Come to me,_ it whispers.

"Ignore it!" my mother says. "Please, Sabrina! Ignore the beast!"

The doorknob begins to rattle.

My father moves toward the rifle.

"You can't," my mother says.

"Someone has to stand up for us," he replies.

"But if it knows—" she starts.

"We already know the Devil," he says.

The doorknob rattles once more.

My father settles his finger on the trigger.

Sweat beads his brow. Fear curls his lips. A pale breath rises from his mouth.

He lifts the gun, aims it at the doorway, and fires.

The sardonic bay of something that should not exist echoes into the house.

My father fires again.

The creature squeals like a dying pig.

He shoots a third time.

And the wood begins to splinter.

My mother screams.

My father cries out.

My little brother shrinks back, covering his eyes, his lips, his face.

And I, now able to break free from my mother's arms, do so.

A jagged crack appears in the wood.

I see a sliver of flesh outside.

I smile.

My mother screams.

My father shouts.

The monster shrieks.

A gun is fired.

Blood sprays my face.

And though I want nothing more than to be free, my tongue slicks out to taste its wants, its desires, its utmost needs.

In moments, I reach out and open the door.

"Hello," I whisper.

The creature centers a beady yellow eye on me.

I extend my arms just in time to hear my mother scream.

Then it takes me into the night.

# Material Things

Crowded around the holographic display were the people who wished to view the greatest being of all. Eyes wide, mouths agape, they held smartphones and handheld tablets at bay as security guards navigated the crowd in an attempt to gain control. _There are no electronic devices allowed,_ they continued to say, as it was believed that the interference would cause disruptions within the holographic computing, but they didn't care. All the people wanted to see was the greatest discovery known to mankind—which, at exactly 12:00, would rise from the depths of its mortal coffin and into its digital heaven within the world.

_"This is Madeline Carter reporting to you live from Channel 3 news,"_ the reporter said, desperate to be heard over the gargantuan roar of the onlookers, _"coming to you live from the National British Museum of London, where the Aspect of Knowledge is graciously being held for its ten-year anniversary. As you can see, the crowds have already flocked in an effort to observe what is unarguably the greatest phenomena on Earth."_

The crowd—which numbered in the hundreds in the exclusive VIP section alone and in the tens of thousands within the distant arena—screamed as the timepiece positioned above the coffin flipped to 11:46, heralding the aspect's near-arrival upon the mortal world.

Madeline Carter—who had witnessed this phenomena each year since its discovery since 2345—still couldn't comprehend its meaning.

It was originally believed to be alien, as upon its coffin were several indistinguishable and incongruous runes that did not resemble any language known to man. Rather, they resembled Lichtenburg figures who within their hemispheres contained several seemingly-nonsensical patterns. Most were lines, others circles or other geometrical shapes. Their meanings—still unknown to this day—were debated, and after rigorous carbon-dating and other sedimentary tests, had been determined to be Earthly in origin. Scientists considered the writings upon the sarcophagus-like object to be the mathematical equation for posthuman existence, preachers the spiritual route to heaven. It had never been opened—could never _be_ opened regardless of the tools, methods, or even chemicals that had been placed upon it—and, after its original revelation, was never _wanted_ to be opened, for within its confines existed the one thing that no one, through science or faith, had ever been able to understand.

Many called it _the material thing._

It rose once a year, every year, on the 31rst day of December, at exactly 12:00 PM British time, right down to the millisecond that could be detected through the radiological signature that occurred the moment its revelation began. Though attempts had been made to study its inner workings in detail, it was nearly impossible to record any kind of information other than by eye. Electronic equipment failed in the moments following its ascent. As such, crude handwriting was the testament to the entity's interaction with the modern world. And in little less than ten minutes, it would be upon them once more.

For nine years it had given them the answers to the greatest questions in life. The first had been the exact time the universe had begun, the second the moment in which life had begun to occur on Earth. The third year it confirmed that the spiritual destinies of people were, in fact, real—and not, as many scientists wished to claim, a falsehood of the church. It revealed in the fourth year that the fabled Adam and Eve were, in fact, once real people, and even pinpointed the very location of the Garden of Eden. The fifth year it solved world hunger, the sixth it cured all diseases. The seventh confirmed the existence of intelligent life beyond the solar system and the eighth directed them toward the nearest sentient planet. The ninth year gifted them a schematic that would allow astronauts to reach that star within five years.

But on the tenth year—this year?

Some wondered if it would reveal the existence of Heaven, others the complete encyclopedia of life as it had been, currently was and eventually would be. It had given so much—spiritual and otherwise—and yet many considered it nothing more than a token through which requests were given and rewards spit out. Many wanted answers rather than facts. Was Heaven real? Did ghosts exist? What, many wondered, happened after they died?

_It's given so much,_ Madeline Carter thought, trying desperately to maintain composure in the face of what would be the world's next greatest revelation. _But what will it give next?_

She could only wonder—and hope. Hope that it was something marvelous and not something destructive, and that it would benefit rather than annihilate them.

The timepiece above the dark-blue sarcophagi struck the ten minute mark and then began to count down. To many news agencies around the world, this was referred to as the 'silent ten,' as each time this had occurred for the last nine years every individual in the arena—and, it was proposed, even on the planet Earth—had gone silent. Some bowed their heads to pray. Others remained quiet. All flash photography had stopped and the cameras—normally manned by individuals—were allowed autonomy. Here, Madeline lowered her hands, frigid in the bitter London cold, and closed her eyes.

She wished for something great, something wonderful, something beautiful.

The minutes began to count down ever so slowly.

_Nine... eight... seven... six._

Distantly, someone screamed—not in grief, but joy.

The overhead sun was darkened by clouds.

"Please," Madeline whispered beneath her breath, then looked up—as if, by grand definition, someone in the sky were watching, "by all that is great, let your revelation be true. Let it be kind. Let it be peace. Let it be joy."

The timepiece struck the five-minute mark and then began to count by the millisecond, which spun by so fast Madeline had trouble looking at it. She averted her gaze and instead looked at the digital timepiece on her holo-communicator, which registered only the standard twelve-hour time cycle rather than the outrageous display before her.

It would be soon.

_Soon._

And yet no matter how hard she tried, she had the most horrible feeling.

The material thing had never truly done them wrong. Even in its greatest revelations—some of which people believed to be terrible, others ironic—it had always given them light. Though it was supposedly not from beyond Earth—and, as such, not a supernatural or heavenly being—she considered it a kind creature who wished only to serve them well. It was the Timekeeper, the Paradox, the Answer to all of the world's greatest questions. Yet something— _everything,_ if she were to be honest with herself—spoke wrong of its impending arrival.

The lock struck the two minute mark.

Tears sparked from Madeline's eyes.

One minute neared and then started down.

The seconds were always the slowest part. They always felt like hours.

_Fifty-nine, fifty-eight, fifty-seven..._

And then began the counting in the crowd. She heard English easily enough, but also French, Greek, Italian, Spanish, Nigerian, Haitian, Chinese, Japanese. People from all over the world had flocked to witness this miraculous phenomena.

_"This is Madeline Carter,"_ she said, almost unable to maintain her composure, _"and as has occurred every year, our service will momentarily go silent as the Aspect once again reveals itself to the world."_

No one knew why it wanted its entry to be anonymous. Maybe there was something the human eye couldn't see that could only be detected via electronics, and for that reason it was shy—unwilling to reveal its most intimate secrets. Regardless, science was trumped. Here, awe was meant to take place. And every year it did.

Within moments the clock struck zero.

The cameras went dead.

And the world was changed forever.

# The Black Wedding

They once called me a Beautiful One.

Now I hang my head in shame.

It isn't hard for me to do so, considering all that has happened. With rotten fruit on my feet and vegetable stains on my dress, it's impossible for me to face a crowd who once adored me, let alone the man who is now my husband.

Let me explain:

My name is Emily, and I was chosen by a Gentlewoman of the State, from the many girls of the small settlement of Gladberry, to become a Beautiful One: a girl whose place within the Glittering City is judged not by the people, but the country. Our great Countess, Aa'eesha Dane, created this Process in order to sustain the gene pool of the Great South, and create her vision of a beautiful, perfect race.

The only problem with this? Her plans for me backfired—and it was all because of one man who became obsessed with me.

I can see him now, even from behind the curtain that is shielding me from an angry crowd. The corner of his lip is raised in a smirk, and his eyes are sparkling with delight over the chaos that his words have sewn.

He is a journalist—a man who, with pen and paper, can make or break a girl.

Just like he has done to me.

A sigh escapes my lips as the gravity of the situation begins to take hold. Defeated, now, more than ever, I slump my shoulders—and try, with little success, to keep from crying.

"Emily?" my advisor, a Gentlewoman by the name of Revered Mother Terra, asks. "Are you all right?"

"I'll live," I reply. "At least, I think I will."

She stares out the gap in the curtain at the man I am staring at and says, "He will be punished."

But how, I wonder? Is free speech not a right the photojournalists enjoy? And if that's the case, then just how will he be punished, especially given that he did not directly tell the people to do what they did?

I frown as I feel a hand upon my shoulder, and immediately tense as I sense the man who is now my husband draw forward. "Emily," Arthur says.

"Yes?" I reply.

"It's all right. Don't worry."

_Don't worry?_ I think.

I can't help but laugh.

How can I _not_ worry when the whole world now seems to be against me?

Rather than think about it, I turn; and with sadness born of a time that should have been marvelous, follow my husband and Revered Mother Terra away from the scene.

While we are flanked by members of the Southern Alliance of Dames—female soldiers who stand at the ready to protect us should anything go wrong—I can't help but wonder if there is a gun trained on me in the distance, and one madman or even woman waiting to fire.

_Should I die,_ I think, _on this day, let it be known that I tried to be good._

I close my eyes.

Arthur sets a hand on my back and begins to knead the tense muscles with his gentle fingers.

This should have been perfect. This should have been wonderful. This should have been a fairytale come to life.

But it wasn't.

No.

This day—this _day of reckoning—_ has been unlike any I have ever experienced.

And I am now seen as a disgrace.

As we pile into the vehicle that will take us back to the Countess' Spire, where all Beautiful Ones of my position are meant to live and wait, I wonder, just briefly, if everything will be all right.

Then I realize that will not likely be the case.

* * *

Our arrival is met with even more photojournalists, even more cameras, even more disgrace. The SADs are the first to exit; and though their shields are drawn, we can still be seen through the glass insets that allow the Dames to look out at their potential aggressors.

_"Whore!"_ I hear one cry.

_"Wretch!"_ another calls.

_"Witch!"_

_"Cretin!"_

I keep my eyes lowered, and my gaze set toward the ground, as we advance up the short walkway that leads to the Spire's glass doors. Here, the SADs guarding the doors part; and here, we enter, only to be escorted through the sparkling front lobby and toward the elevators that await us at the opposite side of it.

"We're almost done," Revered Mother Terra says. "Then we won't have to worry about a thing."

Will we, though? Will we _really?_ The truth of the matter is that _she_ will not be burdened with this colossal guilt, this immense shame, for it was not her that the man wrote about, that he _lied_ about. No. To think that this will be over anytime soon is madness; and in that sense, completely and utterly insane.

Though it seems to take ages to make our way across the lobby, we are soon entering through the elevator, and then rising up the Spire's immense heights to a place where I am meant to live with my husband for the next indeterminable while.

Many would have expected me to cry, I think—to break down in sobs over what most would have considered the greatest shame. However, resilience born of a life of poverty before my grandiose rise has granted me a stone exterior, a carapace of hard flesh underneath.

A sigh escapes me as the elevator begins to move.

Arthur asks, "Are you all right?"

And I, who can say little in light of everything that has happened, merely say, "Yes. I'm fine."

Callous as it is, the lie serves me well, and is enough to put Arthur at peace, at least for the time being. Who knows what he'll say come time we reach my room.

_My room._

I shiver as I consider the implications of what it will mean.

Will he want to consummate the marriage? Will he leave me be?

I don't know; and that's what unsettles me.

I know I can't think about it, though, and for that reason, keep my eyes lowered and my gaze set toward the ground.

Come time the elevator door opens, it feels like we've been traveling forever.

"Come," Revered Mother Terra says. "This way."

I follow her slowly, glad for the distraction and even more thankful for her presence. It is the one thing I know is distracting Arthur from saying more. From asking me if I'm all right. From him telling me everything will be okay.

I know it won't. I know this for a fact. And yet, I know he would try to assure me with false platitudes, if only because of everything that has occurred on this horrible day.

I can't think on it for long.

Soon, we are drawing up to my apartment door, and Revered Mother Terra is drawing a keycard from her pocket.

"Revered Mother," I say as she swipes the card to unlock the door.

"Yes?"

"What am I supposed to do?"

"About what, dear?"

"About... _this."_ I gesture to the stains on my dress, my person, my _being._

"The dress can be cleaned, dear."

"That's... not what I mean."

She considers me for several long moments before she finally says, "Please, come inside."

We enter—the Revered Mother first, me second, my husband third.

When it comes time for the door to be closed, Revered Mother Terra turns to face me and says, "You mean to inquire about your public persona."

"I—" I start, then pause before swallowing and saying, "Yes. I... I do."

"The Gentlewomen of the Glittering City will do everything in their power to ensure that this... _matter_ of utmost importance... is handled. Until then, I would highly suggest you refrain from stepping out of this room."

"But—my Purpose—"

"Can wait to be declared," she says. She clears her throat and turns her attention to my husband. "What I need for you to do is control the damage as much as possible."

"Me?" Arthur asks. "Why? I'm not the one who wrote those things."

"But you are the one the people are looking toward to prove or disprove these malicious statements." She turns her attention back to me. "Will you do as I ask? Will you remain here and avoid the scrutiny of the public?"

"Yes, Revered Mother. I will."

"Good." She turns toward the doorway. "Until then."

She departs without another word, leaving me to consider everything that has occurred—from the words, to the wedding, to the aftermath of it all.

Arthur sighs and sets his hands on my shoulders. "Let's get you out of this dress," he says.

"Can you..." I swallow and lower my eyes.

"Can I... what?" he asks.

"Wait here. While I clean up?"

"Of course. Anything to make you more comfortable."

With a nod, I go about gathering my clothes from my dresser—first a simple shirt, then underwear, then finally a simple pair of pants. My husband watches my every move, his eyes cautious, his gaze alert. It's as if he's waiting for me to crumble, for me to shake. Sweeping in, at this point, would make him seem heroic—or, at the very least, like the man I want him to be.

But I know he can't be that man.

No.

For him to be the man I want him to be, he would have to be able to take all this pain, all this misery, all this suffering, _away._

_And only the Great God has that power,_ I think.

Sighing, I remove my shoes, then slip into the washroom and close the door behind me.

It is only when I am naked and beneath the spouting faucet that I feel any sort of emotion.

Within moments, it all comes rushing forth.

_The agony—_

_The pain—_

_The cruelty of this game—_

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, then begin to sob.

This day was supposed to be perfect.

Now, I know, it was never meant to be.

* * *

Arthur is gone by the time I exit the washroom. Where he's disappeared to I cannot be for certain, but truth be told, I am thankful for his absence. It will allow me the peace of mind necessary to process everything that has happened, and what may occur now that the wedding is over.

_The wedding._

I shiver as I consider its implications, as I think on what the events that transpired could cause. Regional news will be made, if it hasn't already been broadcast. People will form their opinions, if what they've read from the journalists hasn't already. And me...

_Me..._

I will sit and toil, for in this horrible yet monumental moment, I will either rise like the phoenix reborn, or dwell in the mud as if I am some lowly swamp creature.

Frowning, I wrap my arms around myself and slowly make my way toward the window at the edge of the apartment.

From this vantage point, so high within the sky, I can see all the way across the city—from the heights of the nearby hills, to the sloping lowlands that brush alongside the city before the metropolis rises like jagged needles from cold asphalt. It is a stupendous view—has been since I've first arrived—and yet, a part of me feels like I do not belong.

_But is it because of you,_ my conscience offers, _or him?_

_Him._

_The man with the pen. Who wrote such horrible things._

A shiver crosses my body as I consider everything that has been said, everything that _could_ be said. That _will_ be said.

All those names, all those declarations—

And from my own people, no less.

The people who once loved and adored me.

_Who lifted you up,_ I think, _and then tore you down._

I turn my head to view my reflection in the nearby mirror, only to find that my normally-bright exterior has been tainted by the events of the day. My black hair is lackluster, my bright eyes are dull. Even my face—which I was careful to wash with the hottest of waters—resembles something completely unlike me.

"I'm not myself," I whisper, in a voice so slow that I can barely hear it. "In body, voice, or mind."

A knock comes at the door.

I turn.

A voice asks, "Mrs. London?"

"Yes?" I ask, but blink as the reality of the new name begins to set in.

"There's been a package sent for you. Would you like me to—"

_A package?_ I think. _From who? Where?_

I am at the door almost instantly, and opening it before I can process what it could mean fully.

The man outside—dressed in a simple red-and-black butler outfit—holds in his hands a simple brown envelope.

I lift my eyes. Swallow. _Stare._

"Mrs. London?" he asks. "Are you all right?"

"Fine," I lie, taking hold of the package. "Thank you."

"The Revered Mother has advised—"

I close the door before he can finish.

In my haste to face the sudden interruption, I do not bother to recognize what could be an unfortunate truth.

The package is opened before I can stop myself.

I regret it almost instantly.

Plastered on the front page of the newspaper is a picture of me—aghast, bewildered, and covered in rotten food. The words _London wedding in shambles!_ rest directly above the image...

Below which is a note.

_Just deserts,_ it says. _You can't have your cake and eat it, too._

I drop the package.

It falls to the floor.

I cry out. Feel tears bud at my eyes.

_Why?_ I think. _Why are you doing this to me?_

But I already know why.

It's because I didn't choose him.

_Him._

A person who was never a part of the Process to begin with.

It's almost impossible to believe that he would have been so brazen enough to send this to me. But Marcus Wright is obsessed with me, and he'll do anything in his power to make sure that I suffer.

_Anything,_ I think.

I try not to think about what else could be in the package—that could be waiting to haunt me—but realize that, if I leave it here, and if Arthur comes back—

A frown crosses my lips.

No.

Arthur _can't_ come back. Not to this—this thing, this _menace._

After crouching down and taking the contents into my hands, I stuff the note back into the package, then carry it into the kitchen, where I stuff it into a plastic bag and ferry it into the trash chute underneath the sink.

I listen to it bounce down the tunnel until I can hear it no more.

Then, slowly, I try to piece together what it is I will do.

He's already ruined me.

What more can he do?

* * *

I realize, soon after, that he will do whatever it takes to get my attention.

Even if it means sending more packages.

I am lying in bed the following day when a knock comes at the door—and Arthur, who still hasn't left for his work in the business offices downtown, answers the door. A brief exchange with the butler is all it takes for him to accept whatever it is the man has.

As he closes the door, he says, "Emily. A package has come for you."

"Don't open it," I say.

"Why?" he asks.

"I said: _don't open it."_

"Don't you want to see what it is?"

"No. I don't."

"Why are you—"

I roll over to face him and say, _"Do. Not. Open. It."_

He considers me for several long moments, obviously unsure of my proclamation, of my command.

Then, a moment later, he rips the top of the package open.

"I said—"

"Someone took the time to send it," he replies. "We should at least take a moment to see what it—"

He stops before he can finish.

I lift my eyes.

He lowers the package.

I ask, "What?"

And he says, "It's from... _him."_

"Throw it away. I don't want to see it."

"Emily—"

"Arthur, if you know what's good for you, you'll throw the damn package away."

"We should report this to the authorities."

_"I don't want to see it!"_ I say, my voice bordering on a scream. _"Throw it away!"_

All he can do is stare.

"Arthur," I say, throwing my legs over the side of the bed. "Do as I say."

"Em—"

"I said—"

"I heard what you said. But this... this is..."

I reach forward and rip the package from his hand, then turn and begin to stomp into the kitchen, fully intent on doing the one thing my husband refuses to do.

Halfway there, the package rips open—

And deposits its contents onto the floor.

Whether or not it was designed to break open or it did so simply because of flimsy paper I cannot be sure. Regardless, my eyes are immediately drawn to everything—from one paper, to the next, to the one afterward, to the one after that.

I can't close my eyes fast enough.

I see the images for what they truly are.

_You're fat,_ one says.

_You're horrible,_ another intones.

_Why did they choose such an ugly girl?_ a third asks.

_Her nose is too big._

_Her lips are swollen._

_Her eyes look like saucers._

And the worst—the one that I don't want to remember, but as seared itself into my brain like a brand on a cattle's backside—is the one that haunts me.

It states, very clearly, _Kill yourself._

I let out a long, low sob, then sway and collapse against the nearby wall.

Arthur is the one who steps forward and says, "Why is he—"

_"I TOLD YOU!"_ I scream. _"I TOLD YOU NOT TO LOOK AT IT!"_

"Em—"

_"WHY DIDN'T YOU LISTEN TO ME?"_

"I thought—I thought that he—"

"You thought _what?"_ I ask. "That he'd _leave me alone?_ That he'd _stop this whole ordeal?"_ I shake my head. "No, Arthur. He won't stop. He _can't_ stop."

"But why?"

"Because he hates that I didn't choose him."

Arthur can only stare.

I shake my head as he considers me for the next several moments, then ask, "What?"

"He... wasn't even part of the Process. Surely he can't be _that_ delusional."

"There's something wrong with him," I say. "Something horribly, horribly wrong with him."

"We need to turn this into the authorities, Em."

"What good will it do?" I reply. "The damage has already been done."

"I... you... _we..."_

Arthur pauses before he can say anything more.

I look at him. He looks at me.

But rather than speak, or try and say anything further, he gathers the papers from the floor, taking extra care to turn them upside down so I cannot see the ugly words written upon their faces.

Then he rises and exits the room, all without saying goodbye.

All I can do is cry.

* * *

"There is something I'd like to discuss with you," Revered Mother Terra says.

I lift my eyes to face the woman and consider her for everything she is worth. Her bright blue eyes. Her pure white dress. The blood red fabric that lines its underside. She is a woman of the state, and to know that she has a reason for being here is enough to make me feel small.

Not once since I've arrived in the Glittering City have I felt so hopeless.

Now, I realize, there is nothing I can do but wait.

Standing here, before the Gentlewoman, I offer a small nod and take a short breath before saying, "Yes, Revered Mother. I'm listening."

"It has come to my attention that the journalist Marcus Wright has been working to both demonize and terrorize you."

"How do you—"

She lifts a hand to stop me. "I know," she continues, "based on documents that have been submitted, that he has worked to undermine everything the Process has done for you—and, I'm sad to say, that it is working."

"What're you—" I start.

The Revered Mother sighs, then, and turns her head to the nearby window. She then says, in a short and declarative tone: "The people are beginning to turn against you. Marcus Wright's words have sewn discord between you and the people of the Glittering City. They believe many things, Emily—things that I would never in my life ever say of another woman without ample cause or reason—and they believe these things all because of the stories he has fabricated."

"Why are they so gullible?" I ask. "How could they believe without proof?"

"You have not been allowed to view the papers because of the so-called _'proof'_ that has been doctored."

"What do you—"

The Revered Mother lifts a hand to stop me once more. "There are ways they can fake pictures in this day and age, Mrs. London. Some would call them artists. Me? I call them charlatans. Regardless, they have been able to place your face on pictures of women in scandalous situations, and therefor, have made it appear that these rumors are true."

"How—why—"

"This is what I am here to discuss with you."

"Wait. What?"

Sighing, the Revered Mother closes her eyes, then opens them again to look at me. "Never have we in the Glittering City faced this sort of predicament. Sadly, there is little we can do to course correct. Which is why I must inform you of the next steps we are going to take."

I wait in silent apprehension for her to continue.

With a short nod, Revered Mother Terra clears her throat and says, "Effective tomorrow, we will disbar you from your position as a Beautiful One of the Glittering City. You will be offered a divorce, a small sum of currency, and provisions for you and your family before you are sent back to Gladberry."

_What?_

I think I speak the word, but I realize, soon after, that I haven't. My mouth is open, my heart is broken, my lungs are empty. I gasp—foolishly at that—and feel the disbelief course through me like a wicked illness meant only to infect those who have done wrong.

Me? Leave the Glittering City? After everything that has happened? After how far I've come? After all these years of waiting, of longing, of finally _being?_

I try not to cry. I really do. And yet, I can't help but do so. The tears, as they come spilling from my eyes, resemble waves, and over my face they cascade until finally they fall to the dress I am wearing.

The Revered Mother sighs and says, "I'm sorry."

"But—my Purpose—"

"Will be terminated as we speak."

"And... my family. Do... do they—"

"Know?" she asks. "No. They don't."

"I... I—"

I cannot speak any more.

Instead, a darkness consumes my heart, my mind, my body.

Surely I cannot go home, not after everything I have been through.

"There's really nothing you can do," I say, "is there?"

"Unfortunately, the damage has already been done. I'm sorry, Miss Perkins. I wish I could say more."

The Revered Mother turns and makes her way to the door.

In moments, she is letting herself out into the hall.

And I, left to my own devices, can only think of one thing.

* * *

There is only thing I can do now that I will face the inevitable.

As I wander through the apartment, gathering the things I know will carry me through the next few moments of my life, I consider all the shame I will bring to my family if I return—and realize, wholeheartedly, that I cannot go any further.

No.

I must take matters into my own hands.

It is a course of action that I know will be painful, if only for a moment. But the release—it will take me from the hands of evil, and deliver me into the arms of mercy.

In moments, I begin my plan.

The fan is turned off.

The chair is arranged.

The rope is tightened around the stalk just above the ceiling fan's blades.

Then, it is ready.

In less than a moment, I slip the noose over my neck with care I knew I would not have in a previous life, then prepare myself for what is to come.

_For everything I have wanted—_

_For everything I have gained—_

_For everything I once had and wish I could have once more—_

_"Great God,"_ I whisper, in as quiet a voice as possible. _"Please, hear my plea: keep me steady, and make it swift."_

Then, with one last breath, I step off the chair.

# The Stairway to Heaven

The sun shines warmly on the working men's backs as they make the final adjustments to the greatest feat of engineering known to mankind. Even from so far below they can be seen. Like titans they maneuver the arduous passes, braving the inspiring heights, carrying tools and materials and everything else they could possibly need. For some, it would have been deemed an impossible task. But for our people, it is our only hope.

After one-hundred years of suffering, of anguish, of nearly-unstoppable construction during the Blight that has ruined our world, the Stairway to Heaven is finally drawing to completion.

And I am alive to see it happen.

I stand in the valley below the mountain and look up at the gargantuan structure that is meant to take us to where our god lies in wait. Though it is cold and threatening to rain on this unfortunate summer day, I am stalwart in my determination to see the final stone be set, and unshakable in the midst of all my emotions. I watch as the men carry, upon their backs and shoulders, the final piece of our people's salvation, and try my hardest not to tremble.

"Matilda," my mother says, her voice soft and concerned.

I blink, stunned, and turn my head to look at my mother—who, with her aged face and weary eyes, does not seem happy in the slightest.

"Yes, Mama?"

"You should come inside."

"Why?" I ask. "Do you not want to see the stairs complete?"

"I do," she replies, "but we must prepare for what is to come."

"Do you really think the angels are going to come down and serenade us for all of our hard work?"

"I do not know. All I know is that, by the time it is finished, there will be too many people in the valley to see what happens. We have the opportunity to see it from our home, should we wish. Remember?"

"I remember," I say, and sigh. I consider my place in the world—my position in the valley, where I am so small like an ant in the shadow of a holy mountain—and frown. Though a part of her appears relieved that this whole thing will soon be over, it is impossible to read my mother's expression. Her features have been aged by worry, by hope, by desperation. It seems highly unlikely that she _isn't_ prepared for such an event, considering the crops have been gone for years, that several of our people have starved, and that many, because of this, have died.

_We've known for weeks,_ I think, _that this would soon be over._

But is she truly ready to see our God? His angels? His Holy Domain?

I don't know. All I know is that, as I turn to follow my mother across the barren fields in which no thing grows, and along the drying river through which nothing swims, there is little anyone can do to be really, truly ready.

I consider all the things I have been taught throughout my life—all the lessons I have learned and all the teachings I've absorbed—and find myself trembling in spite of my excitement.

Our lands have been dying. The animals have not returned. Beyond the valley the men have had to wander in search of food and supplies, and even then, they rarely return with provisions. To survive this Blight upon our world, we have had to ration our food, and come together as a community to work to solve this issue. There have been squabbles. Turmoil. Civil unrest. There has even been cause for harm, for in the hands of men, anger is a volatile weapon, and to wield it means to not only hurt, but maim.

In the end, I know only one thing:

There is no hope for us in this mortal world. If we truly wish to survive, we must ascend the Stairway to Heaven.

We come to stand in our modest home at the top of the hill and watch as, in the distance, the people from the village begin to gather. Most are like us—who, with simple lives and even simpler existences, are prepared only the best they can be. Small packs line their shoulders. Some carry infants in harnesses attached to their chests. All, it can be said, are simply ready for a better life.

"Come," my mother says. "Let us gather our things."

And so, we do—first by gathering clothes, then by stuffing them into packs. Mortal possessions such as toys seem inconsequential in the grand scheme of things, especially with where we're going. Food, too, seems useless, so we don't pack that. Instead, we pack only what we feel is the most important—including, I see my mother take, the old painting that someone did of my grandma and grandpa, who lived quite well up until recently.

I know my mother is in pain. I know that she feels she will see them again. That is part of the reason why my father has spent most of the years of my short life on that mountain—to give her a reason to look toward the future, bleak as it happens to be.

It takes only a short while to gather our things.

By the time we make our way from our home and return to the valley, the people are pointing, crying, and most of all, _laughing._

_They've done it,_ one says. _They've laid the final step!_

How they can see this I cannot be sure. I can only imagine their victory was shouted down the mountainside, and to the people below.

Now, I know, all they have to do is open the door.

It has been said that the combined might of ten men—five on each side, each with the faith of our god—could open the Doorway to Heaven. For that, one could say, it would be a simple thing, a simple task. But we all know that men are cursed in heart as they are in mind, and that, though filled with love and admiration, desperation and more, it would take only one false move for the door to not open.

_But it will,_ I think. _It_ will _open._

It has to. Because why else would there be a door in the side of the mountain, in the place where the earth touches the Heavens and God's palm could grace the world?

Standing here, at the foot of the mountain, at the edge of the valley, I lower my eyes and try my hardest not to tremble.

In but a few moments, our world will change forever.

As the people begin to sing the Holy Hymn, and as it slowly but surely begins to spread in pitch across the valley, I lift my eyes to look up at the mountain—

And see, quite plainly, the massive doors as they begin to open.

_It's happening,_ I think, hope tugging at my heartstrings, my mind, my soul. _It's actually happening._

One-hundred years after our world began to die, we would find salvation in a land beyond our own.

The people cry out in joy. With laughter. In sobs.

The light—which has been foretold in visions from the greatest prophets of our past—begins to spill from behind the doors.

People rush forward.

Our guardsmen and women, so bewildered and awestruck, struggle to hold the people back. They strong-arm men. Block women. Hold back children.

As wider the doors open, more light spills out. Blinding in its radiance, and cascading from the mountains, it spreads across the valley and illuminates each person and every thing within it.

The smell of flowers follows.

A sweet heat fills my lungs.

A voice—so loud and welcome but at the same time unknowable—speaks in a tongue I have never heard.

A warmth envelops me—like a dearly-departed loved one has just crossed the bridge of death to hug me.

I reach up.

Feel a hand under my own.

Turn to see my mother. _See my grandmother's sparkling façade behind her._

I hear the voice of my grandfather behind me, who simply says, _Welcome home, Matilda._

Then I lift my eyes to see our God in all His glory, in all His power, in all His might, stepping from the blinding light above—

And though I know this world has made us suffer, I know that, in the world beyond our own, everything will be okay.

# After the Flood

The net is filled with fish on this hot and unforgiving morning. Thrashing about, they are full of life and vigor—and soon, will be in me and my family's stomachs.

_If_ I can pull them up.

Normally, this would not be an issue; because as a girl of seventeen, I _should_ be strong and full of resolve. Unfortunately for me, fate has dealt me a heavy hand, and left my body with terrible suffering.

_You have to do it_ is the thought that keeps repeating itself in my head. _You have to._

I am not the only mouth I have to feed on this hot and unforgiving day. My sister, Dahlia, has been asking for food since last night, and my father—

I sigh.

My father's condition has worsened. No longer can he bear heavy burdens upon his back or shoulders, whether real or imagined. For that reason, the task of fishing has fallen to me.

And I cannot dawdle.

I can already see them moving in the distance, circling the boat they know will eventually provide them food. Their wicked fins are traitorous to my conscience, and even more threatening to my body.

It will not be long before the sharks are drawn.

For that reason, I must hurry.

I brace myself for the pain that is likely to shoot through my body—for the agony that will tear through my arms—and take hold of the rope that holds the net together.

I bite down. Grit my teeth. _Pull._

The pain is excruciating—sending stabbing needles throughout the joints in my fingers and hands—and causes me to sway as I use my body's weight to pull the net from the waters. It is not the rope that is heavy, all things considering. It is the fish, plump and fat from years of freedom, that weigh me down.

I lift my eyes from where they are trained on the net to look at the horizon beyond—

Only to find that the sharks are gone.

A flicker of panic surges through me.

Then, I see it—the dark shape, wicked and striped, making its way toward me.

I have less than ten seconds before it reaches the net.

So, I do what I feel is best, considering the circumstance—throw myself backward.

The net, and the fish in it, are ejected from the water...

Just in time for the monster to jump from the ocean's depths.

I see, for one brief moment, a razor-sharp maw with multiple rows of serrated teeth. Then it crashes against the boat and sends the vessel rocking.

I don't know how heavy the beast is. I can only surmise that it weighs several hundred, if not a thousand pounds. Regardless, it doesn't matter; because as the boat careens one way, I am thrown to the floor, then am dragged down by gravity and the weight of the fish.

I scream, _"Dahlia!"_

And my sister—who is awaiting the day's catch from below deck—comes barreling up, her red braids flashing in the wind.

She takes hold of my hand.

I take hold of hers.

She pulls back.

I cry out.

I almost lose the catch, but am able to maintain my grip on it as my seven-year-old sister drags me backward.

It is over just as quickly as it began.

In but a moment, the boat is righting itself, the fish are flailing out of water, and I am reeling, breathless and panicked over the experience.

My sister asks, "Are you okay?"

And I, with little thought to my wellbeing, say, "Yeah. I am."

She lifts her eyes to the waters beyond the boat. "It's the same one," she says, "isn't it?"

I turn my head to look past the railing only to find that the monster is submerging itself into the depths of the ocean.

"Yeah," I say. "It's the same one."

My sister sighs, but considers the fish at my feet and says, "At least you caught supper."

I can only nod.

In the end, that's the only thing that matters.

We won't go hungry tonight.

* * *

My father goes to work gutting and preparing the fish for the evening's meal. I, meanwhile, lie in pain on my simple bed below deck, regretting every moment I exist.

_The pain'll dissipate,_ I think, forcing myself to count backward while breathing in through my nose and out of my mouth. _It always does._

That isn't exactly true, though. In reality, the pain could last for hours, and sometimes even wake me up after a long and restless sleep. Still, I have to have hope—and for that reason, I lie prone and still, and pray that someone, _anyone,_ will take my pain away.

From above, I hear my father swear. Dahlia admonishes him for his curse, then laughs as my father says something in response.

It's a life I should have learned to love, considering I survived the Flood.

Some weren't so lucky.

As I close my eyes, and as I begin to drift into dream, I faintly remember the rain as it begun one Friday afternoon—and how I, as little more than a girl of ten, looked out at it.

_"Will it ever stop?"_ I remember asking at one point, after it had rained non-stop for three days straight.

_"It will,"_ my mother had said. _"It always does."_

Except it didn't. Wouldn't. _Would never._

Not for years.

We'd been lucky, I suppose. We'd had a boat then, and lived by the coast, so we'd been able to beat the rising tides as water from both the sky above and the crack they'd found in the sea below raised the sea levels to astronomical heights.

We've been sailing for nearly six years, and we still haven't seen land.

Not since everything else was swallowed up.

I sigh as I try to recall what it felt like to live a life on solid ground—a life where I'd go to school, play with friends, live life normally as the world and my circumstance saw fit.

It hurts to not remember.

But nothing hurts as much as this.

I flex my fingers in an effort to draw the pain into my arms, but find that it does little but cause my joints to flare in response. They are like daggers, my bones, and they struggle with all their might to pierce flesh that seems to be made of stone.

It's all I can do to keep from crying.

Yet, somehow, I don't. Instead, I inhale, exhale, _breathe_ sweetly the fresh air that filters down from the deck above. I hear Dahlia's laughter, my father's careful words, the ebb of the ocean as waves brush against the sides of our vessel.

Then, slowly, I drift off to sleep.

* * *

It is not dreams that meet me. Instead, they are nightmares—cruel, harmful, and barbed. They instantly take root in my conscience and trap me in a land that is not my own, in a time that once existed.

In a time during the Flood.

The sea had been twisted then—violent in its intent to destroy everything that we saw fit—and though try as I did to not be afraid, I could not help but huddle below deck with my sister, who at the time had barely been little more than four.

_Stay back!_ my mother had said. _Let your father and I handle this!_

They'd been trying to keep the sails from thrashing about, the fabric from being ripped free from the mast. Just hours before they'd been mending a tear within its length, and though they'd sworn they'd secured everything in anticipation for the coming storm, _something_ had happened.

Something that had caused the sail to flap loose.

There was no way to tell what was going on at that point. Huddled beside my younger sister, I'd held her tight as above our parents called to and yelled at each other to _do this_ or _do that._ Dahlia had just been a baby, and though she'd always tried her best to hold it together, she was crying, piteously, against my shoulder.

_It'll be okay,_ I remembered saying. _They'll be back in a little bit._

But of course, that we not meant to be.

One moment, everything was fine.

The next, the boat swelled.

The boom holding the sail in place snapped around.

My mother cried out.

Then, my father screamed.

There was no way, at that point, for me to know what was happening. But based off his cries of agony, his screams of frustration, I knew that something horrible had happened.

By the time he'd returned, he was drenched to the core—and, worst of all: alone.

_Where's Mommy?_ Dahlia had asked.

_She's gone,_ my father had replied. _I'm sorry. She's gone._

* * *

Those two words are enough to stir me from sleep.

I awaken slowly, cautiously, with hesitation I know is born from the dread of the past rather than the facts of the present. Pulled effortlessly from the realm of sleep, I open my eyes to find that pale light is filtering down the passage, and my father and sister's voices along with it.

_"Daddy,"_ Dahlia says.

_"Yes?"_ my father replies.

_"Is Nicky ever going to get better?"_

I inhale a breath.

My father doesn't respond.

_"Daddy?"_ Dahlia asks again.

_"We shouldn't talk about your sister when she could be listening."_

_"But is she—"_

The sound of the wood creaking beneath my feet causes both of them to fall silent.

In but a moment, I am rising, stretching, grimacing as old pains flare to life. Then I am climbing the stairwell, and making my way into the light of day.

My father's tired hands are tending to the fish above the seaweed-stoked fire. Dahlia, however, looks on at me cautiously, her bright green eyes blazing despite the fact that a certain guilt curls her lips.

I say, "Hey."

She says, "Hi."

My father adds, "How are you feeling?"

And I reply, "A little better."

"You pulled in a big catch," he says. "We'll eat well tonight."

I nod, and step past him to look at the ocean beyond. "Is he gone?" I ask.

"Who?" my father questions.

"Tiger?" my sister offers.

"Yeah. Tiger," I say, more than a bit unnerved that we've come to call the shark that continues to follow our boat by name.

"I haven't seen it since I've come up here," my father says. "I'm making sure to keep everything in the bucket."

"A bucket of blood isn't what's luring it, Dad. It's the fact that I put the net down."

"Surely it isn't smart enough to know?" he offers.

I turn my head and narrow my eyes.

My father averts his gaze, obviously troubled. "They look done," he says, looking down at my catch.

And so we eat.

While I sample my fish, and sip the water that's been filtered from the sea via distillation, my eyes trail along the horizon, purposely seeking land that I know we will never find.

_You gotta stop hoping,_ a part of me says. _It's been years since you've seen anything._

Is it so wrong, though, to hope that we will one day find land? Surely the whole world could not have been covered by water. Right?

_It sure feels like it,_ I then think, and sigh.

My father lifts his eyes to look at me, that silent, ever-lingering question on his face.

Dahlia turns her head in the direction I'm facing and says, "Looking for land?"

"No," I say, shaking my head. "I'm not."

"Liar," my sister says.

I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from responding. I know Dahlia's simply concerned. I mean, who wouldn't be, especially when it's a teenage girl longing for something that she can never have? Those are fantasies my _sister_ should be having, not _me._

A frown crosses my lips, but quickly fades when my sister begins to hum under her breath.

"Stop that," I say.

"No!" Dahlia says.

"Why are you humming anyway?"

"Because I heard it in the ocean," my sister replies.

"We haven't seen any whales for ages," I say.

"They're not _whales, Nicky._ They're _mermaids."_

"You know there's no such thing as mermaids."

"Yes there is!"

"No there—"

"Girls," my father says, and sighs.

We both stop arguing. There's something in the way he speaks that sets me on edge, and causes Dahlia's upper lip to stiffen.

"What is it, Dad?" I ask. "What's wrong?"

"I... I wanted to discuss what might happen in the future with you," he says.

"Daddy?" Dahlia asks. "What's wrong? Why are you acting that way?"

"Because I'm sick, baby girl. And... because I don't think I'm going to make it much longer."

There are no words to describe what goes through your mind after hearing such a thing. The rumble of chaos, the hopelessness of the future, the utter shock of the present—memories of the past come flooding back at this moment, like a wave surging from somewhere far away on the ocean, and crash into me with the full malevolence of life.

_My father, standing at the rails—_

_Him, coughing—_

_Him, vomiting—_

_Blood, spilling—_

I've known he was sick for some time, and have been trying to keep it from Dahlia since. The shock is not as great to me as it is to my sister, who instantly starts crying.

_"Die?"_ she wails. _"Die?"_

"Yes, baby girl. I... I think I might be dying."

"No!" my sister cries, standing. "You can't! _Won't!"_

"I can't help what nature has in store for me," my father sighs, lowering his eyes to hide what are undoubtedly tears. "I just... I wanted to warn you. Both of you. So... it wouldn't come as a shock."

_A shock,_ I think, would not describe what he is saying. Instead, he should have said a _blow—_ which, with its barbed countenance, would leave first its damage, then the impressions that would last forever.

As I sit here, staring in horror at my father, I try my hardest to allow my emotions to sink in, but find my survival instincts kicking in.

_What do I do?_ I think.

_How will we survive?_ I wonder.

_How will I take care of Dahlia?_

The last thought is the most haunting—because I know, deep down, that I am merely a sister, not a mother, or a father. To think that I could control a wild spirit such as hers is comparable to capturing the sun and the moon—an impossible fantasy that could not be made real.

Dahlia sobs.

My father moves to rise.

He stops, then, and turns his head as he reaches up to cover his mouth.

"Dad?" I ask. "What're you—"

He vomits, then—

But it is not bile.

No.

It is blood.

As he retches—and as Dahlia screams for help that I cannot offer—I can only watch as the blood goes trailing across the deck, over the edge of the boat...

And into the water below.

Though my father's episode lasts only for a moment, its impression in my life is enough to make me realize that the end is fast approaching.

I can only watch as, in the distance, our angel of death appears.

* * *

My father requests to sleep on the upper deck not long after Dahlia has abandoned her dinner to cry in her bed on the lower deck.

_You're sure?_ I asked.

_I'm sure,_ he'd replied.

I watch him from the far side of the upper deck and wait for something— _anything—_ to happen. Whether or not his death will occur now or in hours I do not know, but as he lies there, wrapped in his many blankets, I wonder:

_Can I handle what comes next?_

He has taught me well. This, I know. And yet, I can't help but feel as though I am so horribly unprepared—to take care of not only myself, but Dahlia.

_Dahlia,_ I think.

I should go to her. I know I should. But, I also know that she will not accept me openly. She will ask why I did not tell, why I did not speak. And I—I will only be able to tell her the horrible truth: that I, too, was afraid of what would come, and did not want her to face it until she was ready.

_But are you?_

The thought occurs to me effortlessly, but haunts me ever more.

No, I think. I _am not_ ready. I _will not_ be ready. Nor will I ever _be_ ready.

My father—he has been our rock, our anchor, our captain through this life at sea. To know that he will soon be gone is unlike anything I could ever imagine.

It is suffering incarnate.

As I stand here, looking on at the one man I have known and loved throughout my entire life, I find myself wondering if I will ever see another person like him again. Then I realize it is not likely, and find myself more sullen than I had been before.

After giving him one last look, I turn and, with careful precision, make my way into the sleeping quarters.

Dahlia has fallen still, and though the silence is punctuated by her heavy breathing, it causes me to pause as I remove my foot off the final step.

"Dahlia?" I ask. "Are you awake?"

She doesn't respond—at least, not at first. She shifts, though, indicating that she is awake. Then she inhales a long, hard breath, then exhales it accordingly.

The only words she can ask are: "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I didn't want you to worry," I reply.

"Did he know?" she asks. "That you knew?"

"I... I don't know."

Wise beyond her years, the little girl lifts her head to face me, and offers me a sad look that is stained with tears. Her eyes instantly fall on the threshold above, and when she asks, "Is he staying up there?"

I can only reply with, "Yes. I... I think he is."

"Why?"

I don't want to tell her the reason _I_ think he is up there. But I know that, if I don't, she will never trust me again. For that reason, I clear my throat and say, "I... I think he's up there because he knows I couldn't lift him."

"Lift him?" she asks. "What are you—"

I turn my head to face her.

Tears run down her face anew.

"Nicky?" my sister asks.

"Yeah?" I reply.

"Promise me?"

"Promise you what, Dahlia?"

"That you won't die."

I close my eyes, take a deep breath, and expel it accordingly.

I want to promise her. I really do. But in this moment, I know I can't do it without lying.

However—I know my sister _deserves_ that lie.

For that reason, I simply say, "I promise" and close my eyes once more.

As the sound of the ship rocking enters, then exits my ears, I wonder, for one brief moment, just how we'll survive.

Then I realize that, without him, we might not.

* * *

Our father dies sometime during the night.

I discover this truth when I rise to the upper deck the following morning—and see, in his blank gaze, a desolation that I know can only come from death.

"Oh, Daddy," I whisper.

I crouch down beside him, even though my joints protest the action, and then move forward to press a hand to his face.

It is only when I hear the stairs creaking that I close his eyes for him.

Dahlia freezes at the threshold. "He's—" she starts.

"Gone," I say.

And she wails.

* * *

We stand there for quite some time—crying, sighing, holding one another through the test of time. The sea is calm on this unnatural day, and though I want so badly to do something to ease my little sister's suffering, I know that, as of now, there is nothing I can do.

There is, however, the matter of our father.

"We have to let him go," I whisper as I crouch down to look my sister in the eyes.

Her remote gaze centers on me. "Go?" she asks.

I nod. "Yeah. _Go."_

"Where?"

I turn my head toward the sea and frown.

Dahlia trembles. "The ocean?" she asks.

"Yes. The ocean."

"But... won't he..."

"I don't know," I reply. "All I know is that he wouldn't want us to leave him here. He'd want us to send him off."

The little girl nods, but relinquishes her hold on my hand. She then turns to our father's body and says, "Do we say something?"

"Just that we love him," I whisper.

Dahlia steps forward. Crouches down. Takes hold of our father's hand. Though her well of tears has run out, she closes her eyes and says, "I love you, Daddy" before leaning down and kissing his cheek.

"I love you, too," I say.

He had positioned himself to where we could simply push him into the water.

_How sad,_ I think, _to know the end was coming. To know that you'd leave two children behind._

But he knew I would take care of us. I know he did. Because why else would he have taught me all the things he had?

With a sad sigh, I reach down, then tighten my hold around his shirt. Then I turn to Dahlia and ask, "Are you ready?"

She can only nod.

Together, we push—

Push again—

Push some more—

And watch our father's body slip into the ocean.

He doesn't sink, like I anticipated he would. Rather, he floats—which, though morbid in its own right, is absolutely beautiful in another.

"Thank you," I whisper, "for taking care of us. For teaching us what we needed to know. For—"

"Nicky!" Dahlia screams. _"LOOK OUT!"_

I see a flash of movement.

Grab my sister's hand.

Pull her back.

Then watch, in horror, as the monster who has been following us for days emerges from the depths and takes hold of our father's body.

Dahlia screams.

I can only stare in horror.

Blood stains the water as the two of them disappear into the depths.

As my little sister wails, I can only tremble.

I should've known it would stick around.

What my father thought was wrong.

* * *

I am starting to believe that the shark is a cruel and otherworldly force of nature—to the point where, when watching it, I feel as though it _knows_ we are here. Watching and waiting, circling and baiting, it waits for something that knows is here, but understands it cannot have.

_For now,_ I think.

Lying here, on my cot, listening to the sound of the waves and the thunder as it begins to roll in, I wonder if we will ever find land—or, more aptly, _peace._

_Grief takes its toll,_ my father had once said, _on the body, mind and soul._

Because of that, I know that I cannot expect my wounds to heal instantly. All I can do is wait.

_Wait._

For the waves to roll in, for the waves to roll out, for the humming to stop—

_The humming?_ I think. _What am I—_

Then I hear it: soft, a low lull somewhere nearby.

"Dahlia," I say. "Stop that."

"Stop what?" she asks, and groggily at that.

"Humming."

"I'm not," she replies. "I told you. It was the mermaids."

"There's no such things as mermaids, Dahlia. Stop that."

"I—"

I snap upright and twist my head to face her. _"I said—"_

She stares right at me—eyes wide, mouth unmoving.

Worst of all: the noise isn't coming from her.

No.

It's coming from somewhere below.

I frown as I consider this, tremble as I anticipate it, and wonder _where, of all places, the whales could have come from._

_We haven't seen any in months,_ I think.

But just because _we hadn't seen them_ doesn't mean _they aren't there._ Right?

_Right,_ I think, and throw my legs over the side of the bed. I grimace as I apply pressure to my joints, but find myself able to stand regardless.

"Where are you going?" Dahlia asks.

"To show you that the mermaids aren't real," I reply.

I take her hand—perhaps a bit too roughly, given my state—and ignore her as she cries out.

"Stop it!" she cries. "Nicky! Stop!"

"I'm gonna show you that they're just whales," I say as I pull her up the stairs. "I'm going to show you—"

I open the trapdoor.

Pass through the threshold.

Stand atop the deck.

I spin about, expecting to see them: the humpbacks, or the sperm whales, or even the black-and-white Orca that I find so pretty.

But I see nothing.

_Nothing._

Yet, I still hear it—sweeter this time, and more melodic.

"It's so pretty," Dahlia says.

"Stay here," I say, tightening my hold on her wrist.

"But, Nicky—"

_"What?"_

"There's something underwater."

"What're you—"

I see them, then—the fleeting tails: ranging in hue from light purple to deep green, disappearing beneath the boat.

"What in the world..." I start to mumble.

"They're mermaids!" Dahlia says. "I told you! _I told you!"_

"Go below," I say.

"But Nicky—" Dahlia says.

"I said _go."_

Their pitch is rising, their voices disorienting me. I feel my head spin as their melody continues to rise and fall, sharpen and stab.

I grab my ears.

Whisper, _"Stop."_

Hear it continue. Hear my head vibrate with pain.

"I said _STOP!"_ I cry. "Stop it! STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT!"

"Nicky!" Dahlia cries. "Look!"

I spin.

Just in time to see the countenance of a long-haired woman free herself from the water.

Her alabaster skin, her jet-black hair, her cruel eyes, her vicious lips—she smiles as she waves a webbed hand, then presses it to her lips to blow me a kiss.

Then, she screams.

The sound—so high-pitched that it immediately drills into my head—causes me to lose my balance.

I stumble. Fall. Hit my head on the deck.

Then, I black out.

* * *

I awaken what feels like hours later to a throbbing head.

"Dahlia?" I manage, blinking, then grimacing as I open and close my eyes. "Where are you?"

My little sister doesn't respond.

I lift my head slowly, hesitantly, bearing the burden of physical pains within both my skull and spine. My joints throb, and my spinal column feels like it's been disconnected at my hips, but surges with pain as I seat myself upright.

I gasp, then cry out.

Then I hear a splash, and someone laughing.

"Dahlia?" I ask, turning my head, only to find my sister crouched down at the edge of the railing. "Get away from there."

"They said they'd bring Daddy back," the little girl says.

"Get away from there," I warn, watching as several dark shapes circle the boat. "Dahlia—listen to me: they can't bring Daddy back."

"They said they could," she replies.

"They're lying. Whatever they are—they're lying, Dahlia."

My little sister tilts her head down to look into the water.

I watch, in horror, as the black-haired beauty emerges from the ocean, and reaches up to touch my sister's face.

"Get away from her!" I cry. "Get away from—"

She tilts her head to the side, opens her mouth, and undulates—a series of rolling sounds and clicking noises that rise from the back of and then are projected out her throat.

A second mermaid rises. Then a third.

One reaches up toward Dahlia—

I lash out. Grab onto my sister's hand. Pull her back.

Dahlia screams.

The merpeople disappear into the water.

I grapple with my little sister and pull her back toward the trapdoor leading into the boat.

"You can't listen to them," I reply. "You can't, Dahlia. _Please. Listen to me."_

"I want Daddy!" the little girl cries.

"Daddy's _dead!"_ I scream.

My sister's eyes lose focus. Then, in a small voice, she says, "No."

"No?"

"No. He's not dead. They showed me."

"Showed you _how?"_ I ask.

"When you were asleep... they... they showed me."

_"How, Dahlia? How did they show you?"_

"She sang," the little girl says, "and he... he came back up."

"No," I reply, shaking my head. "That's a lie. Whatever you saw wasn't our father."

"Yes it was!"

"No it—"

A high-pitched giggle sounds from somewhere nearby.

I lift my eyes to find that the same mermaid is still watching us, and waving her hand in greeting.

"Go away," I say, and grab the bucket before hurling it at her.

She disappears before the bucket can strike the water.

"Dahlia," I say, taking hold of her hands. "You can't leave me. You _can't._ Okay? Do you understand? Whatever they say—whatever they tell you—you _cannot_ leave me. They're lying."

"They're not lying," Dahlia says.

"Promise me you'll leave them alone," I say. "Okay?"

She blinks. Then she says, "Okay" and turns to make her way down below deck.

I can't help but tremble.

If they told her something—if they really, _truly_ showed her what she wanted to believe—then how am I going to stop her from diving in after them?

I cannot know.

All I know is that I have to do what's right.

* * *

Though I know it would be impossible to stop a truly-determined person from leaving, I slip a lock around the trapdoor's latch while Dahlia is asleep. This, I know, will at least give me adequate time to stop her should she try and escape the living quarters.

As I settle down on my own bed—the key in my pocket, my heart beating ever faster—I beg to question what exactly has happened.

_Did they,_ I wonder, _come from the split in the sea?_

There had been reports of several of the oceanic trenches opening during the Great Flood. I'd been too young to fully grasp the magnitude of the event, but now...

_Now..._

I wonder if they released these... _mermaids..._ from their depths.

_You don't know what they are,_ a part of me says. _What they're capable of._

They'd knocked me out with but one song. And Dahlia... they'd almost lured her into the ocean.

I shiver as I think about it—grimace as pain assaults my body—and find myself curling onto my side.

I know part of my shock is grief, another the anger over almost having my sister taken away from me. But the third part, though... it's of the fantasy that they'd presented.

_One jump,_ my conscience says, _and you could end this whole adventure._

No.

I shake my head.

I can't do that. _Won't_ do that. _Refuse_ to do that.

As I drift to sleep, I find myself thinking of just one person:

Dahlia.

* * *

I am awakened by cold air.

At first, I'm not sure where it's coming from.

Then I realize that it's coming from the trapdoor.

"Dahlia?" I ask, jerking upright. "Dahlia? Dahlia!"

My sister is nowhere to be seen.

I reach for the pocket of my shorts. Find that the key is gone. Panic.

I'm up the stairs in less than thirty seconds.

As I come to stand upon the deck, I can see nothing but ocean.

_Nothing._

This time, I scream.

But no one, and no thing, can hear me.

As I let loose my pain, my suffering, and everything in between, I hear, from somewhere nearby, the very song that compelled Dahlia to leave this world behind.

I turn my head. See the black-haired mermaid emerge from the water. Watch her smile. Watch her wave.

When I come to stand fully—and when, after a moment's hesitation, I think of everything I lost—I see in her eyes a silver light that makes me wonder if there really is a better place on this godforsaken earth.

_Maybe,_ I think. _Maybe it's time._

Time to wander. Time to leave. Time to _flee_ from this place called life _._

In stepping toward the railing, I realize that I am no longer suited for this world.

Because of that, I do what anyone who was faced with immeasurable loss, and a hopeless future, would do.

I jump.

# The God of Small Animals

"I'm sorry," the veterinarian says. "She's passed on."

And so I weep.

* * *

I drive home with the knowledge that she will be gone forever. Tears in my eyes, scars on my heart, I try my hardest not to think about all the times we had, but find that they come regardless.

_Me, driving to the shelter—_

_Me, picking her up—_

_Bringing her home, tucking her in, making her feel like she'd fit in—_

The thoughts are cancerous in their portrayal, and ever persistent in their attempts to eat away at my sanity. I've already cried so many tears, and have faced so many battles, and it's been less than ten minutes since I've left the animal hospital.

To think that she is gone, after all this time, is improbable.

But the stars don't lie, nor do the bite marks on my wrist.

She is gone.

And there is nothing I can do about it.

* * *

My roommates expect me when I arrive home without her. They are calm, quiet in their contemplation, but supportive in their actions. They have already cried the tears that I continue to cry, even though they do not know her like I do, because she, too, was a member of the family, so familiar and full of life.

It'd happened so suddenly—so very, very suddenly—and there was nothing any one of us could do about it.

_Please,_ I think, as I stand here, in this doorway, looking on and thinking and crying, _God, angels, whoever might be listening: let her be safe, and please: let her be happy. Let her know that I loved her._

I'd whispered through a face mask on this cruel and unfortunate day—because in a world where a virus is rampant, and tens of thousands of people have died, there was no way I could have gone without one.

I didn't even have the chance to kiss her goodbye. And even now, I wonder if she heard me say I loved her.

But there is no denying it now.

She is gone.

And there is nothing I can do about it.

* * *

I lie in bed that night thinking about our first times, our first bond, our first connection, those love eyes she'd given me in that animal shelter. They'd said that she was violent, and that she was semi-feral, but I knew her unalienable spirit just by looking into her eyes.

I saw an angel then—a being who, though small and scared, was so full of life.

That was why I took her home that day, why I raised her back to health, why I helped her, loved her, _saved_ her.

They say that love is a terrible emotion—not only because it can be gone in the blink of an eye, but because the impression is leaves is more painful than anyone could possibly imagine.

This is why, on this day, I weep.

She is gone.

And there is nothing I can do about it.

* * *

I imagine a time when she wasn't sick—when she didn't cough, when her breathing wasn't hard, when she didn't have to vomit. She was once so young and stoic, this being of mine, this creature I called my companion; and though a part of me wonders if there ever truly _was_ a time, another knows that she wasn't always this sick.

The doctors said it could be cancer. That it could be treated with steroids. That she could live well if it was just chronic asthma.

But when her legs gave out on that cruel May day, I knew that something was wrong, and that only one person could help.

But no matter how hard I think about it, and no matter how hard I try to deny, there is nothing I could have done.

She is gone.

And there is nothing I can do about it.

* * *

I think of those moments in silence in the following days, when pictures of her stir memories like butterflies in cages of broken glass. As pinpricks of emotion assault me like the tenacity of a thousand wild knives, I go throughout my day with the knowledge that she will no longer linger at my feet, or follow me from room to room, or even meow when I've touched her tail. There is a distinct possibility that I, too, will never truly recover; and because of that, I begin to wonder:

_Did I do something wrong?_

Could I have, inadvertently, hastened her end? The veterinarian said no, that this was not possible, that there was no way. But the truth is that the conscience is a troublesome fellow, and is apt to kick you when you're down.

This is why, on this day, I can only remember:

She is gone.

And there is nothing I can do about it.

* * *

I know that, one day, I will heal—and that, through the matters of life and love, I will one day find joy again. But even the smiles I smile today, the laughs I laugh today, are false—illusions in which to make it sound like I am okay.

The truth, though, is that I'm not okay. I am like a firecracker whose wick has been burnt to the black powder, but has stopped short. I am capable of igniting at any moment, and because of that, I try my hardest to maintain control.

But the other truth, however, is far more sinister:

When you are at your lowest, and you feel like you're going to drown, sometimes, you just wish the waves would wash over you—and take you away.

This is the knowledge I face in my darkest hours, and in my most haunting moments.

She is gone.

And there is nothing I can do about it.

* * *

I know, in truth, that there is nothing I could have done, and that, even if I'd tried, there is a chance she wouldn't have survived. Straddle thrombosis is the devil, in this situation, and I am the man who has been pulled under.

But it was grace I had made that decision—when, on cold but swift wings, I'd lifted my head and faced the veterinarian, and said, _I'm ready._

I had, at that moment, been the God of Small Animals—capable of inflicting pain or taking it away. And though my heart will always forever wonder if I made the right decision, I know, deep down, that I made her passing easier that day.

I know, in the end, that she is watching over me—because in my dreams, so quiet in the darkest parts of the night, I see her wandering by: watching, waiting.

And though she is gone—

And though there is nothing I can do about it—

I will always remember.

She is gone.

And there is nothing I can do about it.

# Update Log

5/25/2020 -

* * *

Republished to _Smashwords.com_

* * *

Added stories _The Black Wedding, The Stairway to Heaven_ and _After the Flood_ to TOC.

* * *

5/26/2020 -

* * *

Added story _The God of Small Animals_ to TOC.

# About the Author

Though he was born and raised in Southeastern Idaho, Kody Boye has lived in the state of Texas since 2010. His first short story, _[A] Prom Queen's Revenge,_ was published at the age of fourteen. He has since gone on to publish numerous works of fiction, including the young-adult novels _When They Came, The Beautiful Ones, The Midnight Spell_ and _ALT CONTROL ENTER,_ as well as fiction for adults. He currently lives and writes in the Rio Grande Valley of South Texas.

You can visit him online at

www.kodyboye.com

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