Victor regarded the electronic card around his neck thoughtfully, the numbers rising the tiniest fraction by the second. The bar almost looked like it wasn’t moving at all, if he didn’t look long enough.

It wouldn’t be long until his number reached critical levels, according to the radiation card, but he’s been resetting his numbers illegally for months now, so the numbers at this point hold little meaning. So far, he has felt fine. Energized, even. Every single cell in his body felt electric, and he was beginning to like the feeling.

To keep up appearances, he still wore his protective vest dutifully as he worked, making small marks in his small black notebook. It was only a formality; he has taken to committing his observations to memory. Today, the prism was changing colors again, from blue to green to red, before transforming to his favorite: a rich, deep violet. It went through this rotation every day, like clockwork, and by this point he could predict the change down to the second. He wasn't entirely sure what it meant, but he had theories, oh did he have his theories.

He glanced at the second hand of his watch.

Fifteen seconds to violet. Fourteen... thirteen... twelve... eleven...

"Victor?" Natalia's voice called through the speakers, from beyond the glass partition. "What are you doing?"

Victor chewed his lower lip in annoyance. He did not have time to humor Natalia right now. He was fond of her, truly he was, but today was not the day. She had what he would describe as a "relentlessly positive" disposition. A half smile permanently fixed on her heart-shaped face, paired with a soft, lilting voice. She both fascinated and irritated him simultaneously, and today his feelings were closer to the latter.

Five...four...three...

"Have you lost your mind? You need to get out of there!" Natalia's tinny voice crinkled through the speakers. A bright white light started flashing through the room, like a strobe, signaling the emergency alarm had been triggered.

Two...

"Victor!"

One.

---

Dying took exactly forty-five seconds.

Blood was the color of freshly bloomed violets, the searing skin smelled of burnt lavender and agar.

Throughout the process Victor had seemingly random thoughts flit through his brain, with one recurring character: Natalia. She always smelled of lavender, didn't she? It was her shampoo, or that bottle she kept at her desk, was it hand cream? She had chronically dry hands, Victor suddenly remembered, from working with radium, of course. The cream helped.

He coughed up a mist of purple dust.

No, no. It was peonies. The cream's scent was peonies.

The transformation was painful. Then again, that was to be expected. That was what Victor's advisor always told him, back in the day, when he was a young doctoral student, full of hopeful idealism and shameless ambition. To truly change one must destroy the old self, the esteemed Dr. Keehma preached. One must die.

Natalia always thought that was a bit extreme. Victor didn't. It was one of their recurring arguments. It became a sort of ritual, their friendly debates, late night diatribes over boxes of old Chinese food, Natalia illustrating her points with a wave of a chopstick.

It was this particular memory that brought Victor back into the sea of violet, hazy images of spring peonies and wonton noodles at the edges of his vision, a half-smile forming on his bluish lips.

He did it. He finally did it. He was now the purest form of energy. A burning, glowing, radiating ball of light. A successful metamorphosis.

It was sad, really, that as he passed he didn't notice the small humanoid shadow clinging to the remnants of his white coat. The figure of a woman with a heart shaped face, who once smelled of peonies.

I like to think time is not linear.

It’s comforting to imagine time is never  lost but instead always existing.  The past, the present, and all things yet to come.

What if those fleeting feelings of firsts are never gone?   Because those are precious, aren’t they?  And so quickly lost.  The joy of seeing a child’s first steps, the thrill of first loves, the pain of that first heartbreak.

What if that feeling, those moments, never actually go away?  What if they can stay, always part of us, never leaving us, every memory etched into our souls, a lattice of love, hate, sadness, regret, and everything in between.

Or maybe they don’t.  Maybe they are truly lost.  Like a puff of smoke, or a ripple in a pond.  Gone as quickly as they came.

I suppose, in the end, it doesn’t matter.

This time we think we have, be it a linear strand or coalescing spools of thread, always ends as abruptly as it starts.   And all we can grasp are fleeting moments, fated to pass.

The first Hollow appeared in the bright light of day.

It looked, at first, to be a deep obsidian humanoid statue, with long gangly limbs, slender fingers, and a v-shaped torso. The head tilted slightly to the side, unnervingly, as if deep in thought.

It stood, motionless, smack in the middle of Main Street in our small town of Cedar Hold. It simply spawned one bright morning as if somebody had erected it overnight. It did not appear to be made of any solid material, instead, the dark matter looked like a smoky cross between air and fluid, an opaque dark fog, like a three dimensional shadow.

Immediately, the whole town was enthralled by the strange apparition.

“It must be an optical illusion.” Hannah said, flicking a cigarette, the ash almost landing on the hem of my sleeve. “Or some sort of performance art piece, you know, to get the town talking.”

“Please.” I smiled. “This is not New York or L.A. Nobody is doing performance art in middle-of-nowhere cornfield USA.”

“What do you think it is, then, Dan?” Hannah looked at me curiously, her dark hair becoming increasingly frizzy from the midwestern humidity. Hannah and I used to be neighbors when we were kids, before she went away to college at UCLA. Now, a degree in biology and a whole lot of debt later, she was back in the town where we both grew up, to care for her sick father. I considered her one of my closest friends.

I shrugged as I handed her a mug of coffee. I didn’t have an answer to her question. Truth be told, the mysterious apparition deeply disturbed me. It felt invasive, the way it was just standing there in the middle of town, unmoving, watching us, studying us. Through the smudged glass of the wall to wall windows of the diner, I could see the dark shape about a mile down the road.

The town had erected a barricade around the shadow statue within hours of its discovery, so nobody had been able to come within ten feet of it. Some local kids have thrown rocks at it, most missing it completely, but the few stones that did manage to hit the target simply disappeared, as if absorbed into a dark void. It had been there almost three days already, and we were no closer to finding out what it was.

My best friend Lee sat beside Hannah hunched over his bacon and eggs, seemingly unbothered. “Aliens, obviously.” He said in between bites. “They’re probably, like, trying to communicate with us. Copying the way we look, that’s why it’s shaped like that, you know?”

“It doesn’t scare you?” Hannah turned to Lee, taking another puff from her cigarette.

Lee snorted. “Are you kidding me? This is the most exciting thing that’s ever happened to this town.” He paused, serious all of a sudden, which was a rare thing for my childhood friend. “And yes, it terrifies me.”

“Doesn’t seem to affect your appetite.” I quipped, trying to lighten the mood. Seeing Lee being anything other than his jovial self didn’t sit right with me.

“Theresa thinks it’s a demon.” Lee continued, shoveling another piece of bacon into his mouth. He ate when he was stressed. It was a wonder he was still so skinny. He pointed a fork into the sky, flinging a piece of scrambled egg onto the counter. “End of days, she says. But then again she says that every other week.”

I smiled to myself. Lee was always talking about Theresa. She and Lee had just gotten married two weeks ago, everybody telling them they were crazy, getting married at twenty-three. But Lee and Theresa have been together since high school and there was not a doubt in my mind they were meant for each other.

“Where is Theresa?” Hannah asked.

“At the doctor’s.”

“Oh no, is she sick?”

Lee smiled. He seemed about to bust at the seams with excitement.

A gasp from Hannah. “No way. Shut up. Are you guys pregnant?”

I chuckled at the mix of emotions on Lee’s face. My friend never could keep a secret, wearing his heart proudly on his sleeve. “Now you’ve done it. Theresa is going to kill you.”

“Hannah, you have to promise not to say anything. We’re not telling people yet and—” Lee started.

Before Lee could say anything further, a piercing voice echoed through the quiet street from the edge of the barricade.

“It’s moving! It’s moving!” A distant panicked man yelled. “The shadow is moving!”

Then, there were screams.

—

As the days passed, more and more of the creatures appeared across town, in seemingly random places. The playground. The shopping mall. The roof of the municipal hall. They were all different shapes and sizes, some short and rotund, while others can be up to eight feet tall. One thing they all had in common was their eerie humanoid form. Two legs, two arms, a torso, and a head.

Of course, we now know they were anything but human.

We gave them a name: Hollows.

At first they stood unmoving, like statues. They remained in this state for three days. Then, like clockwork, on the fourth day, they would start moving. Slowly, at first, lumbering clumsily, in unfocused directions, like sleepy giants, then they became more focused, more dangerous. Interestingly, they seemed only able to move in daylight.

We lost almost half the citizens of Cedar Hold that first week. A third of the remaining survivors on the second. Theresa, unfortunately, was at the medical building during the first attack, and was one of the first casualties.

It had been a month now since the first Hollow appeared, and there was one Hollow in particular that was giving me and my friends trouble. It was one that appeared on Lee’s roof three days ago. Its long legs seemingly right at home in between the shingles atop where Theresa and Lee’s bedroom would have been.

The three of us stood somberly on Lee’s front lawn looking at the Hollow with a sharp object in each hand. For once, Hannah did not have a lit cigarette in hers. It was just as well. We were quickly running out of them.

“I just really think it looks like her.” Lee was saying, a strange expression on his face. A cross between desolation and hope. “It’s the hair, you see how it curls at the shoulders like that? I mean, it lands in exactly the same way as Theresa’s. The exact same way. And she’s the same height! It has to mean something.”

“I don’t know, Lee.” Hannah said softly, kindly. “I don’t think it has to mean anything.”

I glanced at my watch. We were coming up on seventy two hours.

“It’s almost time, Lee.”

“I know, I know!”

“We don't have to do this, you know.” I said gently, putting a hand on Lee’s shoulder which he immediately shrugged off.

“I have to know, Dan. Don’t you understand?” Lee turned to look at me and I could see the desperation in his eyes. “I have to know if it’s her.”

I could have imagined it. The slightest of movements from the Hollow, a turn of the head. And I had to give it to Lee, it did look like Theresa for a second. The slender neck, the suggestion of hair landing right past the shoulders. But how could it be?

“She won’t hurt me.” Lee whispered, to no one in particular.

Silently we helped Lee set up a twenty foot ladder against the side of his house. It took some maneuvering between the three of us, we weren’t exactly college athletes, but eventually we all deemed the ladder positioned correctly and steady enough.

“Here goes.” Lee took a deep breath before climbing the ladder slowly, his expression dead serious, as if on his way to the gallows.

Hannah and I held our breaths as we watched. The dark shadow stood motionless on the roof, waiting, watching. The streets were so dead quiet, most of the remaining citizens having taken to self-imposed quarantine, that I imagined I could hear Lee’s pounding heartbeat. Or maybe I was hearing my own.

When Lee finally hauled himself up on the roof, the shadow remained perfectly still, like a statue. He came within three feet of it when suddenly, there was the smallest of movements, a millimeter, maybe two.

Hannah screamed.

“Lee!”

The Hollow was morphing. It tilted its head to the left and raised its right arm, mirroring Lee’s movements. There seemed to be smoky tendrils emanating from it, creeping, slowly, towards my friend.

Lee didn’t seem to hear us. He was entranced, his gaze fixated on the Hollow, his pupils so dilated they looked completely black.

“Get out of there!” I yelled scrambling to to get up the ladder. I feel Hannah’s hand grab my arm.

“Are you crazy? Don’t go up there!” Hannah begged.

I shook her hand off. There was no way I was going to leave my friend up there. I couldn’t see what was happening from the ground, I had to get up there.

Suddenly, before I was even a couple of rungs up the ladder, a mist of pink and red showered us from the roof. Tiny reddish specks. The slight taste of copper in the air.

Hannah was crying now, and before I knew what was happening she was pulling me from the ladder with strength I didn’t know she had. Instincts took over then, and we ran, we ran and ran.

Screams from the rest of the town drowned Hannah’s cries.

We never did see Lee again after that.

We chose to believe that at least, now, he was with Theresa.

--

It started with a whisper, low and slow. Gentle pings on the piano, and then, strings, each note a pull, causing a twinge in the middle of the chest that feels almost like pain, the low bass a soothing rhythm, slowing the heartbeat to match its cadence, first slow and calming, then gradually growing faster, louder, to a climactic peak, a cathartic exhalation, before slowing back down in a comforting decrescendo.

“It is beautiful.” I breathed after the song finished, suddenly realizing I was crying. “Oh my gosh, I have never felt like this while listening to a piece of music. This is incredible, Lucy, truly incredible.”

“Thank you, Ms. Hahn.”

Lucy’s expression was inscrutable. Her deep brown eyes pools of ink beneath black lashes, not a single line on her expressionless face. She was looking at me intently. “How does it make you feel?”

I wiped at my face to dry the wetness on my cheeks. “I don’t know… there’s something about it, a sense of something I can’t have, or something that I’ve lost somehow…”

“Yes?” Lucy prodded, leaning forward.

“Longing.” I finally said. “This song. This song captures perfectly the feeling of longing.”

Lucy nodded, seeming satisfied.

The sheet music lay haphazardly on the table.

“How did you make this, Lucy?” I asked. Lucy was my brightest student, technically gifted, able to execute the most difficult pieces on both the piano and strings without a single mistake. She was a joy to watch perform, her hands a flurry of perfect technique, the product of thousands of hours of practice and natural talent. But for all of Lucy’s gifts, being creative was not one of them. Not once has my best student created a truly original piece.

Until now.

Lucy leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. “You wouldn’t believe me.”

“Of course I would.” I countered, not quite feeling the certainty of my words. There was something about the piece that felt surreal. Even then I knew, I knew the song I just listened to would go down in history as an iconic piece, it was simply too good. There was no doubt in my mind I was witnessing the nascent of a musical legend. It was exactly the kind of thing artists dream of, the only thing.

She flicked her gaze back to me. The silence between us stretched, the air in the room thinner, as if we’re at the peak of something. Finally she said, “It came to me in a dream.”

“A dream.” I repeated doubtfully.

“Yes.” Lucy sighed. “You’re going to think I’m crazy.”

As a teacher at one of the most prestigious music conservatories in the country, I have certainly seen my fair share of students being driven to the brink of a mental breakdown. There was an unbelievable amount of pressure, being at the top of the craft, the cutthroat competition, the hours and hours of practice, the extreme passion and perfectionism, the never ending mantra of not being good enough.

I watched Lucy’s face and was suddenly struck with the youth of it. The face of a girl too young to be feeling this much pressure, to carry this weight. And it was a heavy weight, wasn’t it? To be this talented.

Girls her age should be giggling about boys and decorating their dorm rooms, worrying about make up and what outfit to wear to the next party. Instead, here Lucy was, talking about composing music in her dreams.

“It just asked something in return.”

I blinked. “It?”

Lucy nodded. “I thought I was dreaming, you know, I didn’t take it seriously. It asked to take a piece of me, a feeling, a human thing, and it said in exchange, it would help me turn it into a timeless piece of music.” She looked down at her hands. “Then I woke up, and I had this song in my head, I recorded myself playing it and here we are.”

I swallowed something thick in my throat. Poor, poor Lucy. Another young talent broken by the pressure. Already I pictured myself making phone calls to the school health center, helping Lucy make an appointment for an evaluation.

“But you see, I think it actually took it.”

“Took what?”

“The feeling.” A look of deep concern crossed my young student’s face. “I don’t feel it anymore. I can’t. It’s like, it was cut out of me.”

“The feeling of longing.” I said slowly.

“Yes.”

“Lucy, listen to me.” I leaned forward. “I am glad you finally found your creative side, but I think you’re putting yourself under too much pressure. You have to take care of yourself, okay? I’ll make you an appointment with Sheila. You’ve met her, right? The school psychologist. I really think—”

“Forget it.” Lucy stood up. “You think I’m crazy. Anyway, I have to go, I have other songs I need to record…”

“Other songs?”

“Yeah… I have to. It’s the only thing that matters anymore.”

“Lucy, wait—”

Then she was gone, the wooden door swinging shut behind her, leaving the rapidly scrawled sheet music on the table. I stared at the sheets for a moment, noticing the slightly unhinged way in which they were handwritten, as if it was done subconsciously, automatically. There was a particular spot where the note head was shaded so aggressively that it looked like the lead of the pencil snapped.

I should have gone after her, should have stopped her… but I didn’t. I had a busy schedule, the next student already waiting outside in the hallway, and I told myself I would call Sheila to check on Lucy later. It could wait, I told myself, she needed to calm down, maybe get some songs out of her system. Secretly I wondered what kind of masterpiece she was going to record next. If it was going to be as good as the one she just showed me.

Already I was intoxicated by the music. If I was being honest myself… I simply wanted more of it. It felt precious. It felt… worth it.

I would never forgive myself for that.

—

The tragedy of Lucy Chen made headlines across the country.

The nineteen year old prodigy was renowned for having created thirteen masterpieces in a matter of weeks. Each masterpiece was titled a specific emotion, each perfectly capturing the feeling. The effect was described to be almost supernatural, the way each note was so perfectly placed that it caused measurable physical effects in both the performer and the listener: heart rates racing and falling, muscles tightening then relaxing. It was not uncommon during a performance for audience members to start weeping.

In short order, this drove Lucy’s creations to the highest recognition. The collection aptly called “Fragments of a Soul” garnered Lucy the Pulitzer Prize for Music posthumously.

The last piece of the collection was titled simply “Joy” and it was dedicated to her music teacher, Ms. Geraldine Hahn, who declined any comment on the matter. The sheet music was rumored to be accompanied by a handwritten letter addressed to the teacher, the contents of which widely speculated upon by many music enthusiasts.

Geraldine Hahn left teaching shortly after Lucy Chen’s death, citing “personal reasons” for her early retirement. It was rumored that she had checked herself into a psychiatric facility at the urging of her family and colleagues. Both Ms. Hahn and the school have declined to comment if her retirement had anything to do with Lucy or the letter.

The tragedy of this musical genius will resonate with music schools across the country for decades to come, each of the thirteen pieces achieving cult status. It has been said that the highest achievement for a student was to perform all thirteen pieces in succession without a mistake.

“Joy” became one of the modern choices for an audition repertoire for most conservatories, which typically required only classical works such as Bach or Chopin.

The exact nature of Lucy’s death is to be kept private in accordance to the wishes of her family, though they have confirmed there is no evidence of foul play.

—

Ms. Hahn,

I am not sure why I am writing you this letter. I think some part of me thinks you might understand. Or maybe I just want someone to know. It seems the right thing to do, to tell someone.

The most wonderful thing has happened.

I was scared at first. It was terrifying, the blackness of it. Like an endless shadow. At the same time it was calling to me, pulling me deeper into it, like gravity.

And then, of course, the music. The music was so beautiful, so perfect, that I just had to keep going, keep giving.

After a while, little by little, the more I gave it, eventually… I stopped being afraid.

Now, nothing feels the same. Nothing feels like anything, really.

And I…like it.

I wish I could tell you how freeing it is. How beautiful. To feel this nothingness.

I have no more worries, no fears, no ugly memories. There is no pressure to do anything or be anyone. Nothing hurts. Nothing matters.

I feel… weightless.

I hope you like this final piece. It is the last part of me.

Do not be afraid.

Do not worry.

Nothing will hurt me here.

Lucy.

When I think of the word “monster” I think of my daughter.

It was an involuntary reflex, an automatic thought as my academic husband would have called it, the association between “daughter” and “monster” carved into the recesses of my brain, my neurons easily connecting the two concepts together.

I know it is not the correct way to feel about one’s own child, and for many years I punished myself for it. Over and over I admonished myself for feeling the way I did. It was abhorrent, going against every natural human instinct to love and care for one’s flesh and blood.

For a mother it was especially unforgivable.

To be fair, to this day, I am convinced my daughter is a monster.

I knew from the moment I held her in my arms, the way her pale blue eyes absorbed all the light in the room, reflecting nothing back, like a demon. I felt no surge of love when they gave her to me wrapped in pale pink fabric, after hours of exhausting labor. The only thing I felt when her skin touched mine was pure disgust, the nausea causing my eyes to water.

My husband Erick mistook the tears in my eyes to be from joy.

“She is beautiful isn’t she?” He had smiled so brightly then, as he took my child from me and held her in his arms, like he had just been given the most precious gift. “Arla. I want to name her Arla.”

“I’m… not feeling well.” I had managed to choke out. Even then I knew, I knew what I was feeling was abnormal… deplorable. Erick would not have forgiven me. It was not a forgivable thing.

“Of course, of course, honey.” Erick barely took his eyes off her. He was charmed already, my husband, the first of many that my daughter would have under her spell. Everybody it seemed, except for me.

—

Arla was sixteen when the deaths started.

There were dead animals before that, of course, pets mysteriously disappearing or getting ill. I could never prove it, there were always perfectly reasonable explanations, with Arla’s beaming innocent face dispelling any suspicions. It was also possible, of course, that I was simply insane, and that I had spent the last sixteen years harboring a sick delusion about my daughter, like the deplorable broken human being that I am.

Trust me, that thought never strayed far from the back of my mind, a whisper of doubt in every interaction, every innocent comment, every seemingly innocuous event that could have a thousand meanings and repercussions.

Arla was never overtly malicious to me, but here and there, she would do something so unexpectedly hurtful, and she would look fascinated, absolutely riveted, at her power to wound me. It was like she was surprised at her own strength, at her ability to affect other people. I often got this feeling around Arla, that everyone in the world existed only to entertain her.

Nobody else seemed to share these feelings about my daughter, of course.

That was okay, I was rather adept at pretending now. I’ve had sixteen years of practice, after all. Two… maybe three more years and Arla would flee the nest and I would be able to finally breathe again. Two years. That was hardly any time at all.

I was perfectly ready to continue our farce of a happy family for another few years, burying all my dysfunctional feelings under practiced smiles and nice suburban rituals, but then that one cursed afternoon, while doing some half-hearted house cleaning... I found the lock box under Arla’s bed.

After that I could no longer keep pretending.

—

I stared at the contents of the box in front of me in quiet trepidation. Even then, even then, my brain looked for other explanations, for more innocent reasons, for what Arla had been keeping under her bed.

“Mom.”

I stiffened. A chill ran down my spine. I shook it off as I turned my head to look at my daughter.

Arla stood by the kitchen counter with her dark copper hair in a messy bun, wearing a wrinkled t-shirt and shorts way too short for a sixteen year old. She was beautiful, people always said, ever since she was little. She was not merely pretty, no, that word denoted a level of wholesome innocence, soft symmetrical features that was pleasant to look at. No, Arla had that rare kind of bewitching beauty that stopped people in their tracks, to the point that it was unsettling.

At this moment, she looked like she had just woken up, the hint of sleep still in her eyes, and somehow that made her look more ethereal.

“Hey darling.” I said, my mouth dry.

Arla shot me an amused look. Her pale blue eyes glinted beneath impossibly long lashes, first resting on my face, then landing on the open box on the dining table in front of me. She remained silent.

“Arla… I found this under your bed.” I said lamely.

She looked back at me and the glance between us made the air in the room feel thin.

I swallowed. Not for the first time I wondered how completely abnormal it was, the way my daughter made me feel, as if I was as small as an ant, an insect she was thinking of crushing under her heel.

There was just something about her eyes. It was blue, so blue. A pale, unnatural color. Vampiric.

Suddenly, she shrugged, and the weird aura dissipated. "And?”

And?

I turned back to the contents of the box. There were at least ten of them. Different colors and textures. Locks of hair each bundled together with a thin piece of pink ribbon. One particular lock of hair looked like it came from a friend of Arla's from middle school. The one with the thick dark curls. The one who went missing five summers ago.

I picked up another lock that was shorter than the rest. A flaxen bundle with a hint of gray. Like Erick's.

“Where did these come from, Arla?” I asked, tears stinging the back of my eyes. Was it possible? Despite everything I was still hoping I have simply gone insane, that maybe my mind just broke sixteen years ago, a sort of postpartum psychosis that never went away, that maybe, maybe my daughter was simply my daughter, an ordinary girl with an unfortunate mother. I tried, I really tried, to be loving to her throughout the years, even though I… was afraid of her.

Arla sighed and pulled a chair to sit down across from me. She suddenly looked older than her sixteen years. She held my gaze.

“I know you think I’m evil, mother.”

“I don’t…”

“Stop.” Arla held her hand up, interrupting my protestations. “I know, mother.”

I closed my eyes, and I realized I was crying, two trails of tears had made their way down my cheeks. Inexplicably, I was suddenly overwhelmed with a feeling of relief. I knew then that it was finally out there, in the ether, something close to the truth, the invisible walls between us finally broken. I could let them out now, these feelings I have been so ashamed of.

“I didn’t kill them.” Arla said, her voice gentle and even, as if she was talking to a child. “I know that’s hard for you to believe. You’ve always been the only person to see it, you know, the darkness in me, nobody else could.”

I took a breath.

“Look at me, mother.” Arla commanded with quiet urgency. “Really look.”

I opened my eyes and gasped, a scream caught in my throat.

Sitting in front of me was not my beautiful daughter, instead, it was a deep gray humanoid apparition, with black voids for eyes, wings like those of a vulture, and large angled horns… like a demon’s.

“Don’t be afraid.” The creature said. “I know how it looks, but I’m not evil, mother. I simply… am.” It motioned to the locks of hair in the box. “It was their time. I loved them, all of them, that’s why I kept these. But it was their time. Do you understand?”

“I…”

“It will be your time too, mother, someday.” The apparition was gradually becoming hazy, morphing back into the familiar form of my daughter. The copper hair, the pale blue eyes, the unnaturally straight teeth. Suddenly I was looking at Arla again, and she was smiling. “But not yet, you see? But when the day comes, I want to be there, to guide you. Most people don’t see the real me, they only see this.” She motioned to herself, the perfection of it, the beauty and youth. “I’m sorry I can’t be as comforting for you... But you brought me into this world, so of course you could see what I really am.”

“And what’s that?” I managed to ask.

“Death.” Arla said simply. A sadness crossed her face. “Every so often, I take human form. I find it necessary, to continue to appreciate the lives that I take. Also... to love. Though I know I could never love the way humans do... Not really.” She held my gaze. "I envy you."

A breath of air felt stuck in my chest. “Arla…”

“It’s okay, mother.” She smiled, then reached across the table to touch my hand. I had to fight the urge to recoil. “You will never love me, I know. But believe it or not, I love you, in the way I know how, I really do, and that’s enough, okay?”

I released the breath that I was holding. Part of my brain wondered if I was actually having this conversation. Or if my delusion has reached its pinnacle. But one look at my daughter, the unsettling beautiful face, the feeling of her cold hand on mine, and I knew, I knew in my heart that it was true.

My daughter, the monster.

“It’s okay, mother.” The monster said again. A small nod, as if giving permission.

A weight I didn't know I had on my chest lifted. Somehow I was no longer afraid. Instead, I was... grateful.

I lifted my gaze to catch my daughter's eyes and gave her a half-hearted smile.

"Thank you, Arla." In one swift motion I swung the knife I was holding across the monster's slender neck, an explosion of red blurring the edges of my vision, and finally.... finally, for the first time in sixteen years, I could breathe.

---

You know the moment, that one crazy euphoric moment, when you think, this is it, you’ve been waiting for this, this is the start of the rest of your life.

Her name was Lena.

Raven haired with big brown doe eyes that felt like a warm cozy blanket on a rainy day. She was brilliant, too, and kind. You could barely keep up with her. Because of her you turned into a different man, a better man. All of a sudden you were watching independently released movies only five people have seen and reading Sartre and volunteering at the animal shelter.

It was a cute story, how you met. She was sitting alone in a corner table, her dark hair in a messy bun, an errant strand grazing her right cheek. She had a laptop open in front of her and her brows were furrowed in adorable concentration.

She ignored you at first, her focus on her work. But in time she opened up to you, letting her walls fall away, the banter flowing easily, like you were old souls, having met before, in another time.

You were the best version of yourself around her. You couldn’t remember the last time you pulled out a seat for another person in your life, and yet, with Lena, it came naturally, like a primal instinct almost forgotten. You had this insatiable need to be her provider and protector, and there was nothing wrong with that, was there?

In short order she became your everything, and you tried your best to be everything for her. You should have seen the signs, but you were too busy loving her. Nobody ever warned you about that kind of love. The dangerous kind. The stuff of tragedies, recorded for posterity, an omen for future lovers and naive dreamers.

You couldn’t believe it when she stopped answering your calls, your number blocked, her friends stonewalling you, a girl army of sharp tongues and quick wits, preventing you from even talking to her.

A little time was all you needed. After all, eventually she would see that you were the only man for her, the only one who understands her, who would love and protect her no matter what.

You were prepared for this, you were prepared to fight for her. You weren't the type of man who quit when the going gets tough.

That restraining order really was a bit overboard on her part, though. Did the police really have to make such a big deal out of a lovers quarrel? 'Stalker' seemed like such an extreme word.

She was always so dramatic, Lena. That was one of the things you loved so much about her. She was so passionate about everything. Of course, that would change soon, once she settles down. They all settle down, eventually.

You had to get creative. Changing your name and appearance seemed a bit overboard at first, but later became such an obvious solution. You just needed a bit of cover, so you could get close to her again.

It was easy, really, with the latest black market appearance augmentation available nowadays. A new nose, darker brows, glasses. You barely recognized yourself when you looked in the mirror.

It took some time, tracking her down again, but eventually you found where she was hiding.

She was still freelancing, working remotely either in her ridiculously expensive downtown studio apartment, or the vintage coffee shop a couple of blocks from her street. She still ordered her coffee plain, with just a dash of oat milk, and liked a blueberry muffin in the afternoon.

Different city, same Lena. It was easy to know people, really, if you just put in the effort.

Lena used to go running in the morning. Three miles by seven, without fail. She seemed to have stopped doing that since moving, however. You read in one of her texts to her friend, through one of those ghost trackers you secretly downloaded onto her phone, that she stopped running because she was afraid she would run into you! How silly. Silly Lena, overreacting again.

Today, though, she seemed to have gotten the courage to put on her running shoes again. It was about time, really. It had been three months since the whole debacle. You would think she would stop the cold shoulder by now.

"Oh! I'm sorry, I wasn't paying attention." You smiled your best smile as you strategically ran into her on the trail. You held your phone up like an offering. "Working and running, you know."

Lena smiled uneasily, a slight crease between her brows. She was trying to place you. You looked familiar, she was almost sure she knew you, but not quite. Like a word at the tip of her tongue. The appearance augments were working their magic. Though of course they would, at the price you paid for them.

"I'm sorry." You said again. You held out your hand. This time you were going to do this right, take it slow. Now she was vulnerable. "My name is--"

You did not have time to react. In fact, you did not feel the blade at all, until the hilt was pressing into your side, flush against the soft skin of your abdomen. A frown crossed your face as the taste of copper gurgled up your throat.

Lena was not smiling now, her deep brown eyes dark pools of ink, a well you could sink into. She leaned forward and held her lips against your ears, her voice pure silk and velvet as she whispered. "Yeah, I know who you are."

The ground was closer all of a sudden.

Always full of surprises, that Lena, your lover.

It was the ache of the jaw, the cramp by the shoulder blade, the knot in that triangular muscle holding the head in place that was keeping all the bodily tension from exploding like a shaken champagne bottle.

“Stop fighting it.” The massage therapist muttered gently, trying to work out the knot on my left upper back.

“I’m not.” I insisted.

She was silent for a moment, pushing on my shoulder with the palms of her hand. “Right here, you feel this? You’re very tense here.”

“I don’t know how to not be tense there.” I sighed. How many more minutes of this? I never would have come to this place if it wasn’t for the free massage voucher that my friend Zara had kindly insisted I redeem on her behalf. She had emphasized that I sorely ‘needed it’ and I knew I wouldn’t hear the end of it if I didn’t follow through.

So here I was, making things awkward not only for myself but also for this poor therapist who was unlucky enough to get me as her first client of the day.

“Try breathing out slowly after taking a deep breath.” The therapist, her name was Katarina, suggested helpfully. “Do you want me to guide you?”

“No.” I said, sharper than I intended. I tried to soften my tone. “I mean, no, it’s fine, really. Just… I’ll try on my own.”

Katarina was silent again, no doubt wondering how to get through to such a difficult client. That, or she was silently praying for time to somehow go faster so that we could both leave this awkward situation behind us with some modicum of dignity.

“Just… let me work out this muscle, can you do that? Imagine you’re letting go of it, letting me take full control.”

I almost laughed out loud. Relinquishing control was not something I knew how to do, no matter how much I wanted to.

I tried to take in the dim lighting, the scented candles releasing lemon balm and lavender into the air, the gentle pings of the classical music playing subtly in the background.

I attempted to hold my breath and to exhale it slowly, trying to ration out the the air in my chest to last a full seven seconds. Wasn’t that what they said in those meditation apps? Exhale for a full seven seconds? Or was it eight? I knew prolonged expiratory breathing activated the parasympathetic nervous system somehow. But the seven (or eight) seconds have always seemed unnaturally long to me. How did people do that? I ran out of breath after five.

Katarina seemed to have given up on trying to get me to participate in this exercise. (I was trying, I really was!). She was now really putting some weight into her massage, forcing the knot in my trapezius into submission.

The persistent tension in my shoulders, carrying the self-imposed pressures of my life, resisted with unnecessary strength.

#NotFiction

Dying, for me, was a beautiful experience.

I know that sounds crazy, blasphemous even, to describe such a tragic thing, a viscerally sad thing, in such a dissonant way. You might wonder if I was depressed. And truly, I wasn’t. In the end, despite everything, I was stupidly happy. Still, if I was being completely and truly honest, dying, the actual act of it, not the pain or the ragged breathing, no, the actual process of letting go… that part. That part was bliss.

Let me tell you about my life, before I ask you to celebrate in its ending.

It wasn’t a particularly spectacular existence, some might even call it boring, run of the mill. A life that could be mistaken for a thousand others. Of course, to me, at the time, it was everything, the only thing.

I was born in a small Midwestern town, raised in typical Midwestern niceness, by a father who was strict and distant but did his best, and a mother who was a tad too religious but who did all the mothering things with unmatched fervor. I was clothed in clean clothes, my feet adorned with shoes that were sensible and fit well. I was loved and scolded and hugged in all the typical ways. I had two sisters I constantly squabbled with, banging on the shared bathroom door, hastily getting ready for the day in a panic, somebody always holding up the one hairdryer, using up all the hot water.

I loved, oh yes, I loved. Roman, that was his name. I remember thinking his name had that unique way of rolling easily in the curl of my tongue, passing effortlessly through my lips, like I’ve said his name all my life, or that I’m meant to, for the rest of it.

He was brilliant, my Roman. I met him at university, studying astrophysics. He had grand ideas and even grander dreams. He loved life but at the same time was disillusioned by it. He said to me once, using his hands to gesture into space: “It’s not possible, you know, that this is it. There’s more to this, more to everything, we just can’t see it.”

You would think it would hurt, the way he said it, the way he longed for something more than us, more than what I could give him, but it didn’t. Because I knew what he meant, I felt it too.

There was something in between the empty spaces, he told me, between the tiniest of particles. An answer to everything.

I never found out what he meant, neither did he. He died shortly after his twenty-fifth birthday, before he was able to finish his research, before he got to meet his daughter, at that point still the tiniest clump of molecules gestating inside me.

I remember the pain of that moment. How the world became dull and gray. How I went to sleep too many nights hoping to never wake up again. But day after day I woke up, and I would go through the motions, and I would go to work and my prenatal appointments, smiling at my doctor, telling him yes, yes, I’m doing okay. It’s hard, but I’ve got my sisters, you know, and my mom…

Then I had my daughter, and at once the world had color again. She had Roman’s eyes, almond shaped and deeply brown, thick dark lashes swooping downwards at the sides. I swear she looked at me in the exact way Roman did, with that exact slight raise of the brows, the slight curl in the lips, and I remember weeping.

I named her: Aster. Star. The only one that mattered in my universe, my sun.

We had a simple life, our little family of two. We fought a lot, in the way all mothers and daughters do, Aster having the quick wit of her father, the stubbornness of her mother. She broke my heart a million times when she was a teenager, which we mended as we both grew older. Then as quickly as she came into my life, she left. I understood. She had to build a life of her own, having met her own star, her own universe.

And it was good.

“Mom?”

She’s finally here. My star. “Aster.”

Large dark eyes stared down at me. She was older now, my star, smile lines having formed at the corners of her eyes. Have those always been there? They must have. Aster always smiled with her eyes.

“Hey mom, it’s okay. We’re here.”

We. I couldn’t see well these days. She must have brought her little boy, my grandson. I squinted at the small blonde head on her lap. She named him… Roman.

I wanted so much to smile, but it hurt to even breathe. My chest muscles struggled to expand. I saw the nurse put a hand on my daughter’s shoulder, shaking her head.

Yes, there was pain, every single muscle hurt, the air caught uncomfortably in my chest, but there was also something else… something light. Suddenly I felt weightless. I knew then it was time to go.

Time at once contracted then expanded, and I could see everything, the future, the past, all possible choices and universes all at once. I finally saw it, what my Roman was talking about, the space in between the tiniest particles, the invisible energy that connects all of us together, in every universe, in every possible dimension. My universe, my stars.

I died then.

And it was beautiful.

Everyone has a sad story, if you dig deep enough, like scratching a scab. You can dig and dig, and eventually everybody, invariably, opens and bleeds.

Luisa was great at that, finding everyone’s sore spot, knowing just the right way to make it hurt. It could be an innocent sounding comment, a raise of an eyebrow, a gaze too long at a scar or some other secret imperfection. Whatever your Achilles heel was, she could find it, use it. Then she would parade it around like a war totem, a symbol of her strength, another battle won.

I used to admire it, her skill of reading people. Luisa was not reckless with it. Instead she wielded it with practiced precision. She used her weapons only on people who deserved it, people who were already broken anyway, people so irredeemably damaged that their only destiny was to destroy other people on their path to self-annihilation.

As Luisa always said, there was no shortage of evil in the downtrodden. She never had sympathy for the bully who was bullied, the abuser who was abused. There was a point of no return, Luisa told me, when someone no longer deserved forgiveness.

Of course, this also made me afraid of her. She terrified me, my sister.

“You are a terrible person.” I remember saying to her, when I was the naive age of thirteen, young and foolish enough to think that I could stand my ground, thinking I had it all figured out, my sister, the villain.

At first I thought she would get angry, and I was prepared for her to scream or yell or hurt, but instead she laughed. She laughed and laughed.

“Oh Andrea. Of course I am.” Her eyes dimmed. Her beautiful face etched with unexplained sadness. I remember thinking that in a certain shadow she looked decades older than her years. It was the only time she looked at me with rare tenderness. “But you... you'll be okay, Andrea. You're not like me. Promise you'll never be like me.”

Of course, it wasn't until much later that I learned what broke my sister. She had protected me from an unspeakable evil in our own house. In doing so she sacrificed her own innocence, something she would never get back. A bully who was bullied. An abuser who was abused.

Luisa, my sister.

#fiction