“I’m telling you!” Paul slammed his fist onto the mirror hanging on the wall to emphasize his point. The mirror shattered. “I’m not paranoid!” He ran his cut fingers through his unruly, dark hair. “Scratch that. I don’t think I’m being watched; I know I’m being watched. I can feel it.” He shuddered. “I can’t eat. I can’t sleep.” In frustration, he threw his arms up in the air. “I’m going crazy!”

He dropped to the faded black leather couch with a long exhale. “I can’t even shit in private! They’re… always …watching…” His heart pounded in his chest. “I told so many people and no one will help.” He clutched his face in his hands and slowly rocked back and forth. “Why won’t they go away…” he trailed off. Jerking his hands from his face, he looked around, scanning for his nemeses. “Why are you doing this to me? I didn’t do anything!” His eyes grew large and wild. Jumping up, he approached the window. Breathing heavily, his breath showed in the chilly air.

The snow sparkled in the blaring sun. It was bright, but it was below freezing with long icicles hanging from the house next door. The houses were so close together that he could see inside of the neighbor’s living room when the light was on. It wasn’t. He rubbed his eyes, and then peered out of the window again, snow blinded. He knew the neighbors weren’t watching him. They had left for vacation a few days before.

He pressed his face against the cool glass, creating a foggy impression of his forehead. He strained to see the ground beneath his window. Were those footprints in the snow, frozen to reveal that his suspicions were correct? It certainly looked like that!

Panting, he whirled away and stumbled to the door. Wearing only a thin, sweat stained T-shirt and lounge pants, he rushed outside. His feet slipped on the ice. He attempted to right himself but failed. He fell, slamming his knees and elbows on the hard earth. Not registering the pain, he forced himself up. He was certain that they were footprints! Not that he needed evidence, but it would help to alleviate the prying accusations of insanity within his own brain.

Oblivious to the bitter cold, he trudged onward, slipping and sliding all the way to the side of the lengthy apartment building. He stood still in the frigid wind, studying the frozen indentations. Sure enough, they were footprints! They were a set of human footprints that led to the window from the sliver of land between the two houses. Large feet, like a man’s feet. Like a large man’s bare feet. He could clearly see the outline of five toes. This person had not been wearing shoes. His breathing increased. What kind of weirdo was stalking him? He frantically looked around. He didn’t see anyone, just a quiet, serene day in the city. But he knew they were watching. Of course, they were watching! They were always watching! Cursing softly, his eyes darted around.

He shook his head, a worried expression on his gaunt face. “Who would do this?” he muttered, his breath showing. He looked around again, searching for prying eyes. “I haven’t done anything wrong!” he yelled, hoping that was heard. He had made sure he had done everything he could to be a law-abiding citizen. He had recently served a six-month prison sentence for assault. It had been the worse experience of his life, having been forced to take weekly injections of an unknown substance. They claimed it was an anti-psychotic medication, but how was he to know what it truly was? Just take their word for it? Maybe it was poison! Maybe it was making him nuts and slowly causing his brain to erode until he died! And why had they suddenly stopped administering the substance a week prior to his release? They had answered his questions with a simple explanation; the doctor had ordered a specific number of injections, and they had all been administered. The treatment had run its course. However, in his vast experience of taking anti-psychotics for much of his life, this was not how it worked. He hadn’t even been prescribed medication for when he was freed. It didn’t make sense.

Initially he had suspected that his probation officer and his flunkies had been spying on him, but now he doubted it. His probation officer was a jerk, but he would not sneak up to his window, barefooted in the snow, to try and catch him breaking the rules of his probation. He frowned, uncertain. Would he?

His attention returned to the footprints. His gaze followed them. They led back around the house. His eyebrows rose, a horrifying thought entering his mind. Is the barefooted man in his home?

He warily made his way around the house, careful not to fall, following the prints. He had left the door open when he had investigated outside. He eyed the room from where he stood on the stoop. Nothing unusual was noted. Holding his breath, he stepped into his apartment and quietly closed the door behind him.

He rubbed his arms vigorously, suddenly acknowledging the cold. He tentatively stepped toward the couch. Slowly easing himself to a sitting position, his eyes scanned over the room, searching for an intruder. Nothing seemed out of place. He lived in a small studio apartment, and he could see in the bathroom from where he sat. The shower stall stood empty; the shower curtain crumbled in a ball beside the toilet. There wasn’t any place to hide.

He was aware that the room was not a place to be trusted. His probation officer had made the arrangements for him to live here, a home for a convict, a half-way house. It must be under supervision. It had to be! There was no such thing as privacy after being incarcerated. They wanted you to mess up so they could haul you away again. But where were the cameras? Where did they hide the microphones? He had torn the place apart looking for surveillance equipment. He had even ripped down the ceiling. Not one tile of the drop ceiling remained intact. They had been thrown in a heap on the floor beside the piles of pink insulation. He had smashed his television set, and then had promptly discarded it in the dumpster in the back yard. He had used a hammer on his cell phone, destroying it. That went in the dumpster as well.

He began rocking back and forth, his eyes continuing to scrutinize the area. His heart began pounding again. His body trembled and his perspiration increased. His breathing became choppy as anxiety rushed over him. He had removed all of the outlet covers and light switch plates. The two light fixtures had been disconnected, leaving bare bulbs hanging in their places. No monitoring devices had been found.

He jumped up, his arms raised to the wooden joists of the ceiling. “Please,” he implored. “I can’t take this!” He yelled something unintelligibly, tears streaming down his face. “I can’t do this anymore!” Feeling the sudden need to flee, he wrenched the door open and ran outside, forgetting it was slippery.

Delete Created with Sketch.

The heavy-set, balding man lowered the binoculars, and then removed the headphones he had been wearing. He slowly took a sip of his hot coffee, undisturbed about the unconscious man sprawled out in the yard. He casually glanced at the thin man who sat beside him. “Looks like this investigation is over.” He glanced at his watch. “Time is 1430.”

The thin man looked at the scene before him with obvious concern. He had seen the man slip and hit his head. He doubted that anyone would find the injured man any time soon as his location was somewhat isolated. “Should we call an ambulance, John? Anonymously, of course.” He could see blood forming in a pool around the fallen man’s head, staining the snow red.

“Let him freeze to death,” was John’s callous response. If the weather didn’t kill him, the toxins he had been injected with surely would. He gathered the stack of paperwork on the table before him and pushed his chair back. He looked grimly at his intern who was still staring at the incapacitated man lying motionless next door.

They had relocated from a van parked down the road, to this apartment two days ago when the occupants left for a vacation. Although the family was confused that they unexpectedly won an all-expense paid trip to Florida from a lottery that they had never even entered, they didn’t hesitate to escape the bleak New England winter.

“Paul, I realize this is your first time in the field, but this is the protocol. I’ve been doing this for a long time. The subjects are to be studied. They’re all degenerates who nobody cares about. We collect the data, and then we leave. That’s it.” He stood and added, “If you don’t think you can handle the job, maybe you should stick to working in the office.”

Paul had just witnessed first-hand what the experimental serum’s effect had been to the man. He had observed the subject, Mr. Pellater, rapidly transform from a confident young man who had been working hard to turn his life around, to a pathetic shell of a human being riddled with panic and anxiety.

It appeared that the paranoia had averted his attention from his basic needs. He hadn’t consumed anything in three days. Showering had been nonexistent. He had rapidly spiraled downward, losing his grip on reality. Paul had seen him tear his assigned room apart in an uncontrollable frenzy, searching for hidden taps and cameras. In fact, he had been unwittingly close to discovering one of them when he had smashed the mirror. He had, however, managed to destroy the expensive spying apparatuses that were located in the television set and cell phone.

It had been painful to watch, gut-wrenching actually. Last night he had seen him sneak around the house, carefully ambling through the freshly fallen snow outside of his room’s window. Cupping his hands around his eyes, he had peered inside. He stood there for quite a while in the brutal elements. He had been wearing the same sweat-stained T-shirt and lounge pants that he currently wore. And he was barefooted.

From where he had sat, Paul had easily noted how red the man’s feet had become. Eventually the subject had turned to leave the window. His feet had changed in color to white with a bluish tinge. The man didn’t seem to notice though as he cautiously made his way back inside. Paul had put the binoculars down and briefly turned away with an involuntary shudder. This was torturous. This poor man was a victim of a cruel, government-funded experiment.

The bald man scrutinized Paul, wondering if the thin man’s conscience would earn him a death sentence. “You good?”

Paul swallowed hard but didn’t say anything further. He knew they were listening. They were always there, watching and listening. And he didn’t want to end up being a statistic. He was aware of what happened to whistle blowers. Ironically, they had all committed suicide. He looked away from Mr. Pellater and picked up his neatly stacked paperwork. It was time to leave and report their findings. The clean-up crew was already on their way to conceal any evidence that the men had ever been there.

I wake up with no memories but my mission.

I wonder only briefly at the empty spaces in my mind. Who needs memories when you have purpose?

So I sit up and feel the crisp, white sheets slide down my arms. I'm in a bed, in a pristine room. Gauzy white curtains billow at the edges of the glass wall opposite, and I push the sheets away as I look out over the city.

The floor looks like wood, but it's smooth and cold on my feet. I put my hand on the glass. It doesn't fog under my fingertips, and I leave no prints.

The sky is hidden under a flat, white sheet of cloud and the light is diffuse. It makes the city look flat, a perfectly lifelike drawing. A photograph. Something that once was real, but this is only a likeness of it.

It's all glass and metal, and I don't know if it's familiar or not. Nothing feels familiar except my own body, so does that mean I've never been here before, or is it only gone with the rest of my memories?

I step back so I can find my reflection in the glass, superimposed over the city. She's vague and doesn't look quite like me, but she smiles when I smile and mimics my wave.

I find clothes in a closet, and dress myself in a shiny grey jacket and billowy white pants. There are boots—tall, sleek, and baby blue—that fit me perfectly.

I tie up my hair in the full-length mirror hung on the back of the closet door, studying my face as I do it. This reflection is clear, and looks like me, but I don't know what I've done, where I've been. There's only this place, here, and my mission. My purpose. I tighten my ponytail and smile.

The building beyond that room feels empty. I cross a mezzanine with a glass railing and evenly-spaced potted plants that could be real or fake. I walk down a glass staircase.

I don't know where I'm going, but I don't need do. I know what I'm here to do, and I'll do it, one way or another.

The city feels more real when I step out into it, but there's still an eerie quiet in the air. The buildings here are tall, and the street is wide, and when I stand in the middle of it and look, all I can see is an endless tunnel of metal and glass that vanishes into the sky.

Walking down the empty street, I find my eyes watering. I don't know why. Tears run down my face, and a sob shakes its way out of me.

Maybe my body is remembering something my mind can't.

But what?

For a split second, my resolve wavers.

At an intersection, I find an abandoned vehicle floating askew. The sliding door isn't working right and bumps loosely, sliding repeatedly partway shut and open again.

I knock on the metal hull, and listen to the echoing ring die away.

I climb up through the broken door, the vehicle rocking under me as I walk along it. Whatever stabilizing mechanism it had isn't working, maybe because it's broken, or maybe just because the vehicle's turned off.

I try to turn it on, but nothing changes.

So I leave the vehicle and keep walking. I go into some of the buildings. Everything's still, until a breeze comes and pokes at my pants and the ends of my hair.

One of the buildings has a metal door just inside the entrance, with a screen on the wall beside it that I tap on without expecting anything.

It lights up.

I scroll through a list of locations, and then set it back to the original one. 92 Quadranth Street.

When I go through the door, that's where I am. I find the number on the building, and a street sign, just to be sure.

I explore a few more places through the door, out of interest, but everywhere is empty and much the same. When I find a park, I stop and walk there instead, off the path and into the trees. Surrounded by them, I could almost pretend there was no city at all. But even the trees don't feel quite alive anymore.

I'm struck by another fit of sobbing when a memory slices through my head. Or through my chest, maybe. Now I remember not only my mission, but how to achieve it. There's a place I need to go, and a button I need to press.

A button that will end the world.

I consider this as I walk there. It's a long walk, so I have plenty of time to consider.

I begin to wonder if I'm confused—this world feels dead already.

But no. I know my mission. I'm here to end the world.

Maybe because it's too far gone to save.

I walk up to a sliding glass door. It's supposed to be automatic, but nothing happens even when I wave my arms at it. I have to push it all the way open, fingertips squealing as they slip across the glass.

There's a big open space beyond, with sleek benches and sleek potted trees and a sleek elevator. The doors won't open, so I take the stairs instead.

At the top of the tower, a room. I pause to lean against the wall, breathing heavily from the climb until my heart rate slows.

I push open the silver door. But before I can step into the room, I'm struck by another memory. It's big and powerful and makes me gasp and fall to my knees. The pain of my kneecaps striking the floor is only enough to distract me for a moment, and then I'm lost in the deluge of memory.

By the time it's over I'm lying, gasping, on the floor.

I remember everything.

This isn't the end of the world at all. This world died long ago; I have come to the beginning of time. The beginning of my world's time, anyway. I haven't yet been born, and I won't be born yet for years and years—centuries, in fact.

This time when I start to cry, I know why. I cry for everything I've lost—a whole world, given up. I sacrificed my future so I come here and kill the world. So I could come here, and erase this dead, empty space so new life can begin.

I sacrificed the rest of my life so that the start of my life could be possible at all.

Gathering myself together, I get to my feet. The tears course down my face as I step toward the console, a wide sweep of chrome counter covered in lights that have gone out.

In the centre, a simple red button. As I step closer, I find that it's not what I expected, and yet it makes more sense, somehow. The button isn't made of plastic or metal; it's organic. It's soft and slightly veined and I can see where it has caused a tiny crack in the console where it grew through the metal.

The world is practically asking me to end its misery.

I reach out and hesitate, my finger hovering. I think of my face, not my real face but my reflection in the window. I think of the empty, echoing streets.

"Thank you," I whisper to the old world, and I press the button.

Only remnants.

Only sad, pale remnants were left of the once advanced, conquering nation of America.

Sure it was already broken and ridiculous. Adults ran it all after all.

But it had still been theirs.

A kid could play ball, play a few pranks, and nick a candy bar or two.

The real stuff worth anything in this world. Not bread or gross fish with marble staring eyes, not gems and women’s jewelry glittering and posh, or freaking water. Plastic too. What had happened to all the plastic?

As it stood three battered, battle worn orphans limped across broken pavement that was melting to more and more soil. Tree cover from towering conifers and deciduous jutting from the remains of what used to be cement, metal, and other materials he couldn’t and did not care to think about.

Others.

Others had converted to shacks and lean-to of leather and skin.

Bones as window panes and bars.

Parchment of sale prices and auction in the same tone as even Talia’s skin making them all shiver.

Not a word had been said. Not after a night spent on the precarious hill housing a family of warthogs and hedgehogs. Not when they’d pilfered food off a cart by jumping on and off as it went about its trail.

Not when grotesque vultures and flying taut skinned corpses of fish, lizards, snakes, and humans tried to sweep down for a bite.

Gregory was in the lead. Scouring and crouching, beneath branch work, up pistons of drooping blossoms at least eleven feet tall and double-wide working as this fancy seasonal restaurant.

Come to think… it was, it was spring right now.

Last he’d remembered any grassy terrain, any modern windows or stained glass, the fields of the Keep, had all been buried in furious red and orange leaves.

He pointed toward a completely green pavilion with holey trees. Each indentation of a door made of dewy leaves or curtain moss likely a store.

“Greg I–”

“No,” he said sharply to the new pair.

“Come on–”

“Not. Now.”

He didn’t need to be reminded what a moron he’d been. What a dumb sacrificial lamb he’d let himself turn into. Even if– even if there could have still been time. If Talia–

If Mario had–

If Greg had fought her off. Showed her who was actually in charge and who needed who.

Because right now it was almost like the only people he had left; his ally and this turncoat wanted to baby him.

Well tough because he was the only one they had either.

Upon the pavilion was tranquil, lazy energy. No one at alert. Everyone dumbly happy and trading gossip and rumors.

Talk of the next shipment of grains.

The new press gems.

The fire stones or pearls. Soldiers going en masse to Salem. The witch town and holding state for zealots and dissenters.

All invaluable information.

Sunstones equaled some new staffs ripe to steal or sell on some underground markets. Enough for a militia. That would be entertaining. Hopefully, some up his ass teenager had some balls.

If they could maybe get jobs checking or packing the grain.

They took anyone.

Girls were always in demand to cook the bread.

It looked like vines tied to crude baskets was how anyone got into the upper rungs of shops.

“Hey!” he called to a random passerby. A man with a bald spot and wearing a combination of jopula, modern LGBT buttons, and bleach jeans with an unnatural pink that was not on the market as a natural dye.

Jopula. Ugh, just the word made him gag.

“Ye– yes, what can I–”

He gave them the once over.

“Yes we look a fright,” Talia said. “Positively wretched and demented.” A dark inflection came to her tone.

“No, no,” Mario cut in, turning on the ten-year-old puppy eyes. “Umm I’m sorry but, where’s a clothing shop?”

“Ah ha– hah,” the man laughed nervously. “Right, right on the second story. Can’t miss it. I uh, I recommend Wilhelm Date. When you,” he lowered to a whisper, “don’t need to look like yourself.”

Greg’s eyes widened. All the same, he retained his contemptuous glare. “We can manage. I’d be more worried if I were as jaunty and so obviously suspect my good man.” A stretched, ingenuine smile soured his next words. “Just, food for thought from a rough gem.”

His eyes instantly settled upon the bulging pocket of gold or some other tradeable item.

The man began to sweat.

He looked to Talia whose stare was blank and piercing.

Fanning his face he decided they weren’t worth another thought. A sardonic smile remained on his face.

The basket was an awful experience. And both his friends had insisted upon looking down, even as Mario grew sick from the height, needing to sit at the very end to regain his bearing.

“So small, so small,” he groaned dazedly, dark eyes practically floating and swimming out of focus.

Greg simply picked at the worn fabric of his mandated shirt and pants. The strangling belt on his waist had been taken. As if they didn’t want him to make a noose out of it while in solitary.

“Hey now,” Talia lifted a finger, “I just realized,” a few lookovers as if they needed to be more suspicious, “we have no way to pay for anything.”

Mario and Greg looked at each other. Even he was starting to pity Talia just a little.

Smiling, the boys assured her, “leave that part to us. We have our ways.”

She frowned, clearly not liking the looks of them but letting it settle anyway.

“I am going to die with these two,” mumbled her very grateful self, black hair piling around her face. “May not be too bad. I wonder–”

Cree–py.

Fairies hung about, flying languidly around the customers shopping. Feeders were strung on the ceiling, shimmering with geodes and full of fat golden nectar or sap. Some with leaf shavings giving the shop an air of allergy.

Greg directed them to split off. Don’t give too much hint that they were together. With a nod, Talia complied.

“Keep an eye anyway and be ready to spring that alarm over there,” Greg said pointing out some kind of bell near the counter.

“Got it,” he confirmed. “And besides the usual fare, what should we stock up on?”

“Whatever you can get,” he said. He was seeing a lot of unguarded wallets and seed rations. Not to mention the hanging jewelry.

Not only did Wilhelm Date offer clothing of all sizes and medieval styles but also bubble bottles of potions to string on belts like garland, sword sheaths, daggers, bayonets, masks, charms, and spell texts.

Greg looked about from all the vests, cloaks, and capes. Nothing he would be caught dead wearing except at a Ren fair or a fantasy film premiere. Callously letting each piece drop to the floor he continued on.

Spider silk and caterpillar material the tags read. Some, still in fresh ink and coming off his hands.

“Ahh excuse me,” said the meek voice of a spindly Asian-looking girl. Greg aimed a powerful glare making him yelp like a poodle. “Ahhh! Um, the mess–”

“And? What of it? I didn’t do it.”

There were so many crowds and no cameras to prove he did anything. He’d checked.

“No, no of course not but uhh you seem to be struggling to find something, and well,” he gave him the usual once over, taking in his shredded, stained Keep-wear. “Are you sure you’re in the right place?”

“I came here for a new set of clothes.”

“Yes but, some if not all are more in the Middle range,” she explained. “Hunters and soldiers. People with gold and jewels.”

“Okay, then what else?”

“Excuse me?”

“What else do you have? You have a bargain or clearance bin don’t you?” Greg griped. “Rags and stuff you can’t wait to get rid of.”

“O–over there,” she said pointing to lo and behold a beaten down cart with a load of mixed up, overflowing shirts, pants, and undergarments.

“Now was that so hard?” he asked sweetly.

She moved along with bitter eyes glowering at him, keeping a suspicious glance. Surely she was rearing to call security.

Greg quickly found a black short sleeve top tied at the collar with drawstring but made of linen. Human fabric.

He picked out pants that had to have been recycled from potato sacks and abnormally long stockings.

Making for the back dressing rooms he carved out a path from the thinning shoppers. If he stayed to the walls, leaped from the table of scarves and a display of spinning jewels. Not bad.

Talia was closer to the front door.

And with that cacophony broke loose when the chaotic jangle of the clock bell out of place rang.

The crystals now pulsed a darkly threatening purple.

Crap. Why purple.

For a frightening, petrifying moment his heart had seized remembering his orb. The orb in the solitary room. A companion and burrowing worm of insanity.

Greg growled, pushing down the urge to fling a rock at the offending crystal.

The initial path he had planned was forfeit.

“Go! Go! GO!” Mario bellowed to Talia but still trapped in the panic of fleeing customers, the bell clanging eternally.

Until a wave of a hand and the grunt of a man too wide and tall to be allowed silenced the noise.

If Greg had to describe Wilhelm Date it would be… golem.

Thickly muscled limbs stuffed into a skirt, brambles of blond hair in tasteful braids beaded with small cartilage dipped in liquid amber. A sharply defined face with hints of mossy stubble.

“Do calm yourselves, a false alarm is all,” said his faint, girlish tone whispered to Greg’s side.

Mr. Date or whatever, Greg had no idea as he was completely uninterested in asking, laughing boisterously with each heave that he separated customers off of each other.

“Midnight blue and pale as the moon, Willie approves M’Lady,” he said to Talia whose eyes were frozen.

“Though and correct me if I’m wrong,” he hummed a finger to his chin.

“Powders!” Greg yelled, acting fast with some of the healing grounds. Date shrieked to the powder digging into his eyeballs, sizzling mist coming from his cheeks.

His leg rose to deliver a practiced and deadly spear kick only for the flesh to become clay, encasing his foot in between his stomach, and oh Lord he felt everything! Ugh, there was gooey stuff.

Women screamed, some retched.

Date’s bloodshot eyes peered into Greg with malice.

“Now, now sir there’s no reason to be so dissatisfied.”

He struggled against the entrapment, nearly unbalancing himself while the golem man-woman kept upright.

Then a whoosh of air grazed his ear, making his hair blow.

A searing flash of white burst in his eyelids when Talia swept her new scepter, the quartz a milky white now as a drill spun and drove itself into the sidewall.

She tried again in a wider arc creating a whip of white magic.

And people disintegrated into rainbows of sand.

She gaped. Greg had gone chalk white.

Only her eyes still hardened, resolve turned to complete, unyielding and apathetic steel, biting her lip as she branded the scepter to its side in one hand.

Making use of the glass, after slicing his own hand, Greg slashed at Date’s stomach, embedding the jagged shard in his thigh through the skirt.

The storekeeper grimaced in pain even as his flesh churned and morphed around the uneven shape.

An entire mob had broken out to apprehend them.

Only it wasn’t so easy.

Gregory had absolutely no care for almost anyone, barely did for Talia Perlick and Mario Huarez had known what he’d signed up for when they’d been thirteen and fourteen.

The strikes of magic and weaponry gave Mario plenty of broken wood and metal to work with to do what he absolutely had to. Shunting the throngs aside or giving warning swats to heads and rib cages.

The regular civilian was much easier to overpower with twists of his spine and squirrely street fighting. Easier still with the set of tipped arrows he had picked up that sent them reeling or eyes roiling over their heads.

There was no hope for the door anymore.

Not only had local militia and hunters become aware of the commotion but the bell had been rung again and the now purple store would probably be overrun with royal authorities.

Talia solved that problem courtesy of a liquid fire brew blasting a hole into the floor and another crater into one of the tree walls.

Without hesitation, she grazed her fingers to make a path of crouched backs to act as their stepping stones.

Eyes utterly cold and her silence deeper the two followed her.

Gregory tried to engage her. That was not only some quick, savage thinking but way ballsy and much more ruthless than he’d ever expected out of inexperienced, naive Perlick.

“You could have told me the plan,” she said and she didn’t sound angry.

Instead, Gregory realized she was trembling. Whipping around he could see she was teary-eyed. “I– I had to do something terrible today and– and I don’t know if it can be undone!”

Gregory scratched the back of his neck. “They’re hardly the first. Tens of thousands died just eight years ago and these freaks weren’t even trying. Now at least a third of ’em are galavanting about,” he smiled somewhat cruelly, “I say at least half in there got some of what they deserved.”

“And that’s supposed to make it better that I–”

She stared into her hands.

“So much red. All that red sand, was it their blood? I mean I like a good dissection or torture fest of human blood but that– that was something else. Something demonic.”

“Hey look,” said Mario’s tender voice trying to touch her shoulder and bring Talia out of her weird dark trance. Only for her to flinch as if he were some swamp thing.

“We should get some more distance between us and the crime scene,” she said. “I bet they boil Keep escapees and feed them to the undead to keep them in the underground bowels while trying to gas them deader.”

Okay then.

One could say whatever they wanted but even Gregory couldn’t deny it was moments like that that made him still his hand on betraying her, even if she was likely to do it first.

Seriously… girls that pretty could almost only be snobs.

“Where should we stay for the night now?” Mario asked, turning to Gregory.

Somehow he’d ended up on their flank and something in their sharp, cautious strides made him suspect they very much considered themselves his bodyguards somehow.

Yeah right.

As if Mario’s body were still prepubescent or Talia hadn’t just had a mini mental break about— well okay he supposed she’d had the right.

He’d never killed anyone and sometimes he’d marinated in self-loathing so strong it ripped him apart at the seams in such a brutal yet slow way. No way did someone so terrible, so disturbed deserve a quick end.

“The crags where the San Francisco bridge used to be. It’s an entire grotto of displaced, mostly adults but they’re pretty cool.”

It’s actually where Gregory would have actually liked to go in what was left of California. He’d heard vague whispers of the grotto, but only that it was a decline of craggy rock with new caves, plenty of predators, but some floating strongholds Earth forces had abandoned and plenty of scrap metal from military tech that had been being developed on the human end of things.

“Great, then Golden Bridge Grotto it is,” Mario chirped. Until his stomach gave a mighty rumble. “Except could we–?”

Greg sighed. “Yeah, we could all use a bite.”

He glanced at Talia again. She’d remained mute, looking away without even seeing if she was being stared at.

“Thanks,” Gregory said.

“Huh?” she asked, blinking like a cat. Why did girls do that cute stuff? He seriously didn’t get it. Even the fun boyish ones.

“You saved me,” he said. “I know it’s only because you need me, which is so obvious now.” He scoffed but still softened, “I’ll make sure you don’t have to do that again, but don’t go thinking you’re some hero snapping, you aren’t. You’re just as human and screwed as the rest of us.”

“I suppose I am,” she murmured. “Sorry. I know that kind of stuff is ridiculous, don’t worry.” Talia sighed. “This isn’t some Eragon or Inkheart novel.”

How do you fuck off a skull?

First, you must fuck on, fuck in the skull, that is a prerequisite for the next step.

Only then, you can fuck off the skull.

And find out it belongs to your notorious pedophile uncle...

You sleep.

You have slept for a long time.

We sleep. It might mean the same thing. We are indiscernible from each other now, but that was not always the truth.

We sleep for so long that we no longer know if we are sleeping. It only makes sense at this point that we are the same.

Again, maybe, or maybe for the first time, you put your head on the pillow before you are gone, gone, forever and never and again and again.

We have memorized the whole world and backward, so we sleep to see something new, twisted variations of our home.

You have seen everything twice over, will see it again in dream, on its head, in reverse. We have seen everything thrice when considered as one.

You sleep. I sleep. Perhaps it is all we have ever done.

I come home to you, asleep. My blood in my own hands as you dream, and I dream alongside you. Maybe we have always been dreaming.

Maybe our blood is choking the rivers and the streams of who we once were before love razed it to the ground, maybe it dances like clouds in the sky, laughs like the trees in our eternal sleep.

Maybe it courses through our veins as it always has, unchanged by our dreams. Wouldn’t that be nice? But the paint on the walls is a sickly red and I fear it is too late for us, maybe always has been. Our love has always been a broken one, darling, no matter how we tried to ink over our snapped bones and bruised tears.

Our love has always been a broken one, darling. We have always been broken too.

Some things are beyond fixing. You were one of them. We were two of them, together. We looked at those that were unbroken and laughed.

Once, we laughed before we slept. I wonder if we have simply forgotten how.

You once said that there was darkness to my eyes. I wonder now if it was darkness you saw, or simply your own shadow.

Am I awake now, darling? Is our room with walls painted red the dream? Did I wake here to this beautiful world of our memories, or are we lost here in a land not our own?

I stood by. I stood by as you took our broken parts and tried to piece them back together and made something worse than we had ever been. I stood by as we fell asleep, as we forgot how to wake up.

I stood by as you forgot who you were, stood by until I did not know either but for the evidence on our walls.

We took our broken selves to a new room, invited our problems in and said welcome home, how I have missed your presence, how I do not know how to live without you.

Our love has always been a beautiful, broken thing, my darling, but I think it is worse than before. I will love you forever in our room where blood drips from the walls and we dream without sleeping and sleep without dreaming and do both at once and neither all at the same time. I will love you forever as our home becomes our grave, as our restless rest becomes eternal.

I will love you forever and I know you will love my remains in turn, in our room of beautiful broken things.

the way you've looked at me this week

has brought me right back

to believing that you're the one

you feel so close

but so far away

like if i reach out to touch you

you'd disappear

i know there's no way you could understand

what i'm feeling right now

but i want you to

i want to tell you

if you'd listen

i want to tell you that you could have me back

that all you have to do is say the word

and i'll end it with him

we'll be us again

i want to tell you that you could do so much better than her

i'm not talking about me

just in general

you deserve better than her

i want to tell you that even though he's good to me

and i really like him

that no one could ever replace you

no one will ever feel the same

i will never love someone like i love you

but you have someone else

you've moved on

she gives you everything i never could

and i'm sorry

i miss you still

even after all this time

My skeleton lover lies beneath my bed each night.

Most times, I am blissfully unaware of his presence.

Not every night I am naïve, however-

And tonight I lay here sleepless unable to shake the feeling of him.

He is the emptiness in my chest,

He weighs on me so deeply I cannot be free.

Not of him-

Or my bed.

On these nights he crawls into my bed,

Draws his skeletal hands over my arms,

And his sharp tongue across my back.

He is comforting in a sad way.

The way late night walks and early autumn leaves feel-

A certain melancholy familiarity with a sort of charm.

He plunges his dry tongue through my chest,

bones snapped and my innards rebelling against him in squelching protest.

Screams pierce the air although I don't know if they are mine-

I am disconnected, in a strange way, from my own self.

At last he draws out my bloody heart, its frantic beating now the only sound in the room.

He curls his tongue inward, veins still connected to my deranged body stretching and finally snapping-

Covering my bed and himself in blood.

Finally he places my heart in his mouth, savoring it like a sugar-filled sweet

And devours me.

"Bad news Wasila? What could possibly be worse than being impaled with ice spikes, and losing our healing items?"

"Plenty Rick." Wasila smiled. "If you remember, my abilities allow me to not only absorb someone else's magic ability, but enhance its power too. Within a minute or two those ice spikes are going to grow, and they will no doubt pierce your heart, along with Janet's. It will be the end of the line for you both."

"Well, that's a shame." Janet said sheepishly. "So how did you survive the point blank blast with my laser gun to your head?"

"Simple, there was a special kitten hairpin in my hair that absorbed the damage of the blast. The pin disappeared after protecting me. If it makes you feel any better Janet, if I hadn't used that item, your shot would have defeated me."

"See Rick, I told you she had a hairpin!" Janet laughed before wincing in pain.

"It won't be much longer." Wasila responded gently, dropping her villain act for the moment. "The ice will end your lives in this simulation, then you will safely return to the hub. Did you have any last words before Tate and I claim the win?"

"Yeah, you forgot one little thing." Janet answered.

"Oh? And what's that?"

"We were hoping to stop you ourselves, but we had a worse case scenario plan in order if we failed." Rick stated. "You seem to have forgotten about one of our crew members."

"Essie...." Wasila said with a smile, looking in the distance and observing massive flames generating from both of Essie's hands.

"While we were absolutely intending to take you down, we were also serving as a distraction to allow Essie to charge her new fire spell." Janet explained. "Not only are her flames even stronger, but they have the added ability of locking on to their targets. Guess who those two targets are?"

The ice spikes then spread through Rick and Janet's bodies, striking their vitals and ending their lives in the simulation. As both of their bodies disintegrated into dust, Essie screamed as she sent dual flames flying towards Wasila and Tate.

To be continued....

*****

Training World Arc

Prior stories/chapters from this plotline:

- Team Janet vs Team Sic - https://theprose.com/post/467594/team-janet-vs-team-sic

- A New Adventure Begins! A 20 Word Teaser! (Chapter 109) - https://theprose.com/post/469384/a-new-adventure-begins-a-20-word-teaser

- Coffee And Dreams (Chapter 110) - https://theprose.com/post/469464/coffee-and-dreams

- Infected City Arc Closure (Chapter 111) - https://theprose.com/post/470462/infected-city-arc-closure

- A New Dimension - The Training World (Chapter 112) - https://theprose.com/post/472712/a-new-dimension-the-training-world

- Training, Or Vacation? (Chapter 113) - https://theprose.com/post/476376/training-or-vacation

- The Hub (Chapter 114) - https://theprose.com/post/478137/the-hub

- Janet vs Leftover: Rematch? (Chapter 115) - https://theprose.com/post/481194/janet-vs-leftover-rematch

- Follow Up (Chapter 116) - https://theprose.com/post/484088/follow-up

- Catching Up (Chapter 117) - https://theprose.com/post/484441/catching-up

- Portal To The Next Fight (Chapter 118) - https://theprose.com/post/491899/portal-to-the-next-fight

- Clash of the Mages (Chapter 119) - https://theprose.com/post/499792/clash-of-the-mages

- Team Essie (Chapter 120) - https://theprose.com/post/502330/team-essie

- A New Trick (Chapter 121) - https://theprose.com/post/504534/a-new-trick

- Darn Mosquito (Chapter 122) - https://theprose.com/post/510059/darn-mosquito

- Playing Offense: Rick and Janet (Chapter 123) - https://theprose.com/post/533308/playing-offense-rick-and-janet

- Injured Musings (Chapter 124) - https://theprose.com/post/534943/injured-musings

I remember that day - March Tenth, Twenty-Fourteen - when I sank my teeth into the best damn chicken wings ever and washed them down with some whiskey that was old enough to legally drink itself, listening to the author whose mind caught lightning in its bottle - top-shelf lightning - and hearing the sparks of "Prose." fly with absolute freedom, savoring the freedom that was this idea, so pure, so beautiful, the best of social media married with the best of writing, a place not for the eyes, not for the mind, but for the heart and soul, for the highest echelons of our very being - for us to consume bite-sized amounts of the very finest written word, as if we were at a Michelin-star diner disguised as a casual, unsuspecting street kitchen - and for us then to be taken on the most winding road, most agonizing and scintillating journey, to have experienced the most medieval of all dark nights of any app's soul, only to escape that prison, as of late, in a way that gives Shawshank a sprint for its motherfucking mint.

In my house it is well known that you do not give them your name.

Should the voice call out into the night, asking its simple question. “What may I call you?” You shall remain silent. If you hear the rapping on the window followed by its small voice again “What may I call you?”, you do not answer it. When the rapping grows louder, as if many little hands are tapping in sync and then the voice asks stronger “What may I call you?”, you still do not answer, you are not even to move.

In my house it is well known that you must let them in.

The small creatures that have gathered there on the window sill, if they ask properly. The creature below the window stepping out of the forest, twisting and grinning in morbid delight. “May I ask for some hospitality?” You must let them in. The creaking and groaning of its bones and joints as it climbs the wall to the window, smiling at you through the glass. “I have come a long way for your hospitality.” the group of winged things sitting on the window sill “May we ask for some hospitality?”. They’ll lift their wings and sit all pitifully there, smiling when they see you come towards the window. “We’ve flown a long way and are now tired.” You must let them in, and you must do it graciously.

In my house it is well known that you must give them good hospitality.

Offer them proper seating and a table. Make them tea, if you’re able to make the kind they like then make that. Find and serve them snacks of their liking. Serve them well, offer them blankets if they may need it. Give them towels if they are wet, or offer a blow-dryer to air themselves. When you have served them you must engage with small talk. “How has the weather been on your journey?”, “Where do you come from?”, “How has your trip been?”, “Do you enjoy the weather here?”, “Oh yes, it's been quite lovely here lately.”. You must sit there with them at whatever table you offered them and engage with them and serve them. Be it the large creature who bends and twists with manic eyes, or the group of small winged things, you must treat them well and be a good host.

In my house it is well known that you do not tell them your name.

Even if they ask once they are seated at your table, enjoying the tea and snacks and small talk that you've offered. You still must not answer. “I am the child of this house.” I used to reply when they visited me so long ago. “I am the keeper of this house.” I speak quietly as it now suits me. “What may we call you by?” They will ask. Eyes glittering and smiles sinister as they wait for you to either answer or break your hospitality. But you must not give them your name. Should the large ink black creature twist and reach out to you with its gnarled hands you must not flinch nor answer its query. When the winged ones fly up to your shoulders and land on your nose you must not fall for their charms nor answer their queries.

In my house it is well known that you must follow the simple rules.

Do not give them your name, Let them in when they ask properly, Offer them good hospitality, and Do not give them your name. If you follow these simple well-known rules, then you will survive the Fae.