Mara had assisted her brother-- her barely thirteen year old brother-- keep his unnatural hero identity a secret.

She'd kept silent at the table every time their Father who was part of a steadily defunding police department disparage a "young, brash thrill-seeker" with his suspicious eyes and mind working to furrow out any lies from what he had fed the media and an adoring crowd that day. 'The child's press skills,' he'd sharply noted, 'were a slow developing trait.'

Which unfortunately, had developed well.

Likely, had the right type of personality for such work in the first place. And it was with some grief that he remarked, "what a waste."

She was there with a hand under the table or a pressing look to at least eat one or two bites when the comments hit too close and too sharply.

She was there with an excuse for their parents, the notes to fool his most apathetic teachers-- and a note for herself to bring it up to their parents of how teachers in that middle school were hardly up to par-- she was there as his big sister to patch him up and put ice on what had been twisted or squeezed to intimidate or just-- to shatter his bones.

Turns out, she'd been the second to find out.

Her brother, he had gotten a partner first from his best friend Carson.

Carson, had been the one to help organize his affects if it ever became necessary. If Nick one day didn't come back. If he failed as Earth's front line in an intergalactic war.

Yes, her brother had been hit by lightning one day by the planet's designated guardian, because the woman had needed manpower. Why she chose a twelve-year-old, she would never forgive nor forget. She had her eyes on the motherly patron who came around every so often.

She'd found the rudimentary letters and even-- a will-- that he had written. Mostly who got what, as she was searching among the chaos of his steadily neglected room for a specific videogame. Where he had also hidden a thumb drive of police case notes concerning odd doll-related disturbances.

It was all in a girl's jewelry box, certainly no one who was allowed in his room would dare touch such a thing. He likely never figured Mara would become one such person. Or that she had picked up how to break these simple locks as a necessary skill as his big sister.

'Mara,

There are things you should know. About how this happened to me. Please don't blame Malloria for this. She did what she had to.

See, it started with that day. When there used to be stormy skies all day and everyday, lightning with no hint of rain and the gales of wind. When we could find bits of UFO scrap.

It was such a normal day before then, I don't think she had a plan. It wasn't "supposed" to be me. It just happened that way. I was the one on the court who got hit. The lightning hurt though I won't deny that. The pain alone, I thought it would kill me before I even thought of what lightning actually does do. Did you know that getting hit by lightning, you really do feel what it means to be so hot that you feel cold?

I woke up in the nurse's office, I guess my vitals weren't too messed up and namely, I wasn't a charred hunk of boy stuck to the pavement like wadded up and stepped over gum until it flattens over into a pink splat on the ground. Dried by the sun-- but back on topic.

From there is where my electrical powers came from and it came on quickly and suddenly. And also, I didn't get my costume through a transformation sequence. I had to make it out of old Halloween costume pieces and accessories that happened to fit the theme.

I did notice my powers building, it was sparks between my fingers, popping fireworks, the lightbulb. I didn't completely know what I was doing, I didn't know what was happening to me. What I did eventually know is that I had never-- as my big sister and the person who seriously did pick up a lot of slack-- seen you scared. And you were scared, when Dad hadn't yet come home, when it seemed that he wasn't coming home.

So I put on a poorly made costume and went investigating. And yeah, that's how I found out I had the strength and super jump abilities. The first building I jumped off from-- please don't resuscitate me from the grave and hurt me-- I fought a bunch of mutant lizards in a fish factory-- that's where I met Jalen the first time-- he's an example to his species, unfortunately, and sure I didn't "save-save" Dad, but I made sure his shift ended well before midnight.

I seriously just wanted to help Mar. I swear, and I'm sorry. That that's hurt you.'

--Your brother, Nick.

Mara's breath shuddered once she finished, there were all types of other drafts, more and more pages to have been added for the initial letter.

There were ones for Carson and David. Not one for Mom or Dad. Oh God.

She took a deep breath and with a small, determinate flame, placed everything back where she had found it. Her brother would surely notice the lock broken but she would deal with that. She would tell him the truth, what she saw and what the plan was now.

She walked downstairs without the game, without the notes, Nick and Carson were still pored over the computer and its blue screen doing murder on their eyes.

"You guys should take a soda break. give me a shift," Mara said, pointing to herself.

Mom never talked about Dad. He'd left when I was no more than six years old. She and him, they'd been the uber cool kids in high school. Many people had many theories. A prevailing sentiment, was that he'd run off in disappointment when his son was decidedly the opposite. Just the kind of kid he'd beat the snot out of. Mom and Drake assured me that wasn't true. Well after finding a wind-up time machine, we'd see who was right. Because I'm about sure it was Dad staring down on us when the garden shed door opened. In 1985.

Ymir had almost turned him away.

Despite the shuddering, broken mess on his porch.

There were too few places in his house to hide.

Dad's voice would go coarse and piercing, putting a deep tenor to work.

Mom-- Mom was a banshee. No, a Fury with how she would speak and the awful things she would hurl at someone twice her size. Besides, how else would one hurt a person twice their size?

While Max could only hide.

Hide and hum.

Hum until the door slammed and his mother moaned.

Oh. If Annica had made a sound like that... oh.

I may be too young for this challenge, I'm only 20. My parents were not bad, were never "bad-bad." Just, dumb.

In many respects of how the world went round and the rules of things I knew more than they did. I knew my maths and my reading and my science better than they did. I like to think I know a bit better about how kind people are, how I won't be raped or murdered to spend a few hours with a friend out in public. And I do know that using medicines as they're meant to be used, how much are used is important. It's safe.

They were not bad, really they weren't.

A bad parent wouldn't take the primary school teacher seriously, a bad parent would belittle and demean me when that word slipped from some professional's mouth I couldn't give you an answer to what she looked like or what her grand, important job title was. She may have even been a man, but I do more often remember women being my primary caregivers for my medical issues and my disability.

You see, I have a disability called autism. But my parents caught it early and just as quickly had me enrolled in all the proper classes, with all the proper people at the clinic and at school, and wouldn't you know-- each and every one I remember as a properly kind and properly speaking adult.

What I mean, I was never talked down to. They talked with me and let me talk about what I wanted to. They never said my answers were wrong, but then again, I did know some answers were-- tedious-- to expose in the first place. Nevertheless we made progress.

Even if I did always know by my classmates' rolled eyes and their disdainful tones, from my emotions that were too big and always turned to the most minimal, most detrimental thing of my character, to my absolute apathy towards others-- on good days-- and on worse days utter ineptitude despite the present desire, the completely absent, innate ableness of interacting with others... is how I knew I was an anomaly. A freak.

Perhaps to others I may have seemed normal or perhaps the adults were politely lying for my sake. I did always believe I had wonderful teachers burdened with the most awful and ungrateful litter of students. After all, much of the class were bullies.

My professor just last year would beg to differ. About the yelling the teachers did, but that isn't really the point.

My parents never did tell me-- not until a therapist required the information when considering medicating a growing, parasitic depression that had siphoned the wonderment of summer to a numb not black but rather grey, dullness of a void-- my parents never did tell me that I had autism.

I couldn't tell you what equated with my autistic traits to place me in the Special Ed STAAR test group. Simply that I finished in an hour and liked the room and the time and the books-- since we conducted affairs in the library.

I can tell...

Autism is what equated the scripts inside my head of dialogues with adults and classmates, what could work, what could be, all in vivid detail. Since my brain is quite dysfunctional, wired incorrectly in the ways of social grace and etiquette.

Autism is what attributes to the emotions throughout my childhood that were so big and so vile and so wrong that they showed on my face and made my kind mother profess her daughter would be ugly if she continued to be so ghastly.

I don't hate her but I consider saying such a thing just a bit unfair. Certainly not healthy. Certainly not, I can confirm once I have read the experiences of other women.

Which professes the power of our ire as exactly what it is-- a ghastly, exquisite inevitability of being born and being wronged. A dragon that only a woman-- "delicate, weak, dutiful"-- woman is expected to chain up. In the basement, in the bowels of shame. Without light, without attention and care and affirmation. Without food, without touch. With the implicit hope that it would shrivel and die.

That then, is more society than her.

I didn't-- I still don't-- like my Dad in many ways.

He treated me, as an amusing little thing. Constantly joking, constantly whining and wanting from me. While my brother and sister, older than me, were allowed to refuse. To preserve and stash their snacks.

Not everyone has to share with you, not even family.

Only, I can't say no when Daddy wants. Wants my chips, wants my pastries, wants my hugs and my attention, wants the sodas he doesn't even like.

If I do say no then I'm the one wanting.

If I say no then no chips, no pastries, no peanuts or goodies from my Dad's bag. Because I am in the wrong.

That is, if he doesn't count down, tell me I have offended God and need to say sorry.

Once I'd spilled soup, I was four and it was by complete accident, I tried to tell my mother her yelling was really loud and it was hurting me. I was sorry and it was an accident and could she please not yell at me?

I was rebuffed with sarcasm.

But, I was told not to get angry and speak with my voice politely and intelligently. The way an adult does.

Adults as a whole never do seem to listen to the kid who speaks well with their inside voice much less take them too seriously.

Then I guess it's more that since we're kids, promises and ideas and opinions don't mean anything. Anything can be said to get the kid quiet. As long as they're quiet it doesn't matter the what or how.

And anything the kid "thinks it thinks" is cute, so adorably funny and a little dumb. A nuisance and an "attitude" at worst.

Is it infuriating when you're the one who requests time in the green and to commune with nature at the park? Or want to get and return books responsibly? Or want to share a new idea, at least talk, if we can start recycling or I eat just greens and veggies for a bit, since that is better for the Earth and the Earth is in danger? Sometimes they'll say a little lie and promise. Sometimes they'll laugh. And sometimes they'll give that look that says you're in over your head, way, way over your head from what makes sense or of reality.

I don't think I trusted the words "I promise" too much after that.

I didn't trust where my parents said we were going or even what we "would" do.

Sometimes, Daddy admitted, he just liked to laugh and see the look on my face.

"I promise."

"If God wants."

"Maybe. Could be. Possibly."

Spoiler: they mean to say no but hey, their English wasn't good back then. Maybe they didn't know what they were saying meant or wanted a kinder way to shut me down.

Then again, flippantly lying to silence their voices, their "ideas," is mostly society's idea. A grand, big idea that is carried by the adults as simply a thing to do.

Which is why I guess, I can throw my Dad-- stupid as he might be about a great deal-- the occasional compliment. I guess, well he did, help me at my worst, kept me stable, kept me safe and supervised when I wasn't in the best condition to be left alone while my Mother slept.

Which again, they helped me, sought out help in the ways they knew how. Ultimately made sure I was safe and that the risks were understood.

It's society, I think, that brought the other stupid stuff. That for a long while made me feel inferior and made my parents a manner of untrustworthy, if a most of all benign sort.

But the flavor is still bitter.

And there was still arguing and catastrophizing and screaming matches and crying done in front of me when it certainly shouldn't have been.

I don't want kids.

That's just a non-starter for me. As a person excluding my issues I am quite selfish and spoiled and inept when it comes to life skills.

Still, I want to listen to my cousins. I don't want to lie to them. I want to give them a reason if there's something I can't tell them.

Because kids aren't listened to, they aren't taken seriously and grow up rightly believing that their voices amount to nothing in the larger world, because why would they? When all the "golden rules" don't apply to the adults despite how important they supposedly are?

I've known quite acutely for a long while, it doesn't matter when a kid speaks or about what. It's an easy notion to believe when your anger is called ugly outright without a chance to even try parsing and cutting to the grievance, or promises are made simply to get you to leave or then be forgotten. To be treated as an imposition when reminded. Perhaps if memory had struck five hours ago.

Or when edicts and nuggets of wisdom and empathy don't apply to you if the lesson proves inconvenient to immediate pleasures of food or time or care. Nevermind that child's love language. Never mind the misgivings or inner deception occurring to do so from their valid emotions.

I wonder if any kind of coherent story could be made out of my random, discordant dream pieces.

Prompt: A fire in the neighborhood brings hundreds of people to a service shelter operating out of the local school. Many almost died but not all were placed in fatal danger. Injuries and smoke inhalation all vary. Groups are kept together to monitor for discrepancies and to better focus and administer cooling.

But besides typical symptoms and sicknesses starting to emerge are personality changes across the board. Some adults act like teenagers but not their own teenage children who weren't acting like themselves anymore either.

Everyone's personalities swapped around and melded into other people. No one was... themself anymore with no sign of swapping back.

That is, until they do but their decisions are lasting and they're not the same people from before.

Prompt: The young, brash hero with an impressive affinity for this extracurricular otherwise absent in his life, is captured by their villainous foil.

"I'm never gonna see my family again am I?"

Which is the last thing to ask a villain and doubly dangerous to put out into the world otherwise our hero might start to believe it.

However as writers, I request that you do put that into the world, where with no one else and at their breaking point they make that error and expose themselves to be shattered.

Huffing and fluffing from her thick skirts Marion's ruddy cheeks turned ever redder.

Face turned into quite the hideous scowl untoward the wealthier of the pair. A young man named Coriander simply one of two accomplices.

With a much more sensitive eye than most.

"I just mean, many have made money off of that man's works and dramatizing his story and renown, if we were to peel that back even a little bit and that's simply the living to think about."

"And you think I haven't thought of it," she lashed, "remember which of us doesn't get to escape every evening."

"Fine," he said huffily and really Marion hardly cared. True, he was dutiful and enjoyable company but in the scheme of things even if they were friends, theirs was a relation dead in the water.

"Ombre is with Althea now, we figured hers would be safer."

"In the crack alleys of Brisbane?"

"Fine, relatively. Besides ghosts stay away from it unless welcome."

What Marion had unearthed, what her spectral shadow Ombre had translated and summoned to ritual for her, and what Althea researched in the dizzying shelves of the scholars' library was a tome written in code and invisible ink, of Ben Franklin's works written and scientific.

'Syla Durth'

Silence Dogood.

Buried within the storied man's history.

And within the name of that reputable young woman was the spirit tormented, left behind-- a former college aged fellow named Thaddeus Thorne.

His last known address marked in the clandestine book as 85 Westerly Way. In Virginia.

"Chartering the boat wouldn't be the problem," Coriander mused, expression stormy, "the problem is, how to explain two young ladies one of which I still am not old enough to court. And I don't want unsightly things said about my parents' hiring practice."

She had received a call from her younger brother.

And on Fashion Week.

An-- interesting call. With a great commotion in his "sanctum," where he made all his babies flourish and fly off the mannequins' hard, lifeless bodies.

He must be dying, she decided. Odd that she'd be her first call. Had it been their Mother-- well that old bag wouldn't have told her. And Dad probably knew, being dead and all. Or a dandelion by now. He'd liked all that Buddhist stuff.

She didn't use the bell. Deciding to surprise him of the wine cradled in her arm. If he really was going then he deserved a treat. Just this once.

She'd even cry a little with him.

Having stolen his spare key a long time ago she let herself in.

To where she heard a moan and then a crash. Then her brother mewling his lungs out like Torbin Bates after she'd dumped his own cat's litter over his head. Shouldn't have called her insect fairy of a brother a fairy! Only she got to do that.

And perhaps he'd finally admitted that to himself and got himself a fine, gentlemanly hooker to entertain.

"No! Not Arn I need him for--!!"

He screamed again!

And this time with the thud of what could only have been his fists pounding on the floor as he sobbed.

"Twink!" she cried.

"Oh Pheebs, Pheebs save meeeee," he whined.

Among the explosion of fabrics and gaudy colors was Quinton, besieged upon by one of his female models.

The ravishingly firm and black Ramona mannequin.

Beating him with one of its own plastic hands.

And Arn? Another dummy who was now defiled in orange and black and puce green marker.

Phone out, she flashed a photo. "Hehehe, girlies got jealous you dog?"

And then Ramona paid her mind.

Besides the truly artful work on her lashes... she needed that midnight blue and black for herself... there was, an eerie green about her eyes. And she was sure her brother didn't have that kind of color. Because that color... that color was lighting up the whole studio.

"And who is this whore sweetums!?!?!?"

That's it.

She was going to Exorcist puke across this whole situationship.

Dr. Seth Morgan, graduate with a Masters and Ph.D in Veterinary Medicine. Owned his own practice after his elderly mentor had peacefully passed with friends and family nearby. Passing on his equally stout and well-worn and loved office to the young apprentice twenty-three years old who happened to have an odd fascination somewhat off-kilter and unsettling to the rest. Of the man's family who were just a little stiffer whenever he got to talking about the matter.

When he told the elderly man he would be greeted in a beautiful light warm and full of a love inconceivable in this life try as we might to emulate it. Such all-encompassing love, forgiveness, and acceptance.

Asked if there were any other wishes, if he was truly sure, that his family would not appreciate to have the practice.

Dr. Seth Morgan was well-versed when it came to death.

In his office, in his operating room, and in his apartment and childhood home there were pictures of a boy. Blond hair and green eyes, down to the face shape and the way his ring finger was chosen to scratch when nervous an exact copy of Seth however not Seth.

Sixty-six seconds seemed to have made all the difference.

Could it be his younger brother had not had enough air? Had gotten hungry? Perhaps his elder brother would hold his neck too long in the womb? So that for a scant moment his eyes saw what was never meant to be seen. And so came about an affinity for this life, the creatures beyond human vision.

Then again, such experiences didn't explain future sight and surely not telepathy.

Dr. Seth Morgan reminisced often of those teenage years. Fall, the season of change and of the greatest pain, just after his brother succumbed to an unlucky genetic illness. When he'd been laid in a casket! At fourteen he'd been in a casket, in his best suit, and done up in the embalmers' makeup so he didn't look so decrepit and \\dead\\.

In everything he and Drake had been identical.

In adulthood Seth even had a knob on his head similar to one Drake obtained-- thank you Jieum Ban-- on an undead investigation.

The day was one of many in a heavy, humid summer fugue.

His secretary was young, eager, and constantly urgent.

However today her well-kempt, professional appearance was foregone. Hair across her face, cheeks furiously red when she'd unceremoniously thrown his office door open.

"Francine--" he greeted.

"There's a boy here to see you, his puppy's losing a lot of blood!"

And with that he stormed from his seat and into reception.

There were a few patients, some here for consult, but on a singular seat where many threw pitying glances was a boy all alone cradling a quivering mass of mutilated, fuzzy flesh slicked with blood. One of which scabbed over in even, equal scratches across the eye.

"Alright son, just give me the poor thing for now. Fran lead him in and kid," Seth said with warmth.

"Ye-- yeah?" he asked, voice warbled in his tears. Fat teardrops still flowed down his cheeks and snot began to trickle out of his nose.

"I'll need you to be brave for a second. So let's stand up," he complimented the child as he did, who used Seth's shoulder for support, "good you're doing well. Okay so I need your name, the puppy's name and what happened okay. And once that's done Francine can patch you alright."

"But-- but Brownie! He's never been without me before! He-- he needs and I need him!"

"Shhh, shh, I know I know, come on keep going," he urged. "Right now Brownie is fighting really hard and he's going to need help sooner than later."

The boy's breath hitched.

Continuing toward the operating room Seth turned back, smiling at the child. "It'll stress him if he hears you're crying. But I promise, on my job and my title that I'll do all I can. You did the right thing bringing him."

The child thought for just a moment, before his watery eyes set on their resolve.

"He got bit by another dog!"

And so did he. His leg wasn't bleeding anymore but the cut was still long and had stained his whole calf red.

"The owner said he'd gotten that awful monster his shots which yeah is probably true else animal control woulda taken him after he ate a stray cat and Mrs. Warbler's colorful birds."

"Dear," he replied.

"Yeah no kidding."

Turning the door open the boy shouted for the whole building to hear; "I trust you! So you better save him big brother!"

There was no time to think on it or to address the sudden rush that stole the air from his lungs.

What mattered now, was the sweet friend called Brownie.

Gently setting the dog on his side, he flicked on the overhead light.

Turn on the faucet, water boiling hot he washed his hands of the blood.

A pair of gloves snapped as he put them on over his hands.

Mask.

Surgery cap.

Francine had called ahead to have the set-up ready.

Then it means she had seen the child's injury too. That would be a mark positive for her evaluation tonight.

From just what he could see there were several lacerations across the pup's side.

Teeth had punctured the abdomen to the stomach.

They'd clamped down on the poor thing's neck too. He worked on getting a sheet over that so the poor thing could breathe.

Get him on a mask.

One of his interning veterinarians had came back on Francine's call as he readied to make the first incision.

__________________

\\Save him big brother!//

Seth had changed into clean scrubs as he went to face the child.

Seated in Francine's chair, spinning lazily.

His leg had been tightly bandaged and from the extra pink slip he'd been given a prescription for his physician and parents to look into.

"Oh hey..." any manner of cheer was bluntly dashed at the look. The pity.

And in the solemn way he pulled off the mask.

"I'm sorry son."

"But Seth, you studied. So hard and a whole lot. Vet school's hard."

"Yes it is, but I-- I'm not perfect."

He ignored just how this child knew his name. Perhaps he'd read something.

The tears came even as the boy tried to smile.

Continued and held his voice captive even as he tried to reassure the adult: "thank you. It's-- it's good you tried. You-- You did a good jo-o-o-ob!"

And he broke down.

"Hey, hey its going to be okay. That's alright just let it out, let it out," Seth soothed.

"Do you want a hug?"

"God this body cries too much!" the child screamed.

"Hmm I bet it does," he agreed.

"I wanna hug."

"Thanks big brother," he said into Seth's shirt.

"Okay listen, I can let you see him for a few minutes and then you'll have to call your parents so they can pick you up."

"Don't worry, I don't want to cause you trouble."

"That's good, come on," he said offering his hand.

"So big brother huh," Seth prompted, hopefully to get more information. He was well aware the most likely explanation was simply that he was in a state of distress and the child latched on to Seth for looking like an actual elder brother.

"Yes," he said. "You're my big brother. But I wish we didn't have to actually meet this way. I am really, really sad about Brownie but," the child squeezed tighter, "I've never felt too sad when you're around. Even when I died."

And Seth stopped.

His head went fuzzy and it distinctly felt that he would collapse. What-- no. No way. That was impossible.

But, he still had a child who was severely disturbed or something else wrong.

"I'm so proud of you. I saw all the drawings in your office," the child smiled.

The child with black hair, brown eyes and was Latino for crying out loud! This wasn't-- this wasn't real. Not like ghosts and restless spirits and ESPs were real. He had examples for those!

"Seth, Seth please don't be scared. Y'know I never did meet a reincarnated person so I didn't write about it in any notes or my diary. Hey what did you do with that by the way?"

"You aren't-- kid how long have you been in the sun? Have you eaten? Do you feel any pain besides your leg? Oh," he swallowed away the lump, "I didn't even ask. Does it hurt?"

"Did you get married?"

"That's not important," he said, now employing a much more stern tone. "We're talking about you and listen please just tell me your name."

"Oh, yeah my name's Enzo now. Lorenzo Ortiz."

"Okay, okay and you live around here Enzo?"

"Was it Maria?"

"The Mother Mary?" Seth tried.

"Oh Gods do you call her that? Does she hate it? Well alright, maybe a little less if you guys maybe realized some feelings were there after high school. Or did you reconnect after so many years in that little old town where she had the yellow picket-fence clubhouse?"

"Wh-- what?"

"Hey Seth! Took you long enough so come on tell me, tell me."

"That house--"

The yellow clubhouse that twenty years ago was probably a storage shed in the backyard of a newlywed or newly moved couple. He never did know as much about his friends' childhoods as he should.

What he did know is that in ten years, that yellow picket-fence clubhouse, was for the self-made Occult Club.

"Yeah, yeah," he dismissed. "But seriously how is everyone. Look I'm as surprised as anyone, I couldn't tell you who or what or why, much less even when it was decided for me. They got the math way off making me wait so long. Whoever they are."

"Maria. Maria Schaer?" Seth inquired, "En-- Lorenzo, do you mean Maria Schaer who lived at Blackberry Boulevard when she was-- when she--"

"Since she was born until I assume she moved out for college right? Okay not her then, soooo sweet, artistic Anne Danvers. I read about her, she's doing pretty well for herself as a gallery feature. God if only Mom, well new Mom, had the money for that sort of thing. But, I can always track her down when I'm a teenager."

And in his eye was a strong glint, the shine of a will much bigger than a body that size should feasibly be able to hold.

"Oh and our parents! Seth you haven't been too much trouble since I left right? I mean look at you, if you aren't engaged and girls are still obsessed with you but no surprise though you look like that," and there was an old sense of bitterness in that tone.

Again, completely discordant of a five year old.

"Drake!" he cut into his rambling, because he'd heard scant little about-- about the how that Drake could so helpfully explain.

There was no telling just how much Dr. Seth Morgan could take before clocking out early and hitting-- something. Likely copious amounts of Chinese food and sugar.

"How are you?" he asked quietly. Since for one, his dog had just died. Mauled to death. And he'd brought in the too small critter in alone.

It hadn't set well with him from the start.

"I don't get what you-- you're looking at me really weird. And I-- I can't tell what you're thinking? Is that weird I mean I at least, geez, we were never weird like that but still."

"It's okay. Take your time, this is, this is a lot. For me too."

He had come down to his knee, looking at him straight in the eye and just wanted to keep his hands clapped on this boy's shoulders forever. His clothes were of faded colors, bands with skulls and three sizes too big.

All not good.

"I am fine so please don't look like that. Teachers have been giving me those looks too and some of my Mom's sisters. They've been acting mean and I don't know why."

Drake crossed his arms, face in an epic pout. So that even when choked up and ready to explode Seth let out a small, watery laugh.

"Well then can you tell me, honestly, why you chose that shirt? It's way too big."

He looked down and then back at his brother as if he'd asked something quite stupid.

"I-- I liked it. I dunno I didn't before but I guess I do now. Oh one of my cousins, he plays his guitar all the time at his house. Said he played riffs in my ears from when I was one."

"Hah. Okay, okay you're a cool cat. And should I--"

He pointed at Drake's tiny ear. "Do you hear ringing or anything? How does my voice sound to you when I--" he drew out his lips into long, rounded vowels.

"Completely silly. I never noticed just how silly doctors were. Hey, do you think I could have been a good doctor? I mean most kids I handled were already dead..."

"I think you'd have been an excellent caretaker whatever way you chose to do it. If that was what you would have settled on."

"Did you ever get that spa off the ground?"

"Don't you even," he started, only for Drake to laugh. "I'm well alright I'm not sorry but I'll stop."

"So practically a little brother in this life then?"

Patting his head, Seth started to stand. Only for his knee to creak and a girly squeak to force itself out in response.

"GAaaggh."

It took more time than he'd care to think about to get back up so they could see the last of Brownie.

"What happened, did you get a bypass from an eighty year old or something Seth?"

"No," he snipped, "that's just what happens when you're middle aged."

"Don't let Mom and Dad hear you."

"No kidding."

"You seriously thought though, that my parents don't treat me right did you?"

"You have to admit wouldn't you? How many kids did you see that looked lost and abandoned that were actually dead?"

"Okay I see the point-- except I'm not."

"Not anymore."

"I came alone because home was too far and Mom would have asked too many questions. It would have-- it would have taken too long," Drake wrung his shirt, gazing down at it with melancholic eyes half closed a bit like his puppy.

Gently Seth unclamped his brother's hands from his shirt. "Just breathe alright. Listen we can wait in reception or we can spend some brother time in my office," he made sure to keep his voice somewhat muted, temps and assistants as well as the other two senior vets were walking around, "anyway we don't have to--"

"It's okay. I do want to. Please."

"Okay."

Drake gently caressed the dog's head, fingers just over where the eye had scarred.

His voice choked up. "I really, really loved him. He was actually what helped me remember stuff. I'd found him while walking with my friends, he was filthy, full of nicks and fleas too. My parents had to deep clean my clothes."

Seth simply stood in silence. Securely standing over him as he grieved.

"He'd almost bitten, until, I remembered somehow. To let him sniff, to speak slowly and gently and stay very still until it was ready to come out. Because you studied on that stuff. I remembered how you named your puppy Shadow! Since you found him at night and you almost missed him when walking to the bus or to home?"

"To home," Seth said. "And Shadow he, he passed away too. Just a year ago, maybe they'll meet each other."

"Yeah!"

Hand on his back they stood there awhile. And much like handling a puppy Seth was silent and he was attentive to any body language, any prompt to ask when.

All at his own pace.

When Drake was ready he turned for the doorway. "Let me tell Mom about you and you can meet her, she takes real good care of me. Promise."

"I'd like that."

Only a ruckus preceded their exit.

What sounded vaguely like a woman's voice.

Until both Francine and another older looking lady burst in. The latter scooped up Lorenzo in her arms.

"Hay mi cielo me distes un ambolismo. Que estabas pensando con ese perro talludo y por Dios ni llamastes, bueno no sabes el numero," she scolded, yet all the while nuzzling him close to her chest.

"Thank you sir, and I'm sorry if he's caused a fuss or caused a disturbance," she rounded, in a thick accent that Seth could only guess might have been Cuban of all things.

"No senora, era una alegria. La cosa es su perrito--"

"Si donde esta el pobrecito?"

"Ahi. Perdoname."

"Ay hiciste todo lo posible estoy segura."

Seth couldn't help the degree of confusion but answered in the affirmative anyway.

"Si perdon, my English. Isn't good yet."

"No worry at all," Seth assured, "but senora may I speak on something? Your son-- Lorenzo--" and his face just twisted. Because much as he was now Lorenzo Ortiz he was also Drake. His Drake. His twin.

"Te dijo entonces. Esa historia de la otra vida y el gemelo."

"Senora, me dijo de su perrito, como el mio. Me dijo de mis amigas."

"Una obsesion, casi enfermo de esta clinica desde que podia leer."

"Leer. Read?"

"Desde que tenia tres. Veterinario-- vet-- su palabra favorita."

Note: I tried Horror exactly once as a long-form story and it ended up better matching an Urban Fantasy or Paranormal.

**************************

The first night, no matter how dangerous, how bullheaded, and unbelievably insensitive to Donna's constant badgering or the motherly hysterics from Mom, Cole had visited Josh's little grave when his sister had first been lost.

Following a long, long, loooong coming "first date," with who had seemed a sweet, somewhat dweeb of a Tony McGuire fanboy.

There was a sleet of harsh rain at two eighteen in the morning, battering the cemetery. Completely stealing away his voice having barely opened his lips.

After all, shadows among the stones, or peeling up and down from the green bed of grass and jauntily blossoming sprouts from fresh mounds could very well be ghosts. And the very moon in the sky full and lustrous, was really a metallic drone watching and recording.

"I'm telling you little brother there's something out there. I knew that upswing of reported crop circles had been important. It's such a cliche but its completely possible they either don't care or don't think its important. For goodness sake if they've committed the perfect kidnapping not to mention figured intergalactic space travel what do they care about what us bugs think are patterns," he ranted and raved. Sounding crazy as always, in just the way that drove Donna insane. In just the way that swept him up and could sweep him away from his thoughts.

Of the too small, too beautiful gravestone. But Josh deserved nothing less, had been so, so much, and died much too young one summer's afternoon on a camping trip upstate with his scout troop.

Dad had spitefully sued the neglectful teens on duty and in fact the entire chapter to the ground.

"Dad wants to kill Zack," Cole informed to the silent marble. Not much of a marvel, hardly worth the waver. Despite knowing the poor, sweet guy was the last person to have been guilty. "No really, not just the usual, though that was funny to watch," and a genuine if not brittle smile came to him at the thought.

Then again, there'd been some tempers flown at Donna too, she hadn't told anyone they'd transitioned to dating.

"Let me tell you about what I found out, see there's this Occult website that sells really well and their products actually look homemade. Each one has its own flare," he continued on, smile hitched on his face, gleaming oddly in the scant light, "I-- I bought this salt, see we'd have maybe gone demon hunting around the woods and other such places dotted around, it's supposed to protect against demons and evil spirits."

Cole emptied the hemp bag in a negligible circle, careful with each palmful, that about half still turned to paste in the storm.

Saying a prayer, about twenty or so minutes later, Cole said his goodbyes and biked against the wet pavement, slippery and squeaking, fighting the tires and shocks of his once shiny new mint bicycle.

Able to creep back into the yard through the purposefully unlocked lawn gate sopping wet and stripping down to his boxers disposing of the offending clothes in an empty basin meant to be filled with a sizeable plant. Alarm set for a couple hours so he could take up collecting and piling the clothes into a couple hours with the dryer.

Well, that night turned to two then three and four, for five weeks without exception. He began to resemble a skin walker himself off his conspiracy boards, constantly grimy, stinking of wet soil, so, so grimy, itching everywhere scraping his nails across flesh to rash-worthy red.

Cole had been forced to admit, exclusively to himself that when the sound of the pipes dripping just underneath the wall, was his own heart, somehow outside his chest someone somehow dead. That something, some unholy thing wanted to devour him that he may have been losing his mind just a little.

He had admitted to a lesser crime, he admitted to meandering //inside// the house at odd hours unable to rest, so his parents permitted he skipped school.

And selfish as it was, Cole couldn't help but boast that included an exam in the dreaded literature class.

It took something of a terrible person, that once his head did hit a pillow, Cole slept without complaint. Without nightmares and without question. Of whether Donna would live or die. When. Or if she was found.

And in fact they did find her.

A very nice homeless man called the police and with the proper tests done did in fact ascertain there'd been no foolishness.

And the momentary flash, red and made of primal, inherited vitriol abated.

The good man had done a very good thing.

A very, very good thing.

"Hi! My name's Donna! I'm four years old! I don't, I don't know my full address yet," she said, hand distorting her words.

"Oh!" she shot out, pointing to Mom, "that's my Mom, her see and Dad too."

She giggled at her shaved head, squealed in naive curious fear of the bandage at her head.

Making her whole family flinched in how closely she fingered a blatant hole that had caved her head. Slick and sticky with blood, too much blood and fluid.

Somehow Cole still slept through the nights.

Some nights he did sleep through the way Donna wandered around the hall where the bedrooms are, eyes wide and in some way glazed. Somehow dusted with a silver there hadn't been before.

Other nights he heard her, humming an absent, toneless song in an airy fairy-like voice. Fitting for her delicate, ethereal young age.

In all seriousness, Donna had never been so, so... dim yet curious.

Her little red black button up easter dress always came back as clean as she had left in it.

However the doctors had said to expect it.

Even if it did prickle uncomfortably at Cole.

The little parts of Donna that came out wrong from that place she had been in.

But four year old Donna had cried when fed celery and broccoli at that age. Which had allowed him to be the good one for once.

And now she balked at the concept of meat and the dead animal.

Mom and Dad, the doctors, heads lowered in such pity concede all the manner of gruesome things she could have encountered.

Once the concept had finally sunk in, that like some fairytale her brother had grown big without her, she clung to his every word and asked a myriad of questions.

An otherwise perfect impression.

If it weren't for the unnatural misted shine of her green eyes and the sheer oddity of her childish smile.

Cole tossed and turned at night. The word skating across his brain.

Skin walkers. Dead. Changing faces, skin dirty becomes clean. Crops. No hair, no prints. No struggle at all.

FAKE.

Donna, was a fake.

His breath had just about turned to ice when the door knob turned.

Creak

Creak

Creak

Eyes bored down his nape.

Cole reluctantly sucked in a breath past the sudden marble in his throat.

"Are you awake?" she asked shyly, maybe wringing her hands.

"I had a nightmare, I was scared."

Cole kept his silence.

"Can I sleep with you?"

//I'll keep the nightmares away!//

Cole had once declared that, announcing an impromptu sleepover as the neglected older children with that pink ham named Josh around.

The thing that looked like his sister crawled into the covers.

Settling in contentedly next to him lying close enough that her nose touched his back.

"Are you okay? You're tense, really, real tense."