I never realized the power behind words until I learned the true meaning of the word 'hate'.

I thought I hated my mom. I was ten years old when I thought I knew everything there was to know about life and love. I knew I loved to play Pokemon on my Gameboy so that's how I would spend my waking moments. Anything that would get in between me and my game time would be met with the absolute wrath of my ten-year-old rage. I associated this blinding anger with hate. If my mom asked me to clean my room or take out the garbage I would belt out the loudest groan before shutting myself in my room and resume playing. Rarely were there consequences for my transgressions. My mother tried to be the best mother she could be, but lacked the assertiveness to discipline a little shit like me.

When my little sister came into the picture I thought I hated her, too. On top of enduring her constant crying and screaming, my parents thought it would be a good idea to assign me some small brotherly duties to develop a sense of responsibility. To me this was just another way for them to interfere with my enjoyment of life. So I did what any other spiteful demon would do. I would pinch and slap my infant sister until she cried, then act surprised when my mom would ask me what happened. "I don't know. She just started crying," was my mantra. Any moment alone with my sister was another opportunity for revenge.

One Saturday I dreamt that my mom took us to the bank. I was already irritated because I had to take care of my sister early in the morning while my mom cleaned the house. I told my mom I would stay in the car and play games while she did whatever adults do at banks. She asked if my sister could stay with me in the car since it would only be a few minutes. "Be a good son and help your mother, please?"

I wasn't having any of it. I protested with unabashed shittiness until my mom left with my sister in a huff of disappointment. Seeing the hurt in my mom's face did bring on a sense of guilt but my hate easily overcame it as I angrily went back to my game.

Then, out of nowhere, my fingertips became sweaty and cold. I was struck with an intense fear that I've never felt before. Every instinct in my body told me to look outside. There was a man jogging towards the bank. I was immediately afraid. It was obvious that his thick moustache and big curly hair were fake. He had on sunglasses, a large tan coat, and black boots. When he stopped just outside he turned around to see if anyone was watching. That's when I saw he was carrying the biggest gun I had ever seen. I ducked down to hide, praying that he didn't see me. I was terrified. I wanted my mom. My mom. My sister.

Just as their images formed in my head, the powerful staccato of gunshots blasted inside the bank. Even though I was still balled up in the car with my eyes closed, I knew right then that I would never see my mom and sister again. And it was all my fault.

I woke up from this nightmare with a sour taste in my mouth. This was my first taste of true hate: hate for myself.

“It’s hard to fit my writing into a single genre. I just write what comes to mind, but I feel like it puts people off because it can be rather… weird," I said with a nervous smile.

“Try me. I love weird," she said, biting her lip a little.

I looked down and closed my eyes, sighed and looked up at her. She’s looking back with the smile and focus of someone who wants a taste of the real me. I want to give it to her, but I’m afraid I’ll drive her away like the rest of them. And yet, something about her seems different. Only one way to find out. “Ok," I start. “This is from something I’m still working on. Picture this…

“You’re standing in the middle of a desert; the biggest desert in the world. Sand dunes stretch to infinity at every turn. Nothing on you but your clothes and a canteen. You shake your canteen and feel the pathetic sloshing of the last teaspoon of water you’ll ever taste. You need to keep walking but can’t decide which way. The sun decides for you as its blistering rays dig deeper into your skin. So you walk.

And walk.

And walk.

You stop and wonder if you’ve been walking in circles this whole time. The wonder is short-lived and is replaced by a drowsy lethargy that leaves you with a burning desire to collapse. But you never do. Death would be too easy and anticlimactic for the gods. Instead they place a village before you.

You enter the village and find it bustling with children. There’s a fountain in the center of the village square shooting up heavy gushes of clearest, freshest water you’ve ever seen. Children are laughing and playing around the fountain. The adults are nearby, either working or socializing. Everyone clearly knows each other. They’re bound by something sacred, but what?

You walk slowly, not because you’re tired – although you are – but because you’re admiring what you’re seeing. When was the last time you’ve seen such a lively display of humanity? Or any humanity at all? You feel a tickling sensation on your face. Tears. Shedding profusely from your eyes. You fall on your knees and –"

“We’re fresh out of chili fries.” It was our waiter, Charles.

“Sorry, what?” I asked.

“We’re out of chili fries,” said Charles, a little louder this time. “Can I get you something else?”

“How are you out of – ok you know what? It’s fine. We’ll do the boneless wings,” I said.

“What kinda sauce.”

“Mild. The mildest you have, Charles. And can you bring us some more ketchup?”

“Sure,” said Charles. And he left.

“Sorry, where was I?” I asked.

“You got us nuggets?” She asked. I could see a faint grimace forming on her face.

“No, they’re boneless wings. Completely different from nuggets. Anyways…

“You fall on your knees and try to keep yourself up, but the weight of your fatigue bears down on you all at once. You give into it and let your body fall free-fall to the ground. And you black out.

Then you wake up with a smile you only make when you’ve had the deepest sleep a human has ever reached. Fragments of a blissful dream come in and out of focus: angels circling around you, singing hymns of a lost time. They take turns bending down to kiss you. Each peck feels sweet and warm on your skin as it delivers pulses of euphoria throughout your body that make you feel lighter and lighter. You hear giggles.

Your eyes open.

Four children are standing above you, happy as can be. There’s blood on their faces and torsos. The smallest one raises her bloody arms at the oldest one. He picks her up and carries her towards you. She opens her mouth and reveals a set of horrible, reddened fangs. Once she’s close enough her fangs protrude past her lips before clamping down on your face. You expect pain but are greeted with bliss instead. She shakes her head with rabid fervor until your nose is completely torn away. She chews it up and swallows. Then she laughs. And you laugh. They laugh.

“And we all laugh!”

I slammed my hand on the table so hard the room went quiet. Her look of concern turned into white fear as my giggles progressed to uncontrollable laughter. Charles comes back with my appetizer. He’s laughing so hard he almost falls over. He sets the plate down in the middle of the table and then he actually falls over. She looks down at the plate and nearly faints. Instead of boneless wings there was a steaming pile of human noses covered in ketchup. They’re rubber noses, of course, but she doesn’t know that. Soon the whole restaurant is laughing except for her. She slid out of her side of the booth, stepping over Charles, who’s shaking and frothing at the mouth. She ran out the entrance as fast as she could and I never heard from her again.

Weeknights at Ollie’s Tavern were never busy despite Ollie’s attempts at spicing things up with trivia nights, or free apps specials, or a plethora of other ideas. On this warm Tuesday night, things weren’t any different.

The place was usually inhabited by at least two of four regulars: Lester Freeman, Jonathan Lindbergh, Carlton Davis, or Seymour Spinks, and a couple of newcomers that never come back on account of literally anything being better than here. Only Lester and Seymour were present today, as sodden as ever. The other two are currently battling hangovers from Monday bingo night, a night in which only our four regular joes attended.

A report on the updates of the unexplainable drop in the number of homeless people was playing on the TV.

“Good,” said Lester. “We don’t need anymore bums in this. – hiccup – town!”

Seymour’s eyebrows furrowed in preparation for his side of the debate. “I don’t know, Les. Some of these bums ain’t so bad. There’s one that hangs around the corner and we always have decent conversations.”

“You talk with the bums?” asked Lester, in disgusted tone as if Seymour had told him he fornicates with the dead.

“Well, yeah. They’re people like us.” Seymour takes a large gulp from his mug, wipes his mouth, and belches. “His name’s Sylvester. He’s got a tattoo on is forearm. A black dahlia. A decent fellow, he is. Haven’t seen him around lately, though. ”

“Man, sometimes I worry about you, Spinks.” They continue drinking and chatting.

Everything was more or less the same until a newbie walked in around 8 pm. He was a haggard, balding, mid-thirties looking fellow. The most peculiar thing about this stranger wasn’t that he walked with a limp or his vampiric paleness, or that he looked like he smelled of moldy dust. It was more so that his eyes painted a picture of a man who wasn’t really all there. They had this bleak darkness and depth that anyone could see from a great distance but couldn’t quite figure out what he’s about. An uncomfortable chill emanated from his dark aura. Combine this with the disturbing crooked smile he was wearing and you’ve got yourself a couple of unsettled drunkards trying not to make any eye contact with the man while playing close attention to where he was planning on sitting so that they could make a prompt shift in their seating arrangement if he got too close. Despite this, the two amigos were struck with the faintest hint of familiarity in the stranger’s face.

The stranger takes out his phone and makes a phone call.

“I’m inside,” the stranger says. He hangs up the phone and calls the bartender’s attention.

“Two beers,” he says.

Moments later a pair of headlights dash across the bar and settle in front of the window where the two buddies are sitting, blinded temporarily.

“A Ferrari? In this town?” asks Lester.

A man steps out of the car and walks in. This one was visibly older than the first one, and yet he seemed much healthier. A full head of silver hair, a normal and vigorous gait, no wrinkles, and the body frame of a cyclist. The man’s facial expression exuded wealth and confidence. He looks around and locates the first stranger, smiles, and sits next to him, where the pitcher of beer awaits him.

Seymour squints his eyes in the direction of the new patron and asks, “Ain’t he that rich fellow. Jeff somethin’?”

Lester ponders for a moment and a long-neglected dusty light bulb goes off in his head. “Jefferson Harvey. He’s the owner of that drug company. Uhh --”

“Chemixin Pharmaceuticals! Over there in Langord, not too far from here.” says Seymour. “Yeah, yeah! He took over for that other guy that died, Alistair Brave. Such a shitty way to go.”

What the hell is he doing here? They both thought.

The second man now known as Jefferson begins the conversation with the mysterious stranger. “Christ, you look like hell. Are you sure we’re celebrating something, or do you need medical attention?”

The first man holds up one finger and points his gaze at Lester and Seymour. The two friends tried to avert their gaze as fast as they could, but they knew it was too late: their eyes had met his. The stranger gives them that nerve-racking smile that he walked in with, gets up, and saunters awkwardly towards them. He reaches for his back pocket and pulls out his wallet. From the wallet he takes out a small stack of hundred-dollar bills. He puts six bills in front of each of the men and calmly says “Scram”.

More than glad to get away, Lester and Seymour take the money and scurry clumsily out of the bar. The man limps back to his seat and gestures for his companion to continue.

“Alright Serg, so what’s the occasion? And why here?”

Sergio reaches for his front left pocket and pulls out a small clear vial filled with a blue powder. “I’ve finally perfected it!”

Jefferson gives a puzzled look. “What is that?”

“Why, it’s revolutionary, is what it is,” replies Sergio. He stares at the vial with pure admiration “Life-changing. It sure as hell changed my life. I’ve been working on it for fifteen years.”

“What does it do?”

“Let me tell you a story, Jeff,” says Sergio, ignoring the question. “But first, let’s have a toast in honor of my work!”

Jefferson complies and raises his glass as Sergio does the same. They gulp down the beer and Sergio begins.

“Jeff, today is the anniversary of my father’s passing. I’m sure you know.”

“I’ll never forget it. May he rest in peace.”, Jeff muttered.

“I appreciate it. Before his passing he left me a letter for my eyes only. Obviously, I was too young at the time. I was only four! The idea was that when I graduated high school I would read the letter. So, the day after my graduation, my mother sat me down and told me about the letter and handed it to me. Let me tell you, Jeff, I’m not an emotional man. Never have been. But I’ve never shed more tears than the day I read that letter. It devastated me. Cried like a little bitch.”

He laughs and in turn Jeff chuckles as well.

“Before that moment I wasn’t really sure what I wanted to do with my life. I hadn’t even applied to any colleges yet. But with that letter, I knew what I had to do. I sought a career in chemistry. I did pretty well, too. Made the dean’s list each semester, earned a few scholarships, hell, I even started getting paid to do research amongst my professors by the time I was a sophomore. You could say I was a natural, maybe even a latent prodigy, but to tell you the truth, I had a little help.”

“What kind of help?” asked Jeff.

“A special kind of help. See, in the letter my dad left me, he told me about this mystical place in Tibet. Have you been to Tibet?”

Up until this point Jeff’s attention was wavering but now he was focused. And nervous. “Yeah, I have.”

“Well, the letter had directions to a special cave. It took me almost a week of searching but eventually I found it. As isolated and barren as this place was, you would think that nobody has visited this place. I don’t suppose you’ve been to this cave, have you?”

Jeff simply stares and says nothing.

“In any case, I entered the dark cave. The letter told me to trust my instincts and walk until you can’t walk anymore. But I trusted my father as much as any son could trust. So, I walked and walked in the darkness."

He stopped to take a sip of his beer. When he put his glass down he started to notice heavy beads of sweat rolling down Jeff’s face. Sergio smiled and continued.

“If I had to guess, I’d say I walked for about eight hours in the void. If that’s the case then I could estimate that at the sixth hour my right foot began to ache really bad. I reached down to soothe it a little and that’s when I felt something that horrifies me to this day. Bone. I was wearing hiking boots and wool socks when I started this journey. Then I realized something had eaten away at all of that and then some. My foot had been reduced to nothing but skeleton.

“I’d finally reached a point where I could no longer balance myself. It felt like one leg was shorter than the other. On my last step with my bone foot I couldn’t find purchase and fell to the ground. I tried to touch my foot when I realized it was completely gone. It’s like I was slowly being eaten the entire time. I screamed, Jeff. And screamed and screamed. Louder and louder. All I heard was my own echo but then I began to hear laughter. Very evil laughter. I belt out one last scream when suddenly I’m no longer in darkness. I’m now in this round clearing lighted by torches all around.

“And in this clearing there’s a circle made of red dust –” He stops to peer into Jeff’s eyes. “Well I don’t need to go any further do I? You know what happens next don’t you, Uncle Arthur?”

Jeff says nothing.

“Let me guess. You feel like you have a fever, right? And your chest hurts, your spine is tingling, your eyes feel like they’re on fire?”

His silence was as good an answer as anything else. At this point Jeff was indeed feeling all of that and much more. He was sweating profusely and shivering. His breathing had become more labored. Sergio reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out a yellow folded piece of paper. He opens it and shoves it into Jeff’s face.

“Read it you son of a bitch!” he growls. “Ready my father’s dying words!”

Jeff struggles to move his eyes in any direction but the s and danger in Sergio’s voice gives him no choice. His eyes stagger until he gets to the end of the letter.

The Tibetan elixir allows you to switch your soul with another person.

Jeff’s not Jeff. Your Uncle Arthur is not dead. He didn’t kill himself. He got a hold of the Tibetan elixir. He drank the potion and slit his own throat. Your uncle is in Jeff’s body. Then he poisoned me. I don’t exactly know what it was but I do know that its effects are delayed for months. Avenge me, my son.

Sergio grabs Jeff by the collar and pulls him close.

“I just want you to know that you deserve everything that’s coming to you.”

Arthur’s eyes roll to the back of his head and begins to convulse. He falls to the floor. His blood vessels start to bulge out of his skin all over his body. Sergio finishes his beer. He jumps off the stool and crouches towards his uncle. He leans into Arthur's ear and whispers, "This stuff is better than the Tibetan elixir. You asked me what it does. Well, Uncle Arthur, this will make you... immortal."

Smoke slithers out of Arthur’s orifices and he lets out a demonic cry. Finally, his eyes appear to be lucid yet confused.

“W-w-where am I?”

“You’re free now,” replies Sergio. “Now, get out of here.”

He looks at his hands and touches his face and the back of his neck in disbelief. He runs out of the bar frantically. Sergio laughs and pays the tab. As a tip he leaves $600 and tells the Ollie the bartender.“You didn’t see anything, got it?”

Ollie is shaking. He nods but it’s not clear whether it’s from assent or fear. Sergio gets up from the barstool and heads out the door.

Midnight. Sergio is miles deep in the woods. He’s walking towards a worn-down cabin, abandoned before he was even born. Next to the entrance of the cabin there’s a large square hole filled with a stack of decaying bodies. He goes inside and ambles lightly to the master bedroom, bereft of all furniture, and smiles. There’s a large meat hook affixed to the ceiling in the middle of the room. Impaled in the hook is a naked body nobody would recognize unless they knew he had a black dahlia tattoo on his forearm. The man is sleeping but slowly coming to.

Sergio picks up a switchblade knife and jabs it into the body’s belly. “Wake up, Uncle Arthur. It’s time.”