Kooky King Kong kapellmeister

just jabbering gibberish (A - K)

Again, another awkward ambitious

arduous attempt at alphabetically

arranging atrociously ambiguously

absolutely asinine avoidable alliteration.

Because...? Basically bonafide belching,

bobbing, bumbling, bohemian beastie boy,

bereft bummer, bleeds blasé blues, begetting

bloviated boilerplate bildungsroman,

boasting bougainvillea background.

Civil, clever clover chomping, cheap

chipper cool cutthroat clueless clodhopper,

chafed centenary, codifies communication

cryptically, challenging capable, certifiably

cheerful college coed.

Divine dapper daredevil, deft, destitute,

doddering, dorky dude, dummkopf Dagwood

descendent, dagnabbit, demands daring

dedicated doodling, dubious, dynamite,

deaf dwarf, diehard doppelganger, Doctor

Demento double, declaring depraved

daffy dis(pense)able dufus Donald Duck

derailed democracy devastatingly defunct.

Eccentric, edified English exile,

effervescent, elementary, echinoderm

eating egghead, Earthling, excretes,

etches, ejaculates, effortless exceptional

emphatic effluvium enraging eminent,

eschatologically entranced, elongated

elasmobranchii, emerald eyed Ebenezer,

effectively experiments, emulates epochal

eczema epidemic, elevating, escalating,

exaggerating enmity, enduring exhausting

emphysema.

Freed fentanyl fueled, fickle figurative

flippant fiddler, fiendishly filmy, fishy,

fluke, flamboyantly frivolous, fictitious,

felonious, fallacious, fabulously fatalistic,

flabbergasted, fettered, flustered, facile,

faceless, feckless, financially forked,

foregone, forlorn futile fulsome, freckled

feverish, foo fighting, faulty, freezing,

fleeting famously failing forecaster, flubs

"FAKE" fundamental fibber fiat, fabricating

fiery fissile fractured fios faculties.

Gamesomeness goads gawky, gingerly,

goofily graceful, grandiloquent gent, gallant,

genteel, geico, guppy gecko, gabbling gaffes,

gagging, gamboling, gestating, gesticulating,

garlic, gnashing, gobbling, gyrating,

gruesomely grinning, grappling, gnomadic

giggly, grubby, gastrointestinally grumpy

gewgaw gazing gesticulating guy,

geographically generically germane,

gungho, grave gremlin, grumbling, guiding,

guaranteeing, guerilla gripped gatling guns

ginning gumpshun.

Hello! Herewith halfway harmless hazmat,

haphazard haggard, hectored, hastily,

hurriedly, harriedly hammered, handsomely

hackneyed, heathen, hellbent hillbilly, hirsute,

hidden hippie, huffy humanoid, hexed, heady,

Hellenistic, holistic, hermetic, hedonistic

heterosexual Homo sapiens historical heirloom,

homeless, hopeful, holy, hee haw heretical hobo.

Indefatigable, iconographic, iconic, idealistic,

idyllic, inimitable, idiosyncratic, ineffable,

irreverently issuing idiotic, indifferent, inert,

ineffectual, ingeniously iniquitous, immaterial,

insignificant, indubitable, inexplicable, ignoble

itches, ineffectually illustriously illuminating

immovable infused ichthyosaurus implanted

inside igneous intrusions immensely

imperturbable improbable.

Jovial jabbering jinxed January jokester

just jimmying jabberwocky

justifying jangling jarring juvenile jibberish

jubilantly jousting jittering

jazzy jawbreaking jumble

justifying, jostling, Jesus;

junior jowly janissary joyful Jekyll

joined jumbo Jewess jolly Jane;

jammed jello junket jiggled

jeopardized jingled jugs.

Kooky knucklehead klutz

knowingly kneaded, kicked, killed

knobby kneed kleptomanic.

Orion,

Do you ever feel like two people? No, a hundred; a thousand? Do you ever think that freedom comes at such a cost, and that happiness does too?

I say, where does who I am end and who I become begin?

I am, in many ways, myself. But even that is everchanging as the reflections on a rippling water's surface. Constantly influenced. Constantly adjusting to the circumstances. Should I hold my own a little more? Should I be who I am or who I become?

In some ways, I am everything. All knowing, all powerful. King of my own destiny; maker of ideas and my own world. And yet none of it comes to fruition without people, or earth, or day, or night. Should the daylight take hold of me, I am one being. Should the night, I am another. It is the same of those around me. My face a mirror, a ripple, just light glinting off the edge of glass. Bouncing effortlessly from one state to the next.

I readjust. I am many people and many faces. One who is joyous, one who is tired. One who believes strongly, one who is weak. One who is adventurous, one who is cowardly. I have changed, and I no longer can distinguish selves from other.

There are two minds. Rational; dream. What the rational mind knows the dream mind rejects. What the dream mind conjures the rational mind denounces as impossibilities. I live in a thin space between the two, where both come to me, pleading, and I, knowing nothing and having no assurance, sit idly by and make rash judgements. I cannot be governed by either. For the rational mind rules with fear, and the dream mind with hope. Reality sits with me in between.

Who am I to deny a dream its influence? To let the promise of something beautiful be enough to wrap my fingers around it, grab it, let it drag me to its natural end. It sounds easy until the rational chides me. There is nothing so beautiful as to be worth the cost. There is no action without an opposing reaction. There is no such folly equal to following what is unproven; what is only a dream.

I am torn in two, or four, or eight. Continuously and indefinitely. Each face not recognizing the other. I am more soul than body, more space than presence. There is no end to what has no beginning.

Forgive me, I have written with no end in sight. I seek answers no mortal can give. Just know that I consider everything just so. And that for that, I am aggrieved. In this world I may only take one action per decision, and I handle each carefully. Forgive me, then, if I make the wrong one.

Yours truly,

Artemis

I have no idea where I am going with this except to say that I’m a sucker for a good documentary and I watched one yesterday. In fact, the one I watched was so good for someone with my upbringing that I feel compelled to complete the circle, and to document it in turn.

I stumbled across “In the Blink of an Eye” on Prime Video and started watching it with low hopes, but it did what good documentaries do, pulling me in, tickling my memory back to one of the passions of my youth; a passion which, as happened with Christmas at an even younger age, had its glory stolen away by the money grab of commercialism.

Those of you who know anything about me from my time here on site know that I am a redneck sprung from rednecks. I do not say this proudly, although I could. It is simply fact. And being a redneck, I like automobile racing (at least I did, once upon a time). In particular I like southern stock car racing. Like me, NASCAR sprung up from the red clay of our shared southern home; a heavy, sticky soil that packs out smooth and hard as hawked-out cement until it is perfectly suited to race cars on. So they did just that, those good ol’ boys of another era who came home from WWII having gained the three things required to create the perfect twister of a red-dust storm; mechanical knowledge, engineering experience, and a lust for excitement.

I vividly remember my first time at a race track. My father took me out to East-Side Speedway one night around 1970, when I was still small enough to be toted in his arms late at night. I remember the glow of the lights in the distance from where we parked, the roaring of cars which could not yet be seen, the anxiousness in my dad’s step to get those cars into view. I remember the roughness of the wooden bleachers beneath my bare feet, the glimmer of the lights off the whirling metal, the smells of wetted dust, burning high-test, popping corn and suspense. It was only small-time, small town racing, but it was sprinkled liberally with the magic dust of Grand National dreams.

A couple of years after that night, and right after the divorce, the old man called up my mother one Friday and asked if he could take me with him up to Martinsville, to see the “big boys” race. Caught quick like that and without an excuse handy Mom said yes. That weekend was the highlight of my childhood; camping out in the back of Pop’s pickup truck and joining in frisbee games where fifty-or-so Blue Ribbon and Marlboro toting fathers gathered in an outside circle throwing a bunch of frisbees across to each other while their screeching flock of kids in the middle happily chased down, and tussled over, any wayward throws (myself right in there with ’em). There were banjos picking over in that direction, and race cars roaring in the other, colorful flags flying on high with a blimp slow-rolling against the clouds, and best of all Richard Petty was right yonder; King Richard we called him, a sparse man sporting a big hat beside a sky-blue race car any of the three of which… man, hat or car… were already larger than life. It couldn’t possibly get any better for an eleven year old, yet it did. After that weekend followed Bristol, Rockingham, and finally Charlotte, the crown jewel of racing. What a summer!

You have to keep in mind that this was all pre-1979, when began an unquenchable thirst throughout America for all things NASCAR. Prior to 1979 Winston Cup racing was little more than a southern joke. The races were held in the south, the drivers were from the south, and there was little to no television coverage (the Daytona 500 being the lone exception as a once a year novelty event on ABC’s “Wide World of Sports”). The Daytona 500 is unique in that it is equivalent to NASCAR’s “Super Bowl”, but it is strangely held as the first race of the season, rather than the last. They run it first, in late February, because Daytona is usually warm then while the rest of America is still frozen. This was especially the case in 1979, as a gigantic snowstorm had settled over most of the east coast, forcing people inside on a Sunday afternoon, and this after the NFL season had ended and before baseball season had begun… the horror! With no other sport available for bored men to watch on an inside day they tuned into the Daytona 500, and those bored men were coincidentally treated to the greatest race in NASCAR history. For stock car racing, that snowstorm turned out to be the perfect storm, as a fantastic race culminated in a last lap crash, allowing NASCAR’s only nationally recognized name, Richard Petty, to sweep through to the checkered flag. And better yet, immediately after Petty flashed across the finish line in his famous STP branded racer the cameras panned back to the wreck where two drivers were fist fighting in the infield, and still another driver had leapt out of his car to come to the aid of his brother, the three of them throwing haymakers until the service trucks could get there to pull them apart! It was glorious, this two on one melee after a fantastic race with millions of first time viewers! It was the perfect storm indeed for a second rate sport, as fans from all over America began heading down south to watch those crazy-assed southerners race their hot rods. It was the height of happiness for me to see the rest of the country embracing my favorite sport!

For a while, at least.

Then my happy bubble burst. Mom moved us further away from Dad. Worse, she moved us to the city. Trips to race tracks ended for me. City life and time changed my priorities, as will happen, turning me away from “out of sight, out of mind race cars,” and toward girls, rock-n-roll, and a car of my own. But then came cable television. ESPN and TBS began showing races nearly every weekend. I found myself drawn back in by the ’84 Firecracker 400, hearing Ronald Reagan issue the “Gentlemen, start your engines” command from a phone in Air Force 1, and then seeing in real time, albeit on television, the image made famous by Sports Illustrated of Air Force 1 cruising in to land with that iconic STP car in the foreground, racing alone down Daytona’s backstretch. It was not my luck to be able to go to the races anymore, but I’ll be damned if racing wasn’t reaching out to me and pulling me back in, or so it seemed at the time.

A few years later my buddy Dave and I got us a place down at the beach. Dave laughed at me on those hot summer afternoons when I‘d hop on my ”beach cruiser” to pedal back up to our 17th Street apartment in time to catch my heroes on TV. My asshole friend would yell, “go on then, you hillbilly fuck” as I flipped him off on my way. The bikini-clad tourists could wait, I figured. Girls would always be there, but Talledega only came around twice a year. I guess those priorities hadn’t completely changed.

I will admit to being a little bit ass-hurt when my friend called me a “hillbilly fuck,“ so I did the only thing I could do. I loaded up my truck with beer and weed, shoved Dave into the passenger seat, and I converted him; two long-hairs in cut-off shorts and Van Halen t-shirts on a NASCAR roadtrip. What a fucking blast we had! I’ll never forget the joy on his face that entire weekend. We’d been to a lot of rock and roll shows, but there is a huge and obvious difference between 18,000 headbangers at a one-night stand, and 80,000 redneck wall-bangers rockin’ a racetrack for an entire weekend. Upon arrival Dave completely bought in to the laid-back party style of it (in particular to a group of redneck girls we came across as they bathed boldly shirtless in the dangerous southern sun, Dave kindly offering to shade them with his own naked body at much hazard). And to my chagrin he also bought in to the whole “Intimidator”, “Man in Black” thing, and so became a Dale Earnhardt fan (plus he knew I hated the driver whom many fans, myself included, referred to as Ironhead, rather than Earnhardt. You have to keep in mind that Dave was, as most maturing young men are with each other, a real butt-wipe).

Our front-stretch seats for that race were low down in the stands, a bit close to the track for comfort’s sake, but perfect to hear the sounds, sense the speed, and to get caught up in the drama of it all. Dave remained skeptical of the actual racing right up through the warm-up laps, looking at me like I was an idiot when I warned him that he’d best take off his brand new Earnhardt cap before they came around again or he would lose it. You see, it takes a minute at a track like Charlotte for speed to accumulate. Heavyweight American muscle doesn’t zip off the line like a sissy little European racer does. It gathers it’s momentum slowly, needing every bit of the mile-and-a-half, high banked speedway with the dog-leg rounding out it’s start-finish line to get it’s gears sorted out. Once that space and speed is gathered however, watch the hell out!

That first lap circled about like slow motion. I looked over, unsurprised by a cynicism on Dave’s face which only made me laugh, as I knew what was to come. Like two trains vying for supremacy the twin lines of cars drove away from us down the backstretch, circling bumper-to-bumper and side-by-side-by-side through turn three, the fans in the bleachers standing in salute before the onslaught. As they rounded through turn four you could feel a difference in the air, and in the crowd, and in the concrete seat beneath you as they came, the roar from forty-three, 600 hp engines screaming angrily towards you, the cars nervously jockeying for position like a boy at the movies on a first date. Like everyone else, Dave and I were also standing now as they approach us, me screaming and waving my driver forward, Dave watching them roar past in mesmerized wonder… and blissfully hatless.

It is not a difficult game, racing, though there are nuances to know. I recall at one point Eddie Bierschwale’s car got sideways and lifted completely up off the ground as if held there by a giant, invisible hand as it flew directly towards us. I was standing and could see the car’s undercarriage, exhaust system and all as it hung like a toy in front of me. Joyful, I turned to find Dave curled up in a humorous ball beneath his seat. Yet by day’s end my rookie friend was an expert, educated in every phase of racing; driver’s, strategies, and courtesies. Having hooked my fish, those Sunday afternoons watching races alone in our little apartment became parties of two when we were broke, which was much of the time, and roadtrips when we weren’t.

They say you can’t go home again. I found this to be true. Dave and I stayed in touch after I moved to Charlotte. I even bumped into him unexpectedly at a race once. I assumed that racing was something I would always have, and that my friend Dave and I would always share it, but time is fickle, taking Dave away for good and changing my beloved NASCAR into something almost unrecognizable, with ”Cars of Tomorrow” that all look exactly alike (some are even foreign, eee-gads!) and that are unable to pass one another without difficulty. And the racetracks are mostly as alike as the cars are, besides their being spread into far away geographies where there are no hardcore fans, hence the empty grandstands in Kansas, California, and Vegas most weekends. Ticket prices have become as ridiculous as those for NFL games, and then you have these drivers with midwestern names who whine when they lose, rather than fight. Nah, me and a hundred thousand other southerners will take a pass on that.

So I am pretty much done with racing. I still turn to some of the bigger races when I am home on a Sunday, but my attention quickly wanes. Gone is the Ford and Chevy rivalry, gone are the short tracks with their noon starts, gone are the drivers in open-faced helmets having a smoke at 200 mph, gone are the kids clinging to the catch fences, and the chicken bones and soda cans tossed down to the walkways, gone are the beer brands on cars, the cigarette brand on the trophies, and the pretty girls kissing the winner at race’s end (Well, the pretty girls might still be there, I honestly don’t know. Seems a bit sexist though, for this day and age?). It seems that, as everything does, Southern stock car racing has run its course.

But that documentary, now. I’ve got to say, that was pretty darn good. The racing scenes got me going, seeing the old guard strapped in again, hammer down and hell-bent for glory. It’s a shame my old buddy Dave and I can’t load up the truck for one last NASCAR roadtrip. I’ll bet he would like that, if he was still here with us.

I know I would, just once, for old time’s sake.

Captain Sara Chen stood at the viewport of the *Tomorrow's Price*, watching the swirling purple storms of the Maelstrom eat away at the edges of normal space. The anomaly had appeared three standard months ago, spreading across the Orion Arm like cancer, swallowing inhabited systems whole and leaving only silence in its wake. Now it threatened New Terra, humanity's most populous colony world outside the Solar System, and home to fifteen billion souls.

"Status report," she called out, not turning from the viewport. The bridge crew's reflection ghosted across the reinforced transparisteel, their movements precise and efficient despite eighteen hours at battle stations.

"No change in the Maelstrom's expansion rate," Lieutenant Park responded from the sensor station. "Current projections show total system coverage in seventy-two hours."

Sara's jaw tightened. Three days to save fifteen billion people. Or to watch them die, like the inhabitants of the Procyon and Sirius systems before them. The evacuation fleet was already working at maximum capacity, but they'd be lucky to get even a tenth of the population out in time.

Unless she and her crew could pull off a miracle.

"Dr. Patel," she said, finally turning to face the science station. "Talk to me about the containment field."

The physicist looked up from her displays, dark circles under her eyes testimony to countless sleepless nights. "The quantum resonance calculations are complete. In theory, a sufficiently powerful graviton pulse could create a temporary barrier, holding the Maelstrom back long enough for more ships to reach the evacuation points."

"In theory," Sara repeated. She'd learned long ago that physicists loved that phrase almost as much as they hated certainty.

"The power requirements are... significant," Patel continued. "We'd need to channel the output of at least three capital ships directly into the graviton array. And the pulse would have to be precisely calibrated. Too weak, and it won't hold back the anomaly. Too strong..."

"And we risk accelerating the Maelstrom's expansion," Sara finished. "Making things even worse."

"Exactly." Patel's fingers danced across her console, bringing up a complex series of equations. "And there's one other problem. The graviton array would have to be positioned inside the Maelstrom itself to generate the containment field. Which means..."

"Which means someone has to fly into that purple hell to set it up." Sara's voice was grim. She'd already known it would come to this. Had known from the moment the eggheads first proposed their desperate plan.

The bridge fell silent, every crew member aware of what their captain was contemplating. The survival rate for ships that entered the Maelstrom was exactly zero. No one had ever returned from its depths, and the few automated probes that had been sent in had gone dark within minutes.

"Ma'am," Commander Rodriguez spoke up from the tactical station. "The *Dawn's Light* and *Stellar Dream* are standing by. Both captains have volunteered their ships for the operation."

Sara nodded, unsurprised. Katherine Wong and Marcus Chen – her own brother – were two of the best officers in the Fleet. They'd sacrifice themselves without hesitation to save New Terra. But they didn't have the right ship for this mission.

The *Tomorrow's Price* was special. Built using experimental technology recovered from the ruins of an ancient alien civilization, she was faster, tougher, and more maneuverable than any other vessel in the Fleet. If anyone had a chance of surviving long enough to deploy the graviton array, it was her crew.

"Send word to both ships," she ordered. "Tell them to begin power transfer preparations. But the *Price* will be making the run."

"Captain..." Rodriguez began to protest, but Sara cut him off with a raised hand.

"My ship, my call, Commander. Besides," she managed a tight smile, "someone has to be crazy enough to fly into certain death, right?"

That earned a few nervous chuckles from the bridge crew. They all knew the odds, but gallows humor was better than despair.

"Dr. Patel, how long until the array is ready?"

"Final calibrations will take about four hours," the physicist replied. "We'll only get one shot at this."

"Then we'd better make it count." Sara straightened her uniform jacket. "Commander Rodriguez, you have the bridge. I'll be in my ready room preparing the mission briefing."

As she walked off the bridge, Sara felt the weight of every life on New Terra pressing down on her shoulders. Fifteen billion people, counting on her and her crew to save them. And Marcus... her last living family member, already positioned on the far side of the system with his ship, ready to play his part in their desperate gamble.

The ready room door closed behind her with a soft hiss, and Sara allowed herself exactly thirty seconds to lean against the wall and breathe deeply. Then she squared her shoulders and moved to her desk. There would be time for fear later. Right now, she had a job to do.

Four hours later, Sara stood on the bridge once more as final preparations were completed. The *Tomorrow's Price* had taken up position at the designated launch point, with the *Dawn's Light* and *Stellar Dream* flanking her at precise coordinates.

"Power transfer links established," Lieutenant Park reported. "Both ships showing ready status."

"Graviton array is online," Dr. Patel added. "All systems nominal."

Sara took a deep breath, studying the swirling purple maelstrom that filled the main viewport. According to the sensors, the anomaly was consuming space itself, breaking down the fundamental forces that held reality together. No one knew what caused it, though theories ranged from weapon tests gone wrong to natural phenomena to deliberate attacks by unknown aliens.

None of that mattered now. All that mattered was stopping it.

"All hands, this is the Captain speaking." Sara's voice carried through the ship's comm system. "In a few minutes, we're going to attempt something that's never been done before. We're going to fly into the Maelstrom, deploy a containment field, and save fifteen billion lives." She paused, choosing her next words carefully. "I won't lie to you. The odds aren't good. But every one of you volunteered for this mission, knowing the risks. I'm proud to serve with you all."

A chorus of acknowledgments came from around the bridge. Sara nodded, satisfied. They were ready.

"Helm, plot approach vector seven-gamma. Maximum thrust on my mark." She settled into her command chair, strapping in. "All stations, prepare for atmospheric turbulence protocols. We don't know what it's like in there, but I doubt it'll be smooth sailing."

The bridge crew worked with practiced efficiency, securing equipment and running final checks. Sara watched the countdown timer on her display tick down to zero.

"Mark."

The *Tomorrow's Price* leaped forward, its experimental engines pushing it to speeds that would have torn a normal ship apart. Behind them, power began flowing from the other two ships, channeled through specially designed conduits into the graviton array.

They reached the edge of the Maelstrom in seconds. Sara felt a moment of existential terror as reality itself seemed to twist and bend around them. Then they were through the boundary, and everything changed.

The viewport showed impossible colors, fractal patterns that hurt the eyes to look at. Navigation systems went haywire, trying to process sensor data that contradicted the basic laws of physics. Warning alarms blared as the ship's structural integrity was tested beyond its design limits.

"Hull stress at eighty percent!" Rodriguez called out. "Micro-fractures forming in sections three through seven!"

"Compensating!" The helm officer's fingers flew across her console. "Adjusting shield harmonics!"

Sara gripped her chair's armrests as the ship bucked and shuddered. "Dr. Patel, how much further?"

"Two thousand kilometers to optimal deployment position!" The physicist was practically shouting to be heard over the alarms. "But these readings... Captain, the Maelstrom is reacting to our presence! The degradation effect is accelerating!"

"Understood. Helm, give me everything you've got. We need to-"

A massive impact rocked the ship, cutting Sara off mid-sentence. Emergency lights flashed as damage reports flooded in.

"Direct hit to the port nacelle!" Rodriguez reported. "Some kind of... energy discharge from within the Maelstrom itself!"

Sara's tactical display showed it clearly – tendrils of purple energy reaching out like tentacles, trying to grab the ship. As if the anomaly was alive, and aware of their intentions.

"Evasive pattern delta!" she ordered. "Dr. Patel, how long until we can deploy?"

"Fifteen seconds to optimal position! But Captain, these energy patterns... they're not random! There's a coherent structure underlying the chaos. It's almost like-"

Another impact, harder than the first. The viewport cracked, spider-web patterns spreading across its surface.

"Hull breach on deck three!" Rodriguez's voice was tight with strain. "Emergency forcefields holding, but we're losing power!"

"Ten seconds!"

Sara watched as more energy tendrils emerged from the chaos, converging on their position. Whatever intelligence lurked within the Maelstrom, it clearly didn't want them to succeed.

"Five seconds!"

"Multiple hull breaches!" Rodriguez shouted. "Structural integrity failing!"

"Two seconds!"

Sara's next order was cut off as a brilliant light filled the bridge. For a moment, she thought they'd failed – that the ship had finally come apart under the impossible stresses. Then she realized the light was coming from within the Maelstrom itself, coalescing into a distinct pattern.

A face.

It was impossible to look at directly, composed of those same eye-hurting fractals that filled the viewport. But it was undeniably a face, and it was speaking.

No sound reached them through the vacuum of space, but somehow Sara could hear the words in her mind. They weren't in any language she knew, yet she understood them perfectly.

*Why do you resist? This is necessary. The corruption must be contained.*

Sara's eyes widened as understanding flooded through her. The Maelstrom wasn't a natural phenomenon or a weapon – it was a quarantine measure. But a quarantine against what?

As if in answer to her unspoken question, images flashed through her mind. She saw vast fleets of ships, similar to but far more advanced than humanity's vessels. She saw worlds being consumed not by purple energy, but by something darker, something that devoured not just matter but consciousness itself. And she saw the desperate solution the ancient civilization had implemented – using the fundamental forces of reality itself to create a barrier that would contain the threat.

But something had gone wrong. The barrier had begun expanding beyond its intended boundaries, threatening to encompass far more than its creators had planned. And now it was going to destroy humanity in its attempt to save them from a threat they hadn't even known existed.

"Dr. Patel!" Sara shouted, her mind racing. "The graviton array – can you modify it to communicate with the Maelstrom's control systems?"

The physicist's fingers were already moving across her console. "The underlying physics are similar... yes! But what frequency should I use?"

"Match it to the energy patterns you were detecting earlier!" Sara turned her attention back to the face in the void. "We can help you! Our technology – it's based on artifacts from your civilization! Let us assist in containing the real threat!"

The face studied them for what felt like eternity, though Sara's chronometer showed only seconds passing. Then:

*Your offer is... accepted. Prepare for data transfer.*

"Energy surge detected!" Patel called out. "The array is receiving... something! Quantum-level programming, unlike anything I've ever seen!"

The ship shuddered again, but this time it felt different. The purple energy was no longer attacking them, but rather flowing around them, through them, using them as a conduit for something far more complex than their original plan.

"New power signature forming!" Rodriguez reported. "It's... it's beautiful."

Sara had to agree. Where before the Maelstrom had been chaos and destruction, now it was reorganizing itself into an intricate lattice of energy, forming a barrier that was both protective and precise. The face in the void nodded once in satisfaction, then dissolved back into the patterns of light.

*The containment is restored. Your assistance is appreciated. Warning: the darkness still spreads in other sectors. Your species must prepare.*

With that final message, the energy patterns shifted again. Sara felt the ship being pushed gently but firmly back toward normal space. They emerged from the Maelstrom to find it had changed – no longer expanding, but rather forming a stable boundary that perfectly enclosed the infected regions of space while leaving the rest untouched.

"Report," Sara ordered, trying to keep her voice steady despite the magnitude of what they'd just experienced.

"Hull damage extensive but repairable," Rodriguez replied. "No casualties."

"The Maelstrom has stabilized," Park added. "New Terra is safe. But Captain... long-range sensors are detecting similar anomalies forming in other parts of the galaxy. They appear to be following the same containment patterns we just witnessed."

"Dr. Patel?" Sara turned to the physicist, who was still studying her readings with an expression of wonder.

"The data transfer... Captain, we received more than just control protocols. They gave us their research, their understanding of the threat they were fighting. It will take years to fully analyze, but..." She looked up, eyes shining with excitement and fear. "We're not alone out here. And we're not the first civilization to face this challenge."

Sara nodded slowly, processing the implications. They'd saved New Terra, but in doing so they'd discovered humanity's fight was just beginning. The darkness the ancient civilization had sacrificed everything to contain was still out there, still spreading. And now it was their turn to stand against it.

"Commander Rodriguez, send word to Fleet Command. Priority One message." She straightened in her chair, feeling the weight of history settling onto her shoulders. "The threat is contained for now, but we need to prepare. There's a war coming, and we've just been given the weapons to fight it."

As her crew rushed to comply with her orders, Sara turned back to the viewport. The Maelstrom still swirled with purple energy, but now she understood its true purpose. It wasn't their enemy – it was a shield, protecting them from something far worse. And thanks to the sacrifice and foresight of an ancient civilization, humanity now had a fighting chance against the darkness between the stars.

The *Tomorrow's Price* had lived up to its name. They'd paid a price today, in damage and terror and the loss of their comfortable ignorance about humanity's place in the cosmos. But that price had bought them tomorrow – not just for New Terra, but for their entire species.

Sara allowed herself a small smile as the ship turned toward home. They had work to do.

Six months later, Sara stood in Fleet Command's main briefing chamber, addressing the assembled admirals and scientists. The room's holographic displays showed the latest data from the front lines – more Maelstroms appearing across known space, each one containing another increment of the creeping darkness that threatened all sentient life.

"The ancient records call it the Void," she explained, gesturing to the complex equations and diagrams that Dr. Patel's team had decoded. "It doesn't just consume matter and energy – it devours consciousness itself, turning living beings into empty shells that serve its expansion. The civilization that created the Maelstrom containment system fought it for ten thousand years before developing their solution."

"And now that fight is ours," Admiral Zhang stated. It wasn't a question.

"Yes, sir." Sara nodded to Dr. Patel, who brought up new displays showing the modifications they'd made to the *Tomorrow's Price* using the gifted knowledge. "But we're not starting from scratch. The ancients left us everything we need – the theory, the technology, and most importantly, the proof that the Void can be fought and contained."

"What are our chances?" another admiral asked. "Realistically?"

Sara thought about the face in the void, about the sacrifice and determination that had led an entire civilization to turn itself into humanity's unseen guardians. She thought about her brother Marcus, now leading the first squadron of ships equipped with the new containment technology. And she thought about the fifteen billion people on New Terra who would never know how close they'd come to oblivion.

"Better than zero," she said firmly. "And improving every day. We're not alone in this fight – we never were. The ancients bought us time to prepare, and now it's our turn to stand watch."

The admirals nodded, seeing the same determination in her eyes that had carried her through that first encounter with the Maelstrom. The same fire that had led her to reach out and communicate with an alien intelligence rather than simply try to fight it.

"Very well, Captain Chen." Admiral Zhang's voice carried the weight of command. "You have your authorization. Project Guardian is now active. Assemble your fleet and begin preparations for active containment operations."

Sara saluted sharply, then turned to leave the chamber. The *Tomorrow's Price* waited in orbit, her hull gleaming with new modifications that combined human ingenuity with ancient wisdom. Her crew was ready. The first wave of volunteer ships had already begun their training.

Tomorrow's price had been paid. Now it was time to ensure that humanity would have many more tomorrows to come.

The war for consciousness itself was about to begin, and Sara Chen intended to win it.

Fin

So let me start by saying I’m still alive. Obviously, right? Or I wouldn’t be writing this. I mean I guess I could be a ghost hiding in the aether of cyberspace. But I’m not.

The stab wounds were superficial. So though they hurt, they didn’t affect me long term in any way. No organ damage or anything like that. I lost some blood but the drive to the hospital was just fifteen minutes so it wasn’t too bad. I knew it wasn’t bad because I’d ran to my car. I don’t think I’d have been able to do that if the stab wounds were serious.

Anyway, they said not to do any heavy lifting and no vigorous activity for two weeks, so I’m taking one more week off from my superhero gig. Or hobby. Or whatever the fuck it is. Hobby? What sort of fucked up mother fucker am I, anyway?

So I did do some preparation, though. I found a Kevlar body suit on online for 2500 bucks, and since I’m getting a bonus in July, I figured I could splurge a bit, so I bought it and had it sent to Amy’s. Needless to say, she wasn’t particularly happy about it.

“What the fuck, dude?” was her initial reaction. “You got stabbed three times and now, instead of deciding enough is enough, you spent 2500 dollars on a Kevlar body suit you’re getting sent to my house? You do realize you have four kids, right?”

“Of course,” I said. “They’re always first and foremost in my mind. That’s why I want to try to make this city safe for them.”

“Yeah,” she said, shaking her head. “Sure. Look, Mike. You are a single dad with four kids. Plus you have a full time job. Plus you have an elderly mom you help take care of. Plus you do poetry workshops and want to start an open mic and you’re in how many bands?”

“Three now,” I said.

Amy shook her head. “Three bands. You’re nuts.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

“You know. But you aren’t gonna change anything, are you?”

I shrugged. “Just tell me it’s okay for me to send it here.” I paused. “And I’ll fix your futon.”

She shook her head. “Whatever. I must be the world’s biggest enabler. And I don’t even know what your addiction is anymore. You’ve gotten over alcohol and pills and sex. What are you addicted to being a superhero now? I bet that would be an interesting twelve step program.”

I smiled and gave her a hug. “Thanks so much.”

But that wasn’t the only new development in the past week. This one’s sort of a cute story, actually.

So I’m putting the kids to sleep Saturday night, and everyone’s in bed except the youngest, my five year old, and he comes into the room and says “Daddy I have a surprise for you. Close your eyes.” I did. “Now make a wish.”

I thought to myself, gee, I haven’t been on a date in years. Not a real one, anyway. I just want to go on a date. “Okay,” I said.

“Now open your eyes! When you wake up tomorrow, your wish will have come true.”

And he went to sleep and I didn’t think anything of it other than he was just being a cute kid.

So about a half hour later, I get this message on Facebook. Do you remember when I mentioned Michelle, who comes to my writing workshop from the mountains out west? Like an hour or so away? Probably not. Why would you? I just mentioned her in passing. Anyway, I get this message from her asking if I want to go out Thursday night. She wants to get to know me better. I say yes, of course, and I go to sleep, not thinking anything of it.

The next morning, my five year old comes in and wakes me up. “Good morning Daddy. Did your dream come true?”

My jaw dropped. “Yes. Actually it did.”

“Look under your pillow, Daddy.” So I look and there’s a plastic lion toy and a plastic squirrel toy under it. Surely there must be some symbolism or a weird metaphor there, but it’s lost one me.

Captain Sarah Chen checked the status displays one final time. Her generation ship, Stellar Cradle, hummed softly around her as it had for the past 247 years. Everything was perfect – environment, genetics, education systems – just as it had been every day of her watch.

She was the last of the original crew, kept alive far beyond normal human lifespan by a combination of hibernation and life-extension tech. Her job was simple: ensure the ship reached its destination with its cargo of ten thousand frozen embryos and their mechanical caregivers intact.

Now, finally, that destination was in sight. Kepler-186f filled the viewscreen, a blue-green jewel that had taken centuries to reach. Sarah's arthritic fingers danced across the controls, confirming what the AI already knew – the atmosphere was breathable, the gravity suitable, the biosphere compatible with human life.

But there was something else. Something the long-range scans hadn't shown.

Lights. Cities. An entire civilization, spread across the planet's main continent.

Sarah slumped in her chair, the weight of centuries pressing down on her shoulders. They'd known this was possible – that in the three hundred years since launch, faster ships might have been invented, allowing later expeditions to overtake them. But knowing it was possible and seeing it were very different things.

She opened a comm channel to the hibernation deck, where her ten thousand charges slept, waiting to become the first humans on a new world.

"This is Captain Chen. General Order Seven is now in effect."

The ship's AI responded immediately, beginning the complex process of redirecting their course toward the system's outer planets. Sarah watched the blue-green world recede, taking their dreams of being first with it.

But she wasn't giving up. General Order Seven had been written by people who understood both human nature and the vast distances between stars. If their destination was already claimed, they would simply go further, seeking an unclaimed world. The embryos could wait another century or two. The mechanical caregivers would endure. And Sarah...

She reached for the hibernation controls, her hands steady despite their age. There were other promising stars within reach. The ship had enough fuel, thanks to its revolutionary antimatter engines. The AI could handle the search while she slept.

As the cold crept up her limbs, Sarah smiled. Being first had never been the real mission. The mission was survival, expansion, giving humanity another basket for its eggs. And that mission could still be accomplished.

The last thing she saw before hibernation took her was the status display: "COURSE ADJUSTED. NEW DESTINATION: KEPLER-442B. ESTIMATED ARRIVAL: 2472."

A new world. A new dream. And maybe this time, they really would be first.

Years later, Sarah awoke to flashing displays and the AI's urgent voice: "Captain, we've found it."

She blinked away hibernation haze, taking in the readouts. Another blue-green world, this one truly pristine. No lights. No cities. Just endless possibility.

As she began the landing sequence, Sarah reflected on the centuries she'd spent shepherding her frozen flock across the stars. Multiple course changes, multiple disappointments, but finally...

"Begin awakening sequence," she commanded. "Prepare birthing chambers and environmental adaptation protocols."

The ship descended through alien skies, carrying its precious cargo of humanity's future. Sarah's joints ached, her enhanced body finally reaching its limits after so many centuries. But she would live long enough to see the first children born, to know that her long watch had been worth it.

As the landing struts touched alien soil, Sarah broadcast one final message toward Earth, knowing it wouldn't be received for centuries: "We found it. A new beginning. The Stellar Cradle has landed."

Then she turned to her duties. There were children to birth, a colony to build, a new chapter of human history to write. And somewhere out there, other ships carrying other frozen dreams were still racing between the stars, ensuring humanity would never keep all its eggs in one basket – or even two.

Sarah Chen, last of the original crew, had completed her mission. Now it was time for the next generation to begin theirs.

Azania made sure to not trample any plants as she made her way through the forest undergrowth. Around her the Forest glowed in various shades of green. There was warm dark brown and cool dry brown and birch white nestled among the green. The Forest loam was soft and from it arose herbs, grasses, shrubs, saplings, and trees of all sizes as well as mushrooms and fungi. Soil edged along half-decomposed tree roots that were covered in moss. Between the trees she could see the sky as it stretched bright blue.

It would be a lie to say she was at peace here. She still held onto the grief she felt of missing her friends, who were more like family. She felt so bad about leaving them, her heart was overcome with worry. But she knew they understood. This had been her chance to get free and Azania had taken it.

She loved her friends. More than life she loved them. But she couldn't stand the rest of it all. She couldn't stand the demands of her masters, the way they looked at her, the way they talked to her, the way they yelled at her. She couldn't stand knowing that they were the people who took her away from her family. She couldn't stand it when they bragged about her to their friends as if she was a shiny thing that they bought. She couldn't stand the crippling loneliness of that big house that swallowed her whole. She couldn't stand the quietness that enveloped the nights or the constant, crippling pressure of work, work, work and more work that enveloped the days. She couldn't fucking stand it. She just couldn't.

The adults in her life saw her as no-one, as nothing, as a shadow to be ordered around and used. And she hated it. It tore her up inside and left her screaming silently, drowning invisibly, bleeding in her mind and in her soul. But she was clever. She was good at lying. She was good at thinking outside of the box. She had a plan, a plan that took three long arduous years to accomplish.

She pretended to be a perfect, meek, submissive, broken girl. She pretended to be emotionless and loyal and completely brainwashed. Until they trusted her. Until they trusted her completely. And then she took the money for buying groceries. And it was a lot of money. And smiled meekly and softly as she stepped outside the locked door - locked by a key she didn't have - to go to the store. And she bought a wooden snorkel with it, tied herself to a rock of carefully-measured weight, and threw herself in the River. She almost died. But she wouldn't have cared if she had died. This was the way to freedom. Eventually she felt the temperature of the water cool. That indicated that she was finally in the Forest.

She kicked and swam until she found herself on shore. And it was the most beautiful place she had ever been in. Not beautiful like how a painting or a dress was beautiful. Beautiful like how the reflection of firelight in the mischief behind her friends' smiles were beautiful. Beautiful like how a gentle hand brushing over your own was beautiful. Beautiful like how a greeting embrace near the shared stairwell between different flats was beautiful. Beautiful like the songs she only half remembered and the stories she knew she must've once heard but now forgot.

She cried. She cried like a lost child finally returning to the arms of their mother. She cried like a soldier coming back from a war. She cried like a farmer seeing rain clouds after a drought. She cried like a prisoner setting their first foot into freedom. She cried until the sky got dark and then she saw stars for the first time and she cried more. When the morning came she was cold, she was hungry, but she was free. She walked until she found a bush of berries. She hoped to the gods that they were edible. They were tasty and just a little bit sweet on her tongue so she assumed that they were. She gorged herself until her stomach hurt. She drank from a clear stream. She felt so light, so free, so calm. More than she ever had before. Yes her grief was still unimaginable, unbearable. But her joy was as well.

She couldn't describe the way she ran with life and joy and beauty. It was the type of beauty that wasn't truely seen no. It was felt in her heart. The Forest held her like a mother. Like the mother she had had but barely remembered. The Forest held her like a lover. It hugged her like a child. It held her hand like a best friend. It flowed and moved and reached out all around her. She never knew it was possible to love a place before. She only thought you could love people. But she realized what it meant to love a place, to be loved by a place. Because in honesty you could only love what was alive. People were alive. And the Forest around her was alive. So very alive. It sang and hummed and shone and shadowed and moved and stood and flowed and danced with so much life. All in perfect harmony. As she couldn't help but be inspired, so inspired.

She was still full of misery. Still full of grief. She was still beside herself with worry, with mind-numbing, crippling anxiety for her loved ones. But she was held more than she had ever been before. She was freer than she had ever been before. The Forest nurtured her, nourished her, soothed her, loved her, protected her, and wanted her like a mother and she couldn't even begin to process the emotions she was feeling right now.

She though that maybe she should be scared. There might be predators here after all. She had no clothes, no weapons, no rope, no knowledge of survival. According to all logic she should die out here. But she didn't. She stumbled upon a berry patch every time she got hungry. She found clean, dry wood to make a fire as well as rocks to ring it and even spark rocks to start it. The stream was easy to follow. The day was neither too hot nor too cold. If she didn't know better she would say the the Forest was going out if it's way to protect her. She had always believed in magic. And now she did more than ever before.

She found a warm patch of sunlight on soft dirt and curled up and went to sleep there like a cat. She woke up, stretched out, and moved to find the stream so that she could fill her cupped hands with the cool, clear water.

Walking by the edge of the stream, she did however find a sight that brought fear into her. Pressed into the soft ground were the unmistakable tracks of a wolf. Well she thought they were at least, because they looked like a dog's tracks but much larger. They didn't scare her in and of themselves, no. They seemed like just another part of the Forest. But she knew what wolves were and she knew what they were capable of. And that scared her. Still she knew it would leave her well enough alone if she avoided it. She made her way the opposite direction as the tracks. The day was cooling down now, just marginally. She didn't feel like walking. She was overwhelmed. So once she put a bit of distance between herself and the wolf she lay down on a patch of dirt without any plants on it and she stared up at the sky. It was so bright, reaching up and up and up above her to who knows here. But not really. She couldn't describe what it was. Not at all. Even in her old life she could never describe the sky, never comprehend it.

And she still couldn't.

Maker, Azania spoke in her head, wherever you are, please keep my friends as safe as you can. Thank you for this. For all of this. I can see you in every piece of it. Thank you for holding me, Great Mother. Thank you for holding all of us who are suffering. I know you cannot take care of us in the way that you want to. I know that your reach only extends out so far. But I know you love us all and you always have and you always will and I thank you for it. I will keep your Land safe. I understand how it is a piece of you. Teach me how to care for your Land and how to respect it, protect it, and look after it. And I will. And please. How can I give back to you? You have protected me - no all of us - with your life and your blood and your tears and your joy and your rage and your pain and everything you have. And we must all take care of each other. I know. We are all a part of you. So how can I take care of your people? What should I do? I hurt so much. I long to go back and free my people. And I will. I know that the people are your people. All of us who live under the heel of suffering. I know that I swear to you that I will. But I do not yet know how. Give me strength. I have my freedom and with it I will give other people theirs. I swear it.

Azania felt invigorated, now that she had a goal. She stood up and kept walking.

Soon she heard a shrill cry, not unlike a newborn baby. Overcome with worry, she ran towards the source of the sound. She gasped at the sight. She hadn't been wrong. It was a newborn baby. Wrapped in the arms of a woman lying under a tree there was a newborn child, swaddled in a thin cotton cloth, crying. The woman's dress was soaked in blood. She was not moving. Holy fuck. Was she dead? Azania's heart thudded in her chest. So hard. Despite being surrounded by death in her old life, she had never seen death with her own eyes like this. When she cried they were not tears of joy, or mixed emotions, like they had been earlier that day. They were tears of pure, unshakable grief and sorrow. She knelt beside the child and mother, heart lead-heavy with sorrow. She touched a hand to her forehead, then her lips, then her chest, and then reached out to hover it over the mother, offering a silent prayer for her departed soul, so that she may finally be at peace and free now. Then she moved to quickly yet carefully pick up the baby, holding them softly in her arms. She cradled the baby girl - well they were probably a girl and she would just assume they were unless they said otherwise - in her arms and tried to get her to stop crying. But the baby continued crying. She quickly realized the baby was probably hungry.

How would she feed the child? She had no idea. The child couldn't eat berries or roots or anything. The child needed milk. The child would die.

She wouldn't be able to save her. The baby would die just as the mother had and she wouldn't be able to save her. No matter no no no fuck what would she do? She kneeled there, a newborn infant in her arms, panic racing like lightening through her heart. And she heard a haunting, piercing howl move through the air.

The child stopped crying. The teenager whipped her head around to see what it was. There, standing only a yard away, was a wolf with silvery fur and pointed ears. The wolf looked at them, steadily, evenly. It was so much larger than she thought it would be. She could see how strong it was. How easily it could devour her if it wanted. And the child. She was very glad the baby had stopped crying. She held the child close to her and she didn't dare move.

Slowly, ever so slowly, the wolf stalked closer to them. Azania didn't dare move. The baby looked at the wolf with big, round, ember-dark eyes. She didn't seem aware at all of the danger they were in but was rather mesmerized.

The wolf was coming closer. It was coming closer. It was coming closer. Azania was frozen. She could not move. Soon enough the wolf was right beside them, its head just above their own. The wolf made no move to hurt them. Just silently nuzzled its nose into Azania's shoulder, then softly nuzzled the baby. So softly. The baby made a sweet gurgling noise at that.

Azania was still afraid. Slowly the wolf stalked away, but only a couple of meters away, to a bush full of fat black berries. Azania watched it closely, with wary eyes. The wolf took a bundle of stalks in its mouth and pulled them off the bush. There were stems, leaves, and a dozen or so berries that came with. The wolf then walked over, with the berries in its mouth, to Azania and the child. Slowly it inched the berries nearer to Azania's face, until the leaves brushed her lips. And it waited there. She slowly, tentatively twisted her mouth around a berry and bit it off its stalk. It was ripe and full of juice. The wolf stayed until she ate all the berries.

Azania cradled the baby close as the wolf slowly crouched down to nuzzle the child. The baby looked at the wolf and she cooed. She was so cute. She needed food. The The wolf nuzzled the baby again before lifting its eyes to meet Azania's for a moment. It lay down on its side and stayed there. Azania recognized this gesture from the way dogs at home would feed their pups.

Was ... was the wolf offering to feed the baby? Azania did not fully understand what was happening but she was no longer afraid of the wolf. She didn't understand, but when she looked at the wolf she saw a strange, beautiful sort of power. Like lightening or a River rushing. She saw the sort of power and energy that permeated through the whole Forest, electrified and pulled into the form of the wolf before her. There was something deeply, fiercely protective about it. Something fiercely kind and nurturing, life-giving and loving. Nature was strange. The Maker was strange.

Everything was. Azania was no longer scared anymore. She didn't understand. But she did feel in her heart that this was where she was meant to be. This was what she was meant to trust. She laid the baby next to the wolf and held her as she drank. This was so strange. But it was what was happening. Once the baby was full, and burped, she held her close and moved to stand up. The wolf stood up with her, and trotted a few step ahead of her.

She followed it through the undergrowth, through the maze of green. And she thought to herself that this must be some strange gift from the Maker. Well, who was she to turn down a gift? Especially when - when the baby needed it. Hmm? What should she call the baby? She did not know. She knew names should mean something. That they should be significant. She knew the child was her salvation. Her pathway to her destiny, whatever it was supposed to be. The baby was beautiful. She had huge, piercing eyes and warm skin the colour of wood right on the verge of catching fire. She had a small button nose and soft little lips and fingers that were so so so tiny. She had her destiny spread out before her. All the rest of her life. She was free. And Azania would make sure she stayed that way. Azania would free everyone she could.

Around her the Forest glowed like a haven as she walked carefully, making sure to keep the baby properly supported. The wolf walked slowly, keeping pace with her. The ground was uneven, but it was glorious.

Soon enough they got to a place near the crest of a small hill, where where were about other adult wolves, and four pups. They were sharing meat and they all turned to look at Azania before they all came and nuzzled her. She moved to sit down and they nuzzled the baby as well.

———

She named the child Shayla. Shayla was a good child. She had eyes full of wonder and curiosity, empathy and kindness. She grew up strong, nourished in the love her birth mother gave her, the love Azania showered her with, the love her pack buried her in, and the love the forest blanketed her with. She was free. She was wild. She was happy. She was loud. She was inquisitive.

She was caring. She was free to come into herself.

Azania was so grateful for her pack. They had adopted her, adopted both of them, as if they were family. They cared for her and provided for her and her child. The first year with Shayla had been very busy. She had always been feeding her, with the help of their pack, or changing her, or washing her clothes, or rocking her to sleep or soothing her. That was when she wasn't making new clothes to match her constant growth. And through all that she had to find food for herself, too. The pack provided furs for her, from their kills. She just had to process them and put them together. The pack even gathered berries for her to eat. They all slept curled up together in each others' warmth.

The next two years were much easier. The pack made sure Shayla stayed out of trouble, they took care of her just as they took care of their other pups. Azania had gotten much better at putting together clothes. She also helped the pack hunt, and looked after the pups. Her skills at running, stalking, tracking prey, and throwing spears had improved greatly.

Shayla learned to talk. But also she learned to howl and bark and yip and chirp. She was full of questions, once she started talking. She loved the stars. She was full of new ideas. Most of them were adorable and hilarious. She was afraid of rain. She loved snuggling up with her pack. Especially with Auntie Silver, the wolf who found them that fateful day and saved her life.

Shayla was like the spring, like a raging wildfire, and Azania thought she never saw a child so free before. Shayla was concerned. With the Forest and protecting it. With the wolves and protecting them. With the world outside the Forest and what it held, with everything.

The whole while she was thinking of ways to help her people who were still stuck in slavery back in the place she came from, the place that was absolutely her homeland just as much as this place was her homeland. It wasn't easy escaping the masters. They had their guards that would watch over you. They had their police that would go chase you down. And they'd find you. She didn't know how she could go about saving people. She could tell people her idea, of using the River as a getaway car. But the problem with most of the slaves was that they had loved ones to think about and take care of.

The thing about house slaves like her - like what she'd been before she got away - was that they were forced to live in isolation. The interaction they had with other slaves were always secret, hidden. Stolen moments on stairwells when sweeping and washing the stairs or the railings or the walls. Stolen moments when passing by each other on the stairs while delivering something or another. Stolen moments while waiting in line for the communal bathroom. Stolen moments while slipping away unnoticed at night. But no matter what, they made sure to keep their interactions a secret. They made sure to keep their connections a secret. Because what the masters knew they could exploit. And they would exploit. And they would use to destroy the slaves. And that included personal connections. It especially meant personal connections. The masters thought less of house slaves than they did of anyone else. Thought them incapable of love. So Azania knew her friends were safe. She knew of house slaves that had escaped before, and the slaves of neighbouring houses were never hurt on their account.

But that was not true with the other slaves. The farm slaves, the factory slaves, the mine slaves, the transportation slaves, the construction slaves. All of them were allowed to form close networks of family and found family and friendship and the masters knew they had people they loved. This was a curse as much as it was a blessing. Because while the slaves were often technically allowed to go to the market or other places without supervision, they were never, ever able to escape. Because unless you could escape with all your loved ones, which was incredibly difficult if not impossible, the masters would kill your loved ones when they figured out that you left.

Everyone would have to escape together or not at all.

And she did not know how to do that.

One day Shayla was four. The pack was out hunting. Shayla was with Azie picking dark purple berries. These were the same berries that had played such a pivotal role in their rescue. They had been talking and joking around as Azie kept an eye on Shayla who was wandering around more than she was picking berries. Well, she was four.

"Mama! Mama!"

"Yes Shayla?"

"Auntie ... Auntie White find big tree!" Her eyes were full of excitement.

"Oh did she? That's great."

"There birds in tree. And ... squirrel! But not us."

"You're right. We aren't in trees. Humans can climb trees I think. But I've never really needed to and you're too small. And wolves can't climb trees at all."

"But why?" She emphasized the why a lot.

"Because, baby girl, different animals do different things. Some animals climb trees. And some don't. Some animals fly. Some don't. Some go very fast. Some go slow. Some live in the water. Some live on land. Some live in the water sometimes and sometimes they're on land. Every animal is different. But they all are in the world and they all have a part to play."

"Mama?" Her voice was so cute. It always was.

"What?"

"I got berries."

"Great job! Put them in the bag." She gestured to the shoddily tied-together rabbit fur she put berries in.

"No mama look." Azie turned around. These berries were bright orange. She had seen them before but refrained from eating them. The berries she did eat, she had previously encountered outside of the Forest. Occasionally a bush would grow in an alleyway and the slaves would eat from it in secret. Those berries were safe. These berries never grew outside the Forest and she had never encountered anyone eating them before. She didn't know if they were poisonous or not.

"Shayla, no. Those berries are not good."

"Try once? Please?!" She was really dead set on trying these new berries, wasn't she?

"No Shayla. They could be dangerous."

"But they could be good."

"But maybe they're not. We already have so many yummy berries to eat."

"Mum. Mum. Please." Aziania knelt down to look into her eyes. She was young. But that didn't at all change the fact that she was a bolt of lightening sent from the Maker. And right now her eyes seemed to glow with longing. Azania didn't know why but this was really important to Shayla. And she knew what she was talking about.

"Alright. But not right now. After we reunite with the others, yeah?"

"Sure."

"Okay.”

They continued picking berries until their bags were full. Azania struggled to hold them all but when Shayla asked for a piggyback ride she let her get on.

"Mama are we the only humans?" Shayla asked quietly, close to her ear. Her voice was solemn. Almost sad.

"No honey."

"But we are. I never seen other humans."

"Do you want other humans? Are you lonely."

"I like you. And I like the pack. They're family. I'm a happy pup. But ... I want to know."

"Shayla there are many other humans. Maybe, maybe even five hundred other humans."

"Wow. That's so much. Where are they? I never seen them in the Forest once."

"They're not in the Forest."

"But the Forest is home."

"Shayla ..." she hadn't planned on telling her daughter the truth so soon but she couldn't lie, "the other humans are trapped in a place far away from the Forest. And they're very sad. They have to work very very very very hard, too hard, with not enough rest. And, you and me and the pack, we work so that everyone has what they need to be healthy and strong, right? They have to work for no reason. Just so that the big mean bad guys can have stuff they don't need."

"Mama?"

"Yes?"

"We have to save them. We have to bring them to the Forest. The Forest is nice. They can be happy. Safe from the bads." Azania's heart stopped. She wanted to. Oh how she wanted to. But she didn't know how.

They walked through the symphony of life until they found where Uncle Blue-Silver was taking care of the pups. Shayla let out a jubilant yip and immediately went to play. Azania crouched down and cuddled and snuggled the pups. After a while she left to go do some solo hunting.

The sky was electric blue with twilight when Azania got back to the pack with a deer slung over her shoulder. She let the pack feast on the meat while she feasted on berries and then gathered the discarded furs for washing.

Finally she got Auntie Silver's attention. She held out the orange berries in her hand, to see what the wolf would do. To her surprise Auntie Silver did nothing. She brought the berries closer to her own mouth, slowly, and then swallowed them under the light of the moon. They tasted a tiny bit sour, a little bit spicy. Not her favourite taste by far but they would make good seasoning. She didn't feel any different though. And she didn't feel any different when she fell asleep on the ground surrounded by warm bodies, with her baby in her arms.

She woke up feeling strangely groggy.

"Mama!" She heard Shayla yell as the small child flung herself into her. A couple of wolves also trotted up to her.

"What?"

"You were sleep for four sun cycles!"

Well damn.

Azania had an idea. She knew now, how she'd free her people.

———

Azania walked through the undergrowth, making her way to the edge of the Forest. She had a bag full of dried berry powder. She held it carefully, making sure not to spill any. She knew she needed the cover of darkness, the cover of night to cloak her during her journey. A young woman wrapped in shoddily tied together animal pelts was sure to raise more than a few eyebrows and end in her arrest if she was discovered. She might still be discovered anyways. But her old clothes were ripped and worn and lost and her mission was more important than anything she had ever done. It didn't matter how dangerous it was. It didn't matter how terrified she was. She had to free her people. This was her chance.

She had sought out Auntie Silver last week. As the suns was dipping below the horizon and the sky was painted with fire. They nuzzled and cuddled a bit. Azania kneeled in front of her. She asked,

"Auntie Silver. I'm going to go back to free my people. I'm going to bring them into the Forest. Do I have your blessing?"

Auntie Silver had looked deep into Azania's eyes with her own bright gold ones. She nuzzled Azania's cheek, fondly. Then she lifted her head and

howled into the burning sky, rich and bright and strong and triumphant. Azania smiled.

"Thank you, Auntie. Again."

She had made preparations immediately, embraced her pack in the unbridled way that wolves embrace, and blinked down her tears as she told Shayla she would always love her. And then she had walked into the twilight, knowing how much Shayla would miss her.

Her plan was as well thought-out as a plan could be. She had to find a slave hovel that was near a shadowy alley. Most of them were. This would be no problem. She had to stay in the shadows where no armed guard would find her. This was easier said than done. But still, she had learned stealth from hunting and could move through the night silently. This was not something the wolves had taught her but rather something she had learned for herself.

But the town, it was unfamiliar. Though she had grown up in it, it was far more unfamiliar than the Forest. Then she had to reach through the tight metal bars of the hovel windows. And she had to wake up a person. And explain to them the great things she had discovered. And how they could use it to set everyone free. She had to bury the bag so that they could secret it away. And then she had to revisit the town every few weeks or so, see how the plan was going. She had compete faith in the ability of the slaves to form a coordinated plan. If they had anything, they had unity. And resourcefulness. And the collective sort of ingenuity that came from not being beholden to convention.

She felt hope. The Forest and her new family flowed through her soul and pumped bright in her veins. And her love for her old family - family that she never really left, not in her heart or in her soul - burned through her entire being. She was a shadow under the moon but she was also a torch lit with fire and she was ready to die for her cause.

She would miss Shayla. And the rest of her family. Like the earth misses the rain during a drought she would miss them. But she knew Shayla would be cared for. And she knew she couldn't leave everyone else to suffer.

She silently prayed as she walked through the familiar Forest. In a few short years, how on Earth had it become so familiar to her? How on Earth had she grown to trust and depend on it so much? How on Earth had she grown to love it more than life itself? No she hadn't grown to love it. She had loved it the moment she had set foot within its arms. She had loved it for longer than she'd been alive. And she had a duty to fulfill. The slaves were children of the Forest. Just as she and Shayla were. They meant to become free. Just as she and Shayla did. The Forest weeped for its lost children and Azania was the one tasked with returning them.

She prayed as she found herself getting closer to the edge. The stretch that separated the Forest from the town was within sight now. Fear clenched her heart hard. She was loathe to leave. There were so any terrible memories tied to that place. So much pain, and suffering. And there would be more if she wasn't careful enough. She didn't want to go back to slavery. She didn't want to risk everything. She didn't want to leave. But she did want to. And she must. She gave herself a few minutes to cling to the comfort around her before taking the step that properly separated the world she was entering from the world she was leaving.

———

The town was bathed in the darkness of the new moon. There were large sprawling estates where the free people lived. There were the factories that ringed the south side of the town and pumped thick smog into the sky. There were the slave hovels that ringed the factories in neat, tightly-packed misery.

The streets facing the doors were guarded by armed guards. But between the back of the huts, where the windows were, there was space narrow enough to crawl through. Just barely enough. But there was space. She stalked to the first block of huts she could find. She made no sound. Moved from shadow to shadow from the few trees to the walls of clay brick. She turned her body to the side and squeezed herself through the narrow space where there was a gap between two brick walls. The cold clay walls pressed on either side of her. But she managed to press through. She got out the vine she had inside her coat. It was the length of her arm. And it would easily reach a sleeping occupant inside one of the huts.

She slipped it through a window, before reaching her arm down as far as she could and flicking her wrist. She felt so bad for waking a slave up. They needed all the rest they could get. She knew firsthand. But she was sure they'd understand.

"Aah!" A voice, softer than she'd expected, called out into the night.

"Hush!" Aziania stated with a bit of authority in her voice.

"What the fuck?"

"I'm sorry for waking you. My name's Azania. I used to be a slave but I escaped. I can help you escape too. I can help all of us."

"What? Is this a dream?" He sounded tired and entranced and disbelieving all at once.

"No. No it's not. I swear."

"I need to see you for myself."

His face appeared behind the iron bars of the huts. He had dark skin that melted into the shadows and broad cheekbones and a small, pointed nose.

"You're real," he said, with wonder in his voice.

"I'm real." Azania smiled a little. "And I'm an escaped slave. I've been living in the Forest for four years. See?" She held up her fur-covered arm, "And I can get you all free."

"How?"

"The masters don't know what's in the Forest. They don't know all the gifts it can and wants to give us. There are berries. And I've made them into a powder. Eating even a spoonful of the powder will make anyone go to sleep for three or four days. We can use this."

"Yes! If we dose all the masters with the powder. But we'll have to do it all at the same time. Maybe during some great festival. Then with no guards or anything around it will be so much easier to slip away."

"Yes. But what about the door locks? If we poison them during a festival, that means that the doors will be locked. And also there will still be guards around."

"I'm sure we will will figure something out. Thank you for this."

"Please get the word out. I'll be back in a month. Check progress and stuff."

"Yeah. You do that. Thanks."

"Thank you."

They both looked at each other. Neither person thought that the words they exchanged were big enough for the event that had just happened, for the pure, concentrated transcendence that they had shared. The moment was far too big to be put into words. Far too big to have words, or anything at all in the entire universe, even come close to doing it justice. They looked at each other and in each others' eyes they saw more than they could ever say. And under the light of the moon the tender bud of hope blossomed into a delicate flower.

"Well," Azania started, her voice sounding like the evening wind, "I'll leave a sample of the powder buried under the window."

"Okay."

"I ... didn't get your name."

"My name's Marro."

"It's an honour Marro." Her voice was solemn and serious. The moon's glow reflected in her eyes.

"Same." His voice was soft an airy yet dark and full of wonder. Like the wisps of a cloud passing by the harvest moon.

———

The boy told the slaves who lived near him, his voice all quiet whispers. He told the slaves who worked with him. He told the slaves at the market. They told everyone they could. In a few months almost all the slaves knew. They got to work planning and strategizing. They decided when to strike. How to strike. Who would do what. What tools they would need. How to procure those tools. And how to keep all of this a secret.

In the meantime Azania came back once every month, at great personal risk, to drop off more and more of the powder. She heard their plans. Helped plan as well. And her heart soared. She gave them some tips for how to move through the Forest when it was finally time for them to pass into it.

When. Not if. Her people would be free at last.

In the meantime Shayla grew up into an adorable, curious, fierce little girl. She was happy. She was confident. She moved with the Forest like she was a part of the wind, like she was a stream of running water. She knew the plan. She knew that soon there would be more humans in the Forest. She was happy. The Forest was freedom. It was home. It was love. It was life. And she was excited to share her home and her love and her life with people who were fleeing for freedom and love and life. She wondered what other humans would be like. She resolved to teach them how to live in the Forest and respect the Forest and keep it healthy and safe like she did.

In the meantime the pack hunted and roamed and played and cuddled. New pups were born. Old pups grew up. Wolves left the pack and new wolves joined. Life continued. The pack took care of their human members and raised Shayla as if she was one of their own. They ran and howled and tumbled with each other in the soft soil.

In the meantime the slaves found a hope they could only long for before. They learned that it was much easier to feign submissiveness when you know that soon, soon enough the trap is going to spring. It was easier to hide mischievous smiles than it was to hide tears. The slaves always knew that. But they learned still that it was easier to hide pure and righteous malice.

They stored the powder covered in newspaper underground. They managed to hide away bits of metal for picking locks. The factories would be opened first. And from them every single electric saw taken. And then it would only be a matter of hours before every single door was open. And a matter of two days before every single slave had passed into the freedom of the Forest.

At the end of two years, it was time.

———

Shayla was up late, staring at the stars. Uncle Blue-Gray was with her. Around them the rest of the pack slept.

Azania waited near the edge of the Forest to watch for anybody.

Marro walked ghost-like and silent amongst the revelling party-goers in bright, shimmering clothes and thick, gem-studded jewellery. He wore a simple copper robe. They shouted at him and ordered him about as he silently exhausted himself getting drink after drink after drink. People talked and laughed and sang and danced. Marro worked and obeyed and kept quiet.

The night went on an on and people got increasingly tired. It was time to strike. He rushed into the kitchen. Got a tray full of drinks. Spiced wine. The type of drink where the flavour of the berries would not be noticed at all. He flitted about as people ordered him to them. And he kept his face carefully blank as one by one the partygoers fell asleep.

He knew that the few guards that were patrolling also partook of the food. That there would be slaves bringing them their own spiced wine or seasoned snacks.

He waited until all was quiet.

And then the other waiters smiled jubilantly, unrestrained. And he joined them.

They hit the factories first, as they said they would. Picked at the locks and kept picking until they finally gave away.

Soon enough electric saws were whirring and screaming at the doors to hovel after hovel after hovel while the lock picks worked on what locks they could. Every opened door saw new people picking up their own tools from the looted factories and helping open other doors.

And soon enough throngs of people, all who couldn't quite believe what was happening, were all walking towards the boarder. They walked as if they were somehow suddenly miraculously walking into the sky itself.

———

Azania knew a lot about how to live in the Forest. She taught the others. Shayla knew even more, somehow. Despite her young age, she had grown up in the midst of the Forest for her whole life. The Forest had raised her. And she knew how to ensure that the people and the Forest would be safe and healthy for all the new generations that the Forest would raise.

The other humans didn't live with the wolves. They lived in their own type of pack, wandering through the land. Azania and Shayla split their time between the human pack and the wolf pack. Both were their family. Neither was less important than the other.

There was enough food. For the people there was enough good, healthy food. There was enough fresh, clean water. There was time to rest, time to play, time to dream. The children did not work. They played and they learned and they came to understand life and the land. Everyone had enough. No-one had too much. Everything was shared. People decided together how to do things, how society would be formed.

Not that this even was a society at this point. It wasn't. People had been slaves for too long, have been held down under corrupt power structures for too long. They knew that they would never let the structures and hierarchies of a society overcome the freedom of the pack they had learned to create for themselves.

Shayla grew into a healer and a wise woman. And she lived a long happy life amongst wolves and humans and trees and rivers and the bright blue of the sky before she gave herself over to the land to continue on the circle of life.

And the masters never found them.

*This chapter is part of "The Small Town Magic Arc." This saga began with Chapter 134*

Cyclo waved his right hand over himself, resulting in all of his cuts and bruises disappearing. He then stood up and stared at Rick and Essie triumphantly.

"This isn't ideal, but I'm sure your magical abilities aren't unlimited." Rick countered verbally.

"True, but do you think you're the only one that has healing items bud?" Cyclo answered while summoning a bottle with a light blue liquid in it. "I have a large supply of ether that I can turn to for replenishing my magic when it runs low. And I can also show you some more healing items in my possession if you wish!"

"Still not a problem for us." Essie said boldly. "If this comes down to being a battle of endurance, Rick and I will prevail, no matter what it takes!"

"You teens have spunk, but I can tell you're bluffing." Cyclo sneered. "However, fighting till one of us runs out of resources was never your intention. No, I believe you were just starting things off till the grown ups in your group were ready to take me on."

"I have no idea what you're talking about!" Rick lied, embarrassed on how obvious he actually came off trying to deny Cyclo's accusation.

"Sorry kid, you're not fooling me. The other mage over there isn't just shielding your pirate leader, the mayor and his daughter with that force field. She is also powering up some other kind of magic, a very powerful attack I am presuming. Am I right, sweetheart?"

"Sorry Pirate, it looks like he's on to us." Cerissa said softly. "I am almost ready though, so we should be ok."

"No worries Cerissa!" The Pirate replied enthusiastically. "You, Rick, and Essie did great! Don't you worry Mayor Aplonica and Tamma, we've still got this!"

"Of course." Tamma smiled appreciatively. "I have always believed in you guys. Don't worry dad, we'll be just fine."

"Will you though?" Cyclo mocked. "You may be in a force field darling, but are you sure that your friend's spell is truly keeping you safe? Here, let me show you what I mean."

Jahno's eyes turned dark red, and he lunged at Tamma, gripping her neck tightly. He then gripped his own neck with his other hand, grinning ear to ear.

"Tamma!" Rick and Essie cried out, as Cyclo laughed maniacally. Cerissa and the Pirate also looked on with expressions of horror.

"Checkmate heroes, your feeble coup is finished!" Cyclo jeered. "Now if you don't want me to snap the necks of the mayor and his lovely daughter, I suggest you negotiate with me immediately!"

To be continued....

My heart yearns for the truth from the witches burned

The knowledge they held that put such fear into ordinary men,

Fear that burned so hot they felt they had to make an example of such a woman

I want to hear the scientific breakthroughs and of all the people they healed, instead of hurt

The babies born that would have died due to their knowledge and herbal remedies.

Mothers comforted with tonics and tinctures to take pain away

Mothers that would be forever grateful but condemn them in the same breath

I want an accurate telling of their stories

You see the “history” told of them is most likely more fiction than fact

It was written down by unreliable narrators with hate in their hearts and pitchforks in their hands

For these women were burned and drowned not for being witches

But for being more than something you could control

For loving nature instead of a singular god.

I wish I knew their stories

But I know their hearts

For my ancestor was one of them

And I inherited her fire

The Last Signal

Maya's fingers trembled as she adjusted the quantum receiver. After fifteen years of silence, the signal from Earth had finally arrived. She'd spent her entire adult life maintaining the Mars relay station, waiting for this moment.

The holographic message flickered to life. Her brother David's familiar face appeared, but aged far beyond his forty years. "Maya, if you're receiving this, the temporal anomaly worked. Earth is... gone. The quantum storms consumed everything within hours. But we managed to send this warning back through time."

Maya's throat tightened. The strange atmospheric readings she'd been detecting made sudden, terrible sense.

"The storms originated from our quantum communication experiments," David continued. "This message is probably what triggers them. I'm sorry. But you can prevent it all. The attached code will safely deactivate the relay network. You'll never receive this message, and Earth will survive."

Maya stared at the blinking prompt. Implementing the code would create a paradox, erasing this timeline – and her memories of David's warning – from existence. But it would save billions.

With tears blurring her vision, she initiated the shutdown sequence. The hologram flickered out. Maya felt reality shifting around her, memories fragmenting like scattered light. Her last thought was of David's face, and then...

Maya yawned and stretched in her chair at the Mars relay station. Another quiet day of monitoring silent frequencies, waiting for Earth's first quantum transmission.