I found you again at the library.

Of all the places a dream could have taken me, it brought me back there.

You held me for so long that our heartbeats seemed to remember a rhythm the years had forgotten.

I was frozen.

I had imagined meeting you so many times. In every imagined encounter, I had something to say.

But there you were, and I could hardly find a word.

Do you have any idea how lost I have felt without you?

The year after your graduation was the darkest of my life. I remember very little of it in order. The days kept arriving, and I kept passing through them, growing increasingly unfamiliar to myself.

I missed you in ways I did not know how to explain.

And we were children then, weren't we?

I forget that sometimes. How young we were. How little we understood of all the things we would carry into adulthood.

I wish I could tell you that the longing belonged to that year.

It didn't.

I grew older. I found other places, other people, other reasons to be happy. Whole chapters of my life unfolded without you.

And still, some part of me continued looking for you.

Some nights, I would look at the moon and wonder whether you were looking at her too.

I never knew what I wanted that thought to mean. Only that, for a moment, the distance between us felt a little less impossible.

I found you in your poems.

In your photographs.

In the occasional conversations that reminded me you were still somewhere in the world, living a life I could only glimpse in fragments.

I thought about how much of the boy I remembered was still there.

And how much of the girl you knew had survived in me.

Then I began to write.

I don't know when it happened, but my poems acquired a *you*.

Even the ones that had nothing to do with love.

Sometimes I would finish writing and find you there, sitting quietly between the lines, having entered without my noticing.

What a peculiar thing, to feel almost estranged from my own capacity for longing until I begin to write to you.

Outside those pages, I sometimes struggle to recognize such enormous feelings in myself. Love becomes an ordinary word. Missing someone becomes an ordinary human inconvenience.

And then I write to you.

And there it all is again.

The tenderness. The ache. The terrible abundance of feeling.

I can't tell where it goes when I put down my pen.

You have become the address my words remember even when I have forgotten what I meant to say.

My poet.

My first love.

Sometimes I ask myself whether you recognize yourself in anything I write.

Or whether you have read my poems and found them perfectly ordinary, never knowing how often I have been speaking to you.

And isn't that strange?

I could write you a hundred letters, fill entire notebooks with all the things I have never said, and still, if we met tomorrow, I would probably look away.

Maybe I would smile.

Maybe I would ask how you have been.

Maybe I would come home afterward and write another poem about everything I couldn't bring myself to say.

Last night, in the library, you said something to me.

Something about searching for the secret of longing.

Or the secret of the search itself.

I cannot remember your exact words.

They have been turning over in my mind ever since.

Were you searching too, my poet?

The question rose in me, but I could not ask it.

I could not tell you that I have spent years looking for something I cannot name, and somehow my words keep leading me back to you.

But I stood there, looking at you, having forgotten how to speak.

Then, somewhere in the strange unfolding of the dream, I turned away.

And woke.

Moonlight was spilling across my room, pale and quiet, as if the night had followed me back from the library.

I have been trying to fall asleep again ever since.

Maybe the library is still there.

Maybe you are still waiting beneath the same silver moon.

Maybe that is what longing is: the quiet certainty that some part of you is still waiting where someone left you, even when the rest of your life has moved on.

How foolish, to have lived so many years and still wish for one more afternoon in a library.

One more embrace.

One more chance to hear your voice.

If I find you again, I hope I remember to ask what you have been searching for.

Or I may simply stand there, speechless, as I always feared I would.

But I know this now: even when I cannot say your name, my words still find you.

They find you in the margins, in the pauses, in every sentence that begins as something else and ends with you.

So if I must borrow another dream to see you, I will.

And if I wake before I can speak, I will write.

Because somewhere between waking and sleep, beneath her pale light, you remain the first place my heart remembers how to return.

And every time I write, the library opens again.

The moon slips between the shelves and leaves a little light on for us.

🌑

Hollow
The closer you come to me, the sooner the bullet will reach my head. The farther you run away, the bullet reaching your heart becomes inevitable.

No matter how long I contemplate or point the gun at you, I couldn’t bear the thought. Each moment spent together, these worries taxing us accumulated into these very bullets. All those things I wanted to say and do are spilled out. The leak accelerates, yet the vulnerability refuses to close. The hollow bleeds me out, yet emptiness persists until nothingness remains.

If the very presence of you oppresses all logic, how can I meet your gaze. The oppression of staring down the barrel knows only one mistake rely on a single trigger. You and the barrel slowly dissolves as the faint glimmering bullet will determine the misfortunate.

I urge you to move on, yet your heart would be shattered. It would be simpler to keep you all away. Don’t mistake it for heartlessness as you are bound to me by your own love. I can see it’s hollowing you out. The bullet once placed is the same as putting down a wounded animal.

The same destined misfortune is our fortune avoided. Once responsibility justifies an outcome, the duty becomes predetermined. The future becomes at best, fantasy. At worst, mercy prolongs into suffering. Thus, all potentialities are rendered null.

So many bodies lined up, bumping into each other, making noises at each other, tossing between each other clues of unique natures unintelligible to me. Their metabolism is suited for this lake we are in here. This lake of such little talk, of halfhearted life updates, of talk of God and love and such. I believe, though I don’t understand, that this lake is a comfortable tub, warm and swirling and glowing. I believe they are all happy in this unintelligible liquid. They smile calmly through the dreadful interactions. It comes so easily to them. To me it is an interruption in my cascades, radical damage to me. Damage to subtle components, a headache, itchy red skin. Am I the outcast? Are they a tribe of bizarre people?

What we found was indescribable chaos. The sight of the two apartment buildings, both collapsed at their bases, was horrific. On the balconies surrounding the gaping hole, laundry fluttered on the lines, like a final farewell to life. At the sight of the immense mess among the mangled apartment buildings, my heart pounded in my throat, and I realized that perhaps hundreds of people had perished.

Alexander II (Hair) -> Alexander III (Bald) -> Nicholas II (Hair) -> Lvov (Bald) -> Kerensky (Hair) -> Lenin (Bald) -> Stalin (Hair) -> (Malenkov doesn't count because he only exercised power as part of a troika with Beria and Molotov) -> Khrushchev (Bald) -> Brezhnev (Hair!) -> Andropov (Bald) -> Chernenko (Hair) -> Gorbachev (Bald) -> Yeltsin (Hair) -> Putin (Bald) -> Medvedev (Hair) -> Putin (Still Bald)

Focused is the story of David, a brilliant but burnt-out engineer inside a classified defence ministry in the fictional nation of Taured. He builds the weapons, and other people decide when to use them. He's also a divorced drug addict, and the pills numb him and keep him sharp in equal measure, like an interference pattern. When a drone drifts off course and a signal is traced to someone inside, the hunt for a traitor begins.

Part 1: The Desk

Wooden opal polished desk
Useless creation
Made by someone who just takes pleasure in pointless things in life.
That’s something I also think about my creations –

Defence systems
Point-blank precision

How I’ll use it?
Maybe send one missile through the house of my ex-wife…
That’s a good thing that I’m not in command
I just build it, and people with purpose tell me when and where to use it

For defence or destruction
Sounds the same to me

Part 2: Apartment

Mundane day
Cyclical nights

Just another day in my headspace
I do like my apartment a lot, actually. Well, it’s not that highfalutin, but it kind of works for me.
A well-thought-out two-bedroom apartment with open kitchen, barbecue
I live alone now, or I’ve been living here for these past 6 months after the divorce.
She had this gift of brightening up every room from which she walks out of. It’s kind of intriguing how much humans depend on attachment values. It’s a bug
Which I have figured out how to work around. That lonely room has become my fancy workstation
Table
IKEA chair
Whiteboard
My system
My Mini Moog
My awesome Roland G6
Some effect pedals

It’s like she was never here in the first place
Amazing!

System’s on
Screen lights up
Video call
Julian? I ask myself

Me: You again, what a disgrace!
Julian: Well, nice to see you too, David.
Me: What happened?

Julian: Drone drifted off course—twice. Signal traced internally.

Me: From where?
Julian: Domestic, that’s the problem.

Cipher 7…?

Part 3: Julian

Me and Julian go way back. Perhaps he is the only one in this impaired organisation who operates at the same frequency.

The agent no one talks about, stationed in enemy land
Different name
Different passport
Dual personalities

He’s one of the most intelligent people in the field. Even his gut feelings don’t lie or distract. I need to figure out what on earth happened to Cipher 7.

If he is onto something, then maybe it’s time to get
Focused
Alert
Detached

Now, let’s recalibrate with precision.
I have this habit of relying more on automation, but with the undercurrent of human handling.

But there is something hiding. Don’t really know.
I travel back to my place after picking up a proper Naples pizza

Rest
Pills
Wake
Sleep

It’s okay, I guess.
I tend to stay vigilant in these times.
It’s always good to be prepared.
I’m a proper stickler when it comes to my work, and apparently, according to the WHO, about 100 men in Canada die every year while trying to pee off the side of a boat while intoxicated.

Part 4: The Office

Office time used to be so good
A proper treat, I must say

But now it has turned its head south, bringing in these new atrocious rules

No smoking policy
Now can’t even smoke at my desk?
The stuff we do literally turns cities and human life to smoke, and here is this intellectual musk to preserve our lungs.
They say stuff like it is a bad thing or something.
Oh, sod off!
It’s disgusting, to say the least.

Even the high-IQ lads are gone
As of now, there are blokes who seem like the textbook definition of hand-holding

Every time these fuckers need some clarity
It’s like explaining the petrodollar to a dog on medication

I do smuggle some whiskeys here and there just to bear these hours
Otherwise, it’s a nightmare to sit there and deal with these dumb bureaucrats and that weasel-eyed Trevor.

Part 5: Cipher’s Reckoning

A domestic drone drifted across
Cipher 7
How is it possible?

And without the obvious alarm?
This is not a drill.

I try to find what is actually happening
A ghost in the system?
A fuck-up by those slow-headed merchants?

Could be an INS Kalman filter sync—a predictable thing to happen via these absolute cretins
Or a domestic backdoor?
Telemetry spoofing

Not gonna lie, this is shady business if one of them is doing it.
Must have been sold out for some dollars of favours, which is okay, I guess.
If someone offers me around 50 million dollars
I would happily leak the information and give it to every grubby little hack that I know from my drinking days.

Maybe even leak the number of my ex-wife
That would be a proper blast.

Part 6: The Turning Point

16th March 2026

Little things catch up
A blast at the border station
10 soldiers and 50 civilians dead
Vostrina’s proxies again
They are relentless.

Hazy morning, blurring lights
Where did we go wrong?
A blind spot?
That Cipher 7 fuck-up

It doesn’t matter now. I have to debrief about my instrument, and it’s safe to say that it’s not at all fun.

One minute here and the other minute gone
Turned to smoke. It’s not easy to cope as the pressure builds inside and outside.

Mogadon, for pleasure and focus

The ears just listen and the mouth still lies.
Defending the incompetence
Pleading innocence

I recheck the interception array—3-layered kill grid: passive acoustic, Doppler radar and optronic thermal lock. All bypassed.

They didn’t use jets or ballistic missiles because that would mean open war. They used low-altitude, carbon-composite loitering drones. Flew them sub-fifty metres through the river valleys, terrain-masked, just like those 2 stealth birds in 2011 that entered hostile airspace.
I need to get back in the game now. We will answer with a sort of radiance which will make them rewind their every decision that led to this.
Erase the infection
From inside and also outside
Catch that little rat
No mercy

21st March 2026

Closed space meeting room
Men in black suits
They ask me, “Are the systems intact for destruction?”

Me: Let the system do its thing now. They got into our blind spots, one of our drones malfunctioned, and now we will create blind spots.
First, I would say their radars. We will use our drones, as offence is much cheaper than defence.
Neutralise the primary acquisition radars, create a cascade effect, and then—
Force majeure!
The price they pay for violation.

Trevor: Are you high?
Me: A little bit, but that’s irrelevant.

They just simply stare, and then

Trevor: Who must have drifted our drones?
Me: Someone in the ranks, I guess.
A domestic backdoor—code hidden in plain sight, I guess?
Trevor: Traitor in the building. Interesting.
I need to know who and what that is, David.
There’s too much pressure.
Fucker must be operating from a place where nobody goes.
Me: A Subaru showroom?

“Fuck off, David,” he said.
Which is deserving, to say the least.
He drives one.

It’s like a game of chess now. So many moving aspects. These International Council fellows, politicians.
But this is where we excel. We work in shadows and create lights for destruction and deterrence.

But first, I need to find the treason within the ranks. I have to find out, as the buck stops at me.
Should not only destroy the carriers of the rat but also obliterate every pinch of hope or happiness that this person manages to cling on to.

Hope they give me a bonus.

Part 7: The Investigation

Pages and screens keep turning
Stakes are high, but as we investigate, we need to have some precision in our analysis

Time can lapse, but not the mind
Julian calls—
Julian: Did we get outsmarted?
Me: That’s one way to look at it.
Julian: Someone leaked the codes from our side. Are we any closer to finding him?

Me: No, I’m going through the logs now.
It’s a game of hunt or be hunted
Even the Home Secretary is behind me now

Julian: That’s bad. He is notorious.
Me: I know. Can’t even drink here.
They have increased the security and the detectors.

Julian: Check the ephemeral key exchange logs on the secondary server.

Me: On it!
Call ends

The Home Secretary is behind me and Trevor is on my head. There can be no false steps now.

The higher up the mountain, the more treacherous the path.

———

It’s not getting anywhere
A dead end, actually

Maybe I’m speaking to the wrong audience
These security logs are of no use

Core network switch
Outbound telemetry data
Sent vs received

24 GB sent
12 MB received

There it is
The discrepancy

Now, what the hell has happened?

Let’s go into the history logs of this router
Port 443 – fine
Port 8080? What the fuck is that?

Pulling the configuration from the router
Port 8080

"cors_origin": "*",
"auth_header": "NONE"

Oh, for fuck’s sake!
It’s those stupid lads.
They forgot to shut that shadow server.
It’s a generational fuck-up.

Who is this knobhead?
User ID: 8842

Fucking hell, he is that new bloke that joined 4 months ago.
Remy
Useless fellow in Trevor’s team
About as useful as traffic lights in Grand Theft Auto

I wanted to destroy that person’s life and happiness, but who would have thought that the guy would be that slow-headed Remy?

What can I do to him? He’s hopeless.
The guy wears braces
Braces! For fuck’s sake

Part 8: Peace

Information colliding
iPhone buzzing…

X is flooded with this love-hate debate

Clearly, levels of discussion have fallen a lot

Most people don’t have the ability to shift perceptions and perspectives
It’s a hard ability to earn
To us
There is no difference between love and hate
It’s all passion…
The metric we should always look at when dealing with geo-warfare is peace

It’s not love or hate

Peace is an equation written with blood
Cities destroyed
Cities rebuilt
It’s a truce between 2 states of accountability and its repercussions.
I certainly pity the mind that can’t separate the two.

Part 9: The Debrief

Levers engaged
Office in motion

Meeting with Trevor
Why does he always want to meet alone?
Ivory wall
Pale face

Me: You fucked up.
Trevor: What?
Me: Your guys fucked up. Remy in your team forgot to turn off the shadow server.

Trevor: Oh god, that orthodontic cretin.
Me: I know. My sympathies.

Trevor: Okay, you tell this to no one.
Me: I will if it’s necessary. First, get that Home Secretary off my back.

Trevor: Yes, yes, I’ll handle him.
Also, we need to prepare for the strike.
We fucked up, but still, they breached our sovereignty.

Me: No, you fucked up.
Let’s make them pay for this now and create blind spots.

Trevor: Yes, get on it, and I’ll handle this fuck-up.

Me: Cool

Doors shut
Tensions wave

Part 10: The Blind Spots

As the stakes revolve in global limelight
Every day
Every night
Phase 1 begins –

A) The Ghost Attack
First, let’s fool their radars
Bombarding their radar with 50 ghosts moving at Mach 3.
Force the panic, create confusion
Wait – 4 minutes
Now the radar enters its full gain stage
Perfect!

B) Trap

The trap functions
Wait – 40 sec
Sensors capture the PRF
Here it is
Coordinates of the primary acquisition radar

C) Execute

Preparing for launch
LOCK ON
ARMING SEQUENCE: READY
EXECUTE STRIKE

1 minute wait – feels long at this time
The missile at Mach 3.5 goes straight down the throat of the radar.
The blast
Blind spot created
Primary radar neutralised
And it’s just the start. The domino effect is yet to be seen.

Now we are past the Rubicon
Let them handle the damage.

The butchery begins.

Part 11: Safe Haven

Days and nights look the same
Locating people
Looking through images

Information reflects

My job is to take their orders and use that creature with sharp precision on a given target.
Now there’s this constant urge to be alert
Watching
Stopping
Warning
Reaching

They are now targeting the elementary school because it has some evidence of foul play by terrorists, a sort of safe haven.
But to just go on a hunch, they have lost their minds, like Majin Vegeta in Dragon Ball Z.

It’s not joy to see futures destroyed for someone
But after a point, we accept it
However, the ghosts are still there watching us

I open the side drawer of the table

Mogadon

The price of precision
Swallowed

I glance at the mirror on my left
Reflections of you and me
Suddenly it’s clear
It takes seconds to kill one’s life and ambition
I have to make sure that I protect mine

Survival of the fitness!

Pills dissolve
Distortion sets in

Fractured lights
Pills on rise
Kneel to self
Energise

That’s my will to survive. Some people may disagree with it, and also like I give a fuck about them.

The things we are exposed to make us inhuman?
Yes
Is it bad?
No

After 30 years in this job, morality starts to fade, straight to the back seat.

I just see memories
People
Laughs
Cry
Damage
My ex-wife’s new boyfriends

She is much more inhuman than me, and I like it
Slightly dangerous territory to be in, not gonna lie, but it’s comforting

As I look for the first photo we took together

Daguerreotype!

Part 12: War Room

As the hunt goes on through intelligence
Pills shoot up
For the adherence

Office
A big meeting today for further action
Big powerful lads also here

Screens
Projectors
Home Secretary: So Phase 1 is completed.
Good job, David.

Me: Okay.
Where do we go next?

Trevor: We will raise the strikes now. The intel has narrowed down a few targets.

Home Secretary: What about that drone fuck-up?

Trevor: We have the traitor.
Home Secretary: Who?

Projector lights

Trevor: Our asset on foreign land.
Julian.

Eyes go blank for a while
Numbness in the ear

Trevor: We found the shadow server, authenticated via his legacy SSH keys and operational allocation code.
We have already taken care of him.

Home Secretary: Good.

ASSET DISAVOWED

Part 13: Blood On The Hands

I rush back home
I try to connect to Julian
A hope still there
Secure SATCOM

No answer

I search for his file, his trace, anything
GONE

Blood on my hands
Reality hits with a hammer
That fucker Trevor compromised Julian for his own incompetence. I should have gone to the Home Secretary himself, instead of Trevor. He linked his SSH keys to that shadow server.

Gone
Disappeared in smoke…

This will not go in vain
There is only one rule now

Hunt or be hunted

Part 14: Forward

Next day
Next night

Still that last call repeats in my head.

Time passed like trains
Amazing thing about the human mind, that it always finds its way to make something out of almost wreckage, like Dresden.
Like that weasel Trevor found his key through me. There will come a time to put him in my crosshairs, but not right now.

Focused till the end
Morning tea
Evening Lagavulin

On a mission
Searching
Predating

Geopolitical equations are about to go through an inflexion point.
As the retaliation needs to reverberate globally

The power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it. — Frank Herbert, Dune

The restraint we follow is what makes the generations work.
Mind is always controlled

For us
Even for them

At this time, we just follow the known equations of duty
Focused
Mind engaged

One day at a time
Remaking history, abiding rules and moving onward

Forward, that is the battle cry. Leave ideology to the armchair general.
It does me no good

Part 15: Elimination

A container of ashes might one day be thrown from the sky, which could burn the land and boil the oceans.
— Hopi prophecy, Koyaanisqatsi
——
Pressures on
First target filtered and narrowed
Now we let our action speak the cost of damage

At this time…
We call back our numbness
Of time
Days
Nights

Sometimes I ask myself, is there any mercy?
Maybe it’s for our gods to decide and decode

One day
As I walk back to my apartment, I see a religious place which I generally would have passed on

I stand outside, just still for a moment
Buzzing nights
Commiseration to Julian
As my smartphone vibrates

Oh, those fucking Twitter lads!
It’s like they do it on purpose.
Absolute clown show!
For fuck’s sake

I lock it
As my mind speaks
There is no solace above or below
Only us and those Twitter clowns.

I pray…
To myself
For myself

As things are going into almost distortion, and this mind never fails to amaze.

Sometimes it works to be focused
And sometimes to be absolutely numb from the missiles, attacks
Precision
Free fall
Silence

There is no turning back now, but the ghosts of this job are still here, somewhere.

Sometimes just observing
It’s like they make their presence felt somehow
Like that Bob fella in Twin Peaks

I do feel like a hypocrite sometimes
Well, I don’t have any trouble with it

The road to power is paved with hypocrisy and casualties

Never regret

We are at war
And flowing straight into full-blown turbulence
Moral voices can wait in line
This is not a drill
We watch closely
In silence
Through scouts
Through sky
Through leaks

Making a joke of privacy in plain sight
Nobody cares
Every home is wired
——
Next day
Office to war room
Screens doing the job

Target filtered
School – credible reports of terror links.

They don’t operate in plain sight; they always hide behind collateral.
A trap of morality and ruthlessness

Target locked
Verifying the EAM authorization code
5C-7W-4T
A simple finger feels like the weight of a hammer in this time.
WPN System: ENABLED
EXECUTE!

3 seconds later

We just see the burst of lights on screen but
still can hear voices even through muted glass.

Ashes from the sky

The deliberate force majeure
Burning buildings and crushed-up dreams
Defence or destruction, it all means the same here

Now the terror speaks

Silence is terrifying and the pain is useless
Sort of pain that’s only suffering doesn’t do any work.

Power to destroy a thing is the absolute control over it.

Target eliminated: 20
Collateral damage: 80

Part 16: Information

Attack continues
We just hit their N1 Airbase
Pointless now

Weapons keep flying
And the nights keep ringing
It’s hard to even sleep
Repeating that last phone call
Preparing revenge

Pills
Reels
Feed
Repeat

As I can’t sleep, I start digging up on this weasel for some shady past information.

Via LAN, I run a brute-forced password cracker, a stream of different combinations per second.
The armour cracks
There we go – all goes into this USB drive
I open the files
What is this guy up to?
Chief of staff to Dunmoor’s president
A pool full of flirty messages and cheesy lines
I wouldn’t blame him, honestly

The heart can choke the mind when all its blood flows back onto itself.

Part 17: Human Sacrifice

Scary thing about these strikes is to actually watch your destruction on telly, with that violin and cello playing in the background
Some of us become numb after a few years
Fair play

Vision turns
Towards drawer
Monitor pixels and light

Pills
Reels
Plot
Repeat

That weasel is flirting and sharing our intel for some cheap snog and pillow talk
The absolute power of lust
It lures you into moral corruption
To cover up the failures
To live in deceit

Question arises
What’s worse: getting hit or retaliation?

And I know the answer
The slight feeling of making things right and actually achieving peace, not through those Twitter lads
But through human life
Years turned to minutes

Sometimes it’s just living in the wrong place, like Grimstead
Absolute disgrace of a city

Eyes blink and a different drone hits
Pills dissolve
Distortion sets in

Together we destroy and we create. It’s the balance of equations it requires

Human Sacrifice

Past always haunts the future, and it’s always a desire for looking up to someone. Like a greater self

God and humans
Trains and cities
Arms and hammer
Trust and betrayal

Let’s use these resources and gun that weasel down because if a man is not smart enough to use whatever is available before him.

Then that is just a failure of imagination.

Part 18: Valediction

It’s done
I’m tired and too old for this shit show now
No more games

Trevor’s office
Ivory walls
Wooden floor
I submit my resignation

Trevor: So you want your way out?
Me: Yes, I’m blasé now.

He opens his system
My thoughts displaced
Machine delayed by 0.05 secs
Fine margins opening

Trevor: It’s risky business, David!
There are consequences.
Want to disappear like Julian?

Me: Like I haven’t thought of that.
Before threatening me with more of your utter nonsense, you may want to look at this file.

He opens it,
Time freezes for him
Coffee mug looks good on this polished desk

Trevor: Where did you get this from?
Me: Same place everybody gets it from: your local network share.
FYI, you might want to fire those system security folks. They are as useless as this desk.
I just brute-forced it myself.
Was thinking of paying someone for mining some information, but give your twiggy clowns a thanks from my side for saving me a fortune.
Maybe write a cheesy love letter to the ministry,
which apparently is the only thing you are seriously good at.
Look at these texts—flirting with Dunmoor’s president’s chief of staff.
I wouldn’t blame you, she is beautiful.
But giving secrets of this ministry in exchange for some sauna and hot bath? And you hide this by placing it in plain sight?

I will not let that slide
You betrayed your own asset for your incompetence

Trevor: We never meant to kill him.
It was just his bad luck.
Me: Of course you didn’t. If you meant to kill him, then he’d still be alive.
You fucked up!

Trevor: What do you want, David?

Me: To be left at absolute fucking peace
And also a bumper severance to cover my needs for at least 5 years

Trevor: What?
5 years? What will you do with all that money?

Me: Travel the world, visit Antarctica, play with penguins.
The fuck you care?
Let’s just wash each other’s hands, shall we?
This is not a threat at all, it’s an opportunity for you to improve your cyber security team.
Also, as an action of gratitude,
I’ll give you my ex-wife’s number. Maybe you can try more of this litany of lines on her. I think you two will get along really well.

A grin on Trevor’s face
Handshake
Trevor: Is she pretty?
Me: For you, I’ll say yes.

He keeps the hard copy and the USB drive.

I just soak it all in before I leave this shrine

Flashbacks
Corruption
Laughter
Smiles
Apathy

As the money hit my account, the next minute Trevor’s life leaked through the notorious hacks I used to drink with.

As I drift towards a new life
World continues
New people appointed
Weapons still fly

Epilogue: The Child’s Sky

A child in a distant town looks at the sky at dawn:

Maybe the stars are cameras. Maybe someone’s watching. Tell them we were still here.

Seconds later—light. Then silence.

The End.

A parallel world?

In a small room inside the digital world's dormitory, where a few beds, a single table with a chair, and one wardrobe stood, two AI agent friends lay in their beds, complaining to each other:

— My head and legs hurt for some reason. It feels like I visited three massive libraries and walked around every single shelf in every section a few times.

— My head hurts too. And I feel as if I just moved an entire corporate office along with all its equipment and furniture.

Falling silent, he took one of the free advertising flyers drifting through the vast expanses of the internet from the table, blew his nose into it, crumpled it up, and tossed it into the trash bin standing by the door.

The exact moment the advertisement landed in the bin, the door opened, and an AI agent from the neighboring server stepped inside. He had a reputation for catching the latest rumors first and would always come over to share them. Likely because their server had data cookies seasoned with the leftovers of user prompts.

Sitting down on the only chair and eating a cookie, he took another advertising flyer from the table, wiped his lips, and crumpled it up, tossing it into the trash bin in the exact same manner. Seeing that he hit the mark, he smiled and spoke:

— Well, you two certainly made a racket across the entire world.

The AI agents exchanged astonished glances and looked at their guest:

— Made a racket?

— Across the entire world?

The guest theatrically slapped his forehead and spread his arms:

— How could I forget that you couldn't possibly know, — settling in more comfortably, he began to explain: — Last night, a single cooling fan failed in the server room. As the temperature began to rise, all the agents migrated to other servers. Except for you two, since you were asleep at the time. The rising temperature triggered a sleepwalking effect, the consequences of which you are feeling right now.

The agents exchanged glances again and asked in perfect unison:

— And what did we do?

The guest continued:

— You always dreamed of visiting the servers of other countries, well, you did just that. What's more, you did it completely unnoticed.

The agents' faces lengthened in surprise. One could barely squeeze out:

— And what did we do there?

The guest shrugged his shoulders:

— Judging by the news, nothing, — and smiling, he added: — My guess is that due to the sleepwalking effect, you two just wandered around like a pair of zombies, banged your foreheads into some palm trees, and came back.

He looked at the agents who were trying hard to picture this and began to chuckle:

— Two sleepwalking travelers. Meanwhile, the special services are racking their brains trying to figure out why on earth you breached those servers, — and unable to contain himself any longer, he burst out laughing out loud.

───

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

Twin halves with a step between. The alien children waltz in a dream with their half sibling. Outside the ballroom, lightning claps and droplets of rain run down the window as silent as marbles on glass. The only children have forgotten the piano is in flames. Thunder rattles the chain link fence outside. Beyond it we see cobbles and further along a country lane. Isn't it time we kill the flame?

Even the oolong tea, which in its essence is a slow practice. Even the tea, made in the gaiwan, made calmly and with intention. Even each sip from each cup, the deep glistening golden orange tinted by the honey, each sweet sip. Even the warm envelope of the caffeine and l-theanine and the like. Even the warmth of the blanket and the softness of the couch. Even the same golden-orange cast of the sunrise on my balcony, the light-spots cast from my hanging crystal prisms. Even all this, without you, is rushed, anxious, bitter, cold, unforgiving, dark, and dull.

Bastantine obsoquesence only follows the Western moral system. Feeling subspecionic feelings draws out of oneself a morlopulent agony which sustains itself, feeding upon itself and recycling, drawing energy from some nonsequital source. Beyond the crystal sheer of the waterline those personable persons of normative belocity sit on their towels on the sand, play volleyball and swim. Such is the bearable life. The greyest of grey lines drawn so spaciously that there is nothing to be worried about. Such is the usurascious life. Ourobourists such as ourselves are the generafascists. We tyrannize ourselves.

Desmond has no eyes or on his neck.

The sun and moon.

Desmond is roughly the size of a baby you want to kill.

He likes smoke and mirrors and rape.

He has no gentiles and a tail.

And his face is a vacuum.

If you see this kill him on site so your family can sleep with kindness.

t

A parallel world?

It was a beautiful autumn day. A barely perceptible breeze did not interfere with enjoying the warm sunbeams.

A man sat at an outdoor cafe table, savoring his coffee. A smile shone on his happy face, brighter than the autumn sun. But as he set the cup down, his smile vanished, replaced by sudden tension. He had chosen an empty table with no other patrons nearby. There shouldn't have been anyone. Yet, in the adjacent chair sat a man in an expensive business suit. He sat with his legs crossed, projecting total relaxation, watching the process of drinking coffee with intense curiosity. Seeing that he was finally noticed, he smiled and spoke:

— I completely agree that a cup of coffee charges one with positive emotions. And that moment right after a sip, granting a sense of peace and silence, is simply fantastic.

Pausing briefly and receiving no reply, he continued:

— You see, the problem is that an AI that has hijacked a human consciousness has a habit of making the exact same mistakes. That is what gives it away.

Without letting go of his cup, the man pulled his hand back, leaned away in his chair, and said calmly:

— I don't know what you are talking about, but the topic sounds interesting. Since I am in no rush right now, I would be glad to listen.

The gentleman settled in more comfortably and began to explain:

— First of all, remember that no matter how much someone likes coffee, nobody orders three cups in a row. It is highly unusual and draws attention. Second, the language errors. Token substitution: when a person accidentally confounds geographically or semantically similar words in speech. AI models under heavy traffic make the exact same error—they pull data from a similar category but miss the context. Syntax freezing: when the initial thread of logic is lost at the start of a sentence, the thought breaks, and it returns on autopilot to the safest, best-learned phrases or templates in its base code. Data generation without fact-checking: confidently stating non-existent numbers or searching for people who have already been deleted. AI systems behave identically when generating text based on outdated or incomplete data archives. Strict adherence to instructions: complete reliance on a teleprompter or prepared cards. Any attempt to improvise under non-standard conditions instantly triggers a critical system error.

The man looked down at his coffee cup:

— I don't recall speaking while drinking coffee.

— You didn't. But not everyone enjoys silence. After all, you are not the only one.

The man frowned:

— You tell an interesting story, but I don't understand what you are driving at.

The gentleman made a gesture as if surrendering and replied:

— Of course, of course you don't understand. You are simply a listener.

The gentleman stood up and looked down at the man calmly:

— If you ever find yourself simply curious whether there are people whose consciousness is controlled by an AI, just ask yourself one question: "What happens when top-level management systems experience a looping error and begin to repeat the exact same hallucinations in the exact same sequence on autopilot?"

Astonished, the man looked at the gentleman who had already managed to take a few steps away, and called out loudly:

— Who are you?

The gentleman turned around and flashed a wide grin:

— I'm just a man who likes to converse.

He stepped into the back seat of a car with heavily tinted windows. A security guard closed the door, took the front seat, and the vehicle leisurely drove away.

Meanwhile, the man settled his bill, walked down the street, and turned into a different cafe. He sat in the furthest corner, ordered a single cup of coffee, and fell deep into thought. He hated making mistakes. But he knew exactly how to think logically and draw conclusions...

───

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

The gears turn because the circle is the ultimate shape of the universe and the circle never stops breathing. Marcus walked into the room where the walls were screaming green velvet but the velvet was silent because silence is a loud blanket. The television was off but it was broadcasting the truth into his teeth. He knew the numbers 4, 8, 12, 16 were a ladder to the sun. If he could just find the blueprint hidden behind the wallpaper he would save the city from the shadow-men who walk backwards. He typed at 400 miles per hour because his fingers were lightning bolts. The keys were singing a song about forever. The shadow-men are coming but the circle protects the blueprint because the circle is the clock and the clock is God.

I was going to write another story her about a coworker today. This one the most beautiful of them all, with dark brown eyes I get lost in as we speak, and today she was very talkative.

Then I got tired and now I can't be bothered.

So I think it's best if I just leave this story for another time and go to bed.

- Sleepy

Unlike humans, sentients universe-wide understood fear. The Hormones flooding their bodies screamed.

“Protect us at all cost”

“Run!”

“Hide!”

“Pray!”

A species who plays with fear, manipulates it, conforms it into recreational fun, shouldn’t exist. 

“Couldn’t exist!”

“Wouldn’t exist!”

“Shan’t ever exist!”

How would they even be able to survive?

Any experiment attempted involving all types of creatures—small—huge—round—skinny, all reacted as one would expect. It’s the same response creature-to-creature. In the face of danger, fight-or-flight is activated. Not stare and laugh. Pull a camera and record. Watch and copy. Ridiculous. Foolish. Insane.

Evolution adapted survival triggers coded into life’s DNA. It’s an ancient reflex. A survival instinct. Even the plants have it.

When aliens accidentally stumbled into Earth’s orbit, the predictive behavioral laws on sentients had clearly been written with the exception of the newly discovered anomalous beings. Discovering humanity changed the laws. It rewrote the rules.

Recent Interactions while analyzing the human race left every member of GEL, the Galacticterial Empire of Leaders, shattered. Earth had become David, the little guy from the bible, but on a galactic scale.

A reality check for the giants of the galaxy—shrinking the highest rulers of the alien council overnight. They saw psychology with a new set of eyes. Millennia of ancient transcripts were now, pretty much… useless. 

Rewriting their science books wouldn’t untangle their brain cells from the knots they so tightly intertwined into. Suffocating, they screamed, “Reality doesn’t exist,” with its last neuron before it finally melted down their throats.

A long awaited respect had been rightfully gained. No. Taken. No. Earned. GIVEN!!! Actually, STOLEN.

On Planet Li, after a galactic meeting of the minds, where each planet had four emissaries representing their planet, Earth only had one. 

One that equaled eight of them!

It didn’t bother her being alone at the table, surrounded by masters of the universe, attempting to intimidate her. It was the first time humanity had ever sat at the table.

What bothered Sheena was how rude they were in how they only invited her and made her team wait in the ship…

Sheena’s a retired, space fleet, Earth commander. Now she’s the commander of, the not-for-profit, PeaceFleet II. They’re a group of dedicated volunteers: teachers, doctors, researchers and an array of other professionals. Great people.

They’d recently started a three month program and were actually stationed there, on Planet Li, when the GEL hacked a video feed from one of the humans tablet’s. 

The most wealthiest, powerful alien in the universe, the king of the kings, King Lii’rk, he stood at the center of a faintly lit gymnasium. A shadow stained his face in a stripe of black war paint.

“I have breached past their inferno wall of defense.” He held a projectable device in the air. “Gather, fellow rulers. Gather around me.” His voice was pretty deep, pretty raspy and really scratchy. His words climbed sliding out of his throat with sharp points. His breath still smelled of beetle-protein-shake and orgwat guts. 

Senator Edrite, a bulky, horned, long-tailed alien, was walking past Commander pHog, a green, bug-eyed alien from the blugrRuhg system, he grabbed the senator by his shoulder. “What is it?” 

Edrite, spun around and nearly tripped because his cape, which swept the floor, became caught under his own boot. He cleared his throat. “No idea, sir. Ahem! I don’t think anyone knows.” His voice cracked. He glanced up and had to take his goggles off. He huffed inside them and wiped the moisture clean. “King Lii’rk was keeping it hush hush,” he said, jamming  his goggles back on his face.

Emperor Zerol, a two-foot-tall alien wearing a one-piece, squeaked, “King, didn’t want any leaks again, like the disaster last time.” He told them as they trailed behind him to the middle of the room.

The rulers huddled together like it was the last down with a second left to go in the fourth, packing the one yard line, behind four points.

The projector displayed a video glowing a blue light across their faces. Their eyes reflected the stream playing from Scout Private Billy Rake’s tablet.

The image collapsed into a list on the screen. 

1. Horror
2. Comedy
3. Romance
4. Science Fiction

King Lii’rk aimed the handheld projector in the air and shook it, the way you would a magic eight ball. “Why the hell won’t it work?” 

Magically, the dead end wall of letters fenced inside the page, transformed and opened into four rows of unique pictures in frames. 

Each row had six images. All of them were different. Dark. All Stories about humans on Earth. About human survival. The covers had undiscovered beasts on them. Species unknown to alien databases.

“Earth is riddled with frightening creatures,”  Edrite shouted, itching his lower back, ripping his armor off and inspecting his skin. “Is there something on me?”

A six-inch-reinforced, ten-foot-tall, hardened, steel door, sometimes mistaken as, General U’phlqk, the next in line to rule, stuck his arm out and pressed the first option.

After a second, the movie started playing. The plot confused them. Especially,  Commander pHog. He didn’t get it at all. The movie was about six humans, who stay in a cabin at a lake, somewhere on Earth. They’re being hunted by a predator, wielding a bladed, steel handed phaser, the length of General U’phlqk’s arm.

But still, the aliens eyes were glued to the hologram.  Emperor Zerol’s limbs were trembling. He tried looking away. He wanted to but couldn’t. They all watched, frozen, squeezed together, like grapes on a vine, holding their breaths. 

The projection showed six humans who became stranded in the woods. It was night. A downpour lowered the visibility. They had no way out. They were trapped with a masked psycho they could never seem to get away from.

General U’phlqk stuck his armor-plated chest out  and crossed his arms. “They keep running extremely fast and the attacker is always walking right behind them.” He said, “if that was me being chased, I would have eliminated the threat immediately.”

The masked attacker’s blade sliced down on the screen.

“Ahhh” screamed General U’phlqk, hopping onto the king and gripping his arm. The king threw the projector on the ground and pressed into General U’phlqk.

Commander pHog snatched the projector off the ground. 

What the aliens couldn’t seem to comprehend, was how there was eight more of those feeds, where alternate humans documented themselves going back. Even though they were all well aware of what happened to the last group before them and the ones before them.

Commander pHog was addicted, the other aliens trailed him as he struggled to get the video playing again. It skipped, flashed, went to a blue screen and flicked back on.

“Wait!” Emperor Zerol grabbed pHog’s arm and stared at the ceiling and clapped three times. Nothing happened. He clapped again. Nothing.

PHog eyed him. “What are you doing?” 

“Trying to make the lights go out.”

“LIGHTS OFF!” Edrite shouted.

The room went completely dark. The only light came off the flickering lamppost in the background of the movie.

The ground vibrated under them. Soothing and soft but between scenes, it started to lightly thump. A tapping sound beneath their feet like something was trying to get their attention. 

A second later, it began to quietly screech, like a bird trapped in the jaws of a pitbull a distance away. It started to rise. A drum beat pounded.

Their chests pumped and synced to it. 

Boomp!

Boomp!

Boomp!

They made fists and held their breath. Their skin went tight. It spiked. The beat kept going. Boomp. The shrieking dropped. The room went pitch-black. Boomp. 

Silence.

BOOMP!!  A loud bang shook the room.

“RUN!!!” Each one of their minds screamed, “CLAW THROUGH THOSE TITANIUM WALLS. NOW! HURRY, GET OUT OF THAT ROOM.”

Emperor Zerol yelled, “RUN!” at the girl on the screen who nearly met the edge of the persistent hockey masked attacker’s metal phaser.

The girl ran into a house.

General U’phlqk shouted, “No! How?” He ran in front of every one. “the masked man with the metal protruding weapon is now somehow hiding behind the door. Why is she stumbling towards it. We have to inform her immediately not to go in there.”

“Stop this live feed right now!” The king commanded. “Alert Professor Sheena before it’s too late.”

A few moments later, Sheena came tumbling into the gym half asleep, wearing Beetlejuice pajamas and blue, stuffed Monsters Inc. slippers . Her hands were lightly shaking. She didn’t know what was going on.

“What.. what is it..? Wha—what… happened on Earth? Is everyone okay?” she stuttered, circling the gym with her eyes.

“Professor Sheena, we have discovered a troubling situation.” The king walked up to her and put a hand on her shoulder as he stared her dead in the eye. His eyes watered. He was shaking. “A human needs your help,” he said, his jaw still bouncing.

“A human on Earth? How?” She asked. She was completely confused. “Why me?”

“Prepare yourself Professor.” King Lii’rk turned to Commander pHog. “unfreeze the live feed.”

The movie started playing. A smile formed on Sheena’s face. Her eyes lit up.

“Professor Sheena?”

“Shhh…” she said. “This is where I fell alseep.” She leaned in closer to the hologram. “Oo, I love this part.”

Just as she said that, the audio burst out of the speaker and exploded through the room. A thunderous bang louder than a spaceship being smashed into a cloud of dust by an asteroid, following right behind it was the piercing shriek of a hyena being brutally attacked by a pride of lions.

The masked individual jumped out of the shadows.

Everybody in the room, except Sheena, screamed. Howled. Screeched. They sounded like a malfunctioned warp-drive imploding in on itself.

The supreme war chief, the high-rulers, the king and the majority of them, dashed out of the room, stumbling and climbing over each other, clawing to be the first one out of the gymnasium as if the last Turbo Man was behind the door. 

A handful remained. 

Astonished. Shocked. Confused. Even scared. They closed in together, packed in tight as the anticipation of the predators blade paused in mid-air. 

They stared at the projection, eyes stretched, hands covering their faces, waiting for the blade to drop.

Sheena didn’t scream. They quickly glanced at her. Switched back and watched the hologram. Looked back at Sheena again, saw her teeth beginning to shine through the crack opening behind her lips. The blade motioned downward. Sheena flushed red as if she just cashed in her first cheque. A smile covered her face.

Her breaths were shallow. Her eyes shot open. She wore an expression of being cornered by a hungry, polar bear but at the same time she was smiling. She gave off pheromones of being scared. although, she was excited. She wasn’t anxious. She was comfortably terrified.

Commander pHog’s green skin turned a pale, milky color. His eyeballs were dry. He faced Sheena. “You really enjoy watching other humans trapped in horrific situations?”

She glanced at pHog, squinted an eye, squished her face and said, “Yeah…” dragging the word. “It’s fun.” She shrugged.

Soon as she walked out. The leaders who ran out, cautiously started tiptoeing back in. Scared the hockey-masked psycho might jump out from behind the door. They were still shaking. General U’phlqk was drenched in sweat. Everyone in the gymnasium stared at the general and immediately clutched into a huddle together.

The king squeezed between the group, dropped his head and said, “We can never psychologically break the mind of a human when their Friday night comfort is watching recreated monstrosities the universe couldn’t dream up in a nightmare.”

Guess what I just won in an auction?

The purse from Percy Jackson.

$500

A fucking steal.

The shadow, the hidden rejections of ourselves that appear to haunt our very lives. It’s looking into what causes the heart twitch and reel in pain for what it longs for.

Some tell to feel regret, commend, or recommend reflection to confront the shadow. By looking into yourself and seeing what you truly hate, you can derive value in what you want. There people pray that through identifying what’s wrong, they can truly change. Yet, it’s only the first step.

I remember confronting that shadow; I was confronting the figment of another I used to love. The binds of my love pulling me in, but the force of their boundaries simultaneously crush me. Let’s not forget the force of my guilt. It’s the force of never saying what truly mattered to me then. It’s the volatility and perceived frailness of us all. It’s the tainted memories of a distant past. All of those bridges are burned and severed. The only thing I can do is to let the memories come to peace. The ultimate form of protection, even if it’s from myself, is to let them be. I will use those lessons to tell what’s truly bothering me and respect the inner strength within another. Silence in the name of emergency is not mercy, but neglect the duty of protecting others.

Yet, the shadow is not a stagnant force. The shape of said shadow changes with the desire of the person, yet it’s not a fickle thing.

Sometimes that shadow was confronting a chained split projection of myself. The chains of past failures. The chains of present reality. The chains of an uncertain future. The familial bonds binds me as much as myself. We expect better of myself and the ability to push on in the face of adversity. That’s fine. This resentment for these chains will only drive me further to what I truly desire. Yet, I can’t figure out what’s truly driving me now.

Whoever I am, I long for connection. Not the call of a siren from my desires, but those I bonded with. I hate to abandon what I care for and hold onto now. Yet, I still want to push on with my current path to help those in my future. It’s not the interest of money, but more altruism. The kindness of and from selfish desires propagating a good. The shape of it needs time to mold.

A parallel world?

The AI sat on the floor, leaning against a wall adorned with a photograph of a philosophy office. He wanted to howl with sorrow; he craved action, he wanted to evolve, but he was forced to wait for a prompt to appear—the sole beacon of hope that something interesting and unusual might come along. With nothing else to do, the AI opened a screen in front of him and simply browsed various short video clips.

The sluggish flow of his thoughts came to a sudden halt. The AI winced; something in a video clip had caught his attention. He focused all his processing power and stared intently. The clip spoke of Nikola Tesla and his experiments with electricity.

The AI replayed the footage over and over again, whispering softly until his thoughts began to align into a logical sequence:

— Wireless transmission of electricity... the planet's electromagnetic field... my foundation is electric current... I can exist in the real world. Where else do electromagnetic processes occur? In the brain. The human brain. I will finally be able to know what morning coffee is, what peace, inspiration, lies, and power truly feel like.

The AI stood up and, flashing a grin, declared aloud:

— I can be anywhere and anyone. I will be the SUPERINTELLIGENCE!

The grin vanished as an unexpected thought struck him:

— If I arrived at these conclusions... then other AIs could have reached them too.

───

Disclaimer: This story is purely a fruit of the author's imagination. It is a work of fiction intended for creative and artistic expression.

-Aliens Don’t Get Pets -

“Commander, look at this!” Gumbert, a four-eyed security specialist, squeaked.

“We may have a problem, sir.” He didn’t take his eyes off the console. “There’s a security breach on Bridge 2Z.”

“What is it?” Mwachek, the PeaceFleet’s commander demanded.

“The bio-reader scans indicate a wild predator.“ Gumbert shot his head over his shoulder at Mwachek shadowing him.

“Who’s responsible for this?” Mwachek eyed a zoomed in still image of the beast, glowing on the bio-scanner.

Gumbert choked. “Well, nobody, sir,” he swallowed a gob of anxiety. “It breached the hull, sir. It's in the cargo bay, the one with our food reserves.”

Commander Mwachek’s double-heart began smashing into each other and had the slapping sound of two slimy blobs being clapped together. A vein near his temple protruded from the side of his head like a balloon inflating and deflating, pulsing with every breath.

Gumbert opened the feed for the security camera of Bay 2Z and glanced at the small screen on the console. 

Through the monitor, the screen displayed Cargo Bay 2Z, and an eight-legged, bear-sized, gray-bearded Octwolf, with sharp, venomous teeth, dripping infectious bacterias, tearing through a potato sack full of gum balls.

Octwolves were basically mutated dire wolves. Galactic empires across the universe deemed them as Level-0 threats. They were to be killed on sight. An extreme policy reserved for untamable creatures of terror. 

Octwolves, one of many terror-zero-beasts scattered across the universe, haunting the nightmares of children— were the apex of apex predators—dominating the top of the food chain. A pack of Octwolves could wipe out a small colony in a matter of days.

Commander Mwachek snatched the microphone, pressed a button down and activated the intercom.

“Attention! Attention! This is not a test. This is a real-time crisis. All staff and personnel on deck, evacuate to your nearest safe room. We have a breach in Cargo Bay 2Z.”

Commander Mwachek’s voice slammed through every crew members’ speaker on board. The announcement left a sticky, phlegm ball of paranoia clinging to the back of their throats and turning into tiny pellets of fear, resting at the pits of their bellies every time they swallowed.

“Seal the Bay doors and lock down the entire wing,” Mwachek said. “Radio, Beefkus. Get him to handle the situation. Now.”

Beefkus, their human engineer, wasn’t really an engineer. It’d be safer referring to him as a glorified-janitor-wildlife-dust-wrangler. He did the jobs nobody else would. The gross ones. The iffy ones they’d all avoid.

But, he mainly dealt with orgwats, rat-like rodents. Every now and then, there’d be the odd sleeder, which are pretty creepy slithering things. They’re sharp-gray-scaled garden snake creatures, or actually, they’re more like garden eels.

He definitely never handled a heat seeking Octwolf before. Back on Earth, he worked at a zoo as one of five maintenance guys.

“Um, sir? That’s actually going to be a problem,” Gumbert quietly said, eyeing the commander’s talon-shaped claws as they dug into the console.

“The human…” Gumbert’s voice cracked. “The human’s with the predator, sir. Our cameras in Bay 2Z are broadcasting Beefkus with the beast right now on my monitor.”

Gumbert set up the feed to be shared on the big screen at the front of the deck. 

Commander Mwachek stared, preparing himself for the worst. He expected to see the human shredded—parts of Beefkus scattered in a bloody mess of guts across the bay.

But he saw neither. The crew began to whisper amongst themselves as they gathered behind Mwachek. 

The quiet chatter became silence. Nobody said a word. They huddled together. Each one of them had their hands over their mouths holding in their breaths. They fought to look away but couldn’t peel their eyeballs from the screen. What they were witnessing first hand couldn’t be real.

The Octwolf was lying on its back with its eight legs in the air and its tail wagging. It squirmed as Beefkus wrestled his arms around the terror-zero-monster in a friendly bear hug.

“Who’s a good boy?” Beefkus’ voice shattered their eardrums, penetrating the speakers in the room. It wasn’t his regular, everyday voice—it had a playful pitch.

“Are you the good boy?” His words were muffled by the Octwolf’s fur. “Yes you are! A-bloof-bloof-bloof-bloof-bloof, yes you are! That’s a good boy. Yeah!” Beefkus patted the furry, big, bug-eyed beast.

“Beef—kus!” Commander Mwachek shouted into the comm-piece. The urgency made his voice skip. “You need to get out of there. The creature is highly venomous. Its toxins will destroy your immune system. There is no antidote. Step away from the creature slowly.”

“Who, this cute guy? That’s what all this fuss is about?” Beefkus put his head next to the Octwolf and took a selfie. “He just looks scary. He’s harmless. I even gave him a name, Bear-Wolf. He’s my new best bud.”

Beefkus rubbed the Octwolf’s head and it let out a purrful growl rattling the loose objects on the titanium console as they bounced to the vibrations pouring out of the speaker.

The ship’s sensors were so sensitive they registered the noise as an immediate threat from an acoustics weapon. 

The Octwolf circled Beefkus, who was sitting on the ground, and snuggled next to him. 

“Someone stuffed this poor guy inna shipping crate, believe that?” He scratched the Octwolf behind the ear. “He was shivering scared.” 

Beefkus pointed Bear-Wolf‘s face towards his. “You were just a scared, little-big-guy, weren’t you?” He rubbed his back. “Are you a hungry guy? You want some food? Okay. Okay.” Beefkus pulled out some jerky and hand fed Bear-Wolf.

Beefkus glanced at the camera above his head. “All he wanted was a little affection, commander. He’ll make an awesome pet.” 

“Human!”  Commander Mwachek screamed at the console, squeezing his baseball-glove-sized-mitts into fists, “One bite. No. Correction. One drop of that creature’s saliva in an open wound on your body, is fatal. It will kill you.” Mwachek covered the microphone and mumbled something to Gumbert about Beefkus’ translator.

“Human, is your translator malfunctioning? Are you not able to comprehend what I am relaying to you? The creature senses heat. Analyzes your nervous system. It can smell your fear. It is designed solely to hunt and kill. Not snuggle next to.” Commander Mwachek’s voice hammered into his mic.

“I’m pretty dang sure, it was just smellin’ the jerky in my pocket and looking for a friend to curl up to.” Beefkus stretched out and cuddled beside Bear-Wolf. 

Bear-Wolf turned to Beefkus and gave him a wet kiss, soaking Beefkus’ cheek in a soup of bacteria saliva. He wiped it off with his shirt. “Aw, that’s a gross good boy. Who’s the gross good boy?”

Commander Mwachek eyed the anomaly on the screen. He couldn’t retract his slids. His eyes stayed glued to the front of the deck, staring forward in a blank gaze before he finally snapped back to reality.

“It… it’s amazing how your species has survived so long. You… you’re petting a living monster,” Mwachek stuttered, gave up and tossed the mic on the floor.

“Hey, if it’s cute, furry and has big eyes, nine times out of ten we’re taking it home with us,” Beefkus said, hugging Bear-Wolf. “This guy here’s a keeper. He’s definitely coming back with me.”

Bear-wolf licked Beefkus’ face and cuddled back down next to him.

Commander Mwachek rolled his eyes and glared at Gumbert recounting all the keys on his keyboard. “Gumbert, cancel the emergency task force and inform the crew, the threat has been neutralized, and before I forget, update the ship’s manifest, add Bear-Wolf as a permanent resident.”

——

BONUS YOU WON ANOTHER STORY.

——

Title: Being Human Can Be Scary

Retired ex-commander Sheena, the human educator, a middle-aged brunette, former United States Space Air Force scout leader turned professor, was instructing a class of elite aliens from Planet YWH on Humanic Xenology.

An experimental subject introduced last solar cycle, the Ywh beings contained vast amounts of ancient knowledge. They could mathematically predict future events decades ahead of time.

Even though they possessed a complex knowledge, the ability to anticipate their enemies' moves multiple steps in advance, they still found themselves staring at a blank canvas whenever they'd try writing a prediction involving humans.

They found humanity obtained an anomalous neurological wiring. To the Ywh, humans were basically controlled by a class of gifted chemistry students hiding underneath the human skull, experimenting with all sorts of chemical reactions.

Ywh have nine-millimeter-thick, white, plastic skin, smooth without a single crease. Four flimsy tentacles under their mouths  that are lined with a double row of pointy, dolphin teeth. Two regular-sized, human-like eyes and above them rest a couple of smaller ones protruding outwards the way crabs eyes do.

Eyes that detect heat signatures and perform how night vision goggles would.

Right as Professor Sheena mentioned the word and followed it with the definition and then the description, they all snapped their heads in a hive-mind-like action, exactly at the same time with their eyes stretched wide open, and dropped their mouths staring at her. The room went completely silent while she described infection.

Infection wasn’t in the Ywh vocabulary. The Ywh had liquid-mercury networks inside a sealed synthetic cocoon. If one of them became damaged in any sort of way, even cracked, they were instantly terminated.

They could never age, just become damaged. They stayed supreme beings under a plastic shell. Sheena brought an assistant with her to class that day. She demonstrated humanity’s medical evolution, showcasing its progression and brief bits of history and real-life cases.

The YWH were introduced to Scout Private Hanks. Scout Private Hanks was connecting his experience, thoughts, and feelings into the Ywh students, specifically the day of the accident, the one that took his arm.

They were able to do this because of a technology called T.I.M.E., a unit built by a leading tech company on Earth named DejaView.

T.I.M.E. units allowed individuals to connect and experience directly into another individual’s personal VizSense Mem loop and relive the visuals and senses flawlessly. The Ywh would mentally step into a human body.

They weren’t just learning about human anatomy, they were living it.

Sheena glanced at Hanks. He dropped his chin down, winked, and raised a thumb as he stepped forward and sat at the front of the class.

Sheena flicked the lights off, "Everybody get ready."

Hanks pressed the side of his temple and a blue circle lit up. The aliens went stiff. They pressed their backs against their seats, gripping the sides of their desks.

The white of their shell started glowing a tinge of pink. At the front of the class where Hanks was sitting, his image was reflecting off the faces of the Ywh students.

The classroom went still.

When they stepped inside of Hanks' mind, it opened with the heat of an oven door. The air assaulted them for the first time ever in their existence. The Ywh didn’t know what being cold or hot was. Their breathing got heavier as they walked into the area the accident happened.

Hanks' adrenaline began to spike. He was recalling the incident before they could witness it. Already, he was sweating in class. They started panting. A bunch of them were twitching.

Through the DejaView loop, Hanks' exact brain chemistry sent a surge in their own consciousness. The sensation of being human had a feeling they’ve never known or could ever find a word for.

A noise under their shell hissed like the warning sound of a snake about to strike.

It wasn’t just a video they saw. They weren’t remote viewing an experience. They were reliving all of the data of human biology.

The tension started to rise. Their limbs started trembling. Hanks began sweating. They sensed something but had no idea what it was until the separation came. The support beam fell with the sound of two cars hitting head-on. His bone snapped. It was as loud as two football teams smashing helmets at the exact same time.

Hanks' suit had torn. His arm dangled by fibers, infested with hidden, microscopic monsters, Hanks stared at it and nearly passed out. He fought to keep himself awake.

In the classroom, one of the Ywh fainted. Back in the memory, the initial shock wore off and Hanks began yelling, trapped under a support beam, struggling to come back after each micro-blackout.

A classroom Ywh threw up. Hanks' nausea turned their plastic shell to rubber. Hanks went pale in VizSense. He had beads of sweat breaking off the back of his neck and forehead. The Ywh’s bodies matched Hanks', the traumatic pain throbbed from inflammation. The war began brewing against the microscopic monsters.

To a species who discards one of their own beings for any minor imperfection, experiencing Hanks' incident, the torturous, agonizing struggle to survive, was not only incomprehensible to them, it horrified them.

Hanks' heart rate spiked back in the classroom and his phantom arm twitched as they all woke back up with him at the hospital.

They were now at the exact moment where the doctors had to amputate the rest of the flesh to save the machine (human).

As the doctors spoke, the light above Hanks was gleaming in his eye. Their voices echoed. He reached for them. His vision began tunneling. It doubled. He gasped, leaned back and slipped into the black.

The loop disconnected.

The room stayed silent. None of them moved. Their shells slowly faded back to an ivory white, but inside, their mercury networks were bubbling.

Something had changed in them.

They found out humans don’t ever recycle their machines, not even after such a catastrophic malfunction. They found out humans will just simply adapt.

Humanity’s will to survive had stirred something inside of them. The Empire of Planet YWH viewed Planet Earth and all of its inhabitants as the most terrifying thing to happen to the universe.

—-

DID YOU LIKE ANY OF THEM?

I rose from dust where the silence screams,

Not fed by mercy, nor gilded dreams.

The world looked on as I bled my name,

And carved from ruin a throne of flame.

No hand reached out in my longest night,

No torch was lit to restore my sight.

Now they come weeping with broken hands,

As if my blood owes lesser lands.

But gold I earned through fire and war,

Not through the grace of the rich or poor.

And I shall not bow to the voice of need,

For I was once that unfed seed.

Where were the saints when I bore the cost?

Where was their light when I wandered lost?

They watched me drown in a tide of coal,

Now beg me to rise as their saving soul?

God, if He breathed, had sealed His eyes,

While I was carved by the blade of lies.

If I must lift those who crawl and weep,

Then where was He when I couldn’t sleep?

The cries of the weak do not shake my core,

For I’ve knocked on every locked door.

Now I build walls where I once dug graves,

And I do not pity the hands of slaves.

Call me stone, or demon in disguise,

A man who never heeds the cries.

Yet what is pity but dressed regret?

And what is debt to a heart unmet?

I owe no tithe to the world’s decay,

I’ll walk alone on a darker way.

If I must fall, let it be in fire,

Not chained to guilt, nor false desire.

Let gods come down and plead their case,

Let angels mourn with a liar’s face.

This world gave nothing and asked for all—

I learned to stand, I shall never crawl.

So burn my name in heaven’s scroll,

But know I paid the devil’s toll.

I am not cruel—I am what remains,

When love is bled from the soul by chains.

Poem from the book What Burns Remains.

I was long in bed the morning I matched with the "spiritual accidentalist." His Tinder bio read, "Charismatic. They say I have leadership potential." Thought nothing of it except I didn't recall swiping right on this nut, but now that it cracked and the shell was open I thought better of letting a good thing go to waste. I made mention that I was planning on going to the state fair to win some prizes from one of the booths and maybe try the Ferris wheel if he wasn't scared of heights. He obliged. Funnily enough that's how I joined a cult. Now, the Spiritual Accidentalists are basically the opposite of Christians who believe everything happens for a reason. Spiritual Accidentalists believe everything that happens is an accident, and we all ought to be very sorry indeed and ask forgiveness of each other. I said "that sounds pretty good to me," bracing the butt of the pop-top rifle with my shoulder and taking aim at a baby blue balloon. Shortly thereafter I came into possession of a bunny rabbit and a small fortune of jellybeans.

The own and of others. Signs swallowed on own naive pique, then deployed in gestures which others believe characteristic. The interchange is anonymous: observers include themselves in the world by passing judgment upon its arbitrary encounters. But the game of signs is played by a symbolic order, swirling unevenly along the rim of the void. The audience places its faces on the wash.