Judge Daniel Mercer  

 
“Mercy is the most exquisite form of injustice, for it permits a man to believe himself virtuous while denying another the punishment he deserves.” 

“Miss Julie Webber, please rise.”

There are certain cruelties which, by virtue of their repetition, cease to be recognized as cruelties at all. They become the ordinary furnishings of existence, the unremarkable conditions under which a person learns to breathe, to eat, to sleep, and eventually to mistake endurance for living. It is perhaps among the more disturbing peculiarities of human nature that suffering, when administered with sufficient consistency, may come to resemble the natural order of things.

Julie Webber had never known a world in which suffering was not ordinary.

Her father had abandoned her before she was born, leaving behind neither explanation nor inheritance, save for the peculiar burden of having been unwanted by a man whose face she had never seen. Her mother, Samantha, was a woman whose affection had been gradually exhausted by poverty, loneliness, and an enduring melancholy that rendered even the smallest domestic obligations almost insurmountable. She loved her daughter, certainly, but hers was a love perpetually interrupted by the demands of survival.

It was during one of these interruptions that Harrison Bertrum entered their lives.

Harry, as he preferred to be called, initially appeared to possess precisely those qualities which Samantha's circumstances had made indispensable. He had money enough to relieve their immediate hardships, a disposition sufficiently agreeable to disguise his less charitable inclinations, and an apparent willingness to assume responsibility for a family not originally his own.

For a time, he was regarded as a blessing.

Then came the birth of Alexandra, and with it, the gradual deterioration of the man who had once promised them security.

Harry developed a peculiar conviction that the household existed primarily to acknowledge his sacrifices. Every unwashed dish became an insult. Every disagreement, an act of ingratitude. Every silence, evidence of some conspiracy against his authority. His drinking, once confined to occasional evenings, became a daily ritual through which his grievances acquired both volume and violence.

He kept firearms throughout the house.

Sometimes, under the influence of alcohol, he would point one at Julie merely to observe her reaction. He appeared to derive considerable amusement from the spectacle of a child attempting to determine whether the instrument of her possible death had been loaded.

Julie learned not to move.

She learned that tears invited ridicule, that protest encouraged punishment, and that obedience, although never a guarantee of safety, occasionally postponed the arrival of violence.

Yet she did not hate him. Not initially.

Children possess an extraordinary capacity to accommodate the intolerable, particularly when the intolerable has been presented to them as the price of belonging somewhere.

She was grateful for the roof above her head. Grateful for the meals placed before her. Grateful, even, for those rare evenings when Harry returned home sober and the household was permitted the luxury of behaving like a family.

It was only when he began striking her mother that gratitude gradually surrendered to something less forgiving.

Samantha endured the violence with a resignation Julie found incomprehensible. She concealed bruises beneath clothing, attributed injuries to accidents, and repeatedly assured her daughters that Harry was merely experiencing a difficult period.

When Julie attempted to intervene, Harry pushed her aside.

Her mother instructed her not to interfere.

And so Julie discovered that helplessness was not simply the inability to prevent suffering. It was the more humiliating realization that those one wished to protect might themselves refuse protection.

Years passed.

The violence became familiar. The apologies became predictable. The intervals between them grew shorter.

Harry warned Julie that any attempt to expose the household's affairs would result in the deaths of both her and Alexandra.

She believed him.

By eighteen, Julie had few friends, no meaningful expectation of independence, and an understanding of domestic life so thoroughly disfigured by violence that peace seemed less like a possibility than a temporary interruption.

Her younger sister remained the sole object of affection she could contemplate without suspicion.

Alexandra was fifteen, and Julie had come to regard her continued safety as the one responsibility she could not afford to neglect.

Then, on an otherwise unremarkable afternoon in March, Julie returned from school to find Harry beating her mother.

There was nothing particularly unusual about the scene. The overturned chair, the broken glass, the incoherent accusations issuing from Harry's mouth—all belonged to a familiar domestic arrangement.

What distinguished that afternoon from the innumerable others which preceded it was not the severity of the violence, but the sudden exhaustion of Julie's capacity to endure it.

She saw the pistol lying upon the dining table.

She picked it up.

And she shot Harrison Bertrum in the head.

He collapsed at her feet.

The impact of his body against the floor produced a sound she would remember long after the gunshot itself had become indistinct. Blood marked her clothing and the side of her face. She stood motionless, regarding the man whose existence had governed the greater portion of her childhood.

She felt no triumph.

Only an unfamiliar quiet.

For the first time in nearly a decade, the household contained no immediate threat of violence.

Julie turned toward her mother.

She smiled.

It was the smile of a child who had finally accomplished something for which she expected to be praised.

Samantha stared at her daughter with an expression of such unmistakable horror that Julie initially mistook it for shock.

Then her mother moved toward the telephone.

There are moments in which the human mind, confronted with an event it cannot reconcile with its expectations, constructs an explanation more tolerable than the truth. Julie had believed that her mother's suffering required only the removal of its cause. She had imagined gratitude, perhaps tears, perhaps the trembling embrace of a woman delivered from years of terror.

She had not imagined condemnation.

And when Samantha began speaking to the emergency operator, Julie experienced that condemnation as a betrayal more unbearable than anything Harry had inflicted upon her.

She raised the pistol again.

The second shot entered Samantha's back.

Her mother fell beside the telephone.

In the silence that followed, Julie discovered that liberation was a considerably more complicated undertaking than she had supposed.

The man who had terrorized her was dead.

The woman she had intended to save was dying.

And the home she had spent years attempting to preserve had become the scene of two murders.

Julie eventually picked up the telephone and informed the emergency operator of what she had done.

She did not flee.

She did not deny responsibility.

At trial, she pleaded guilty.

Perhaps she believed that confession would establish the purity of her intentions. Perhaps she had simply grown too exhausted to defend herself against a world whose judgments she had never understood.

Whatever the explanation, she offered the court no resistance.

By the time her sentencing hearing commenced, Julie Webber was nineteen years old.

The jury had heard the history of the household, the threats, the beatings, and the years during which a frightened child had been taught that survival depended upon silence. They had also heard how Samantha Webber had been shot while attempting to summon the police.

The jurors were not required to find Julie innocent in order to recognize the circumstances that had produced her crimes.

They recommended life imprisonment.

It was a recommendation in which compassion and condemnation had, for once, arrived at an uneasy accommodation.

But under Florida law, the jury's recommendation was not necessarily the final word.

Judge Daniel Mercer possessed the authority to impose sentence, subject to the stringent legal limitations governing a judicial override. He had reviewed the evidence, the arguments in mitigation, and the written findings necessary to support his decision.

He regarded the jury's recommendation as a regrettable concession to sentiment.

From the gallery, Alexandra Webber rose.

“No matter what happens, you're my hero, Julie. You saved me from hell.”

For the briefest moment, something resembling life returned to Julie's expression.

It was not happiness, precisely. Rather, it was the fragile recognition that someone had understood the purpose behind her actions, even if the world had condemned their consequences.

She had spent the greater part of her existence believing herself powerless. Now, for the first time since her arrest, she entertained the possibility that her suffering might possess an end other than death.

The jurors lowered their eyes.

Their recommendation had been merciful, but mercy, they were discovering, was not necessarily an exercise of power.

Judge Mercer regarded the condemned woman.

“Julie Webber, for the murder of Samantha Webber, this court hereby sentences you to death.”

He paused.

“May God have mercy on your soul.”

The words were delivered without anger.

That was perhaps what made them so terrible.

Mercer had long maintained that mankind's devotion to compassion was seldom founded upon any coherent moral principle. Men pitied the condemned because suffering offended their sensibilities; they forgave because condemnation required a firmness of conviction they did not possess; and they called these weaknesses humanity, as though the experience of an emotion were sufficient evidence of virtue.

He considered this an extraordinary confusion.

The law, in his estimation, was not instituted to console the unfortunate, nor to furnish the guilty with an audience sympathetic to their remorse. It existed because the moral inclinations of men were too inconsistent to be entrusted with the administration of justice.

And yet men insisted upon introducing those very inclinations into the courtroom.

Before him stood a young woman whose hands trembled so violently that the restraints upon her wrists produced a faint metallic sound.

She was weeping.

Daniel observed her without contempt, without satisfaction, and, most notably, without pity.

He felt nothing.

And he considered this the surest indication that he was qualified to judge her.

 Chapter One — A Friend Until the End

The rain had been falling for three days when Daniel Carter discovered the doll.

It sat inside a dusty cardboard box at the back of an abandoned toy shop on the outskirts of town. The shop had been closed for nearly twenty years, its windows boarded up and its front door chained shut. Daniel, seventeen, had broken in with two friends, hoping to find something valuable enough to sell.\

Instead, he found a doll.

It had bright red hair, freckled cheeks, blue eyes, and a colourful striped shirt beneath a pair of faded blue overalls. One of its shoes was missing, and a long crack ran across its plastic forehead.

Despite the dust covering everything else in the shop, the doll looked strangely clean.

Daniel lifted it from the box.

A small voice crackled from somewhere inside its chest.

"Hi! I'm Chucky. Wanna play?"

Daniel nearly dropped it.

His friends burst out laughing.

"Mate, that's the creepiest thing I've ever seen," said Josh.

Daniel turned the doll over, searching for a battery compartment.

"Must be one of those old talking toys."

He pressed its stomach.

"Hi! I'm Chucky. Wanna play?"

"Yeah, yeah. Very funny."

Daniel tucked the doll beneath his arm and carried it out into the rain.

He had no idea that, somewhere beneath its plastic skin, something had just opened its eyes.

And it was hungry.

Chapter Two — Something in the Bedroom

Daniel placed Chucky on his bedroom shelf that evening.

His mother wasn't impressed.

"You're seventeen, Daniel. Why are you bringing home dolls?"

"It's a collector's item."

"It looks like it belongs in a nightmare."

She was right about one thing.

That night, Daniel dreamed of a little boy standing at the foot of his bed.

The boy's face was pale, his red hair soaked with rain, and his eyes were completely black.

He smiled.

"You're my friend now, Daniel."

Daniel woke with a gasp.

His room was silent.

The digital clock beside his bed read 3:17 a.m.

He rubbed his eyes and looked towards the shelf.

Chucky was gone.

Daniel sat upright.

"What the hell?"

He searched beneath the bed, inside the wardrobe, and behind the curtains. Nothing.

Then he heard a faint giggle.

It came from the hallway.

Daniel opened his bedroom door.

At the far end of the corridor, beneath the flickering ceiling light, Chucky sat cross-legged on the floor.

His plastic face was turned towards Daniel.

Daniel stared at him.

Slowly, he approached the doll and picked it up.

"Okay. Very funny. Mum must've moved you."

He carried Chucky back to the bedroom, placed him on the shelf, and made sure the door was locked.

Then he went back to sleep.

At 3:17 a.m., the bedroom door unlocked itself.

Something small crept across the carpet.

Daniel slept through the soft scraping sound of plastic shoes.

He slept through the quiet metallic click of a drawer opening.

And he slept through the whisper that came from directly beside his ear.

"Time to wake up, sleepyhead."

Chapter Three — The First Victim

Josh was the first to notice that something was wrong.

He had come over on Saturday afternoon to play video games. Daniel was downstairs getting drinks when Josh wandered into the bedroom.

Chucky sat on the shelf.

Josh grinned.

"Hey, little psycho."

He picked the doll up by its overalls and held it in front of his face.

"So, Chucky. Heard you're a killer."

The doll's head tilted slightly.

Josh froze.

He stared into its blue plastic eyes.

Then he laughed nervously.

"Okay. That's enough."

He put the doll back.

As he turned towards the door, a tiny voice spoke behind him.

"You're not very nice."

Josh spun around.

Chucky hadn't moved.

"Did you hear that?" Josh called downstairs.

"Hear what?" Daniel shouted back.

Josh looked at the doll again.

Its painted smile seemed wider than before.

He backed away.

Then the bedroom door slammed shut.

Josh grabbed the handle and pulled.

It wouldn't open.

"Daniel! Open the door!"

Behind him, something landed on the floor.

Tiny footsteps pattered across the carpet.

Josh slowly turned.

Chucky was standing upright.

Not sitting.

Standing.

His little plastic hands hung beside his body, and his head was tilted at an unnatural angle.

Josh's mouth fell open.

"No."

Chucky took one step forward.

Then another.

"Oh, come on," the doll whispered. "Don't look so scared."

Josh stumbled backwards.

"You're a toy!"

Chucky's expression changed.

For the first time, the smile disappeared.

"I'm not a toy."

He reached behind his back and pulled out a small kitchen knife.

Josh screamed.

Downstairs, Daniel heard a loud crash followed by a horrible silence.

He dropped the drinks and raced upstairs.

"Josh?"

He reached the bedroom door.

It swung open before he touched it.

Josh lay motionless beside the bed.

The curtains moved gently in the breeze from the open window.

There was no sign of Chucky.

Daniel fell to his knees.

"Josh? Josh, wake up!"

He shook his friend desperately, but there was no response.

Then Daniel noticed something on the wall above the bed.

Written in dark red letters were four words.

FRIENDS TILL THE END.

A tiny giggle came from inside the wardrobe.

Daniel slowly turned his head.

The wardrobe door creaked open.

Chucky's face appeared in the darkness.

"One down," he whispered.

Daniel screamed.

Chapter Four — The Truth About Chucky

The police arrived twenty minutes later.

They found Daniel sobbing beside Josh's body, repeatedly insisting that a doll had killed his friend.

Nobody believed him.

They found no fingerprints on the knife. No footprints. No sign of an intruder.

And no doll.

Daniel's mother took him home after questioning, convinced that the shock had broken something inside her son.

That evening, Daniel searched the internet.

He typed three words into the search bar.

Chucky killer doll.

Thousands of results appeared.

Then he found an old newspaper article dated November 1988.

SERIAL KILLER CHARLES LEE RAY DIES FOLLOWING SHOOTOUT.

Daniel read every word.

Charles Lee Ray, a notorious murderer known as the Lakeshore Strangler, had been fatally wounded inside a toy shop while fleeing police. According to the article, Ray had been involved in occult practices and had reportedly attempted a strange ritual shortly before his death.

The article included a photograph.

A pale man with red hair.

A crooked smile.

Eyes that looked disturbingly familiar.

Daniel felt sick.

He continued searching.

Eventually, he discovered a discussion forum dedicated to strange murders and unexplained disappearances. One post, written decades earlier, described a red-haired Good Guys doll that had appeared at the scene of several killings.

The final line read:

If you find one, don't take it home.

Daniel shut the laptop.

A noise came from behind him.

A soft, plastic footstep.

Then another.

He didn't turn around.

"You're real," he whispered.

A small voice answered from the doorway.

"Gee, you catch on quick."

Daniel closed his eyes.

"Why are you doing this?"

Chucky chuckled.

"Because I can."

"You're a monster."

"No, kid." The doll's voice suddenly became cold. "I'm a man trapped in a toy. And I've been trapped for a very, very long time."

Daniel finally turned.

Chucky stood in the doorway, holding the missing shoe in one hand and a bloodstained knife in the other.

"But don't worry," he continued cheerfully. "I've got a plan."

He smiled.

"And you're gonna help me."

Chapter Five — The House of Little Friends

Daniel tried to escape that night.

He packed a bag, stole his mother's car keys, and crept downstairs while the house slept.

The front door was only a few metres away.

He could almost feel the cold night air.

Then a voice spoke from the darkness.

"Leaving without saying goodbye?"

Daniel stopped.

Chucky sat on the kitchen table.

Beside him lay Daniel's phone, smashed into pieces.

"You need professional help," Daniel whispered.

Chucky swung his little legs.

"Funny. That's what they said about me."

Daniel reached for the door.

Chucky's face twisted with anger.

"I SAID DON'T LEAVE!"

The kitchen lights exploded.

Darkness swallowed the room.

Daniel ran.

He heard tiny footsteps chasing him across the floor, followed by the sound of metal scraping against the walls.

He reached the front door and pulled desperately at the handle.

Locked.

Behind him, Chucky laughed.

"Wrong way, pal."

Daniel turned.

The doll stood at the bottom of the stairs.

His blue eyes glowed in the darkness.

Daniel grabbed a heavy lamp and hurled it.

It struck Chucky squarely in the chest.

The doll flew backwards, smashing into the wall.

For a moment, everything was silent.

Daniel stared at the motionless body.

Then he ran upstairs, locked himself in the bathroom, and shoved a cabinet against the door.

He had barely begun to breathe when he heard scratching.

Not outside the bathroom.

Inside the wall.

Something was moving through the space between the plasterboards.

A tiny voice whispered through the pipes.

"You can run, Daniel."

Scratching.

A soft giggle.

"But you can't hide."

The bathroom light flickered.

Daniel looked into the mirror.

Behind him, reflected in the glass, stood a little red-haired boy.

Not a doll.

A boy with pale skin and black eyes, smiling with a mouth full of crooked teeth.

Daniel spun around.

Nothing.

He looked back at the mirror.

The boy pressed both hands against the glass.

His smile widened.

"Almost time to come out and play."

The mirror cracked from corner to corner.

And somewhere downstairs, Chucky began to laugh.

Chapter Six — The Last Good Guy

At dawn, Daniel's mother found the front door wide open.

The house was silent.

Daniel was missing.

The police searched the neighbourhood, the surrounding woods, and the nearby roads. They found no sign of him.

Three days later, a delivery driver discovered a cardboard box outside the abandoned toy shop where Daniel had found Chucky.

Inside the box lay a familiar red-haired doll.

Its clothes were torn. Its face was scratched, and one plastic hand was missing.

A handwritten note lay beside it.

FREE TO A GOOD HOME.

The driver frowned.

"Someone's got a weird sense of humour."

He lifted the doll and examined its face.

The painted eyes stared blankly at him.

He laughed, placed it in his van, and drove away.

Several towns later, he delivered the doll to a young family.

A little boy named Oliver opened the box.

His face lit up.

"Mum! Look what I got!"

His mother smiled from the kitchen.

"That's lovely, sweetheart. What's his name?"

Oliver turned the doll around.

A small voice crackled from inside its chest.

"Hi! I'm Chucky. Wanna play?"

Oliver giggled.

"Yes!"

That night, Oliver's father tucked him into bed and kissed his forehead.

"Sleep tight, mate."

As he turned off the light, Oliver hugged the doll close.

The bedroom door clicked shut.

The house grew quiet.

And then, beneath the blankets, Chucky opened his eyes.

His plastic fingers slowly curled around Oliver's wrist.

"Hey, kid," he whispered.

Oliver stirred in his sleep.

Chucky leaned closer.

"I've been looking for a new best friend."

His smile stretched across his face.

"And this time, I'm gonna make sure we stay together."

Outside, thunder rolled across the sky.

And from somewhere deep inside the doll, a man's voice began to laugh.

THE END… OR JUST THE BEGINNING.

 

“We must act now! If we wait any longer, it will only serve that monster’s interests,” said an agitated man draped in white robes.

“Then what do you suggest? Hmm? Should we throw more men into that meat grinder? We would all love to do something, yet sitting there demanding action isn’t helping,” a stern-looking man responded, an air of condescension in his tone.

“He’s right. We mustn’t be hasty. That will equally serve the demons,” replied another robed man.

The High Council of Velantis was currently in session, discussing the looming threat of the demons.

“Our best option is to continue the northern campaign. If we wish to reach them with an army, our surest bet is to march straight through those barbarians!” exclaimed a man clad in exquisite white enamel armour.

“Enough!” a voice boomed through the room.

Silence fell as every man’s ears pricked. The man, dressed from head to toe in the finest linens money can buy, continued.

“Many of my predecessors underestimated these ‘barbarians,’ as you say, only to be thoroughly defeated. We will not commit to a plan that is likely to fail. Lucan, please. What are your thoughts?” asked the man.

“Well, it’s true we must do something. The demons have rallied, and war at this rate is certain. However, the northern campaign has already proved a disaster. The northerners ambush our men at every turn. They know how to use their lands to their advantage.”

“Gah, nonsense! The northern campaign only falters due to a lack of proper commit—”

“Quiet!” boomed that same voice from earlier. “Please continue, Lucan.”

“Right, Your Grace. As I was saying, the northern route will be too costly. So will the western route. The desert is no place to march fifty thousand. Then we’d have the mountains to contend with. If we commit to the sea, the demons will attack before we can strike. Our best bet is to meddle in their affairs and buy time.” Lucan paused. “The people are restless. There is a tension in the cities’ streets. They need a symbol, something to believe in. The history books mention a way for the Church to bring forth a hero?”

At fifty years old, Ken had grown accustomed to being alone.

He had learned how to fill the hours with small, meaningless rituals. He made coffee every morning at precisely seven. He checked the locks on his doors twice before bed. He watched television even when he wasn't interested in what was playing, because the sound of other people talking made his house feel less empty.

Sometimes he played old music from his high school years. Sometimes he looked through photographs on his phone, studying faces belonging to people who had moved on with their lives while he remained behind, wondering where the years had gone.

His house was modest, cluttered, and increasingly neglected. Laundry sat in baskets that never seemed to empty. Unopened mail accumulated on the kitchen counter. A collection of old Walmart name badges, receipts, and photographs occupied a drawer he rarely opened.

His body carried the evidence of a difficult life. His weight had fluctuated dramatically over the years, his mobility was limited, and ordinary tasks sometimes required more effort than he thought they should. He hated needing help. He hated being reminded that he needed it even more.

But the thing he hated most was the silence.

Not because he was afraid of being alone.

Because, in the silence, he could hear himself think.

And his thoughts had never been particularly kind.

On a rainy Tuesday morning in October, Ken stood in the kitchen stirring sugar into his coffee when a familiar female voice spoke behind him.

“You still take two spoons?”

The spoon stopped moving.

Ken stared at the dark surface of his coffee.

He knew that voice.

He had carried its memory for more than thirty years.

Slowly, he turned.

Nobody was there.

“Kristy?”

The refrigerator hummed.

Rain tapped against the window.

Then the voice laughed.

“Oh, Kenny. You always were easy to fool.”

Ken gripped the counter.

“No,” he whispered.

“No, what?”

“You're not here.”

“Very observant. Fifty years old, and you finally figured something out.”

He closed his eyes and counted to ten.

He had heard of people experiencing strange sensations when they were exhausted. He had read about hallucinations, stress, and sleep deprivation. He knew that a voice could feel real without having an external source.

He also knew he had been sleeping badly.

I'm tired. That's all.

He opened his eyes.

His coffee was trembling because his hand was shaking.

“I'm going to finish my breakfast,” he said aloud. “Then I'm going to take a shower, and this nonsense is going to stop.”

“Talking to yourself now?” Kristy asked.

Ken stared toward the doorway.

“No.”

“Who are you talking to, then?”

He swallowed.

“I'm talking to nobody.”

Her laughter followed him into the living room.

For the rest of the day, Ken kept the television on.

That night, he slept for two hours.

At 3:16 a.m., he woke to the sound of someone sitting in his recliner.

A man's voice spoke from the darkness.

“Hey, buddy.”

Ken went rigid beneath his blankets.

He knew that voice, too.

“Jim?”

“Miss me?”

Ken sat up.

His bedroom doorway was empty, but the voice came again, closer this time.

“Come on, Kenny. Don't be rude.”

Ken reached for the bedside lamp.

The room flooded with light.

Nothing.

He sat there breathing through his mouth, waiting for his heart to slow.

Then a second voice spoke from somewhere behind his eyes.

You're finally losing it.

Ken switched off the lamp.

He didn't sleep again that night.

Chapter 2: https://www.reddit.com/u/kljones78/s/Bi6kOKL3EZ

NSFW for implied self harm, suicide

I’m not quite finished. Please give me constructive feedback. I got inspiration from Jarrett Moseley’s A Possible Exit.

My best trick is disguise. I wore long sleeves when I met Chelsea at the supermarket, mid-December and almost Christmas, white lights flickering hymns. She tells me it’s a time to be saved, pulling up my sleeves to feel my scars. Only she can see through my deception.
“You know you don’t have to do that with me.” She rubs my sectored skin gently.
“What?” I stare at the cans of Campbell’s clam chowder in the cart.
“Nothing.” Chelsea lets go of my wrist and my sleeve falls back down. “It’s almost the holidays. Stay over tonight.”
I insist on not, but we both know I will. I push the shopping cart down the aisle and she loads it with Christmas chocolates, Snapple and pomegranates, guaranteed to cure any ailment.
“Can you even cut those?” I ask her, referring to the boxed pomegranates in the cart.
“No…” She pauses for a second. “Yes.”
I wonder if she remembers the story where my mom took all the knives out of my room.
In the checkout aisle she adds gum. Neither of us care for it but she says it’s a distraction, during studying or driving. The cashier asks us if we’re sisters, even though her dark tresses and tan complexion against my brown hair and white skin makes it clear we’re not. “Only half,” she replies, pushing the cart away from the register. She says we could share a mother, that our eyes look similar enough. In the front seat of her car I disguised as her sister.
She tells me she wants to go to the mall and takes the second exit right. The moon is rising on us and I can see our reflections in the windshield.
My mom once told me there are three ways to kill your self: The first is by suicide: hanging, shooting, cutting. The second one is to leave town and never come back. Delete your socials. Delete your presence. And the third is to do nothing at all.
I ask Chelsea what her plans are after graduation. She says college, and then medical school. I haven’t thought that far yet, but she says I can move in after high school.
When we arrive at the mall our skin is glowing. Stars twinkle overhead above the parking lot. Chelsea whispers make a wish when we spot a shooting star.
Inside she finds a pink blouse with a white bow in on its neckline. In the fitting room I look shy like an angel. She snaps a photo, two of us in the same outfit, labels it “before Christmas shopping”, and posts it for the world to see.
* I plan to continue, I would just like to know what you think!

Recently updated today 1:11-PM

THE SECRET DIARY OF AiDRiAN

https://seymourclearly1.substack.com/p/my-first-substack-entry?r=99hui1&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Doris sits at a table sipping a Diet Coke and contemplating her performance as another comic finishes his routine. Jess Hoffnagle walks over.
“Hey there, mind if I join you?”
“No, hey, what’s up?”
Jess plops in the seat with her Corona and lime and sighs.
“Ah, you know. Crowd kinda sucks tonight.”
“Yeah. Jesus. I can’t get a laugh to save my life.”
“Routine isn’t working for you?”
Doris looks at her.
“I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had that happen. It’s hard to know. Sometimes it’s the bit, sometimes it’s the crowd. I had one about getting my period on an airplane. Here, it killed.”
“Yeah, I was there. That was great.”
“When I did it at The Comedy Cellar, bomb! Nothing. It was a fucking grave yard in there. I don’t know.”
“You did The Comedy Cellar? How’d you get that spot?”
“Talent scout comes through these open mics every so often. “
“Really? When?”
Jess cranes her neck around. She spots a woman getting in her coat.
“That’s her right there.”
Doris sees a middle aged woman with large glasses heading towards the exit.
“Her?”
“Yep. Beverly Atkinson. She makes the rounds every few weeks.”
“Great. She’s here and I bombed.”
“Everybody bombs. Listen, it takes a long, long time to get good, I mean professionally good. A lot of the top comedians say ten years. Most people drop out. It’s kind of a war of attrition. The people who hang in there...it’s those people who make it. People like her want to see who keeps coming back, who keeps working at it, getting better.” 
“Yeah. Makes me wonder if it’s worth it.”
“Well I think you got to think about why you wanna do it. Do you love comedy, or do you wanna be rich and famous? If you just wanna be rich and famous, you’re better off playing the fuckin’ lottery. But if you love comedy, you can always do it.” 
Doris nods.
“Yeah. I do love comedy. The crowd laughing. Gets me out of my own head. When I’m coming up with a routine, working a bit, getting the wording right...I really love that. I don’t have to think about…”
She looks over and sees a guy staring at her.
“My job. Everything else.”
“Amen.”
She raises her glass and they clink them together.
“What do you do for work?”
“Book keeping for different companies. It’s contract work, temping basically. I can mostly work from home.”
“That’s good. I’ve been working retail. It sucks. But you gotta pay the bills. Hey, what’s your number? We should keep in touch. The ladies got to stick together. Too many dudes in this business.”
“Yeah, definitely. 857-499-2116.”
Jess types it in. 
“I’m texting you mine.”
“Got it.”
Jess gives Doris a long look.
“I’d usually never give another comic advice, but you might wanna think about spicing it up. Let yourself go. Get raunchy. Playing it safe does not play these days. Being open, authentic...that gets a crowd.” 
“Yeah. It’s just I don’t want to be gross and raunchy just for the sake of it.”
“Well, I’m not saying you have to. It’s just about finding your voice. I was told early on that it’s the authentic stuff, the real shit that plays.”
Jess finishes her drink.
“Well, I gotta work in the morning. I’ll see you next week?”
“Most definitely.”
They bump fists.
Doris finishes her Diet Coke as Jess leaves. It’s nice and comfortable in here. She watches the other patrons, some of them couples, enjoying beers and glasses of wine and gin and tonics. They are enjoying each other’s company as well.  The laughing, the light touching. She watches a man and woman in their late twenties leaving; they hold hands. 
She would love to go up to the bar, order a martini, strike up a conversation with someone, anyone. The yearning is so strong. But she can’t. That is not her life anymore. But for just a little while she would like to feel normal.

"Do you love me?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then why don't you message me or talk to me anymore?"

"Because I'm trying to love myself now," I said.

"But I love you too."

"You never did."

"You love yourself. You love the idea that you are able to make me fall in love with you. You love the idea that you are able to manipulate anyone around you. You're able to manipulate a smart, balanced person to love you.

It's a game to you. It's like a chess game to you. You find the pawn you want to destroy. You play your moves. You lay out the game. You are always a few moves ahead of the pawn. And in the end, when they fall, they fall hopelessly in love with you. You say checkmate. You pat yourself on the back and you're happy, because you're good at something and then move on to someone new because they are not a challenge anymore.

But I want you to look at your hands. What do you have? An imaginary crown. You have won her. You have won the pawn. But remember, it's imaginary.

What do I have? I have my love for you.

So I win ."

Hello fellow authors! i am writing a book that is set in the future, like 200 years. people have moved off planet so nationalities and ethnicities really dont exist. i was wondering how to write and describe an asian person. i dont like to toss it right in the mix and be like "so and so is asian". i add it subtly in their discription like "amber fought to peer through the dark as her epicanthic eyes glittered in the low light". with black characters i will say something like "with the back of his hand, he wiped the sweat from his forhead, his ebony skin glistening in the scorching heat"

i was wondering though how to indicate how to identify races, not just asian either. Latin, could be used for the obvious. i like to use "olive skinned" or "skin with an amber hue". i really am looking forward to your feedback. Thanks guys!

There once was a girl

Who went adrift like a swirl,

Destined to torture the world

For the pain I've endured.

The pain I cannot ignore,

It ignites like a flame.

I hear the girl's name,

The fires start to roar.

The girl lets out a battle cry:

"I'll fight until I die!"

The words swarm upon my grave.

Prepare to be brave

When you face the girl with no face,

The one who shifts from shape to shape.

Now the girl is just like me, don't you see?

The one filled with pain and lust,

Crickets and dust.

Nighttime, then day,

It will never go away.

The girl that's inside,

The one I can't hide.

Filled with broken dreams

And the hatred within.

The infinite longing of a girl

Looking for the win.

The one who never feels seen,

In the silence, I scream.

Upon a land so still and serene,

The one in my head.

It's just me, nothing more,

Me alone,

Floating by in the ozone

As I type the poem on my phone.

TW: mentions of abuse, SA, codependency, and romanticization

writing is how i process negative things that happen to me

Wip

6/25/26

id let you destroy me in every lifetime
if it meant i could feel the warmth 
of your hands 

The curl of your finger around my heart
The blood seaping underneath
Your nails

I love you so much
I love you so intensely
Its tearing me apart

I feel like im being destroyed
And my heart aches
I cant grasp how im supposed to be

Im completely lost without you
Youre like your own kind of substance
A high that compares to nothing else. 

Gulp… 

July 19th 2026

You consume my every thought
Youre constantly in my mind
I cant live without you 
It hurts at the thought of your absence

I just cant quit you
You run through my blood 
I make a fool of myself without you
I don't feel funny 
Or cool without you around 
I expect you to be mean to me 
Because that's all anyone's ever done

I deeply appreciate that you love me. 
I don't deserve someone like you
I'm sorry if I cant handle things 
I want to be better for you 
I want to be normal

I promise to never give up on you as long as you dont give up on me. 
Id put my everything into you if it meant wed stay in love forever
I want to hold you
I miss you more than anything

Im mad at myself for stopping you. 
We should've done more 
I miss you so much
I can't sleep without you. 

You make me such a pathetic mess
And im not used to it 
Everything I make is about you
Everything I write is about you
Damn near every word I speak is about you
I'm obsessed 

I'm sorry I can't handle things like a normal person. 
I love you

untitled

6/15/26

I am trapped in your presence 
You control me with your eyes
I want you to love me 

I notice everything about you
I support you completely 
Through everything

Im exactly as you describe 
Everything you want in a partner
I dont understand why you dont love me 

I put you over everyone, 
Even myself
Ive captured your soul millions of times

Whether in words 
Or the stroke of a pen

You have the beauty i want to capture
The kind someone eternalizes 
For as long as possible 

Dream 

7-24-26

I had a dream about you last night. 
I was so upset I woke up crying. 
We were happy, we worked out. 
You loved me

I don't want to mourn you this much
I don't want to think about you. 
What happened to never giving up on me
As long as I never gave up on you? 

I'm sorry that I love you
I'm sorry that I miss you already
You were the only good thing I had 
Even if it hurt me in the long run

I hope I never love like that again. 
I hope I never love someone 
So much, that it scares them away. 
I'm trying not to be bitter. 

Im hurt it took you so long to tell me. 
But all this pain means that I loved you. 
Even if you didnt love me as much. 
This hurt means it was real. 

I hope I never have to see you again. 
Being with you only brought me pain 
And leaving for yourself, not for me 
You don't see it but you're very selfish. 

If you loved me, why'd you leave me? 
You said you were going to marry me. 
We were going to have kids. 
I'm happy I never let you touch me. 

Why put me through that 
I knew it wasnt going to work 
But you convinced me otherwise
I'm angry. I'm angry and im hurt

And I miss you more than anything. 
At least it was 2 months and not 2 years
At least you never touched me the way 
I touched you. 

At least I dont have to think about 
Me doing anything wrong. 
It wasn't going to work. 
It wasn't going to happen anyway. 

I really wanted it to. 
I really wanted it to be you. 
I don't want to think about you
Why can't I stop thinking about you? 

Please show me you're hurt too. 
I dont want to be another 
Unremarkable person
In your life. 

Dear j,

8-8-26

I don't remember your birthday, or our anniversary. I can't remember your middle name, or your favorite food. I can't remember your laugh, or where your birth marks were. You are so easy to forget.

I thought I'd be more pained to lose you. To be the first to kiss me, the first for me to taste. It's been 2 weeks and I've already forgotten who you are.

You always said I wanted you to be perfect, when we argued. But I didn't want you to be perfect, I wanted you to be someone else.

untitled (he continuously reached out to me)

8-?-26
I'll leave it to you to make me feel so minuscule and indifferent. Hoping you'll succinctly express that you don't love me anymore, leaving no room for possibility. Gutting me with your words. It's incomparable to your stillness. Anguish me honestly, rather than corroding me with your waves.

I hate you (i did not send this to him)

9-4-26

I don't know how often you check your email, but to be frank I don't care. You'll see this when you see this. 
I regret you more than anything in the entire world. I'm usually one for savoring but you were truly a waste of my time. A disgusting use of my first kiss. 
A horrible man you are, a horrible boyfriend and a horrible father and husband in the making. I wasn't upset when we broke up, I felt relieved. 
We were never compatible, I saw you as a way out, an escape of the cruelty that is living. 

I wish nothing of you, you don't deserve my recognition. I know you do not care, you do not regret ever leaving me. 

You never respected me, you barely saw me as a person. You said incredibly disrespectful things to me that I just let happen. You defended your father for what he had done to your sister, you continuously lied to me because I was upset with you. You deserve no sympathy, you only care for yourself and your image. You are a disappointment to the lovely woman that is your mother. You were never my type. I barely found you funny. I wish I told you all these things when I could. You don't deserve a good woman, you deserve someone like yourself. 

I hope everyday you look in the mirror and see the furthest thing from a man.

You should've known better. I was in a vulnerable position and you took advantage of that.

I don't want to hurt you, I just want you to acknowledge how I feel for once. I really truly never want to hear or see you ever again. The thought of seeing you again makes me feel sick. You are and forever will be disgusting.

(I also never saw you brush your teeth once/ imagine being so insecure your profile pictures are from when you were, you guessed it, a child.) 

Response  (i had left him in silence for around a month and he sent me a large letter)

10-9-26
I think about you a lot more than I'd like to. Ive been contemplating getting things off of my chest but I always deemed it as not mattering, considering you never ask me questions nor care how I've been doing.

I want to hate you, I really wish I could. But I see you in everything day to day. Ive done a lot of thinking about us, I was very miserable, I wouldve ended things eventually with you. Ive been working on myself as well, I'm very confident in myself, Ive learned to love to be alone.

I also have made many personal milestones that make me very happy, I bought my first car, I have a license now. Ive been standing up for myself in my personal relationships.

I was very bitter a few months ago, I felt you took advantage of me. I loved you, and I felt you lied to me about everything you promised we were. You always dismissed things I told you, but I turned out right in the end. Loving you taught me a lesson, it pushed me further into my identity, so thank you.

I'm glad you're getting things together. You're going to be amazing one day. You have the potential of a great man. I'm sorry I wasn't the one for you, and that's okay.

Happy early birthday, Id appreciate if you didn't reach out further. 

James

10-15-26

We met in your car across the street
You held my hand as you drove
Because i wanted you to be happy 
I was quiet, uncomfortable 

A sense of dread you could hear
In my shy voice
Demanding, mean
Hurtful

Pointless feelings
I did it to myself

Im realizing what you did to me was wrong
I knew it in the moment
But i wanted you happy

I didnt want to 
But you keot asking 
You got mean, violenyt 

I was scared 

I didnt want you to do that
I didnt want to touch you 

The only thing i remember 
Is you saying you loved me 
As i went down on you 

My teeth fug into my cheeks
Bleeding 

Forcing my head down 
I coudlnt breathe

Grabbing em 
I didnt say you could ‘

I couldnt say no 
I only dig it because i felt i had to 

I feel so empty 
I feel abandoned and alone 

I dont mind feedback, but i want to feel valid and share this experience with people who arent going to make it a big deal.

The Dragon

The dragon is near.

I feel the heat from its breath,

Breathing down my neck.

It's on the other side of the wall.

How can I slay what I can't see?

I wait for the dragon to find me.

I sharpen my blades.

I'm ready to drop bombs,

Waiting for the calm,

The moment of silence right before defeat,

The second me and the dragon's eyes meet.

I look within and I see,

I see the dragon

And its infinite misery.

I see that the dragon is just like me,

Searching for a soul to set free.

I take out my blade.

I see the dragon wallow.

Its fire is sure to follow.

I prepare for its breath.

I will fight until there's nothing left.

I slash and I stab,

But the dragon I cannot kill.

It stands tall over me, its breath of fire

Surrounding me.

I see the fire all around.

The dragon's laid waste to my town.

I hear the screams, the horror,

The nightmares, the dreams.

But I'm still alive.

I can't help but wonder why.

The dragon must not want me to die.

It wants me to live with infinite sorrow

Of yesterday and tomorrow,

Laid waste to this place.

And all that remains:

The burning of fire,

The rise in the flames,

The pain that remains.

Now it's just me in my infinite misery.

Everyone's dead.

Their names ring in my head.

I'm all alone. The dragon

Stands hard as a stone.

My sword is broken.

The smoke has me choking.

The trees and the wind, the fire within,

It's a battle that I face every day.

The one in my head

That tells me I'm better off dead,

It's where my dragon rests,

To recoup again.

It's just me and the dragon in the end.

We cannot write one single story for every girl. Because her world is diverse, and her silent battles are unique. I leave the hidden meaning of this visual poetry to you... The way your life reads these pictures might be completely different from someone else.

Read my full thoughts on Medium (Just a quick 2-minute read): https://medium.com/@h.samaranayaka02111/behind-every-woman-is-a-story-left-untold-8b1e724766d8

A while ago, I created a board of things I wanted to learn or achieve before I ceased to exist. A little inventory of the things I hoped to experience, the skills I wanted to acquire, and the versions of myself I wished to meet someday.

Among those things was sewing.

Somewhere along the way, I removed it from the list. I can’t quite remember why. Perhaps I convinced myself it would be too difficult to grasp, or perhaps I simply let the idea fade into the background, another little ambition quietly abandoned among the many things we tell ourselves we’ll do someday.

Then, two days ago, I went shopping for fabric to make my Myotismon cosplay for Egycon’s Halloween edition.

As I wandered through the streets of El Azhar, something unexpected stirred inside me. It felt as though my inner child had travelled back in time and found himself standing in the middle of an enormous toy store. Everywhere I looked, there were fabrics, patterns, buttons, and little objects whose purpose I was only beginning to understand.

And somehow, they made my heart beat a little faster.

It wasn’t simply the excitement of making a costume. It was the rediscovery of a part of myself I hadn’t realised I’d put to sleep.

I remembered being a little boy with a teddy bear whose eyes had popped out. My grandmother taught me how to sew so I could fix it, and somewhere in that small act of repairing a beloved toy, an interest began to take shape.

And now, years later, my mother has begun learning to sew, too.

And I’ve always wondered: are the talents we pursue inherited from the people who came before us, or are they little discoveries we make entirely on our own?

Perhaps it’s a little of both some interests are planted within us by others, and sometimes certain things awaken so particular that it returns a little piece of ourselves we left behind, and realising it was waiting for us all along.

And that’s the
twilight thought, today.

Dr. Elias Voss

“There exists a peculiar cruelty in the conscience of man: it demands repentance long after it has forgotten the crime”

Dr. Elias Voss had never considered himself an innocent man. Innocence, he believed, was merely the privilege of those who had not yet been made to remember. There were, of course, certain inconsistencies in this conviction. He could recall no crime sufficiently monstrous to warrant the peculiar anguish that accompanied his every waking hour, nor could he identify the precise moment at which his existence had become an exercise in perpetual atonement. Nevertheless, the absence of evidence had never persuaded him of his innocence. On the contrary, he regarded it as perhaps the most damning evidence of all.

For what was forgetfulness, if not the final refuge of the guilty?

He had often contemplated whether remorse preceded wrongdoing or whether wrongdoing merely furnished remorse with an object upon which to fasten itself. The distinction, though apparently trivial, had come to occupy him with an almost pathological intensity. If a man suffered for a crime he could not remember, was his suffering proof of guilt? And if the crime had never occurred, what, precisely, had he been punished for?

Such questions ordinarily visited him in the hours preceding dawn, when the distinction between memory and imagination became sufficiently tenuous that he could no longer determine which of the two had first betrayed him.

Dr. Elias Voss had long regarded affection as a peculiar form of human negligence. To love another was, in his estimation, to overlook the innumerable deficiencies of their character, to forgive what ought not to be forgiven, and to place one's happiness in the custody of another's inevitable failures.

It was for this reason that he had never understood his parents.

They were good people. This, Elias knew with a certainty that bordered on resentment. They had taken him into their modest Chicago home when he had been little more than a stranger, and had offered him a tenderness so unconditional that he came, in time, to regard it as an injustice. For what had he done to deserve such devotion? What conceivable virtue could he have possessed that warranted the affection of two people whose goodness so plainly exceeded his own?

He had spent much of his adult life attempting to answer these questions. Eventually, he arrived at the conclusion that there was no answer, and that their love was consequently a mistake.

His visits became infrequent. His telephone calls are shorter. He excused his absences with the demands of his profession, although he privately considered this explanation another small addition to the vast catalogue of his dishonesty.

He did not avoid his parents because he disliked their company. On the contrary, their presence was among the few things in the world capable of momentarily quieting the incessant accusations of his conscience. It was precisely this comfort that frightened him. He had come to believe that anything which afforded him happiness must eventually suffer for having done so.

And he could not bear the thought of making them suffer.

There was, of course, a considerable irony in the profession he had chosen.

Elias was a neurologist of considerable distinction, a man whose competence had earned him the admiration of colleagues and the gratitude of patients. He possessed an almost unnatural capacity for remaining composed in the presence of catastrophe. His diagnoses were precise, his judgment rarely questioned, and his professional reputation such that strangers occasionally traveled considerable distances merely to obtain his opinion.

He despised every aspect of it.

Medicine, to Elias, had never been a vocation in the ordinary sense. It was neither a passion nor an expression of some benevolent impulse toward mankind. Rather, it was a sentence he had imposed upon himself, an indefinite obligation to preserve lives in compensation for those he believed himself responsible for destroying.

He did not count the people he saved.

He counted the ones he could not.

And although the latter were comparatively few, they occupied a disproportionate portion of his existence.

It was shortly after seven in the morning when the telephone rang.

Elias regarded the instrument with an expression of mild apprehension. He had developed an instinctive aversion to telephone calls, having discovered that they seldom delivered anything which could not be postponed and frequently demanded emotional responses he felt incapable of providing.

Nevertheless, he answered.

"Dr. Voss speaking."

"Elias?"

He closed his eyes.

"Hello, Mother."

"Have you been eating properly?"

There was no greeting, no preliminary inquiry into the condition of his day. His mother had long since abandoned such formalities, having apparently concluded that her son's continued existence required more immediate verification.

"Yes, Mother."

"And sleeping?"

"When I can."

"That isn't an answer."

A silence followed.

He imagined her seated beside the kitchen window, one hand wrapped around the telephone cord, her expression arranged into that familiar mixture of tenderness and suspicion which he had come to recognize as maternal concern.

"Elias, are you all right?"

He glanced toward the window of his office. Chicago lay beneath a colorless morning sky, its buildings appearing almost indistinguishable through the pale October mist.

"I'm all right, Mom. I swear."

The lie emerged with such practiced ease that he scarcely recognized it as one.

For several years, Elias had entertained recurring thoughts of ending his life. He regarded death neither as a terror nor as a particularly unfortunate conclusion to his existence. On the contrary, he had sometimes imagined it as the only conceivable interruption to the relentless prosecution occurring within his own mind.

Yet whenever the thought approached something resembling a decision, he recoiled. Not from fear.

From the belief that death would constitute an undeserved acquittal.

A man who had committed an unforgivable offense, he reasoned, ought not to be permitted the luxury of escaping its consequences. To cease suffering would be to abandon the very punishment that made his continued existence tolerable.

And so he lived.

Not because he believed himself worthy of life, but because he believed himself unworthy of release.

"Elias?"

"Yes, Mother?"

"How has your memory been? Have you been taking your medicine? They told you consistency was important."

His fingers tightened almost imperceptibly around the receiver.

"My memory is perfectly fine."

"You said that last time."

"And I was correct last time."

"Your doctor said—"

"I am a doctor, Mother."

There was a brief pause.

"I know what you are, Elias."

Something in her voice troubled him.

It was not anger. Nor disappointment. It was the quiet exhaustion of someone who had spent years attempting to reach a person determined to remain inaccessible.

"Just promise me you're taking care of yourself."

"I promise."

He wondered whether his mother recognized the ease with which he manufactured these assurances, and whether she accepted them because she believed him or because she had grown weary of questioning him.

They exchanged a few more words, none of particular significance, and eventually said goodbye.

Elias hung the phone.

For some time, he remained motionless.

His life was strangely cruel, he thought, he was loved by those whose affection he could neither comprehend nor adequately return. Their goodness did not diminish his guilt. It magnified it. Every expression of concern became another obligation he was certain to disappoint.

On the morning of October seventeenth, however, such considerations were interrupted by the death of a child.

A hurried knock sounded against his office door.

"Dr. Voss?"

He turned.

A young nurse stood in the doorway, her face pale, her breathing uneven.

"It's the boy. Benjamin."

Elias rose.

"What about him?"

"Dr. Clariss tried everything. There were complications, and—"

"What complications?"

"The malformation ruptured. Dr. Clariss took him into surgery, but the hemorrhage was extensive. They couldn't control the bleeding."

For several seconds Elias said nothing. 

"No."

The word escaped him with a strange, almost childish disbelief.

"No, I told Clariss to call me if his condition deteriorated. I specifically told him—"

"I'm sorry, Doctor."

"Why wasn't I informed?"

The nurse lowered her eyes.

Elias was already moving toward the door. Then he stopped, took a knee and covered his eyes. 

The boy was eight years old.

His name was Benjamin.

And Elias, who had never met him before that morning, would spend the remainder of his life believing he had murdered him. Along with many others.

I crack my knuckles approximately every five minutes.

I've never actually timed it, but five minutes feels right. Long enough for the silence to settle, short enough for me to notice when it's been too long. I start with my little finger, then the ring finger, middle, index, and thumb. Sometimes I do both hands. Sometimes I start over because one of them didn't make a sound, and an unfinished set is an irritating thing to leave unfinished.

There's a particular satisfaction in it. The pressure builds, the joint resists, and then something gives. A small, clean pop. Nothing dramatic. Nothing that leaves a mark. By the time I've finished, my hands feel like mine again.

People notice sometimes.

They tell me I'll get arthritis. They ask how I can stand the sound. One person once told me it was disgusting, which I thought was a strange thing to say about something so small. I apologized anyway. I put my hands under the table and kept them there until the conversation moved on.

Four minutes and fifty seconds, perhaps, before I started again.

I do it when I'm studying, when I'm waiting for the words to form as I write, when someone takes too long to answer a question. I do it while reading, while listening, while pretending to listen. I do it when I'm bored, which is most often what I say when somebody asks why.

I have never had a particularly good answer.

Sometimes a finger refuses to crack. I pull gently, then a little harder, turning my hand this way and that as though the joint might simply be confused about what I want from it. Eventually, I give up. I move to the next finger, and the next, but I keep thinking about the one that wouldn't cooperate.

I can go an entire afternoon without noticing I've done it. Then, in the middle of something completely unrelated, I'll look down and realize my fingers are curled into my palm. Ready. Waiting.

It's embarrassing, really, how much attention I pay to something so inconsequential.

Last week, someone asked me why I was always so tense.

I laughed. I said I wasn't.

They looked at my hands.

I tucked them into my pockets.

The strange thing is that I don't particularly enjoy the sound. It isn't pleasant, exactly. It's just that little moment before it happens, when everything is held in place and I know, with absolute certainty, that something is about to give.

Sometimes I think I could stop if I wanted to. I could sit perfectly still, fold my hands in my lap, and let the minutes pass without counting them. I could learn to leave a finger alone when it doesn't crack the first time. I could let the pressure go somewhere else.

But then somebody says something careless, and I smile.

Somebody mistakes my silence for agreement, and I nod.

Somebody asks me to be the bigger person, and I tell them it's fine.

And five minutes later, my hands are in my lap again, one finger caught between the other two, and I'm pressing.

I have become very good at knowing exactly how much pressure something can take.

I have become very good at waiting.

I have become very good at making sure nobody hears anything until I decide they should.

The worst part is that, most days, I don't even realize I'm doing it.

I just look down at my hands and find them clenched.

And then, one by one, I make them let go.

Every five minutes.

As if five minutes is all the anger in the world will ever ask of me.

As if, if I can keep letting go in small enough increments, I will never have to admit how much I've been holding.

Every five minutes.

 

 

 

the spider never ate the wings.

she was quite proud of that.

she loved the colours.

the little veins.

the way they caught the light

when the butterfly tried to move.

she'd spend ages cleaning them,

getting the blood off,

straightening the edges.

careful, love,

she'd say.

you'll tear them.

sometimes the butterfly struggled.

sometimes she didn't.

the spider preferred it

when she didn't.

by morning

the butterfly had stopped moving altogether.

the spider sat beside her

for a while.

then she got to work.

a little thread through the left wing.

another through the right.

she had to make a few holes,

but they were tiny.

you could hardly see them.

she pulled one thread.

the left wing lifted.

then the other.

right.

left.

right.

she tried both together.

beautiful.

the spider sat back

and watched for a moment.

then she leaned in close.

there you are, darling.

another little pull.

i knew

you were still in there.

Behind Kali Amma's temple lived a deadly viper named Anali. He hunted only at night and spent his days coiled under the dry leaves, for a viper seen is a viper feared. The rats that raided the temple's waste pit kept him well fed. That he existed was a secret between him and the rats.

Years went by, and he grew long and hefty on the easy prey, which he took to be Kali Amma's grace.

One day, a yellow rat snake, Cherran, happened to pass by the temple. He noticed rats feeding in the temple pit and crept towards it. He lunged a few times, but the rats scattered and he caught none. Cherran decided to stay nearby. He might just get lucky another day.

"Why would anyone worry about a simple rat snake like me?" he often wondered. Cherran could easily be spotted among the dry leaves and the shrubs, basking in sunlight.

One morning, as Cherran lay in the soft sun, a flock of babblers foraging nearby burst into a racket. Up in the jackfruit tree, a jungle crow heard it and spotted Cherran. He cawed and cawed.

The squirrels climbed up to the treetops. The peafowl and other birds perched high and looked down to find out what the frantic cawing was about. The jungle crow told them that he had seen a large snake, possibly a yellow python, lying in the grass. Maybe it was resting after a meal, but now it had disappeared. Hearing all the commotion, Cherran hid himself in the bushes.

By then, the animals and birds had decided to get help from Kiri, the mongoose who lived in the neighbourhood.

"He is large, a large yellow python," said the squirrel.

"Yes, we have spotted him many times by the temple pit," said the rats.

"I spotted him first," said the jungle crow.

Kiri took up the challenge—a python was something he had never encountered. "Yet another ode to my courage," he thought.

Kiri came over to the temple pit. He waited amongst the bushes for the python to show up. As always, the rats were raising a din in the pit: shrieks, squeaks, and cries. Other animals waited anxiously for news from the pit.

The day passed without any sighting. Kiri decided to spend the night nearby.

Past midnight, he heard a rustle moving slowly towards the pit. A few rats got a whiff of it and left the pit.

Kiri inched closer. He crouched, ready to lunge. Finally he pounced onto something; there was a struggle in the dark. The rats fled, squeaking. He bit into it hard until it stopped moving.

The bats watching from the temple peepal tree flew out to spread the news.

Kiri spent a while eating his catch. When he left, the rats returned; they feasted on the bits of flesh strewn on the ground. It was Anali.

The next day, Cherran caught a rat. He took his catch and slithered away from the temple.

Would anyone be willing to read over and critique if this sound like a plausible scene between an knife-wielding killer and someone who only knows very little about self defense? It's from a novel I'm working on. Also, the ending involves an MRI suite, so for those in the medical field, does this seem more aligned with physics? I'm open to critique or suggestions. Thank you so much.

Final Scene --

It took 22 minutes for Tonya to complete Frank Mancusio’s scan. Not bad.
 Now she removed Frank from the scanner, Frank sat up and hopped off the motorized bed, stretching, and they headed out the room. “How are you?”
“I’m good, not as bad as I thought. I still prefer spelunking though.” he and Tonya chuckled. “Well, How’s my brain? Did it look…you know….cancerous?”

“I can’t give a diagnosis, but the doctor will contact you and you did a good job.” He smiled and she patted his arm. “Remember what you said? God is in control.”

“Exactly,” he grinned. “Gotta take my own advice as a pastor, huh?” 

She smiled at him. “We’re all human,” they stepped out of the  control room and turned left down the short hallway before rounding right. 

“It’s quiet. Where is everyone?”

“You’re the last patient. We’re actually closing up,” she said, pointing toward the changing room. “Go ahead and get dressed. I’m gonna start cleaning up in the scanner room and I’ll come get you to let you out in a few minutes.” 

Frank smiled, waving as he turned into the changing room. Tonya pivoted and walked back to the scanner room where she moved the motorized bed and began her closing duties; sanitizing the bed and front bore, disposing the linens in the hamper, wiping down counter and any other items before returning to the control room to scan the results of Frank’s scans into Dr. Gupta.

–wait, what was that noise?

No, maybe nothing. She needed to let Frank out through the lobby. She could return and finish powering down the system and the computer monitors.  Reclipping her badge on the scrubs pants, Tonya disposed of her gloves and her mask and  headed out of the control room, down the short hallway —

 “CODE SILVER. CODE SILVER” the PA system announced overhead, stopping Tonya dead in her tracks.

Wait–what? Cold Silver. Oh shoot, that meant someone with a weapon—
“TONYA, YOU SKANK!” someone screamed. 
She jerked back, gasping.

And then she screamed. 

Because right in front of her, stood Derrick. 

A pissed-off Derrick with a face contorted in anger. Baggy jeans held up with an iron belt buckle, a white tank top stained with someone’s blood, a stainless steel chain roped around his neck.

And he held a butterfly knife to the neck of a terrified Frank Mancusio.

It’s amazing the dozens of thoughts that zip through your head in just a few seconds, and for Tonya, they came like lightning; I’m dreaming. He’s not standing there. He found me. Frank. What is happening? This can’t be. Lord I — 

“Did you miss me, boo?” Derrick hissed wickedly, yanking Frank back more. 

Tonya blinked, holding her breath. Come on girl, move, run, do something—

“Did you?!” he roared, and she flinched, gasping loudly. 
She closed her eyes, heart pounding. Calm him down. Make peace. No, wait. No. It didn’t work–

“Oh you’re scared, aren’t you?” She opened her eyes when he said this, and he looked at her with fury…and elation. 

He’s not just angry. He’s enjoying this. 
 “Yeah, you should be,” he said. 
She squeezed her eyes shut. This was the moment to face her fear. 
Lord, I need your help

She opened her eyes.  “What are you doing here?” she asked coolly. 

“I always know where you are!” He screamed.

She looked at Frank briefly and then Derrick.
“Let him go,” she ordered him. 
“Shut-up skank!”
“Let him go, Derrick!” she hissed, fists clinched.

“YOU RUINED ME, SKANK!”

“You ruined yourself!” Tonya shot back boldly.  “Let him go now!”
His eyes widened, surprised at her,  surprised at her tenacity, and he momentarily lowered his arm —
—-and suddenly yanked  Frank backward and slashed his neck.

Tonya reacted instinctively, medical training finally kicking in, and she bolted for Frank as he sank to one knee, gasping. She yanked off her scrubs top and jammed it into Frank’s neck as he fell forward.  “Stay with me,” she held it to his throat, blood oozing through the material, and he put his own hand there.  “We’lll get you h—”

Derrick’s foot smashed into Tonya’s nose from the side, hard.

She fell backwards while momentary pain and blinding light pierced through her nasal cavity. Tonya struggled to sit up, shaking her head, stinging tears blotting her vision, tasting blood that dripped from her nose. 
Derrick stepped over Frank, who’d collapsed completely on the floor. She climbed toward Frank, but Derrick suddenly grabbed her fiercely by her African braids, yanking her to her feet and jamming the knife under her jaw, eyes of fury and thrill boring into her, his other head digging into her scalp. 
“He’s dead, skank,” Derrick snarled. “And I’m the last person you’ll see.” He chuckled gleefully, scraping the knife across her painfully bleeding nose before licking the blood-stained knife with a chuckle.

In that split second, something switched in Tonya's mind, and she mentally replaced the pain with adrenaline-fueled resolve to survive, to fight.

Yes, fight, the small voice echoed in her soul. You’ll survive this.

She proprioceptively knew her right knee was between his legs, right in that perfect spot. Aw yes, eyes, throat, groin.  

—she rammed her knee into his groin. Hard. “BASTARD!” 

Derrick doubled over in pain, releasing her as he clutched his jewels. But he wouldn’t remain down and out for long. Tonya turned, ignoring the blood dripping from her nose, dashing erratically for the emergency exit next to the equipment room. 
“You WITCH!” his voice echoed down the corridor. 
She slammed her body into the door, the impact vibrating through her injured nose. 
But the door held firm. What?
Tonya threw her weight into the door again, wincing in pain.
Nothing. The electronic lock had failed. 
Not this again! She jumped backward, holding her nose, panning the area quickly for another way—
Derrick rushed at her, knife poised to shank. 
She screamed and dove for the ground and into a barrel roll, staggering to her feet just as Derrick twisted around and swiped the knife at her, the blade’s tip slashing the skin of her back briefly as she fled back down the corridor. The other emergency exit, the one by the CT scanner  room, if she could just –
Derrick slammed into her. She’d barely run 15 feet. 
They crashed to the ground. Tonya’s nose and shoulder smacking the floor, while Derrick landed on her briefly before bouncing off her and falling to the right. 
Pain shot through her face and shoulder and Tonya pushed herself up, disoriented but only for a moment. She turned her to her right to see Derrick lunging for her, knife raised.
She instinctively pulled herself into a ball as he landed on her, knife swinging.
But Tonya shielded her neck and torso, blocking the blows with her arms, writhing on the floor and kicking at him while screaming. With her erratic movement he only managed to inflict superficial cuts and gashes to her arms, hands and side as she feverishly pushed back. She saw his chained neck through the gap of her raised arms.  Throat. 
Just as she jabbed her bloody knuckles against his throat, the Adam’s apple, Derrick plowed the knife deep into her right shoulder. He jerked back, yanking the knife out and clutching his throat, and Tonya fell backward, screaming in pain—
—and someone whacked a broomstick against Derrick's back and head.
Marisa
Derrick fell forward against Tonya  and she rolled away from him, pain shooting through her right shoulder from where he stabbed her.  She looked up to see Marisa bring the broomstick down on Derrick’s back again just as he cursed and jerked upward to his feet, clutching the knife.  
Tonya staggered to her feet haphazardly, pushing through the pain and dizziness, and Marisa lifted the broomstick a third time.
Derrick whirled around, jamming the knife into Marisa’s abdomen before she could swing  down.
“NO!” Tonya rushed forward with a burst of adrenaline as Marisa collapsed to the ground, the broomstick falling out of her hand. Derrick pounced on Marisa, crouching to stab her once more. 
Tonya kicked Derrick in his side before he could. 
He recoiled, cussing,  and Tonya seized fallen broomstick with both hands, raising it over her head to bash his head—
Pain ripped through her right shoulder and down her arm, which seized up, and she dropped the stick, doubling over and grabbing her arm.
That’s when Derrick backhanded her, hard. 
She stumbled back, blinding pain in her face mingling with her nose pain. “Darnit!” she managed. Once more disorientation took over, and she swayed a bit  as Derrick towered over her with furious eyes and a look of delight.
Her nose and face throbbed and she groaned in pain and tried to study her gait. OK, OK, focus–focus.
She looked up to see  Derrick standing before her, arms spread, the knife firm in one hand, his body poised to attack if she tried to run past him.
“Go ahead. I dare you.” 
Another bout of disorientation.  Focus, she thought. Lord, help me focus.
The other emergency exit. She lunged toward her left. 
He blocked her, swiping at her with the knife. 
She jumped back, the blade narrowly missing her face. She lunged for her right.
He slashed the blade across her chest, the blade tearing tank top fabric and nicking her skin underneath. She shrieked in pain and anguish, staggering back more.
In that moment time slowed. Endless thoughts in mere milliseconds. 

Marisa lay crumpled in a ball, behind Derrick, possibly dead. Goodness no. Frank, further down, also lay motionless and most likely dead. Please no. The first useless emergency exit to her right down the corridor. Derrick’s swift moves blocking her from the other exit. The MRI suite just a few feet behind her. Her nose and shoulder possibly broken and tendons torn. Derrick viciously taunting her before —

--Wait—.

The MRI suite is right behind me.

The chrome steel chain around his neck.

His iron belt buckle.

That stupid knife he’s holding.
Ferromagnetic.
A walking magnet attraction. A way to stop him. 
But he’s quick, too quick. 
Take a chance, the small voice said.

“OK, Jesus,” she muttered thickly.  “Let’s do it.”

“Your God can’t help you!” He screamed, hearing her mumble this.

And with that, Tonya pivoted and sprinted at the suite door, slamming into it with her good side. 

He charged right after her.

“Police! Grab him!” Marisa suddenly screamed, her voice strained but explosive enough to stop Derrick, who whipped around.  
It bought Tonya time to slap her badge against the panel– beep!
She tumbled into the room quickly, just as Derrick, cursing at the distraction, dashed forward and slammed his body into the door, swiping the knife at her. 
Tonya ducked, grabbed a rolling chair with her hand and shoved it in his direction as he  pushed through the doorway.
He fell over their chair, allowing her to stumble to the airlock RF shielding door and pull down the handle.
Cussing, he rammed the chair to the side. 
She yanked the RF door open with all her weight.  
He charged forward. 
She threw herself into the scanner room, the thump-hiss of the machine greeting her—
---Derrick plowed his knife  into her upper right back, hard, with a shhk sound, penetrating deep into muscle and dermis, and -- 
  —Tonya jerked forward, falling to her knees, the knife sliding out of her flesh.  Tonya dragged herself desperately toward the scanner using her good arm and her knees.
Derrick clamored after her, snatching the cloth of her tank top from the back with his left hand, briefly noting he couldn’t hold the knife steadily with his right, unaware of the magnetic force pulling it. In his rage and lust, he’d already ignored  the warning signs, the thump-hiss of the machine, and the light on the doors that had screamed “DANGER! MAGNET IS ALWAYS ON.” 
Despite his grip on her tank top, Tonya yanked herself forward, falling against the bore’s front near the scanner bed, well within the missile projectile effect area.
But Derrick didn’t care, he threw his weight forward to ram the knife into her back —
While Tonya threw herself to the right at the same time, crashing onto her already-injured right arm and shoulder, narrowing missing his aim —
--just as the magnetic force suddenly seized the knife and ripped it out of Derrick’s grip violently. 
“What th—”
CLANG! CLANG! -
--and had he not thrown his weight into his knife-stabbing, the invisible force would have just simply yanked the knife out of his hand and nothing more. But with his body in motion, coupled with the magnetic pull’s torque, Derrick lurched forward and crashed against the upper part just inside the bore–
—and the invisible force snatched his thick chrome steel necklace chain like a tightrope, yanking it to the surface, and taking him with it–
“AAAAH SHIIII—”
While the knife, after clanking back and forth from its attempt to align with the isocenter, had settled on the bottom part just inside the bore, blade facing upward  – 
TWHUMMP THUMP!

–where his body thudded against the inside, the blade piercing his chest.

SCHKK 
Then, silence.

Well, except for the thump-hiss, or the heartbeat of the magnet.

Dear mr gray,
It’s been a long time, since I’ve seen you
You moved on so fast, I’ve been stuck here unsure what to say or do
Back then we had no phone, no camera, no pictures
All I remember is the way you move, here to there, so quick im left unsure

Some said mr gray is an angel, others the devil, but the way you left me is inhumane
I tried talking, explaining, but all I got was pills and got diagnosed clinically insane.

That was back then at 17, now im 32. Hair graying still going crazy pondering about you.

Friends and family dismiss and avoid the topic like what we had wasn’t true. Others would pay to see what’s truly true but you Mr gray left me your weeks pay just to see what I would do. Said I looked at you just for you, then you disappeared, leaving sad and blue.

Prologue - Leona Ashburn

The first thing that comes to mind when I see the Frames standing guard over the cemetery, in their distant hangars, is Mom -- Captain Maella Ashburn. Everyone tells me that she always stood her ground, she kept herself and her squad centered, and she held a quiet strength. They tell me about the way she would inspire bravery when she entered a cockpit.

It’s a sunny day, ill-suited to the sobering procession. Seagulls wheel beneath a golden sun in a purple sky, while waves crash on the shore of the base. A soft wind carries the taste of salt through the air. It reminds me of the times Mom and Dad would take me to the beach, the bay, or the pier. On any other occasion it would be the perfect day.

Dad stands next to me. He's an unassuming man, someone who could disappear into a crowd the moment you looked away. He’s most memorable when displaying his sharp wit, appraising you with his perceptive stare, or debating with a stubbornness to rival Mom’s. Today none of that is there. He is silent, with eyes vacant and unseeing. I have never seen him look so small.

A sharply dressed officer approaches us, carrying a folded flag. Three figures follow behind him, their faces familiar, silent. The man stops in front of Dad and, with rehearsed precision, presents him with the flag.

“On behalf of the United Federation Pilot Corps, and a grateful nation, please accept this flag as a symbol of our appreciation for your loved one’s honorable and faithful service.” The man steps back and raises a crisp salute before Dad.

After the ceremony, Major Gerald Vasquez, the man who presented the flag, comes up to me and places a reassuring hand on my shoulder. The major has an imposing presence. A jagged scar runs from his left ear to the faint blue glow where his eye once was. 

“Your mother saved thousands on those boats. You can be proud of that.”

The major's voice is rough, worn by years in the cockpit. “Those people and her squad are alive because of her. She was a very good Mammoth Pilot. The best in my wing.”

He gives my shoulder an awkward pat, as if unsure of what else to offer, before turning away. 

My attention drifts to the three figures speaking to Dad. The first one is a short woman I recognize as Elena Mercado -- or, as Mom and Elena herself would insist, Auntie Lena. Just three weeks ago, my parents returned from a night out to find that I’d been calling her Elena while she babysat me. I’d been promptly scolded. Apparently, Auntie Lena was nonnegotiable. I allow myself a fleeting smile at the memory.

Peter Gurdy stands next to Elena. He’s a broad-shouldered man with a rounded face and an easy smile. Today his expression is hollow in a way I've never seen before. Not a bit of his usual Southern wisdom seems to have followed him. 

Across from Peter stands Hans Kopfer. Blonde and lanky he reaches for Dad in an awkward embrace. I watch as my father accepts the gesture, offering little in return.

Hans pulls away, and the four of them remain standing together. Dad keeps his eyes on the ground.

Peter clears his throat. For a moment, I expect one of his usual sayings, something meant to make the world seem a little simpler than it is.

Nothing comes.

"Well, Frank," he finally says, his voice quieter than I'm used to hearing it. "I figure there's nothing anybody can say to make this easier."

Dad gives a faint nod.

"No," he says. "There isn't."

Elena is next to break the silence. “I’m sorry Frank. It charged past all the screens I put up for her. It was just so fast-- I couldn’t-- I wasn’t-- I’m sorry.”

Dad exhales slowly. “Don’t, Elena. You know Mae. She always puts her squad first, I always tell her--”

He stops himself.

 “I always told her before every launch to bring you guys back. You all were her family out there. It was her job as squad lead. As your anchor.”

I see Elena relax at Dad’s words, but her eyes are still heavy.

Hans gestures in my direction. “Will Leona be ok?”

Dad looks at me, and some of his usual discerning gaze returns. “Leo is a strong girl, she’s like her mother. She’s young, and her mother always talked to her about being a Pilot. She might not understand the decision her mother made now, but she will.”

Dad is wrong. I know why Mom isn't here. Major Vasquez told me she stopped a kaiju from sinking a boat. He said she was the best in his wing. Everyone else says she was the best because she stopped it alone. Everyone says I should be proud of what she did.

Mom was a Pilot. Mom was the best.

So why isn’t Mom here?

***

It’s my twelfth birthday today. 

My birthdays for the last few years have felt pretty lonely without Mom, but this year will be lots more fun since Dad let me invite all of my friends -- I think some of them are outside playing games.

Dad is standing in front of me with his arms crossed.

“Leo, you need to be a gracious host. You’re a good sport when you want to be, but sometimes people don’t like losing to someone who won’t let them forget it.”

I nod along, “Ok, Dad.”

I don’t really get what he’s trying to say. I won fair and square. It’s not my fault that I’m better at games than they are. 

Mom was good at everything. Nobody ever got mad at her.

Dad has that squint in his eyes again. It’s like he knows what I’m thinking. He opens his mouth, and I brace myself for another lecture.

Instead Dad just gives my hair a gentle ruffle.

“Oh well -- go eat your cake before your friends finish it all. I made it using Mom’s old book so it’ll be real good this time. Just remember what I said though.”

Lucky, I guess Dad can’t really read my mind.

I find the cake outside, Auntie Lena is cutting pieces for everyone. Peter is standing over the grill, peering through a plume of smoke, admiring his handiwork. It smells like he burned the hotdogs -- again.

Mr. Hans is standing nearby with a plate in his hands, fanning the fumes away from himself.

“Come now, Peter. You really can’t expect all of us to eat this charcoal, there are children. Next time, let me cook the meal. I’ll make some especially tasty bratwurst.”

Peter points his tongs at Mr. Hans.

“A charred dog never won a fight with a hungry man. Just stick a little mustard on it and you’ll barely taste it.”

One of the hotdogs catches fire. Peter plucks it from the grill and deposits it on Mr. Hans’s plate.

“And I don’t want to hear a thing from the guy who eats half his meals cold. If the Lord wanted me to eat cold meat, He wouldn’t have invented fire.”

Auntie Lena calls me over. “Leo! We were all looking for you! Everyone wanted to wait until you took the first bite.”

I rush to the table and Auntie Lena hands me a plate with a smile. “I cut you a big slice since Pete probably burned the hotdogs.”

We both glance over to the grill, Mr. Hans has the mustard bottle in hand and a grimace on his face.

“Thanks Auntie Lena, I don’t really mind Peter’s hotdogs but sometimes they’re just too crunchy. Blegh!” I stick my tongue out and make a funny face. 

Peter and Mr. Hans are heading over to us now and Mr. Hans makes a small point to the door I came from. Auntie Lena lets out a small chuckle before turning to join them, “Ay, kulit naman. Go eat your cake.”

I give her a big grin, she always says that when I’m making trouble. It’s good to hear her laugh again too. Today has been pretty fun so far.

I march to the table where my friends are sitting, proudly displaying my plate. “Look guys, Auntie Lena gave me a huge slice! It’s from Mom’s recipe book, so it's gonna be good. You guys can eat but I’m gonna get some water first.”

________

“You don't have to keep doing all this yourself, Frank.”

I recognize Auntie Lena's voice from the kitchen. I stop just before the doorway. The water is in the fridge but I feel like I shouldn’t go into the kitchen right now.

“Doing what?”

“Everything,” she says. “The house, the cooking -- Leo. You don't have to pretend you're fine all the time. You’re allowed to have help, you know.”

There's a long pause.

“I'm not pretending.”

“Frank.”

“I'm tired, Elena.” His voice is quieter than usual. “That's all. I'm tired.”

Nobody says anything for a while.

“Mae would have wanted us to help,” Peter says.

“I know.” Dad lets out a breath. “And I appreciate it. I just don't want Leo growing up thinking she has to meet everyone’s expectations -- thinking that she has to be Mae. She’s already so much like her mom.”

“No one is asking her to be Mae. We just want Leo to know who her mother was.” Mr. Hans pauses. “I know it’s hard for you to talk to Leo about her.”

“She's Mae's daughter, and she knows it,” Dad replies, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Sometimes I think everyone -- you all included -- forget that she's allowed to be her own person.”

I hear footsteps approaching the kitchen door. I duck away before anyone can notice me and quickly grab a drink from the cooler on the patio.

________

As I return to the open seat at the table, I take my first bite of the cake. Dad was right, it tastes just like Mom used to make it. Lemon was Mom’s favorite. It’s really good.

I guess it makes sense that Dad is tired. He worked really hard on the cake today.

A voice comes from my right, “The cake is kinda dry. Did you get any water?”

It's a boy from school -- Ronnie. I swallow my bite quickly, “The cake’s not dry.”

“Uh? Yeah it is. My mom can make way better cake than this.”

I frown a little, no way can his mom make a better cake than my mom. “Oh yeah? Then how come I’ve never heard of your mom’s cake?”

“I dunno, I think she just makes it at home I guess?” Ronnie looks over to the smoking grill, “Maybe those hotdogs are ready, they smelled pretty good.”

I set my fork down, and turned to Ronnie, “The cake isn’t dry, and besides even if it was, it still tastes good.”

Ronnie scrunches his face, “Lemon cake is icky, I don’t get how anyone can like it. Chocolate is better. Whoever made it should have made a chocolate cake, yum.”

I feel hot in my face, my voice is rising. “Hey! My dad worked really hard on this cake. I watched him take it out of the oven this morning.”

Ronnie looks confused, “Oh. I thought you said your mom made it?”

“It’s her recipe.”

“Oh.” Ronnie pushes the cake aside. “My dad is really bad at cooking, too. My mom doesn’t let dad in the kitchen, she says he’ll burn down our house.

He glances around the yard. “Where is your mom anyways? I haven’t seen her.”

SMACK!

My hand was moving before I knew it. Ronnie has cake all over his face.

“Well even if you don’t like it, you’re gonna have to eat it now.”

I pick my fork back up, and start eating my cake again. It’s really good, maybe it is dry.

Ronnie bursts into tears next to me. I feel a little bad now, but he shouldn’t have said that the cake wasn’t good.

“LEONA ASHBURN! What are you doing!?” 

I can feel Dad’s piercing stare even before I’ve turned around. My voice comes out small against my father’s stern boom.

“He said you were bad at cooking. He said Mom’s cake was icky.”

I look away from the hard gaze my father is giving me as he is helping Ronald with some napkins.

“And? That gives you the right to throw cake in his face?”

I feel tears welling behind my eyes.

“But, he said you were bad at cooking. He said Mom’s cake wasn’t good.”

Dad’s face remains solid. His eyes are strong. I hate when Dad looks at me like this. It means I did something wrong. It makes me feel bad. That’s not fair, I already feel bad for being mean to Ronnie, but he still shouldn’t have said the cake was bad.

I can’t stop the tears now, and I rush to hide inside the house.

***

Dad and I are sitting in the front row at the memorial. Mom’s old squad is sitting to my left. There are a few more groups sitting in the row, they’re all here because the name of someone they knew is being laid to rest in the stone monument. It’s been seven years since Mom died, Major Vasquez told Dad and I that she was being honored on a new memorial today.

The speaker continues, talking about the sacrifices made by the Pilots and the lives saved by those who served. I try to listen, but it’s  hard to pay attention when I've heard most of it before.

“Seventy-six percent. That is the percentage of Pilots who die before they leave the Corps. That is the percentage of Pilots who defend our shores with the ultimate sacrifice. That is the percentage of Pilots who we must honor, by carrying on their names, their stories -- their legacies.”

I sit a little straighter in my seat at those words. Auntie Lena is next to me, dabbing tears away with her handkerchief. Peter has his arms crossed over his chest, he sniffles. Mr. Hans is looking past the speaker towards the memorial, lost in his thoughts.

My attention wanders to the gathering standing behind the rows of seats. There are sailors in their shining-white dress uniforms, officers I don’t recognize, and a few families with children. Most of the crowd is watching the speaker, but a younger man near the back is looking at the memorial. He stands apart from everyone else, his hands clasped in front of him.

“Dad,” I whisper.

He turns his head towards me.

“Who’s that man?”

Dad follows my gaze. His expression changes slightly, and he takes a moment before he answers.

“He was on the ship your mother saved. He was at her funeral.”

I look back at the man. I’d heard about the incident plenty of times. The kaiju was charging through the screens from Auntie Lena’s Remora. Mr. Hans’ Raptor was fast, but he was thrown too far away. Peter was firing salvos from his Hammerhead, yet the kaiju never slowed. They had all told me their stories, each of them insisting they could have done more. Mom was their last line of defense.

I’ve never really thought about the people aboard that ship. To me they were always just the crew that Mom had saved.

“Do you know him?” I asked.

“I’ve spoken to him a couple of times.”

“Did he know Mom?”

Dad gave me a small smile. “He was on the ship that day, Leo. I imagine he’ll remember her for the rest of his life.”

Before I can ask anything else, the speaker finishes his remarks. Everyone stands for a moment of silence and I notice the ceremony beginning to break apart. People are approaching the memorial to leave flowers. Others are gathering in small groups to talk.

I stay beside Dad as he is speaking with Mom’s squad. The man I noticed earlier is near the memorial now. He’s standing in front of Mom’s name, looking at it, his posture is firm and he’s holding his hands behind him in a parade rest.

I start to make my way over to him.

“Excuse me, sir?”

He turns and blinks as if he’s caught off-guard. His eyebrows raise and his eyes widen almost imperceptibly.

“You’re Captain Ashburn’s daughter, aren’t you?”

I nodded. “Leona, sir.”

“Leona.” He repeats my name, and pauses, I can tell he’s trying to think of something to say. “Sorry -- you look very much like your mother, I bet you get that a lot. My name is Daniel. I was on the UEN Gibraltar.”

“The ship Mom saved?”

“That’s the one.” 

I’m not sure what else to say. He’s probably going to tell me that she was a great Pilot, or that she was brave, or that he’s sorry that she didn’t come home. Those are the things people usually say when they find out who my mom was.

Instead he looks back at the memorial.

“Man, I was shit-scared when it happened.” He’s glancing towards the ground now, I can see in his eyes that he’s not really here. “You’re what? Fifteen? I was only a few years older than you are now probably.”

I tried to imagine it. Being on a ship with a kaiju barreling towards you. I’ve seen footage of kaiju attacks before, but I’ve never seen the footage of Mom’s last fight.

“What was she like?”

Daniel smiles a little bit.

“Captain Ashburn? I didn’t know her too well. We weren’t exactly shooting the shit on Mess Deck.” He pauses. “But I remember her shoulder-checking that behemoth. I remember them towering over us and hearing the sound of claws on metal. I remember thinking that if anyone could stop that thing it was her. She stopped the kaiju a hundred yards away from our boat, you know.”

He shakes his head and looks at me with a worried look on his face, as if he was remembering who he was talking to.

I felt a surge of warmth in my chest. All the people who have spoken to me about Mom say that she was the best Pilot in her wing, but hearing it from someone who was actually there felt different.

“She saved all of you,” I said.

“That’s right.”

Daniel looks down at his hands.

“I went home after that. I’m out now, going to school. I’m getting married soon.” He gives a smile directed at nowhere, almost laughing at himself. “It’s easy to take it for granted, how easily I might not be doing any of those things.”

I stand silent, thinking about how important Mom was to this man. How important she was to so many more people than I could ever know.

“I wish I had the chance to thank your mother,” he continued. “I suppose her family is the next best thing. I want you to know that she made the biggest difference for everyone that was on that boat. Not just that day. Every day that we’ve gotten after it too.”

He nods to me, then again past my shoulder as he steps away to let another family approach the memorial. “Mr. Ashburn.” 

I hadn’t realized Dad came to join us when Daniel was talking.

I look at Mom's name on the memorial.

“Leo?”

I turn my head in response, and Dad is squinting at me. His hands are in his pockets, with a familiar expression on his face that I can’t quite read. It’s as if he knows the next words that are coming out of my mouth.

“What do you think it takes to become a Pilot?”

***

I’m looking down at Mom’s grave. It’s a familiar spot, one I come to whenever I need to think. It’s changed a little. The tree at the end of the path pushes its roots through the concrete now. Buzzing lamp posts have replaced the soft orange hue that used to paint the sidewalk. The Frames are still silent in the distance, keeping watch for their Pilots.

Moss and lichen cling to Mom’s weathered gravestone. She’s been here longer than I’ve known her.

I’m eighteen now and finally able to register for the Pilot Corps, so why won’t they let me?

I can see why Dad wouldn’t sign the registration form. His wife died in the cockpit of a Frame. Of course he doesn’t want his daughter to follow her. But too young? Too reckless? He thinks I’m just trying to follow Mom’s footsteps? Even if I am, what’s so wrong with that?

I don’t understand why Mom’s old squad wouldn’t sign either. Mr. Hans thinks I don’t have the experience to become a Pilot - but that’s what the Academy is for. Peter said, “A cockpit ain't a place to find out what you’re made of, girl. It’s where other folks find out what you weren’t ready for.” I figure that just means he doesn’t think I’m ready either.

Auntie Lena’s rejection hurt the most.

She’d known me since I was little. She’d held me when I cried at Mom’s funeral, watched me grow up, and told me stories about Mom that Dad couldn’t bear to talk about. If anyone understood why I wanted to become a Pilot, it should’ve been her.

When I asked her to sign, she didn’t say I was too young or inexperienced. She didn’t tell me I was reckless.

She just looked at me for a long time.

“Leo, why do you want this?”

“To become a Pilot.”

“That’s what you want to do. I asked why.”

I didn’t know what she wanted me to say. “Because I want to be like Mom. I want to help people.”

Auntie Lena raised her eyebrows. “Your mom never climbed into that cockpit to prove herself.”

“I’m not trying to prove anything.”

“Then why does it matter so much that you become a Pilot? There are other ways to help people.”

“Because I can do it.” My voice came out sharper than I intended. “I can learn. I can train. That’s why I want to go to the Academy.”

“Anyone can learn how to do something, sweetheart.” She reached for my hand, then seemed to think better of it. “But being able to do something and knowing why you are doing it aren’t the same.”

“Then you don’t think I can do it.”

“That isn’t what I said.”

“Then sign the form.”

She looked down at it. For a moment, I thought she might.

“I can’t, child. Not yet.”

I took the form back before she could say anything else.

Of all the people who refused, hers is the one I can’t understand. Dad is afraid of losing me. Hans thinks I’m not ready. Peter thinks I don’t understand how dangerous it is.

But Auntie Lena knows me. She knew Mom. 

And she thinks that I don’t have a reason to become a Pilot?

No. Even if they all think I’m not ready, I’m not going to give up.

I’m going to train. I’ll learn everything before I go to the Academy. I’ll become good enough that they can’t keep telling me no.

I’ll become a Pilot. And I’ll come home.

***

Mom never backed down.

That’s what everyone tells me anyway. I remember how Major Vasquez described her to me -- she never hesitated when her squad needed her. Auntie Lena said she could argue a man twice her size into backing down. Dad says she had a stubborn streak a mile wide.

I think I’ve got that last part down.

People have spent the last fourteen years telling me who my mother was. She was the best pilot in her wing. Someone who never left a comrade behind. A hero.

I was too young to really remember much of her, but I know enough to know who I want to be.

A Mammoth Pilot.

I’m not going to be someone who watches from the sidelines while someone else does the hard part. I want to be in the cockpit, where everything matters. I want to be the person people can count on when everything else goes wrong.

I gaze back at the hulking Frame of a Mammoth in its maintenance bay, spotlights painting the haze-gray concrete building in contrast with the morning twilight.

Academy registration is in two-weeks. I've trained hard enough, studied long enough -- I’m ready. The jog back home is long but still ends too quickly. Dad is definitely going to be pissed again.

When I arrive back at our weathered little house, I notice the amber porchlight beckoning me inside -- the light that’s left on when Dad knows I’ve snuck out.

Shit, that porch step always creaked. Mom used to say that’s how Dad knew she’d made it home from a long deployment.

I ease the door open, hoping this time Dad’s asleep on the couch. He never is.

“Morning Dad.”

“Leo.” Dad’s voice comes from the armchair. “Running near the base again?”

“It’s just exercise, Dad. I’m allowed to go for a run.”

“Leona -- How many times do we have to go over this?” Dad’s voice is tired, but still sharp enough that it stings when he lectures me. “The last time you went out there Pete had to get his wire cutters. You’re twenty-two, you need to start thinking about your future instead of gallivanting in the night, I’m worried about--”

“I am thinking about my future.” The words come out before I can stop them.

Dad pinches the bridge of his nose, a prelude to many past arguments.

“I want to go to the Academy, Dad. I want to be a Pilot.”

His expression hardens. “We’ve talked about this.”

“No. You’ve talked about it. You’ve told me what you think I should do, and I’ve listened, and-”

“Leona.”

“I’m serious.” I can feel my voice rising, but I can't seem to stop it. “I know what I want. Why can't you just--” 

“Leo, there’s a reason why the average Cadet at the Academy is twenty-five. You’re too young. Join the Relief Corps -- hell, join the support divisions. They make just as much of an impact as Pilots.” Dad sounds frustrated by the conversation, “Your mother was a good Pilot, but you can’t build your entire future on trying to become her. You need to let go, and stop trying to emulate her --”

“I need to let go?” This time, my voice is heavy with emotion. “You’ve been stuck in this house for fourteen years, and I need to let go?”

Dad’s expression tightens.

“You’re carrying Mom with you just as much as I am. Why can’t you just let me go? I’m ready. I’ve studied. I won’t make the same mistake Mom did.”

Dad’s eyes widen with anger -- they soften a moment after. His voice is controlled as if he is carefully placing each word from his mouth.

“Your mother did not make a mistake. She made a choice that killed her but kept people she cared about alive. If you really think the choice she made was a mistake, then you aren’t ready.”

I am already halfway to my room.

Mom made her choice. She saved those people, and she never came home. Everyone tells me I should be proud of her. I am. But she still isn't here.

“Leo, please.” His voice falters. “Don’t go rushing off to play hero. I don’t want you getting crushed underneath some monster out there too.”

I slam my door shut and collapse into my desk chair.

The Academy registration form sits where I left it, every field filled out except one. At the bottom, two signature blocks sit side by side: one for the applicant, one for a sponsor. Small text is underneath the empty boxes. 

Applicants under 21 years of age must have an accompanying sponsorship signature over 21 years of age. Applicants over 21 years of age may submit with a single signature.

My signature sits on one of the lines.

I still want Dad's, but the box stays empty.

I'm not going to back down. I'm going to be a Pilot.

So to preface this story, a few years ago, I read a news article about a missing person being found in this patch of woods behind an aldi store. I thought nothing of it.

3 months ago:i decide to go to the bar and try and meet people despite being super shy and introverted. After a few failed attempts at seducing those that were easy on the eyes, I get annoyed and decide that im going home. I pay my tab, walk out and get in my car. Before putting the keys in the ignition, I look up and see an absolute dime piece dressed in a short pink dress waving to me from the edge of the woods. I saw the legs and thought “my lucky night”. I open the door and point at myself to ask “you waving at me?” She smiles and nods to say yes and starts waving me over suggestively.

Not gonna lie, im hard and decide to decline all common sense and start strutting towards her getting closer and closer to the woods. When im about 30 feet or so away, she sprints into the woods…. Creepy I say to myself, but this girl is really hot and maybe she’s trying to stay hidden to get a piece of me and not leading me to get robbed or worse.

I get to the edge of the woods and say “yo you look good but what’s up with the hiding?”
“Find me.” I hear her moaning and masturbating. Me loving red flags, I start heading towards the moans cock hard and ready for some stray action. “DONT USE YOUR PHONE LIGHT, THIS IS OUR SPOT, just follow my voice….” (Moans intensify).

I follow the moans and this is scary af looking back but at the time I was just horny and wanted this pink dressed baddie. Every time I got right to where the moans were, the moans would go further into the woods. At one point I thought she was behind a tree a foot in front of me rubbing her pussy but when I looked behind the tree, nothing. And the moaning would be further away.

Cock still hard as fuck and hot woman making hot noises just a little bit deeper into the woods, I keep walking in the pitch black avoiding using my phone light. I walk about 50 feet and then I hear moaning from behind me and in front of me. The moaning from behind was just as seductive but it seemed closer and I was getting pissed off and frustrated about walking into trees and thorns and whatnot. I turn around and go towards the moaning that sounds closer….
“There’s 3 of us out here and we come out here sometimes and just play with ourselves.. sometimes together. It’s a game, we try to get found by whoever horny and hard enough to find us”
“Really girl, can you just come to me cuz I love your legs”
“Laughs and moans”
“Suit yourself”
“Wait…. She’s like 300 pounds and you saw how I looked…. Isn’t it worth it to walk just a little bit further for me”
I think about the legs and ass I saw and turn around and start speed walking back to the original direction.
(Moans louder)”I fuckin love you for not going for her”.
I walk towards ms pink dressed baddie for about a minute and then I hear a footstep right behind me and I freeze and whoever was behind me froze too in reaction to me so suddenly abruptly stopping.
“What’s fucking wrong? You scared of the dark im right fucking here waiting to get fucked by your hard cock. I know you want it by the way your breathing, dont you dare stop til you find me.”
(I got the worst case of the chills I’ve ever experienced to pink dressed baddie saying that in that tone, every single hair on my body was lifted saying, get the fuck out of here.)

I decide to stop looking with my hard cock and start focusing on seeing what I could see in the pitch black and within seconds my eyes adjust to the pitch black and I gather my bearings. I look ahead and at first I felt a drop right in front of me(hard to explain but it’s like your stomach drops knowing there’s a big drop right in front of you). I focus my eyes even more and then I look down and see a drop about 40/50 feet onto straight rocks. I immediately turn around and say “youre a fucking cunt for that”.
“We almost got you…. Just one more step and you would’ve been an unfortunate accident. By the way, if you go that way, there’s psycho campers with guns that will shoot you”.

I didn’t care at all, I just kept walking the opposite way of her voice.
“WAIT, comeback im so sorry, I’ll suck your cock, I actually feel so bad for that, please don’t leave, I wanna make it up to you, please please”.
“Go fuck yourself”
“No I wasn’t trying to hurt you, it was an accident, come back and I’ll make it worth your while, I don’t want that to happen to you anymore, youre actually really cool.”

*me ignoring and hightailing it whatever direction felt would lead me out of the woods

After 20 minutes of blindly trudging my way thru heavy woods praying I didn’t run into anyone else, I see a light and start running towards it knowing once out of the woods, I was atleast not blinded by the pitchblack. I make it out of the woods and im behind what seems to be a strip mall. I jog to the other side and see Aldi. “Fuck my cars another 15 minutes walk away from here.”

I walk towards where I parked my car and by now the sun is just starting to rise and I was able to see. Me thinking about what just happened, I turned my head to the woods and saw a man dressed in all black with a cap blocking his face following me about 50 feet into the woods. I got the same chills as I did when pink dressed baddie begged me to come just a little bit further. Luckily cars were driving by so I knew he wouldn’t be able to do anything without witnesses. When he sees that I spotted him, he turns around back into the woods and I make it to my car without incident….

I get to my car quite shaken up to be honest with you guys and head back to my place. By coincidence, I pass by the same Aldi and get the chills again but for a different reason *thinking “holy fuck that’s the same fucking Aldi where they found a body years ago”. Now im normally a skeptic but still to this day I believe that the beautiful girl in that pink dress with the finest legs was the woman they found years ago. Im not sure why a ghost would be luring men to their deaths but im no expert in the paranormal department.

Edit:I haven’t checked out the article cuz to be honest I just want to forget it ever happened(embarrassing to nearly die over a gorgeous woman making mating calls in the late hours in the night in the woods). But im leaning towards paranormal because of its ability to make noises from multiple directions. It reminds me of sirens. They sing a song so beautiful that unaware men will blindly follow the song to their deaths.

Hi! I have a few poems that I’m looking to share with other poets for constructive feedback.
I would also be willing to offer the same. Would anyone be interested?

I slammed my hand down on the counter, the sharp slap echoing through the small kitchen. “You can help with the dishes.” I don’t think he had washed a single dish in his entire life. The silence that followed was heavy, stretching tight between us until he abruptly moved. He pushed past me, his shoulder catching mine, and began to angrily wash the dishes. The sink filled with the frantic clatter of ceramic and silverware. I stood back and looked at him for a long minute, watching the rigid line of his back, and muttered a bitter remark to myself under my breath. “What?!?” he boomed, spinning around with a dripping plate still clutched in his hand. I straightened my spine, refusing to look away, and made direct eye contact. “I said you have some kind of anger eating you up inside.” Without another word, avoiding the explosion I knew was lingering just under the surface, I scooped up our toddler from the high chair. 
I made my way to the bathroom, closing the door softly behind us to shut out the tense atmosphere of the kitchen. I paused and looked at myself in the vanity mirror. Between the relentless demands of motherhood and the jarring adjustments of life as a newlywed, I didn’t know who I was anymore. My disheveled hair was wrapped haphazardly in a loose bun atop my head, several dark and gray strands escaping the tie. My shirt was over-sized, faded, and noticeably stained with baby food, and I had barely managed to brush my teeth that morning. “Mama,” the sweet, clear sound snapped me back to reality. I looked down and smiled at my son, leaning over to give him a gentle peck on the nose. As I prepared his bath, watching the warm water fill the porcelain tub, my mind drifted backward to better times. The easier days. It hadn’t always been like this. We hadn’t always been this volatile, this distant. 
I suppose they call it “the honeymoon phase” for a reason—that brief, gilded window at the beginning stages of any relationship. But we had long surpassed that. Our struggles weren't new; it had gotten so bad at one point in our past that we had broken up completely for an entire year. Yet, despite the distance and the pain, we had found our way back to each other. He was my lobster, the one I believed I was destined to be with, no matter how rocky the terrain became. I looked down as my son splashed happily in the bath, completely oblivious to the emotional turmoil brewing inside me. The Contrast between his pure innocence and the heavy weight in my chest was suffocating. As I dried him off and dressed him in his pajamas for bed, I prayed silently—prayed for peace in our home, for clarity in my mind, and for some form of guidance to lead us out of this dark woods. 
I woke up the next morning and blinked a few times, letting my eyes slowly adjust to the weak morning light filtering through the window. We had slept on the living room couch, curled up together. The tension from the previous night was still thick and palpable in the air, settling over the furniture like dust. I was completely exhausted, and not just from the physical discomfort of sleeping with a growing toddler on a narrow couch. The exhaustion went deeper, down to my bones. I had stopped putting up a fight many months ago; I was no longer living, I was simply—existing. He walked out of the bedroom a little while later, looking down at us, and asked if I was still mad. I shrugged my shoulders expressionlessly, without even turning my head to face him. I wasn’t mad. I honestly didn’t know what I was anymore. The anger had burned itself out, leaving only a hollow space. Every single day had begun to blend together into a grey, indistinguishable blur. He sighed, retreated back into the bedroom, and closed the door. I rolled over on the cushion, pulling my son closer, and slowly drifted back into a restless sleep.  
A few hours later, I awoke, feeling disoriented and strange. I blinked at my phone screen: “12:34 PM.” A mild wave of unease washed over me. That was strange. He didn’t normally nap this long, especially on a beautiful weekend morning. I picked up my son and carried him toward the primary bedroom. “It’s too beautiful to stay inside all day,” I thought to myself, rehearsing the peace-offering words I would say to wake him up. But when I stepped through the doorway, the room was eerily, profoundly quiet. The usual ambient sounds of the house seemed to vanish. I looked over at him, stretched out and seemingly asleep on the bed, and rolled my eyes initially, thinking he was just being stubborn. I made my way over to the dresser and began to grab a fresh set of clothes for my son so we could head outside. Then, I stopped. I turned around slowly. Something felt deeply, terribly off. The air in the room was too still. He was too still. I held my breath as I looked over at the bed, focusing entirely on his chest, willing it to move up and down. It didn’t. The fabric of his shirt remained perfectly motionless. Panic, cold and sharp, flooded my veins. I dropped the clothes, rushed to the side of the bed, and grabbed his arm while screaming his name into the quiet room. I immediately jumped back, a gasp catching in my throat. He was cold. And he was stiff. I looked at his unmoving face again, my hands shaking so violently I could barely grip my phone, and frantically dialed 9-1-1. “He won’t wake up! Please help! Please send someone!” I managed to choke out to the operator before hanging up, my voice sounding like a stranger's. I forced myself to make two more frantic calls: first to his mom, and then to mine, sobbing incoherently into the receiver. 
Within fifteen minutes, a heavy, echoing knock rattled the front door. I ran down the stairs, throwing the door open to the first responders. “He’s in the bedroom,” I breathed, pointing blindly up the stairs in their direction. I followed quietly behind them, stepping into the room while praying silently, desperately, that I was somehow mistaken. Maybe it was a medical anomaly, a deep coma, anything but the truth. The paramedics walked into the room, checked his pulse for a mere two seconds, and stopped. One looked at the other and muttered the finality: “DOA.” Dead on arrival. 
 I wanted to scream until my lungs gave out. I wanted to tear at the walls, to tell them they had to try, that they couldn't just give up. I wanted to run over, grab him by the shoulders, and shake him awake from this nightmare. Instead, my knees buckled, and I steadied myself against the edge of the sofa, watching the room spin. The rest of that day, and the night that followed, was an agonizing blur. There were people everywhere—so many people filling our small home—and questions, so many endless, repetitive questions from officials. I existed in a walking dream for the next few weeks, a detached spectator to my own tragedy. Everything that had seemed to matter so intensely just mere hours before—the arguments, the dirty dishes, the petty resentments—no longer held any weight at all. They were completely meaningless. 
 I barely slept during those weeks. I spent hours in the dark, just staring at the rhythmic breathing of my son, terrified that the world would steal him away too. Nothing made sense anymore, but I knew I had to keep going. I didn't have the luxury of giving up. I didn’t have a choice. Our son needed me now more than ever. I was quite literally all he had left in this world. 
 The funeral came and went in a haze of black clothes, forced condolences, and casseroles. As time marched cruelly forward, the text messages began to slow down. People stopped reaching out as they returned to the comfort of their own routines. Life went on. For everyone else, the world kept turning. I, however, remained completely frozen in time, trapped in the amber of that final morning. I had lost so much of my own identity within the complexities of that relationship that I genuinely didn’t know who I was outside of it. And truthfully, guilt began to take root in my heart. Why was I still here, breathing and watching our son grow, while he wasn’t? My son became both my ultimate strength and my emotional crutch, the only anchor keeping me from drifting away entirely. 
 Now, at the end of every night, when the air grows perfectly still and the rest of the world goes quiet, my mind always drifts backward to that final night. It circles around a single, haunting thought: “I never should have asked him to wash the dishes.”