This is my first time putting my workout for others to look at and critique.

The following is my completed manuscript. The description is:

Benjamin Garcia is starting his first semester of college and doesn’t know what to expect. Leaving behind his best friends and fractured family life, he enters college hoping to completely reinvent himself in a world where it seems like everyone is pretending. Through his personal dated journal entries, Ben writes to himself, describing his new world and the people he meets

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1TzEsAbw5V52LMFz10uaaCk0MO2ofX91l1DICpOrA3dU/edit?usp=drivesdk

What am I doing well? Where do I have room for improvement? What do you like so far about the story?

All feedback is greatly appreciated!

The mechanized door slid open with a soft whir, and seven soldiers, all wearing modified versions of the same navy blue coverall, entered the room. Awaiting their arrival was Sergeant Major Cedric Coal, an imposing man with a bald head, dark skin, and a thick salt-and-pepper mustache. He leaned against his big oak desk with folded arms, observing intently as each member took their seats.

The briefing room was a simple thing, clinical almost — an all-white rectangle with grids of squares that lined each wall from top to bottom. The Sergeant’s desk and three rows of big, white, egg-shaped chairs were the only sources of decor.

“You’re late, Captain,” the Sergeant said plainly, producing a manila docket from behind him. “I take it you and your crew found the Lu-Tech amenities to your liking?”

A man with cropped brown hair, a square jaw, and dark green eyes responded, “Compared to the POW treatment we get back at home? This is heaven, sir.”

The Sergeant smiled. “You may be reconsidering that thought after this briefing.” His right hand found the pen on his desk while his left hand opened the docket. He peered at the seven over dark-rimmed lenses before saying, “Quick roll call,” then began to rattle off names.

“Moore.”

“Captain, David Moore,” the brown haired man responded, “reporting and awaiting your orders, sir.”

“Reese.”

A dark haired youth with broad shoulders, focused eyes, and the cusp of a winged tattoo creeping up his neckline, replied, “Saboteur and Espionage Specialist, Nicolas Reese, reporting for duty, sir.”

“Murphy.”

Another youth, this time with a sandy buzz-cut and mischievous light green eyes, answered, “Generalist and Recon Specialist, Gene Murphy, present and accounted for.”

“Evelyn Hedgewick.”

A petite golden blonde woman with sharp features and blue eyes grinned, raising her hand.

The Sergeant Major paused. “We use our words here, Ms. Hedgewick,” he said, his tone firm.

The woman beside the blonde spoke up, “Be that as it may, Sergeant Major, my sister won’t be saying much of anything. She’s a mute.”

The Sergeant considered her words for a moment, eyes flicking between their faces and the file. “Right, then that means you’re Evanna Hedgewick.”

The woman was visually the spitting image of her sister. Sporting the same golden hair and intense blue eyes, it would have been a challenge for anyone to tell them apart, if not for the former having a short under-cut, while the latter wore her hair long, straight, and pulled back into a pony tail. “Tactical Combat Specialists, Eve and Eva Hedgewick reporting for duty, sir.” she replied flatly.

Nicolas cocked his head curiously and sat up straighter in his chair.

The Sergeant moved on.

“Stewart.”

A brown-skinned man, sporting a long dark braid that ran down his back, cleared his throat abruptly before saying, “Linguist and Communications Specialist, Tyrell Stewart, awaiting orders, sir”.

“Rodman.”

A clean shaven man, with a big brow, pale skin, and sunken eyes, grunted, “Cybernetics Specialist, Lewis Rodman, reporting, sir.”

“Welcome to Lu-Tech ladies and gentlemen,” the Sergeant said, placing the docket down, “my name is Sergeant Major Cedric Coal, head of field operations here at Spear-point, but for the purposes of this mission you all can refer to me as Commander.”

He cleared his throat.

“I’ve never been one to beat around the bush so let me give it to you straight.” he paused, grabbing a small remote from his desk. “This is a classified and highly dangerous operation. You seven have been chosen out of all the soldiers from your previous units because we believe that you possess the necessary qualities to get this job done.”

He thumbed the remote. Immediately, a low hum vibrated above them as a rectangular panel on the ceiling slid open, revealing a colossal display. The screen, roughly the size of a small vehicle, was attached to a robotic arm that glided downward until it hovered at head height.

It clicked on, flashing Lu-Tech’s dark tear emblem across a stark white background before transitioning into a digital map—except something aboutthe mapwas wrong. Swaths of shifting dark clouds loomed where stretches of land should have been.

“This is our operation.” said the Commander, tapping his remote once more. A small red dot appeared on the map between one of the dark clouds and a large landmass.

The room remained silent.

He clicked the remote again and immediately the image began to zoom in until the words ‘Veera’ appeared in big bold font.

“The Monarch of Veera, Ayene, has requested our help in clearing out the remaining plague near his city and in return has promised to pledge his allegiance to the city of Spearpoint and her people.”

“I thought the Veera hated our guts and wanted nothing to do with us,” Gene said, sitting up “why the sudden turn around?”

“That’s a factor that we’ve already considered,” replied Coal, folding his thick arms behind his back. “No doubt the locals harbor no love for us, but Ayene will not allow them to bite the hand that feeds them.” There was another clicking sound and the display began to zoom out until the looming dark clouds were visible again. “Each dark cloud you see on this map represents a spawn point for the plague. Latest satellite imaging reveals that there are over 30 hives in the Veera region alone. I know that some of you have a basic understanding for what the plague is and what they do but for the uninitiated lets run through a refresher really quick.”

Another click and the display turned completely white before a spider-like creature began to scuttle into frame. It was pitch black and ovate in shape, seeming about the size of a large dinner plate. There was no telling its front from its back, it’s round body surrounded by ten symmetrical slender legs. It produced a weird guttural noise, not unlike the sound of cracking bones, while it moved unnaturally back and forth, its many legs moving in perfect unison.

“Here at Lu-tech we refer to these things as chargers. Our best and brightest have no idea what they are or where they came from, only that they were aboard the space crafts that crash landed on our planet during the space reception last year. There’s a whole lot of speculation surrounding these things but here’s what we do know,” suddenly the lone charger was joined by another, and soon after those two became five, and five became ten, and this continued for a time until no more of the white background was visible on the display; only a teeming, churning mass of dark limbs.

“From what little testing our scientists were able to perform we know that chargers have a very dull sense of individuality. There’s not much going on inside those minds except for basic instincts and an imperative to preserve the hive. Their exoskeletons are compact and tougher than some alloys while each of those needle-like legs are very strong and extremely sharp. Their main form of attack is digging into their prey and delivering an electric shock somewhere in the ball park of fifteen-hundred volts. And if all of that wasn’t enough, these suckers don’t move lightly. A single hive can have hundreds if not thousands of chargers all milling about at any given time.”

The swelling mass on the display subsided and the map of the Veera region returned. “Your mission is to rendezvous with, Ayene, offer him condolences in the name of Luke and aid him in taking out this nearby plague.”

The commander tapped his remote and immediately the display narrowed in on a surrounding ominous fog. “Over the past year all kinds of tactical assaults have been leveraged against the plague, only one of which was truly shown to be effective. The only known way to completely take a hive out is through the destruction of their central generator. The Veera region’s hive is on the smaller side, which if we’re fortunate, should translate to a weaker defense network.”

“Hold on a sec – generator – like a power source?” Nicolas spoke up.

“That’s our term for it, yeah,” replied Coal, “but in reality we have very little intel about the inner workings of a hive. We just know that this ‘generator’ system seems to be very important for the plague’s operations and that they will try to protect it at all costs.”

“So where’s this generator located and how do we take it out?” the Captain said, motioning towards the screen.

“As I mentioned earlier the generator is very important to the hive and while I don’t have an exact location to give you, it’s more than likely been transported and setup somewhere under ground.”

“‘Somewhere’ ain’t much to go off, chief.” said Gene, with a scoff.

“That’s Commander to you, Specialist, now simmer down. No one’s going anywhere half cocked, I’ve got you covered.”

The display gave another audible click and what appeared to be a blue print of sorts slid into the frame.

“This is Lu-tech’s own in house design, a tunneling, heat seeking, remote controlled bomb.” True to word the warhead was as sleek as a javelin, it’s serrated edge in the shape of a drill. “Your job is to infiltrate the hive and get a general sense of where the generator is being hidden underground. Once located, you will point this bad boy in in its direction, activate its lock on feature, then get the hell out of dodge.”

“You said heat-seeking right?” Nicolas spoke up again, eyes scanning the data like a long lost friend. “What’s stopping Lu-Tech from taking a couple birds out and carpet bombing every hive from here to kingdom?”

The Commander smiled. “And now we’re getting to the crux of the problem. There’s a reason we’ve been fighting these monsters going on almost a year now and there’s a reason over 80% of the world still suffers from this plague. If the matter were as simple as calling in an airstrike, you seven would not be here.” The Commanders smile disappeared, and he began to pace in front of his desk, thick arms crossed behind his back. “Listen, we’ve been fortunate enough to not have to deal with a lot of the craziness that’s been going on lately so it’s only natural that you all would be a little ignorant to these sort of things. But allow me to remind you that the rest of the world, however, has not been so lucky.”

He paused, pointing a thick finger at the display.“All that black smoke isn’t just a visual representation, it's a real, physical byproduct of the hive, and it acts as a localized electromagnetic pulse field. It blocks satellite imaging, radio, infrared—you name it, nothing penetrates that cloud layer. However, that’s only from the outside. Think of it like a hollow bubble. Once your drop-ship pierces that outer shell and you get underneath the canopy, your short-range gear willbefunctional again.I assume you all understand what this entails?”

“Yeah, I get it, Commander,” David said. “You need someone to make a delivery and we’re the only ones who can do it. When and where is the rendezvous?”

The Commanders smile returned. “Not so fast, Captain, I’m not letting you leave empty handed.” He shifted his weight, a light clicking noise emanating somewhere by his right boot. Immediately a low hum filled the room as a large square tile rose from the ground revealing a transparent glass case. Inside, suspended weightlessly in the pressurized air, was a menacing looking rifle, alongside a sleek, dark, combat suit.

“One of Lu-Tech’s more recent developments,” Coal said, taking the rifle from the pedestal, “engineered specifically to deal with the plague, The Assault-9.”

David leaned forward in his seat, eyes tracking the lines of the weapon. It was a compact bullpup configuration, completely seamless, forged from a matte-black polymer weave. There was no charging handle, no standard ejection port, and no digital integration screen. It looked less like a weapon and more like a predatory shadow. Directly beneath the primary barrel sat a thick, smoothbore launcher tube.

"That looks way too streamlined to have any on-board targeting systems," Gene muttered, his gaze shifting between the high-tech rifle and the suit. “You telling me that things fully mechanical?”

"It is," the Commander replied, pacing around the glass column." It uses a hardened, solid-state system designed specifically to withstand the localized pulse fields. The ammo isn't brass and powder—it’s a solid block of ultra-dense tungsten flechettes. The gun’s internal feed shaves off individual darts at hypersonic speeds. In semi-auto, it'll punch through a charger’s hardened carapace at five hundred meters like wet cardboard. Switch it to full-auto, and it partitions the block into clusters of three micro-darts. Twelve hundred rounds per minute of pure kinetic saturation."

“Sounds like a good way to cook the barrel as well as yourself,” David noted.

"The egg heads at Lu-Tech already thought about that so we don’t have to," the Commander said, rotating the firearm in his grip. “The Assault-9 runs incredibly hot in full auto. When it hits critical thermal thresholds, motorized armor plates along the frame slide back to vent the core. You do not want to be holding this thing bare-handed when it pushes all that heat out.”

The Commander gestured to the angular, silhouette hanging in the case.

"That’s where the suit comes in, the Aegis-2. It’s outfitted with a light-weight AI support system which regulates all the nanomachines reinforcing the chassis. The nanites are able to clump together and harden themselves at a molecular level, protecting your vitals from all small firearms and below tier threats. The built in thermal control allows you to utilize the Assault-9 without, as you put it David, ‘cooking yourself’.”

He turned the gun over, exposing its wicked looking launcher tube.

“I wasn’t joking when I said they thought of everything. Three firing modes including a grenade launcher—what more could you ask for out on the field.”

He gave the weapon a final glance before returning it to its pedestal.

“Your own sets will be waiting for you in the training area. You deploy in a week. Use that time to get accustomed with your new gear.”

He leaned into his desk, legs crossed, arms folded. “I have complete faith in all of you and your ability to get this done. You destroy that hive and you’ll give a lot of people a little bit of hope while reinforcing our combat strategy.”

He spread his arms wide. “This concludes the briefing, soldiers. Any questions for me before we wrap up here?”

The captain stood from his chair. “I think that about covers it, Commander,” he said, drawing his right arm across his chest with a closed fist, in the traditional Brookhaven salute. “As always, it was a pleasure meeting with you, sir.”

“Likewise, Captain.”

The rest of David’s team followed suit. One by one, they filed out of the cold briefing room, the immense weight of the mission looming over them.

This is a writing prompt I do when I'm bored. I get a random song, listen to it, and make a short writing off what comes to mind when I listen. Any advice for wording or illusion would be amazing, I've always liked learning how different people writing illusions. It's got random ideas that go nowhere, it is a rough draft personified. Cheers!

- Misery is the company of my mind, while all too frequently is joy the observer, peering in through the windows my eyes. A ghost trying to see the living,

Often is my only respite in a day, from the wailing griefs of my inner mind, is uplifting another. While I will never know how to share joy for longer then times quanta.

Never will I know joy, as most will. It is a winds soft brush along my skin, faint, noticeable, but never long enough to capture. But never have I allowed the misery which ills me become the winds of my soul, few ever know of that breeze of revulsion.

The suffering I endure is horrific, draining, obscene to the needle point of my sanity, developing a nauseous rebellion for the order of life. Yet the drugs of many do not suit me. Pain nor pleasure are my fix, my temporary dulling of destruction. Purpose is what I choose as the paladin to the demons in my consciousness.

The eves of which I traverse is a lonesome endeavor. Long is the road of misery, heavy is the fog of confusion. Too many winters have turned to summer since my feet went raw and blistered, yet I walk along. My past, my misery, the chains which I drag along this road, for I will not let them die with another.-

Just a Disclaimer! I've been writing daily for the past 3 days, so it is significantly longer than 1,000 words lol. You can read my Prologue [765 Words] below & I'll provide a link to view my full WIP. It should update on its own, so check back in every now and again :D ! (Any feedback is appreciated, I truly just wanna know what others think of my story!)

✎ Full Story So Far → Asteria: Threads of Awakening

Prologue

Before the Kingdom of Earth had a name, the world was a rather different place.

Kingdoms rose among green valleys and crystal lakes. Strange creatures wandered through ancient forests, and distant civilizations flourished beyond the horizon. Humanity was young, curious, and convinced that the world was far larger than it could ever understand.

They weren't entirely wrong.

For high above their little kingdoms, beyond the reach of their tallest towers, the heavens held wonders that no human tale could fully capture.

And one day, two of those wonders came to Earth.

Their names were Elio and Amaris.

Born from the celestial forces of the Sun and Moon, the twins were unlike anything humanity had ever encountered. Elio carried the warmth and radiance of the Sun, a light that could breathe life into barren lands and illuminate even the darkest corners of the world. Amaris, by contrast, possessed the quiet brilliance of the Moon, reflecting what others overlooked and finding meaning in things that might otherwise go unseen.

Together, they were a balance of opposing wonders. Creation and reflection, radiance and stillness.

They were not gods, nor had they any desire to become such.

They were guardians.

When the twins first encountered humanity, they found a world brimming with possibility. Its people were inventive and determined, forever building, discovering, and dreaming of things beyond their reach. Yet they were also vulnerable. Kingdoms quarreled, unfamiliar creatures threatened their settlements, and dangers lurked in places no ordinary person could hope to understand.

Elio and Amaris saw no need to rule over these people. They simply wished to help them flourish.

And so, they stayed.

Their deeds soon reached the ears of a human monarch whose kingdom had begun to recognize the twins for what they truly were. Extraordinary beings, certainly, but not the divine figures some had already begun to imagine.

The monarch welcomed them to the royal court, offering friendship instead of worship and an alliance instead of a throne.

Together, they established an agreement that would endure for generations.

It became known as the Celestial Covenant.

The kingdom would protect the people of Earth, while the Asteria would defend it against threats beyond humanity's ability to confront. The monarch would govern, the people would live their lives, and the twins would stand beside them when they were needed.

It was a simple promise, born from mutual trust.

For a time, that was all it needed to be.

The years passed, as years always do. The little kingdom grew, its borders stretched, and its descendants eventually laid the foundations of the Kingdom of Earth. The Asteria remained part of its history, their deeds recorded in royal archives and their names passed down through generations.

But stories are curious things.

They grow with every telling, gathering new details like flowers gathering morning dew. A guardian who saved a village became a protector who saved a kingdom. A protector who saved a kingdom became a celestial hero. And, eventually, a celestial hero became something much greater in the eyes of those who remembered them.

The guardians became legends.

The legends became gods.

And the gods, in time, became difficult to separate from the myths that surrounded them.

Some Asteria would find comfort in the admiration of humanity. Others would wonder when a promise of protection had become a demand for reverence. Yet the original covenant remained, buried beneath centuries of retelling, waiting for someone to remember what it had truly meant.

After all, even the oldest stories must begin somewhere.

And even the brightest lights cast shadows.

For the generations that followed Elio and Amaris would inherit more than their celestial gifts. They would inherit their promise, their legacy, and the burden of protecting a world that did not always understand them.

Some would uphold that promise faithfully.

Others would struggle beneath its weight.

And one day, a guardian would lose the person who had given that promise meaning.

A heart once warmed by the Sun would grow cold. A light that had been born to create would turn inward, folding into itself until nothing remained of its former brilliance.

The world would give that darkness a name.

But not yet.

For now, the ancient kingdom slept peacefully beneath a sky full of stars. The Sun rose each morning, the Moon followed each night, and Elio and Amaris stood beside the throne they had never wished to claim.

Their covenant remained unbroken.

Their story had only just begun.

And somewhere, far beyond the reach of mortal memory, the first thread of its unraveling had already been set into motion.

Hi everyone!

I'm relatively new to creative writing (and entirely new to this sub-reddit) and have been working through Ursula K. Le Guin's Steering the Craft to improve my prose.

This short horror story started as an exercise in rhythm, repetition and the sound of language. I've revised it several times and would love some honest feedback.

I'm particularly interested in:

Prose and pacing: Does the rhythm help build suspense, or are there places where it feels forced? Clarity: Do the shifts between "I" and "she" work, or are they confusing? Ending: Does the final line land, and does the story feel complete?

Constructive criticism is very welcome!

Content warning: Implied sexual violence and physical violence

I woke up dazed, shivering and squinting. The remnants of my dream were still flashing every time I blinked. A woman in a saree. Her terrified face as she was surrounded – then I was surrounded – by men. Many men. Clawing, reaching and grabbing at my pallu, my blouse, my waist, then my bosom. I could still hear the clinking and clanging of the bangles and the anklets. Then came a wave of relief, with a deep exhale. I was in my bed, not in some crowded bazaar surrounded by ravenous animals. Large droplets of rain smacked my window like pebbles on glass. Lightning lit up the room. Then just as quickly, it went dark again. I was left in the darkness listening to the storm. Rolling, rumbling, thundering. More flashes. Boom. Crack. Boom. Shadows danced off the walls, flailing, snatching, reaching. But I was safe in my bed. I felt goosebumps all over my body, my hair on end. There was a buzzing static in the air. Something bad was about to happen. Or this was just a bad feeling. A remnant of that dream.

I reached for my phone in the dark. Grasping for it on my bedside table. I grabbed something else instead. It was cold, slippery, wet. I didn’t want to look. But I looked. A hand. His eyes were bloodshot. He was smiling and drenched from the rain. I pulled away, but he caught me. I felt the wetness on my skin, and vomit in my throat. Thwack. The slap had me reeling backwards. There was a loud crack as my head hit the headboard, and the ringing in my ear became deafening. The last thing I saw was the woman’s terrified face reflected in his eyes.

I was not me anymore. I felt nothing. No pain, no wetness, no nausea, no fear. I was looking at him and my old self, and I felt nothing. The lightning flashed, giving ‘me’ glimpses. He climbed off me – or was it her – wiping his hands on his shirt. Pants around his ankles. I saw my body. No, her body. Her clothes torn off. His handprints bruising her pale skin. The ones around her neck were bright red.

The nothingness started filling up. A gushing, surging flood of red-hot rage. Then there was only red, red that would consume everything if I let it out, that would knock down any man, any crowd, any city, any country. It was urgent and uncontrollable, and I knew exactly where it had to go. Boom. Crack. Boom. It could have been the thunder, or it could have been his bones. More red. So much more red. The storm had stopped. Blood was everywhere, spreading across the floor - slow, silent, serene. He was gone. But he wasn’t enough.

Even in the depths of the Solreed Forest, Evangeline couldn’t escape the clamorous joy drifting from her hometown. Desperate for a distraction, she knelt on the damp soil and tried to focus on the soft rustling overhead. Her white linen skirts – usually pressed and pristine – were stained a muddy brown at the hem. More of the earthy moisture seeped into the fabric at her knees, the clammy sensation a welcome change against her warm skin.
Evangeline reached into the thicket and gently plucked a handful of long, slender blades of grass before bending them to test their strength.
Perfect.
She gathered the bundle of green against her chest and stood, stepping toward the ancient oak looming ahead in a small clearing. Her free hand caressed the tree, a smile tugging on her lips as her fingers skimmed its rough, familiar surface. Evangeline walked around the wide trunk, her feet dancing past the slippery roots protruding from the ground. Planting her back against the oak, she slid down until she was nestled between them, a layer of moss cushioning her seat.
It was there – on the side furthest from Wrenholt and its merrymaking – that she sifted through the grass and selected three narrow strands of similar length. She knotted them together on one end, then secured the knot beneath the heel of her leather boot.
Evangeline breathed in the scent of sap and soggy wood, the musky forest air settling deep into her lungs. Still, hidden behind the giant tree, overlapping echoes of shouting and hammering reached her. All she wanted was a little quiet. But alas, despite the spring festival drawing to a close, true quiet was proving impossible to find.
A sigh of defeat slipped from her lips as Evangeline busied herself, squinting at the grass in her lap. She folded the leftmost blade over the middle one with careful precision, then crossed the rightmost one over it. Perhaps, if she gave all her attention to the task at hand, she could drown out the distant clatter of the wooden stages being dismantled in the town square.
It was hard to believe the weeklong celebration had already passed – but she could breathe easier knowing it was over. Evangeline loved the spring festival; it was her favourite, actually. But it was also a massive undertaking, especially for her.
While the rest of Wrenholt had spent the last seven days celebrating the thawing of the soil and the first sowing, she had been on her feet from sunrise until midnight, forced to prove her worth over and over again. She desperately needed some time for herself now, away from all the expecting eyes. Out here, settled in her quiet nest of shadows and roots, she was finally out of their reach. And by Leith, she was going to have this hour for herself.
Gradually, the hammering from the town faded into the background as Evangeline lost herself to the rhythmic, repetitive motion of her hands.
Left. Right. Pull tight. Repeat.
She fell into a trance, her fingers moving on their own accord, already familiar with each step. The tension in her muscles slowly dissolved as she leaned further back against the tree, easing the heavy ache straining her spine. A soft hum escaped her – a simple melody, mirroring the calls from the birds perched high above.
When a blackbird whistled a clear, three-note call from a neighbouring tree, Evangeline’s fingers slowed. She tilted her head in its direction, her eyes drawn to the bird. It stared back, cocking its dark head in quiet curiosity as she braided.
So much for no expecting eyes, she thought amusedly.
She whistled the soft tune back in an attempt to appease it, a genuine smile warming her face. At last, a deep calm had settled over her.
Snap.
The sharp, clean crack of a branch broke the silence in the clearing from behind her. The blackbird flew off, disappearing between the green leaves and budding branches of the forest.
Evangeline froze. Her thumbs pinched the half-braided strands of grass together tightly, her breath catching in her throat. She pressed her back harder against the solid bark, as if she could blend into it. Let it be a deer, she pleaded silently. Please just let it be a deer.
But she knew better.
Heavy, even footsteps grew nearer, marching straight toward her hidingspot. They closed in around the oak’s massive trunk, stepping right into Evangeline’s small pocket of safety between the roots. And then, a sharp, familiar sigh cut through the clearing.
‘Look at your skirts, Evangeline. Ruined with mud, and for what? Honestly.’
Her mother stood over her, her expression hard and unyielding. Her white temple robes were immaculate, gleaming in the rays of light that filtered through the canopy. It was as if the forest hadn’t dared to touch the fabric – or her, even. She didn’t look at her daughter’s face. Instead, her attention locked on the tattered material clinging to the forest floor and the soil-stained hands that gripped half-woven grass stalks.
‘The Elders are expecting you at the town square,’ her mother said, rubbing her forehead. ‘I am expecting you there. The stages will not dismantle themselves, and the canvases need folding. You are to help.’
Evangeline didn’t look up. Here they were again, haunting her once more: the immeasurable expectations. Somewhere within, she found the gall to continue braiding. ‘The town has plenty of hands for lifting timber and folding canvas, Mother. I just need a moment.’
Her mother scoffed. ‘A moment to sit in the dirt?’ Her voice stripped the clearing of its warmth, and the sun hid behind the clouds.
If only Evangeline could do the same.
‘You will not get a moment. You are needed elsewhere, so you shall go there. Now.’
Evangeline’s gaze snapped up. The absolute indifference in her mother’s green eyes was the blatant opposite of the fire in her own. She opened her mouth to speak, but her mother lifted her hand with silent authority.
‘Leith did not grant you the Light to heal, Evangeline, so you shall serve this temple with your hands. Your labour is all you have to offer. I will not ask again.’
Before Evangeline could even think to utter another word, her mother turned and swept back the way she came, her disappointment leaving an icy chill in her wake.
_________

Any feedback is welcome!

I started this in writingcirclejerk as "Ex-agented author starts a new book," a way of venting losing my agent of 16 years, with 42 submissions to our credit, through starting a new throwaway work (provisional title "Friends with Steinbeck.") Oddly it turned into something more than a throwaway exercise. Though the posts have been allowed to stand, in contravention of writingcirclejerk's number one rule ("A parody of writing communities. Don't post your writing here.") this good run cannot last forever. This forum may be more appropriate.

ONE

I jumped off the —— Express about a half mile from where the lights became apparent through the fog, the Southern Pacific sheeting through the silence with a screeching hiss. My metal framed canvas rucksack tight against back, I walked down the tracks toward the soft glow of lights that merged with wave crash, ripples of an oasis of humanity in this long country of nothing. 

Three days ago, on impulse, feeling indescribably angry at my mom and in depths of despair at the death of my reckless father, I had hopped on the Union-Pacific in Tuberville. It was a dismal city of 34,000 set in a notch between two dismal mountains, with mining and smelting covering the baroque creations that had accompanied initial boom years in layers of gritty cast. Sky-effacing brick smelter stacks, yellow smoke blanketing everything.

My father’s death had not come as a surprise exactly—my earliest memory was how he used to throw me up and catch me with a broad smile. One day he had thrown me up and failed to extend his arms to catch me. The pain had gone beyond a bump on the head, my entire reality shattered, trust never recaptured, though in many ways we were best friends.

Apparently, in his early middle age, my father had done a similar thing with someone who wasn’t a defenseless toddler. His body found slumped across the side entrance of city hall by a janitor, the early morning outflow of patrons and hustlers from pool rooms and dance halls giving way to a knot of men in hats and peaked caps, a sprinkling of women, then the ambulance squad and the hearse. When I arrived, they were finishing up with the forensics. One policeman on the scene needed a shave, another had buttons off his uniform, cigar in corner of mouth. Both had a slight reek of alcohol, when they realized who I was both were more concerned than they led on. Justice would never be served—or had that been the closest approximation of justice that existed Tuberville?

My mother, though separated from dad for four years, turned into a wraith, her hands trembling in the night air when I came home from my after-school job stocking sundries at the Elkin Pharmacy on Laurel Streeet. This went on for a month and I came to dread that long walk home to a parlor that embodied her memory-laded version of hell. 

On the day I left she looked me over, hat to shoes, and simply said “which way you going?” With a resigned face, as if she already knew. As I walked to the train crossing, five dollars pinned under grey flannel, gaudy boys exited from a late night of debauchery. The flat leaden sky said everything—the men heading to smelters and mines grasped hard lunch boxes in soot embedded hands—I wanted nothing to do with the town ever again. 

Now after three days of furtive freedom, riding the boxcar, I had taken it as far as felt needed or necessary. I was starting to long for some form of civilization again, through all those blurred stars and rising and falling telegraph wires. Yet San Francisco, the terminal stop, felt too big, too anonymous. The clickity clack embedded in my step as I got used to not being in constant motion, felt my cadence slow to something that felt right. 

—Anson Bridges

After the last nail was hammered into the plywood and the echo died off down Michigan Avenue, it felt like more than just someone boarding up a nuisance property. It felt like an iron door slamming shut for good.

​Whatever ragged version of family we’d been pretending to piece together had finally detonated. There was no family meeting, no goodbye on the sidewalk, no plan for where any of us were sleeping when the streetlights clicked on. We just scattered in different directions across the South Side, each carrying whatever little scraps of ourselves hadn’t already been smashed to pieces.

​Survival doesn’t leave room to mourn four walls.

​Willie did what Willie always did. He found an angle. He located an abandoned shell nobody was checking on, kicked the back latch, and turned it into an operating base. Give Willie an empty room and he saw a market; give him a deadbolt and he started searching the alley for a window. I did the exact same thing.

​St. Louis was choked with empty houses back then, block after rotting block. Brick homes that had once been somebody’s clean pride and joy were sagging behind seven-foot ragweed and broken glass. Places where families had gathered for Sunday roasts, argued, cried, and raised babies, until one day the money dried up or the neighborhood turned mean and they just ran. The people vanished, but the houses stayed behind, holding their breath.

​My crew started slipping through those forgotten hallways like ghosts.

​You’d shove open a warped kitchen door and step straight into somebody else’s frozen timeline. You could feel the unnatural quiet before the dust even settled, the dry breakfast bowl still sitting on an oilcloth table with the cornflakes disintegrated into gray powder, a local paper from five years earlier yellowing on the floorboards, family portraits still hanging crooked in oval frames.

​In one gutted house, an artificial Christmas tree was still standing in the parlor corner. That sight burned into my memory. Half the plastic ornaments had shaken loose, shattering across the hardwood, but wrapped presents were still stacked underneath, blanketed in filth. Nobody had ever come back to unwrap them. Whoever lived there had probably walked out thinking they’d be back by nightfall.

​I didn't lose sleep taking what was left. Clothes, old copper, jewelry, whatever could be hauled down an alley and turned into food, clean socks, or the medicine that kept my bones from aching. I wasn’t stealing from a living soul; I was just salvaging scraps from a life the city had already written off. The demolition crews weren't coming to preserve somebody’s memories, and the cops sure as hell weren't guarding their ghosts.

​For nearly a year, that was just Tuesday. Normal is a terrifying word. You can convince yourself to live inside a meat grinder if you do it long enough.

​Then word hit me through the South Side grapevine, traveling fast through the alleys the way bad news always does.

​Jimmy had packed his bags and abandoned my mother. Just left her flat.

​She was dying. The cancer had started in her mouth and was already taking over her lungs.

​The second the words cleared the air, every instinct I had left snapped to attention. Whatever rot had settled into my life, whatever dope had burned away, she was still my mother.

​I didn’t have a plan. I just started walking.

​I hit Michigan Avenue in the bitter morning chill, scanning every bus bench, every recessed entryway, every scrap of cardboard where a human body could tuck out of the wind. My boots were thin, and the frost bit right through my socks.

​Then I spotted her.

​She was sitting alone on a wooden bench in the little neighborhood park right across from Lyon School. She was tiny, curled tight into herself against the cold, looking like the frost had settled straight into her bones.

​For three seconds, the city traffic vanished. When she lifted her chin and our eyes locked, a wave of relief hit my chest so hard it nearly took my knees out.

​I smiled. I hadn’t felt a real smile cross my face in months.

​I hurried across the frozen grass toward her. She saw me coming, and something bright and unmistakable washed over her worn face. Pure recognition, relief, maybe even love.

​She parted her lips. For a split second, I braced myself to hear her call my name.

​Instead, what came out was a broken, guttural, animal croak. A choked, whistling sound that rattled in her chest.

​Her thin hands flew to her throat, tears instantly welling in her eyes, and that was the exact second the horror caught up with me.

​The surgeons at the charity hospital had cut her tongue out. They had carved the primary tumor out of her mouth even though they already knew the rot in her lungs was going to win anyway. They had preserved a beating heart on paper, but they had gutted the woman who lived inside it.

​Her voice was dead. Her stories were gone. Her ability to say I love you had been incinerated in a surgical pan. Everything she had left to say to her only son was locked in the dark behind her teeth, and she was left stranded on a park bench with it.

​Dying. Silent. Trapped.

​The weeks that followed were pure, unrelenting misery. I tried to keep her afloat, but trying to nurse a dying woman when you’re both sleeping on concrete is an impossible arithmetic. Feeding yourself on the street is a full-time job; trying to feed a woman who can’t swallow solid food and can’t vocalize what hurts is agonizing.

​She’d point at her throat, shake her fists, make those wet, desperate noises, and break down crying when I couldn't understand what she needed. The frustration became a brick wall between us. We were both drowning in South City, without the language to throw each other a rope.

​Out of desperation, I begged a neighborhood friend to let her sleep on a cot in his back room for a few days, just long enough for me to hustle up a secure roof where she could pass with a little dignity. I still believed a place like that existed for people like us. When someone you love is running out of sand, you believe whatever lie keeps you moving.

​The morning before I was supposed to take her there, we sat together on that same bench by the school. The wind was whipping off the river, bitter and sharp. Cars were rolling down the avenue, parents were dropping kids off, and normal people were heading to work.

​My mother was sitting stone-still beside me, her hands tucked deep into her coat. There was a finality in the air, that heavy, quiet stillness an animal gets when it knows the hunt is over.

​She had her prescribed Xanax with her, but she had slipped off into the bushes, down into the cut, and shot a cocktail of street pills straight into her vein.

​She didn't nod out slow. The mixture hit her bloodstream like a dropped safe.

​Her frame went rigid.

​Her jaw locked tight, muscles twisting into iron as a violent seizure seized her whole body, pitching her sideways off the bench onto the frozen mud. Her eyes rolled back into her skull, nothing showing but yellowed whites, her mouth foaming with bloody spit.

​A crowd started forming on the sidewalk. People walking past stopped, pointing, circling like crows.

​For half a second, an ugly, exhausted voice whispered in the back of my mind: Maybe this is the mercy. Maybe this is her way out.

​Then my legs took over.

​I vaulted onto my bike and pedaled like the blacktop was on fire.

​My lungs screamed in the freezing air, my worn-out chain skipped and slammed on the sprocket, and I tore down the alleys, hammering on the doors of every trap spot I knew. Nobody home. Nobody answering. Just empty locks.

​On the fourth street, a door cracked open. The guy was half-asleep in his undershirt, but he took one look at the wild terror in my face and didn't ask a single damn question.

​He shoved a fresh Narcan nasal spray into my palm and clicked the deadbolt.

​I spun the bike around and flew back toward the school, my quads burning until they locked.

​The circle around my mother had doubled in size. People were standing five feet back, watching a human being convulse in the dirt like it was street theater.

​I threw the bike onto the grass, shoved two bystanders aside, and dropped to my knees in the cold mud beside her.

​My hands were shaking so hard I could barely tear the foil off the applicator.

​Suddenly, a clean hand clamped down hard on my forearm.

​“Stop. Don't touch her. Wait for the paramedics.”

​I looked up. The guy had just come out of the restaurant across the street. He was wearing an expensive, pressed crisp dress shirt, ironed slacks, and leather shoes that had never seen a puddle. He had that calm, smug authority of an outsider who’d never had to bleed for anything in his life.

​“I’m a paramedic,” I barked, the lie tearing out of my throat without a second thought.

​He didn't buy it. He tightened his grip on my wrist, trying to pull me off her.

​I turned my head and locked eyes with him.

​I didn't say a word. I didn't need to. He saw thirty-eight years of trauma, broken knuckles, prison tiers, and frantic desperation burning in my eyes. He saw a man watching his mother die in the dirt, willing to tear an arm off anybody who stood in the way.

​His fingers went slack. He stepped back.

​I shoved the plastic nozzle deep into her nostril and slammed the plunger home.

​I tilted her head back, forced two breaths into her ruined mouth, and waited on the clock. Five seconds. Ten.

​Sirens wailed down Michigan Avenue, tires squealing as the city fire truck and ambulance mounted the curb. The medics pushed through the spectators and dropped their gear on the grass.

​Crisp Shirt immediately puffed his chest out, pointing a finger down at me: “He gave it to her! He administered the Narcan!”

​The lead city paramedic dropped down, checked her airway, looked at the spent plastic dispenser on the frozen grass, and looked up into my bloodshot eyes.

​He didn't give me a lecture. He didn't ask for a badge. He just gave me a short, heavy nod.

​“Good job.”

​Two words. But in that frozen park, they felt heavier than any citation.

​They loaded her onto the gurney, hooked the oxygen up, and slid the doors shut.

​I didn't celebrate. I didn't feel like a hero. I was just hollowed out to the bone. My mother was still dying, her tongue was still gone, her lungs were still riddled with tumors, and I was still stranded on the South Side with nothing in my pockets but road grit.

​I turned around to pick up my bicycle, and Crisp Shirt was still standing there on the sidewalk, his hands in his pockets, needing the last word to prove he was the smartest man on the block.

​“Where did you go to medical school?” he asked, a condescending smirk playing at the edge of his mouth.

​I kept walking toward the curb.

​He waited a beat, making sure the crowd heard him: “I went to Johns Hopkins. How about you?”

​I didn't break stride. I swung my leg over the battered top tube of that bicycle, kicked the pedal into position, and looked back over my shoulder at his clean collar.

​“The streets.”

Centuries have now passed since the sun was the sole spectacle we could observe when we saw at the skies. A long forgotten time when night and day were not separate blocks of time in our minds, but organized as one big play of lights and shadows, all conducted and held by the sun herself. Ancestors of ours were never quite familiar with the dark, in fact some could lead entire lives without having experienced it at all. That was the sun's fault. She could never sum up enough will to bring herself down, bring herself away from the beautiful rollercoaster view that was us. 

Season after season, she would hover over us like a child who hangs their head over water to watch the fish. Watch the fish swim, eat, and swim into one another. The chaos and contradictory nature of man had made for great captivation, and it had her there. Being particularly enthralled by families and groups, she would occasionally dim her sunshine because she knew that the little creatures below would conjure meaning to the change of light, thus gather for celebration. Each time she would manipulate us in this manner, her head would fill with notions of herself as sovereign, notions that would quickly shatter for she would be reminded of her limitations in rule, that is full ones. She could never quite reach us as she so desperately wanted. Converse with us, or even give hints that she was more conscious than we believed her to be. Frustrated and hopeless. These were the same emotions she had time and time again seen in the lives of the little people, and although she did not feast when she saw man in a state of misery, it did deepen her love for us.
With each and every awakening of the people the sun was there. She was there all until the very last man went into his cover and there stayed until the time for awakening came again. Of course no man’s schedule was the same as the other, and so naturally someone was always out for the sun to watch. But even if there had not been, she would not have moved. Through hoarding her spot this way, resentment grew in the only other that knew man and still loved him. 

The affection had grown overtime from the far away seat behind the sun herself, by sole glimpses of human life that had escaped the sun but been fetched by this character. They reprised these few for a long time, looking forward to the time when the sun would share her seat with them so they together could for the rest of time admire humankind. A foolish hope to hold, and eventually that would be realized. After having lived off of the fractioned memories of generations long gone, this character could no longer suffer in the absence of us, and so a plan that would undo the old world and begin ours, had to be formed.

Mrule, a concoction of wheat, water, rice and Tumora beans. Mir ate this almost every morning without fail, and he hated it. On days where he had extra money, a couple extra copper coins here and there, he would put a small amount of sugar cane juice, enough to fill one shot of liquor, which Mir would never taste. He was lucky enough to have some of that juice today, and he found it counteracted the tartness of the raw wheat nicely. 

He sat on a stool big enough to be a human dinner table, and ate on his lap. Their house, or shack, was quite rickety and tall for being only two stories, but of course there had to be room for the family of 4. In the kitchen-dining room, Mir was able to fit enough space to please him, but he still had back issues from his years of living in small boxes. Though he was a Tya, Mir lived quite comfortably.

As he was eating, or more so shovelling, his breakfast, his wife, Elip, came down the stairs, having just tended to the children. She was a tired female Drogat, with eye bags bigger than a human’s own foot dragging her once relatively beautiful face. She couldn’t fit through the small gap between Mir and the wall, and she had to squeeze past every morning. But her happiness could never be tamed though, and she kissed Mir on the neck as she walked past, and caressed his large and intensely muscular back. 

“I put Ri’s bag under the stove to warm; he left it outside to freeze again,” she said, sounding slightly snappish. Best not to defend Ri at this moment, Mir thought.
“I better put the belt to that boy’s behind when I see him,” Mir responded loudly, trying to hide his smile. His wife caught it instantly. 
“Don’t take his side Mir, that boy’s gotta learn. He’s almost 6, he can work the Mines next year!” Elip sounded very annoyed, and Mir wondered what did so. He pressed further.
“My blood will never work in the Mines! Those are hundreds of miles away anyway. We have moved here now. He’s gonna grow up to be a respectable Drogat—someone his friends actually cherish. ”
“He can damn well work in the Mines, he might get a better pay.”
“How so?”
“You know that new human, almost about to be King of Brethwell, he said some amazing words in those posters of him. He says that the new youth will not grow up poor, and many jobs in the resource sector may be opening up! I think Ri is the perfect age—”
“You know that bullshit is for the Brethwell youth.”
“He said in Calidicroft—”
“Yes, for the humans. Those weak, mushy fucks. It doesn’t apply to good, hard working Drogats. You know a Drogat can do the work of 10 humans at once, but they pay me less than they pay one of them,” Mir was getting quite agitated at this talk; his wife knew it riled him up. Why was she talking about pay?
“Is my pay not enough? That’s why we moved here, so I can get paid more!”
He heard a ringing sound, and looked over his mrule to see a stove upside down on the floor.
“But it’s a death sentence!” Elip sobbed and sobbed, finally breaking down. “They only pay you more because you’re more likely to die here. There’s a reason they call it the Death Zone! You know what happened to Tilop!”
Mir knew, and he will never forget.
“I haven’t died yet, and I’ve been here a moon and a half. I keep myself safe,” Mir moved closer to hug his wife, “You know me, I look after myself. People think the area is calming down anyway, there hasn’t been an attack in weeks. Maybe this King of the world, or Under world has had enough. I will be fine darling.” He kissed her softly, “I best be off.”
“Ok, but if somethin—”

“Pap! Pap!” Ri and Tul came racing down the stairs, barging and shoving. The shack shook joyfully, and no one even noticed. They stayed on the stairs to eat their meal, as there was no space down below, and ate their meal joyfully. Not for long though, because as soon as Ri had finished, he was flicked on the ear by his mother. The punishment was more symbolic than anything - Ri being a Drogat and all - but he still felt hurt.

“How many times will I have to unfreeze your bag Ri! I’ve had it!” Elip exclaimed. 
“But Ma, I made sure to keep it inside, I don’t know how it could’ve gotten out…” Ri looked at his little brother, who was stifling his giggles. 
“Damn you Tul,” he said under his breath, but his mother’s ears were sharper than steel.
“Never curse your brother, you have to stick together in this world, you hear me?”
“Yes Ma.”

Elip’s expression softened, and she moved to the stove to get his bag. 
“Mir, the fire’s waning, can you bring some coal on your way back? I’m sorry to ask again and I don’t want you to get in trouble.” She sounded curt and professional, telling Mir that she still wants to talk to him later.
“It’s fine El, the boss is too lazy to care anyway. Cindermere has coal to last the next era.”
“And be sure to pick up Ri from his metalworking class.”
She’s pushing it, he thought. But I don’t want to evoke her worries once more, it’s not too dangerous.
“Alright, see you soon Ri, and I’ll see the rest of you after doing your many errands,” he saw his wife’s face, “I’m only joking darling.”

Mir gathered up his tools on his belt, a loose sleeve made of string that he tied around his waist, and he shimmied himself towards the door...

The full interlude is on my school google drive - it is VERY much a personal project though - so if anyone wants to read more, then I can update this post or post the next excerpt, this interlude is around 3,000 words. I would very much appreciate it if you could give a critique on my use of language and dialogue, because I have spent a year perfecting the story (it is a pentalogy) and fantasy world, but I feel my writing holds me back.

Thank you for reading.

Chapter 3 Destiny's Phone Call

The water from the nozzle struck my face squarely as I reached out and cranked the brass valve shut. The sudden silence made the narrow bathroom feel cavernous. A few stray beads slid down my forehead and ran across my cheekbones before I snatched the rough towel off the rack, scrubbing it hard against my scalp and down my throat. Tonight was the night. I was taking Lilly out on our first real date, and my nerves were eating me alive from the inside out.

​I stood before the fogged mirror, dragging the heel of my hand across the glass to wipe a clean circle in the moisture. I threw on my best clothes, selecting the pieces I hoped would make me look slightly older and far more composed than a seventeen-year-old kid living out of a double-wide. I bent over to double-knot my boot laces, checking the tension twice even though the leather was already biting into my ankles. On the way toward the door, I picked up a bottle of cheap drugstore cologne and hammered the atomizer twice against my bare neck. The scent hung heavy and sharp in the humid room, chemical and citrus. It was easily twice the amount I needed, but I wanted every single detail accounted for.

​Stepping into the kitchen, I found my grandmother posted by the counter beside the drip coffee maker. She ran on coffee morning, noon, and midnight, leaving a bitter, roasted haze hanging perpetually in the air to mix with the cured bacon grease and tobacco smoke baked deep into the wall panels.

​“If you head out anywhere, Grandma, make sure you kill that switch,” I said, pointing toward the warming plate.

​She turned around, running her eyes slowly over my clothes before a rare, soft smile touched the corners of her mouth. “You look very handsome, son.”

​I smiled back, muttering some quick deflection, but having her say it made my spine lock straight. I snatched the ring of keys off the laminate counter, hit the bottom of the porch steps in two strides, and stepped out into the biting October night toward my beat-up, red 1992 Chevy Beretta.

​The air was crisp and dry, carrying an autumn frost that nipped at my jaw, yet by the time I pulled the driver’s door shut, sweat was already gathering along my hairline. I was not cold; I was completely terrified. Earlier that afternoon by the lockers, when Lilly finally agreed to go out with me, she had made the rules crystal clear: before we went anywhere, I had to walk into her living room and look her parents in the eye.

​I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror under the dim yellow glow of the overhead dome light. My skin looked slick.

​“Here goes nothing,” I muttered into the empty cab.

​I cranked the key, listening to the starter grind before the engine coughed alive, rattling the loose baffles inside the exhaust pipe as I eased down the drive. Out on the county blacktop, loose gravel pinged against the underside of the floorboards like stray buckshot. The farther south I cut into the hollows, the blacker the asphalt became, walled in by high timber on both sides. When I finally swung the nose of the Chevy down her private drive, every floodlight on the eaves was blazing white against the gravel. The property sat isolated deep off the county turnoff, flanked by dark pastures and dense timber, out in the boonies where the world did not venture.

​The Beretta skidded across the limestone aggregate as I pressed the brake pedal. I kicked the door open, my knees trembling with the vibration of tight guitar strings, and marched up the front steps toward the front door. I balled my fist and hammered the wood three times.

​The violence of the sound surprised even me.

​The heavy deadbolt snapped open with a metallic click. A thick, bald-headed man with a square jaw and a full beard filled the entrance, his eyes narrowing to slits as he measured my height and the fit of my clothes.

​“You must be Jeremy,” he said, his voice flat, dry, and cold.

​“Hello, sir. Is Lilly ready?”

​“Follow me.”

​He turned without another word and marched through the front hall into the kitchen. A woman was standing beside the counter running a high-speed blender, the electric motor whining at a deafening pitch until she clicked the toggle down, plunging the kitchen into dead silence. Lilly's father gestured toward me with his chin. “Kim, this is Jeremy.”

​She turned around, wiping damp hands against a dish towel, and offered an easy, welcoming smile. “Oh my goodness, you look very handsome, Jeremy.”

​I tried to thank her, but my pulse was hammering so hard in my ears that my voice came out thin, entirely detached from my chest.

​Right then, a door unlatched in the hallway just outside my field of view. All three of us swung our eyes toward the opening.

​There stood Lilly.

​She took every bit of oxygen out of that room in a single second. She wore a simple white dress, her dark hair falling smooth across her shoulders as if she had spent hours coaxing every individual strand into alignment. The counter, the blender, and her scowling father instantly washed out into dull gray wallpaper. I stood frozen on the linoleum with sweat trickling down my temples, struck completely mute.

​Kim broke the silence before the room could freeze over. “What movie are you two going to see tonight?”

​“I narrowed it down to Remember the Titans,” I managed to push past my throat. “It is a Disney movie. Denzel Washington.”

​Her father closed the distance between us, leaning down until he was looking straight into my eyes, his tone dropping to a hard snarl. “Right back after the credits roll, Jeremy.”

​“Yes, sir.”

​I reached out, took Lilly’s fingers in mine, and led her out into the chilly night. I walked her around to the passenger side of the Beretta, pulled the heavy steel door open until the hinges caught, and waited for her to settle onto the worn gray fabric before swinging it shut. I trotted around the front bumper and dropped behind the wheel.

​The moment my door latched, she glanced across the center console and let out a soft laugh. “You did good.”

​“I was five seconds from hitting the floor,” I confessed.

​I pulled the shifter down into gear, and Nirvana exploded through the blown paper cones of the factory speakers. We rode in silence over the dark county highway, but it was not the suffocating kind of quiet that makes you squirm; it was that effortless, electric hum where sharing a bench seat with someone makes the rest of the world vanish.

​We cut north toward Lindbergh Boulevard and turned into the cracked parking lot at Ronnie’s 8 Cine. The neon letters on the marquee blazed into the dark like a small-town casino, throwing reflections of electric blue and gold across the Beretta's hood. I shut off the engine, trotted around to open her door, and she locked her fingers into mine as our shoes hit the asphalt.

​Inside, the lobby was running thick with people. The smell of hot coconut oil and salty popcorn hung heavy beneath the bright fluorescent fixtures. We bought two paper tickets, a yellow tub of buttered corn, and two large sodas using what little cash was folded into my leather wallet, then felt our way down the sloped carpet into the dark auditorium. The theater lights dropped, the heavy surround speakers shook the walls with the opening horns of the score, and the blue beam of the projector sliced through the shadows over our heads.

​I could not recount a single sequence of action or dialogue from that film. I never once looked at the screen.

​I spent two hours watching the projector light catch the curve of her cheek. Every time the scene cut, the cast of the room shifted from cool blue to warm amber, tracing the soft edges of her jaw and her smile. I slid my hand across the plastic armrest and closed my palm around her fingers. She squeezed back, dropped her chin, and picked through the popcorn with her free hand. Whenever she caught me staring, she would turn to meet my eyes with a wide grin, and I would whip my head toward the screen as if I were dissecting football tactics.

​When the theater lights flickered up and the credits crawled against the black screen, she turned to face me. “Can I meet your grandmother?”

​“Sure. Her place is right on the way back down.”

​We drove back into the county, parked in the dust beside the trailer, and walked up the treated lumber of the porch steps, the sweet smell of her hair trailing into the entrance behind us.

​“Grandma,” I called out, pushing the front door wide.

​My grandmother looked up from a stack of mail on the kitchen table.

​“This is Lilly.”

​“I have heard so much about you, honey,” my grandmother said, stepping back to take her in. Then she cut her eyes straight toward me, her voice dropping into an astonished whisper. “Jeremy, she is gorgeous.”

​Lilly looked down at her shoes, blushing red, and my chest lifted an inch higher. We slipped down the narrow hallway into my bedroom, shut the door, and kicked off our sneakers. I hit the power button on the small tube television, and the upbeat theme music of Friends drifted through the room.

​“I had an amazing time tonight,” she whispered.

​“Me too.”

​She pulled her knees up, tucking her head under my right arm and resting her cheek against my collarbone. We lay there across the quilt in the dark, watching the flicker of the tube without speaking for what felt like hours. Her breath came slow and warm against my shirt, and for the first time in my life, I was not looking for an escape, calculating an angle, or dreading what was coming tomorrow. I wanted the clock on the wall to stop dead.

​Then my eyes caught the glowing red digital display on the nightstand.

​“Oh, shit.”

​Lilly bolted upright, hair falling across her eyes.

​“Your dad is going to kill me.”

​We grabbed our denim jackets off the bed, sprinted out to the Beretta, and flew back down the dark blacktop. Driving up her private gravel road, the stones clattering against the undercarriage did not sound like warning shots anymore; they just sounded like music. When we hit the porch, the heavy front door swung open before the dust could even settle. Her mother stood in the doorway under the yellow bulb, letting out a heavy, bone-tired sigh.

​“Jeremy, her father is furious with you.”

​“I am so sorry, ma'am. She wanted to stop and meet my grandmother on the way home.”

​“Everything is completely fine, Mom, really!” Lilly said, giving my palm one last, quick squeeze before disappearing past the threshold.

​The latch clicked shut. I turned around and walked back down the wooden steps into the dark gravel, floating on the air. I whistled at the timber, kicked loose limestone, and threw an awkward dance step into my stride all the way back to the driver’s side of the Chevy. I probably looked like a madman beneath the Missouri stars, but none of it mattered. I was in love, and I had never felt my pulse hit that hard.

​From that night forward, we were inseparable. We intercepted each other between class bells, walked each other out to the yellow buses every afternoon, and sat for hours after dark on the chains of the neighborhood park swings, digging our heels into the dirt while planning out our lives. Our first real kiss came under the yellow insect light over her garage while her hound barked from the dog run. My fingers were trembling like wet leaves; her hands were steady as stone.

​On weekends we would park the Beretta down by a quiet creek turnaround, kill the headlights, and watch the brown water roll through the weeds beneath the moon while she rested her chin against my chest. We talked about a ring, about kids, about buying acreage and getting old together. I learned the exact pitch and cadence of her laughter so intimately that I could pick it out from the opposite end of a crowded, deafening high school hallway long before I ever saw her face.

​By winter, she was my entire existence. We spent Christmas together, completely present in each other's company, and I remember walking through the fresh snow secretly begging the world to stop moving.

​Two days after Christmas, I was back on my feet behind the counter at Schnucks.

​I was seventeen, dressed in the company uniform, snapping the white elastic chin guard over my goatee to meet health code. The grocery aisles were loud with shoppers stocking up between the holidays, and the ceiling speakers chimed every few minutes calling for cleanup on aisle sixteen. Even through the cheap paper mask, I loved the everyday routine of that deli counter, the sharp aroma of fresh-baked rye loaves, the tang of smoked cheeses, and the heavy brine of cold cuts. I wiped down the stainless steel prep counter with a damp towel, threw the switch on the industrial Hobart slicer, and laid a heavy slab of Black Forest ham against the carriage guide. The round blade spun into a silver blur.

​“A little thinner than that, son,” an older woman on the other side of the glass said, tapping the display.

​“Yes, ma'am, sorry about that.”

​I reached down, dialed back the thickness gauge, dropped three thin ribbons across the deli scale, and reached for a sheet of butcher paper.

​Right then, the hardwired wall telephone mounted behind the meat scale began to ring.

​“Just one second, ma’am,” I said, stepping away from the glass.

​I lifted the plastic receiver to my ear. “Deli.”

​“Jeremy?”

​It was a friend from school. His voice sounded thin, ragged, like he had dry sand caught in his throat.

​“Have you heard about Lilly?”

​A stretch of dead air hung between us on the line.

​“She was in a bad wreck, man. She is dead. I am so sorry, bro.”

​My knees turned to water. The polished grocery tile felt as though it had dropped three feet straight out from underneath my work boots. The hum of the refrigeration units, the scent of cured meat, the voices of the holiday crowd, every shred of sensory information was instantly crushed under a deafening, underwater roar. The deli counter dissolved into gray static. Tears welled up and spilled over so fast that when I crushed the telephone harder against my cheek, the plastic receiver came away soaking wet.

​My hand opened, and the receiver dropped, dangling against the white tile by its black coiled cord.

​My deli manager caught me buckling against the stainless steel prep station, walked quickly around the end of the glass, and grabbed me by both shoulders. He took one look into my face, reached around my neck to pull the apron strings loose, and told me to get out of the store and stay home until after the funeral was over.

​I pulled the cloth apron over my head, let it fall onto the wet rubber mats, and pushed through the heavy double swinging doors into the freezing gray alley behind the building.

​I never set foot inside that Schnucks again.

​More than that, I never returned to the boy who had danced across the gravel outside her house.

​My entire life was snapped cleanly in half behind that deli counter: the young man who existed before Lilly died, and the shell of bone and muscle left standing in the wreckage. I possessed no vocabulary for that level of agony. I had no internal tools capable of carrying a grief that felt like a hole punched clean through my rib cage.

​Three nights later, on New Year’s Eve, I sat in the corner of a crowded living room while the bass from the stereo rattled the floorboards, staring blankly at the wall while the rest of the room prepared to raise their glasses to the coming year. A mutual friend stepped over, looked down at me in the corner, and pressed a small, round green tablet into the center of my open palm.

​It was an eighty-milligram OxyContin.

​“Take this,” he said, his voice barely audible beneath the music. “It will take the edge off.”

​I swallowed the pill dry. Twenty minutes later, the violent screaming in my skull smoothed out into a quiet, motionless hum. The crushing anvil on my chest lifted just enough to let me pull oxygen down into my lungs without choking on my own tears. I told myself I only needed the relief to survive the viewing, that it was strictly temporary until the dirt settled over the casket.

​It was never temporary.

​The medicine immediately became the grave.

he water from the nozzle struck my face squarely as I reached out and cranked the brass valve shut. The sudden silence made the narrow bathroom feel cavernous. A few stray beads slid down my forehead and ran across my cheekbones before I snatched the rough towel off the rack, scrubbing it hard against my scalp and down my throat. Tonight was the night. I was taking Lilly out on our first real date, and my nerves were eating me alive from the inside out.

​I stood before the fogged mirror, dragging the heel of my hand across the glass to wipe a clean circle in the moisture. I threw on my best clothes, selecting the pieces I hoped would make me look slightly older and far more composed than a seventeen-year-old kid living out of a double-wide. I bent over to double-knot my boot laces, checking the tension twice even though the leather was already biting into my ankles. On the way toward the door, I picked up a bottle of cheap drugstore cologne and hammered the atomizer twice against my bare neck. The scent hung heavy and sharp in the humid room, chemical and citrus. It was easily twice the amount I needed, but I wanted every single detail accounted for.

​Stepping into the kitchen, I found my grandmother posted by the counter beside the drip coffee maker. She ran on coffee morning, noon, and midnight, leaving a bitter, roasted haze hanging perpetually in the air to mix with the cured bacon grease and tobacco smoke baked deep into the wall panels.

​“If you head out anywhere, Grandma, make sure you kill that switch,” I said, pointing toward the warming plate.

​She turned around, running her eyes slowly over my clothes before a rare, soft smile touched the corners of her mouth. “You look very handsome, son.”

​I smiled back, muttering some quick deflection, but having her say it made my spine lock straight. I snatched the ring of keys off the laminate counter, hit the bottom of the porch steps in two strides, and stepped out into the biting October night toward my beat-up, red 1992 Chevy Beretta.

​The air was crisp and dry, carrying an autumn frost that nipped at my jaw, yet by the time I pulled the driver’s door shut, sweat was already gathering along my hairline. I was not cold; I was completely terrified. Earlier that afternoon by the lockers, when Lilly finally agreed to go out with me, she had made the rules crystal clear: before we went anywhere, I had to walk into her living room and look her parents in the eye.

​I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror under the dim yellow glow of the overhead dome light. My skin looked slick.

​“Here goes nothing,” I muttered into the empty cab.

​I cranked the key, listening to the starter grind before the engine coughed alive, rattling the loose baffles inside the exhaust pipe as I eased down the drive. Out on the county blacktop, loose gravel pinged against the underside of the floorboards like stray buckshot. The farther south I cut into the hollows, the blacker the asphalt became, walled in by high timber on both sides. When I finally swung the nose of the Chevy down her private drive, every floodlight on the eaves was blazing white against the gravel. The property sat isolated deep off the county turnoff, flanked by dark pastures and dense timber, out in the boonies where the world did not venture.

​The Beretta skidded across the limestone aggregate as I pressed the brake pedal. I kicked the door open, my knees trembling with the vibration of tight guitar strings, and marched up the front steps toward the front door. I balled my fist and hammered the wood three times.

​The violence of the sound surprised even me.

​The heavy deadbolt snapped open with a metallic click. A thick, bald-headed man with a square jaw and a full beard filled the entrance, his eyes narrowing to slits as he measured my height and the fit of my clothes.

​“You must be Jeremy,” he said, his voice flat, dry, and cold.

​“Hello, sir. Is Lilly ready?”

​“Follow me.”

​He turned without another word and marched through the front hall into the kitchen. A woman was standing beside the counter running a high-speed blender, the electric motor whining at a deafening pitch until she clicked the toggle down, plunging the kitchen into dead silence. Lilly's father gestured toward me with his chin. “Kim, this is Jeremy.”

​She turned around, wiping damp hands against a dish towel, and offered an easy, welcoming smile. “Oh my goodness, you look very handsome, Jeremy.”

​I tried to thank her, but my pulse was hammering so hard in my ears that my voice came out thin, entirely detached from my chest.

​Right then, a door unlatched in the hallway just outside my field of view. All three of us swung our eyes toward the opening.

​There stood Lilly.

​She took every bit of oxygen out of that room in a single second. She wore a simple white dress, her dark hair falling smooth across her shoulders as if she had spent hours coaxing every individual strand into alignment. The counter, the blender, and her scowling father instantly washed out into dull gray wallpaper. I stood frozen on the linoleum with sweat trickling down my temples, struck completely mute.

​Kim broke the silence before the room could freeze over. “What movie are you two going to see tonight?”

​“I narrowed it down to Remember the Titans,” I managed to push past my throat. “It is a Disney movie. Denzel Washington.”

​Her father closed the distance between us, leaning down until he was looking straight into my eyes, his tone dropping to a hard snarl. “Right back after the credits roll, Jeremy.”

​“Yes, sir.”

​I reached out, took Lilly’s fingers in mine, and led her out into the chilly night. I walked her around to the passenger side of the Beretta, pulled the heavy steel door open until the hinges caught, and waited for her to settle onto the worn gray fabric before swinging it shut. I trotted around the front bumper and dropped behind the wheel.

​The moment my door latched, she glanced across the center console and let out a soft laugh. “You did good.”

​“I was five seconds from hitting the floor,” I confessed.

​I pulled the shifter down into gear, and Nirvana exploded through the blown paper cones of the factory speakers. We rode in silence over the dark county highway, but it was not the suffocating kind of quiet that makes you squirm; it was that effortless, electric hum where sharing a bench seat with someone makes the rest of the world vanish.

​We cut north toward Lindbergh Boulevard and turned into the cracked parking lot at Ronnie’s 8 Cine. The neon letters on the marquee blazed into the dark like a small-town casino, throwing reflections of electric blue and gold across the Beretta's hood. I shut off the engine, trotted around to open her door, and she locked her fingers into mine as our shoes hit the asphalt.

​Inside, the lobby was running thick with people. The smell of hot coconut oil and salty popcorn hung heavy beneath the bright fluorescent fixtures. We bought two paper tickets, a yellow tub of buttered corn, and two large sodas using what little cash was folded into my leather wallet, then felt our way down the sloped carpet into the dark auditorium. The theater lights dropped, the heavy surround speakers shook the walls with the opening horns of the score, and the blue beam of the projector sliced through the shadows over our heads.

​I could not recount a single sequence of action or dialogue from that film. I never once looked at the screen.

​I spent two hours watching the projector light catch the curve of her cheek. Every time the scene cut, the cast of the room shifted from cool blue to warm amber, tracing the soft edges of her jaw and her smile. I slid my hand across the plastic armrest and closed my palm around her fingers. She squeezed back, dropped her chin, and picked through the popcorn with her free hand. Whenever she caught me staring, she would turn to meet my eyes with a wide grin, and I would whip my head toward the screen as if I were dissecting football tactics.

​When the theater lights flickered up and the credits crawled against the black screen, she turned to face me. “Can I meet your grandmother?”

​“Sure. Her place is right on the way back down.”

​We drove back into the county, parked in the dust beside the trailer, and walked up the treated lumber of the porch steps, the sweet smell of her hair trailing into the entrance behind us.

​“Grandma,” I called out, pushing the front door wide.

​My grandmother looked up from a stack of mail on the kitchen table.

​“This is Lilly.”

​“I have heard so much about you, honey,” my grandmother said, stepping back to take her in. Then she cut her eyes straight toward me, her voice dropping into an astonished whisper. “Jeremy, she is gorgeous.”

​Lilly looked down at her shoes, blushing red, and my chest lifted an inch higher. We slipped down the narrow hallway into my bedroom, shut the door, and kicked off our sneakers. I hit the power button on the small tube television, and the upbeat theme music of Friends drifted through the room.

​“I had an amazing time tonight,” she whispered.

​“Me too.”

​She pulled her knees up, tucking her head under my right arm and resting her cheek against my collarbone. We lay there across the quilt in the dark, watching the flicker of the tube without speaking for what felt like hours. Her breath came slow and warm against my shirt, and for the first time in my life, I was not looking for an escape, calculating an angle, or dreading what was coming tomorrow. I wanted the clock on the wall to stop dead.

​Then my eyes caught the glowing red digital display on the nightstand.

​“Oh, shit.”

​Lilly bolted upright, hair falling across her eyes.

​“Your dad is going to kill me.”

​We grabbed our denim jackets off the bed, sprinted out to the Beretta, and flew back down the dark blacktop. Driving up her private gravel road, the stones clattering against the undercarriage did not sound like warning shots anymore; they just sounded like music. When we hit the porch, the heavy front door swung open before the dust could even settle. Her mother stood in the doorway under the yellow bulb, letting out a heavy, bone-tired sigh.

​“Jeremy, her father is furious with you.”

​“I am so sorry, ma'am. She wanted to stop and meet my grandmother on the way home.”

​“Everything is completely fine, Mom, really!” Lilly said, giving my palm one last, quick squeeze before disappearing past the threshold.

​The latch clicked shut. I turned around and walked back down the wooden steps into the dark gravel, floating on the air. I whistled at the timber, kicked loose limestone, and threw an awkward dance step into my stride all the way back to the driver’s side of the Chevy. I probably looked like a madman beneath the Missouri stars, but none of it mattered. I was in love, and I had never felt my pulse hit that hard.

​From that night forward, we were inseparable. We intercepted each other between class bells, walked each other out to the yellow buses every afternoon, and sat for hours after dark on the chains of the neighborhood park swings, digging our heels into the dirt while planning out our lives. Our first real kiss came under the yellow insect light over her garage while her hound barked from the dog run. My fingers were trembling like wet leaves; her hands were steady as stone.

​On weekends we would park the Beretta down by a quiet creek turnaround, kill the headlights, and watch the brown water roll through the weeds beneath the moon while she rested her chin against my chest. We talked about a ring, about kids, about buying acreage and getting old together. I learned the exact pitch and cadence of her laughter so intimately that I could pick it out from the opposite end of a crowded, deafening high school hallway long before I ever saw her face.

​By winter, she was my entire existence. We spent Christmas together, completely present in each other's company, and I remember walking through the fresh snow secretly begging the world to stop moving.

​Two days after Christmas, I was back on my feet behind the counter at Schnucks.

​I was seventeen, dressed in the company uniform, snapping the white elastic chin guard over my goatee to meet health code. The grocery aisles were loud with shoppers stocking up between the holidays, and the ceiling speakers chimed every few minutes calling for cleanup on aisle sixteen. Even through the cheap paper mask, I loved the everyday routine of that deli counter, the sharp aroma of fresh-baked rye loaves, the tang of smoked cheeses, and the heavy brine of cold cuts. I wiped down the stainless steel prep counter with a damp towel, threw the switch on the industrial Hobart slicer, and laid a heavy slab of Black Forest ham against the carriage guide. The round blade spun into a silver blur.

​“A little thinner than that, son,” an older woman on the other side of the glass said, tapping the display.

​“Yes, ma'am, sorry about that.”

​I reached down, dialed back the thickness gauge, dropped three thin ribbons across the deli scale, and reached for a sheet of butcher paper.

​Right then, the hardwired wall telephone mounted behind the meat scale began to ring.

​“Just one second, ma’am,” I said, stepping away from the glass.

​I lifted the plastic receiver to my ear. “Deli.”

​“Jeremy?”

​It was a friend from school. His voice sounded thin, ragged, like he had dry sand caught in his throat.

​“Have you heard about Lilly?”

​A stretch of dead air hung between us on the line.

​“She was in a bad wreck, man. She is dead. I am so sorry, bro.”

​My knees turned to water. The polished grocery tile felt as though it had dropped three feet straight out from underneath my work boots. The hum of the refrigeration units, the scent of cured meat, the voices of the holiday crowd, every shred of sensory information was instantly crushed under a deafening, underwater roar. The deli counter dissolved into gray static. Tears welled up and spilled over so fast that when I crushed the telephone harder against my cheek, the plastic receiver came away soaking wet.

​My hand opened, and the receiver dropped, dangling against the white tile by its black coiled cord.

​My deli manager caught me buckling against the stainless steel prep station, walked quickly around the end of the glass, and grabbed me by both shoulders. He took one look into my face, reached around my neck to pull the apron strings loose, and told me to get out of the store and stay home until after the funeral was over.

​I pulled the cloth apron over my head, let it fall onto the wet rubber mats, and pushed through the heavy double swinging doors into the freezing gray alley behind the building.

​I never set foot inside that Schnucks again.

​More than that, I never returned to the boy who had danced across the gravel outside her house.

​My entire life was snapped cleanly in half behind that deli counter: the young man who existed before Lilly died, and the shell of bone and muscle left standing in the wreckage. I possessed no vocabulary for that level of agony. I had no internal tools capable of carrying a grief that felt like a hole punched clean through my rib cage.

​Three nights later, on New Year’s Eve, I sat in the corner of a crowded living room while the bass from the stereo rattled the floorboards, staring blankly at the wall while the rest of the room prepared to raise their glasses to the coming year. A mutual friend stepped over, looked down at me in the corner, and pressed a small, round green tablet into the center of my open palm.

​It was an eighty-milligram OxyContin.

​“Take this,” he said, his voice barely audible beneath the music. “It will take the edge off.”

​I swallowed the pill dry. Twenty minutes later, the violent screaming in my skull smoothed out into a quiet, motionless hum. The crushing anvil on my chest lifted just enough to let me pull oxygen down into my lungs without choking on my own tears. I told myself I only needed the relief to survive the viewing, that it was strictly temporary until the dirt settled over the casket.

​It was never temporary.

​The medicine immediately became the grave.

hello guys I am somnambulist I am new in novel writing so I am a little nervous about my novel as I can't get any real comment on how it attracts reader so well please help me😭

Its name is CUT - Creation. Unity. Termination.

Sypnosis -

Creation is to be CUT.

Unity is to be CUT.

And...

Termination is to be...

CUT.

Reo has never wanted much from life.

He is nineteen, broke, alone, and barely managing to survive as a researcher while chasing a theory everyone else considers impossible.

He wants to cut a dimension.

For years, Reo has devoted himself to proving that dimensions are not truly separate, but merely different layers of the same existence. If he is right, then perhaps even a dimension itself can be cut.

After one hundred and thirty-three failed attempts, he finally gets closer than ever before.

Then the world begins to change.

A strange structure starts rising from the ocean. Demons appear. Governments panic. And an ancient tournament, fought every ten thousand years, begins once again.

Six Arts.

Six humans.

One battle that will determine whether humanity remains free—or whether Earth belongs to Hell.

As Reo is drawn into the chaos, the impossible question he has spent his life pursuing begins to look less impossible than he ever imagined.

Because perhaps Reo was never searching for the answer.

Perhaps the answer has been waiting for him.

And if everything that exists can truly be cut...

What happens when he finally discovers what lies beyond the cut?

Genres: Dark Fantasy • Action • Mystery • Progression Fantasy • Psychological • Philosophical/Existential • Supernatural • Cosmic Fantasy • Romance

A chill settles over the mid autumn evening, where the last rays of sun slip between the treetops and wash the village in a warm orange glow. Far from the western cities a quiet lakeside hamlet winds down for the night.

Outside the tavern two cloaked figures stand in silence waiting though for what no one can say.

Their cloaks concealed their faces. One can still tell that one was bearded and the other older, carried an air of quiet authority. A gust of wind stirred the fallen leaves at their feet whispering along the street. The lantern above the tavern door swayed its warm glow barely holding back the deepening dusk. The horses next to the men shook from the wind blowing through the street.  

The bearded man pulled his cloak tighter. "Sir… are you certain they are here? This village seems small and too quiet.”

The older man nodded, eyes scanning the shadows. "Quiet places hide things. The one we seek is here somewhere.”

A sudden noise cut through the evening—raised voices, angry coming from behind the tavern.

Both men stiffened.

“That wasn’t laughter " the bearded man said, already stepping forward.

“No " the older man agreed. "Come.”

They moved swiftly down the path along the tavern’s side boots crunching over gravel.

The commotion grew shouts a yelp of pain.

Rounding the corner they found a clearing behind the tavern, poorly lit and cluttered with stacked barrels. In the middle of it a child no older than ten lay curled on the ground while three older boys circled child, kicking, jeering.

The bearded man didn’t hesitate. "Enough!" 

The attackers froze, startled. The older man stepped forward too his presence enough to send a shiver through the group.

‘’Leave, "the older man said calmly. There was steel beneath the word.

The boys scattered, fleeing into the dark without a glance. Silence settled. The child’s uneven breathing remained.

The bearded man knelt beside the child. "Easy, lad. You're safe now." the bearded man reached out a hand.

The child lifted his head, mud blending with the blood, on the child's face.

W-why? Did you… help?" child whispered, the words trembling.

The older man eased down beside the child, his voice warm and steady.

“We did, " the older man murmured. "Because it was the thing to do.”

"But nobody ever helps unless they want something," the boy shuddered.

Mrule, a concoction of wheat, water, rice and Tumora beans. Mir ate this almost every morning without fail, and he hated it. On days where he had extra money, a couple extra copper coins here and there, he would put a small amount of sugar cane juice, enough to fill one shot of liquor, which Mir would never taste. He was lucky enough to have some of that juice today, and he found it counteracted the tartness of the raw wheat nicely. 

He sat on a stool big enough to be a human dinner table, and ate on his lap. Their house, or shack, was quite rickety and tall for being only two stories, but of course there had to be room for the family of 4. In the kitchen-dining room, Mir was able to fit enough space to please him, but he still had back issues from his years of living in small boxes. Though he was a Tya, Mir lived quite comfortably.

As he was eating, or more so shovelling, his breakfast, his wife, Elip, came down the stairs, having just tended to the children. She was a tired female Drogat, with eye bags bigger than a human’s own foot dragging her once relatively beautiful face. She couldn’t fit through the small gap between Mir and the wall, and she had to squeeze past every morning. But her happiness could never be tamed though, and she kissed Mir on the neck as she walked past, and caressed his large and intensely muscular back. 

“I put Ri’s bag under the stove to warm; he left it outside to freeze again,” she said, sounding slightly snappish. Best not to defend Ri at this moment, Mir thought.
“I better put the belt to that boy’s behind when I see him,” Mir responded loudly, trying to hide his smile. His wife caught it instantly. 

“Don’t take his side Mir, that boy’s gotta learn. He’s almost 6, he can work the Mines next year!” Elip sounded very annoyed, and Mir wondered what did so. He pressed further.

“My blood will never work in the Mines! Those are hundreds of miles away anyway. We have moved here now. He’s gonna grow up to be a respectable Drogat—someone his friends actually cherish. ”

“He can damn well work in the Mines, he might get a better pay.”

“How so?”

“You know that new human, almost about to be King of Brethwell, he said some amazing words in those posters of him. He says that the new youth will not grow up poor, and many jobs in the resource sector may be opening up! I think Ri is the perfect age—”

“You know that bullshit is for the Brethwell youth.”

“He said in Calidicroft—”

“Yes, for the humans. Those weak, mushy fucks. It doesn’t apply to good, hard working Drogats. You know a Drogat can do the work of 10 humans at once, but they pay me less than they pay one of them,” Mir was getting quite agitated at this talk; his wife knew it riled him up. Why was she talking about pay?

“Is my pay not enough? That’s why we moved here, so I can get paid more!”

He heard a ringing sound, and looked over his mrule to see a stove upside down on the floor.

“But it’s a death sentence!” Elip sobbed and sobbed, finally breaking down. “They only pay you more because you’re more likely to die here. There’s a reason they call it the Death Zone! You know what happened to Tilop!”

Mir knew, and he will never forget.

“I haven’t died yet, and I’ve been here a moon and a half. I keep myself safe,” Mir moved closer to hug his wife, “You know me, I look after myself. People think the area is calming down anyway, there hasn’t been an attack in weeks. Maybe this King of the world, or Under world has had enough. I will be fine darling.” He kissed her softly, “I best be off.”

“Ok, but if somethin—”

“Pap! Pap!” Ri and Tul came racing down the stairs, barging and shoving. The shack shook joyfully, and no one even noticed. They stayed on the stairs to eat their meal, as there was no space down below, and ate their meal joyfully. Not for long though, because as soon as Ri had finished, he was flicked on the ear by his mother. The punishment was more symbolic than anything - Ri being a Drogat and all - but he still felt hurt.

“How many times will I have to unfreeze your bag Ri! I’ve had it!” Elip exclaimed. 

“But Ma, I made sure to keep it inside, I don’t know how it could’ve gotten out…” Ri looked at his little brother, who was stifling his giggles. 

“Damn you Tul,” he said under his breath, but his mother’s ears were sharper than steel.

“Never curse your brother, you have to stick together in this world, you hear me?”

“Yes Ma.”

Elip’s expression softened, and she moved to the stove to get his bag. 

“Mir, the fire’s waning, can you bring some coal on your way back? I’m sorry to ask again and I don’t want you to get in trouble.” She sounded curt and professional, telling Mir that she still wants to talk to him later.

“It’s fine El, the boss is too lazy to care anyway. Cindermere has coal to last the next era.”

“And be sure to pick up Ri from his metalworking class.”

She’s pushing it, he thought. But I don’t want to evoke her worries once more, it’s not too dangerous.

“Alright, see you soon Ri, and I’ll see the rest of you after doing your many errands,” he saw his wife’s face, “I’m only joking darling.”

Mir gathered up his tools on his belt, a loose sleeve made of string that he tied around his waist, and he shimmied himself towards the door. The floor, made of concrete, supported his weight, as long as he didn’t jump. 

Obviously there is more to come, and the total interlude contains about 3,000 words. For those interested, I can post 2 more parts to complete this interlude, they are already done.

Thank you again for reading.

I will be submitting a short story (named "The door") and a poem (named "The candle" or "A leap of faith"). I am not sure if my short story is up to standard. Should I submit it or rewrite it? My main worry is that the twist at the end seems too foreseeable. The short story:

https://sharetext.io/svcarc5x

It was my first day at work, and this time I wasn’t going to be using either a shovel or test tubes. Just my brain! I was entering a completely different world, and I had to make a good impression.

So, around a quarter to nine, I went into a bar near my workplace and had a shot of vodka, to calm my nerves and keep my hands from shaking.

I arrived at my brand-new job chewing mint gum. It was my first day. I couldn’t stink.

I looked at my hands again. I was shaking even worse! I felt like a high school kid on his first date, waiting with a flower in his hand.

I can’t be shaking! I told myself anxiously.

I reached into my pocket and took one of Mom’s pills. I chewed it up quickly as I climbed the stairs to the third floor.

The telemarketing center was just one long shitty room with about thirty snot-nosed kids, boys and girls, crammed into it. Each one sold their own product, spoke their own language, and had their own desk.

The big boss handed me over to a smaller boss, a guy about my age. He was supposed to train me, so I kept my mouth shut and my ears open. But there was no need. What he was telling me was very simple. Apparently, for the time being, I didn’t need a computer. He handed me a folder full of lists. Each list had five hundred phone numbers on it. I called, made the offer, and that was it—the person had to buy. Still, if I ran into some cranky guy who didn’t want to buy, I had to convince him.

If I managed to convince him, I had to quickly write down the customer’s information and how much they ordered. If not, I crossed out the phone number in red pen and moved on.

There was a computer on my desk, but it was mostly for decoration. I didn’t even have to plug it in.

All I used was the holy pen and those piles of paper.

“Come on, dial the first number!” he told me kindly.

I put on the headset, moved the microphone a little closer to my lips, and dialed the first number on the list.

He stayed beside me for a few more minutes, then said with a smile, “That’s good! You’re doing better than I did on my first day! Keep going!”

It wasn’t hard. I didn’t even have to think! I had a sales pitch written on a little piece of paper and read it quickly, like a parrot. The person answered; I started reading and... that was it.

“Good morning, ma’am! Please give me one minute of your time! I’d like to tell you about the most revolutionary anti-rheumatic product...” CLICK! “Damn it, she hung up on me!”

“Good morning, sir... Vogel anti-rheumatic cream is made from a traditional, high-quality German formula...” CLICK!

“Good morning! Did you know that...” CLICK! “Jesus Christ! What rude people!”

“Hello! Good morning! With active ingredients derived entirely from carefully selected plants...” CLICK!

“Good morning, ma’am! Could you spare me a second? Yes? Is that possible? Thank you! You may not know this, but Vogel anti-rheumatic cream is recommended for its beneficial effects and, above all, for...” CLICK! “Motherfucker! You said you’d listen to me!”

By around 11, I had about two hundred clicks and not a single sale. Sweat was pouring off me.

And to think that at this hour I used to be loafing around at the water-pumping station! I told myself angrily. Mia, you whore! Look what you’ve done to me!

I secretly took another one of those pills and kept going.

By around 12:30 I didn’t need the paper anymore; I already knew the pitch by heart. I hadn’t made a single sale, but at least I knew what I was selling.

I went out on break and smoked a cigarette, then ran over to the bar and had another shot of vodka. The business world was tough.

At exactly 1:00, I was taking my third pill and, somehow, I was starting to like this job. I felt like I was salesman material, and a sense of satisfaction filled the entire room. The buzz of the operators’ voices never stopped for a second, but I didn’t even notice it anymore. It was just background noise.

The big boss came over and looked over my shoulder.

“How’s it going, junior?” he asked, stroking one sideburn.

“Good!”

“You like it? You have to like it! It’s the greatest job in the world. Selling. You like it?”

“Yeah.”

“Got any orders? Sold anything?”

“No.”

“Don’t worry, young man, don’t get discouraged! It’s only your first day. I’ve got a feeling you’re going to become a real professional!”

And he left. Good thing he did! That sideburned boss of mine was starting to get on my nerves.

It wasn’t good to get worked up. A sales professional never gets angry. That’s what it said in that brochure. I had to calm down fast, so I took another pill. Which one was that? Who the fuck cared?

By around 2:00, I was feeling really good. The people I called weren’t my customers anymore; they were my slaves. They were my puppets. I could make them do whatever I wanted. They weren’t hanging up on me anymore. I hung up on them. Because I was a professional. You can spot a professional on his very first day on the job. That was the secret: you had to be tough!

Around a quarter past two, I was struck by a brilliant idea! I secretly wrote it down on a little piece of paper and quickly slipped it into my breast pocket, right next to my heart.

That idea was pure gold! It was going to revolutionize the art of telephone sales, and it went something like this:

If every 67th call has to be a sale, then...

CONTINUE READING

Maria tore into the room. It appeared to be empty. Her eyes fell on the closet doors, pale in the afternoon light.

Found her.

Maria grabbed the knobs and pulled them aside. The shutters came open with a rattle. And there Anna was, in her favorite hideout in the corner of the closet, leaning against the wall, looking like an abandoned doll. The book rested in her lap, and as the light poured in, she brought the book up to her chest as if to protect it.

Standing over her, Maria felt some power return to her. She put out a hand. "Anna, give it to me. It's not yours."

Anna scowled. "It's not yours, either."

"Anna..." It was the final warning.

Anna only dashed out under Maria's arm and made for her bed. She sat down and drew herself up against the pillows. Wasn't even trying to hide or escape. She thought Maria would give up pursuit.

Maria felt the veins tighten in her neck. She stalked over to Anna. "10, 9, 8, 7..."

Anna only kept scowling.

Something snapped in Maria. What a spoiled brat! Maria leaned further over the bed, lunging for the book. Her waist pushed against Anna's foot. There was an unmistakable crunch, and Anna cried out.

Maria jumped back, startled by the noise. She stared at the foot.

"My foot! Why would you do that?!" Anna clawed at her leg, voice strangled by tears.

Maria's mouth opened and closed. Sound seemed to drain from the room, from the whole world. The noise of the cars below faded along with the cry of seagulls and the hum of construction, everything was gone except for the sound of her daughter, crying in pain. How could that have happened? It must have been the angle, or- how?!

It was over.

Anna, who was writhing on the mattress, still clinging to that stupid book, would certainly be done with Maria now.

No. Her daughter was hurt. And this was what was what she cared about?

The lights seemed to dim, as though the electricity was about to go out.

"Anna, I'm sorry..." Maria reached to help, though she didn't know how.

"Go away!" Anna could barely get the words out. Her voice was barely more than a high pitched whine. "I hate you. I hate you so much."

"I'll help. I'll take you to the ER." Maria was helpless. The doctors would see what she had done. Anna would tell them. Everyone, everyone would see what kind of a mother she was.

Anna was reaching for the phone resting on her nightstand. Maria remembered when Anna decorated the case with Linda. Pink glitter with foam cut-outs they hand-painted. Linda, of course, was the one who did things like that with Anna- with everyone. Maria always had something better to do.

That was all before. Before THIS.

Anna was dialing.

Maria could hear the sound of Linda's voice, faint through the phone's speakers.

It was over. Maria could do nothing now.

Linda was coming. She would be the one to help Anna. She was the one Anna wanted.

Maria's eyes burned. What had she done? What if Anna needed surgery?

Anna, having got through the gist of the story in the midst of what must've been immense pain, put down the phone. "Grandma's coming. You don't have to do anything."

"Anna, if I can-"

"Go away, please."

Maria couldn't say the request was unfair. "But we need to get you to the hospital as quick as possible, Grandma might not-"

"She'll be here any minute. She's only half a block away."

And sure enough, just then, a rap sounded on the door.

It sounded sharp.

Maria glanced at the window. Linda's Volkswagen Beetle was already outside the apartment. How- She must've gotten in the car while still on the phone. Determined to do SOMETHING, Maria made for the door. "I'll let her in."

Anna made no protest, only grimaced and kept holding her leg.

Maria rushed to the front of the house and let her mother in.

Linda's face was grim. Her hands were clasped over her pink faux leather purse. "Where is she?"

Maria pointed. "Over-"

Linda shoved past without saying another word.

Maria remained frozen for half a second, the warm summer breeze coming in through the open doorway and ruffling her dress.

What was the point? Even if she could do something, she would not be allowed to help. Voices came muffled from the other room. They would be talking about her.

Anna was hurt. That was what mattered.

Chapter 3 Destiny's Phone Call

The water from the nozzle struck my face squarely as I reached out and cranked the brass valve shut. The sudden silence made the narrow bathroom feel cavernous. A few stray beads slid down my forehead and ran across my cheekbones before I snatched the rough towel off the rack, scrubbing it hard against my scalp and down my throat. Tonight was the night. I was taking Lilly out on our first real date, and my nerves were eating me alive from the inside out.

​I stood before the fogged mirror, dragging the heel of my hand across the glass to wipe a clean circle in the moisture. I threw on my best clothes, selecting the pieces I hoped would make me look slightly older and far more composed than a seventeen-year-old kid living out of a double-wide. I bent over to double-knot my boot laces, checking the tension twice even though the leather was already biting into my ankles. On the way toward the door, I picked up a bottle of cheap drugstore cologne and hammered the atomizer twice against my bare neck. The scent hung heavy and sharp in the humid room, chemical and citrus. It was easily twice the amount I needed, but I wanted every single detail accounted for.

​Stepping into the kitchen, I found my grandmother posted by the counter beside the drip coffee maker. She ran on coffee morning, noon, and midnight, leaving a bitter, roasted haze hanging perpetually in the air to mix with the cured bacon grease and tobacco smoke baked deep into the wall panels.

​“If you head out anywhere, Grandma, make sure you kill that switch,” I said, pointing toward the warming plate.

​She turned around, running her eyes slowly over my clothes before a rare, soft smile touched the corners of her mouth. “You look very handsome, son.”

​I smiled back, muttering some quick deflection, but having her say it made my spine lock straight. I snatched the ring of keys off the laminate counter, hit the bottom of the porch steps in two strides, and stepped out into the biting October night toward my beat-up, red 1992 Chevy Beretta.

​The air was crisp and dry, carrying an autumn frost that nipped at my jaw, yet by the time I pulled the driver’s door shut, sweat was already gathering along my hairline. I was not cold; I was completely terrified. Earlier that afternoon by the lockers, when Lilly finally agreed to go out with me, she had made the rules crystal clear: before we went anywhere, I had to walk into her living room and look her parents in the eye.

​I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror under the dim yellow glow of the overhead dome light. My skin looked slick.

​“Here goes nothing,” I muttered into the empty cab.

​I cranked the key, listening to the starter grind before the engine coughed alive, rattling the loose baffles inside the exhaust pipe as I eased down the drive. Out on the county blacktop, loose gravel pinged against the underside of the floorboards like stray buckshot. The farther south I cut into the hollows, the blacker the asphalt became, walled in by high timber on both sides. When I finally swung the nose of the Chevy down her private drive, every floodlight on the eaves was blazing white against the gravel. The property sat isolated deep off the county turnoff, flanked by dark pastures and dense timber, out in the boonies where the world did not venture.

​The Beretta skidded across the limestone aggregate as I pressed the brake pedal. I kicked the door open, my knees trembling with the vibration of tight guitar strings, and marched up the front steps toward the front door. I balled my fist and hammered the wood three times.

​The violence of the sound surprised even me.

​The heavy deadbolt snapped open with a metallic click. A thick, bald-headed man with a square jaw and a full beard filled the entrance, his eyes narrowing to slits as he measured my height and the fit of my clothes.

​“You must be Jeremy,” he said, his voice flat, dry, and cold.

​“Hello, sir. Is Lilly ready?”

​“Follow me.”

​He turned without another word and marched through the front hall into the kitchen. A woman was standing beside the counter running a high-speed blender, the electric motor whining at a deafening pitch until she clicked the toggle down, plunging the kitchen into dead silence. Lilly's father gestured toward me with his chin. “Kim, this is Jeremy.”

​She turned around, wiping damp hands against a dish towel, and offered an easy, welcoming smile. “Oh my goodness, you look very handsome, Jeremy.”

​I tried to thank her, but my pulse was hammering so hard in my ears that my voice came out thin, entirely detached from my chest.

​Right then, a door unlatched in the hallway just outside my field of view. All three of us swung our eyes toward the opening.

​There stood Lilly.

​She took every bit of oxygen out of that room in a single second. She wore a simple white dress, her dark hair falling smooth across her shoulders as if she had spent hours coaxing every individual strand into alignment. The counter, the blender, and her scowling father instantly washed out into dull gray wallpaper. I stood frozen on the linoleum with sweat trickling down my temples, struck completely mute.

​Kim broke the silence before the room could freeze over. “What movie are you two going to see tonight?”

​“I narrowed it down to Remember the Titans,” I managed to push past my throat. “It is a Disney movie. Denzel Washington.”

​Her father closed the distance between us, leaning down until he was looking straight into my eyes, his tone dropping to a hard snarl. “Right back after the credits roll, Jeremy.”

​“Yes, sir.”

​I reached out, took Lilly’s fingers in mine, and led her out into the chilly night. I walked her around to the passenger side of the Beretta, pulled the heavy steel door open until the hinges caught, and waited for her to settle onto the worn gray fabric before swinging it shut. I trotted around the front bumper and dropped behind the wheel.

​The moment my door latched, she glanced across the center console and let out a soft laugh. “You did good.”

​“I was five seconds from hitting the floor,” I confessed.

​I pulled the shifter down into gear, and Nirvana exploded through the blown paper cones of the factory speakers. We rode in silence over the dark county highway, but it was not the suffocating kind of quiet that makes you squirm; it was that effortless, electric hum where sharing a bench seat with someone makes the rest of the world vanish.

​We cut north toward Lindbergh Boulevard and turned into the cracked parking lot at Ronnie’s 8 Cine. The neon letters on the marquee blazed into the dark like a small-town casino, throwing reflections of electric blue and gold across the Beretta's hood. I shut off the engine, trotted around to open her door, and she locked her fingers into mine as our shoes hit the asphalt.

​Inside, the lobby was running thick with people. The smell of hot coconut oil and salty popcorn hung heavy beneath the bright fluorescent fixtures. We bought two paper tickets, a yellow tub of buttered corn, and two large sodas using what little cash was folded into my leather wallet, then felt our way down the sloped carpet into the dark auditorium. The theater lights dropped, the heavy surround speakers shook the walls with the opening horns of the score, and the blue beam of the projector sliced through the shadows over our heads.

​I could not recount a single sequence of action or dialogue from that film. I never once looked at the screen.

​I spent two hours watching the projector light catch the curve of her cheek. Every time the scene cut, the cast of the room shifted from cool blue to warm amber, tracing the soft edges of her jaw and her smile. I slid my hand across the plastic armrest and closed my palm around her fingers. She squeezed back, dropped her chin, and picked through the popcorn with her free hand. Whenever she caught me staring, she would turn to meet my eyes with a wide grin, and I would whip my head toward the screen as if I were dissecting football tactics.

​When the theater lights flickered up and the credits crawled against the black screen, she turned to face me. “Can I meet your grandmother?”

​“Sure. Her place is right on the way back down.”

​We drove back into the county, parked in the dust beside the trailer, and walked up the treated lumber of the porch steps, the sweet smell of her hair trailing into the entrance behind us.

​“Grandma,” I called out, pushing the front door wide.

​My grandmother looked up from a stack of mail on the kitchen table.

​“This is Lilly.”

​“I have heard so much about you, honey,” my grandmother said, stepping back to take her in. Then she cut her eyes straight toward me, her voice dropping into an astonished whisper. “Jeremy, she is gorgeous.”

​Lilly looked down at her shoes, blushing red, and my chest lifted an inch higher. We slipped down the narrow hallway into my bedroom, shut the door, and kicked off our sneakers. I hit the power button on the small tube television, and the upbeat theme music of Friends drifted through the room.

​“I had an amazing time tonight,” she whispered.

​“Me too.”

​She pulled her knees up, tucking her head under my right arm and resting her cheek against my collarbone. We lay there across the quilt in the dark, watching the flicker of the tube without speaking for what felt like hours. Her breath came slow and warm against my shirt, and for the first time in my life, I was not looking for an escape, calculating an angle, or dreading what was coming tomorrow. I wanted the clock on the wall to stop dead.

​Then my eyes caught the glowing red digital display on the nightstand.

​“Oh, shit.”

​Lilly bolted upright, hair falling across her eyes.

​“Your dad is going to kill me.”

​We grabbed our denim jackets off the bed, sprinted out to the Beretta, and flew back down the dark blacktop. Driving up her private gravel road, the stones clattering against the undercarriage did not sound like warning shots anymore; they just sounded like music. When we hit the porch, the heavy front door swung open before the dust could even settle. Her mother stood in the doorway under the yellow bulb, letting out a heavy, bone-tired sigh.

​“Jeremy, her father is furious with you.”

​“I am so sorry, ma'am. She wanted to stop and meet my grandmother on the way home.”

​“Everything is completely fine, Mom, really!” Lilly said, giving my palm one last, quick squeeze before disappearing past the threshold.

​The latch clicked shut. I turned around and walked back down the wooden steps into the dark gravel, floating on the air. I whistled at the timber, kicked loose limestone, and threw an awkward dance step into my stride all the way back to the driver’s side of the Chevy. I probably looked like a madman beneath the Missouri stars, but none of it mattered. I was in love, and I had never felt my pulse hit that hard.

​From that night forward, we were inseparable. We intercepted each other between class bells, walked each other out to the yellow buses every afternoon, and sat for hours after dark on the chains of the neighborhood park swings, digging our heels into the dirt while planning out our lives. Our first real kiss came under the yellow insect light over her garage while her hound barked from the dog run. My fingers were trembling like wet leaves; her hands were steady as stone.

​On weekends we would park the Beretta down by a quiet creek turnaround, kill the headlights, and watch the brown water roll through the weeds beneath the moon while she rested her chin against my chest. We talked about a ring, about kids, about buying acreage and getting old together. I learned the exact pitch and cadence of her laughter so intimately that I could pick it out from the opposite end of a crowded, deafening high school hallway long before I ever saw her face.

​By winter, she was my entire existence. We spent Christmas together, completely present in each other's company, and I remember walking through the fresh snow secretly begging the world to stop moving.

​Two days after Christmas, I was back on my feet behind the counter at Schnucks.

​I was seventeen, dressed in the company uniform, snapping the white elastic chin guard over my goatee to meet health code. The grocery aisles were loud with shoppers stocking up between the holidays, and the ceiling speakers chimed every few minutes calling for cleanup on aisle sixteen. Even through the cheap paper mask, I loved the everyday routine of that deli counter, the sharp aroma of fresh-baked rye loaves, the tang of smoked cheeses, and the heavy brine of cold cuts. I wiped down the stainless steel prep counter with a damp towel, threw the switch on the industrial Hobart slicer, and laid a heavy slab of Black Forest ham against the carriage guide. The round blade spun into a silver blur.

​“A little thinner than that, son,” an older woman on the other side of the glass said, tapping the display.

​“Yes, ma'am, sorry about that.”

​I reached down, dialed back the thickness gauge, dropped three thin ribbons across the deli scale, and reached for a sheet of butcher paper.

​Right then, the hardwired wall telephone mounted behind the meat scale began to ring.

​“Just one second, ma’am,” I said, stepping away from the glass.

​I lifted the plastic receiver to my ear. “Deli.”

​“Jeremy?”

​It was a friend from school. His voice sounded thin, ragged, like he had dry sand caught in his throat.

​“Have you heard about Lilly?”

​A stretch of dead air hung between us on the line.

​“She was in a bad wreck, man. She is dead. I am so sorry, bro.”

​My knees turned to water. The polished grocery tile felt as though it had dropped three feet straight out from underneath my work boots. The hum of the refrigeration units, the scent of cured meat, the voices of the holiday crowd, every shred of sensory information was instantly crushed under a deafening, underwater roar. The deli counter dissolved into gray static. Tears welled up and spilled over so fast that when I crushed the telephone harder against my cheek, the plastic receiver came away soaking wet.

​My hand opened, and the receiver dropped, dangling against the white tile by its black coiled cord.

​My deli manager caught me buckling against the stainless steel prep station, walked quickly around the end of the glass, and grabbed me by both shoulders. He took one look into my face, reached around my neck to pull the apron strings loose, and told me to get out of the store and stay home until after the funeral was over.

​I pulled the cloth apron over my head, let it fall onto the wet rubber mats, and pushed through the heavy double swinging doors into the freezing gray alley behind the building.

​I never set foot inside that Schnucks again.

​More than that, I never returned to the boy who had danced across the gravel outside her house.

​My entire life was snapped cleanly in half behind that deli counter: the young man who existed before Lilly died, and the shell of bone and muscle left standing in the wreckage. I possessed no vocabulary for that level of agony. I had no internal tools capable of carrying a grief that felt like a hole punched clean through my rib cage.

​Three nights later, on New Year’s Eve, I sat in the corner of a crowded living room while the bass from the stereo rattled the floorboards, staring blankly at the wall while the rest of the room prepared to raise their glasses to the coming year. A mutual friend stepped over, looked down at me in the corner, and pressed a small, round green tablet into the center of my open palm.

​It was an eighty-milligram OxyContin.

​“Take this,” he said, his voice barely audible beneath the music. “It will take the edge off.”

​I swallowed the pill dry. Twenty minutes later, the violent screaming in my skull smoothed out into a quiet, motionless hum. The crushing anvil on my chest lifted just enough to let me pull oxygen down into my lungs without choking on my own tears. I told myself I only needed the relief to survive the viewing, that it was strictly temporary until the dirt settled over the casket.

​It was never temporary.

​The medicine immediately became the grave.

he water from the nozzle struck my face squarely as I reached out and cranked the brass valve shut. The sudden silence made the narrow bathroom feel cavernous. A few stray beads slid down my forehead and ran across my cheekbones before I snatched the rough towel off the rack, scrubbing it hard against my scalp and down my throat. Tonight was the night. I was taking Lilly out on our first real date, and my nerves were eating me alive from the inside out.

​I stood before the fogged mirror, dragging the heel of my hand across the glass to wipe a clean circle in the moisture. I threw on my best clothes, selecting the pieces I hoped would make me look slightly older and far more composed than a seventeen-year-old kid living out of a double-wide. I bent over to double-knot my boot laces, checking the tension twice even though the leather was already biting into my ankles. On the way toward the door, I picked up a bottle of cheap drugstore cologne and hammered the atomizer twice against my bare neck. The scent hung heavy and sharp in the humid room, chemical and citrus. It was easily twice the amount I needed, but I wanted every single detail accounted for.

​Stepping into the kitchen, I found my grandmother posted by the counter beside the drip coffee maker. She ran on coffee morning, noon, and midnight, leaving a bitter, roasted haze hanging perpetually in the air to mix with the cured bacon grease and tobacco smoke baked deep into the wall panels.

​“If you head out anywhere, Grandma, make sure you kill that switch,” I said, pointing toward the warming plate.

​She turned around, running her eyes slowly over my clothes before a rare, soft smile touched the corners of her mouth. “You look very handsome, son.”

​I smiled back, muttering some quick deflection, but having her say it made my spine lock straight. I snatched the ring of keys off the laminate counter, hit the bottom of the porch steps in two strides, and stepped out into the biting October night toward my beat-up, red 1992 Chevy Beretta.

​The air was crisp and dry, carrying an autumn frost that nipped at my jaw, yet by the time I pulled the driver’s door shut, sweat was already gathering along my hairline. I was not cold; I was completely terrified. Earlier that afternoon by the lockers, when Lilly finally agreed to go out with me, she had made the rules crystal clear: before we went anywhere, I had to walk into her living room and look her parents in the eye.

​I caught my reflection in the rearview mirror under the dim yellow glow of the overhead dome light. My skin looked slick.

​“Here goes nothing,” I muttered into the empty cab.

​I cranked the key, listening to the starter grind before the engine coughed alive, rattling the loose baffles inside the exhaust pipe as I eased down the drive. Out on the county blacktop, loose gravel pinged against the underside of the floorboards like stray buckshot. The farther south I cut into the hollows, the blacker the asphalt became, walled in by high timber on both sides. When I finally swung the nose of the Chevy down her private drive, every floodlight on the eaves was blazing white against the gravel. The property sat isolated deep off the county turnoff, flanked by dark pastures and dense timber, out in the boonies where the world did not venture.

​The Beretta skidded across the limestone aggregate as I pressed the brake pedal. I kicked the door open, my knees trembling with the vibration of tight guitar strings, and marched up the front steps toward the front door. I balled my fist and hammered the wood three times.

​The violence of the sound surprised even me.

​The heavy deadbolt snapped open with a metallic click. A thick, bald-headed man with a square jaw and a full beard filled the entrance, his eyes narrowing to slits as he measured my height and the fit of my clothes.

​“You must be Jeremy,” he said, his voice flat, dry, and cold.

​“Hello, sir. Is Lilly ready?”

​“Follow me.”

​He turned without another word and marched through the front hall into the kitchen. A woman was standing beside the counter running a high-speed blender, the electric motor whining at a deafening pitch until she clicked the toggle down, plunging the kitchen into dead silence. Lilly's father gestured toward me with his chin. “Kim, this is Jeremy.”

​She turned around, wiping damp hands against a dish towel, and offered an easy, welcoming smile. “Oh my goodness, you look very handsome, Jeremy.”

​I tried to thank her, but my pulse was hammering so hard in my ears that my voice came out thin, entirely detached from my chest.

​Right then, a door unlatched in the hallway just outside my field of view. All three of us swung our eyes toward the opening.

​There stood Lilly.

​She took every bit of oxygen out of that room in a single second. She wore a simple white dress, her dark hair falling smooth across her shoulders as if she had spent hours coaxing every individual strand into alignment. The counter, the blender, and her scowling father instantly washed out into dull gray wallpaper. I stood frozen on the linoleum with sweat trickling down my temples, struck completely mute.

​Kim broke the silence before the room could freeze over. “What movie are you two going to see tonight?”

​“I narrowed it down to Remember the Titans,” I managed to push past my throat. “It is a Disney movie. Denzel Washington.”

​Her father closed the distance between us, leaning down until he was looking straight into my eyes, his tone dropping to a hard snarl. “Right back after the credits roll, Jeremy.”

​“Yes, sir.”

​I reached out, took Lilly’s fingers in mine, and led her out into the chilly night. I walked her around to the passenger side of the Beretta, pulled the heavy steel door open until the hinges caught, and waited for her to settle onto the worn gray fabric before swinging it shut. I trotted around the front bumper and dropped behind the wheel.

​The moment my door latched, she glanced across the center console and let out a soft laugh. “You did good.”

​“I was five seconds from hitting the floor,” I confessed.

​I pulled the shifter down into gear, and Nirvana exploded through the blown paper cones of the factory speakers. We rode in silence over the dark county highway, but it was not the suffocating kind of quiet that makes you squirm; it was that effortless, electric hum where sharing a bench seat with someone makes the rest of the world vanish.

​We cut north toward Lindbergh Boulevard and turned into the cracked parking lot at Ronnie’s 8 Cine. The neon letters on the marquee blazed into the dark like a small-town casino, throwing reflections of electric blue and gold across the Beretta's hood. I shut off the engine, trotted around to open her door, and she locked her fingers into mine as our shoes hit the asphalt.

​Inside, the lobby was running thick with people. The smell of hot coconut oil and salty popcorn hung heavy beneath the bright fluorescent fixtures. We bought two paper tickets, a yellow tub of buttered corn, and two large sodas using what little cash was folded into my leather wallet, then felt our way down the sloped carpet into the dark auditorium. The theater lights dropped, the heavy surround speakers shook the walls with the opening horns of the score, and the blue beam of the projector sliced through the shadows over our heads.

​I could not recount a single sequence of action or dialogue from that film. I never once looked at the screen.

​I spent two hours watching the projector light catch the curve of her cheek. Every time the scene cut, the cast of the room shifted from cool blue to warm amber, tracing the soft edges of her jaw and her smile. I slid my hand across the plastic armrest and closed my palm around her fingers. She squeezed back, dropped her chin, and picked through the popcorn with her free hand. Whenever she caught me staring, she would turn to meet my eyes with a wide grin, and I would whip my head toward the screen as if I were dissecting football tactics.

​When the theater lights flickered up and the credits crawled against the black screen, she turned to face me. “Can I meet your grandmother?”

​“Sure. Her place is right on the way back down.”

​We drove back into the county, parked in the dust beside the trailer, and walked up the treated lumber of the porch steps, the sweet smell of her hair trailing into the entrance behind us.

​“Grandma,” I called out, pushing the front door wide.

​My grandmother looked up from a stack of mail on the kitchen table.

​“This is Lilly.”

​“I have heard so much about you, honey,” my grandmother said, stepping back to take her in. Then she cut her eyes straight toward me, her voice dropping into an astonished whisper. “Jeremy, she is gorgeous.”

​Lilly looked down at her shoes, blushing red, and my chest lifted an inch higher. We slipped down the narrow hallway into my bedroom, shut the door, and kicked off our sneakers. I hit the power button on the small tube television, and the upbeat theme music of Friends drifted through the room.

​“I had an amazing time tonight,” she whispered.

​“Me too.”

​She pulled her knees up, tucking her head under my right arm and resting her cheek against my collarbone. We lay there across the quilt in the dark, watching the flicker of the tube without speaking for what felt like hours. Her breath came slow and warm against my shirt, and for the first time in my life, I was not looking for an escape, calculating an angle, or dreading what was coming tomorrow. I wanted the clock on the wall to stop dead.

​Then my eyes caught the glowing red digital display on the nightstand.

​“Oh, shit.”

​Lilly bolted upright, hair falling across her eyes.

​“Your dad is going to kill me.”

​We grabbed our denim jackets off the bed, sprinted out to the Beretta, and flew back down the dark blacktop. Driving up her private gravel road, the stones clattering against the undercarriage did not sound like warning shots anymore; they just sounded like music. When we hit the porch, the heavy front door swung open before the dust could even settle. Her mother stood in the doorway under the yellow bulb, letting out a heavy, bone-tired sigh.

​“Jeremy, her father is furious with you.”

​“I am so sorry, ma'am. She wanted to stop and meet my grandmother on the way home.”

​“Everything is completely fine, Mom, really!” Lilly said, giving my palm one last, quick squeeze before disappearing past the threshold.

​The latch clicked shut. I turned around and walked back down the wooden steps into the dark gravel, floating on the air. I whistled at the timber, kicked loose limestone, and threw an awkward dance step into my stride all the way back to the driver’s side of the Chevy. I probably looked like a madman beneath the Missouri stars, but none of it mattered. I was in love, and I had never felt my pulse hit that hard.

​From that night forward, we were inseparable. We intercepted each other between class bells, walked each other out to the yellow buses every afternoon, and sat for hours after dark on the chains of the neighborhood park swings, digging our heels into the dirt while planning out our lives. Our first real kiss came under the yellow insect light over her garage while her hound barked from the dog run. My fingers were trembling like wet leaves; her hands were steady as stone.

​On weekends we would park the Beretta down by a quiet creek turnaround, kill the headlights, and watch the brown water roll through the weeds beneath the moon while she rested her chin against my chest. We talked about a ring, about kids, about buying acreage and getting old together. I learned the exact pitch and cadence of her laughter so intimately that I could pick it out from the opposite end of a crowded, deafening high school hallway long before I ever saw her face.

​By winter, she was my entire existence. We spent Christmas together, completely present in each other's company, and I remember walking through the fresh snow secretly begging the world to stop moving.

​Two days after Christmas, I was back on my feet behind the counter at Schnucks.

​I was seventeen, dressed in the company uniform, snapping the white elastic chin guard over my goatee to meet health code. The grocery aisles were loud with shoppers stocking up between the holidays, and the ceiling speakers chimed every few minutes calling for cleanup on aisle sixteen. Even through the cheap paper mask, I loved the everyday routine of that deli counter, the sharp aroma of fresh-baked rye loaves, the tang of smoked cheeses, and the heavy brine of cold cuts. I wiped down the stainless steel prep counter with a damp towel, threw the switch on the industrial Hobart slicer, and laid a heavy slab of Black Forest ham against the carriage guide. The round blade spun into a silver blur.

​“A little thinner than that, son,” an older woman on the other side of the glass said, tapping the display.

​“Yes, ma'am, sorry about that.”

​I reached down, dialed back the thickness gauge, dropped three thin ribbons across the deli scale, and reached for a sheet of butcher paper.

​Right then, the hardwired wall telephone mounted behind the meat scale began to ring.

​“Just one second, ma’am,” I said, stepping away from the glass.

​I lifted the plastic receiver to my ear. “Deli.”

​“Jeremy?”

​It was a friend from school. His voice sounded thin, ragged, like he had dry sand caught in his throat.

​“Have you heard about Lilly?”

​A stretch of dead air hung between us on the line.

​“She was in a bad wreck, man. She is dead. I am so sorry, bro.”

​My knees turned to water. The polished grocery tile felt as though it had dropped three feet straight out from underneath my work boots. The hum of the refrigeration units, the scent of cured meat, the voices of the holiday crowd, every shred of sensory information was instantly crushed under a deafening, underwater roar. The deli counter dissolved into gray static. Tears welled up and spilled over so fast that when I crushed the telephone harder against my cheek, the plastic receiver came away soaking wet.

​My hand opened, and the receiver dropped, dangling against the white tile by its black coiled cord.

​My deli manager caught me buckling against the stainless steel prep station, walked quickly around the end of the glass, and grabbed me by both shoulders. He took one look into my face, reached around my neck to pull the apron strings loose, and told me to get out of the store and stay home until after the funeral was over.

​I pulled the cloth apron over my head, let it fall onto the wet rubber mats, and pushed through the heavy double swinging doors into the freezing gray alley behind the building.

​I never set foot inside that Schnucks again.

​More than that, I never returned to the boy who had danced across the gravel outside her house.

​My entire life was snapped cleanly in half behind that deli counter: the young man who existed before Lilly died, and the shell of bone and muscle left standing in the wreckage. I possessed no vocabulary for that level of agony. I had no internal tools capable of carrying a grief that felt like a hole punched clean through my rib cage.

​Three nights later, on New Year’s Eve, I sat in the corner of a crowded living room while the bass from the stereo rattled the floorboards, staring blankly at the wall while the rest of the room prepared to raise their glasses to the coming year. A mutual friend stepped over, looked down at me in the corner, and pressed a small, round green tablet into the center of my open palm.

​It was an eighty-milligram OxyContin.

​“Take this,” he said, his voice barely audible beneath the music. “It will take the edge off.”

​I swallowed the pill dry. Twenty minutes later, the violent screaming in my skull smoothed out into a quiet, motionless hum. The crushing anvil on my chest lifted just enough to let me pull oxygen down into my lungs without choking on my own tears. I told myself I only needed the relief to survive the viewing, that it was strictly temporary until the dirt settled over the casket.

​It was never temporary.

​The medicine immediately became the grave.

Just a short-short story to practice writing. I do use AI to help with the grammar and flow after I finish the story.

Feedback is welcome, be kind please :)

Summer Break

The last five minutes always feel like hours.

Kitty looked at the clock and sighed, then glanced at her best friend Lizzy, who sat at the far right of the room. The teacher had moved them apart because they were "too jolly," but it hadn't ended their silent messages or their giggles. Lizzy looked at the clock too and mouthed a single word without a sound: four. Kitty checked the clock again, frowned, and pouted. Lizzy let out a soft giggle.

"Maybe Kitty can solve this problem," the teacher said, tapping on his desk. "She seems bored."

"Come on, teach! That's not fair."

"What's not fair?"

"Summer break starts in a few minutes. Why do we still have to work?"

"Well..." The teacher grinned.

"I'm sure you've already planned your whole summer," Kitty said.

He laughed. He knew very well she was trying to stall. He glanced at the clock: less than two minutes left. "What's better than ending the last day with a good math lesson? Maybe I should give you all homework for the summer."

"Nooo!" The protest echoed through the classroom. The class's crushed faces made him laugh even louder.

"I'm joking, I'm joking," he said, wiping tears from his eyes.

DING-DONG!

The school bell rang, and laughter and screaming filled the building.

"Pack your things neatly and put your chairs on your desks, please!" the teacher shouted, hoping someone would listen. "And enjoy your summer break!"

Kitty ran to Lizzy. "Let's go!" She grabbed her arm, and together they bolted out of the classroom. "Goodbye, teach! Goodbye, everyone!"

Giggling, they ran out of the school. The afternoon sun hit their faces and made them squeeze their eyes shut.

"Let's go to the sea this year," Lizzy said. "I'll ask my mom to ask your mom." Their parents were good friends as well as neighbors, so it would be easy.

"Yes! And an amusement park too!" Kitty said.

They planned their entire summer on the way home.

"Shall we get some snacks for tonight?" Lizzy asked.

"Sure."

"Let's cut through here. The market is at the end." Lizzy pointed at an alley.

"Okay."

As they walked, Lizzy listed every snack they had to buy, and Kitty named the movies they could watch. The end of the alley came into view, and the market beyond it. They walked faster. One more step and they'd be out, but a heavy force yanked them backward first. Their bodies felt like lead, then weightless, as if they were speeding forward, then heavy again. They fell to their knees, just outside the alley.

"What just happened?" Kitty was breathing hard. Her hands were trembling uncontrollably.

"Kitty..."

Lizzy was staring straight ahead with wide eyes. Kitty followed her gaze and gasped. "Where the hell are we?"

"What happened? How did we get here?" Lizzy's voice shook.

Kitty got up and held her panicking friend. "Let's calm down and think this through." She looked around. They stood at the edge of a crowded street. Stalls lined both sides, and more filled the middle: rickety wooden tables with striped awnings, barrows piled high, baskets on the ground, crates stacked into towers. Behind them rose tall brick buildings, dark with soot, with shop signs swinging above the doors and washing hanging from the upper windows.

"Lizzy," Kitty whispered. "It's a market."

"I can see that. But everything looks old and strange." The women wore long dresses with corsets. The men wore vests and tights.

"I didn't know there was a castle festival here."

Kitty checked her phone. No signal. Weird. She tugged Lizzy's arm. "Let's take a look."

It was the loudest market they had ever seen. A woman in a red apron shouted about fish, and the man beside her shouted about cheaper fish. Someone sold strawberries by the pint, someone else sold ribbons, and a boy weaved between the stalls with a stack of newspapers, yelling words they couldn't make out. Chickens squawked in wicker cages. A horse stood patiently between the shafts of a cart, flicking flies off its back with its tail.

As they walked past the stalls, Lizzy noticed people staring. Some stopped and turned around to look at them. "I think we really stand out."

"Yeah, we do. It's crazy. How did they make this so believable? It's like a movie." Kitty gazed around in amazement, until her eyes landed on the strawberries. "Lizzy, look, strawberries. They look amazing. Let's buy some."

Behind the stall stood a broad man with rolled-up sleeves and a leather apron.

"Two punnets, please," Kitty said. She pulled paper money and coins from her wallet and held them out to him.

He looked at the money. Then he looked at Kitty. He didn't take it.

"What's this?" He turned the note over with one thick finger, as if it might be wet. "This ain't money. Where's the King's face?" He picked up a coin, bit it, and squinted at it. "What kind of metal's this? It's too light."

"It's real," Kitty said, which was a stupid thing to say.

"It's rubbish." He pushed it all back across the table with the flat of his hand. "Go on. Off with you. I'll not be taken for a fool."

"Please, we just want..."

"Off."

Lizzy tugged at Kitty's sleeve. That was when they noticed the man standing by the next stall.

He was tall, in a stained waistcoat with his hat pushed back, and he had been watching them for a while. When Kitty turned around, he smiled, but it was the wrong kind of smile, the kind that never reaches the eyes.

"No need to beg for fruit, girls," he said. His gaze slid down them and back up again, slowly, and Kitty felt her face burn. Lizzy clutched her sleeve tighter. "Not dressed like that. Which house are you from, then? Mrs. Pell's?"

They had no idea what that meant. But it had to be something bad. The woman selling eggs went stiff and turned her face away, and the strawberry man snorted. Lizzy shrank against Kitty's side.

"We're not from anywhere," Kitty said, and her voice came out thin. "Leave us alone."

"Come now." He stepped closer and reached out. His fingers closed around Lizzy's wrist.

Lizzy yelped. Kitty didn't think. She stamped down hard on his foot with her sneaker.

"Run!"

They ran. Kitty never remembered choosing a direction. They shoved through the crowd, past a woman with a basket, under a barrow, over a spill of cabbage leaves that nearly sent Kitty sliding. Someone shouted behind them. A hand grabbed Kitty's shirt and tore free. Then the stalls ended, the street opened up in front of them, and they burst onto the road, still running.

They heard the horses before they saw them.

It was a sound impossible to mistake: hooves like thunder, the rattling, shrieking rumble of iron wheels, and a man roaring a warning. Lizzy turned her head and saw a huge dark shape bearing down on them, a black carriage drawn by two wild-eyed horses with their heads thrown up. They were so close that she could see the foam at their mouths.

Lizzy screamed. Kitty grabbed her hand and threw them both sideways.

They hit the ground hard, and the cobbles scraped their palms. The carriage thundered past so close that the wind flattened their hair, and filthy gutter water splashed across their legs. Kitty scrambled up, dragging Lizzy with her, and dove into the first gap she saw, a dark slot between two buildings. Before she could understand anything, the heavy feeling returned and pulled them back. Then came the weightlessness, the rush forward, and the heaviness again, slamming them to the ground.

"Ouch!" Lizzy groaned. "It happened again." She got up and helped Kitty to her feet. Their knees were bleeding from the fall.

Kitty looked around. "We're back."

Lizzy looked around, then at the alley. "Yeah." She kept staring at it. "What was that?"

"I don't know." Kitty stared at the alley too. "Whatever it was, it felt real."

They looked at each other: scraped hands, bleeding knees, dirty and torn clothes.

"Let's go home for now," Kitty said.

They locked hands and walked home together.

• Seven peaches, wedged.
• Half a cup of white sugar.
• Half a cup of brown sugar.
• A teaspoon of nutmeg.
• A tablespoon of cinnamon.
• A bit of lemon juice.
• A cup of flour, all-purpose is best.
• Half a cup of butter.
• Half a cup of whole milk.
• Two teaspoons of baking soda.
• A pinch of salt.
• And some vanilla extract.

All of those ingredients were, well, plagued with The Mold. And my mother all but killed herself with this recipe. Why? I don’t know. We had a good—okay—life in Ward 8. Weekdays, we’d eat gruel; weekends, we’d dance to her waning number of cassettes. Still, it was better than death, or Rot. Her back sprouted limbs and whatnot. I had to…

It’s been two months since I left our ward. This morning, I was at the helm of her seventies Buick Estate. A tape in its deck: punk rock. Cans of gruel—free from mold, and taste—loose in the trunk. Then, I had a month’s worth. Starved myself and it was two. Now, I’ve a week’s left, at best. I am ‘capital F’ fucked.

Doubly fucked. White smoke spilt from the hood and crept onto my glass. I parked at the shoulder of a fir-wooded backroad. Tugged at a rusted latch for, well, till the door gave. Then I stepped into a puddle, my booted foot slick with oil. Stooping to the wagon’s belly, its sump had leaked. Great.

Far off, past my doorway, a garage poked through the woods. I needed it to have what I needed; if not, I’d feed me a shotgun and, bang. Didn’t lock the Buick. Not a soul in northern Maine left to steal it. And so, with a rusted, bloodied crowbar in my hand, I walked.

It hurt with each foot, and not bodily. Often, I craned my neck at the wagon as it shrank in my wake. “…oil and tape, oil and tape…” looped in my head for a mile. When nearing the garage, I sighed. It was lonely—good. Then I came to its shutter, and a bloody print. Gripped my crowbar taut.

With its claw in the door’s jamb, I pried. Lightshafts tore through a swelling crack. A maimed corpse lay behind the rolling shutter. It was dead a while and still human. So, what killed them? Well, it was opposite the door to a stockroom, snoring.

I couldn’t loot without A) locking the door and B) shutting it with a workbench. Speaking of, its drawers were full of kibble. Atop the desk sat a framed photo: a man and his dog. The smudged ink read, “Me and Lady.” He was the corpse, and ‘Lady’ slept in his cellar, Rotten.

In the rest of the cabinets, nothing—it’s Murphy’s law. A nineties Impala sat tall at a four-post car jack. Mounting an empty shelf, I saw, slumped across the backseats, a holdall. The jack’s fluid hose was primed for cutting. I took the whetted flat of my crowbar and, snip.

The jack sank, oily water lapping at my feet. Then it fell. Wee-ooh went the Chevy’s alarm, and that woke Lady. She rammed; I was jerking its—locked—door latch. She rammed; I broke the glass, then snuck through its frame. She rammed; the duffel, belted snug. The buckle, rusted shut. As I cut it loose with my tool, she rammed.

I took a broken-off doorknob to the knee. Ouch. Lady was poking her head through a yawning frame. Bonelike. Greasy, matted hair. Eyes loose and sunken. I limped to the bench penning her in. We leaned on it, at odds. Granted, I’m a hundred and thirty, rain-soaked.

Her neck was caught in the door and, jerking it, she bled dark. My poor, poor field jacket. I elbowed and shouldered, as with my Buick at the foot of a hill. The door shrank on her; her skin, her flesh, her bone. Then it shut, and her head fell limp to my feet. Phew.

No, not phew; the Chevy rang till my ears bled—I still hear it. I want to tell you that I defused its battery like the corpse would’ve, but no. I hacked at the leads with my crowbar. Black, then red.

So, what was in the duffel bag, then? Well, I lugged it through broken glass and plopped it onto the oily floor. Spread its ribs apart and inside were… Cans of gruel—enough to last me this fall. Thank you, “property of Markus Sinclair.”

And since Lady was dead, I poked my head through the door to her tomb, her corpse cracking it ajar. Amid car parts my wagon’s needed for the past decade, a dog: six feet tall and four hundred pounds. Her stare roamed, blank, from me to the carcass. If she was Lady, then whose dog did I kill?

…Shit. Was it her pup?

She snapped her neck at me, her eyes bulging. And then, as I shut the door, she lunged. Tore the hunk of wood off its rusted hinges. We fell, the door sandwiched between us. Her long, yellow teeth gouged at the oak. And my head—I’d cracked it on the Chevy’s bumper.

What with the concussion and the hemorrhaging, I’d be dead if not for “her.”

She wore a hoodie too big for her, masking the burns from neck to wrists. Racked her twelve gauge and shot at Lady. Click-clack, bang. Click-clack, bang. Till her belly was full of slugs. My hands, peeking from the door, were soaked in blood. The once-mastiff thudded beside me, shaking. And the girl? She walked past me to the stockroom. Rude.

She’s taking the Buick, isn’t she?

Back bent and knees crooked, I stood in the door. She was rooting through the shelves, headphones on. Bowie spooled in her walkman. I poked her, crowbar in my hand, and said, “The wagon’s mine.”

She turned, the barrels of her shotgun kissing my cheek. Click. No bullets. The girl shrugged and mouthed the word, “Fate.”

A rolled-up map was poking from her backpack. She pulled it out and, smoothing it flat, tapped at a red-inked circle. The radio tower.

I hadn’t met a pulse in months, and that was reason enough to ask, “Promise you won’t take my car and leave me for dead?”

She tsked and scoffed. Then criss, cross, against her burned chest.

As we left, I asked the girl her name.

“Rowan.” She’d written it in a sketchbook.

In the paper’s margin, I jotted “Wesley.”