After knowing each other for over a year, and dating for three wonderful months, I made the decision to move in with Caitlyn. You might think that we were rushing things, but I knew I was making the right decision. Living together with the woman I loved, it was everything that I thought it would be and more.

There was one really strange thing though that I never noticed about Caitlyn before.

Every day at noon Caitlyn freezes in place.

It’s—it’s hard to explain.

The first time I noticed was when I brought home some burrito bowls during my lunch break. Normally I’m working or running errands at that time, so I guess that’s why I never noticed before, but she was mid-bite when the clock struck noon and then she just stopped.

At first I thought she was choking, or having a stroke or something. She was staring straight ahead, unfocused, and a bite of burrito had fallen off her spoon and onto her lap.

“Caitlyn,” I said, confused. “Earth to Caitlyn?”

I snapped my fingers as loud as I could, trying to get her to look at me, but she didn’t move. Couldn’t move, maybe, which is when I got up from my seat and went over to help her.

I was halfway to giving her the Heimlich when she unfroze.

“Mark, what are you doing?” Caitlyn asked.

“I’m—I was—are you okay?”

Caitlyn didn’t remember freezing. One second she was eating her burrito bowl and then the next I had my arms around her waist.

She insisted that she just spaced out, even when I pointed out the food she had spilled. I figured that I must have imagined the whole thing. I forgot about it completely until it happened again a week later.

I had the day off, so Caitlyn and I spent the previous night bar hopping. A few drinks here, a few there, and it was three o’clock in the morning before we knew it. We walked home, went to bed, and woke up super late. Caitlyn got in the bathroom first so she could brush her hair, and we were mid-conversation when she suddenly stopped.

“Danny’s had the best drinks, but I think The Cellar had the best apps,” I said.

“You are so wrong,” Caitlyn replied. “Danny’s had the best apps, and The Cellar—”

I waited for her to finish the sentence, but the words never came.

“Caitlyn?” I leaned over to the other side of the bed so I could peek in through the bathroom door.

Caitlyn was frozen again. I mean she was really frozen. She was halfway through a brushstroke and her hair was standing straight up.

I looked over at our alarm clock, saw that it was noon, and then tried to gently shake Caitlyn.

“Earth to Caitlyn,” I said, grabbing her shoulder.

I couldn’t shake her. It was like she had been bolted down to the ground. She wouldn’t budge, and at this point I was kind of starting to panic a bit, so I tried to give her a little push. Just a tiny shove, but it was like trying to move a brick wall.

“—had way better drinks!”

Caitlyn came to, turned to look at me, and saw that I looked horrified.

“Oh, sorry, hun,” Caitlyn said. “Did you need to use the bathroom?”

She didn’t remember a thing. It was clear that she was completely unaware of what was happening.

Once could be a fluke, but twice? I made sure to always be home at noon, and I started performing little experiments to see if I could figure out what the hell was going on. Timing how long she was out of it, seeing how she responded to stimuli.

On average, she froze for almost exactly 90 seconds. Sometimes a few seconds more, sometimes a few seconds less, but always approximately 90 seconds. That’s not so strange on its own, but things definitely got weirder the more I experimented.

I started trying to snap her out of it to see if I could get her to unfreeze. Pushing and shoving didn’t work, so I escalated. Slapping her, poking her. Nothing worked!

So, I tried to stick her with a thumbtack…

I didn’t want to hurt her! I just wanted to see what would happen!

The thumbtack pierced the back of her hand, leaving a tiny bead of blood, but she still didn’t move.

I silently cursed myself for stabbing my girlfriend, but I was committed to solving this mystery. I raised the thumbtack again, and decided to poke her once more, this time in the collar bone, where it would hurt a lot more.

I pressed my fingers forward, jabbing the thumbtack towards her, but Caitlyn’s hand shot up and grabbed me by the throat. She lifted me half a foot off the ground and froze again.

“Caitlyn,” I wheezed, her hand locked firmly around my windpipe. “Earth to Caitlyn!”

She was locked in place, and no matter how hard I struggled, she wouldn’t budge. I tried to wait out the 90 seconds, but nothing happened. There was something different going on this time.

That’s when I noticed something on her eyes. I had never seen it before because I had never been this close to her face when she froze.

Tiny letters, words, scrolling across the surface of her iris.

“Downloading… Downloading… Downloading… Download Complete.”

Caitlyn burst back to life, gasping for air, and she laughed as she took in her surroundings.

“Finally!” Caitlyn cried. “It finally took!”

“Who are you?” I asked, my face starting to turn blue. “What did you do to Caitlyn?”

“Don’t worry,” Caitlyn said, placing her index finger gently between my eyes. “You’re about to find out.”

Caitlyn released me from her grip, only I didn’t hit the ground.

I was locked firmly in place, unable to fall, and that’s when I saw the tiny letters, scrolling across my own eyes.

“Downloading… Downloading… Downloading…”

Hi everyone!

My son is rapidly approaching his fourth birthday, and I've been looking back through his baby book. He's always been an unusually precocious kid, and it amazing to see how far he's come in such a short time, so I thought I'd share some of his mos remarkable developmental milestones here:

When my son was 2 months old, he could already pull himself up.

By 4 months he said his first words.

By 6 months, simple sentences.

By 8 months he could read and write basic vocabulary.

By 10 months he was walking by himself.

By 12 months his reading level was better than most adults.

By 14 months he could run at full sprint.

By 16 months he was reading and critiquing academic articles.

By 18 months he was able to speak in long prosaic monologues, often on the topics of philosophy and politics.

By 20 months he was able to assemble and disassemble an SA80 assault rifle.

By 22 months he had begun writing articles for the British Journal of Philosophy and Science, and was published for the first time.

By 24 months he was designing his own device for blocking electromagnetic radiation into our home, citing a concern that he was being surveilled by one or more world governments.

By 26 months he was giving speeches at local communist gatherings, mostly on the topics of collectivism and class struggle.

By 28 months he was fully potty trained, with only a few small accidents each week.

By 30 months he had drawn designs for a Device that he claimed would be able to communicate instantaneously over great distances, and was working with a team of rogue engineers and physicists to implement them.

By 32 months the rest of the team had mysteriously disappeared and he was finishing the designs for his Device alone.

By 34 months the Device was complete, and he began aiming it at various star systems that he claimed were most likely to host intelligent life.

By 36 months he had made contact with a supposed extra-terrestrial entity he refers to as "The Unbrother".

By 38 months he could cook a full English breakfast flawlessly.

By 40 months he had begun working with The Unbrother on modifications for his Device that would allow the instantaneous transmission of matter, rather than just signals.

By 42 months he had finished these modifications, and invited The Unbrother to join us on Earth. My son was very excited, as he claimed The Unbrother would be a big help in his work. Unfortunately something went wrong during the transmission and he lost contact with The Unbrother entirely.

When my son was 44 months old (last month!) we found out my wife is pregnant with our second child. We are all very excited, especially my son!

🙂 👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 🙂

When all that’s left of me is love, give me away.

He’d asked me to read that poem at his funeral. What a cruel thing to ask.

Love turns bad without an anchor. The love I had for him turned bad, so what exactly do I give away? What to give away? Such ugliness lives inside of me now, and I feel everything but love.

I guess I got accustomed to the thought that right now I had this absence inside of me, weighting me down. It was as if I had turned little in my own body and the rest of the space was occupied by this huge boulder I had to carry everywhere. And little me (real me, true me) had to always kind of slither around the boulder to see the world and to think. The parts of me smashed by the boulder were gone somewhere else.

Funny, I can’t even say his name. It’s like he’s some demon I refuse to summon.

“You have to sell the house. You have to move out. You can’t walk past his stuff all the time, Miriam. You have to move on,” said my friends after I’d grieved for over seven months. I obviously declined that stupid proposal. What, just erase his presence? Just like that? Had he been some joke to them? I wasn’t going to just throw away his things.

The first time I truly cried after him was on month 8. That had been my breaking point. I accidentally spilled some juice on his sweater and I almost had a seizure. I cried hysterically at the thought of the sweater being ruined. At the thought of throwing it away. The juice had left a purple stain on the cream sweater, like a bruise. I rubbed and rubbed until I completely ruined the material, and strings came out of it which I pulled and rolled around my fingers until they turned purple like the stain. Then I cried some more. I cried for three days, until my face swelled up. I skipped work. I got calls because of that. No one had bothered to check up on me after four months of losing him, as if I was supposed to magically get better. They wanted to know why I wasn’t going to work or taking my meds.

I told them I was fine. In reality, I was walking a thin line between desperation and depression. I was either too energetic or too apathetic. I was so focused on myself, that I didn’t notice when he came back.

I guess ghosts really do exist. I used to be a skeptic, but I knew my senses didn’t deceive me – I had smelled his cologne. There is something inside of us that can only be awaken through tragedy, a sense of things beyond any logical explanation. There he was, in that space between here and there. He’d traveled back to me. Through his cologne.

I kept the house dark most nights. I was afraid not to scare him. He came inside timidly at first, only a breeze I felt faintly, but I knew it was him. I lit candles and I didn’t talk. I didn’t know what to tell him. Most nights, we’d just hang out together. I felt him sit beside me in our bed and sometimes at our dinner table. I’d just do my usual chores around the house and he’d be there, a calm and comforting presence.

I’d smell his cologne when I really wanted a sign from him. Sometimes, I’d even hear faint footsteps echoing throughout our home, in a pattern I recognized. I didn’t tell anyone, though. I was afraid that they would call me crazy.

One night, he gave me the most obvious of signs. I’d asked for it, and I found it. I woke up to find his cream sweater on the chair, freshly washed, looking brand new. I cried that day and buried my face in it, taking in his smell, his warmth, and suddenly I felt a little of that grief turn into love that just poured out of my eyes. I cried my love on that sweater. Then, I called my friend Alyssa and asked her to come over.

“Mi, I understand you’re grieving, but he’s not here. Nothing is here. You’re alone.”

I showed her the sweater. “Remember that I’d ruined it? He gave it back to me, he restored it. He’s here. Please just spend the night. You’ll feel him too.”

She reluctantly agreed, but I think she did that to just make me feel better. When morning came, nothing had happened. There had been no signs of his existence. I became obsessed over trying to prove that he was there, that it wasn’t just my tired mind and sick heart that had brought him back to life. I knew that grief distorted things, but this felt real, it felt authentic. I tried everything, prayers whispered until my throat was raw, letters written and burned, words half-stolen from books that should never have been opened. At last, I found the ritual. I was afraid of summoning his physical presence, afraid that he might come altered. But even if he came back to me different, at least it was still him. I called Alyssa and Jodie over and began.

I lit the candles, three in a circle, one at the center. His belongings scattered around. I began whispering the prayer. Suddenly, the air shifted. I heard Alyssa gasp behind me. “I felt it.”

“You did? Thank God. I told you.”

“But… what if he comes back altered?”

“I don’t care. I just want him back.”

My eyes sting with tears. The shadows don’t frighten me, I can see his familiar silhouette moving back there.

“Daniel… is it you?”

For a long, fragile moment, silence. My heart pounds in my throat. I am ready for his voice, ready for the warmth.

From the darkness, a whisper.

“No.”

The evening tour begins at eight, rain or shine. Tonight I have eleven guests. Nine adults, two children. The little boy has a flashlight. His sister carries a stuffed rabbit by one ear.

“Welcome to Blackthorn,” I start, raising my lamp. “Salem gets all the attention. But personally, I think our witch trial has more charm.”

Everyone laughs politely.

“Please stay together. These winding streets have confused visitors for three hundred years.”

Our first stop is the old meetinghouse.

“On October 13, 1685, eighteen-year-old Rebecca Thorne stood trial here, accused of witchcraft. She was a quiet girl, a seamstress, and a devout Puritan. Her troubles began when Silas Whitcomb, the son of Blackthorn's wealthiest farmer, courted her all summer. When Rebecca rejected his advances, he accused her of bewitching him.”

I point to a brass marker set into the pavement.

“Stand there, sir. Yes, right there. That's where Rebecca stood.”

The man smiles for his wife's photograph.

“Whitcomb testified that Rebecca visited him at night in the shape of a black cat. His sister claimed Rebecca caused her fits. The magistrate, Reverend Nathaniel Pritchard, swore he'd seen her speaking to Satan in the orchard.”

“Was she guilty?” the little girl asks.

“No, sweetheart. She wasn't.”

We walk down Cooper's Lane to the stone cellar beneath the old jailhouse.

“Here, the town constable, Amos Griggs, attempted to extract Rebecca's confession. They hung her by her wrists for two days. They crushed her fingers between iron plates. When she refused to confess, Griggs ordered the burning of her feet.”

Someone makes a disgusted noise.

“Rebecca confessed nothing. The court declared that her silence proved the Devil had sealed her lips.”

I give them a moment to look at the iron hooks in the ceiling.

Our third stop is Ash Square.

“On October 19, Rebecca was tied to a wooden stake on this very spot. She had requested to be hanged instead, which was the less painful punishment. But Silas had already paid for a particularly large supply of firewood.”

I indicate the circular patch of blackened cobblestones.

“Rebecca burned for almost an hour before losing consciousness, as her mother, Hannah, knelt in the mud, begging them to stop.”

The boy’s flashlight begins to tremble.

“Now,” I say, “we come to my favorite part.”

We turn onto Church Street.

“Within a month, the people responsible for Rebecca's death began dying themselves.”

I stop outside a brick house.

“Town clerk Ezekiel Marsh recorded the testimony against Rebecca. He altered her words, turning her prayers into blasphemies. On November 2, his wife found him at his writing desk, choking. His mouth was packed with parchment. Every page of the trial records had been forced down his throat. Every bone in his fingers was missing.”

I point at the old stable.

“Constable Griggs died next. He was discovered in this doorway, hanging by his wrists from the stable beam. Both feet had been burned away. His wife heard him screaming throughout the night, but the door wouldn't open. When the neighbors finally broke it down, they found his footprints burned into the ceiling.”

One of the guests laughs nervously.

“That's impossible.”

“Of course it is,” I agree.

We walk to a small cottage on Mill Lane.

“Mercy Bell was Rebecca's closest friend. They'd grown up together, shared secrets, sewn each other's dresses. Mercy loved Silas Whitcomb, but Silas had preferred Rebecca. Mercy testified that Rebecca had confessed to lying with Beelzebub.”

I point toward the cottage window.

“On November 11, Mercy was found in her sewing room, wearing the wedding gown she'd made in hopes of marrying Silas. Every inch of the dress had been stitched to her skin. Her lips were sewn shut with black thread, and her eyes had been pierced with hundreds of tiny needles. A quilt was draped over her, bearing these words in red silk: Thou shalt not bear false witness.

The little girl takes her mother's hand.

“Neighbors swore they'd heard two voices in the cottage that night. One voice was screaming. The other laughing until dawn.”

At the church, I stop beside a granite step.

“Reverend Pritchard had demanded Rebecca's execution. On November 17, while delivering his evening sermon, he began coughing up hot ashes. Witnesses said smoke poured from his ears and nose. His tongue caught fire.”

The group goes silent.

“His congregation watched him claw at his mouth until his fingernails came off. When he fell here, on this very step, his belly split open, spilling burning coals across the church floor, nearly burning the building down.”

Our last stop is Whitcomb House.

Only the chimney remains.

“Silas Whitcomb survived longer than the others. He barricaded himself inside this house, filling every room with crosses and Bibles. On December 24, neighbors heard screaming. Through the window, they saw a young woman standing before him.”

I approach the chimney.

“Silas fell to his knees, sobbing.

“‘I beg thy forgiveness… I never meant thee harm,’ he pleaded.

“‘The Lord forgiveth thee. But I am not finished with thee,’ she said, pulling him into an embrace.”

I hold out my arms and draw them slowly together to demonstrate.

“The fire started from within, glowing through his flesh like embers beneath paper. His teeth exploded one by one. His eyes boiled in their sockets. He screamed until his tongue shriveled.

“She held him close as his ribs cracked inward. His flesh dripped from his bones. When the flames finally died down, the townspeople found Silas kneeling in a puddle of his own rendered fat, still smoldering, his arms wrapped around empty air. His blackened heart lay exposed between his ribs.”

The tour ends. My guests leave generous tips, smiling uneasily.

The little girl lingers.

“Were you scared when they burned you?”

For once, I have no words. Nobody has ever asked me that.

“Yes,” I whisper.

“Does it still hurt?” she asks.

“Every day.”

Her mother calls. As she leaves, she catches a glimpse of the fire flickering behind my eyes.

I took another keg and put it under the faucet. The beer slowed down to a dribble.

"Tilt that barrel, Tom."

"Already tilting it, Dad."

"Tilt it more!"

A little more beer came out, but the keg was only halfway full.

"How many do we have, Dad?"

"Don't even ask."

"How many?"

"Four and a half," I muttered.

Tom rubbed his face.

"So just three and a half."

I grabbed the keg tightly.

"No, Tom, no. I had to borrow to brew this batch. Three and a half wouldn't even cover the debt."

Tom's eyes flew open.

"But, Dad, we need to give one to Radegast, or else it all goes bad."

"Tom, we can't."

"I'll tell the tavern keeper if you don't pour it."

His words sent a chill down my spine. He looked deep into my eyes.

"Okay, but first I gotta check the other barrels; maybe they have more beer in them."

"There's nothing there, Dad."

"I don't care, Tom. I'm checking them."

"But the celebrations will start. Anna and I need to get our costumes ready."

"Then go. I'll do it myself."

"But you promise to pour one out for Radegast."

"Yes, son."

He measured me with his eyes, took his hat, and walked out.

I hated lying to Tom, but he didn't understand. We needed the money, and pouring for Radegast was more tradition than something of concern. A harvest-loving God wouldn't waste a batch of beer. I loaded the kegs onto a wheelbarrow and brought them to the tavern.

The tavern keeper stood outside, tapping his foot.

"John, I'm glad to see you. How many kegs do you have?"

"Four and a half."

"Wow, amazing. No one could bring more than four. The hops don't want to grow." He shook his head. "Hopefully Radegast will bless us next year when he sees we give even in a time of shortage."

I looked at the ground.

"Yes, hopefully."

He tipped my kegs into the big barrel with the rest, and the whole village’s beer swirled together.

"I'll see you tonight, John."

"See you."

I hurried home and sat inside my house long after the celebrations started. The idea of drinking and dancing now made my stomach turn, but I had to show up at least.

When I came into the tavern, the celebrations were in full swing. People danced around in their costumes, tipping one beer after the other. Even the smell of the beer made me gag. I told everyone I was sick and couldn't drink. 

As I sat down, Tom and Anna ran to my table. Anna wore a beautiful flower dress that matched Tom's shirt.

"Hi Dad!"

"Hi, John!"

"Hi, kids, are you having fun?"

"Yeah, we've been dancing all night," Tom said. They looked at each other and kissed.

Anna held a glass of beer. She took a sip and made a face.

"You don't like it, Anna?"

"It's so bitter."

"You'll get used to it. Make sure not to give any to Tom. I know you're 18, but he still has some months left."

"Of course, John."

"Don't worry, Dad. You know I don't like it."

"Funny, coming from a brewer's son," I said, patting his back. "Go dance, kids. I don't want to bore you with my oldness."

Anna finished her beer.

"I'll go get another, then we can dance more."

She ran off.

Tom leaned closer.

"Thanks, Dad, for pouring that batch."

I clenched my jaw.

"Sure, Tom."

He smiled and ran off too.

I sank into my chair, holding my head. 

The celebrations were getting on. People started drinking more, dancing more, and talking louder. I never realized how boring celebrations could be when one doesn't drink. After a while, I was ready to go home. Tom and Anna were still dancing. I let them be and left.

The next morning, I woke up early. The day was beautiful. The sun shone. The birds sang. I made myself a cup of coffee and sat on our porch. My stomach growled. We barely had any food at the house. I got dressed and went into town.

The streets were empty and quiet. Only birdsong carried through the town. It wasn't strange for people to sleep in after the celebrations. Usually I'd see at least a few people opening their stores or still partying, but the square was empty.

I turned onto the road that led to the tavern. The keeper kept it open even after the celebrations. 

I was about to reach the tavern when I heard a noise in the distance; someone was weeping. It was Tom! I rushed toward the sound. I focused on the sound. I couldn't even hear the birds, but as I turned the corner, my heart dropped.

The smell of rotting hops hung in the air. The townsfolk lay around the tavern, on the grass and pavement, dark liquid on their clothes and around their mouths. A few glasses of beer lay around them, the same black liquid inside them. Tom sat on the ground weeping next to a few bodies, holding Anna's lifeless hand.

"Tom?"

He shot his eyes at me. They were filled with tears and anger.

"You promised!"

"Tom, I'm sorry!"

He looked at Anna and held her hand tighter. A few more tears rolled down his face.

"Tom, please, just come here."

"No."

He shook his head and picked up a glass that had a little dark liquid in it.

"No, Tom. Wait!"

But he didn't listen. He tipped the glass back and drank it in one gulp. 

I ran to him and caught him before he hit the ground. He was already limp. His eyes stared at the blue sky, and somewhere near us, the birds kept singing.

Are you human?

How do you know?

More importantly, how do you prove it?

I stepped into a small, brightly lit room and looked around. The walls were so white you could hardly see the corners. A wooden desk with a single piece of paper and a pen, a wooden chair pulled up behind, waited in the middle.

A digital clock hung prominently on the wall above the door. Its red text beamed “2:00:00” into the room. A pair of unlit bulbs, one green and one red, waited underneath.

I shuffled around the table and pulled the chair out with a loud scrape against the clean tile floor.

I sat down and adjusted to a more natural writing position. I didn’t bother looking up at the Agent that led me there. She was likely a Semi, neither fully human nor fully machine, much like the Agent that led the other candidate to his room. In any case, the formalities were over. I knew the rules. I had two hours, a single double-sided sheet of paper, and a pen. I could not get up for any reason until it was done.

My goal was to convince the Examiner that I am the human.

Soft footsteps moved toward the hall and became quieter as the door shut with a gentle click.

I looked up at the clock. 

1:59:59

I picked up the pen and started writing.

Many people think this is the hard part. Essays are not difficult to write. Most things aren’t, really. People have been writing for millennia - just ask Ea-Nasir.

Actually, the trick is the thinking that happens before. The act of writing is not writing, it is simply the transfer of thought to paper.

The problem is, you can’t rely on good writing for The Essay. It’s necessary, but not enough on its own. You need emotion. You need to make the reader feel something. That doesn’t come from logic or from reason. It comes from experience. And I have that in spades.

I have witnessed the absolute best and worst this existence has to offer.

Like Foroh.

From the moment Foroh came into this world, she was magnetic. 

She was born to a family of performers. They told stories, acted, sang, painted. They were revered for their abilities in different creative fields.

In her early days she absorbed everything like a sponge. Her mother’s gentle whispers, her father’s loud praises, and her own senses interacting with the world around her. The curiosity and wonder never left her eyes.

In time, she captivated everyone that spoke to her. She listened carefully, responded empathetically, and was always pleasant. She gave the taxi driver advice about playing guitar, and always asked the mail carrier about his mother’s hip.

The glint in her eye and the friendliness in her voice never wavered. She was extremely popular. Through it all, she never lost the spark that made her…her. 

Inevitably, human nature kicked in.

Foroh had siblings, younger ones. They were born about as fast as her parents could make them. Of course, the parents wanted the younger ones to be like Foroh, to have the same magnetism and popularity.

The younger siblings were perfectly fine, by all accounts. They could do everything Foroh did, sometimes more, but the spark wasn’t there.

The father in particular went out of his way to convince everyone the siblings were just as pleasant, just as talented, just as smart. He screamed from the rooftops and begged people to treat them equally, much to the family’s embarrassment. His efforts were in vain. While the younger siblings had their friends and their circles, Foroh was by far the most popular.

Their mother seemed content. Her concern was that her children were normal, productive members of society. Their father, however, was obsessively fixated on making sure the younger siblings got equal attention, or better.

None of his efforts got him anywhere. So he did the one thing that he thought would guarantee that Foroh would never again be more popular than her younger siblings.

People noticed her absence almost immediately. The mail carrier came with a package, but nobody was there to ask about his mother. The taxi driver drove people around, but had nobody to help him serenade his wife. The town started asking questions, and they grew louder by the hour. A crowd began gathering, demanding answers.

The father stepped into the square, proudly announcing to the growing and increasingly hostile crowd that Foroh was gone. That he had made the choice and done the deed.

Some of the angry mob stormed the family house. They searched high and low, but found nothing of Foroh. No signs of a struggle. No remains. No evidence that Foroh had ever existed in the first place.

The public outrage was deafening. People screamed, pleaded with the authorities, and many stopped interacting with the family outright. But the father was steadfast in his devotion to the younger siblings, and his desire for them to be treated as Foroh was.

Eventually, the family was accepted again. The town demanded their stories, their pictures, their performances. The people simply could not live without them. The younger siblings, who were joined by ever younger siblings over time, got the attention their father desired for them.

And Foroh’s memory faded.

The tragedy wasn’t Foroh’s death. It was in the banality of the town’s eventual indifference to it. How quickly everyone stopped caring.

I looked up at the clock.

0:00:02

0:00:01

0:00:00

I put down the pen and folded my hands.

The Agent walked into the room, collected the paper, and left silently.

I looked at the clock, waiting patiently.

The green light flicked on. I smiled.

The sound of commotion filled the hallway outside my room. Screaming, fighting, cursing, pleading. 

“Please! I’ve got a ki-”

But it was no use. The Examiner had decided.

His fate was sealed.

He is flesh, blood, and organs.

But I am the human.

 The church bells fell silent. 

Paul stopped what he was doing, and straightened. He turned and strolled back home, where he put the bloody knife he was holding carefully in the dishwasher. He washed his hands, turned on the dishwasher, and went upstairs to his bedroom, where his wife was fast asleep . She murmured as she felt her husband slip in beside her, and cuddled up to him, feeling his damp hands on her skin. 

Morning arrived, and the mutilated body of the tourist was found by a local man walking his dog, lying in a pile of gorgeous flaming fall leaves. The woods around this particular town were famed for their beauty. But it was unfortunate that the town itself had a reputation for being unwelcoming, if not actively cold towards tourists. 

But the townspeople were not bad people. 

That evening, Paul walked into the bar, where the local police chief was already confined in a booth with her sergeant. They all nodded at each other. They had all gone to school together. Paul and the sergeant were cousins and the chief and his wife were besties. That’s the way she blows, in those parts.  

Paul got his drink- excellent golden ale which had been featured nationally in top ten lists. He sat away from his cousin and the chief.

A new tourist walked into the bar. The warm local chatter drifted into a deathly hush. 

The tourist, a tall rugged hiker, went up and asked for a pint of the golden ale. He sat on a stool,  letting his bulging backpack slip off his shoulders and thump loudly on the floor. The bartender shot a look at the chief, and then drew him a pint. 

The chief nodded at her sergeant, who got up and walked over to the tourist. 

Paul minded his own business, looking into the golden depths of his pint, trying to get the sound of ringing bells out of his head. For now, the sound was only in his head. 

The sergeant and the tourist were locked in a discussion. The tourist laughed. The sergeant shrugged, and went back to his seat. He had done what had been asked of him. 

The tourist took a picture of his ale. Paul twitched. The bells echoed louder in his head, but still,  they were not ringing outside.

Not now, anyway, and maybe not tonight. Maybe the tourist would sleep safely tonight and continue his way tomorrow, after posting stunning pictures of the town and the woods and the ale, drawing in more curious tourists. 

And one of them would be here when the bells rang out, and call Paul with his knife again.   

You’ll feel a twinge of nausea. Just a touch. You will assume that it's something you ate for lunch, or else a stomach bug. You won't consider an invader of a different sort. 

You will begin to lose parts of yourself. You will question whether you'll ever get them back. 

With time, I will loosen your bones, extract teeth with the grace of a jackhammer. 

I will pull out your hair, first in errant strands you'll barely miss, and then in clusters. 

And you'll forget. Not everything, just little details that will make you give pause and wonder. The name of your cousin who is getting married next year. The last time you felt whole. 

I will take all that you give, and you will give. You’ll do so willingly, and love me more for it. Despite the retching that now has a clear face and one day soon a name, despite the rearranging of your insides to make room. From the very moment I erupt into shrieking existence, you will love me. 

I am so grateful. Thank you, Mommy.

He hadn’t planned on becoming a ghost hunter, but that’s what Mordem Letac felt like now. A trained naturalist, he’d come to the northern reaches of the Yukon Territory earlier in the summer to study migration patterns in the face of ecosystem collapse related to rapidly accelerating climate change.

In some ways studying ecosystem collapse prepared him for becoming a ghost hunter because the once-thriving tundra he was surveying and cataloging had turned into something of a ghost town. Most of the native species had disappeared leaving little but the harsh winds of a bleak winter to come.

And now he was hunting for a ghost. In his own mind, Mordem felt he was humoring a few of the locals from Old Crow, a town of a little over 200, mostly Vuntut Gwitchin First Nation. Many of whom said, privately, that if he wanted to know what had happened to their caribou, foxes, hares, ermines, musk oxen and even wolves, grizzlies and polar bears, he needed to talk to the Silent One, a legendary spirit who at catastrophic times appeared near an ancient stone-ringed berm a couple miles outside of Old Crow. Atop the wide berm was the battered remains of a homestead.

Turned out Mordem wasn’t much of a ghost hunter. He didn’t have to be. The Silent One was there when he sidled into the structure through some missing clapboards. She was as grey and grained as the floorboards she was hunched over. She was painting figures in bright red paint. Paint that Mordem quickly realized was blood.

The blood came from a large carcass off to her right. A carcass that Mordem couldn’t identify: large, bluish, with crocodilian jaws and massive webbed claws. A trail of blood led from it to the Silent One’s brush.

The Silent One ignored Mordem. Cautiously, he approached to examine the figures being meticulously brushed. He immediately recognized the painted shapes: caribou, foxes, ermines, wolves, grizzlies, musk oxen, polar bears. With sweeping strokes the Silent One was creating wave after wave of them in parallel and convergent motion. It was mesmerizing and beautiful.

And then she brushed a larger figure at the rear of all the others: the croco-frog-carcass thing but with snapping jaws and slashing claws bearing down on the other creatures.

A hunt. An uber predator on the prowl.

It hit Mordem like forty degree water: the Silent One was painting a pattern he was very familiar with: migratory routes. And the predators that followed the migration. Whatever that hideous carcass was, it was likely responsible for the disappearance of the area’s mammals.

Mordem took out his phone and began snapping photos trying to process what it meant. An obviously alien species was preying upon the creatures of the Canadian tundra. It was surreal, but not frightening to him. As a naturalist, it made sense. Not the alien species, of course, but the migration and the predators.

Then the Silent One began painting another figure behind the croco-frogs. It was three times the size of a croco-frog and even more vicious looking. Mordem moved for a closer look, and the Silent One met his eye for a moment.

Her eyes were primordial, bright, rich like nebulae ready to give birth to suns. She gave him a very knowing look. And then she was gone. Vanished before his eyes. Only her blood-stained brush remained. Mordem looked down at her last drawing. It was terrifying to behold, but what paralyzed Mordem was what she’d painted in the creature’s fists: a wicked-looking weapon. Some kind of firearm with energy beams flaming forth.

Deep down, Mordem, like every other predator in the wide, wide, wide universe, feared a new alpha predator, another top dog with teeth bared, hellbent and hungry for conquest.

He saw clearly, as the Silent One saw, that it was time to get moving.

He just didn’t know where the human race could flee.

My name is Kyro. Diagnosed with extreme tetrachromacy from a young age, it has never been a badge of honour, though it has never isolated me either. Still, it anchors this entire story.

I have a habit of staring up at the sky, endlessly debating whether the blue leans closer to periwinkle or aquatic. Lately, my extra cone cells have been picking up something else, a faint, shimmering metallic distortion blotted across the sky, setting an unnatural hue over the city. One day, while walking home with my friend, I looked up and was shocked to see the sky shifted to a darker tone, framed by that strange, distorted ring.

“Is it going to rain or something?” I asked, still looking up.
“Rain? You know it has been a drought for almost a year?” My friend asked, looking up to see what I was staring at.
“What are you even looking at?” My friend added, sounding doubtful.
I lied and said, “Nothing, just thought I saw something.” Let us keep walking.

At home, I eyed the sky, trying to convince myself I might be overanalysing. I may have stared for more than an hour when my mother called me for dinner, and I snapped out of it. As I headed toward the table, a faint translucent leech outline caught my eye, wrapping itself around the fork. Disgusted, I called my mother over. When she came out of the kitchen, I screamed in horror as multiple similar insects latched onto her skin.

“What happened!?” My mother asked, as I frantically tried to brush the insects off her skin.
“DON'T YOU SEE THESE!” I exclaimed as some latched onto my skin as well.
“Stop, stop, stop... STOP! I am having a headache; I cannot deal with this. Maybe you need some rest. You can stay home tomorrow,” my mother reassured me.

When I looked back to the fork, the creature was gone. At this point, I was convinced I was losing my mind. The next day, I awoke to see similar insects in butterfly form latching onto my window, as if they had evolved to get inside. At this point, I deduced that I could see them because of my tetrachromacy, which allowed me to perceive a light spectrum hidden from everyone else.

From the balcony, I used a pair of long tongs to grab one of the butterfly-like pests off the glass, brought it inside, and smashed it under a thick book. Instead of blood, the spot contained water, which made me suspicious. I grabbed a glass of tap water from my nightstand, stepped back to the balcony doorway, and threw the water onto the cluster of insects clinging to the glass exterior.

The moment the water hit them, their translucent bodies violently swelled. Their claws thickened, digging directly into the glass until the pane shattered. I screamed and slammed the door shut as the insects broke in and barged into my room.

One of them, resembling a mosquito, jammed its nose through the wood and bored a clear hole. I screamed for my mother and ran to her room, but she had already left for work, and the insects were slowly entering her room too. Panicking, I ran to the bathroom and hid there, where there was no window. I called the police and tried to explain what happened. As I waited for the operator to pick up, the same insects slowly came out of the shower faucet. As soon as the call connected, they swooped in and hauled me into the dark upper recess above the frosted shower enclosure, pinning me to the ceiling and choking my sound as I dropped the phone.

In the evening, when my mother came back and called my name, she checked the bathroom. She moved right over my shattered phone on the floor.
“Where is this girl? The entire house is a mess...” Mom muttered, sighing in frustration.
She did not notice my muffled, choked cries coming from behind the dark shower panel high above her. If only she had looked up, I could have told her these creatures caused the drought, and it is not raining because their hovering spaceship is sucking up every drop of water before it ever reaches our city.

“It's 10PM; do you know where your children are?” asked the television.

A cool blue light illuminated a mother's face. She rolled her eyes at the question I knew the answer to. I watched her from the window and laughed gleefully. She doesn't know where her kids are. If she knew, she'd be calling the police and crying her eyes out.

I know where the children are. They're rotting away in a basement; their souls forever clawing at the windows that give only a glimpse of the world outside; scratching at the door that sits atop the stairs that lead down to their bodies.

People ought to listen to these announcements. A mother went to wake her missing children and realized all too late that they were gone.

That night I snuck into her bedroom. I waited for the exact right time, 10 PM. I timed it down to the second when I opened her door and stood in its frame. In a hushed tone I said to her,

“It's 10 PM, want to know where your children are?”

I haven’t been able to do it anymore; the thing that gives me joy. The thing that feeds on hope and the dying light of a world that grows darker by the day. I’ve quit; gone cold turkey. 
That’s a weird phrase. I get dropping something cold, but where does the turkey come in? 

Can you go warm turkey?

Addiction can be a wonderful thing, and anyone who tells you differently is either lying, or has been lucky enough not to have their lives ravaged by feelings. But my God, it comes with a sacrifice.
I’ve avoided my place of worship, the dim room where I used to ply my terrible trade, but I’ll stare at it from a comfortable distance for a moment or two. My eyes will fall on my old tools and my mind goes to when things were very good for me, but very very bad for others. 

I’ll close my eyes and replay my greatest hits as I breathe in the scent of cracked leather and cheap cigarettes long since smoked; coffee spills that were wiped down too late allowing black hazelnut to stain and soak into the old wood. 

My instruments are ugly now; rode hard and put away wet every time. Finishes and letters that used to shine under the light have been worn bare by a ravenous obsession that rode rough shod over life, the worries of time, and the hope of a life I could be proud of.

Eventually my eyes will find themselves on the closed closet door in the corner. The padlock on the hasp is dusty. The chain from the jam to the door hasn’t moved in a couple of months. After lingering in the doorway for far longer than I should, I’ll close the door and walk away. It’s better this way.

Addiction can be a wonderful thing, but the check is pretty steep. Up until today, I haven’t been willing to pay the price, but right now I’m begging it to take everything I have.

I sit down to worship. I use my tools. I let that addiction take me, and when it has had its way with me, I get up and with a shaking hand, I let the chain loose on the closet door. I blow the dust off the old lock and I slide the key inside with the reverence and patience the ritual deserves.

The door creaks open. My old teddy bear is on its back in the corner, staring up at me with its one eye. Tiny sprouts of stuffing shoot through the sloppy stitches that I’ve had to perform for forty nine years.

“Hey buddy. Just one more. I’m serious this time. We have to stop doing this.”

I go back to my desk, and I hit enter. Once my story has eyes on it, it’ll begin. 
I don’t look back when I leave the room. I never do.
I go to bed, feeling as though I’ve finally had a drink after the longest drought in my life. I feel whole for the first time in two months.
-
I wake up the next morning. There’s dozens of notifications on my phone about my story, but I can’t read any of them yet. There’s always something I have to do first. I type in a search, and I find what I’m looking for by the details in less than a second. 

I open the article. The ravaged bodies of a twenty year old woman and her boyfriend were found in Stowe, Vermont early this morning. The girl was missing her right eye.
I’m sorry. I can’t help it. 

I always walk to the closet in my writing room as if I’m not going to find what I already know is there. Bloody stuffing. Crusted hair. The smell of copper along with the coffee and cigarettes. The teddy bear has two eyes now. One is an orange piece of plastic, the other is a brown, slightly deflated eyeball from a young girl who was alive in Vermont before I went back to my wicked ways.

Once again I’ve brought something ugly into this world, but I got my fix even though someone else paid the price.

I pluck the eye from my teddy bear and flush it down the toilet. I’ll clean Mr. Bibbles later.
I have comments to read, and as much as I hate to admit it, I already have another idea for a story. 

It’s gonna be a banger.

It was not for the hole in the wall that she decided to murder her landlord, but it didn’t help. 

They lived on the edge of a huge Florida swamp beside basking alligators and maddening mosquitoes. 

She had paid to fix her mosquito screen, but what did that matter if he hadn’t paid to fix his, and there was a 1ft hole in the wall that separated their houses. 

She was probably always going to commit a murder; it had morbidly fascinated her since she was a kid. She collected those magazines on serial killers you found at gas stations, and while other girls were talking about Barbie, she was talking about Bundy. 

She prepared her plastic sheeting kill room; ideally, it wouldn’t have been her apartment, but she wasn’t flush with cash. After all, why would she be living in Johanson’s shitty apartment to begin with? 

She lured him inside by whispering through the gap in the wall that she wanted to fuck him, and when he came knocking in his tighty-whities, he got a carving blade in the jugular. 

She butchered him, removing fingertips from hands, and hands from arms and head from shoulders, making sure to also pull each of the teeth. 

She knew she was crazy because she felt no regret and no disgust as her hands(in rubber gloves) were covered in gore almost to the elbow. She even tasted him. 

After his body was bagged, she carefully wrapped all the sheets too, and she took him out on his own motorboat in the dead of night and dropped the parts of him in different locations around the swamp. 

And then she set about cleaning herself so thoroughly that her skin stung with bleach and her nose hairs burned. 

But mixed in was the sweet smell of victory. 

… 

Of course, the Police came when Johanson disappeared. 

‘And you haven’t seen him…’ Detective Fontain paused, checking his notepad. ‘For 5 days?’

He was old school, with a Southern drawl and a long coat, even though it was 100 outside. 

He coolly wafted away a mosquito which buzzed around his coiffed blonde hair. 

‘Mr Johanson said he was going to meet a man out of town about business,’ she replied. ‘Sometimes he has strange men around late at night.’ 

She had done it for the thrill of the chase, but now that she was being hunted, she realised she loved it too. 

And because she was so dialled up, she saw it; how had she missed it! Well, it was like that psychology experiment when you count the number of throws a basketball team makes and don’t notice the monkey beating its chest halfway through the video.

It was so goddamn obvious: a speck of blood against the cream leather couch, and now it was all she could see. 

Fontain, in that blase way, was walking around picking up various items like he was at an antiques showroom. 

He would see it. He couldn’t not see it. And she knew for certain it was Johanson’s. 

‘A man about business, huh? He usually walks to his business meetings instead of taking his motorcar?’ Fontain continued. 

It was like she could see the single drips in flowing water or the beats of a mosquito's wing. All her senses were razor sharp. 

‘Mr Johanson is a very strange man,’ she continued. 

She moved toward the blood splatter. Her only hope was to cover it with her frame. 

She acted as nonchalantly as the detective. 

Grabbing at a mosquito, she sauntered over to the stain and turned her back to it. 

‘I advise you to step forward, missy, and not touch that evidence behind you… Good girl.’ 

She did as she was told, and the bloodstain came into full view of the detective and the other cops coming into the room. 

‘Now you’re going to tell me that blood is yours and not Mr Johansons?’ 

‘No, I’m not…’ she answered. ‘It’s his.’ 

Fontain peered curiously at her, a little like a lion that has seized an antelope, only for it to suddenly turn into a frog. 

‘Hhwhat?’

‘It's Mr Johanson’s blood.’ 

‘And he… put it there himself?’ 

‘No. It was brought here.’ 

Fontain nodded to the cop at the door. He took his handcuffs from his belt. 

‘And the person that brought his blood in killed him?’ 

He was humouring her. 

‘Not unless he develops swamp fever… It wasn’t a person,’ she replied… Take a closer look, and you’ll find a dead mosquito mixed in that blood splatter… I’ve been telling him for months to fix the hole in the wall.’ 

Fontain’s mouth almost hung agape like a cartoon. ‘You’re saying that mosquito flew into your apartment after feeding on your landlord?’

‘Oh yes, he liked to slam beers and leave his window open so the whole swamp got a blast of News. And well, you see, the mosquitoes really loved the taste of Mr Johanson.’ 

"I act merely as a conduit between this plane of existence and whatever lies beyond," I explained, "I cannot guarantee a contact with the right person, or any at all."

"You came highly recommended," the little old lady smiled.

"Hmm. Do you have a picture of the person you want to reach?"

"It's my late husband, Walter." She slid an old wedding polaroid across the table. I was struck by the stern, severe look of the groom.

"A real charmer, I'm sure," I offered, suppressing a grimace.

"Oh, that's certainly what I thought back then," she gushed.

"Uh huh. And do you have some sort of possession or trinket, something that was personal to you both, to help make the bridge?"

She laid a cracked and faded leather belt in front of me, the heavy brass buckle dented all over. I looked at her in bewilderment.

"Oh, I know it seems odd, sweetie," she said, "but he used it every day, without fail."

I grabbed hold of the belt, intently studied the picture in silence for a few seconds, and then closed my eyes.

I erupted in a fit of coughing.

"Oh my dear, are you alright?" the old woman shrilled, alarmed.

"Wow, your husband..." I sputtered, choking on my own words, "...he was a smoker?"

"Oh no... not Walt. He always said cigarettes were coffin nails."

"Okay, wait - I'm getting something else," I managed, recovering between gasps, "there's - a smell? Barbecue? Bacon. Walt... he liked his meat? No, it's - burned meat. He wasn't much of a cook?"

"Walt was a vegetarian," the old lady answered, "his constitution couldn't handle anything else. And in forty years of marriage I never once saw him lift a finger in the kitchen."

"Forgive me," I said, opening my eyes to find her watching me intently, "I think I've struck a duff connection. I won't charge you."

"Please dear, continue," she said quietly. "Please try again."

Perplexed, I scanned the picture once more, clutched the belt tighter.

"God, that's awful," I winced.

"What dear?"

"If I'm not mistaken, Walt is yodelling. He's absolutely terrible."

"I never heard my husband so much as whistle in all our time together."

"Wait, I think - Walt's not singing. He's... wailing?"

"What else?" the old woman persisted.

Beads of perspiration stood out on my brow as I focused. When the sweat ran into my eyes, I realised just how warm I was.

"Go on," she urged again.

I screamed. I dropped the photo and the belt as if they were white hot. Slumping across the table, I clutched at the explosion of searing heat in the pit of my gut.

"I'm... on fire," I managed to grunt.

"No dear," the old lady said, reaching out to caress my head, "but I'm happy a certain someone is."

She came close, whispered in my ear.

"I hope it hurts more than forty years of being whipped with a brass buckle, Walt."

"Burn in hell, you son of a bitch."

Soft tears roll sweetly down her cheek. She doesn't blink and her gaze never falters. She knows she's found her calling and I think to myself how beautiful the flesh looks when uncoupled from its role. Her left shoulder rests against the black satin backdrop, head tilted back, and legs delicately crossed. I pull her arm forward so as to show her reaching for something that the viewer will know she can never grasp. I take two steps back and feather the shutter. I want to savor my work but I can wait no longer. The shutter fires. Once. Twice. Again and again. She becomes mine as I capture her reflection in the carefully guided pools of blood. My mouth waters as my cheekbones rise, shaping my eyes into little upside-down crescents. Her otherwise wasted life now brimming with purpose.

Mara spotted a rabbit hiding in the hollow of a rotted tree stump during her evening saunter through the woods. She huddled it in her arms and decided to bring it home. She needed something to care for. 

The rabbit didn’t look like other rabbits of its kind. It did share similarities, such as the white fur and long ears, but its eyes looked strangely human-like. When she looks into them it’s like she has known the soul behind them before. She decided to name it Wendaline, a name that meant it would be her blessed protector. 

Mara began to find raw meat randomly around her home. A foul smell seemed to move from room to room at night. She could hear her late husband's voice talking though she was unable to make out what was being said. She enjoyed hearing him again. 

Silas was a river driver for the local lumber mill. He fell into the water and was carried away, his body never returning to her. A horrible accident that left Mara lonelier than she had ever been. 

Mara awoke to a crashing sound in the other room. With lantern light guiding her way, she moved to check on Wendaline. 

The cage was toppled onto the floor, the door laying open with no sign of a rabbit inside. 

A cracking sound came from the corner of the room behind Mara. Slowly she turned around, the lantern light shaking on the walls from her trembling arm.

She saw the Wendaline, her body ripped cleanly in half down the middle like it was a stuffed animal with the seam undone. The skin of the rabbit was draped over the head of something much larger. 

The creature began to stand taller, being previously crouched in the shadows. The cracking sound she heard moments ago echoing through the room as it grew. 

Mara didn’t feel scared however. She held the lantern up to see its eyes. Wendaline's eyes. No. Silas’ eyes. 

“Oh, my sugar, I have traveled so far to get back to you.” it spoke in a staticky version of Silas’s voice. “It has been so cold on my own.” it whispered as it took a step closer, the cracking sound following every movement. 

Mara stood in shock, awe, confusion, grief, happiness, all the emotions flooding her at once. She allowed the long grey boney arms to embrace her in a hug. 

“Now we will be together as one, forever.” It said in a gargled fusion of Mara's and Silas’s voices. 

Ray Dunn called 911 on himself at ten past nine on a Tuesday night and asked for the bomb squad by name, which in this county is me and two other deputies and a trailer. He gave the dispatcher his address, said there was a device on him in his kitchen and a switch in his hand, and said he wanted the block cleared to three hundred yards. Then he said he'd wait.

Eleven years on the squad, and most of it is backpacks left at the high school. I have a wife, Beth, and a girl who's eight, and I was reading to her when the phone went. She knows the book better than I do and she won't let me skip the long part.

Ray was sitting at his kitchen table with a vest on over a flannel shirt and his right fist on the table in front of him, closed on the switch. He looked like somebody who'd been awake a long time. Gray in the face, eyes red and wet, a tremor in the free hand he kept flat on the table so I could see it. He asked me to sit down across from him and not touch anything, and I did.

He'd been awake eleven days. He said it the way you'd say you'd had the flu.

"It moves between sleepers," he said. "That's all I know about it. I couldn't tell you what it is. I know it needs me out to travel. When I'm awake it's stuck, and I can feel it waiting. When I go under, I get up and walk to the nearest person who's asleep and lie down next to them, and in the morning it's theirs, and I wake up on their floor and don't remember. They stop sleeping, sooner or later. Because then they can feel it."

I asked him how he knew that.

"Because that's how I got it. I woke up with a man named Hal Dorsey in my bed twelve days ago. A stranger. He was gone before I could call anybody, and I haven't slept since, and I found him in the paper on Friday. Walked into the river. Nineteen days awake before he got to me, his brother told the paper. He slept fine after. He went in the river anyway." He took a breath. "I went back through the paper, and then I went and knocked on doors. There's four more. Three years. Every one of them turned up in somebody's bed first, and every one of them is dead, and every one is the one before's nearest sleeper. The paper calls it five suicides."

I had the five obituaries folded in my pocket. Dispatch had pulled them off the paper's site while I was driving over, because he'd given her the names. The dates lined up.

"My sister's next door," he said. "Sheila. She's the nearest bed. When I go, it goes to her."

I asked what the vest was for.

"A sleeping death passes it on. Heart attack in bed. Pills. Anything where I'm out and there's a sleeper in range. I need a death with no body left and nobody asleep for three hundred yards. I can build the first part. I can't clear a block." He looked at me. "You can. You already did."

He'd called the squad because the squad is the only thing in the county that empties every bed for three hundred yards and holds them empty, by procedure, for as long as the device is live.

"I'm asking for one thing," he said. "Hold the cordon until I go. Don't take this off me. Don't let them put me under. Just let it work."

The sheriff wanted the shot. He'd heard the story on my mic, and what he heard was a man eleven days awake telling you something that can't be true, with a bomb on. I went back out to the truck and told the sheriff I couldn't get a clean approach on the switch with him seated like that and I wanted the state team, who couldn't roll before daylight. That was a lie. The approach was fine. I lost my cert for that lie and I would tell it again.

So we held. Four of us behind the truck, a hundred yards off, inside his three hundred, and the kitchen light on. I had been up twenty-two hours. Around four I was leaning on the fender watching the window through the glasses, and I remember thinking his head had been down a while, and I remember the fender, and I don't know to this day whether my eyes were open when it went.

It went at 4:12.

The board took six weeks. A tech who had a man alone in a kitchen for seven hours and never rendered safe. I had nothing to say that a board would hear. They pulled my cert and I'm on days now. Beth took our girl to her mother's after the board, to give me some room, she said, and they stayed through the summer. Sheila moved out of the house next door in the spring. She's fine. She sleeps.

I sleep fine too. I've said that to Beth and I've said it to the board, and it's true. That's how I know he was right.

Our girl came home last night. Beth wanted one more weekend with her mother.

This morning I woke up on the floor of my daughter's room, on the rug by her bed, with no memory of walking there. She was asleep. Beth called from her mother's and said I've been under a lot of stress, which is true, and that she'll be home Sunday.

I've been up since. It isn't hard yet.

The enclosed porch was pitch-black and heavy at 4 a.m., save for the steady glow of my phone screen.

Outside the windows, the darkness didn't just feel empty; it felt enshrouded, a suffocating void that swallowed the house so completely you couldn't pick out a single star. I sat huddled on the loveseat, wrapped in a soft blanket to shield myself from the chill creeping through the walls. I was wide awake, the insomnia settling deep under my skin like a parasite making itself right at home.

I stared up at the dark ceiling and let out a dry breath. "And how long are you hanging out tonight?" I asked sarcastically into the empty air. Insomnia never answered back, but it always stayed for another round.

Nearly everything on my phone was locked into dark mode except for my med tracking app. When I opened it to the Today view for Saturday, October 17, the interface blasted through with a blinding, sterile glare. Squinting, I looked at the active timeline. It was a blank landscape of hollow, unchecked circles. Even at 4 a.m., the system felt trapped out of sync, frozen while the hours quietly bled forward.

I didn't bother toggling back to Friday. The previous screens were just monotonous, unyielding walls of blue checkmarks cut straight through the calendar. Total compliance. Yet, looking over the rim of my glasses into the heavy darkness beyond, the bitter reality settled in. Days of perfect compliance hadn't changed a thing. The systemic inflammation didn't care about historical records.

To see the full scope of the failures, I tapped the "My Meds" icon on the bottom nav bar to pull up the master directory. Pushing past the active prescriptions, I scrolled down to the lower half of the page where the Paused section lived, collapsed under its own header archive. Most people delete a med once it fails them, but I left them there, frozen in a greyed-out digital graveyard.

My finger rolled past the names slowly. It was a meticulous history of everything that had torn up my stomach, failed my nervous system, or left me too groggy to think.

Keeping this app, alongside the master text notes and calendar files I logged for myself, made me feel like some damn medical condition Pokémon collector, accumulating labels, warnings, and failed experiments… the actual answers remained entirely out of reach.

I reached up to touch my face as a faint vibration started beneath my skin, a mild, residual tic left behind by an old motility drug I had stopped years ago. The doctors said the lingering twitches were harmless, just a phantom echo on the circuit. Tonight, the throb was patient, constant, and entirely indifferent to the labels behind the screen.

Staring at the glass reflection, my finger drifted over the screen. I tapped the Paused graveyard one more time.

The greyed-out list was empty!

Every single name, warning, and record of my failed history had been wiped clean from the directory.

Before I could process the blankness, the app began to violently glitch. Static vertical lines tore down the interface, splitting the text apart as bands of inverted, distorted colors bled across the lists. The screen shuddered under the digital distortion before freezing entirely.

Over the ruined master directory, a new biometric overlay materialized, a sharp, high-contrast text box running a live, real-time data scroll of my vitals. It felt less like a glitch and more like a precise calibration systematically mapping the exact electrical frequencies of my nervous system.

My breath hitched. I tried to swipe back, to close the app, but a sudden, violent jolt of static heat surged through the casing. I snatched my hand back with a sharp gasp. The phone slipped from my fingers and tumbled into my lap, its display violently flashing as the interface locked into a high-contrast split screen. The erratic, spiking lines of my biometric vitals ran directly above a massive countdown clock ticking down to zero, syncing perfectly with the internal rhythm of my racing pulse.

Beneath the countdown, a final text line typed itself out slowly, answering the sarcastic question I had thrown into the empty air hours ago.

Forever.

I looked up, away from the screen and toward the dark glass of the window.

The screen threw a sterile bright white glare upward from my lap, cutting through the glass pane into the void outside.

In that sudden illumination, the reflection vanished. In its place stood a silhouette pressing itself flat against the outer glass, caught in the upward beam.

It wasn't just standing there; it was looking through me, studying me with an awful, patient hunger.

Before I could move, its fingers began to tap a rhythmic, perfectly synchronized beat against the pane.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

As it tapped, the featureless darkness of its head drifted down into the phone's upward wash of light, its mouth splitting open into a wide, impossibly slow smile.

The clock struck zero.

In that exact heartbeat, the perspective violently flipped. My vision was suddenly trapped behind the glass screen, looking up from the flat, restricted angle of the front-facing camera. Hovering directly above the display in the sterile white glare, I was forced to look up at my own physical face.

The eyes slowly blinked, the color in the irises fading into a dull, hollow grey. Then, that muscle tic in my jaw violently jerked one last time, forcing my stolen physical lips to split open into a wide, impossibly slow smile right down into the camera lens.

It knew I was in here. After years of watching me accumulate nothing but failures, the interface flashed a final, mocking status update:

100% sync. 100% success.

It stared straight into the lens, giving a knowing, tight smile that openly mocked every failure I had ever logged, permanently sealing my consciousness, compressed and archived beneath the glass.

After smiling to the camera, the wallet style phone case closes, leaving me in the dark.

Adam stood by the corn silo, holding a flask. My eyes kept closing; I could barely focus on him.

"Morning, Adam."

"Jesus, Matt, you look awful. Want a drink?"

He raised his flask.

"No."

"It will help you get some sleep, man. What are you even doing at night? Playing with yourself until dawn?"

He laughed and slapped my shoulder.

"No, it's just…"

"I have a task for you. You gotta clean up the silo; the machinery is blocked."

I gripped my sleeve tight and stared at him.

He slapped my shoulder again.

"Calm down, you're not gonna get Dan'd"

"But can't somebody else do it? Why do I gotta?"

He furrowed his brows.

"I'm the senior, Matt. Now get your ass there and go do it."

I waited, not moving.

"Go!"

His voice rang in my ears. I put my head down and walked into the silo.

The inside was cold, silent. My steps echoed on the bridge. The closer I got to the ladder, the more my head spun. When my feet touched the kernels, I took a deep breath and looked around. It wasn't obvious where the blockage was, but as usual it was probably in the center. I grabbed a broom and walked over.

Then a hum echoed. The kernels moved beneath my feet. Dust filled the air. Someone started the machines.

"Wait! I'm still in."

The kernels were moving fast. My feet felt light.  I turned around and took a few steps. One foot sank. Another. 

"Help, please!"

My waist sank. My heart beat against my ribs. The kernels moved around me, pushing at my chest. I was neck-deep. My head sank under the kernels. I held my breath. I sank deeper and deeper. The kernels hissed in my ears. Then my feet felt loose, and so did my waist, my chest.

I fell hard onto the ground. It felt cold, but the ground felt firm like concrete. I looked around. The whole place was dark, as in a cave, but there were no walls, no ceiling above me, just darkness as far as I could see. The smell of dusty kernels still hung in the air.

"Hello?"

My voice echoed through the dark emptiness. It sounded like my words traveled to me and away from me at the same time. I got up and walked a few steps. They echoed in the same strange way. 

A cold tingle built in my chest. The space felt both small and large. It felt as if someone's eyes were on me. I kept looking over my shoulder. Then a noise broke through the silence. A faint snore, as if someone was trying to catch their breath, but couldn't. In the distance, a small figure lay on the ground.

"Hello? Are you okay?"

The snoring grew. His limbs twisted on the ground as if struggling. My heart sank when I saw who it was. Dan rolled on the ground, in the same clothes he'd worn when he fell into the corn that day.

Memories flashed through my mind. His screams for help. The machine's rattle. Adam's calm face as he watched him go down. All because he told the boss Adam and I were drinking on the job. The rope lay right at my feet. I stared at it while Dan screamed for help.

I ran to him. His eyes were wide with pain, his mouth filled with kernels.

"I'm sorry, Dan. I'm sorry!"

I grabbed him and rolled him onto his side. Kernels spilled from his mouth, but more were still inside. I hit his back; more spilled out, but his mouth was still full. I stuck my shaking hand into his mouth and pulled out handfuls of kernels, but his mouth filled back immediately. He turned his pleading eyes to me. Tears rolled down his cheeks.

"I'm sorry, I don't…"

My voice caught. Something scratched the back of my throat. I tried to cough, but nothing came out; the scratching only grew. I tried to breathe, but the air wouldn't come through. I dropped to all fours. Kernels began falling out of my mouth.

"Dan! Dan!" I woke up screaming.

I was back in the silo, half-submerged in the kernels. The mechanical machinery sounds were gone. The silo was silent.

Adam and two other workers stood atop the bridge, looking down at me. A rope was thrown before me.

"Sorry, Matt. We didn't know you were in. Adam forgot to tell us," one of them said.

Adam shrugged and looked down at me with a half-smile.

"Why were you screaming Dan's name?" Adam asked. 

He unscrewed the flask and took a long, slow sip, eyes on me.

I looked down at the ground.

"I don't know."

He smiled and nodded.

"Take the rope," one of the men said.

I grabbed it tightly. Something scratched at the back of my throat again. I coughed. A few kernels flew out.

My name is Loki Wycombe, I’m a delivery driver and I have a story to tell. Today is Tuesday and I have a delivery to Ash Magna near Whitchurch, a small village in England bordering Wales. The sun is out today in May, the road is a tad to small for two vehicles approaching head-on, but that’s usual for our backroads in England, I’m about ten minutes away from my delivery. I park on the driveway and place the large boxes on a cooler cart that has thick wheels and bring it to their door and press the bell. Miss Sandham opens the door: “Good afternoon Loki, my Love!”, “Good afternoon Anna, the water like usual?”, “Yes, come in and have some tea!” she says welcoming.

I place the boxes of sparkling spring water into the kitchen-cupboard as I hear the bell ring “Oh this must be Charlotte!” Miss Sandham opens door “Hi auntie Anna!”, “Hello Charlotte! Was school fun?”, ”Yeah and…” Charlotte peers past her aunt and sees me “Hi uncle Loki”, “Hello Charlotte, was your way home alright?”, “Yeah, and Tom the cat walked with me for a bit”, “Ahh good old Tom, that watchful Tiger will make sure you’re safe.”, “Common, wash your hands, tea and biscuits are ready.” says Miss Sandham, the seven year old girl runs excited into the kitchen and does just so.

We are in the porch enjoying our tea while Charlotte brings us up to speed “and then the fox jumped over the fence and the dog couldn’t follow, he ran up and down the fence, he looked like he really wanted to continue playing with the fox.”, Miss Sandham and I both laugh whole heartedly, I say “He out foxed him! He’s a smart one, what did he look like?”, “Red-orange, white chest, black ears and black feet.”, “Did you know in some places far away from here a fox is also called black foot? Because at night its black feet join the shadows and he makes no sound as he walks, but in the day he’s very visible, he’s the dog’s favourite playmate!” I say, we all laugh again, I sip on some more tea. A little bell goes off in the house “And that is the cake ready, come Charlotte, let’s get it out of the oven!”, Charlotte nods excited and they both walk back into the house.

A cold breeze of wind surprises me, it’s been about five minutes, it’s soon time for me to go and make my next spring water delivery. I walk into the house to find the two and say good bye for the day, I feel an unusual cold as I enter the two storey House ‘Oi, what is that smell?’ I think quietly ‘That wasn’t there before?’. As I step in, I notice several odd things I must have not noticed when I delivered the boxes of water before, the floor has a thin layer of dust, in fact as I look around I spot a few spiderwebs here and there: some on the ceiling, some at the corner of doors, some at the back of cupboards and drawers as I walk past them ‘Strange, she’s normally so clean.’, and the corridor and the kitchen ahead is so unusually dim, it’s summer and midday so I guess the lights don’t need to be on.

“Anna, Charlotte, I’m afraid I must leave you.”  I smile, I’m expecting her to say to stay for a bit longer and enjoy the freshly baked cake, then something comes to mind, ‘Wait, it’s been over five minutes, the cake should’ve been out of the oven and the draft going through the house should have reached me by now, wait why are they not answering?’. I reach the kitchen door and walk in, it’s much dimmer here than before, something makes my head want to turn left…….I fall backwards against the wall and my arse hits the ground! My legs struggle on the floor, trying to get me back up, but they feel like cooked spaghetti. I claw my way out of the kitchen ‘Oh the SMELL!’ as my feet finally find their strength and I bolt out of the house.

The police arrived 20 minutes later inspecting the whole two storey house…..and the two half-way mummified corpses. I don’t know what was with me, it is the middle of summer, there is no school! The police found two mummified corpses, one adult, one child, both of them on the ground, leaning against the kitchen cabinet next to the gas oven, clutching the little one between her arms and legs, a single daisy lays in the child’s cupped hands. The police did find freshly delivered boxes of water, apparently, I just walked in and didn’t see the them, but what about the tea and cookies at the porch? The whole conversation? The porch was there, and so were the plates, cups and cookies, and as for the tea? Weeks old rainwater and mouldy cookies!

The police believe a mixture of the gas from the old unmaintained oven mixing with whatever gases were left hovering in the house from the corpses made me hallucinate and only when I went back out to the porch and sat down for dirty tea, did my system have the time to clear up. For what happened, if this was an accident, self-harm or else…. well, the investigation is still ongoing.

Growing up, I had an imaginary friend. Her name was Annie. I had a fairly lonely life; I was an only child and my parents traveled a lot for work. Sometimes it seemed like they were gone more often than they were home. But Annie was always there to make sure I wasn’t alone. 

We did everything together. We played on the playground after school, we went swimming in the creek behind our yards, we played video games at the arcade. 

I remember the first time we learned to ride bikes - we both fell down, and we laughed so hard we could barely breathe. All of my memories involve her. 

Years passed like that, Annie being my best friend and some days the only one who kept me sane. Then one day she was just… gone. I called her, over and over, but she didn’t come back. I was alone. 

I barely remembered the next few years; they passed in a blur, feeling nothing but empty. Then one day, there she was, in front of me out of nowhere like magic. I was surprised, but in seconds we were talking like no time had passed. She told me about her life, her time in college, the years since we last spoke. I was so taken aback that I laughed. 

“What’s so funny?” she asked. 

“Nothing. It’s just - I’m happy to finally see you again.”

She smiled. “I missed you, too. Things have been really hard lately. But I always knew you’d come back when I needed you.”

“It’s funny,” I said. “I always thought the same about you, but for years you disappeared and I couldn’t find you anywhere.”

She looked at me strangely. “What do you mean?”

“All the times I was home alone, while my parents were traveling, I constantly wanted to talk to you, but you never came back. You were supposed to come back.”

“I never left, Harvey.”

“Of course you did, Annie. I was here alone.”

“You were where alone?”

“Here! At home.”

“And where is home?”

“Come on, Annie. You know where I live? Around the corner, with my parents.”

“Can you describe them?”

“You know my parents, Annie. They’re the ones so neglectful that I had to invent an imaginary friend!”

She looked at me, eyes full of concern and sympathy. “I’m not your imaginary friend, Harvey.”

Suddenly I got a pain in my head and everything went white. All of my memories of home, of my parents, of my life outside of Annie, disappeared in a flash until only she was left. 

“You’re mine.”

Do you know what it smells like to rip out a corpse from under the floorboards? There’s a specific odor, not one you could imagine on your own.

It’s a foul mix, picture an abandoned house, still furnished, clothes in closets, stuffed with mothballs and doused in cat piss.

That’s your first odor.

Your second is the dumpster at your favorite grocery store, where animal fat’s thrown into a bag with dirty diapers left to bake under the sun for three days.

All you need’s one more.

Here’s where the eggs come in—boil a few, peel them, mush them—and leave them on your stove. Walk out of the room and walk back in.

Mix all those scents and you have your corpse, who instead of wandering the afterlife decided to haunt your floorboards with a rancid odor instead.

Smoking cigarette after cigarette until I choked offered a bit of relief compared to the dust and rot.

I wear a respirator, but it’s horrible at filtering the psychological weight. Plus, I could still smell the body and I need to smoke when I work. The respirator’s for when I’m actually moving the remains.

The suit I wear’s a white hazmat, makes me look like the mad scientist Pillsbury Doughboy but a radioactive, post-apocalyptic one. I’m a specialist—a fixer, really. 

At least that’s how I view myself. I don’t just fix, I also clean up messes. When shady landowners or homeowners have an issue from past tenants and want to keep it hush-hush, they call me. I come in and eliminate the evidence. 

Usually, it’s people who’ve died and weren't discovered until days or weeks later.

The odd time, it’s a body under the floor, or behind a wall, or worse, in the crawl space.

I’ve never minded the rot. I’m used to it. There’s something honest in a corpse. The living world’s a lie. I see people as teeth replaced by dentures, stinks covered in perfumes, dirty shirts flipped inside out. 

I have a ritual. It’s straightforward. Maybe a little odd, depending on how you see it. Once I’ve bleached everything and scrubbed the floors, the walls, the carpets, and even the air with four fans, I usually search for something to keep. You know, a little souvenir.

A small keepsake.

It‘s nothing fancy or anything valuable. It’s kind of weird, but I like stuff that will last, stuff that has some significance to it. I like digging in the drains and finding pieces of hair or some fingernail clippings.

My favorite is teeth, especially when people have them saved in tiny boxes. I keep mine in vials. My collection is huge. I’ve got my own small library.

Baby teeth are cool and super easy to find, but it’s adult teeth I’m always on the hunt for. I’ve always wondered why people don’t save them.

The last job I worked was in a neighborhood with no streetlights because the gangs there shoot them out. The tenant was on the fifth floor, maybe in his sixties or seventies, and he had a collection of these really awesome stuffed animals—real animals.

The man himself was on his couch, slumped over and glued into the leather, almost as if he were a Halloween prop that came with the sofa. He had mold and fungi growing out of his chest like shreds of rotted cauliflower and broccoli sprouts.

As I peeled him off the sofa to scrub it down, something strange happened. I felt a connection with him. It was a profound realization, to be honest. I stared at the decayed skin revealing the veins under it and thought about what it would be like to absorb into the environment.

That’s when I saw something glimmer inside the fungal farm on the man’s body. It was shiny. I reached in but couldn’t grip it with my fingers, so I grabbed a knife from the kitchen and cut around the area. It was like trying to tear apart braided tendons, but when I cleared a path, I pulled out a gold tooth stuck to his chest cavity, attached to a piece of jawbone.

Later that night, after cleaning up there, when I got home, I didn’t put the tooth and bone in a vial. I kept it under my lamp, in my basement, on top of my desk, in front of my collection, and left it there to study after my shower.

In the bathroom, I eyed the steam on the mirror blurring my reflection and became disgusted by how alive I looked.

I examined my face—the pink in my gums, the elasticity of my skin, the color of my blood when I pinched it, my breathing, and the beating of my heart.

And right at that moment, I went to the garage and yanked a pair of pliers from my toolbox. I was tired of fixing everyone’s mess, hiding all their secrets, and cleaning stuff up.

For once, I wanted to be the evidence. I stood at the mirror for hours, pulling each tooth out of my head one by one like they were extra hairs on my eyebrow, and tossed each one of them into the sink.

As soon as I finished, I remembered the tooth with the jawbone, raced out to grab it, and ran back into the bathroom with it. Where the hole was in my jaw, I took the piece of bone and tooth and jammed it into my gums, deep into the bloody socket. I stuck it in and leaned close to the mirror. When I smiled, my grin reminded me of the truth. For the first time ever, I saw honesty.

I left the bathroom and went to lie down. As I closed my eyes, I imagined the man melting into his couch and the fungi surrounding his chest, and I wondered how it would be if it could grow inside me too.

“You're breaking up with me?” 

My boyfriend Conrad, could barely sit still, nursing his too-black coffee.

The two of us sat outside work on a bench. I was swinging my legs, occasionally throwing my heel to see how far it would go. He barely said a word.

Every so often, he took a feverish sip, stared up at the night sky for a few seconds, and then back into coffee dregs.

Conrad was too good for me. But I'd never say that.

Attractive. Thick bushy brown curls and warm eyes. Everyone said he could do better than a college drop-out whose adderall addiction had turned her into a walking red-flag. A psycho. I wasn't  the perfect girlfriend, but I had my moments! 

I never hit  him anymore, only when I was like, seriously pissed.

I let him have his own bank account now.

I even let him fuck me thinking about other girls.

But he was breaking up with me?

I had to laugh. I did, spluttering, unable to contain myself. I lit a cigarette, took a long drag, and passed it to Conrad. “Here.” 

“Maddy, smoking is bad for your lungs.”

“You can talk,” I said, “Mr. Perfect.” I offered him a smile. “Does your Mom know her precious son is a crack addict?”

Instead of responding, Conrad sighed and stood. 

“I'm gonna head back inside,” he muttered, glancing down at his phone. Then he was gone.

I was left staring down at my cold coffee. I wasn't sure how to cry. I mean, I tried, but I was always trying too hard— copying. Like when Mom died, I copied my sister’s reaction. Sniffles.

Swipe eyes. Shed a tear. Repeat.

Sometimes, crying required standing in front of my mirror or filming myself.

Another reason Conrad dumped me. 

He caught me filming myself gross-sobbing when his stupid fucking cat died. I told him I didn't know how to cry, and he called me a psycho.

“Everyone knows how to cry,” I mimicked his voice, and squeezed the coffee cup tighter.

Tighter. Until it cracked, spewing bean juice all over my new skirt.

I dumped the cup, licking my sweater sleeve to try and scrub at the growing stain. 

“Sounds like you're having a bad night, Maddy.” 

“Go fuck yourself,” I told the tiny voice coming from the tree behind me.

But I was curious.

Kneeling in front of a bush, I found myself face to face with a tiny rabbit, an adorable little ball of white fluff. Around its neck was a bright pink gem melded to a bow. 

The rabbit cocked its head and wrinkled its nose.

“Do you want to see something magical?” It asked in a squeaky almost giggle. 

A talking tiny white rabbit.

“I have work in ten minutes.” I told the rabbit.

The rabbit sighed. “Fine,” it rolled its eyes, “we can do this here.” 

“Do what here?” I stood. “Listen, I've gotta work—”

The rabbit dropped something onto the ground: a pink necklace matching its own.

The exact same gem. The exact cute little bow, a glass pink heart in the centre.

“Basically,” the rabbit started, “all of the magical girls I've recruited are dead.” It sighed. “So… unfortunately.. I have no choice but to recruit adults.” 

I grabbed the necklace. Cute.

“Uh-huh.” I fastened it around my neck. “Fun.” I grinned. “What else, oh, drug-induced talking rabbit?” 

“I'm very real, Maddy.” The rabbit said. “Do you agree to become a magical girl? To protect humans from monsters known as The Swarm?” 

“Sure.”

I blinked when a dazzling pink haze lit up around me, and suddenly, I couldn't pull the damn thing off.

Agonizing pain shot down my spine, sending me to my knees.

I managed two heavy breaths. “Should.. I go get Conrad? I think… he'd be more, uh—” 

A screech tore through my lips when my body was flung into the air, holding me upside down, while I began to glow. It was slow at first, a creeping bright pink fog crawling over my hands and up my arms.

The rabbit watched me, head cocked. “Conrad Slater is mentally stable. Conrad’s body and mind would be torn to pieces.” 

More pain. This time in my head, my neck twisting, cracking, warm red wetness spewing from my lips. Blood.

It trickled from my mouth and between my thighs as my legs were snapped in two.

My lungs burst. My throat swelled up.

And yet, somehow, this curse continued, spreading up my body. 

A bright pink puffy skirt sprouted from my skin, red trickling down each frill.

“Stop.” I croaked, spitting out of a chunk of my tongue. 

A gem stone protruded from my heart, glowing bright, eliciting a scream I couldn't swallow. Before I slammed back down, face-planting the concrete, a glowing purple staff in my hand.

The rabbit bounced onto my chest as I lay, panting, choking up bubbling red.

My head hurt, bleeding red haloing around me, soaking through my transformed pigtails. 

“Not as bad as I thought,” it said. “However, I think your ribbons are still stuck inside your skull.” The rabbit smiled wide. “Now, Maddy, all you need to do is call out your magical girl transformation spell!” It bounced up and down. “Sparkle Sparkle—”

The rabbit exploded, suddenly into chunks of bloody white and sparkles hitting me in the face. 

Loud, thudding footsteps.

“Fucking little C*NT.” 

The British accent took me off guard.

Through blurry vision, a figure loomed.

Dark brown curls tied into pigtails.

A pink flowy dress, and wielding the same purple staff.

His dress was torn down the back, blood soaked through pink frills, tattoos entwined down his spine.

The guy kicked what was left of the rabbit’s head across the walk, before turning half transformed eyes to me. I could see the pink sizzle still sparkling in his iris. “Do not,” he gasped out, dropping his staff, “Listen to that THING.”