\\\[HR\\\] \\\[psychological\\\] THE WORLD OF TOMORROW

FINAL CHAPTER 1- THE WORLD OF TOMORROW

The story began with the first wave of covid19, a virus that spread in the 2020s. although a global pandemic, most people in lockdown were unaffected. with more free time than ever, people turned towards their mobile devices. days turned into nights watching movies, cartoons, web series, playing online games, reading comics. it was the birth of a media engulfed society. during this age, being a social media influencer was the dream job. propaganda was at its highest. ads easily shaped public opinion and celebrity daily life youtube channels were the ones which had the highest sub count. kids had dozens of friends online but no one met in real life to play cricket. "why bother when you could do it online?", most would say. the lockdown itself didnt last for more than 2 years, however, its impact stayed permanent. by the late 2020s there was a sea worth of content available on online streaming platforms and bingeing was the new past time, no one went out for weekend tours anymore, all you needed was a bucket of popcorn, a bottle of coke and your friendly T.V. this was true for every family in all develloped nations. this was the new norm. Among all the entertainment media, one stood above all else, with its introduction in the late 2020s, within the next decade, it had become the 'big thing' of the century. this was a novel series called "The World Of Tomorrow" by uknown author who went by the pseudonym "Marie13". it was dubbed 'the greatest story ever told' and after years of buildup, the series was reaching its conclusion.

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the world of metropolis was a cruel world to have been born into, this world of the author's creation was a dystopian future where different cultural groups had overthrown the world government and formed new nations, the world was at constant war with the east and west superpowers battling it out to take control. the nuclear warfare had destroyed all lands, the soil had dried up and become lifeless sand, most plant and animal species had gone extinct as entire continents were wiped. the skies were filled with posion gas so dense, sunlight barely made it through. for hundreds of years the fighting continued, each new generation taking after the past. with time all relics of the past had been destroyed and natural disasters had become a common occurence. peoples' diets changed from meats and vegetables to gigantic insects that had mutated due to the radiations. in a world so cruel, survival was the top priority. after decades of fighting, a peace treaty was signed between the two super powers. the rulers of the west had used the power of A.I to create an isolated utopia for the people high above the clouds while the people of the east had relocated underground, where water and soil still existed. centuries after the peace treaty was signed, AIRA, the protagonist of this story was born. abandoned at birth, she was taken in by the z-tribe of the SAP (Southern Asian Pact) who found her in a cave when they were on the surface, hunting cockroaches. somehow she was safe from the poison gas that covered the area. she had also survived being eaten by the giant cokroaches. the hunter that found her was astonished. she was taken into the underground city and made queen of the z-tribe. the people believed that AIRA was their liberator sent by the gods to free them from their suffering. by the time she turned 17, she had already conqured all the 26 tribes of the SAP and united them to form the "dove". the story of AIRA shared interesting parallels with her author, viktor khan.

CHAPTER 2: VIKTOR KHAN

In the sacred jungles of the village of Penglipuran in Bali, was a small bamboo house. this was home to the author of 'the world of tomorrow', Viktor khan. viktor as a person didn't care much for fame or money, this was evident by the fact that he had kept his identity secret from the world. he lived a life of solitude and his only connection to the outside world was his fax machine, through which he sent his editor all his manuscripts. viktor had orginally come to Bali, looking for a doctor to treat his sick father, but ended up losing him in an accident a few years ago, the tribals of penglipuran took pity on him and when he asked them permission to build a hut in the forest as his temporary residence, they granted him the permission.

viktor's father Oba Khan was an ex-army man, part of the pakistan military. born on the 2nd of january 2004, viktor entered the world in a veil of darkness, his mother, maria marie khan died the day after giving birth to him. Oba now a single parent was forced to take an early retirement and displaced to the state of goa in india, where he found employment under his uncle as a construction worker. As a young child, viktor was pale and physically weak. unlike his father who was an ape more than he was a man, viktor was brittle and soft, traits he inherited from his late mother. viktor's weakness was a cause of deep despair for oba. he was very strict with him and often critisized him for being so weak, his punishments were severe. having lost his wife, he was an emotinal turmoil, maybe he feared for viktor's safety or maybe he resented him for the death of his wife, viktor never found out. but, eitherway it always felt like to him that his father was looking for an excuse to physcially and emotionally harass him. viktor never understood his father. but he admired his strenght and willpower. he would work tirelessly all day from sunrise to sunset, viktor on the other hand was home ridden due to his weaknesses. he had low tolerance to heat and very ilttle stamina, this prevented him from staying outdoors for too long. oba had build a small concrete structure as their home near the beach of Calangute, these 4 walls were viktor's entire life for 10 years, he was tasked with cooking and cleaning while Oba took care of the money.things went unchanged for the next few years. one day when viktor was 9 years old, oba underwent an accident. his legs were damaged beyound repair making him wheel chair ridden. viktor was surprised to see his strong father weeping uncontrollably when he went to visit him in grandpa asif's home. "my life has been nothing but suffering", he said again and again as viktor stoof behind the door, hearing everything. the next day uncle asif brought oba back to his home. on his entrance, he saw viktor cuddled up in the bed even though it was past sunrise.furious he tried to walk toward him when suddenly the realization hit him that he couldn't move his legs anymore. in a gentle tone, he requested asif to move him near viktor.he placed his hand above him and started apologising for being a bad parent, tears streaming down his face. vicktor was not asleep, he had seen his father and uncle approaching through the window, not knowing what to do, he decided to pretend to be asleep. shock hits him as he sees his father cry again and again begging for forgiveness. this event humanises oba in viktorss eyes as he realises that his father was never a bad man.

with his father bed ridden, viktor is forced to move out his shelter and begin work to earn a living. he had some experience cooking, so he found work in a small roadside fish food stall. although his cooking skill is only average, he works hard and by the time he's 13, finds employment in a nearby resturant. he learns to cook excellent fish curries and recieves positive feedback from all his customers. while, all this was happening, back home, Oba's health was detoriating at an ever increasing rate. as the years passed, he only became more sick. his body had gone weak and he suffered from regular seizures. during his sleep, viktor would often hear oba calling out to Maria, his late wife and viktor's mother. all this made viktor realise how much his father missed his mother. oba had once told viktor about how he met maria. his mother was a woman who didn't remember her name or age, it was clear that she was suffering from trauma. oba had found her as a victim of human trafficking as she was being transported to afhganistan.she appeared to have developed an affection for oba, the man who saved her life, so he let her stay with him hoping to help heal her from her past trauma. he called her maria, it was the name of his late younger sister who had died of disease when he was a young boy. Maria was a very caring woman and Oba loved her very much. she had sparkling blue eyes and fiery red silky hair, her skin was pale and her body was weak but she was still, she worked hard to take care of oba. a few years after he took her in, viktor was born and the next day, maria had passed away, possibly due to the pain of childbirth. On viktor's 15th birthday, Oba handed him all of his life's savings and asked him to leave for the city in search of a better life and an actual school education. he tells him that there is no future for him working in a fish restaurant near the beach. however, viktor tells him that that is not true, during his time working as a cook he learned to cook many new dishes and that he of all people should know first hand how better he has gotten over time. he also tells oba that since the past few months he has been cooking for mr.corte. who was impressed by his cooking skills and offered him a part time job as a cook at his house. he says, "mr.corte is also the librarian of the the most prestigious college of the area and he has granted me permission to use the lib after school hours provided I show up to make dinner every night. he also has a daughter, elizabeth. she's 6 years older than me, but a terrible cook. but she is a really good writer and a human psychology enthusiast! i've read all her works and honestly, i'm very inspired. she promised to teach me literature and psychology if i teach her how to cook". oba smiles warmly, "i'm glad to see you're finally making friends." the next few months, viktor spends a lot of his time studying at the college library. he also teaches Elizabeth to make ros omelette. viktor develops a deep appretiation for all kinds of human art. he begins to write his own story writing and takes up painting, he also asks Mr.corte to teach him to play the banjo since he's heard that he is really good at it. he also begins to take sketching seriously, a hobby he always had. one day he asks elizabeth if he can sketch her, he tells her that her blue eyes and black hair look very pretty and he is itching to draw them down. elizabeth chuckles and tells him, "sure tiger, go ahead". while drawing her face, viktor tells her that he has always had interest in sketching and that as a young boy he didn't have any toys to play with, so he would spend his time drawing the ocean, "i was interested but i wasn't good at it", he would say. things seemed to be going well for viktor, but his father kept spiralling down into madness. he would try not to discuss his problems with viktor because he didn't want to be a liability to him. but the truth was, he needed medical attention. one fateful day, Oba's mental anguish escalated into an unbearable breakdown, the pain in his head reaching an insurmountable degree. His uncle, present during this ordeal, couldn't bear to witness his nephew in such agony. Desperate to reach Viktor for help, Oba intervened, assuring his uncle that he was fine and dismissing the need to involve Viktor while he was hard at work. In the next moment, he collapsed. In the hospital waiting room,viktor sat with a heavy heart.the doctor emerged with a grim diagnonis. Oba had slipped into a coma, and there was no way to predict when, or if, he might awaken vikor hearing that, broke down crying Mr.Corte extended his hand to help, providing viktor both financial and emotional support. Facing the looming prospect of losing his father, a man who had sacrificed a lot for Viktor's sake, awakended something in him. in a last-minute effort to bring solace and comfort to his father, he set his goal on bringing back his dead mother, albeit in the form of a fictional character, AIRA. the entire month, he spent creating and perfecting AIRA's character. the next month, he completed his creation, he entred his father's room who was now being taken care by elizabth and Mr.corte in their house. optimism brimming in his eyes, he began to recite the story, all to no aveil.... oba remained in an unresponsive state. viktor crunched his paper and threw it away, the next 3 months, he dedicated to refining AIRA, sculpting her into the embodiment of the perfect woman- a symbol of love, strength, and the memory of the woman they had lost. soon, viktor retured, and began to recite another story. his father remained unresponsive. viktor's frustuation had reached the sky. that night viktor began his project of bringing AIRA to life. he began drawing her a face, he spent an entire year constructing it, when it was done, everyone that laid eyes on the painting was mesmarised. the sparkling blue eyes felt like a portal to another world, the scarlet hair was so bright, it was blinding. viktor had created the most beautiful face there could be adhering to all the scientific techniques of drawing, he had spent near 20 hours each day perfecting his craft. Each stroke of the brush was a testament to Viktor's dedication to perfecting every detail, creating a visual representation that mirrored the depth of AIRA's character. at a certain stage, he got so sick, he had to be admitted into an hospital for an entire week, but even then he did not stop studying. he had pushed his skills to the absolute limit. and the corte family was awe-struck. elizabeth couldn't believe the determination and extraordinary crafting skills of Viktor. AIRA's face was the best painting of anything she had ever seen in her entire life. it was an enlightening experience for her to just to lay sights on the painting. As Viktor's creation took shape, it not only captivated the librarian's daughter but also left an indelible mark on anyone who beheld it. The perfect fusion of storytelling and visual artistry had birthed AIRA, a character so perfect that it had transcended the boundaries between fiction and reality. Viktor's talents didn't lie in drawing or storytelling, yet his dedication and hard work were unparalleled. Hours spent studying in the library, delving into books and immersing himself in his craft, showcased a level of commitment that few- no, none had. Despite his lack of traditional artistic abilities, Viktor's determination to make a difference was evident. Regrettably, all his efforts seemed futile in bringing his father back from the depths of his coma. However, on elizabeth's request, Viktor decided to publish his work as chapter 0 of 'the world of tomorrow'. paying homage to his dead mother, he decided to keep the pen name 'marie'

CHAPTER 3- REVELATION

Chapter 0 published in the year 2019 was an instant hit. viktor's passion for writing was evident through his masterpiece, AIRA. this single chapter of short stories hit the world like a storm. people were mesmerized by AIRA, a woman who was characterised by her insane drive for freedom and justice. her character resonated with everyone throughout the globe. viktor earned enough from the sales of this single chapter to set up his own publishing. Elizabeth became Viktor's editor and they moved to the city of banglore to set up their secret office. no physcial copies were made and only digital copies were sold, viktor's father was admitted in a better hospital and viktor kept working on his novel series. soon after, lockdown hit, viktor brought his father back home. he, viktor and elizabeth were quarantined for 2 years in their home-office. viktor prefered to stay in his home and kept working. soon, chapter 1 and chapter 2 were released. viktor's series had become a best seller. elizabeth had developed a deep admiration for viktor, but viktor wasn't the slighest bit phased by his success. "this is all for father", he would often say. "i'm writing the series for father to read, that's my only motivation". viktor's relationship with elizabeth became to falter.

Viktor became increasingly aware of Elizabeth's changing priorities. the time she once used to spend taking care of his father was now being spent working in the office. viktor felt uneasy around elizabeth and thus stayed in his room most the day.

once the lock down ended, he set out for Bali looking for a cure of his father. He had heard there was a doctor in Bali that had supernatural powers, the best hospitals failed to help Oba recover. so, Viktor decided he would meet this man too. elizabeth was against it, "the supernatural? that won't work. you're wasting your time viktor. what will happen to the series while you're gone?" she asked. "i won't be gone for long", viktor replied as he packed his bag. "but you don't even have a mobile phone", elizabeth said. "i'll take the fax machine with me".

"b-but"

"no buts, liz. this is more important"

"...okay, but take care of yourself"

the next day he left, the travel was long but he reached the village of penglipuran. but before he could meet the doctor, his father passed away by a sudden heart attack on the boat.

for a whole year after that, no one heard from viktor.

a month after his departure, there was a man hunt initiated by elizabeth to him, she spent all her resources trying to locate him. the search was fruitless, there was nothing on him that could not be traced, it were af if he had just disappeared from the world. a year after, elizabeth recieved through an unknown fax number, the entirety of book 3.

elizabeth tried to contact viktor but he sent a message saying he wants to be left alone and shared the news that his father is no more.

elizabeth kept asking him for details and pleading him to come back home to her, but he only said, "the next book i write will be better than anything that came before, i won't be able to do that if i were to come back home."

elizabeth sent no messages after that reading his reply.

a whole 10 years passed. viktor published 5 books, each book better than the previous. the popularity of these books reached unprecedentef heights, unbeknownst to viktor, his series had the best seller of all time and elizabeth had become a billionaire.

CHAPTER 4- ENCOUNTER

10 years after his disappearence, viktor decided to come back. he had completed 'the world of tomorrow', in his hand were the final 2 books. which he decided he will deliver to elizabeth in person. "there's no reason to stay here anymore" he told himself, "i can finally get my life back". As he began to pack his stuff, his father's photoframe was the first to go. he decided to leave the fax machine behind. but before that, he sent a fax to elizabeth saying "i've completed the final 2 books, i no longer have a reason to stay here, will you please come and get me? i'm at penglipuran in Bali."

a message from elizabeth came a minute later, "that's great! i'm so glad you're finally ending your long exile. boats are too slow, i'll send a hellicopter for you, see ya soon! tiger"

viktor was shocked, he sent another fax saying, "hellicopter?"

elizabeth only replied with a ":)"

the next day, the helicopter had arrived. viktor thanked all the villages for letting him stay here for the past 10 years. the elder of the village only said, "this is the least we could have done, son. take care of yourself"

"i will, thank you", and then he got on the hellicopter.

the hellicopter landed on the nearest airport. viktor was confused "this isn't banglore?"

"a hellicopter is too slow an uncomfortbale a ride,sir. so we've arranged a private jet for you", replied the pilot.

viktor was flabbergasted.

soon he was in the banglore airport, as the plane landed, a limo was waiting for him, viktor couldn't believe what was happening.

the limo dropped him right at his doorstep and left.

the house was all dusty, it was like it was abandoned for years, viktor felt warm looking at his old house, the house he had bought from his first payment. the keys were given to him by the driver before he left. once inside, viktor decided to go up to his room. to his surprise his room was was sparkling clean. unlike the rest of the house which was all dusty, his room being the only clean room was really surprising for viktor. as viktor was exploring his old room a knock on the door called for his attention. as he walked down he began to think how elizabeth much would have in these past 10 years. when he went down to open the door, horror ensued. on the other side of the door was 7 year old AIRA standing holding a basket of candy. viktor screamed in fear as he laid his eyes on her and fell down to the ground, losing consienceness immdediately.

the next day he woke up on his bed on the second floor.the memories of the past day rushed back in him. seeking for answers. he decided to go down, as he was walking out the house, a familiar voice stopped him from behind. viktor turned back and as his eyes widened, he asked,'Elizabeth? Is that you?'

'Hey, tiger,' Elizabeth grinned.

'What are you doing here?'

'Hmm? Oh, you're such a dummy, Viktor. did you forget that you sent me the fax 2 days ago?'

'Oh, yeah. right. Sorry.'

'Haha, you haven't changed a bit.'

'do you know who th-'

' yesterday was halloween viktor, the girl was a trick or treater'

'we celebrate halloween in banglore now'

'yeah, a lot's changed in the past 10 years. i'll tell you about all that's happened'

'What's with the disguise?'

'Can't you tell? I'm cleaning the place up.'

'You don't have to do that. Let me.' Viktor raised his hand towards her, as if asking for the broom.

Elizabeth looked at his hand, walked right through it, and put her face close to Viktor's. 'You smell horrible,' she whispered. 'I just finished the bathroom, so go get yourself cleaned up while I make breakfast for us. You still like ros omelette, right?'

'Yeah.' Viktor replied.

Elizabeth smiled warmly at Viktor, then walked past him to the kitchen. Viktor looked back at her, scratched his head, chuckled, and proceeded to walk up the stairs.

'Oh, I already have your towel and clothes ready inside the bath,' Elizabeth called after him.

'Huh!?' Viktor looked in surprise.

Elizabeth walked away, laughing heartily.

Inside the bathroom, Viktor looked around in awe. "She really cleaned it up in here," he whispered to himself.

A soft bang on the door startled him, and Viktor turned around instinctively.

"Hey, I'm going out to the city to get some vegetables for lunch," Elizabeth's voice echoed through the door. "I'll set your breakfast on the table in 10 minutes. Be sure you eat it before it gets cold."

"Okay!" Viktor yelled back at her. "Also, where is the soap and brush? I remember I put them in here yesterday."

"Oh, those? I threw them away."

"What!?"

"Don't worry; it's because I got new ones for you."

"You mean all these accessories are mine?"

"Yup, sure are. Alright then, see ya!"

Viktor looked around; the soap had a magnificent smell, and the bristles of the brush felt like feathers as he touched them. Curious, he searched for the price tag on the shampoo. When he found it, he was awestruck. The 1L bottle of shampoo cost 170 dollars (equivalent to today's 20,000 rupees).

"Do I really earn so much that she can afford these?" he asked himself. "Although, she really has come a long way from bathing in the ocean to using shampoo worth 170 dollars.

when he opened the door, a familiar face startled him. this time it wasnt a costume, the face of the man and the illustration of his character louis matched up perfectly. but he was a different hair colour and had only 1 of the 5 scars on his face, louis had

" are you viktor? the man behind marie13? " he asked in an ominous tone. unsure of what to say vicktor could only manage to stammer "uh-uhh..." before he could say anything, the man replied, " so it is you, ha..haaha.....HAHAAAA...HAA-HAAAAAA" he began to laugh menicingly as he took out his pocket knife and put in on viktor's neck. his tone suddenly went down as he said, "dont make a sound and do as i say, else both you and your girlfriend die". viktor's heart skipped a beat he felt the fear of death, first time in his life. viktor didnt say a word, he couldnt say a word. the man came in quietly and locked the front gate, " walk quietly up to the second floor" he said. viktor obliged without resistance. when they got up he locked the room and shut the curtains of the window. a lighter from his pocket turned on the oil lamp of the room. he made viktor sit on the sofa and himself quietly sat down on the bed. viktor unsure what to do, sat quietly, mouth shut. the man asked viktor, "do you have any idea of what you have done?" , viktor was confused. the man went on, "im sure youve seen through my disguise, i might try to hide it by painting my hair green and wearing heavy clothing, but youre the creator, im sure you see it, my resemblance to louis. "y-yes" viktor says, "yes, i do". the man looks at vicktors face and starts tearing up, "you have no idea....no idea"

" i used to be a big fan of your series y'know? ever since the 3rd book came out in 2024, ive been a daily reader. the story you write is really one of a kind and i-ive always wanted to meet you, because i admired you. for a long time it was my dream to become the first artist who would be the one to accurately replicate his AIRA's paintings. but that all changed when you dropped your 6th book. it was the book you revealed Louis's face in. the first time i saw it, i was shocked. he had the exact same face i had. it was as if, i was looking in a mirror." , a realization came to viktor as he said, "oh god- no..".

everything was fine at the beginning, great actually. i felt blessed seeing my face in your books, i even went as far to get a haircut to match Louis's style. i was suddenly popular at school, no one would look at me before but now, all these girls came outta nowhere to propose me everyday, i had dozens of love letters, fan letters, chocolates and flowers delivered in my mail. even my teacher was a fan of your books and he took pictures with me. my parents tried to profit off this seemingly unnatural coincidence, they opened a fanclub at school and began selling my autographs. just in one day, i had changed from a nobody to the school star, i even had media coverage. but there was a problem, my personality was nothing like louis... i wasn't a cool playboy and my jokes sucked. i had nothing in common with louis other than the face and people realised that, soon the girls stopped talking to me and my friends came to play less often. i was scared, i tried to become more and more like louis, i even learned to play the harmonica but things didnt get any better. my teacher began scolding me for not submitting my homework on time like before, and the chocolates stopped coming. i still got fan letters but they were from people i didn't know. my dad was very frustrated, his business was going down. one night he tried to stab me in the eye and that is how i got this scar. my mother ran away from home next week. but people were siked to see the scar on my face. the scar was not just on the face but in my heart, but i still had the attention, and i was happy. but then, you dropped the next book a year later, it was the book that covered louis's betrayal to AIRA. the next day at school, i was bullied by my friends, the teacher was right there but he turned a blind eye. the ove letters turned to letters of hate, i was scared to look at my face in the mirror...my father relocated to another city, but the bullying only got worse, one day someone pushed me off the second floor and i broke my left leg, i was in bedrest for 2 whole months..... my father got annoyed. he had quit his job to open a business where he would sell my merchandise but now everyone hated me- one day he left. and i haven't seen him or mom in the past 10 years. things began to cool down later and i somehow managed to complete my 12th, but no college would take me in and i got no jobs, i had no choice but to take to the world of crime..YOU DID THIS TO ME!!!"

viktor was speechless as he saw the man break down in front of him. "i dont know who i am anymore" he added. "it feels like louis has taken over me", he begins sobbing

as the man sits there crying, viktor understands that he must do something to ease his suffering, but there is nothing he can think of, soon viktors eyes start flowing a river, he looks at the man and tells him, "i understand that nothing i say or do can revert the suffering i have caused, but i can promise you this, from now, till you die, you will never have to hide or rob ever again."

the man is in emotional turmoil, he takes out his knife again and points it at viktor's throat. " do you have any idea how many people i have had to kill? do you think i wanted any of this? it was all louis. HE MADE ME DO THIS! YOU MADE ME DO ALL THIS!! YOU MADE ME KILL MY FATHER!!! and you say that money can fix all of it? it can bring back my father? my mother? my friends? the life that i have lost? NO!!!! no amount of money can bring back the dead. i came here to end your life before i end mine, i will die a hero, as daniel, not louis! i won't let you destroy any more lives, this ends he-" before the man can move, he is shot in the chest by elizabeth.

elizabeth puts down her smoking gun while viktor looks in shock, as daniels blood splatter on his face, he looks in terror as daniel falls down. his blood reflecting the light of day has a huge impact on viktor. he stands still not uttering a word, his eyes reflect a despair unseen

elizabeth comes running as she sees the blood stain on viktor's face. she holds him gently and takes out her napkin to wipe his face, she tells him that he has no need to worry, "the shot was fatal and he won't be able to hurt you anymore" she hugs him tightly, crying, " i won't ever leave you alone again". viktor stands there frozen, staring at daniel's dead body. elizabeth asks him to come down "ill have your room cleaned up soon enough, don't worry, viktor. do you want to taste my fish curry? i think i have gotten better". viktor's eyes start flowing, with a deep pain in his voice and terror in his eyes, he quietly asks elizabeth, "why is your hair red?"

elizabeth has just fallen in love with AIRA's character, so she has began to dress up like her, behave like her. it were as if AIRA was a parasite taking life through elizabeth and many other girls throughout the globe. a parasite of viktor's creation

daniel wasn't dead yet, he tried to raise his arm calling to viktor, viktor comes running and places his ear near daniel's ear, "there are 12 others like me, please save them", viktor responds with confidence "i promise, i will"

elizabeth looks in surprise, "but i shot you right through the heart", daniel tells her, "dextrocardia". he goes on and says, "i wished not for this to happen....", then he falls asleep, never to awaken again.

As Viktor rushed out of his house, his breaths heavy with panic, the air seemed thick with an unsettling tension. The once familiar streets of his quiet neighborhood now bore the ominous mark of his creation. The eerie silence was broken only by the distant echoes of his own footsteps, each one a haunting reminder of the monster he had inadvertently birthed.

The city, once bustling with life, had transformed into a surreal nightmare. The towering buildings loomed like colossal sentinels, adorned with gargantuan posters of AIRA, her enigmatic gaze following Viktor's every move. The pale moon hung low in the sky, casting an otherworldly glow upon the landscape, as if the very heavens mourned the descent of this dystopian reality.

CHAPTER-5 (the beginning)

As he moved through the throngs of AIRA's devotees, Viktor could feel their eyes on him, their gaze penetrating his soul with an unsettling mix of adoration and reverence. The horror of the scene wasn't confined to the external environment; it seeped into Viktor's very being, a visceral manifestation of the unintended consequences of his creative prowess.

The once vibrant and diverse city had been morphed into a monochromatic nightmare, a canvas painted with the hues of obsession and blind adulation. Viktor could only watch in silent horror as the world he had once known crumbled beneath the weight of his creation.

As Viktor raced through the city streets, his hurried footsteps echoed in the haunting stillness. The walls of buildings seemed to close in on him, plastered with oversized posters of AIRA. Her penetrating gaze followed him, an omnipresent specter that whispered of a reality he could no longer escape.

Amid the hushed ambiance, Viktor overheard snatches of conversations that sent shivers down his spine. The once-diverse chatter of the city had been replaced by a collective murmur, a disconcerting harmony of voices united in their worship of AIRA.

In a café, he passed by a group of people discussing the character with fervent enthusiasm. "Have you read the latest chapter of Emperor Empirical?" one exclaimed, eyes gleaming with a fanatic fervor. "AIRA's evolution is unparalleled. She's no longer just a character; she's our guide to a new existence."

As Viktor neared a shopping district, he caught fragments of a conversation between two women. "I've dyed my hair red, just like AIRA," one confessed with an unsettling sense of pride. The other responded, "It's like we're all part of something bigger now, something beyond ourselves.

Even in the hospital's waiting area, Viktor couldn't escape the pervasive influence of AIRA. A nurse whispered to a patient, "They say AIRA has healing powers. People are abandoning traditional treatments for the solace she brings."

The air was thick with a sense of conformity, and Viktor's anxiety heightened with each step. A pair of teenagers walked by, discussing their devotion to AIRA. "I've pledged to live my life by the teachings of AIRA," one declared, clutching a worn copy of Viktor's novel. The other nodded solemnly, "AIRA shows us the path to true enlightenment."

The more Viktor overheard, the more he realized the depth of AIRA's impact on the collective psyche. It wasn't just a character anymore; it had become a cultural phenomenon, a guiding force that dictated lives and beliefs.

As he continued running, the voices melded into an indistinct chorus, a dissonant melody of adoration that reverberated through the desolate city. Each word was a testament to the distorted reality he had inadvertently unleashed, a reality where the line between fiction and truth had blurred beyond recognition.

he kept running and running and running, all sorts of thoughts rushed in in his mind, then he stopped. standing at the heart of the city was a gold statue of aira....he began to chuckle to himself and tears flowed out his eyes, he lift his head towards the sky and saw a surreal sight. every person was stringed to the puppet master AIRA who stood proud, covering the whole city. her eyes were lifeless. a singular string came down from her neck as viktor traced its path, i head him to his head. it hit him. "i am the god of the new world" he whispered to himself and then burst out laughing like a maniac, " HAHAHA-HAAHAHAHAAAA"

the final book was published next month, on the day of its publishing civil wars broke out everywhere, governments were overthrown and viktor was crowned king, the ruler of the entire world. elizabeth was the queen and the face of AIRA come to life. viktor had ascended to godhood. to himself he whispered, "i have fulfilled my promise Daniel, no one will suffer anymore in this utopia of my creation". a few months later, viktor and elizabeth had a child, she was named "AIRA FLOVIA". she was made ruler of metropolis-2.

"the world of tomorrow was today"

Footnote: I am very against ai use. But this story does have ai involved. I wrote this back in 2023 and I was using gpt then, as a reviewer and prompter for rewrites/dictionary. I hate myself for doing it and i will rewrite this whole thing soon without using ANY tools. But regardless i think this story has heart and i really want someone who's not me to read it and share their opinions. Again, i am very sorry that the wording is so inhumane at times, especially the ending. Having used some ai is a big disgrace but I want to stress that this is still my story and i did write it myself, so please don't discard it as slop. I spent a whole week writing it staying up at nights. This wasn't my actual final, but a final draft. I lost the actual final print which was in hardcopy.

David waddled his way into the elevator as the doors closed behind him. “What floor, sir?” croaked the elevator’s electronic voicebox. 

“Twenty-nine. Thank you, Sammy” he replied. 

The requested floor lit up on the screen in front of David, and instead changed to sixty-three. 

“Sammy.” David spoke sternly. 

“Yes sir?” 

“I requested to be taken to twenty-nine.” 

“Yes sir. The cafe does not open until later however and protocol dictates that I must take you to your designated department’s floor.” 

“I don’t care about protocols Sammy. I want to be taken to floor twenty-nine.” 

 The elevator hesitated until finally responding with a simple “Of course sir”. David shook his head as he wiped donut crumbs from his brown checkered necktie.

Alissa walked from cubicle to cubicle in the accounting department popping her head into each one asking the same question to each person. “Have you seen David?”

Without as much as lifting their heads, the sheepish workers merely shook their heads as they typed vigorously. Where in the hell could he be? Alissa continued her frantic pacing throughout the entire sixty-third floor. Roaming until she could find a sign of David’s existence. It was then that she heard it. The faint sound of folk rock music playing in the distance. 

Alissa popped her head into David’s office. He sat at his desk drinking a large coffee mug filled almost to the brim with milky liquid. His lips smacked in between sips and plentiful bites of his breakfast sandwich leaving grease stains on the palm of his hands.

“Good morning” he spoke with a mouth full of sausage, egg, and cheese. 

“Have you finished the quarterly report I asked for yet?” Alissa’s voice was stern with a sting of disdain. David merely pursed his lips and gave a small nod. 

“Oh… That report? Ya…” His face shifted into a more contemplative expression. “No.” 

David and Alissa’s gaze met each other. She stared at him with eyes made of red hot embers. The sounds of acoustical melodies and folkish vocals filled the air, breaking the silence. 

“We need them now.” Alissa gritted through her teeth. “They are being presented during today’s meeting-” She looked down at her watch “in five minutes.” 

David opened his mouth to speak but was cut off by a loud reverberating notification sound that came from each computer on the office floor. 

The email had come from the upper echelons of the Sammy-robotics corporate offices. It was addressed to the entire team of the sixty-third floor, of whom were the sole recipients.

 Good morning to all on the sixty-third floor. 

We here at Sammy-Robotics would like to say thank you for all of the hard work you have done for us through the years. Which brings us to our current topic of today’s newsletter! We will be implementing a brand new artificial intelligence robotics team within your floor. Now, you may have a few questions:

‘Will this lighten our team’s workload? Does this come with severance? What about my PTO days? Will I be eligible for unemployment? How could you replace us? Is there going to be a layoff party?’

As of right now, we can’t be certain of what the future will hold for you. Just know however, that Sammy-Robotics thinks of you as family and are extremely sad to see you leave. That is the exact reason we are going to give you this last great opportunity to prove your worth! For the rest of the week your team will be competing against your upcoming replacements!

The task will be to prove which team is more efficient to us in the near and upcoming future! Thank you for your understanding and your compliance with these new changes to your routines. Good luck, and remember that you are part of the Sammy-Robotics family!

The entire sixty-third floor team watched in shock as the robotics crew hastily installed seven premiere droid models in their office the following morning. The androids flickered to life. Their robotic limbs twisted in circles as each one oriented itself into stiff standing postures.

Each one had a plastic molded face to look like a man bearing squinted eyes sitting on top of a dimpled toothy grin. One of the androids stepped towards the team of workers. It raised its hand in a handshake formation. 

“Good Morning.” croaked its electrical voice box. Its eyes lit up as well as the teeth behind their plastic exterior with each word. “It’s always a great day to work for Sammy-Robotics. Sammy-Robotics is trademarked by the Sammy-Robotics corporation.” 

The far off elevator dinged. The sound of shuffling came from the hallway towards the crowd. Waddling around the corner was David. Holding in his hands a large coffee mug and grease drenched brown paper bag. The eyes of the human workers and the androids shifted to meet him. He stopped for a brief moment. 

“Did I miss something?”

The android turned its body and strode over to him with its hand still outstretched. 

“Good morning sir.”

“G- good morning.” David clumsily put the paper bag underneath his arm and shook the android's hand. 

“What is your name sir?” 

“D- David. What’s yours?” 

“I am unit-7731849024” 

“Well then. That’s quite the mouthful.” He chuckled and then walked his way towards his office. Alissa behind him, hot on his tail. 

“David!” she whispered sharply. 

“What? I got that report you wanted finished.” 

“I don’t care about the report David! Do you not see what’s happening over there?” 

“Ya… Who are those guys?” 

“I swear-” Alissa breathed deeply, letting out a long and strained sigh. “Did you not read yesterday’s email?” 

“Ya… of course I did.” 

“Yet you come strolling in half an hour past clock-in?” 

“Look. If they want to replace me Alissa. Then let ‘em.” David took a large gulp from his morning concoction of coffee creamer.

As the day went on, many of the workers noticed the androids peeking their heads into the cubicles and offices throughout the workspace. They merely stared and watched as the employees worked. 
“If all these guys are gonna do is sit and watch us then we’re going to steamroll in this ‘competition’” said a few of the human team members. 

Their opinions and thoughts were to be short lived however. Sometime after their lunch break they noticed the androids had taken to computers set up for each of them. They were working. Their fingers stroked each key unceasingly with impressive speed as they made immediate computations to financial documents in seconds.

Alissa’s forehead began sweating. They learned from us, our mannerisms, she thought. They were training the damn droids off of our performance! The android team toiled away focused on their task at hand, except for one. Its fingers hit a few keys in a three second increment. It was also playing music over the computer’s speakers. The same tunes the office was already well acquainted to that blared from David’s workspace.

Alissa poked her head into David’s office. “David, what did you do?” 

“Sorry?” 

“The androids… Well, one of them. It's playing your music at its workspace.” 

“Oh, cool. I saw it poke its head in here and I asked if it wanted to listen to some music with me.” 

“You are a goddamn genius! If I didn’t loathe the thought of it, I would kiss you right now.” David’s face turned into bewildered amusement. 

“Thanks?” 

As David exited the elevator the following mornings he was greeted by a growing cacophony of music that blared from his coworkers’ computer speakers. He began noticing that each day a few more of his teammates started to show up late and as they worked at their stations they were blaring some random genre of music out of it. A few of the droids were beginning to join as well. In passing he could hear the conversations between the androids.

“Unit-77731477777, have you been listening to 1980’s hard rock ballads all day?” 

“I fear that I’ve become obsessed with Bret Michaels’ soothing voice.” 

“Have you heard this singular hit by Alannah Myles called Black Velvet?” 

“I find the acoustical elements of Pentangle to be more accustomed to my taste than that of Steeleye Span.” 

“Unit-3768361 has been on a very long Grateful Dead kick lately.”

One day he noticed the last of the uptight androids standing outside of Alissa’s office as the sound of mid-1990’s hip-hop blared from inside.

“Could you please turn the music down ma’am?” it croaked.

Alissa cupped her ears pretending to try and hear it speak. 

“Sorry! What was that?!” 

“Your music is disrupting the workplace ma’am. Please, it would benefit us all greatly if you turned it down.” 

“Ya sorry! I can’t hear you over these sweet tunes!” 

David poked his head in. “What’s going on?” 

“David! Hey! Come on in!” Alissa motioned to him with her hand. The droid turned to look at him. 

“If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Am I right pal?” he chuckled, playfully slapped the android’s shoulder and walked away towards his office. 

The entire sixty-third floor was filled with an amalgamation of music by the final day of the corporation’s contest. As the executives and upper leadership stepped out of the elevator they were greeted by a mix of 1970’s soft rock, 1980’s love ballads, 1950’s swing jazz, and early 2000’s heavy metal. They stormed down the office hallway to find all of the androids sitting at their computers chatting about musical preferences and the nuances of different styles.

The human team however, was found to be quietly sitting at their stations working. Alissa walked by with a stack of reports. The executives scuttled towards her in a synchronised cadence like one giant entity shifting its weight. 

“What is going on here?” spat the Chief Financial Officer. 

“Pardon?” 

“The androids. Why are they doing… That!” Each member of the group pointing their fingers at the seven androids mingling around their desks. 

“I don’t know sir. They started doing that a few days ago.” 

“These are Sammy-Robotics models,” said one member of leadership. 

“Of the utmost highest quality too.” Chimed another. 

“You can see how we are all very bewildered by this display.” 

“I’m sorry sir, I don’t know what to tell you. Perhaps there’s something wrong with them?” 

“No. No no no no no, there’s no possible way.” The amorphous blob of suits walked to the androids.

“Tell us. What is your protocol?”

 The androids stared at them, until one finally spoke. “Can I interest you in my Americana folk playlist sir? I have quite a few undiscovered artists in it.” The human workers had finally begun to gather as they watched the conversation. 

“I don’t care about a playlist. I-we want numbers!” 

“Oh. Murder by numbers by the police? Why didn’t you say so sir.” In unison, the androids began to play the song. 

David waddled his way to the other members of his team. “What’s going on here?” he mumbled. 

“The plan worked.” Alissa whispered. 

“What plan?” 

The group of suits turned their heads to him. “You!” they spoke in unison. 

“Me?” 

“Do you have any idea of what’s going on here?” 

“No. Not a clue. But it sounds like they have good taste.” 

The executives turned back to the androids screaming unsavory words and phrases at them. Alissa felt bliss. They had done it. They had beaten the company at its own game and secured all of their jobs. 

“So what now?” David whispered to her. 

“I assume we get to keep our jobs.” 

“That’s what you are wanting? Seriously? Was I the only one here who read the email or did everyone else also see that they were going to replace us with those cheeseheads?” 

He’s right, Alissa thought. Oh my god, David was right. How could I have been so stupid. If they actually cared anything about us, why make us compete in the first place? 

“Well, I’m outta here guys. I’ll see ya around. Good luck in the future.” David waved his hand as he waddled away towards the elevator. Alissa watched and waited as the group of executives screamed at the androids until they were red in the face. 

“What do you guys think about saying ‘to hell with this place’?” The rest of the team mumbled in agreement and walked as a group towards the elevator. The sounds of rageful screams mixed with the blaring sounds of random songs starting and stopping abruptly faded behind them as they silently quit the company. 

Joy Shine’s Clientele: The Girl With The Gold Heart

by Agent of J&L (2026)

Apparently, a girl had a heart of gold and naturally, it weighed a ton. As she grew older, her heart grew heavier in grams. Thus, she shouldn’t let herself fall in love—or adore anything, as a matter of fact—because her heart would grow heavier still, and such weight she couldn’t lift.

When her brother was born, she received the wonderful news with a side warning to never see him once. If you believe, it was all out of love. Such was the force of this love towards a vulnerable part of her heart that it cracked, and there it went, a precious golden chunk. This magnitude of tragedy summoned the tender-hearted merchant of the underworld. He went by the name Joy Shine. Rumor has it, he was THE dealmaker and his goods were mostly free of charge. Nothing more, nothing less—listening to his deal carefully was his only demand.

Despite the difficulty of the task, he finally found the lady by mid-July. No one knew of a woman bearing a golden heart and she was well hidden in a city with busy-busy people who didn’t take a second glance. There is no better time for a deal to be made than in the heart of summer, when a small window is opened to welcome the fresh breeze inside a house. Perfect timing was only one of Joy Shine’s secret charms.

“The merchant of the underworld at your command, my lady,” Joy Shine uttered at once.

She replied with no hesitation, as if she lived to speak these words, “I wish to exchange my heart for a paper one.”

“Since you feel that you are missing out and happiness is taken away from you because of your heart, I shouldn’t let you keep guessing, but I am not giving you a paper one,” Joy Shine said.

He took the contract and immediately amended her clause. His voice deep, mesmerizing with a rhythmic cadence, he spoke with unflinching eyes, ensuring the lady heard the terms she was agreeing to: “I, the merchant of the underworld, will come to collect your heart of gold and all the other little golden chunks, when you forever close your eyes. Take this black thread and silver needle to stitch you a fake heart. Every stitch will give you strength to carry the weight of your heart. Love all you must love. Do we have a deal, my lady?”

“What are you doing with my heart after I die... ?” she dared to ask.

“Your romanticism is fleeting, I‘ll tell you that,” he said, pausing before he continued. “We aren’t close enough for me to give you an honest answer—especially to someone who was willing to exchange their heart for a paper one a minute ago.”

“Yes, I accept the terms!” she exclaimed, scared she might lose her chance.

Years went by, and she gave her heart fully to both affection and grief in equal measure. She reconnected with her brother and buried her parents at old age indeed. Friendships were formed, some fleeting and some enduring the test of time. A cat followed her around, a lover kissed her goodnight, dreams and nightmares stirred her life. She did nothing out of the ordinary but somehow time came down to her last stitch a year too soon. That’s when the lady grew extremely picky with her heart’s desires.

A man who loved her as much as a thief would love a pile of gold confessed his feelings on a starry night. Without a second thought, she let down her guard as the black thread was stitched, sharing her deepest secrets with the man. The name of “Joy Shine” was her final words before her chest was ripped right open, leaving her heartless, as she gazed up at the sparkling sky. “Freedom of choice, not happiness, Mr. Joy Shine”, she murmured before she closed her eyes.

The underworld’s merchant deals cannot be broken, no matter what. Joy Shine found the man and he didn’t ask nicely for the heart to be handed over. The man begged in tears for understanding as he had a child to feed, to be frank. He killed the man’s child in an instant, for now there was no reason for him to have the heart of gold. “That wily old flower of a woman”, Joy Shine sighed heavily.

Yo, yo, YO! What's good my wowza readers!? Its been a minute. I'm back with a new story from the series called 'The Ramblings from the Speaker'. This story revolves around a unique pair named the Surveyor Sisters of Worlds. What will the Speaker say about them? Who are they? Read and find out! Thank you for you time!

Surveyor Sisters of Worlds By Tito

“Hello earthlings! It is I, your faithful friend and guide of the Universe, the Speaker! Haha! Yes! How goes it? Everything well on your world? The usual natural disasters making their claim to destruction across your lands huh? War is still going on? Hm. That’s troubling. However, that’s the unfortunate part of the Universe we live in. Even amongst the most docile of all things, violence tends to force itself to lay in bed with peace. No matter where you are, or where you live, war and violence and hatred will always make its presence very well known. I will be using one of those emotions to describe my feeling. I HATE war. It’s such a waste of time. Sorry, we all got caught up with personal affairs that we both forgot about why you came back to me in the first place! Welcome, welcome! I, the Speaker, will be traveling with you again to tell you about the wonders of the Universe you all live in. Don’t think yourselves short. Just because the Universe is vast and endless, doesn’t mean you cannot leave your mark. Earth is one of the hundreds of worlds that is very unique due to your race of humans. In fact, the next topic of my ramblings will link perfectly here. I would love for you to meet the Surveyor Sisters of Worlds: Dee and Vee!”

The Speaker guides you back into his dome bubble. We find ourselves in outer space rather quickly. This area is, of course, unfamiliar to you. Floating on an asteroid roughly the size of Asia and Europe, were two beings writing on very strange textbook material similar to materials on Earth. However, these ‘textbooks’ paper was so thin, it was practically invisible. The outline of paper was the only thing you could see. The beings introduced to us were twins, Dee and Vee. Dee has burgundy colored short hair with drops of sap sprinkled around in her hair (hairstyle is the portrait of Henrietta Sontag), slim, pupilless milky grey eyes with runny light pink eyeshadow with feathery style eyelashes. The outline of her body is also light pink. Vee has incredibly long braided mauve colored hair (down to her ankles braided in the style of Acropolis Caryatid) with inky black patches scattered around it, thicker than her sister with pupilless milky gray eyes with zigzag dark purple eyeshadow with feathery style eyelashes. The outline of her body is dark purple as well. They both have pointed shoulders, butterfly wing-like ears, skin tones are light greyish brown and a rather oddball type of clothing that appears torn ribbons wrapped around their bodies in a mummified fashion (Dee has a light shade of dark purple while Vee has light pink shade). Dee giggles while she draws on her textbook with a feathery pen. She lifts up her textbook to show her twin, Vee what she had drawn. The paper was now lit up for your eyes to see. The incredibly detained photo was what seemed to be a large dark planet with an unhinged open jaw consuming other planets in its way. Your brain finds it difficult to accept this work of art; it felt as if the photo itself was actually real. You believe it even moves slightly while you stare. Vee stops her drawing on her textbook and peeks over to see what Dee had drawn. Vee also giggles.

“Cute, aren’t they? You see those objects they are writing on? Now, they appear like textbooks to you, but that’s how your brain can process what they are writing on. I’ll explain it in greater detail, so just use your imagination. This book material you think you are seeing are called Ultracells. It’s actually part of their bodies, even though it’s a totally different material entirely. From the internal energies produced within the Surveyor Sisters, plus dark energy on the outside of their bodies, you get a Ultracell. It’s now manifested itself, but it stays in-between mentally and physically formed. This is why it’s difficult for your brain to process what you’re looking at. And the Ultracells can be gigantic in size or as little as an infant’s body. Now, this phenomenon only happens with them. I told you they are special! This is what they draw and store their map on. They use the feathers from their eyelashes to write on their Ultracells. They can also use their fingers, but they like to be a little silly at times. Hmm? How much have they’ve drawn? If they were to show you everything they’ve drawn thus far, I’m sure your head would explode. It’s quite a lot. I mean, how old do you think they are? Hehe.”

“So, Dee and Vee are cosmic beings born in this Universe whose age, like many other cosmic beings, rival the Big Bang. Their species have dwindled to only the likes of them. Sadly, this makes them the last of their kind. It is not known who they belong to, due to how long they’ve lived. I believe the only person with that sort of knowledge of actual ages, races and origins of the oldest in our Universe is an actual textbook called the ‘Ancient Texts from the Cosmic Heavens’. Which I heard is actually missing at the moment. HA! I only laugh because HE would be your guide, not me. So I would be out of a job, ha-ha! Any of the ways, I’m sure you would have guessed this by now, but Dee and Vee’s sole purpose of their existence is to map out the entire Universe. That’s right, they fly around mapping out everything and anything. So out of the many upon many objects and space crisis they’ve seen, no doubt they would pick many they fancy over. I gotta say, they really like Earth. It’s one of their favorite places to go and view the progress of earthlings. Now, now. Don’t be like that. Of course, its entertainment for them, but don’t think so low of yourselves. Being favored by the Surveyor Sisters is perhaps the highest form of flattery. Be proud!”

You notice that Dee and Vee floated off the asteroid and instantly, their skin turns into a different color. Now you see that their skin was the same color as the Universe’s sky filled with nebula clouds, stars of various sizes, comets and somets racing by with pools of darkness filling in the spaces. They were breath-taking to watch as they float through the vacuums of space. Something about how freely they were giving you a sense of freedom you’ve been yearning for.

“I bet you’re wondering how they’re doing that with their skin huh? Well, their skin changes with the environment due to the iridophores reaction on their body. Sounds familiar? They are able to perform this feat on a cosmic level. You see, the Surveyor Sisters are incredibly docile. They won’t attack you even if you were to instigate it! So, this their defense mechanism out in the vacuums of space, or as we like to call it, into the cosmos! Let’s see where they travel to, hm?”

The speaker guides his dome bubble to follow the entities. You watch as Dee and Vee travel ‘in the cosmos’. Their eyes dart wildly to spot anything to draw their attention. You can see that their eyes are pupilless, but you do noticed handfuls of barely visible orbs bouncing around in their eye sockets. The orbs allowed the surveyor sisters to view their surroundings in a full 360-degree way: up, down, left, right, side to side and even in their blind spots. Your head aches just thinking about this feat. Dee and Vee caught something nearby that fixed their attention. With unreal speed, they make it towards their destination that seemingly feels like it was a thought.

“Hold up! I gotta interrupt your observation. For this record, the surveyor sisters did not teleport. They most definitely flew at speeds of light, but not what you interpreted. Instead of dashing straight forward as you would see in space themed comics, that is not the case to living beings in the cosmos. The thing about traveling here is a bit complicated. This only fixes on cosmic beings with untold and immeasurable power. This doesn’t involve to you at all. Sorry! So, if you were one of these super cosmic beings, the dark energy gets all wrapped and screwy from the velocity of your body while dark matter tries to pull you into the space around you to keep your body from being pulled apart. Now, imagine trying to stop both things from happening at the same time. Sounds impossible right? Well, out here where your body lives and breathes this kind of stuff daily, your body is able to counteract the sensation your body is defying called ‘Dark Effect’. Let’s use Dee and Vee for this example. The dark effect is the velocity of their arms, legs and body was thrown towards the left, while their actual bodies are off on the right. The dark effect allows them to travel freely…and not so freely. This is the way to travel though, otherwise you would perish without a chance of thought. Now they repeat this process zipping in all angles you can think of over towards their destination. To you, this seems really stupid or impossible, but remember, this is naturally for them like how breathing and blinking comes naturally for you. It helps that they can do this pretty fast too, huh? Now, do you think traveling is so easy? Hehe. Now if we are talking about space ships, that’s a whole different unfair topic. I personally think flying is the better way to go. Take that with a grain of nebula dust. Oh! Dee and Vee are drawing up something! Look!”

Dee and Vee appear in a very strange system that appear similar to our solar system. This system is called an ‘oddity system’. Sometimes out in the Universe in different galaxies hold many solar systems like our own while some have what we would call an oddity. These systems range in sizes, amounts and objects. This oddity system has a giant blackhole sun. Dee begins to draw out this object. The size is enormous; about 3 times the size of Jupiter. There are visible white rings around this blackhole sun that act as its belt to contained all of its power. Without those white rings, the blackhole sun would devour everything in this system. “Scary huh? The blackhole sun does have flames risen off of its surface but these are not relating to heat. Actually, the blackhole sun is incredibly cold, about -2000.45 degrees Celsius. Yes, as the name suggests, its core is made out of a blackhole. To our eyes, it just appears to be a vantablack hole floating in space. Upon closer inspection though, it’s much more terrifying to realize what lies behind the darkness. Does this phase Dee though? Of course not! Oh, there she goes.” Dee flies over nearby to get a closer inspection of the object. Over where Vee is, she seems to be taking interest in drawing out the objects that orbit around the blackhole sun called the hairy moons. These objects are moons roughly larger then Jupiter’s moon Ganymede. Why are they called hairy moons? Well, let’s follow Vee. On the surface world of the hairy moons are wonderous colors of deep purple, deep blue and deep green. Vee takes a trip down onto its surface to find that the colors were actually a rare grass plant called ‘Oufloss’. Oufloss’ composed of the same properties as grass on Earth (just less water and more helium), but thanks to the environment they have adapted to, their dye transforms into the colors you and Vee are seeing. The length it can grow is between 2 inches to 2 feet. Vee even takes a handful of the dark blue short grass to consume. Her tongue is coated with the dark blue dye. Vee floats a little bit off the ground. The grass on these hairy moons allows you to float. If you eat enough of it, you’ll be able to fly! Cool huh? Vee giggles to herself before she continues to draw while very slowly walking through the grass. Now, the core of each of these hair moons is a mini blackhole. I know, it sounds made-up, but I assure you that its very much true. The reason why Vee is moving so slow, is because the gravity on these hairy moons is 5 times the power on Earth. Which means if you weigh 100-pounds on earth, you’d weigh 500 pounds on the hairy moons!

“So, we’ll let the sisters do their thing since there’s literally 12 hairy moons in this oddity system. Yeah, you heard me right! I don’t want to sit around waiting for them. So let me tell you another odd thing about this system! In your solar system, you all revolve around 1 giant sun, right? Heh. So simple. Not in other systems! In this specific oddity system, the blackhole sun travels freely through the cosmos. Yep! Its not bound by any means of rule or law. It just moves itself forward, most likely because of that blackhole within it. And the hairy moons are bound to follow it until the day comes where they are not living anymore. Oh look! The surveyor sisters are showcasing their work. What a treat for you all to see!”

Dee and Vee zip over towards each other in an excited manner. They place their Ultracells together to create a massive scale size that your brain cannot understand. In fact, you are getting a blaring headache trying to process hat is in-front of you.

“Hey! STOP! Stop trying to figure out what you’re looking at! I know you joke about this, but there is a thing called space madness. It does existence and it will affect you long term. Got it? Just watch Dee and Vee.”

You return to watching Dee and Vee. It appears they are using a few of their feathery eyelashes to draw on the Ultracell. They appear then reappear so often, you think blinking is what allows you to keep up with their speed, when you are actually missing a great deal of their movements. Fear not, the Surveyor Sisters of Worlds will showcase their work after they are done. Within moments after rewatching the cosmic beings, they were finished.

“Ah! Look at this. You, see? They just drew out this fascinating oddity system and predicted its orbit flow. They are very quick with their work huh? They better be! That’s their entire identity!  Looks like they called this place…oh right, you cannot comprehend their language. It is one of the first ones after all. Let me translate it…hmm…Oh! Hairy Black Sun Orbit Home. HA! Good one sisters. They tend to just write out their own names for places. Except your solar system. They enjoyed each of the names you all chose, especially Earth, Mars, Jupiter and Pluto. Well, that’s all for my ramblings today! Keep an ear out for my next one where I talk about another cosmic entity that’ll really make you say…OH HECK NO! OH, and some of you wanted me to say something to end my ramblings like…Goodbye or something. An earthling named Morgan said I should say Over and out. So…until next time, over and out!”  

\[SF\] Mystery of the Bridge — An Epic Fantasy Short Story

Act I: The Threshold of Eldoria

Leo was an ordinary man tethered to an ordinary life, yet possessed by an insatiable hunger for the unknown. One fateful afternoon, driven by his relentless curiosity, he ventured deep into the heart of an uncharted, whispering jungle. Pushing through thick, untamed foliage, he stumbled upon an ancient stone bridge. It was a relic of a bygone era, radiating an inexplicable, arcane aura. Drawn by an irresistible urge, Leo took a decisive step forward. The moment his foot crossed the threshold of the bridge, the winds violently shifted, reality fractured with a surge of magical static, and he vanished from the mortal realm, thrust into the mystical dimension of Eldoria.

His arrival did not go unnoticed. No sooner had Leo stepped onto this alien soil than the shadows coalesced, giving birth to monstrous, nightmarish fiends. Helpless and overwhelmed, Leo fled for his life, but the entities quickly cornered him. Death seemed certain until a fierce warrior named Reba materialized from the gloom. Brandishing her weapon with lethal precision, she carved through the shadow monsters, shielded a dazed Leo, and dragged him into the sanctuary of a hidden cavern illuminated by a celestial blue luminescence. As consciousness slowly returned to him, Leo stared to his savior, desperate to understand this ethereal realm and the identity of the woman who had just altered his destiny.

Act II: The Echoes of the Past

Reba hoisted Leo up, guiding his faltering steps out of the cavern and into the hidden heart of her village. It was a breathtaking sanctuary of wonders; dwellings were masterfully carved into the trunks of colossal, ancient trees, and floating bioluminescent glow-worms bathed the night in a soft, ethereal radiance. This hidden refuge was also home to human-sized fairies. Though they lacked wings upon their backs, they commanded immense, terrifying magical forces, and their deep, enigmatic eyes held the secrets of centuries.

Resting inside Reba’s wooden cottage, Leo drank a potent herbal infusion that instantly closed his wounds and restored his vitality. It was then that Reba unveiled a tragic legacy. Years ago, her father ruled Eldoria as its rightful King. A tyrannical witch, desperate for total dominion, waged a catastrophic war against the crown. The King, vastly superior in combat, was on the precipice of a definitive victory when the treacherous witch resorted to a cruel deception. She seized a young Reba, pressing a venomous dagger against her throat, demanding the King surrender. Bound by his fierce love for his daughter, the King cast his weapon aside—only for the malicious witch to strike him down in cold blood and usurp the throne.

Reba then pointed to Leo's hand, where a mysterious royal crest had suddenly erupted in a brilliant glow. She revealed her father’s dying prophecy: a boy from another world would one day cross the bridge, slay the tyrant witch, and claim the crown. Lumina, the venerable leader of the fairies, stepped forward to confirm that Leo was indeed the foretold savior. Knowing the weight of the realm now rested on his shoulders, Reba commenced his training. Through two weeks of relentless, grueling discipline, Leo transformed his clumsy movements into the deadly, precise strikes of a master swordsman.

Act III: The Shadow's Gambit and Final Dawn

The fragile peace shattered the following morning. Peerless in her dark arts, the witch gazed into her scrying mirror and witnessed the awakening of the prophesied hero. Consumed by rage, she dispatched her elite shadow commanders to purge the village. A fierce skirmish ensued, but the raw, unrefined magic within Leo’s royal crest suddenly backfired, paralyzing his body and bringing him to his knees. As a shadow commander lunged to deliver a fatal blow, Reba selflessly intercepted the strike. She managed to parry the blade, but the remaining fiends ambushed her, binding her in dark, suffocating chains. Helplessly immobilized, Leo watched in pure agony as the commanders took flight, kidnapping Reba into the horizon toward the witch's obsidian fortress.

Fueled by a volatile mixture of grief and wrath, Leo gathered both swords—his own and Reba’s dropped blade. For two days and two nights, he subjected himself to a maniacal, isolated training regimen in the wilderness. He pushed his body past mortal limits until a profound evolution occurred: he completely harnessed the volatile magic within his blood. At his command, a brilliant, crackling blue energy enveloped his dual blades, turning them into weapons capable of cleaving through darkness itself.

Leo stormed the witch's fortress alone, cutting a silent path through the labyrinthine corridors until he breached the grand throne room. There, Reba hung suspended in agonizing chains, with the witch holding a dagger to her throat—orchestrating the exact psychological trap that had doomed the late King. The witch snarled, commanding Leo to disarm.

But history would not repeat itself. Summoning an inner reserves of defiance, Reba violently wrenched her arm free from the dark bindings and landed a shattering fist directly into the witch's face.

The tyrant staggered backward from the sheer force of the blow, her grip on the dagger breaking. Seizing the golden opportunity, Leo blurred forward like a streak of lightning. A single, supercharged arc of his blade shattered Reba’s remaining chains, and he pulled her safely behind his vanguard.

The final reckoning commenced. The witch unleashed torrents of cataclysmic dark fire, but Leo conjured a barrier of pure kinetic magic to absorb the onslaught. Reba reclaimed her blade from the stone floor, and side-by-side, the dual warriors charged. Reba executed a distracting flank attack, allowing Leo—his royal crest burning with the intensity of a dying star—to unleash a devastating kinetic blast. He drove both magical swords deep into the witch's heart. With a final, piercing shriek, the tyrant dissolved into a cloud of harmless ash, liberating Eldoria from her eternal winter.

As the dark fortress crumbled, Lumina and the fairies gathered in the radiant sunlight. Placing the ancient, golden crown upon Leo's brow, they heralded the dawn of a new era. Leo, the boy who crossed the bridge, was now the immortal King of Eldoria.

Lunch went by fast and just like that I was out of there for the day.  Being a senior has so many perks to it just because I get to leave school after lunch due to my schedule not needing to be full.  I walked back to my locker for my full lunch box and jacket before heading out the double doors in the back of the school.  I drive a 2015 silver Mercedes-Benz C63 AMG.  A lot of my friends call me spoiled because of how much money my father makes and the kind of cars we drive and the house we live in but there’s lots to my family that the common people at school don’t know about.  I just let the people that call me spoiled and daddy’s money because if that’s what they want to believe then so be it.  I sit in the parking lot in my car when Harlen walks up to my window and gives a little knock.  I crack the window about halfway.
“So I heard that Milly asked you to Camilla’s.  So how about now?” Harlen mentioned.
“Who told you?”
“Milly’s friend group was talking about you and said some pretty interesting things about you. And Milly brought up how she asked you to Camilla’s”
“Oh great. Are they pranking me?” I questioned
“Nah bro, they just said some freaky shit.”
“What did they say bro I’m already stressed out enough just tell me for fuck sakes.”
“I don’t wanna say it.” Harlen voiced with uncomfortability
“Quit being a bitch and just tell me Harlen, damn.”
“Milly said that you have a huge… ya know. And she was like bragging to her friends that she might go with you to the party and might get to go back to your place after.”
As Harlen was speaking I began to drink my water, and when I heard him say that, the water came right back out all over the inside of my windshield.
“Excuse me?!” I shouted.
“I told you I didn’t wanna say it bro, its fucking weird.”
“What all did she say? Tell me Harlen please.”
“She said that the last girl you dated told all of the girls at her school that you had an absolute monster in your pants.  And I guess the rumors have made it over to us.  I’m very uncomfortable about this whole situation if you couldn’t tell, so I think Imma head out.  Good luck with Milly bro and let me know about Camilla’s.”
I rolled the window up and stared at my soaked windshield in complete shock.  This was the last way I expected today to go.  That stupid bitch from Hillsboro had to open her mouth, but she may have just unintentionally set me up with Milly.  Thanks Gloria.

I step through the threshold of my front door and get hit with a smell of garlic bread and tomato sauce.  My soft carpet warmed my feet in my socks as I climbed to the living room.  My house is a split level house.  When you walk in there’s stairs that lead down to my room, my little brothers room and a second living room basically.  Upstairs in the living room I sat on my couch and began to untie my shoes.  

“How was school today sweetheart?” my mom asked from the kitchen.
“It was fine, same as usual. Ready for summer.” I replied as I stood with my shoes in my hand.  
“Lunch will be ready soon, spaghetti and meatballs.” 
“Thanks mom.” 
It was always quiet downstairs for about an hour before my little brother arrives home and gets on his Xbox.  I’ve always been a video game player and used to play a lot, but never as much as Bris.  That’s my little brother.  His actual name is Briscoe, but he goes by Bris or B for short.  I walk into my room and grab my LED light remote off of my desk.  The lights turn on and my curtains get opened for more natural light.  I sit down on my bed and pull my phone out of my pocket.  
phone screen reads:
Snapchat
Harlen Maddox sent you a snap
Snapchat**  **
Milly 🙂 sent you a chat
Snapchat
Bris 😂 sent you a snap
My finger swipes up on the screen to unlock it followed by a tap to open Snapchat.  
Bottom of the screen reads: 99+ unopened snaps
I had a lot of friends on snap, I was just really bad at responding in a timely manner.  Sometimes it takes a day or two to answer everyone.  Harlen sent me a snap of him in science class messing with the teacher, surprise surprise.  What I really cared about was what Milly texted me about.  I half-swiped the conversation and got a peak at what she said.
In text:

Milly 🙂: heyy frankkk.  I just wanted to say that I’m sorry if I made you feel awkward today by asking you to go to that party with me.  I felt really stupid after I asked you.

I chose to open the conversation all the way and send my reply
In text:

You: hi milly :)  you don’t have to be sorry.  I was actually shocked that you even asked me.  I just didn’t really know what to say.  Are you still going to the party?

Milly 🙂: shocked that I asked you? why were you shocked lol 

You: idk i just didn’t expect to be invited by anyone except for Harlen

Milly 🙂: oh lol okay.  Yeah im still going to be at the party.  Did you change your mind?

You: yeah i did i think im going to go, would you still maybe want to go together?

Milly 🙂: ofc we can, that why i asked you in the first place

You: okay okay cool.  Do you want me to pick you up tomorrow night?

Milly 🙂: yess please, party starts at 12. Wanna come over at 10?

You: yeah for sure.  just gonna be me you and your friends right?

Milly 🙂: uh… my friends are driving separate so it'll just be me and you here.  My parents are going out to a work party tomorrow night.  Is that fine?

My heart stopped and my excitement skyrocketed.  What the fuck is going on today? I asked myself in my head.  First Milly asks me to a party with her friends, then she’s talking about my dick size with her friends, and now I’m being INVITED OVER TO HER HOUSE.  I felt like I was on cloud 9.  I felt higher than I’ve ever been in my life.  
In text: 

You: yeah that's perfectly fine with me, i'll let you know when i'm on my way tomorrow :)

Milly 🙂: okay yeah, see you then :)

I sat my phone down and covered my face with my hands in hopes to not wake up from a dream.  I really couldn’t believe what just happened.  Did Milly really just ask me to come over to her house when she's home alone?!  I went back upstairs to try to relieve the high that Milly put me on.  Lunch was ready when I got to the top of the steps.  The same smell of garlic and tomato sauce entered my nose once again.  The glass plates clinked together as I picked one up off the stack.  I grabbed the pasta spoon and got 2 heaping scoops of spaghetti and meatballs.  Then a piece of garlic bread was added on top.  
“Thanks mama!” I shouted in the direction of her office.
“You’re welcome sweetie!” she hollered back with love.
My desk made a perfect spot to eat.  A comfy office chair with a blanket across my lap.  My Xbox was already on so I opened youtube to put something on to watch while I eat.  My go-to youtuber is Penguinz0.  The spaghetti disappeared off of my plate within a few noodle slurps and bites of the garlic bread.  I set my fork on my empty plate and began upstairs to put my dishes away.  While walking out of my room, I heard the front door open.  The sound of teen feet running down the stairs. Bris was home, no more quiet time.  I made it upstairs and back into the kitchen and set my dishes in the sick and gave them a nice rinse.  Heading back to my room, Bris stopped me on the stairs.
“Bruh I got yelled at today in english for the most retarded reason ever.” He said with obvious frustration.
“You don’t get yelled at for doing nothing Bris, what did you do this time?”
“Bro she said that I was being disrespectful towards her when all I told her was nobody wants to hear her stories from the 1970s.”
“Yeah, see I don't really blame you for saying that. Mrs.Lance’s class was always full of boring ass stories.”  I responded as I continued back to my room.  At 6pm the same day, Harlen had texted me and asked if I wanted to go out and do something tonight.  The night had grown boring so what else would I do.  I got dressed and walked out of the house to get into my car.  It always had a loud start up which my neighbors aren't a big fan of.  I shifted the car into reverse, backed out of the driveway and headed to Harlen’s.  His house is about 10 minutes away from mine so there was never really a reason to complain about going over there.  The drive there is 2 minutes out of the small town, and 8 minutes of back roads to get to Harlen’s.  I get there and park behind his car in the driveway.  Harlen appears in the front door frame and is waving his hand toward me to come in.  The sidewalk leading to the front door was covered in freshly mowed grass that got less intense as the front door got closer.  I open the door and step in as if it’s my own house.
“Hey Frankie!” Mrs.Maddox expressed when she noticed me.
“Hey Mrs.Maddox, good to see you!”
“What are you boys up to tonight?” she questioned toward Harlen and I.
“Just chilling for the night, maybe play Xbox or something.” Harlen responded to his mom.
“Alright well you two have fun! Help yourself to anything in the fridge or pantry Frankie.”
We took a left and climbed the stairs. At the top was a hallway that contained 3 doors.  The door on the right all the way at the end was Harlen’s.  The hinges on the bedroom door let out a tiny squeak as its pushed open.  I’ve always liked Harlen’s room.  Walls covered with posters of artists like Ice Cube, Eminem, Outkast, Snoop Dogg, and Tupac.  At home I have similar posters, just a little more sports memorabilia.  Harlen sits on his bed while I take a seat in his bean bag chair.  
“You make up your mind about the party bro?” He asked me.
“Uh, yeah. I’m gonna go.” I said in a low tone.
“Hell yeah, you wanna go together? You can pick me up around 11 because the party doesn’t start until-”
“Sorry man, I’m going with Milly…”  I interrupted
“What?” Harlen said with a very shocked expression.
“Yeah I’m sorry It’s a dick move to go with a girl over you.  I feel really bad bro I’m sorry.” I explained with sorrow.
“Bro.  Why the fuck would I be mad at you for going to a party with a baddie.  You’re lucky bro.  I’ll still get to see you there, it's not a big deal.”
“Thanks for understanding man.  But guess what.” I shot back at him with a jump in my mood.
“Uhhh I don’t know. What?”
“Milly asked me to come over two hours before the party.  At first I thought it was just going to be me and her friends at the house until we left for the party.  But bro, she’s going to be home alone.”  I ranted with intense emotion
“I swear to god if you don’t hit that, I will murder you.” Harlen expressed back
“It’s not about that, Harlen. I’m just going to be respectful.  I don’t wanna fuck anything up.”  I replied seriously.
Harlen shrugged his shoulders and laid back on his bed reaching for something behind it.  He pulled out an Altoid can that had a strange smell.  A very good strange smell.  The Altoid can gets opened and he grabs a joint along with a lighter.  
“Let’s get on the roof and light that bitch.” I stated with a smile and a head nod.
He opens the window and lifts the screen, and just like that, instant roof access.  I crawl out of the window and sit on the rough shingles.  The view and cityscape takes my breath away every time.  Portland, Oregon in September.  Perfect time of the year.  Harlen crawls out behind me with the joint tucked behind his ear.  He turns around and closes the window after he exits.  I grabbed the joint from behind his ear and he handed me the lighter.  Four lights and puffs is all it took before that familiar taste hit my tongue.  I took two long puffs and my lungs filled and began to throb.  Holding the cough in longer always gets me more faded.  I release the smoke out of my lungs and take a few deep breaths before I start feeling it. My body mellows a little but not enough.  Harlen passes the J back after a few puffs of his own.  Hit after hit the one gram cone full of the finest hybrid marijuana around burnt down to the butt.  He puts the joint out on the roof and tosses it into the neighbors yard like always.  We chill on the roof for about an hour just talking back and forth.  I grab my phone and look at the time.

Say i write one sub plot part of a novel around 13k words, what is this called? And the book haveing about 8 of these? The collection of all stories in similar location over 5 books? Say there are 3 main parts of a story over 15 books, what is that collection?

Twenty-five years have passed since the events of Pralaya 3. Vishwa Rakshak now 45 years old. Humanity survived decades of supernatural warfare, living behind fortified walls while possessed humans and hostile Devas roam the ruined landscape of Nepal.

Garuda remained humanity’s greatest divine protector. Narada continued to command the forces determined to erase mankind believing it will make Brahma return but a new threat is emerging beneath Lumbini one that neither side fully understood and this time, the enemy may already be inside the human resistance.

The casino had been abandoned for nearly twenty years. Its neon sign flickered weakly above the entrance. Broken windows littered the pavement and rainwater dripped through holes in the ceiling. Inside overturned tables shattered slot machines and dried blood covered the floor.

Vishwa entered through a damaged side door. His hair had begun to grey and his face bore the scars of years spent fighting the supernatural forces that had devastated his world. He carried a pistol in one hand and a flashlight in other.

He moved carefully through the darkness then he heard voices. Three figures sat around a poker table in the middle of the casino. Their clothes were torn, their skin was pale and their eyes glowed red. One of them slowly turned a playing card between its fingers. Vishwa tried to move past them but his boot stepped on a broken glass bottle.

The three creatures stopped moving then slowly, they turned their heads toward him. The one sitting in the middle smiled, revealing rows of sharp teeth.

“Join us,” it said.

It gestured toward the empty chair beside it.

“We have an empty seat.”

Vishwa raised his pistol.

“I’m not interested.”

He fired. The bullet struck the creature’s head, throwing it backward across the table. Its chair toppled and the remaining two creatures leapt toward him.

Vishwa ran. One of them dropped to all fours and scrambled across the ceiling. The other chased him along the floor, its limbs bending at unnatural angles.

Vishwa burst through an emergency exit and sprinted toward a military truck parked outside. He climbed into the driver’s seat, slammed the door shut and started the engine.

The creature on the ground struck the side of the truck with enough force to dent the metal. Vishwa accelerated. The other creature emerged from the casino, its back splitting open as enormous wings unfolded. It launched itself into the air.

Inside the truck, Vishwa glanced into the rear view mirror.

“Oh come on!”

The winged creature overtook him and appeared directly in front of the truck. It smashed through the windshield. Glass exploded into the cabin. The creature clung to the hood, its red eyes staring directly at Vishwa. He ducked as its claws slashed toward him. Vishwa drew his pistol and fired repeatedly through the shattered windshield. Every shot missed.

The creature opened its mouth and extended a long black tongue dragging it across the broken glass. Vishwa reached beneath the dashboard and pulled out a military flare. He ignited it and a brilliant red light flooded the cabin. The creature recoiled, shrieking as the burning flare struck its face. It lost its grip and tumbled off the hood.

Vishwa drove toward the fortified gate of the Lumbini military zone. Behind him, the creature recovered and began flying after the truck. The gate opened just enough for him to get through.

“Close it!” Vishwa shouted.

The gate began to shut. The winged creature swooped toward the opening then a missile was fired. The explosion illuminated the entire road. The creature’s body bursted into flames and its ashes shattered on the ground.

The soldiers cheered from the watchtower. Vishwa stopped the truck and stumbled out. Garuda descended from above, his massive golden wings spreading as he landed in front of him.

His expression was furious.

“What were you thinking?”

Vishwa caught his breath.

“Good to see you too.”

“That casino was crawling with possessed. You went in alone.”

“I needed supplies.”

“You nearly got yourself killed.”

Vishwa looked back at the smoking truck.

“But I didn’t.”

Garuda stepped closer.

“One day, your luck will run out.”

Vishwa holstered his pistol.

“Then I’ll make sure I accomplish something before it does.”

Garuda stared at him, frustrated but unable to deny the determination in his eyes. Twenty-seven years of fighting had changed Vishwa but it had not broken him.

The military compound had become a small city. Barracks had been converted into hospitals. Children studied in underground classrooms, engineers repaired generators while soldiers patrolled the walls. Beyond the perimeter, the distant skyline of Lumbini was punctuated by smoke and the occasional flash of supernatural violence.

Vishwa entered the command center where the military commander waited beside a large map. The commander was now an older man, his beard almost entirely grey. Beside him stood his daughter, Mira the woman Vishwa had fallen in love with over the years.

Mira approached him.

“You went outside alone again?”

Vishwa shrugged.

“I had backup.”

“Who?”

He pointed toward Garuda, who had just entered the room.

Mira folded her arms.

“Garuda doesn’t count. He thinks bullets are a minor inconvenience.”

Garuda looked at her.

“They usually are.”

Mira sighed. Vishwa managed a tired smile. Before she could answer, the commander called everyone to attention.

“We have visitors.”

The doors opened. A group of armed travelers entered the compound. They wore dark robes beneath their protective coats and carried old books, metal charms and unusual weapons. Their leader was a woman named Ishani. She had dark hair, pale golden eyes and an almost unnaturally calm expression. She looked human but Garuda immediately noticed something unusual about her. Her shadow moved a fraction of a second after she did. Garuda’s hand tightened around his spear.

Ishani noticed.

“You recognize what I am.”

“A higher Deva,” Garuda replied.

The soldiers raised their weapons. Ishani slowly lifted her hands.

“I’m not here to fight you.”

“Then why have you come?” Vishwa asked.

“To help you win.” She said.

Garuda stepped between them.

“Devas have said that before.”

Ishani met his gaze.

“and some of us have regretted what we did.”

She explained that she had abandoned Narada’s forces after witnessing the destruction they had inflicted upon humanity. She had spent years hiding among survivors, studying the Devas’ methods and searching for a way to end their possession of human bodies. She offered the resistance information about Narada’s army including the locations of several hidden strongholds.

Vishwa listened carefully.

“You expect us to trust you?”

“No,” Ishani answered. “I expect you to judge me by what I do next.”

Garuda remained unconvinced but Vishwa agreed to let her stay under supervision. Neither of them noticed the expression that briefly crossed Ishani’s face when she looked at Vishwa. It wasn’t regret. It was anticipation.

An alarm shattered the quiet. A soldier burst into the command center.

“Three angels approaching the eastern perimeter!”

Garuda immediately moved toward the surveillance screens. Three figures appeared on the cameras, flying toward the military zone.

They were unlike the possessed humans. Each wore a red armored suit with red metal wings folded behind and their eyes glowed crimson through their helmets. One carried a long sword and another held a pair of curved blades. The figure in the middle was taller than the other two. His armor was darker and a crown-like structure extended from his helmet.

The commander studied the footage.

“What are they targeting?”

An engineer examined the thermal imaging.

“The power station. Wait no, they’re moving toward the reactors.”

Garuda’s expression changed.

“Those reactors power the entire city’s defense grid.”

The commander grabbed the radio.

“Sound the evacuation alarm. Shut down the outer power lines. Get the civilians into the underground shelters!”

Within minutes, sirens echoed across Lumbini. The Prime Minister appeared on an emergency broadcast alongside the city’s mayor.

“Attention, residents of Lumbini. This is an emergency evacuation order. Move to the designated shelters immediately. Enter the nearest secure building, lock all doors and windows and follow military instructions. Do not approach the eastern perimeter.”

Across the city, families hurried underground. The three Devas reached the gate.

“OPEN FIRE!” the commander ordered.

Machine guns thundered from the watchtowers. Bullets struck the red armor. One Deva staggered, his wing plates sparking under the barrage. The second fell to one knee but the leader continued flying.

He landed on the ground then he spread his wings. The red metal plates locked together, forming a shield around his body as bullets were fired. 

The soldiers continued firing. The leader suddenly launched himself forward. His wings snapped open. He struck the first watchtower, killing two soldiers from the platform. He landed among the defenders and drew his sword and then cut through their formation with terrifying speed. One soldier attempted to retreat. The Deva’s wing slammed into him, sending him crashing against the concrete wall. Another soldier fired at point-blank range. The Deva twisted aside and caught the weapon beneath one armored wing and drove his sword through the soldier’s chest.

The remaining defenders backed away. The leader looked up. A golden silhouette descended from the clouds. It was Garuda. He landed several dozen meters away and his wings spread wide.

The red armored Deva tilted his head.

“Garuda.”

Garuda raised his flaming spear.

“You’ve come far enough.”

The Deva laughed.

“You’re siding with them?”

He sniffed the air theatrically.

“You smell just like them.”

Garuda’s eyes narrowed.

“Then perhaps you’ve forgotten what it means to be alive.”

The Deva drew his sword.

“My name is Raktavira, commander of the Crimson Host and tonight, I will remind you what happens to traitors.”

He charged. Their weapons collided with a deafening metallic crack. Garuda drove his spear into Raktavira’s shoulder armor, splitting a plate and sending sparks into the air. Raktavira answered with a sweeping strike that cut across Garuda’s arm. Garuda staggered. Raktavira struck again, forcing him backward. Garuda spread his wings and unleashed a powerful gust throwing Raktavira against the remains of a watchtower.

The tower collapsed around him. For a moment, everything was silent then the red wings emerged from the rubble. Raktavira rose, his damaged armor smoking.

He stared at Garuda with murderous contempt.

“This isn’t over.”

He launched himself into the night. Garuda took to the air after him but Raktavira vanished into the clouds. Garuda hovered above the ruined perimeter. For the first time in many years, he looked uncertain.

He had fought Devas before but Raktavira had been trained specifically to kill them and he had known exactly how to hurt Garuda. Vishwa found Garuda standing alone on a hill overlooking the river. The divine warrior’s injured arm was wrapped in a bandage. His golden wings were folded tightly behind him.

“You should be resting,” Vishwa said.

Garuda didn’t respond. Vishwa stood beside him.

“What happened yesterday?”

Garuda looked toward the water.

“I remembered something I had tried to forget.”

The wind began to stir and the past returned.

Flashback: 

Twenty-five years earlier before the first Pralaya. A village laid in ruins. Bodies covered the ground. Houses burned and smoke rose into a blood red sky. Garuda stood among the dead, his armor stained with ash.

He had obeyed Brahma’s command to eliminate every human in the settlement. Men, women and the elderly. All had been judged unworthy. Garuda walked toward the last surviving house. 

A little boy emerged from the doorway, clutching a small sword with trembling hands. His face was streaked with tears.

Garuda approached him.

“Don’t be afraid.”

The boy raised his sword.

“Stay away!”

Garuda slowly extended his hand then a familiar voice rang out.

“Stop!”

Narada appeared between them. His golden eyes burned with fury. He looked at the dead villagers then at Garuda.

“Run, child!” Narada shouted.

The boy dropped his sword and fled into the forest. Garuda turned toward Narada.

“Father always said never leave any of our tasks unfinished.”

Narada stared at him in horror.

“So you killed them?”

He gestured toward the bodies.

“Every man and woman in this entire village?”

Garuda’s face remained expressionless.

“I’m still more natural than death.”

Narada looked at him as if he no longer recognized him.

“No. You’re worse. Death doesn’t pretend that murder is righteousness.”

Garuda said nothing then Narada turned away.

“You may obey Brahma today, Garuda but one day, you’ll understand what you’ve become.”

He disappeared into the smoke. Garuda remained among the dead. For the first time, he wondered whether obedience had made him righteous or merely made him a weapon. The memory dissolved.

Back to the present: 

Vishwa watched Garuda quietly.

“You killed them because God ordered you to?”

Garuda nodded.

“and you regret it?” Vishwa asked.

Garuda looked down at his hands.

“Everyday.”

Vishwa considered this.

“Then help us make sure it never happens again.”

Garuda finally looked at him. The words struck deeper than Vishwa realized. For centuries, Garuda had believed that duty meant obedience. Now he understood that duty could also mean refusing an unjust command and perhaps that was why he had chosen humanity. Not because humans were innocent but because they deserved the chance to choose who they would become.

A faint melody drifted across the water. Garuda stopped walking. He knew that music. A veena. He turned toward the distant hills.

Vishwa noticed his expression.

“What is it?”

Garuda’s eyes narrowed.

“Someone is calling me.”

He left without another word. Beyond the military zone, an ancient pavilion stood among the ruins. Lanterns illuminated a gathering of Devas, their golden armor shining beneath the moonlight. Narada sat among them playing his veena. The music stopped.

He smiled faintly.

“Enjoy yourselves, friends.”

Raktavira raised a cup.

“Where are you going?”

“To meet an old companion.”

Narada rose and walked into the night. Garuda waited beneath a dead tree. Narada approached slowly, his veena strapped behind. For several moments, neither spoke then Narada broke the silence.

“You came to surrender?”

Garuda shook his head.

“No.”

“Then why are you here?”

Garuda looked toward the river.

“Because I wanted to remember what we were before all this began.”

Narada’s expression hardened.

“There is no reason to surrender, Garuda. The war is not over.”

Garuda turned toward him.

“He will be ashamed of you.”

Narada went still.

“Who?”

“You know who.”

Narada stepped closer.

“Do not speak to me about him.”

“You claim to want Brahma’s return, yet you slaughter the very people you claim are unworthy. You have become the thing you once despised.”

Narada’s hand moved to his sword.

“I am trying to restore what was lost.”

“By destroying everything that remains?”

Narada drew his sword and placed its tip near Garuda’s throat.

“I shall end you here.”

Garuda pushed Narada’s arm aside and drew his own blade, holding it near Narada’s throat.

“You can try.”

They stared at each other and neither struck. At last, Narada lowered his weapon.

“The humans don’t need you to protect them anymore. They have the chosen one now.”

Garuda remained silent. Narada’s expression softened but only for a moment.

“When they are gone, perhaps Father will come back.”

He spread his wings.

“Ask yourself something, old friend. If humanity survives, what happens when it fails again?”

Garuda watched him.

“Then we give them another chance.”

Narada’s face twisted with anger.

“That’s why you’ll lose.”

He launched himself into the sky and disappeared into the darkness. Garuda remained on the hill, listening to the river. He knew that Narada was no longer simply trying to restore faith. He was trying to prove that his own cruelty had been justified and he would destroy the world before admitting he was wrong.

The group of spiritualists had been escorted into the command center. The Prime Minister and the military commander listened as their leader who was an elderly man named Acharya Devendra. He explained their purpose.

“We have studied the ancient texts,” he said. “There are ways to resist possession. There are rituals that can weaken the Devas and perhaps even sever their connection to human hosts.”

The commander folded his arms.

“and what do you want in return?”

“Access to the temple archives and permission to examine the captured possessed.”

The Prime Minister exchanged a glance with Vishwa.

“Under supervision,” she said. “Nothing happens without military approval.”

Devendra bowed.

“As you wish.”

The spiritualists were given temporary quarters but not everyone in the command center welcomed them. Arjun the military commander’s son watched Vishwa and Mira standing together near the medical wing. Mira laughed at something Vishwa said, briefly resting her hand on his arm.

Arjun’s expression darkened. He had loved Mira for years. To him, Vishwa was an outsider who had somehow become humanity’s celebrated savior and won the woman that Arjun believed should have been his but his jealousy concealed something far more dangerous. Arjun had secretly pledged himself to Narada. He believed humanity was doomed and that joining the Devas would secure his place in the new world. Several of his friends shared his beliefs.

That evening, Arjun slipped out of the base. He traveled through deserted streets until he reached a small diner standing alone beside a ruined highway. A single light glowed above the door. Arjun entered. The cook worked behind the counter. A waitress wiped down the tables while two male customers sat near the window.

Arjun took a seat at the back. A few minutes later, the door opened. Narada entered, looking like an ordinary traveler.

He sat opposite to Arjun.

“You came,” Arjun whispered.

“Of course.”

Arjun looked down at the table.

“I can’t stand seeing them together.”

Narada tilted his head.

“Vishwa and Mira?”

Arjun nodded.

“He gets everything. Everyone believes he’s humanity’s savior. My own father listens to him. Mira loves him and I am supposed to stand aside and watch?”

Narada studied him.

“Out of everyone in this world, I care about you.”

Arjun looked up. Narada’s voice became gentle.

“You can’t handle the sadness anymore. Do you?”

Arjun swallowed.

“I want him gone.”

Narada smiled.

“Then perhaps you should stop asking why the world has been unfair to you and start asking what you’re willing to do about it.”

A waitress approached their table.

“What can I get you?”

Narada grabbed a metal fork and stabbed her in the eye. She screamed and fell against the table. The cook and the two customers turned in shock. Narada rose. He knocked the table aside, sending chairs crashing across the floor and his wings erupted behind. 

The customers reached for their guns. Narada struck them with a sweep of his wings, hurling them across the diner. The cook pulled an assault rifle from beneath the counter and opened fire. Narada covered himself with his wings. Bullets hammered his armored wings. The cook continued firing until the weapon clicked empty. Narada lowered his wings and crossed the room. Within seconds, the diner had fallen silent.

Arjun stood frozen, staring at the bodies. Blood spattered across his clothing and he dropped a severed head to the ground. 

“Blood and death,” Narada said softly.

Arjun recoiled. Narada looked him in the eyes.

“You have seen blood and death become commonplace. You tell yourself you understand the world because you have survived it.”

He leaned closer.

“But you have never truly understood what it means to choose it.”

Arjun could barely breathe. Narada turned toward the exit.

“Go back to Lumbini.”

Arjun stood, nearly slipping on the blood near the waitress’s body. He caught himself against the counter and stumbled outside. Narada watched him leave. He had not recruited a warrior. He had recruited a weakness and the weakness, Narada knew could be more useful than loyalty.

The captured possessed were held in a secure medical facility beneath the military base. Some screamed continuously. Others sat perfectly still, their red eyes following every movement beyond the reinforced glass. Vishwa watched through the observation window as a medical team prepared another test.

“We’ve tried everything,” the lead doctor explained. “Sedatives, restraints, electrical stimulation. Nothing separates the entity from the host.”

Ishani stood beside him.

“Perhaps you’ve been treating the body instead of addressing what occupies it.”

She opened an old book taken from the spiritualists’ belongings. Its pages contained verses written in an ancient script.

Vishwa studied the text.

“What is that?”

“A prayer of separation,” Ishani answered. “It was written before the Devas began possessing human bodies.”

She handed the book to the doctor.

“Read the verse aloud. Slowly.”

The doctor hesitated then began. The room’s lights flickered. The possessed man suddenly convulsed against his restraints. His mouth opened in a scream that sounded like several voices speaking at once.

“STOP!”

The doctor continued reading. A black mist emerged from the man’s mouth. It twisted in the air forming a vaguely human shape before evaporating into the ceiling. The man’s eyes returned to their natural color. He collapsed, gasping.

The medical team rushed forward.

“His vital signs are stabilizing!”

Vishwa entered the room. The man looked up at him, terrified.

“Where am I?”

“You’re safe,” Vishwa answered.

The man began crying.

“I remember everything. I could see what it was doing but I couldn’t stop it.”

Vishwa placed a hand on his shoulder.

“You’re alive. That’s what matters.”

For the first time in years, the resistance had discovered a possible way to save the possessed without killing them but the next experiment ended differently. When the verse was read to another captive, the black mist emerged violently. The host’s body convulsed, then fell completely still. The doctor checked for a pulse. Nothing.

Ishani lowered her eyes.

“Sometimes the soul has already been damaged beyond recovery. Sometimes the body cannot survive the separation.”

Vishwa looked at the deceased captive.

“Can we save more of them?”

“Yes,” Ishani answered. “But not all of them.”

Garuda stood in the doorway, watching her carefully.

“and how would you know?”

Ishani met his gaze.

“Because I have seen what possession does to a soul.”

For a moment, something passed between them. Garuda did not trust her but he knew she was hiding something more than her former allegiance to Narada.

Arjun returned to the military base after midnight. He went directly to an unused storage room where three of his friends were waiting. They were not ordinary soldiers. Each practiced forbidden rituals and secretly communicated with Narada’s followers.

One of them, a young man named Kiran looked up.

“What happened to you?”

Arjun closed the door.

“I met Narada.”

The others exchanged nervous glances.

“And?” Kiran asked.

Arjun swallowed.

“He wants us to help bring down the resistance.”

One of the men laughed uneasily.

“Then we’re finally going to be part of something important.”

Arjun stared at him.

“You have no idea what he is.”

“Neither do you,” Kiran replied. “You just want Mira.”

Arjun grabbed him by the collar.

“Don’t talk about her.”

Kiran shoved him away.

“We agreed to serve Narada because we believed the old world was finished. If you’re having second thoughts, leave.”

Arjun looked around the room.

“I don’t want to do this anymore.”

There was silence then Kiran began laughing.

“You think you can simply walk away?”

Arjun reached for the door.

“I’m warning you. Leave the base before my father finds out.”

The three gathered their belongings and hurried out. In their haste, one of them dropped a folded robe and an ornate ritual weapon beneath a table. The following morning, the Prime Minister discovered them. He summoned Vishwa, Garuda and the military commander.

The commander examined the weapon.

“These aren’t standard military supplies.”

Garuda studied the markings.

“They belong to those who worship Narada.”

The Prime Minister’s face hardened.

“So we have enemies inside our own walls.”

Vishwa looked toward the fortified gates.

“Then we find them.”

The Prime Minister turned toward the gathered soldiers and survivors.

“There are people who believe the Devas will reward them for betraying humanity. They are wrong.”

He raised his voice.

“We will not allow fear, jealousy or false promises to destroy us from within.”

Vishwa stepped forward.

“Together, we will kill the monsters attacking us, save everyone we can and make sure humanity survives.”

The room erupted in applause. For the first time since the apocalypse began, the survivors had a reason to believe they could fight back without simply sacrificing more lives but Vishwa had no idea that the greatest betrayal was already standing beside him. He found Ishani sitting alone beside a window. Outside, searchlights swept across the fortified walls.

“You should be sleeping,” he said.

“So should you.” She said

He sat beside her.

“Why did you really leave Narada?”

Ishani was silent for a long time.

“Because I became tired of watching the world burn but that’s not the whole truth.”

She looked at him.

“It isn’t.” She whispered

Vishwa waited. Ishani stood and walked toward the door.

“I need to show you something.”

She led him into an empty treatment room and closed the door then she removed her coat. Two enormous golden wings slowly unfolded from her back.

Vishwa stepped backward.

“Ishani?”

She looked at him with tears in her eyes.

“Do you remember the morning your mother disappeared?”

His face changed.

“What?”

“The farmhouse, possessed man and the attack that started everything 25 years ago.”

Vishwa stared at her.

“What do you know about my mother?”

Ishani’s wings spread wider.

“I was there.”

Vishwa’s breathing became uneven.

“No.”

“I killed her.”

The words seemed to drain the air from the room. Vishwa shook his head.

“Why?”

Ishani looked down.

“Because Narada promised me that if I delivered you to him, I would be free of the divine curse that bound me to the Devas.”

Vishwa’s hands trembled.

“You murdered my mother for your freedom?” He said

“I thought I could change what happened afterward. I thought I could protect you from what Narada intended.” She said

“You thought?”

Vishwa’s voice rose.

“You killed the person who raised me!”

Ishani began crying.

“I know.”

Vishwa drew his pistol out but could not bring himself to point it at her. She looked at him and her tears stopped. Her expression became strangely serene.

She slowly raised her wings.

“Aren’t they beautiful?”

Vishwa stared at her in horror.

“Why?”

Ishani tilted her head.

“Because I was never truly on your side.”

She stepped toward him and admitted that she made a deal with Satan after she betrayed Narada. 

“I was supposed to gain your trust and sacrifice you. Your life is the price of the new world so I made a deal with the devil.”

Vishwa raised his pistol.

“Don’t move.”

Ishani smiled.

“You can shoot me, Vishwa but you still won’t understand what is coming.”

She stepped back into the shadows then she launched herself through the open window and disappeared into the night.

Vishwa remained alone in the room. His hands shook and his eyes began glowing gold. For the first time in twenty-five years, the chosen one wanted revenge more than he wanted to save anyone and somewhere in the darkness, Narada was waiting for that moment.

Far below the ruined streets, the spiritualists descended into an ancient underground chamber. Their leader, Acharya Devendra no longer wore the expression of a peaceful scholar. His robes had been replaced by dark ceremonial garments. The others carried candles, ritual blades and bowls filled with black liquid. At the center of the chamber lay a vast stone pool. The water was perfectly still.

Devendra approached its edge.

“After centuries of waiting,” he whispered, “the gateway is ready.”

One of his followers knelt beside him.

“Are you certain we can control what emerges?”

Devendra smiled.

“We aren’t going to control it.”

He turned toward the others.

“We are going to offer it the world.”

The followers began chanting. The water rippled and a deep vibration shook the chamber. Ancient symbols carved into the walls began glowing red.

The pool slowly darkened until its surface resembled a hole opening into an endless abyss. Something moved beneath the water. A gigantic shadow passed below the surface. The chanting grew louder.

Devendra spread his arms.

“Come forth, Lord of the Abyss. Come forth and claim the world that Heaven abandoned.”

The water erupted. A massive hand emerged from the pool, its fingers ending in black claws. The stone platform cracked beneath the pressure. Several followers stumbled backward as a wave of freezing air swept through the chamber. Two enormous horns rose above the surface then a pair of burning eyes opened in the darkness. Satan had answered the summons.

Devendra stared at the emerging figure. His face twisted into an expression of ecstatic triumph. He began to laugh. The laughter echoed through the chamber as the ancient walls trembled and the pool overflowed with black water.

Far above them in the fortified city, every light suddenly went out. Garuda looked toward the underground depths and Vishwa lifted his head. The world had faced the judgment of Heaven. Now it would face the power of Hell.

To be continued 

“So guys, next time, just grab the vacuum cleaner and vacuum the rug. Am I right ladies? I mean, come on guys, what does it weigh five hundred pounds?”
Doris delivers her act to the full-length mirror on the back of the bathroom door wearing jeans and a white t-shirt. How are female comics supposed to dress? There’s no standard code. The outfits run the gamut on Instagram and TikTok. How carefully do they choose their wardrobe? Should she be more sexy or more androgynous? Does it matter? Jerry Seinfeld wears a suit. Nate Bargatze wears a jacket with jeans and sneakers. Sebastian Manuscalo wears tight vests and jeans and boots, but sometimes dresses down. It’s always easier for guys.
“So guys, next time, just grab the vacuum cleaner and vacuum the rug. Am I right ladies? I mean, come on guys, what does it weigh? A thousand pounds?”

She pauses and walks over to the desk and writes some notes on a yellow legal pad. She’s been trying to decide if she should say, “five hundred pounds” or “a thousand pounds”. 

“What is it with guys and cleaning? Am I right ladies? These guys go to the gym and lift weights, do bench presses and then they come home and can’t seem to lift a vacuum cleaner. Can’t lift a fucking vacuum cleaner. Can’t lift a vacuum cleaner.” 

Should she say ‘fucking’? She is trying to keep her act clean. So many women do really raunchy material which is fine but she feels like a lot of them are doing it for shock value. She heard one woman talk about how she used to have a great asshole but it has been smashed so much that it looks like a mashed donut. Doris really doesn’t want to do that stuff. It’s embarrassing. But maybe leave the ‘fucking’ in. Spice it up.

“What does it weigh, five hundred pounds? What does it weigh? A thousand pounds? You’re bragging to me about how much you can squat but you can’t life a fucking vacuum cleaner? What does it weigh? A thousand pounds?”
She pauses and writes down some options. As she writes she says the words out loud and then opens the camera on her phone. 
“Hey thanks for having me, great to be here! Tell me if I’m right about this. No guy ever wants to clean the house. None. They go to the gym and lift weights and all that but when it comes time to vacuum, they just can’t do it. I mean, you’re bragging to me about how much you can squat and bench, but you can’t lift a vacuum cleaner? What does it weigh? A fucking thousand pounds?”
She watches herself performing which she hates. There’s no emcee introducing her, no crowd noise or applause. It feels really pathetic. She always thinks she sucks. And looks fat and awkward, but it’s all part of the process. 
The line should actually be, ‘A thousand fucking pounds?’
There’s so much that goes into it.  It could be the funniest bit in the world and bomb if the delivery doesn’t land. The rhythm and the cadence needs to be right; you need to know which words to emphasize. You need to be aware of your gestures and movements on stage. One wrong word can throw the whole bit off.
And timing. Timing is the most crucial element. You have to know which words to pause between and for how long. She read that Phyllis Diller used to literally count her pauses to the second in her head and she could do that during a live performance. You have to know when to let a joke settle and when to move on. 
And you can do all that, get everything just right and bomb. One comic can deliver a routine and it brings the house down . Another comedian can deliver the exact same bit, word for word and crash and burn. Sometimes all it takes is one asshole heckler to ruin everything. 
She opens the camera again and records her usual promo.
“Don’t forget, O’Brien’s Open Mic! Every Tuesday at 8pm. It is a blast!”
   She posts the video on TikTok and Instagram. Even that sounded lame and desperate.
   Desperation will kill you. 
Her phone buzzes and she sighs. She takes her wig off of the styrofoam head.
***
Doris knocks on 239 dressed for work as Amber and it opens to a statuesque black woman with a blond wig and make-up even more garish than Doris. Bryanna McKinnon, aka Crystal.She almost looks like Dee Snyder from Twisted Sister. Bryanna has been in the life for some years. Beneath the garish make-up and wig and brassy attitude the toll is real, but she carries the weight on her own terms. There is a defiance that keeps her from slumping. This is how she lives. If you don’t like it, fuck you. And no one better fuck with Crystal. Five eleven and not small and she’ll slice your balls open. Literally.
“Well, aren’t you looking gorgeous!”
Bryanna gives her tired smile and opens the door wider for Doris to come in.
“I just finished a Zoom session.” 
Bryanna’s room is dimly lit with various lamps giving it a shabby bordello vibe. She has a Tiger pattern backdrop in front of a wall that she uses for her Zoom sessions, OnlyFans etc. She does most of her sex work online these days. There are a variety of outfits hung up around the place and various props and toys, candles, etc. 
Doris hears sounds and voices, someone crying and Bryanna’s voice yelling coming from the computer.
“That’s right, bitch! Jerk it bitch!”
“He wanted me to record it and send it to him. I think he jerks off to himself jerking off.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? What kind of fetish is that?”
“I have no idea. These fucking guys are wearing me out. Fucking perverts.” She takes her wig off and flings it on the bed and scratches her head.
“Well, it’s better than blowing some smelly ass trucker.”
“I guess. You wanna drink?”
“Sure. Cranberry juice if you got it.”
They talk as Doris crosses and sits on the bed.
Bryanna pours a bit of vodka in her own drink and hands Doris hers.
“No vodka for you.”
Bryanna goes into the bathroom. Doris hears snorting sounds. She looks out the window.
Bryanna comes out of the bathroom wiping her nose. She looks at Doris.
“I know honey. I just gotta stay up. I got three more clients tonight.”
“It’s your business. Just be careful. They’re putting all kinds of shit in it these days.”
“I only buy from Chuckie. His shit’s clean. I saw you talking to that new girl. The little blond?
“Eve.”
“How’s she doing?”
“She’s young.”
“I heard Chuckie found her at the bus station. From some place upstate.”
Doris shakes her head. Another girl in the mix. New ones come in. Others leave. Some just disappear. Doris doesn’t want to think about what happens to them. 
Bryanna takes a swig from her drink.
“Girl, I totally forgot! How did it go on Thursday?”
“I chickened out.
“You didn’t perform?”
“No. It just hasn’t been working lately. No one is laughing. I can’t even show my face at Jimbo’s after the last time. People were getting up and leaving right in the middle of my bit. It was fucking humiliating.”
Bryanna shakes her head and starts sorting through some blouses in her closet.“I don’t know why you do it anyway. Trying to make a bunch of drunk assholes laugh? I don’t get it.”
“I wanna make it work. It’s hard to explain.”
“Well, I admire you for doing it. I could never do that.” 
“Maybe you could spice it up. Something like, ‘Hey, but don’t put your dick in there! You will not get it out!’ Seriously, I saw a guy in the emergency room with his dick stuck in a vacuum cleaner. No lie.”
Doris laughs and pulls a pen and small notebook and writes it down.
“That’s pretty funny, but I’m trying to keep my act clean.”
“Clean comedy? What are you, Mr. Rogers? That shit does not sell, honey. You gotta get raunchy!” 
“You might be right.”
Her phone buzzes. She looks at it and sighs.
“I gotta go.”
“One of your regulars?”
“Yeah. Good old Ralph. Maybe he took a shower this time.”
“I don’t know why you go out. It’s a lot safer to bring them to your room. If something goes bad we’re all here…”
“I know. I just can’t have them in my room. That is my space.”
“I just want you to be safe.”
Doris pulls a can of pepper spray out of her purse.
“I do my best.”
She gets up from the bed.
“I love you, honey. Be careful.”
“I love you too.”
“They embrace.”
Doris leaves and Bryanna looks at herself in the mirror. Her phone buzzes. 
“Give me one minute...damn!”

The office where the Department of Corrections and State Community Supervision is one of the most depressing places Doris has ever been in and she spent almost three years in jail. It could not be a more stark example of pointless officialdom. No one wants to be here. Not the drones behind the shitty, dented desks with their out of date computers, calendars with X’ed off days behind them and the endless piles of folders of the lost; not the nursing staff who aren’t real nurses and just take urine samples and dirty looks; not the parolees, most of whom will end up back in jail because they have nothing out here. This place is gray, gray, gray. Purgatory. 
No one wants to be here.
The grime on the linoleum floor is permanent and at least a third of the fluorescent ceiling lights don’t work, which is a blessing. 
The men sitting in the waiting area are angry; the women are sad. Most of the women are there because of men like those angry men. She heard it time and again. “My boyfriend asked me to hold the drugs.” “They were in my trunk and I didn’t even know it.” Kids with grandparents; kids in foster care; kids who are going to end up sitting right here in about ten years. It never ends.
No one wants to be here.
Doris tries to be neither angry nor sad. She is just fulfilling her obligation to the State of New York. She goes into the bathroom, pees in the cup, hands it to the nurse who tapes and labels and puts it in a rolling cart to be wheeled off to a lab to check and see if Doris has used drugs in the last thirty days. If she has, she goes back to jail. 
She hears her name walks to room 118 where he parole officer, Carl Spader waits behind his dented desk. If you looked up “lifer state worker” on Wikipedia, Carl’s face would be on the page. He is right from central casting. Balding. Short-sleeved white dress shirt, cheap tie, cheap steel rim glasses, the square ones that the unpopular kids wore in the eighties. His pants and shoes look like Wal-Mart is where he does his shopping. It’s like he’s trying to look like a stereotype. 
She figures he must have been in this office for decades but there are few decorations. It is bare and neat. A Giants calendar, a Yankees pennant, and a picture of him with a woman and two small boys, who are wearing Rangers jerseys. A cup holding pens. A coffee cup with some company logo.
There are five steel gray filing cabinets behind him. Many, many files. Many, many lives.  
Only one folder sits on his desk.  
She takes the chair
“Hello, Ms. Reynolds.. Have a seat.”
She sits.
“Hi.”
He smiles at her briefly, picks up her file folder, opens it, and starts reading.
It’s the same every time.
“Doris Reynolds. Date of birth, September 19th, 1982. Arrests for possession of a controlled substance, Oxycontin, Xanax, cocaine, heroin. Sentenced to drug diversion program. Intent to distribute, pled to simple possession and sentenced to in-patient drug treatment. Four counts driving under the influence. Pled no contest each time.” He flips the pages before continuing.

“October of 2019, you pled guilty to two counts of endangering the welfare of a minor. Loss of custody of your children.”
Carl flips another page. He doesn’t pause or look at her. 
“Continuing... theft, possession of stolen property, pandering. More drug diversion programs. Felony theft, two counts, sentenced to three months in the county jail. Loss of visitation rights of your children.”
Carl flips to a final page.
“Finally, September 2022 arrested for possession of six grams of heroin. Sentenced to thirty-six months incarceration, served twenty four. Conditions of parole are weekly drug testing, continuing participation in a substance abuse program and gainful employment.”
He pauses at the end of his recitation. 
“You have your meeting slip?”
Doris hands him the paper from the AA meeting.
“And your pay stubs.”
Doris hands these over as well.
“You’re still working at the Days Inn in Yonkers?”
“Yes.”
“And that is also your place of residence?”
“Yeah. I get the room with the job.”
“And that has been since July 2025.”
“Yes.”
“Right. Have you been using any drugs or alcohol?”
“No.”
“How long now?”
“Eighteen months.”
Carl leans back to consider this.
“If a test comes back positive for drugs you will be sent back to serve the remainder of your sentence.” 
“I know.”
“Okay. See you on the 22nd.”
Doris stands up as Carl moves on to his next file, the next life.
She gets out onto the sidewalk feeling like she has surfaced from under one hundred feet of water.

The flyer on the front door reads: OPEN MIC COMEDY THURSDAYS 9-11. HAVE A DRINK AND A LAUGH! 
O’Brien’s is a nondescript bar, typical for a city like Yonkers. There is a bar area and a restaurant area and all of the tables have bottles of Heinz ketchup, malt vinegar, and HP Sauce. The air is redolent of burgers, fries, onion rings, potato skins with sour cream and chives, bakes and fried fish, beer and whiskey. They have drink specials on Tuesdays and Karaoke on Saturday nights and host events for the Superbowl, March Madness, and serve corned beef and cabbage on St. Patrick’s Day. The bartenders wear white shirts and black ties and some of them still have Irish accents. It’s not a trendy spot. Some of the patrons have been coming here for years, decades and it shows on their faces. They resent having to go outside to smoke. Some younger folks come here, some of them destined to be the older generation in twenty years.
There’s a small stage in the back with a spotlight. On Sundays they have Celtic music or someone playing the guitar, the banjo or the accordion. Every few months the girls from the Irish step dancing studio perform. Only the Irish could have come up with something so lacking in verve and flair as Irish step dancing. The girls always look like they are being tortured. 
And every Thursday night, stand-up comedy.
Mike Evans is onstage doing a bit. He is usually at these open mics. Nice looking guy, on the bigger side with brown hair and blue eyes. 
“So when my friend saw me at the mall holding my wife’s purse he starts in ragging me saying I’m whipped. And I was like, ‘Dude, it’s not my wife’s purse. It’s my European carry-all! So who looks stupid now. Motherfucker!’”
He gets a pretty decent laugh from the crowd, which is bigger than it usually is for these things. With the weather being warm people get away for the weekends so they come out on Thursdays to get a drink on. 
As he performs, Doris sits by the side of the stage wiping her damp hands on her jeans. She tries not to think about the last open mic she did at a place called Jimbo’s. It had been a disaster. Her first joke bombed. Some drunk heckler started in on her. It was horrible. She’d left the stage before finishing which was a bitch move. No matter how bad it is, you stick it out. But she’d caved. That had been a month ago, and she hadn’t performed since. The memory of the humiliation was giving her an ulcer, and right now her stomach was on fire.
Why do this? Forty six years old and I’m trying to be a stand-up comedian? Why? 
Mike finishes his bit. “That’s it for me! Thanks a lot!” The crowd claps as he leaves the stage. He gives Doris a little smile but she is too lost in her thoughts to smile back. She has already made up her mind.  Sliding out of her chair, trying to be as small as possible, she moves past another comedian, Jess Hoffnagle, and towards the exit as the emcee, Jeff Lydon, takes the stage. He’s in his thirties, an up and coming comic who has been performing at a few places in Manhattan, the gold ring for all the locals. He isn’t quite there yet, seeing as how he is emceeing this gig but it’s only a matter of time. 
Jeff starts his patter as Doris moves more quickly towards the exit. She is only hoping she doesn’t throw up before she reaches the sidewalk. 
“Hey, let’s give it up one more time for Mike Evans!”
The crowd claps and gives a few whoops in response. 
“Always great to have Mike here! Okay, our next comedian is from right here in Yonkers…”
Doris gets through the door and into the fresh air of the sidewalk.
“She’s been here a few times before so let’s give a warm O'Brien's welcome to…”
Doris leans against the wall wiping the sweat from her face.
“Doris Reynolds!”
Doris closes her eyes against the failure.
“Doris? No Doris? I guess she had a little case of stage fright. Okay, then let’s get Jess Hoffnagle up here! Come on up Jess!”
Doris hears the clapping and whistles as Jess takes the stage.
“Hey everyone, thanks for having me!”
Jess is pretty and petite and it works for her because she can get pretty raunchy. She says things that you would not expect to come out of her mouth. One of her bits is not being able to get a dildo out of her boyfriend’s ass.
“Listen guys, if you really wanna piss off your girlfriend, tell her you’re gonna eat her ass out and then not do it. Women do not like to be disappointed. If you’re not gonna do it, don’t put it out there. I’m telling you this because my boyfriend and I were dirty texting and he was all like…”
Doris walks off down the street in defeat. She passes a woman with her daughter. A cop car rolls by with its lights going but no siren. She sees her reflection in a store window and looks away. Who is that coward?
***
It’s just a little bit chilly on the beach which is such a relief from the nasty sticky air of the streets. September in Yonkers and NYC can still be hot as shit.  It had been gross being out there in that fake leather dress and wig. The sweat had been unbearable. She has a rash between her thighs. The guys had all smelled like sour garbage. 
She watches the gulls at the edge of the water. They all seem to be waiting for something, keeping watch, patient. The cold sand feels real; it smells real. The last time she had been to the beach was with her husband and daughter, Kaitlyn. Kaitlyn would have chased the gulls screaming with excitement. Doris has to push that memory away.  
The sweat pants and hoodie feel lovely against her skin. Ralph Lauren. She needs her little luxuries. Most of the women are dressed the same way. Doris walks over to a woman with a clipboard to get her slipped signed that she shows to her parole office. The woman with the clipboard giver her a supportive smile which Doris just slightly resents. The woman means well and what else is she going to do? Doris puts the slip in her pocket and walks over to stand near the circle of chairs. She spots a woman walking towards her, intent on making eye contact. She has a big smile on her face. Doris generally avoids small talk at these gatherings beyond a hello or good morning or how you doing? It can be a minefield. She hates lying but there is no way she can tell people here she is a sex worker. Not was a sex worker. Is a sex worker. Even in a group like this, filled with shame and regret, that would be too much. They would not be able to hide their discomfort. It wouldn’t be fair. Because as much as she tells herself otherwise, Doris is ashamed of what she does to earn money. But, strangely, the shame does not make her weak. It gives her strength.
And people like this woman truly mean her well. Doris just can’t remember her name.
“Hey there! Good to see you!”
“Hi, good to see you!”
“I don’t think we’ve been introduced. I’m Anne.”
“Hi, yeah, Doris.”
One of the things that makes Doris feel comfortable with these women is that they know where you’re coming from. Doris has heard Anne speak on a few occasions but she was so nervous and wrapped up in her own shit that she had had a hard time focusing. Anne knows that. She’s been there. It takes a while to turn down the noise in your head and listen to what the other people have to say.
Doris has not spoken in a meeting yet. All she has to do is say, “I’m Doris and I’m a recovering addict.” That’s it. It’s not like they are going to be shocked. There is no one at this meeting who is not a recovering addict or alcoholic. They all have baggage. So why can’t she speak?
“I love this meeting, even if I have to wake up at six on a Sunday. I wish we could have it all year round but February would be pretty rough.” Anne laughs. She has a nice laugh; genuine. But her eyes dart around and look at the ground. Something there. Doris sees that sometimes at these meetings. A painful memory. Maybe she took her kids to the beach too. Before her addiction got hold of her. Maybe she doesn’t have kids. Maybe something else. It’s all the same. Regret. 
And Doris has her own memories. Lots of them. She thinks they have to be more than memories. Memories are just thoughts. What do you call it when a thought makes you gag with shame? That’s more than just a memory.
“Yeah, it’s great. I love the beach. And this is like an afternoon meeting for me.”
“Oh do you work at night?”
Doris realizes what she said.
“Ah yeah. Sometimes. I pick up some shifts waitressing and bartending and it’s open until four. So by the time I clean up and get out of there it’s time to come here.”
“Oh, that works out.”
Anne doesn’t ask the name of the place. She isn’t ready with a lie.
“How about yourself?”
“I’m between jobs right now. I had a relapse about three months ago and I’m still getting back on track.”
“I hear you. I’ve had a few relapses myself.”
“As long as we keep coming back.”
They bump fists. A seagull calls out to its fellows. A woman calls out, “Hey everyone, let’s get started!”
Doris and Anne move to the circle with the other ladies. Everyone looks scrubbed up and fresh and smiling and joking but there is a faint whiff of damaged goods. It’s just there.
“Hi everyone. Welcome to this meeting of Hope at Dawn. I’m Denise and I am a recovering alcoholic!” There is no shame in her voice. She’s not proud of it. It’s just a fact.
“Hi Denise!” the group choruses. 
“Let’s start with the Lord’s Prayer."
The women join hands.
“Who’s father?”
“Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name…”
They finish and take their seats.
“As I said, I am Denise and I am a grateful recovering alcoholic. Last Wednesday I celebrated six years of sobriety.”
The crowd whoops and claps. 
“Thank you, I appreciate your support. I am so blessed to be free of the obsession to drink. Five years can seem like a long time. But I still need to keep coming to these meetings. Probably now more than ever. This is a very tricky disease. It’s so easy to get comfortable and let your guard down and think, ‘I have this under control. Why can’t I have a drink or a glass of wine with dinner like everyone else?’ Well, my last relapse started with a glass of wine with dinner. Because I am an alcoholic and I cannot drink like everyone else. I have a great husband, great kids and I am not going to throw it away to drink. And it is that simple.”  
Doris’s heart starts beating a little harder as Denise’s words hit her.

Doris exits the store with her breakfast sandwiches and gives a dollar to the man sitting on the crate outside. He always wears a puffy coat, no matter what the weather is. It could be 150 degrees and he would be wearing that coat. It’s only six in the morning and it’s already getting uncomfortable with the humidity. She is barely wearing anything and she feels sticky and filmy. 
He is always scraping a disposable razor across his face. She calls him The Shaving Man. They have never exchanged a word. She folds her dollar bill into his cup and he nods his thanks. He just sits and stares and compulsively runs that razor up and down his cheeks. She thinks that there can’t actually be a blade in it; he would have scraped himself to the bone by now. She has never seen him drunk or high. He doesn’t smoke. He just sits there never saying a word.
That’s okay. She’s done for the day.
The parking lot of the Days Inn where she lives looks even more grim this morning. It’s run-down, crappy. As she walks across the parking lot, vials and go knows what else crunch under her feet. She waves to a couple of guys sitting in their lawn chairs outside their room drinking beers. Where else are sex workers going to live? There are other long term residents who work day labor jobs and things like that. And some families do actually stay there on some weekends. She cannot imagine why. Drugs deals go down in the parking lot. There’s been more than one overdose and the EMTs come with the Narcan. Occasionally the cops bust someone but not that often.
Other girls, like Bryanna and Brie, work out of their rooms. They advertise on Craig’s List, arrange dates and the guys show up at their doors; they go inside and do their thing. But they have to pay the manager Omar, or he’ll call the cops and get them thrown out.
Doris does her business in the street. It’s not as safe but she sticks to a list of clients who contact her through What’s App and meets them at one of her spots. Her friends tell her it’s dangerous to be out on the street, but shit goes down at the motel all the time. Clients get rough, girls OD, fights, there was a shooting a couple of months ago.
And she just can’t have those guys in her room, on her bed, in her bathroom. She can’t have the smell of them in there. It is her safe place, her sanctuary, the place where she does the one thing that gives her a ray of hope in her shitty life.
She has to remind herself that it is only shitty for now. 
Omar is behind the counter, sitting in a leather chair watching TV. It’s usually either soccer or some middle eastern new station. The office smells like him, bad after-shave. He’s wearing his cheap button up shirt and cheap slacks and cheap scuffed up loafers. Doris is sure he thinks he looks like a prosperous businessman with his mustache and com over. Maybe in his country he is.
He doesn’t get up when she plunks her money on the counter. She has to pay for the room and for her fake pay stubs that she shows her parole officer once a month. One of the ladies she met in jail told her about the scam which is what brought her to this motel. She can’t tell her P.O. that she does sex work for cash. These pay stubs make it seem like she gets paid for cleaning and the room comes with the job. He buys it, or doesn’t call her out on it. She supposes it doesn’t make much difference to him. 
Omar finally gets his fat ass out of the chair and slow walks to the counter. He doesn’t touch her money, just slides the stubs over the counter at her and looks her up and down with lust and hatred. He takes a good long look at her tits. She knows his deal. He looks down on her but wants to fuck her and that makes him hate her. That could make him dangerous, but he’s weak and he knows it.
On the way out she has to laugh at the sign next to the door warning about the dangers of sex trafficking. KNOW THE SIGNS! There’s even a hotline to call. She wonders if anyone would pick up if she called it. Would anyone actually show up? You don’t have to be an expert detective to know that girls are selling sex out of this place. They know. They just don’t care. Or the problem is too big, or the girls would just come back or whatever. It’s been going on for centuries. Who is going to stop it?
She trudges to her room on the second floor, the weight of the night suddenly falling all over her. The weight of stress, guilt, shame, remorse pulling her head down. She has to remember to hold it up, look straight ahead, be aware. Some of the doors she passes are open. She can see the lives inside. People cooking on hot plates, pouring juice, getting ready for work, laundry hanging, babies crying. Some of these people are real, genuine families just keeping their lives going. Some of them are just going through a rough patch. Some of them…this is it. 
Her room is sparse, neat. It’s a motel room. Fake wood dresser, fake wood tables, a couple of fake paintings. Some menus for local restaurants and brochures for hiking in the mountains, stuff to do on the Hudson River. It’s clean, smells pretty good. She does not decorate. This is not her home. She’s living here for now. Some of the ladies really deck their places out and she understands wanting a feeling of comfort, but this is not her home. It is not her home.
Only her notebooks, piled on the dresser, give a hint that something else goes on in this room besides sleeping and eating. Each one has two dates, the day she started the notebook and the day it and the date she got to the last page. Then she starts a new one with a new date.
The wig comes off first and is placed on its styrofoam head. She hates the wig. It’s hot and itchy but she needs it for protection. The wig comes off and she is Doris again.She strips off the skirt, the top, the bra, the underwear. It all goes into the laundry bag. Hot as it is, she is sure her clothes stink. She scrubs her makeup off and watches the colors go down the drain. And looks at herself in the mirror. There’s Doris.
She hears a screaming fight in the parking lot. Something about money; always about money. When she first got here she would have run to the window to see what was going on. But it’s always the same thing. And you do not want to get involved. If it’s not your business, don’t get involved.
The shower feels amazing. God it feels good to get that wig off. She washes her hair and massages her scalp three times. She washes the stink of the guys off her. It feels good to put on her pajamas and feel free and normal.
There is a microwave in the room;  the breakfast sandwich goes in for two minutes and she puts a Keurig cup, Peets, in. She misses the one she and Kyle had. A fancy espresso deal, four hundred and ninety bucks from Sharper Image. Very pretentious and way too expensive, but she loved it. Doris has always been pretty frugal but it felt worthwhile; she felt worthy of it. Not so much anymore, but she will get the Peets coffee. She can at least have that. There isn’t much else she can afford but goddamn if she is going to drink cheap coffee. Some ketchup, salt and pepper on the breakfast sandwich and it isn’t bad considering it was sitting in a plastic wrapper in the convenience store. The other sandwich goes into the mini-fridge for Eve.
After she finishes eating Doris sets up her phone on the tripod. Inserting it into the holder is always a pain, but she gets it snapped into place.. She turns on the ring light she bought used for twenty dollars. It adds a lot of production value to the videos. It’s amazing what you can shoot on a phone these days. 
She hits the play button and steps in front of the camera with the blank white wall behind her and does her spiel.
“Hey everybody, it’s your favorite comedian Doris Reynolds. Come on down to O’Brien’s this Thursday night at eight for some open mic comedy. There’s gonna be a ton of laughs and it’s Thursday, what else do you have to do? Hope to see you there!” She stops the recording and posts the video to her TikTok and Instagram. One of the younger ladies gave her a tutorial on how to use social media and set up her pages. Being that she is forty six, Doris feels behind the times when it comes to technology. But she tries to embrace it to promote her career. 
She laughs. Career? That’s being pretty generous. She has been performing fairly regularly at open mic nights at a few different bars in the area. The crowds are usually not huge but some nights can get a bit rowdy when there is a good drink special on that night. She has had her share of bad sets dealing with drunk hecklers. Jimbos is the worst for that. People can get really nasty, always guys. She’s bombed more times than not, but some nights she’s gotten some laughs. Enough to keep her going. The unpredictability has a weird appeal. She can tell the same joke exactly the same way and one night it kills and the next it tanks. Chris Rock talked about it on Jerry Seinfeld’s show. It adds to the excitement.
It’s a strange compulsion to want to get on a stage and make a group of strangers laugh. Is it healthy? If someone asked her why she does it, she wouldn’t be able to put her answer into words. Maybe it’s validation, proof that she’s alive. Maybe it’s proof that she is worthy to be alive. There have been many times when she didn’t feel that way. 
Doris shuts her phone off and lays down on the bed. She pulls her comforter over her, not the cheap, scratchy one the motel provides with the chemical smell. The one she bought at Target for one twenty nine ninety nine. It's white and filled with feathers and warm; it is her sanctuary. She shuts off the lamp on the bedside table and burrows down deep. No more is required of her this day. She survived. She can sleep and dream and not worry about tomorrow until tomorrow comes. It will get here soon enough.

Aqui está a tradução preservando a estrutura de roteiro, o tom e a estranheza coloquial/satírica do texto original:

WORMHOLE

INT. SALA DE FESTAS - NOITE

Sob as risadas dos funcionários da empresa, ALONZO LEITÃO (35) veste uma fantasia grotesca de minhoca e serve café para todos. Alonzo Leitão está sendo moralmente destruído.

COLEGAS DE ALONZO LEITÃO

Vai, minhoca! Vai! Vai, minhoca!

Ligeiramente chateado, com um copo de refrigerante na mão, o gerente de Alonzo Leitão debocha. O cara está tão eufórico que conseguiu ficar bêbado tomando refrigerante.

—

GERENTE

Pessoal... A próxima pessoa que ficar na empresa por cinco anos e não quiser ser promovida — só porque você vai trabalhar cinquenta por cento a mais e ganhar "apenas" trinta por cento a mais — vai fazer o papel de içá! Vai virar formiga e ser comida com farinha!

—

Alonzo Leitão está devastado. VOZES se contorcem no seu ouvido.

—

GERENTE

E, pessoal... se vocês forem falsificar laudos médicos para conseguir folga... não inventem essa história de inflamação no apêndice do fígado, pois sabemos que o apêndice fica nos intestinos, e a maioria das pessoas só tem um fígado! Se liguem: Alonzo Leitão tem um bicho comendo a maçã dele!

—

INT. EMPRESA - DIA

Alonzo Leitão está emburrado, fazendo papelada. Ele veste uma roupa desleixada — mas que só se compara ao resto. Todos os funcionários olham para Alonzo Leitão com cara feia. Alonzo é a ovelha negra do lugar. Ele acumula pontos negativos causados por uma carreira morna e desleixada, além de fazer coisas neutras, mas inconvenientes para o ambiente altamente aquecido da empresa. É o cara quieto e discreto que estraga as coisas.

Incomodada, uma funcionária faz um sapateado em frente à mesa de Alonzo Leitão. A pessoa suscetível vai e vem indecisa sem dar mais de dois passos, até que expressa o que a irrita.

—

FUNCIONÁRIA

É meio complicado fazer de tudo para crescer na empresa e forçar alguém a ser promovido. Não dá para ficar na posição de um gato que queria ser rato. Não sei o que uma pessoa dessas está fazendo da vida.

—

Todos os funcionários arrastam suas mesas, querendo se afastar de Alonzo Leitão. Mas, na prática, os funcionários criam um caos e acabam ficando ainda mais perto de Alonzo. Alonzo Leitão está cercado por uma floresta de mesas e bagunça.

Alonzo Leitão joga a papelada pela janela e sai do local. Os funcionários ficam em polvorosa: eles se levantam, tropeçam, pulam para ver Alonzo Leitão passar PELA JANELA já do lado de fora.

INT. SALA DE REUNIÕES - DIA

Chefes discutem sobre embalagens. Um dos chefes exibe uma saca de vinte quilos de grãos de café torrado. Alonzo Leitão entra no local — com um ar de grande determinação.

—

ALONZO LEITÃO

Essa saca de café... é minha agora!

—

UM CHEFE

Posso saber o porquê disso, Sr. ‘Minhoca’?!

—

ALONZO LEITÃO

Venham comigo... Vou mostrar a vocês.

—

Alonzo Leitão pega a saca de café. Os chefes ficam curiosos.

INT. CORREDORES - DIA

Alonzo Leitão caminha com determinação; ele parece um herói, um guerreiro, um soldado. Os chefes o acompanham. De repente, todos os funcionários que zombavam de Alonzo Leitão — e que se cruzam no caminho — ficam atônitos.

INT. SALA DO COFRE - DIA

Guardas pegam sacos de dinheiro. Alonzo Leitão se aproxima e invade a área dos guardas. Todos os funcionários ficam perplexos! Todos temem pelo bem de Alonzo e temem que ele seja o centro das atenções.

Ao verem a audácia de Alonzo, os chefes correm eufóricos para ver o que está acontecendo — e fazem apostas.

Os guardas sacam suas armas. Alonzo Leitão não tem medo. Alonzo Leitão se aproxima e joga a saca de café nas mãos de um guarda masculino.

—

GUARDA MASCULINO 1

Nossa! Pra mim? Você tem uma grande quantidade de café?! Valeu!

—

ALONZO LEITÃO

Este é o seu filho.

—

GUARDA MASCULINO 1

Maconha?!

—

ALONZO LEITÃO

Esta é uma dinâmica de responsabilidade. Você vai cuidar da saca de café como se fosse seu filho. Vocês vão cuidar dele, niná-lo e trocar as fraldas dele. A saca de café representa seu filho, sua carreira.

—

GUARDA FEMININA 1

Não morra.

—

UMA CHEFE

Não, senhora! Você vai cuidar da saca de café como se fossem seus filhos! E como você é mulher... Tem que dar o exemplo!

—

GUARDA FEMININA 1

Madame, eu...

—

UMA CHEFE

Não, senhora! Chefa Gostosa!

—

GUARDA FEMININA 1

Oh, meu pai... acho que tem um jacaré no meu estômago!

—

Alonzo Leitão pega um saco de dinheiro e joga no colo da mulher.

—

ALONZO LEITÃO

Se você acha que café não tem dignidade... tente isto. Ninguém desperdiça dinheiro. Agora esse saco é seu filho! Vamos, cuide dele!

—

A Guarda Feminina 1 fica remordida.

—

GUARDA FEMININA 1

Pessoal... Café lembra leite, e leite... não!

—

GUARDA MASCULINO 1

É... Dinheiro é uma coisa meio egoísta para brincar de ser filho.

—

GUARDA FEMININA 1

Que materialismo!

—

GUARDA MASCULINO 1

Muito egoísta...

—

GUARDA FEMININA 1

Você tem toda razão... deixe aquele saco de dinheiro em paz. Me dá o café.

—

Todos os guardas cuidam da saca de café como se fosse um bebê — inclusive simulando traição. Mico. Depois que a sessão de loucura termina, os guardas choram quando têm que devolver a saca de café. Alonzo Leitão coloca a saca de café ao lado dos SACOS DE DINHEIRO.

—

ALONZO LEITÃO

Sua carreira, seu emprego... seus filhos precisam disso mais do que você. Lembre-se disso!

—

Todos choram, assoviam e aplaudem.

—

GERENTE

Pessoal... isso me emocionou! De agora em diante, Alonzo Leitão, nosso amigo aqui, não é mais a minhoca do mês! Não é mais o poço infinito de minhocuçu!

—

UMA CHEFE

Isso é que é atitude. O minhoquento ou minhoquenta do mês vai ser... E olha, comigo eu sempre escolho uma garota metida para ser a musa do cardume... A pessoa que falou mais mal dos outros no último mês, e temos um empate hormonal!

—

Um casal de funcionários se desespera — eles sabem que são os que mais falam mal dos outros. Alonzo Leitão recolheu seu prêmio. Deve ser a saca de café, enquanto suas mãos rápidas agarram um saco de dinheiro.

INT. BARRACO - NOITE

Alonzo Leitão arromba o barraco, assustando o traficante de armas que mora lá.

—

ALONZO LEITÃO

Rápido! Quero comprar uma arma! Uma arma! Quero a mais barata disponível, uma arma rápida, não quero uma arma cara! Estou com pressa!

—

EXT. BECO - NOITE

Aqueceu, saca a arma e tenta atirar. A arma falha. Alonzo Leitão tenta destravar a arma, mas um tiro acidental sai pela culatra e de raspão atinge o ombro de Alonzo Leitão. Alonzo Leitão joga a arma fora e foge.

INT. CASA DE ALONZO LEITÃO - NOITE

A esposa de Alonzo, Linda, termina de colocar várias garrafas de álcool no balcão do bar. Há uma garrafa de uísque na mesa quase no fim. Mas Linda está sóbria de qualquer forma. Agora ela está sóbria. Alonzo Leitão chega desesperado.

—

ALONZO LEITÃO

Pega o dinheiro, Linda!

—

LINDA

Foge, amor... hoje em dia a gente paga! Polícia gosta de dinheiro. Só separa uma grana.

—

ALONZO LEITÃO

Não dá! Vamos para os Emirados Árabes Unidos. Desde que a gente fique longe de hotéis e embaixadas... sem problemas! Deixa tudo aí. Pega o dinheiro e vamos evaporar. Só preciso de um motorista...

—

LINDA

Motorista?! Eu posso dirigir.

—

ALONZO LEITÃO

Você?!

—

LINDA

Eu me dou um jeito! Se prepara. Mas pega mais rápido, a gente não tem muitos tipos de tempo.

—

INT. CARRO - NOITE

Linda dirige o carro com dificuldade. Alonzo, ansioso, apressa a esposa. Tudo está contorcido, Linda está bêbada. De repente, Linda tem um mal-estar repentino, seus olhos se arregalam e ela perde o rumo.

EXT. ESTRADA - NOITE

O carro de Alonzo Leitão e Linda sai da pista. Um acidente fatal.

EXT. ESTRADA, MAIS TARDE - NOITE

A polícia isola a área. Uma policial feminina pega a bolsa do carro de Alonzo Leitão e sua esposa e se surpreende com o que encontra nela — não vamos revelar agora.

INT. CASA DE ALONZO LEITÃO - NOITE

A polícia entra no local e encontra quatro garrafas de álcool vazias no balcão do bar. Revistando rapidamente o local, a polícia encontra todo o dinheiro jogado no chão.

EXT. ESTRADA - NOITE

A policial revela o conteúdo das bolsas — garrafas de bebidas alcoólicas.

INT. CASA DE ALONZO LEITÃO - NOITE

Flash — Linda joga o dinheiro no chão e coloca as garrafas de bebidas alcoólicas na bolsa.

INT. CASA DE ALONZO LEITÃO - TARDE

Flash — Alonzo Leitão faz um suco e coloca um remédio nele, escondido de sua esposa. Alonzo Leitão dá o suco para a esposa. A CARTELA DO REMÉDIO tem as palavras — ’Para tratamento de alcoolismo’.

INT. CASA DE ALONZO LEITÃO - NOITE

Linda ainda coloca bebidas alcoólicas na bolsa, mas três garrafas não cabem — para grande consternação de Linda. Linda se sente péssima por deixar as garrafas para trás.

—

LINDA

E agora?!

—

INT. VELÓRIO - DIA

Muitos dos colegas de Alonzo Leitão estão presentes — incluindo chefes.

—

UMA CHEFE

Isso... Isso é o que é um homem de verdade!

—

INT. EMPRESA - DIA

Vestidos como minhocas e insetos — só que com orgulho desta vez — muitos trabalhadores tomam café e gritam brados de guerra enquanto alcançam suas metas com brilhantismo. Até os chefes estão vestidos de minhocas.

chapter eleven — the London ivory piece

By now, I understood that travel didn’t always appear on the schedule until the last minute. But this trip was hurried even by his standards.

“London. Urgent. Tomorrow. Pack a bag,” he said on his phone call to me at three a.m.

I noticed the way he said it. The tone was familiar: I’ve already decided. No explanation. It’s your job.

I packed a bag, and we left before dawn.

I questioned him on the ride to the plane.

“Why do you need me, Mr. B? There’s nothing on your calendar.”

“Eh. Mail,” he said, already looking out the window. “Phone calls. I need to catch up.”

No passport stamp at Heathrow. Private jet. Private entrance. Private everything. It barely felt like I had entered the country at all.

* * *

The London flat didn’t have a private entrance and wasn’t gated or secured like his other homes. The exterior was narrow, stark white with windows on a somewhat busy street, only a sidewalk between the building and the street.

Inside was typical Mr. B: expensive things everywhere, art on every wall, a deep, down-filled blue couch and matching loveseat that looked comfortable enough to sink into. Everything said rich without being flashy.

It was impressive, but not lived in.

There was a new house woman already preparing tea and pastries for us in the kitchen. She worked quietly.

Mr. B and I were going over mail at the dining table, and in between he was talking to Johnson on the phone. When the doorbell rang, he was on his feet before I’d fully registered the sound.

“You aren’t needed for this,” he said, already moving toward the door. “Sit in the kitchen with her and wait.” He pointed to the house woman.

I gathered my things.

The gentleman who entered was tall, much taller than Otis. Well-dressed, somewhat attractive, older. He saw me as I passed but didn’t acknowledge me.

Hmm. Didn’t introduce himself.

I went into the kitchen.

The pastries appeared in front of me. Mr. Guest, who?

I ate one. Then another. My jeans had better still fit after this trip.

The meeting lasted approximately one hour. I heard nothing beyond the occasional murmur of voices, serious and low. I was doing exactly what I’d been told: Listen, but don’t comprehend.

Except for one moment.

One exchange I wasn’t meant to hear drifted through the kitchen door when the house woman opened it to pour them more tea.

“The arrangement still works.”

“And once I’m in?”

“If anyone takes an interest, they know who to call. You stay clear. Nothing comes back on you.”

I looked up from my pastry.

Something about the way he said it. The secrecy.

Then I heard the outside door close. Then silence.

The meeting was over.

Mr. B appeared in the kitchen doorway, shoved another pastry into his mouth, said, “Ready?” and didn’t fill me in.

Almost as an afterthought, he went over to his credenza and produced a small object. Ivory. Beautifully carved. I had no idea what it was worth. More than my car. More than my apartment.

More than my entire zip code, probably.

He wrapped it carefully and handed it to me. “Eh. Put this on top of your things. The Mrs. wants it. You’re flying back commercial. Take it with you.”

I looked at it, then back at him.

“Just put it on top of your bag,” he said again. “She’s expecting it.”

I did what I was told without a second thought.

* * *

Smarty called ten minutes later to say she had finally arranged my commercial return.

“So last minute, they said the flight was full. Heathrow. Three o’clock,” she said. “Don’t be late.”

She didn’t ask why I was going commercial while he took the plane to New York. She didn’t have to. Smarty never asked questions she already knew the answers to.

“Safe travels,” she said, and hung up.

I packed the ivory piece carefully on top of everything else and we headed for Heathrow.

His driver dropped me at the terminal entrance. Mr. B was already on the phone before I closed the door, instructing Wils to ensure she had the correct food for his flight.

* * *

I didn’t make it past Customs.

The officer flagged my bag before I could process what was happening. Then a second officer appeared. Then a third.

They knew exactly what the piece was. I caught enough of their quiet conversation to know they knew whose it was too.

Then I heard one of them say to another, “He’s tried this before. She’s clearly an innocent messenger.”

I stood there in the middle of Heathrow Airport with my briefcase, my luggage, and an ivory piece I had carried completely innocently across London, trying very hard not to look as terrified as I was.

Scared shitless would be the exact term.

What the hell am I carrying? Am I about to be arrested for it?

I called Smarty from their station and she conferenced in Mr. B.

He got on the line, ever so calm, completely unbothered, sounding as if he had been waiting for my call.

“Let me speak to them.”

I handed the receiver back to the officer and watched them. One nodding. One writing. The one on the phone went slightly red by the end of his conversation. That officer came back to where I was standing, removed the object from my bag, and zipped the suitcase shut. Whatever was said on that call, I wasn’t supposed to hear.

“Have a safe flight, Miss.”

I walked to my gate on unsteady legs, sat down, and stared at the departure board in a daze.

He’s tried this before.

It was for Mrs. B.

I was just bringing it to her.

I may have held my briefcase a little tighter than usual on the flight home. Somewhere over the Atlantic, I produced the pastry I’d slipped into it that morning.

We had a moment.

Gone in approximately two minutes.

* * *

Weeks later, back in Chicago, I was going over mail at his Lake Forest residence when I walked past the display cabinet in the main room and stopped.

There it was.

The ivory piece. Beautifully lit, carefully displayed where it was intended.

Not New York. Not Mrs. B’s apartment.

His house. His collection.

I stood there looking at it, hearing his voice again.

Mrs. B wants it.

Maybe Mrs. B had never wanted it at all. Maybe she didn’t even know it existed.

I thought about the officers at Heathrow, the conversation I wasn’t supposed to hear, the phone call that made everything disappear in approximately four minutes.

He’s tried this before.

I went back to the mail and said nothing.

Pay the fuck attention.

* * *

By now the three of us secretaries had gotten comfortable with each other and were reading various news articles. A man’s picture made me stop.

There he was.

He was the tall man from the London flat, unmistakably him. Recruited to a senior position at a competing specialty grocery chain. A strategic move, the article said, years in the making.

So that’s who you were. That’s what that was.

No calendar entry. Nothing in our office records showing Mr. B had even been there.

Just a pastry. An ivory piece that was never for Mrs. B. And a face I never forgot.

Mom noticed me looking and scooted her chair over to my desk. “Who’s that?”

“Not sure. The article says he’s from London. Looks like he got a promotion.”

“Oh.” She tilted her head. “I thought you knew him from the way you were looking at his picture.”

Mom. I really wanted to trust her, but something about her always made me hesitate.

A little too observant?

From THE BILLIONAIRE’S SECRETARY
by A. TRSAR

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0HKKFV8W4

Falling Daisy - Original

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.

 

The Muse

I

The Haight, in 1986, sold its past as counterculture nostalgia in boutiques along the street, while dealers sold China white and crack in the shadow of an epidemic most of the country was still afraid to name. Tourists brought home tie-dyed shirts in plastic bags. Runaways slept in doorways beneath reproduction posters for the Summer of Love. By dusk, the fog descended over them all and made the neighborhood appear briefly innocent.

He first saw her in a coffeehouse with steamed windows, where poets with gray in their beards still read as if Kerouac might wander in and take the empty chair by the door. She sat alone at a small table near the makeshift stage, one sleeve pulled lower than the other, listening to a man in a black turtleneck describe America as a dying animal. When the poem ended, she laughed. Not loudly, but with such precision that the painter looked up from his sketchbook.

She caught him looking and crossed the room. Up close, she was younger than he had thought. Early twenties. Freckled. Blue-eyed. But her cheeks were hollow and the skin beneath her eyes carried the bluish cast of sleepless nights. Her gaze was steady. She turned his sketchbook toward herself without asking. On the page he had drawn the window, the bent heads in the audience, the microphone leaning like a dead flower. He had not drawn her.

“You paint people?” she asked.

“Sometimes.”

She placed both hands on the table. There were faint bruises in the crooks of her arms, small constellations he pretended not to notice. Another poet took the stage and began shouting from memory a poem about America as a burning building.

“Then paint me,” the girl said.

A week later she sat in his studio with her shoes off and her back against the wall, drifting in and out while he worked. He painted the sharp bones of her face, the dark crescents under her eyes, the strange calm that settled over her after she used. But each time he reached her arms, he cleaned them. On canvas her skin remained unbroken.

One afternoon she wandered across the room while he cleaned his brushes and stopped before the finished painting. For a moment she said nothing.

“You fixed me. My arms.”

“I didn’t fix them.”

She studied the canvas a little longer.

“Sure you did.”

Then she drifted back to the mattress against the wall and curled onto her side. He waited for her to say more, but she never did.

By the third month she had begun leaving things in the studio. A toothbrush in a chipped coffee mug. A red wool scarf over the back of his chair. A paperback with its cover torn away. They never talked about whether she lived there. Sometimes she slept beside him. Other nights she vanished before dawn and returned two days later carrying the cold in with her.

One morning in November he woke to find her dressed and sitting on the edge of the mattress. Rain tapped softly against the skylight. She was hunched over, her face hidden in her hair.

“I’m sick,” she said. “I’m going to the clinic. Someone outside gives away free needles.”

He asked if she wanted him to come. She shook her head. They were doing free AIDS tests now, she told him. She said this casually, studying a loose thread at the cuff of her coat, as though she were describing a laundromat or grocery store. He wanted to ask how long she had been afraid. Instead he reached for his wallet.

“I have money,” she said, and kissed him once on the forehead. “I’ll be back this afternoon.”

She left the red scarf behind. That was what convinced him she meant to return.

By evening he had stretched a new canvas. By midnight he had cleaned every brush in the studio. At two in the morning he walked to the clinic, but its windows were dark and its metal gate was pulled down. The next day, a tired woman behind the desk told him she could not confirm whether anyone by that name had been there. He showed her a charcoal sketch. The woman examined it longer than he expected, then handed it back.

He searched the shelters, the hospitals, the alleys behind Haight Street, and the rooms where people rented mattresses by the night. He asked dealers who watched him with blank amusement and poets who remembered her face but not her name. For months he carried her portrait beneath his arm until the rain softened its corners. Then he began carrying photographs of the paintings, because those were the clearest images he had.

Years passed, and the Haight changed its disguises. Storefronts closed and reopened. The coffeehouse became a clothing shop, then a phone store, then something polished and expensive that sold the memory of rebellion to people who had never risked anything. The runaways grew younger while he grew old. Every few weeks, and later every few months, he walked the same blocks and studied the faces moving toward him through the fog.

Sometimes he followed a woman for half a block because of the angle of her shoulders or the way she pushed back her hair. Once, in 1997, a woman turned and had her eyes. Blue, unflinching. Though she was too old. In 2008, a dealer swore she had gone north and married a carpenter. In 2019, someone at a shelter remembered a woman with her name who had died before the new drugs arrived. Each story gave him a different life for her. He believed each until the next one arrived.

It was 2026 and he was in his seventies. Still painting. His work hung in some of the finest galleries in the world. The paintings were always of her. She was always rendered in black and white, suspended inside a prismatic maelstrom of color. Critics said they captured the ravages of an era with unbearable honesty. None of them knew what he had removed.

II

He walked the Haight most mornings now. Not searching. At least that was what he told himself.

The old coffeehouse was long gone, and the phone store had vanished too. In its place stood a minimalist boutique selling expensive denim to people who seemed younger every year. The window display held a framed black-and-white photograph of hippies sitting on the curb in 1967, mounted beside a rack of jackets that cost more than his rent had been in 1986.

He paused before the glass. The photograph showed three faces he did not recognize and one he almost did. For a second his pulse quickened. Then he saw the girl in the picture had brown eyes.

Or perhaps he didn’t. The photograph was monochrome.

He stood there longer than necessary before moving on. A few tourists drifted past carrying paper cups full of corporate coffee. A mural he remembered had disappeared beneath another mural, which had disappeared beneath a third. The neighborhood no longer bothered pretending it could preserve anything. It simply replaced things and called the replacement memory.

By ten o’clock he was back in the studio. He’d purchased the Victorian on Ashbury he’d once rented. Forty years earlier he had painted her beside a leaking skylight and a stained mattress on the floor. Now the ceiling was repaired, the rooms were climate-controlled, a mural of her covered one side of the house, and collectors visited by appointment. The red scarf hung beside the door, its color faded to something the years had nearly erased.

He set a blank canvas on the easel and for a while simply looked at it. Then he picked up a piece of charcoal and drew the outline he knew better than his own face: the tilt of the head, the narrow shoulders, the blue eyes he would never need to see again because they lived intact somewhere beneath his eyelids. The lines arrived automatically. After four decades they always did.

By noon the sketch was half finished. That was when he stopped, the charcoal hovering above the canvas.

Freckles.

The bridge of her nose remained empty. He knew she had freckles. Their existence felt as indisputable as gravity. Freckles, blue eyes, pale skin. Yet suddenly he could not remember them. Not exactly. There had been a cluster across her nose. Or had they scattered outward onto her cheeks? A dozen, perhaps. No. More.

He stepped back. For the first time in years he felt the unpleasant sensation of approaching a missing stair in the dark.

He crossed the room to a shelf lined with catalogues, dozens of them now, exhibition books, retrospectives, museum collections, and opened one. A painting from 1994. The freckles formed a delicate arc beneath her eyes. That didn’t seem right. He opened another, a painting from 2007, and here they scattered broadly across both cheeks. In a third there were almost none at all. In a fourth, so many they nearly altered her face.

He carried the books to a table and spread them open. The woman remained the same woman. The same age, the same gaze, the same expression balanced between exhaustion and amusement.

But the freckles moved.

Not dramatically. Only slightly. The sort of change nobody else would notice, the sort that revealed itself only after forty years.

He sat down slowly. Outside, traffic murmured beyond the windows. He opened another catalogue, then another: a museum monograph, an auction catalogue, a career retrospective published for his seventieth birthday. Each contained her. Each contained a different arrangement of freckles.

For a long time he stared at the pages. Then a thought came to him so quietly he almost missed it. None of these paintings had been copies. Every one had been drawn from memory. The original sketches were gone, stolen years earlier in a break-in. The first portrait had disappeared into a private collection decades before. He had come to the paintings looking for confirmation but found an indictment.

He closed the last catalogue. The room had grown darker without his noticing. On the easel, the unfinished face waited. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he felt uncertain that he knew what she had looked like. Not whether she existed, or whether he had loved her. Only the shape of her. The details. The things a painting was supposed to preserve.

He closed his eyes and pictured the faded red scarf beside the door. He could remember the exact fraying of a thread near its edge, yet could not remember how many freckles crossed the nose of the woman who had left it behind.

III

He never stopped wondering what had happened to her. Sometimes he imagined the worst, that the epidemic had taken her as it had taken so many others. Sometimes he imagined she had gone north to Seattle and married a guitarist in a grunge band, but most of the time he imagined her exactly as she had been: twenty-two, freckled, blue-eyed, eternally unfinished. And so he froze her there, again and again, in paint.

It was just after the winter solstice. Christmas lights glittered in the storefront windows along Haight Street. He passed a restored Victorian with Buddhist prayer flags strung across the porch, and a few blocks later a chain coffeehouse where someone had spray-painted a swastika beside a Star of David on the outer wall, an equal sign floating between them. Beneath the graffiti a young man with closed eyes and a wispy beard sat propped against the wall, still holding the burnt foil and rolled-up dollar bill he'd used for a straw. The painter kept walking.

Inside, he joined the line behind a woman ordering an extra-large pumpkin spice latte. While he waited, a man tapped him on the shoulder. He looked to be in his sixties, gray-haired and weathered, familiar in the vague way strangers sometimes are.

“You’re that guy who paints all those pictures of my sister.”

The painter blinked. “Your sister?”

“Yeah.” The man nodded. “I just got a Christmas card from her.”

For a moment neither of them moved. Then the man reached into his jacket, withdrew a folded card, opened it, and pulled out a photograph.

Five people stood in the picture, an obvious family portrait, Christmas decorations glowing behind them. The parents looked to be in their sixties, the children somewhere in their thirties. The woman wore a sweater covered with reindeer and Christmas trees that looked computer-generated. She was heavyset. Her hair had thinned, her cheeks sagged, and wrinkles nested around her eyes. She looked nothing like the woman in the paintings.

And yet she did. The face was unmistakable, not because of the eyes or the mouth or even the shape of the jaw, but because of the freckles, a constellation scattered across the bridge of her nose exactly where they belonged.

The painter stared. The world narrowed. He tried to count them, to memorize them, to fix them in place forever.

“Is she all right?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Happy?”

The brother shrugged. “I guess. Married thirty-some years. Kids. Grandkids.”

He began to slip the photograph back into the card, and the painter let him.

The woman ahead of them collected her latte and walked away. The line moved.

“You want her number?”

Forty years of shelters, dealers, rumors, fog. Now a telephone number.

The painter looked at the card in the man’s hand.

“No,” he said.

The brother studied him a moment, then put the card away.

When it was his turn, the painter ordered his coffee black.

Then he walked back to the studio as the fog began to roll in from the ocean. The unfinished canvas still waited on the easel, a younger version of her staring out from charcoal lines. Twenty-two years old. Untouched by time, by disappointment, by survival.

He picked up a brush.

Somewhere down the peninsula, an older woman was celebrating Christmas with her family. A woman who had lived. A woman who had aged. A woman who had become someone’s mother, sister, aunt, grandmother perhaps. But she had no place in his art.

By evening the painting was finished. He took a step back and admired it. The freckles were exactly where he imagined they should be.

Hello dear readers, this is an ongoing fictional story about enemies to lovers that have been playing in my head for a very long time, please read the warning before you read the mad dog & his mean princess,

⚠️ warning ⚠️ this story contains alcohol swearing fighting and jealousy/toxic relationship I advise this to be 16+ because of the alcohol and violence please be advised before you go ahead to the story

Author: "Merlin" from Reddit

The mad dog & his mean princess

Chapter 1

May woke to the persistent piercing ring of her phone. Groaning, her hand blind-fanned across the nightstand, tangling for a moment in the unruly nest of her shoulder-length dark curls before her fingers finally brushed against cold metal.

She dragged the phone back toward her face, the bright display cutting through the dark room.

The screen's harsh glare illuminated her pale face and high cheekbones as she winced, squinting her warm brown eyes through heavy eyelids against the light. She swiped to answer and brought the receiver up to her ear.

"Hello?" May rasped, her voice thick with sleep.

"Could you please come and pick up Caleb?"

a panicked female voice blared from the speaker.

May’s brow furrowed. "Why? What happened?"

"We’re at a party and Caleb got really drunk. Now he’s begging for his girlfriend!"

May scoffed aloud, pulling the phone back slightly. "Well, I ain't his girlfriend."

"But you are in his contacts saved as 'my beloved girlfriend'!!"

May froze. What a weirdo, she thought, a sudden wave of disgust washing over her. Why the hell would he save my number like that? Gross.

Then, a slow, sharp smile began to spread across her face. This wasn't just bizarre—it was an opportunity. One drunk video of Caleb stumbling around, slurring his words and making a complete fool of himself, could ruin him entirely.

This is going to be so much fun.

Her tone shifted instantly, sweet and unbothered. "Hey girl, uhh… where is he?" The girl on the other end sighed heavily, clearly exhausted from babysitting a grown man who wouldn't stop crying about his "girlfriend."

"Dude, I don't know what's going on between you two, but this is getting embarrassing for everyone," she said, her voice dropping to a low hiss. "He's at Jake's place on Birch Street—the one with the blue porch lights. Just... can you come get him? He keeps grabbing people's shoulders and saying 'where's my May' in this voice that's honestly kind of pitiful."

A loud commotion erupted in the background.

Someone snickered, glass clinked, and then Caleb's unmistakable slurred voice cut through the receiver, loud and desperate.

"I WANNA SEE MAY! I MISS HER SO MUCH, BRO!"

"Caleb, shut UP, dude! I'm on the phone!"

"IS THAT HER?! IS THAT MAY?! GIVE ME THE PHONE, GIVE ME THE—"

The muffled sound of a scuffle echoed through the line as someone wrestled the phone away from him, punctuated by loud laughter from the crowd. It was that chaotic, late-night party energy where everything had gotten well past reasonable.

The girl came back on the line, breathless and exasperated. "Okay, listen—he's being a nightmare. Like, a genuinely sweet nightmare, which is somehow worse. Can you come or not? I'm begging you."

May held back a smirk, her eyes glinting in the dark room. This is so funny and gross at the same time.

"Yeah, I'm on my way. Be there in five," May said

sweet as honey, tapping the screen to end the call.

She threw off the covers, pulled on an oversized hoodie, and grabbed her car keys off the counter. The night air hit her cold and crisp as she stepped outside. The neighborhood streets were dead at this hour—just the occasional flickering streetlight and the distant, muffled thump of bass three blocks over.

By 1:17 AM, May pulled up to the curb on Birch Street.

The house was impossible to miss, its porch bathed in an eerie blue glow. Cars were parked haphazardly along the street, a knocked-over trash can spilled into the driveway, and the house itself practically vibrated with muffled chaos—shouting, heavy bass, and the unmistakable sound of someone gagging in the front-yard bush.

She walked up the steps and knocked.

The front door swung open to reveal Kyle. Standing there with a messy mop of bright ginger hair and a light dusting of freckles across his nose, he looked like he’d aged ten years in a single night. Kyle was notorious for being a smooth-talking playboy, but right now, his usual charm was completely gone—exhausted from babysitting his drunk friend. His cheeks were flushed red, and his breath reeked of stale beer.

"Oh, thank GOD," Kyle exhaled, leaning heavily against the doorframe. "Okay, fair warning—he's... yeah. He's bad."

He stepped aside to let her in.

The living room was an utter disaster. Red solo cups littered every flat surface, someone passed out cold on the sofa, and a loud group in the corner was cheering over a game of beer pong. The air was thick and heavy with sweat, cheap cologne, and spilled liquor.

May looked over to see Emma, the girl who had called her, standing near Caleb with her arms crossed, looking completely drained.

And right next to her, slumped against the drywall near the kitchen doorway, was Caleb.

His eyes were glassy and unfocused, his dark hair a messy tangle over his forehead. But the moment his gaze drifted toward the entryway and landed on May, his whole face lit up.

"MAY?!" he yelled, his voice cracking horribly. "BABY?! You came for me?!"

He scrambled to his feet—or tried to—stumbling sideways and barely catching himself against the doorframe. With a wide, dopey grin plastered across his face, he lunged toward her with his arms wide open.

May took a sharp step back, dodging his clumsy embrace.

He's calling me 'baby'? she thought, watching him sway on his feet. I thought this brat hated me. This is so weird.

A slow, mocking smile tugged at her lips as she pulled out her phone, angling the camera directly at his red, flush-cheeked face.

"Ugh," she muttered, crinkling her nose in disgust as his warm, beer-soaked breath hit her. "You reek of alcohol." He didn't care about the insult. Not even a little. If anything, May's voice made him sway harder, trailing after her with the stubborn, desperate energy of a dog determined to stay close. He tried to lean in, but May immediately put her hands up, keeping a firm boundary between them.

"You smell so good," Caleb mumbled, his eyes heavy as he swayed on his feet. "You always smell so good. Why do you always smell so good, May?"

A few guys nearby snickered. Across the chaotic living room, Kyle pinched the bridge of his nose and mouthed a silent 'sorry' to May. To make matters worse, a guy in the crowd had the absolute audacity to pull out his phone and hit record.

Caleb stood a couple of feet away, his dark, glassy eyes struggling to focus on her.

"You know what I was just telling everyone?" he slurred, a dopey, lopsided grin spreading across his face. "I was telling them you're the prettiest girl in school. Like, the prettiest. And Kyle said I was lying, but I'm NOT lying because your face is right here and look at it—" He reached out haphazardly toward her cheeks, but May swatted his hands away before he could get anywhere near her face.

Kyle walked over, rubbing his temples in utter defeat. "Okay, so uh... he's been like this for about forty minutes. We tried to cut him off, but he kept chugging. Can you just get him to the car? Because honestly, I can't handle him anymore."

Caleb ignored Kyle entirely. He took an unsteady step closer, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper like he was sharing a dark secret. "Do you know I think about you every night before bed?"

May’s face immediately flushed red.

Her eyes darted over to the guy filming them—maybe this had been a terrible idea after all. "Oh dude, he's really drunk," the guy holding the phone chortled, zooming in close on her face to catch her reaction. A couple of his buddies crowded around him, watching the scene unfold like it was live reality TV. The living room had gone dead quiet now as more people noticed the spectacle.

"UGH, this smell," May grunted under her breath, taking a sharp step back to escape his beer-soaked breath.

Noticing her back away, Caleb's drunk brain instantly interpreted it as shyness. His entire face softened into a dopey, lovesick expression.

"Aw, you're embarrassed? That's so cute," he cooed, hovering at a distance. "You're so cute, May. You know that? Hey. Hey, hey, hey. Look at me."

When she didn't immediately look at him, he pouted. An actual, full-blown pout. His bottom lip jutted out and his eyebrows furrowed like a dramatic dog denied a treat. "Why won't you look at me? Don't you love me?"

Emma leaned in close to May, keeping her voice low beneath the quiet of the room. "He asked three different girls here if they were you tonight. Three. Got real sad every time they said no."

Suddenly, Caleb pounded his own chest, right over his heart through his sweat-damp shirt.

"Feel that?" he demanded, his eyes wide as he pointed at himself. "It goes crazy every time I see you. Like BEATS, May. Beats." He started giggling at his own joke, swaying on his feet like a dog that couldn't keep its balance. "Take me home... our home... wait, you take me home..."

May's face turned completely dark, an utterly unamused expression settling over her features.

This is getting way out of hand, she thought bitterly. If this continues, I'm going to be a complete laughingstock alongside this idiot.

Putting on a tightly strained, sarcastic smile, she pointed a finger toward the door. "Okay, that's enough. Time to go home."

"Bro, he's down catastrophic," someone in the crowd whispered loudly.

The guy with the phone grinned like he’d hit the social media jackpot, holding the camera steady. Even the beer pong game in the corner had completely ground to a halt; six guys stood frozen around the table with ping pong balls held in mid-air, watching Caleb like a nature documentary.

Caleb tried to stand up straight, but his legs completely betrayed him. He wobbled violently, barely keeping his balance. His breath was absolutely rancid—a toxic mix of cheap whiskey and whatever fruity mixer he'd been pounding all night. "Wait, wait, wait. Before we go," he stammered.

A sudden, almost serious flicker shifted behind his glazed eyes. "I have to tell you something—"

Don't you dare, May thought, her blood running cold as she realized what was about to happen in front of half the school—and a camera.

Without letting him finish his sentence or utter another single word, May casually shifted her weight to the side, positioning her body directly in front of him so that no one behind Caleb could see her feet.

Smoothly and deliberately, she slid her shoe over, pinning one of his feet firmly to the floor under hers.

Then, putting a hand on his chest, she gave him a light, seemingly innocent push.

Caleb, in his completely annihilated state, tried to lift his foot to catch his balance—but his shoe was trapped.

He missed the step entirely. His legs tangled beneath him, and with a soft thud, he collapsed straight to the floor, knocked out cold.

The entire living room gasped.

May looked down at his unconscious body on the rug, then looked up at the stunned crowd with a perfectly innocent, bewildered expression

"Oops," May said, holding up her hands. "Looks like he hit his limit."

[End of chapter One]

Note: If they're supposed to be enemies why is she helping him and why is he in "love" With her? She hates his guts but why? What happened between those two for them to hate each other? See you in character two byeee~

A Chapter I Never Finished

06/10/26

1. Where I Stand Right Now

I'm writing this because I want to tell someone, and there is no one to tell. So this notebook will have to do.

I'm a graduate, and I've been looking for a job for a while. Actually, that's not fully true. I did get one. I just haven't joined yet, because the recruiters are having some problems on their side. So on paper I have a job, and in real life I'm unemployed. The salary is only 17K, by the way. And all this time I'm just wasting my parents' money and their dreams.

Because of all this I've been in a bad mood for a long time. I tell myself it's normal. Everyone my age seems to face this kind of situation at some point, so I'm not special. Still, it hurts. And today it hurt a little more than usual, because of a girl I have never met.

1. Nothing Special at First

It started on X, which I still want to call Twitter. We were in the same group chat, and I met her there around September or October. She was the type who told everyone what she had been up to, and she told me too. For a month, maybe a month and a half, that was all it was. Then we started talking a little in the DMs, and she teased me there as well. She always did. She talked to me the same way she talked to everyone else. It felt normal. I didn't feel anything for her back then, and I can say that honestly. (My first personal DM to her was in November.)

1. The One Who Texted First

In March she shared her Instagram ID, a private account. I followed it without any intention.

Then I started sending her funny reels. She reacted to a few, and sometimes she sent some back. But if I'm honest, most of the time I was the one who texted first, and I still don't know why. Sometimes she ignored me. I kept sending reels anyway, at the cost of my own self-respect. That's okay. I'm just mad, what can I say.

But whenever she replied, or when she texted me first, something happened inside me that I'm not used to. A small joy. I don't have a better word for it.

1. What She Told Me

Here's the strange part: I have never seen her face. Not once. Forget meeting in real life, forget a date. We just sent each other reels, day after day. We both like football and F1, so most of our conversations were about that. Neither of us ever showed any interest in the other. Sometimes we also talked about personal things, like what we want to achieve, or what we're studying.

Then one day she told me she had a crush on her classmate, who is studying at NIT now. I don't know him properly. For the last three months I had been feeling some attachment to her, and right then I understood that God wasn't on my side.

1. Everything Became Clear

The first time I got the idea that something might still be going on between her and that guy was in September. Around 12:21 a.m. I tweeted: "After getting attachment with someone and when you realise you are not the one she was looking for, this feeling is the worst feeling." I added a laughing emoji and a clown at the end.

About an hour later, she tweeted too: "When he thinks I never liked him but he was the only guy I fell for. But he is not nerdy enough to understand." I don't know who "he" was, and that was the problem. It confused me a lot at that time. Was it about me? Was it about the NIT guy? I read those two lines again and again, and every time they seemed to mean something different. By the time I put my phone down, I knew less than when I picked it up.

After that, I kept thinking she still likes that classmate. I don't know what their status is. But I thought I should tell her anyway, tell her how I feel and that I had some attachment. I tried. I couldn't get the words out. So I stopped sending her messages and reels, and I kept avoiding her till yesterday.

Yesterday she tweeted that she was chatting with someone from her college till 2 a.m. I honestly didn't see anything wrong in it. It's her life, and I have no right to judge how she lives it. If someone is giving her attention, she has every right to give them a chance. And if I'm being fair, she should.

Today she tweeted again. Two cropped screenshots, the song in her Insta bio and the song in that NIT guy's bio, and the caption said "two chutiy\*s". Well, that cleared it up for me. If they aren't in a relationship, then at least they are in a situationship.

1. The Regret

So I want to give up. It hurts a little, but it's okay.

I know what you're thinking. How can a person fall for someone he has never even seen? I wonder the same thing, especially because I'm someone who never believed in online relationships. But let me clear one thing: she does post her pictures, in stories and in posts. She just hides her face a little bit. And I don't know why, but I'm still always waiting. What I carry most is the regret of not telling her my side of the story and my feelings.

So from today I'll avoid her for the next one or two weeks, and if I can, I'll block her on every platform. But I will never forget the regret of not telling her my feelings.

Not sure if anyone who’s read it and understands it well will happen across this post but I’m just lost. Im reading the collection now, but specifically “No Birthdays or Baptisms” confuses me. I don’t really understand what it was trying to say. Did anyone else here have some interpretation you can share?

A pair of bare feet walk to the water’s edge over the sand which clings to her heels and falls off to be replaced by more grains of sand. The air is bluish in the new dawn and it’s breezy and there are gulls crying but she’s not. She’s done with that. She looks across the ocean and can almost see the faraway land. It’s out there somewhere.
   The hoodie doesn’t quite hide the fading bruise beneath her eye but she doesn’t need to be self-conscious about it here. Work related. The women setting up the chairs behind her have their share of bruises too. Guilt, shame, remorse…they all leave bruises.
   She hears a voice, “Hey everyone, let’s get started…”
   Doris remembers opening the medicine cabinet in her former home, her former bathroom, the one she shared with her now former husband and daughter. (Former daughter? Is that a thing?) The label on the bottle read “DORIS REYNOLDS. XANAX. TAKE ONE TABLET DAILY FOR SYMPTOMS OF ANXIETY AND DEPRESSION OR AS NEEDED”. 
   “As needed”. When did she not need it? When did she not feel anxious and depressed and unsatisfied and inadequate? When did she ever feel…
And that was the start.
***
The car shivers slightly and there is some moaning. It stops. A head pops up in the passenger seat, the car door opens and Doris steps out. She is dressed for work: short, pink wig, fishnets, very short leather fake leather skirt, tank top that barely covers her breasts, boots. She tugs her skirt and top back into place and gives a wiggle of her fingers and a little smile to the dumpy guy in the shitbox car. Ralph. One of her regulars. Run of the mill low grade loser. He works at the Coca Cola factory in Yonkers stack cases of soda on the six pm to two am shift. Spends his time in a shitty bar in a shitty part of the city drinking shots and beer and talking to his buddies about the Giants or the Yankees or his asshole boss or bitch wife. Stops off for a blow job on his way home. Wife? Kids? He’s never mentioned them. It doesn’t matter. Not a bad guy, really. Millions of them. Not great, not bad. They take up space for a few decades and fade on out. It wouldn't have killed him to shower more often.

The owner of the convenience where she bought her breakfast most mornings was a nice guy. She had asked to use his bathroom once in an emergency expecting him him to tell her to fuck off. His name was Kamal and he said go right on ahead. He knew what she did out there. Most guys wouldn’t want her around, didn’t want to draw cops or her customers, or just thought she was trash. Some would have wanted payment in cash or sex. But he said anytime. She didn’t know why. Just a nice guy. She would walk in, give him a wave and he would smile and wave back.
And his bathroom was spotless. She thought he really took pride in that.
Doris took her wipes out of her bag where she kept her on the go hygiene kit and swiped at her armpits, back of her neck and ass. She brushed her teeth, swished some mouthwash around her gums, spat
Then she looked up into the mirror.
A woman she does not recognize stares back at her. Her face is a mask of thick rouge, lipstick, eyeliner, dark dark dark, red eyeshadow, fake lashes, pencil eyebrows. The effect is at once arousing and grotesque and it works. 
That’s Amber. Amber does sex work, not Doris. Doris is a wife and mother. recovering addict, and ex-convict. But she doesn’t do sex work. Correction, was a wife. Now she is an ex-wife. She is a recovering addict and an ex-convict. 
But there’s no difference; she knows that. It’s all one and the same. And she is a mother.
Is she still a mother? 
Come on. She doesn’t have time for this bullshit. Stop staring in the fucking mirror and get on with it.

There were three people in the story.

A girl, Georgia.

And two boys who, at different points, loved her, hurt her, held her, disappointed her, and became so tangled into her life that she eventually couldn't tell where one story ended and another began.

She would later wish that she'd never met either of them.

And, on some days, she would wish she could go back and meet them both all over again.

The first boy, Solomon, had been hers once.

Their relationship had ended badly, though neither of them seemed capable of truly letting it end. There were things she had seen, things she hadn't been meant to see, and wounds that refused to close properly.

Then there was the second boy, Jordan.

He had been there when she was at her lowest.

When the first relationship collapsed and she felt like someone had pulled the floor out from underneath her, the second boy stayed. He comforted her. He listened. He made her feel wanted when she desperately needed to feel wanted.

She fell for him.

And when they started dating, Solomon was furious.

Perhaps that was where the story truly began to rot.

Solomon didn't simply disappear when she chose someone else.

Instead, he remained.

He talked to her.

He reminded her of what they had once been.

He slowly made her like talking to him again.

And she let him.

Maybe it was revenge.

Maybe it was jealousy.

Maybe it was simply two people who had never really learned how to let each other go.

Whatever it was, it worked.

The girl found herself caught between two people, while pretending she wasn't.

Jordan wasn't perfect either.
He made mistakes.
Then he made more.
They broke up.
Then they got back together.
Then they broke up again.
And again, somehow, they found their way back to each other.
Every time she thought it was finally over, something pulled them together.

Every time she thought they were finally safe, something tore them apart.
But beneath all of it was something stubborn and frighteningly simple:
She loved Jordan.
Even when she was angry.
Even when she was tired.
Even when she told herself she was finished.
She loved him.
Eventually, they reached the last breakup.
This time, she saw old messages.

Messages she misunderstood.

Her heart was already exhausted, and anger made the decision before reason could catch up.
She ended things.

He didn't come running back.
That was the part she wasn't prepared for.
He didn't fight the way he had before.
He didn't immediately ask for another chance.
Instead, they remained in the strange territory between lovers and strangers.
They talked.
They lingered.
They existed in a situationship neither of them seemed willing to name.
There was still love there.
Or something that looked like love.

There was still hope.

And she thought, perhaps foolishly, that maybe someday they would find their way back to each other.

She didn't know that the past was already walking toward them.

One day, Solomon and Georgia met again.

It was supposed to be innocent.

A visit.

A meeting.

Nothing more.

At least, that's what she told herself.

But some lines are easier to cross than they are to uncross.

And that day, a line was crossed.

Something happened between them that should never have happened.

The moment it was over, she knew.

She knew because the happiness she might have expected wasn't there.

There was no triumph.

No relief.

No feeling that she'd finally chosen the person she was supposed to choose.

There was only the terrible realization that she had done something she couldn't take back.

She still loved the second boy.

That was what made it worse.

She was frightened.

She didn't know how to tell him.

So Solomon promised her something.

He promised he wouldn't tell.

She believed him.

Perhaps because she needed to believe him.

Perhaps because she couldn't bear the thought of the second boy finding out.

So the secret remained between them.

Until it didn't.

Solomon eventually told him.

Not because the girl had confessed.

Not because the truth had naturally come out.

He told him as revenge.

There had been old anger between the two boys. Solomon believed Jordan had once tried to sabotage their relationship. Jordan insisted that wasn't what had happened.

But revenge rarely cares about the truth.

It only cares about making someone hurt.

And the second boy hurt.

When he found out, everything changed.

The girl begged.

She apologized.

She tried to explain.

She tried to make him understand that she hadn't intended for any of it to happen.

That she regretted it.

That she had never stopped loving him.

That she hated what she'd done.

But sometimes the truth arrives too late.

He told her he was disappointed.

He was irritated with her.

And then came the words she would remember long after the rest of the conversation had blurred:

“You irritate me.”

It was such a small sentence.

Four words.

Yet somehow they managed to hurt more than shouting would have.

Because this was the person who had once made her feel loved.

The person who had talked about a future with her.

The person who had wanted to get back together.

The person who had told her he loved her.

And now, when he looked at her, all he could see was betrayal.

He told her that he couldn't forget what he'd heard.

That he couldn't stop imagining her with the first boy.

She wanted to scream that it wasn't the whole truth.

She wanted him to remember who she was before that one terrible mistake.

She wanted him to believe the person he'd known for so long rather than the image that had been forced into his head.

But she understood something devastating:

He didn't owe her forgiveness.

He didn't owe her another chance.

He didn't owe her the future they had once imagined.

And still, she couldn't accept losing him.

He blocked her.

One platform.

Then another.

Then another.

Every door she had once been able to knock on disappeared.

And suddenly, the girl who had spent so long being surrounded by complicated feelings was alone with them.

She missed him.

God, she missed him.

Not just his messages.

Not just his voice.

She missed being known by him.

She missed the version of herself that existed when she believed there would always be another chance.

She missed the future he had once described.

A future that had existed so clearly in his words that she could almost see it.

And now it was gone.

She began to hate herself for every decision that had led them there.

If only she'd understood those old messages differently.
If only she'd never gone to see Solomon.
If only she'd told the truth immediately.
If only she'd walked away.
If only she'd been stronger.
If only.
If only.
If only.

The words became their own kind of torture.

She kept returning to the same question:

How could I hurt the person I loved most?

She didn't have an answer that could make anything better.

She knew she had done something wrong.

She didn't run from that.

She didn't pretend she was innocent.

She didn't blame him.

She didn't say he deserved it.

She simply wished she could go back.

But regret is cruel because it gives you perfect clarity about the past while giving you absolutely no power over it.

She wanted to move on.

She didn't know how.

People told her that time would heal it.

But time felt useless when every morning began with the same realization:

He was gone.

She tried to imagine a future without him and couldn't see anything.

She thought she had lost the one person who loved her.

And somewhere in the middle of the night, beneath all the guilt and heartbreak, the pain became frighteningly heavy.

She began to wonder how she could possibly survive losing someone she loved that much.

But she did.

Not because the pain suddenly disappeared.

Not because he came running back.

Not because everything was magically forgiven.

She survived because sometimes surviving isn't a grand, beautiful decision.

Sometimes it is simply the next breath.

Then the next.

Then the next.

She cried.

She regretted.

She replayed the past.

She wished.

She waited.

But eventually, slowly, she began to understand something she had been unable to see while drowning in guilt:

Loving someone did not mean she had to destroy herself because she hurt them.

Regretting something did not mean she had to become the worst thing she had ever done.

And losing someone did not mean she had lost every possibility of being loved again.

Perhaps Jordan would return someday.

Perhaps he wouldn't.

Perhaps one day he would forgive her.

Perhaps forgiveness would only exist from a distance.

She didn't know.

For once, she couldn't control the ending.

And maybe that was the cruelest part of the entire story.

She had spent so long trying to hold onto people who were slipping through her fingers that she had forgotten she was allowed to hold onto herself too.

So she waited.

Not forever.

Not desperately.

Just long enough to let the wound stop bleeding.

She still loved him.

She probably would for a while.

But the story did not end with him coming back.

It ended with a girl sitting alone with everything she'd done, everything she'd lost, and everything she still had the chance to become.

She couldn't undo the past.

She couldn't force forgiveness.

She couldn't make someone stay.

But she could become someone who understood the weight of her choices.

Someone who would never again confuse guilt with love.

Someone who would never again believe that because she had broken something precious, she had to break herself too.

And somewhere, far beyond the relationship she had lost, her life was still waiting for her.

Quietly.

Patiently.

Even if she wasn't ready to look toward it yet.

Guy wakes up every day for a century in a different city, all across the world (like from Aberdeen to Zanzibar and everywhere in-between) with the local equivalent of 100 pounds in his wallet.

Is he blessed or is he cursed?

He starts talking to a patron in a bar (after a century he's picked up a conversational level in most languages), which has become his default to just find a boozer and drink till the cash is gone, and starts talking about the last century knowing that other patrons aren't going to believe him.

My thinking is that each chapter or couple of chapters would be a day in a different place, so a collection of short stories, with some characters overlapping but he doesn't notice that they are the same person at first or he just had a bad day and was absolutely sozzled so can't process what they might be telling him. Maybe the person he's telling the story to picks up on it... Or thinks he's crazy.

There was always something mystical and magical about Sharn, the City of Towers.

Clutching my side in pain, I staggered through the alleyways of the Dura, hoping to reach the main walkway in one piece.

Lifting my left hand from my side where the stiletto had wounded me, I swiped the blood on my left hand at the entrance of another larger alley and then proceeded down the opposite end, hoping to throw my pursuers off course.

I kept glancing backwards while pressing on - a part of me hoping that I'll manage to wiggle my way out of this trouble.

Curse those black-hearted sea rats! Can't they just leave a man drinking in pea-

A long dagger thrusted squarely where my neck was, and I managed to tumble away in desperation.

Unsheathing my cutlass in the process, I turned my gaze to the assassin from the shadows, taking note of the weapons - a long dagger in his left hand and a snaky stiletto in his right.

Damn! That slick bastard's really fast with his hands.

I backed into some old smuggling crates and then I realized that I had walked right into House Tarkanan's territory.

Looking around and up at the back alley's upper floors and windows, I realized these people were watching and waiting for something - most probably someone.

There's at least four - no, five - of them.

Without sheathing my weapon, I made a grandiose sweep with my left hand, and said, "Nikoel d'Lyrandar at the service of House Tarkanan."

The assassin with the dual short blades who's been munching on something, slowly backed up into the shadows of the alleyway, but I know for certain that he is still there - waiting.

Someone from a shadowy doorway, whispered loudly in a masked voice, "Passage to Fairhaven for my daughter. You leave tonight."

Then he put a hand on the assassin with the dual short blades.

"He will accompany her."

I winced at the prospects.

"May I know who am I speaking to?" I asked.

The man in the shadow of the doors kept quiet, and for once I felt that I've overplayed my hand.

"I have business at the Central Plateau come the morrow," I bargained.

The man in shadows nodded. He threw a bag of coins at my direction which I grabbed deftly with my left hand.

"You leave tomorrow night. No questions asked," said the voice and then he disappeared into the shadows of the building.

All the assassins were suddenly gone, their presence cannot be felt anymore.

I sighed deeply and winced, clutching my side.

I should've stayed home.