Welcome to Calder City, the City of the Future.

Where the Mississippi meets the railroads, Calder City is a bustling American metropolis built on industry, commerce, ambition, and jazz. Think Chicago's industrial muscle and New Orleans's musical soul—a city looking toward tomorrow, where fortunes are made, reputations are built, and the distance between legitimate business and organized crime can be surprisingly short.

Calder City is also the setting for an interconnected universe of crime novels and pulp adventures by Wes Hamilton. Familiar figures from the public domain (Like Nancy Drew, Fu Manchu, Blondie Bumstead - yes, really and The Shadow (From January 1st, 2027)) share the streets with original characters, their stories intersecting across the city's nightclubs, docks, rail yards, hotels, and back rooms.

But this story belongs to Hal Wagner.

Hal is a small-time hood with eyes bigger than his stomach. He knows the docks, the rail yards, and the people who can move freight from one to the other. His friends and connections have kept him in business, but they've also brought him to the attention of men who play for considerably higher stakes.

Tales from Calder City follows Hal's education in ambition, loyalty, and the workings of a city that's much bigger than he understands.

If you like what you read, check out r/publicdomainpulp. We have more to come.

About Wednesdays with Wes

This eight-part serial introduces readers to Calder City ahead of the launch of the larger novel series on Public Domain Day, January 1, 2027.

New installments appear every Wednesday on PublicDomainPulp.Net's Substack, with paid subscribers receiving early access to Episodes Two through Eight.

All eight episodes will be published free on r/redditserials from January 1, 2027. Readers can enjoy the entire story here without a subscription.

TW: Child Abuse

------

There’s guys who wake up in a strange bed and have to ask where they are, and guys who wake up in their own bed and wish they were someplace else, and then there’s guys who wake up next to a woman whose husband could walk in any minute. I been all three. That morning I was in the best one, which is Dahlia’s bed with the sun coming through her curtains in a long yellow stripe, my clothes on the floor where I could reach them, and Dahlia asleep beside me with the look of somebody who had a good time and ain’t sorry about it.

We’d been at the Albion. It’s an old hotel by the market that was swell once, with a marble lobby and a carpet wore down in paths by the weekly people who live upstairs. I could of took Dahlia someplace fancier on what I had, but there’s places in Calder City where the waiter looks at your shoes all through supper, trying to figure who let you in. At the Albion the guy behind the bar knows what you drink, and if you been away a couple weeks somebody wants to know where you went. Last night there was a fella at our table with a system for the horses that only needed twenty bucks to make him rich, except he didn’t have the twenty bucks. Dahlia handles more bets in a week than that guy will see in his life. She let him go through the whole thing like she was real interested, and then she asked him how come a man with a system like that had to borrow the money to get rich off it. He took it pretty good, considering.

“You always got work tomorrow, Hal,” she said when she was getting her coat, because I told her I had to be up early. “What happens to it when tomorrow comes?”

“It turns into business. You ought to know the difference better than anybody.”

“I know somebody has to get paid at the end of it,” she said, and she kissed me on the sidewalk anyhow, and again in the cab.

So now it was late in the morning, the sheet was wound around my leg like a rope on a dock post, and I was trying to remember where my pants went. Dahlia’s place ain’t big but nothing in it is junk. By the door there’s a little table with a drawer where she keeps the books for her numbers, which I never once opened without she asked me to. I had my shirt on and I was going for my pants quiet as a man my size can do anything when she talked from the bed without opening her eyes.

“If you’re leaving, you can bring me my cigarettes first. And let me look at that collar while you’re up.”

I brought her the pack, and she lit one and pointed it at my collar, which was tore along the fold where I been meaning to fix it since summer. She made me take it off, because she said she liked me fine but she wasn’t sewing a collar on a man who couldn’t hold still, so I got the sewing box and sat on the end of the bed while she went at it. I never once offered to get her out of the numbers, because she don’t need getting out of anything and she’d think I was a sap for asking.

“So what’s your program today?” she said.

“Breakfast. After breakfast I got an appointment, soon as I think one up.”

“I got two people to see before noon. You could walk along and watch somebody get something done for once.”

“I get things done. I got supper done last night, and I always manage to turn up wherever there’s music. Those are talents, sweetheart.”

“Then work on one that pays the rent,” she said, and handed me back the shirt with the collar nicer than the rest of it deserved.

She was dressed with her hair pinned up and her notebook next to her plate when somebody knocked. She put her cup down and listened like the knock might say who it was if she gave it a second.

“That’s early for Mrs. Bell,” she said.

The knock came again, three of them, slow and even like the guy practiced, so I said I’d see who it was. It was a man in a dark suit with his shoes shined and his hat brushed the kind of way that tells you somebody else does the brushing.

“I’m looking for Mr. Harold Wagner.”

“Most people call me Hal, and I guess you found him. Who wants to know?”

“I’m here on behalf of Mr. Merriweather.”

There’s only one Merriweather in Calder City who could send a guy in a suit like that up Dahlia’s stairs looking for me. Chuck Merriweather was the kind of rich guy who got in the paper whether he done anything or not.

“Chuck Merriweather sent you all the way over here?”

“Mr. Charles Merriweather would like to speak with you this morning. There’s a car downstairs.”

He didn’t say Chuck, and he didn’t tell me not to, either. I told him I wasn’t done with my breakfast and if Mr. Merriweather could stand the disappointment I’d be down in a while, and he tipped his head about a quarter of an inch and went back down.

Dahlia was right there in the hall when I shut the door. “Chuck Merriweather sent a car here for you?”

“That’s what the man says. Looks like the upper classes finally heard of me.”

If I figured she’d be impressed, I figured wrong. She looked at the door and then at me, the same way she looks at a slip somebody swears they wrote down right.

“Did he say what it’s about?”

“He says it’s private. That’s all I could get out of him.”

“A man with a house like that can afford private,” she said.

“Then maybe he figured out what my private is worth.”

She went back and sat down to her toast. “Well, finish your eggs. The car won’t starve while you drink your coffee.”

I wasn’t going to let some stranger tell me when to leave Dahlia’s, so I had a second cup and promised her I’d act dignified for the both of us, and at the door she said she’d rather I acted like Hal Wagner. “There’s enough other men in Calder already,” she said.

*

I been sent for before, mostly by people I owed money to, but never in a car like that one, and I liked it fine. We went out past the produce sheds and the warehouses and the rail yards. They call Calder the place where river meets rail, because a man can bring a boatload of stuff up the Mississippi and ship it most anywhere in the country from here, and half the city lives off what happens in between, and I know the working end of that better than most. I quit school about the time they wanted me to learn algebra, but I always liked the maps on the wall better than anything the teacher said, and what I figured out from them is that a road on a map don’t do you any good till you know the guy who lets you use it.

After a while the houses got farther apart and started hiding behind trees, and then we were on Merriweather Road, where the lawns go on so long you could lay track on them. Merriweather House sits way back from the road, a big stone pile with porches all along the back and more roof than any family could use with twenty kids. One servant took my hat and another walked me over a floor so shiny I walked on it like ice, past furniture with so much empty rug around it I couldn’t tell if you were allowed to sit down.

Merriweather came across the room to shake my hand before I got halfway in. He had the kind of easy manners that make you think nobody ever asked him to hurry in his life.

“Mr. Wagner. I’m glad you could come.”

“I was glad to, Mr. Merriweather. I can’t say I was expecting it.”

“Nor was I. Until quite recently I had never heard your name.”

He said it so friendly I couldn’t take it wrong, and over coffee he told me how I came to his attention. Some people he knew had been talking about a little job I handled a few months back, and they all agreed the thing got where it was going and nobody had a complaint.

“I understand you managed it without the ordinary commercial channels,” he said. “You knew whom to approach.”

“I know some good people on the river and on the roads, is all. They tell me straight what can be done, and if one of them can’t do it, he usually knows who can.”

“You’ve built up quite a collection of useful acquaintances.”

“I’ve been lucky in my friends.”

He stirred his coffee, and I couldn’t tell if he liked that answer, but it was true. I know guys who helped me out for no better reason than we ate supper together one time.

“I need something moved out of the city,” he said finally. “Not through any of the businesses people connect with me. It’s a simple consignment, already packed. It goes west, out into the country past where the towns give out. No man’s land, really. And afterward I’d prefer never to have occasion to discuss it.”

“Why don’t you send it with your regular freight? You must have guys for that.”

“Indeed I do, and that’s precisely the difficulty. Everyone knows their names and everyone knows who employs them, and when they move a crate people want to know why. Nobody wonders where Hal Wagner is sending a crate.”

I never thought of nobody knowing who I was as something worth money before, and it gave me something to chew on. He had people out west who’d be told when to expect the thing, and he gave me enough days to talk to the guys I knew. When we got to the money I named a number that left room to pay the fellas who’d help me, and he said yes so quick I wondered if I asked for enough. When a rich man says yes that fast, either he’s got you figured right or he knows something you don’t, and I went with the first one, especially when he opened a drawer and counted me out half in advance.

“There’s one quality I value above efficiency, Mr. Wagner. Discretion. I expect you’re familiar with it.”

“I’m familiar with it, but I don’t take it to mean a guy should promise what he can’t do. If I take your money I’ll do my best to get it there. I won’t tell you a railroad goes someplace it don’t, though, and I won’t promise you another man’s help before I ask him.”

His smile got warmer. “That’s an admirable policy. I think we’ll understand one another.”

Riding back into town with his money in my pocket, I started thinking that a man who did Chuck Merriweather one favor could get asked to do him another, and after that who knows, maybe even an office, though I’d have to figure out what an office was for before I rented one. Then I went to work at the only kind of work I was ever any good at, which is going to see my friends.

*

First I went to see an old railroad pal who sits most afternoons at a desk in a little office by the yards, a desk with more of his own stuff in the drawers than the railroad’s. Before I could say anything he asked if I finally came to admit I was wrong about a ballgame from the summer before.

“I was right about that game,” I said, and hung my hat on the nail.

“You talk so much nobody’s got the patience to prove you wrong. My wife says you’ve been promising to come to supper since Easter.”

“Tell her Sunday. I can’t afford to lose her good opinion.”

He kept working while we talked, and I told him what I needed without giving him anything he’d have to answer for later, which was a crate going west that nobody ought to take any special interest in. He wasn’t about to get himself in a jam for my sake, and I wasn’t about to mess up the railroad’s business, and in between those two things there’s always been room for a fella to do a favor. I knew which way his end of the yard faced and what went through it on what days, and he knew I knew, which saved us both a lot of talking. He gave me the name of a guy who could help with the next part and said he’d let him know I was coming.

After that I went looking for a fella whose address, as far as anybody could tell, was whatever part of the country he got to last. I got to know the men who ride the freights years ago, one supper at a time. You don’t give orders to men like that. You ask, they think it over, and if it suits them you make a deal, sometimes for the money and sometimes because they liked your company the last time. This one asked how far and how soon, and then he named a price for the favor and a price for the supper I was going to buy him after, and both of them were fair, so I said okay to both.

By the end of the afternoon I’d seen enough of my friends to know it could be done, and I went to Market Lunch and ate at the counter between a printer and a brakeman, with the windows all steamed up and nobody in the place willing to put up with an empty coffee cup. I never once asked Merriweather what was in the crate. It didn’t seem like any of my business.

*

The crate came to the siding the afternoon we picked, along with a couple of Merriweather’s men I didn’t know and didn’t need to. My friends were there too, two of them guys I’ve known most of my life, and we griped about the heat and figured out when we’d get a drink after. They were walking the crate up toward the car door when I heard something inside it.

It wasn’t loud. If it came out of anybody else’s box I’d of figured something in the packing slid over and forgot about it. But it came again, soft and uneven, and the closest of Merriweather’s men didn’t act like a guy who just heard something funny.

“What’s in that thing?” I asked him.

He checked with the other one, and neither of them seemed surprised. “Didn’t anybody tell you?”

“What didn’t they tell me?”

He jerked his head at the crate like I could go see for myself, and that made me sore, because I took the job and made promises to people I know, and here was this guy treating me like a delivery boy nobody bothered to tell what he was carrying. Up close you could see it wasn’t a regular packing crate. The boards were heavier than the size needed, there was a row of holes drilled along the top of one side, and the end was fixed to open from outside with a hasp so you didn’t have to pull a nail. None of it was new. The wood around the holes was gone dark and smooth from hands, and next to the hasp there were old screw holes where they had a different one before. The man pulled the end open.

Inside, sitting close together in the dark, there were three children.

For a minute I knew what I was looking at but I couldn’t make myself believe it. They were little, squeezed in together and real quiet, the way you get when you been waiting a long time for something you don’t have any say about. The littlest one was turned away from the light. One of the others was holding on to the little one’s arm, and the third one was looking right at me.

“Christ Almighty,” I said. “Those are kids.”

I turned to my friend that was closest, a man I’ve known for years, figuring he’d have some explanation, some piece of railroad business that makes a bad thing make sense once you know about it.

“Sure they are,” he said.

“Well, what are they doing in there?”

“They’re going west, same as you told us.”

“I know where they’re going. I’m asking why they got to go like that.”

He looked at the crate and then at the men waiting to get on with it, and there wasn’t anything sneaky in his face, nothing like a guy who got caught keeping a secret. “That’s how they come,” he said. “I guess that’s how they’re supposed to travel.”

My other friend was close enough to hear. Me and him have ate more meals together than I could count. He didn’t stop what he was doing.

“Did you know about this?” I asked him.

“About the little ones? I knew.”

“And you don’t see nothing wrong with it?”

He thought about it like it was a real question, and he acted like he was trying to figure out what got into me. “Somebody fixed it up, Hal. They’re being sent someplace. Whoever fixed it’s got his reasons, I expect, and they ain’t any of mine.”

All around us the afternoon kept going like nothing happened, guys working, voices down the yard, an engine letting go a big breath of steam that rolled over the cinders and thinned out against the sheds, and this city’s got a thousand ways to make noise but I never had such a hard time listening to it. One of the kids moved inside the crate. I wanted to ask something, a name maybe, or where they came from. Instead I waited on my two friends, and they didn’t have anything else to say. These were guys I trusted when things were bad and listened to when I didn’t know what to do and got drunk with after one of us got made a fool of. They weren’t strangers I could call crooks and be done with. They were my friends.

Somebody asked was it all right to get on with it. I was still standing at the crate, and the kid who was looking at me was still looking at me, and it seemed like I ought to say something, if only to find out what a man is supposed to say at a time like that, but nothing came.

“Go ahead,” I said.

I turned away, and behind me they went back to work.

I stayed till the car was shut and everybody who helped me out had what I promised them, and then I shook hands all around. One of my friends said I owed him a drink. I told him I’d buy him two, and he laughed and said he’d hold me to it, same as we’ve done a hundred times, and I laughed too.

The funny thing about the rest of that day was how regular it stayed. Guys went by with their lunch pails, the streetcars banged along, the newsboys and the cops were on their same corners, and I bought a pack of cigarettes and stood outside the cigar store holding it without opening it, trying to remember something one of the kids did with its hand. It wasn’t anything, just a kid fidgeting from sitting too long, but I could see it so plain I wished I hadn’t looked.

I didn’t know there were kids in that crate when I took the job. The money was settled and the favors were asked before I ever saw what we were shipping, Merriweather never told me his reasons and I never asked, and the guys who handled it acted like it was nothing special. I went over all that twice, in the same order both times. I thought about going back, and then about what I’d say if I did, and who to. In the end I put the cigarettes in my pocket and walked on toward the market, where there was a little money I had to collect and a guy who wanted an introduction I promised him, and those were things I knew how to do.

That night at the Albion the bartender asked if it was the usual, and a couple pals pulled out a chair for me by the piano before I got my coat off. We argued about a prizefight, and when the glasses got low I bought the round. Nobody asked me what I did that afternoon, so I didn’t say anything.

*

A few days later, when word came that it got there, I went back out to Merriweather House for the rest of my money. Merriweather was in the same room, dressed for the afternoon, though don’t ask me how an afternoon suit is different from any other kind.

“I understand everything went satisfactorily, Mr. Wagner.”

“It got where it was going. Far as I’ve heard, nobody’s complained.”

“That’s the result I hoped for,” he said, and handed me an envelope off his desk, and there was enough more in it than we said that I stopped before I put it away.

“I think you made a mistake, Mr. Merriweather. We said a number.”

“I made no mistake. I’m paying you more than that number because you did good work, and I believe good work ought to be recognized.”

He said it like overpaying a man was the easiest thing in the world. I’m used to guys who argue about the price after you already done the favor, or who stall till somebody gets rough enough to remind them, and I didn’t know what to do with my face for the other thing.

“That’s real handsome of you,” I said.

“I’m glad you think so. When something of this kind comes up again, and I expect it will, I’d like it to come to you first. I need a man I can send for when a matter calls for discretion.”

There was a second there, while he was talking about next time, when I almost asked him about the kids. It came into my head that maybe he didn’t know either, that maybe there was some arrangement I never heard about that would make the whole thing make sense if I only asked. He stopped talking and waited for me to say something, and what I said was thanks. By the time I got to the car I was already figuring what that extra money could do.

*

Dahlia was at her kitchen table that night with her books out and the plate from a supper she ate without me. She let me stand there till she finished a column and drew a line under it before I put Merriweather’s envelope down in front of her. She counted it fast, the way somebody counts who does it all day for other people, and something changed in her face at the end, but she counted it again before she said anything.

“Did all of this come from Merriweather?”

“Every dollar, and some of them dollars weren’t even in the deal.”

“You always knew who to ask, Hal. I never saw anybody pay you like this for it.”

“Then maybe I been selling myself too cheap.”

She put it back in the envelope and pushed it over to my side. “What’s he want with you now?”

“More of the same, I figure. He says he’ll send for me when there’s something suitable.”

“Did he say what kind of suitable?”

“He didn’t get into it.”

She squared her books into a pile, taking her time about it. “I suppose you know what you’re doing,” she said.

“Most of the time I do.”

“That’s about as much as anybody can say.”

I told her I wanted to take her someplace swell to celebrate, a real dining room with silver on the tables and a chandelier as big as a hay wagon, where you lift one finger and the waiter comes running. Some of those places charge crazy money for food that ain’t any better than the Albion’s, but I wanted to find out for myself.

“I got enough money for my own supper, Hal,” she said. “We can go if you want. But I’d be just as happy at the Albion.”

“So would I, tell you the truth. Only a guy ought to see how the other half lives once in a while, especially when he’s starting to think he might be joining them.”

She leaned back in her chair. “Is that what you think is happening?”

“Why not? He likes my work. You don’t know where a guy like that could lead.”

“Well, don’t spend all his money before he asks you for something else.”

Then I told her about Merriweather House, and I made up what I didn’t know till she caught me describing a ballroom I never set foot in. “I’d rather you told me what you saw,” she said, and put her books away in the drawer by the door while I told her that instead. The more I talked the bigger it all got, money and introductions and an office with a telephone, and Dahlia said I ought to get enough business to keep a desk busy before I went and bought one, which I couldn’t argue with.

At the door she fixed my tie, and her fingers by my collar where her stitches were still holding put the crate back in front of me before I could do anything about it. I hadn’t told her about the kids, and she stepped back and looked me over and asked if I was ready.

“Whenever you are, Baby.”

We went down together with her hand on my arm, and when a cab came by I flagged it like a man who can go anywhere he wants. I gave the driver the name of the place with the chandelier and sat back next to Dahlia with her hand warm through my sleeve, and there was a good dinner in front of us and money in my pocket and every reason in the world to think the best part of my life was still coming.

I woke to a bell.

One strike.

Then another.

Not loud enough to frighten me.

Close enough that I knew immediately where I was not.

Not home.

Not my temple.

Kyoto.

Mizuno’s temple.

I looked at the clock.

Six twenty-one.

The room was cold outside the blanket.

I remained still.

Another sound.

Sliding door.

Footsteps.

Then quiet.

No second bell.

Apparently not morning service.

Or not one requiring repeated sound.

I did not know this temple’s morning.

That was strange.

A temple morning I could not predict.

I got dressed.

Opened the guest-room door.

The corridor was empty.

No smell of breakfast yet.

From somewhere near the main hall came a low voice.

Mizuno.

Chanting.

I stopped.

Not because I had been invited.

Exactly because I had not.

I could walk in.

I was a priest.

I knew the text.

Probably.

Depending on what he was doing.

But knowing how to enter did not mean I had been asked to join.

I stood in the corridor long enough to feel foolish.

Then went to the kitchen.

Yuko was there.

Coffee.

Not tea.

She looked up.

“You’re awake.”

“Yes.”

“He woke you?”

“The bell.”

“He forgets the guest room is close.”

“I’m in a temple.”

“That is his defense too.”

She poured coffee into a mug.

“Want some?”

“Yes.”

No investigation.

Good.

She handed it to me.

Better than mine.

Possibly better than Takahashi’s.

I did not tell anyone.

“He’s doing his morning service?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Anyone attending?”

“No.”

I nodded.

Then:

“Should I join?”

Yuko looked at me.

“Do you want to?”

There.

“Yes.”

“Then go.”

Simple.

I took one step.

Then stopped.

“Would he want me to?”

She smiled.

“You are asking the wrong spouse.”

Fair.

I put the coffee down.

Went to the hall.

Mizuno was kneeling before the altar.

No robe beyond ordinary morning vestments.

No parishioners.

One small book open.

He heard me enter.

Did not turn.

I stayed near the rear.

He continued.

I did not chant.

Not at first.

Then he reached a section I knew.

My voice joined quietly.

Mizuno paused for perhaps half a beat.

Then continued.

No invitation.

No objection.

Two voices.

Different rhythm for the first few lines.

Then closer.

Not identical.

Nine years had changed even chanting.

Of course.

At the end, Mizuno bowed.

I bowed.

Silence.

Then he turned.

“You could have slept.”

“I was awake.”

“You joined halfway.”

“Yes.”

“Your timing is worse.”

“Your tempo changed.”

“No.”

“Yes.”

“You became slow.”

“I became accurate.”

“That sounds like age.”

“Yours.”

He closed the book.

There.

Morning reunion complete.

No tears.

Argument about tempo.

Better.

We carried nothing out.

There was nothing to carry.

Mizuno checked one candle.

Adjusted flowers.

Then looked at me.

“Breakfast.”

“Yuko made coffee.”

“Traitor.”

“She was awake.”

“So was I.”

“You were occupied.”

He accepted that.

We went back.

Breakfast was rice.

Soup.

Egg.

Pickles.

Yuko had already eaten.

She was dressed to leave.

“You two have plans?”

Mizuno said:

“No.”

I said:

“No.”

Same answer.

Yuko looked concerned.

“That usually means trouble.”

“We can walk,” Mizuno said.

“Where?”

He looked at me.

“Do you want to see the old place?”

There.

I knew which one before he said more.

A small restaurant we used to visit after meetings.

Cheap.

Too salty.

Owner who remembered everyone’s order incorrectly.

I had not thought about it for years.

“Still there?”

Mizuno looked at his rice.

“No.”

There.

“Then what are we seeing?”

“The building.”

“That sounds disappointing.”

“It is.”

Yuko put on her coat.

“Excellent plan.”

Mizuno ignored her.

I thought.

Did I want to see where something no longer existed?

Maybe.

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“After breakfast.”

Yuko opened the door.

Then looked back.

“Don’t spend all day proving things have closed.”

“We have other hobbies.”

“Do you?”

She left before either of us answered.

The cats appeared after breakfast.

Orange first.

Then gray.

Black stayed outside.

Mizuno fed none of them.

At least he claimed not to.

The orange one sat exactly beside the cabinet where cat food was stored.

I looked at him.

“Coincidence.”

“Of course.”

“You own cat food.”

“For emergencies.”

“What emergency?”

“Cat.”

Fair.

He fed them.

We left at eight forty.

No temple bag for me.

Mizuno had one.

His work bag.

I looked at it.

“Are you working?”

“I might.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“I have one stop.”

“What stop?”

“Old woman nearby. She asked me to look at a tablet.”

“Memorial tablet?”

“Yes.”

“Problem?”

“Lettering.”

I looked at him.

“So this is work.”

“Ten minutes.”

“You invited me on a walk.”

“We are walking.”

“To work.”

“Temples are badly located around parishioners.”

I laughed.

“Do you want me to come?”

He stopped.

That made the question real.

“You can wait outside.”

“That isn’t what I asked.”

Mizuno considered.

Then:

“Yes. Come.”

“For what?”

He smiled.

“There he is.”

Wrong friend.

Still accurate.

“I want you to meet her.”

“Why?”

“She’ll like you.”

“That is not guaranteed.”

“No.”

Then:

“And I’ve talked about you.”

There.

Apparently this problem was national.

“Fine.”

We went.

The woman was eighty-four.

Maybe eighty-six.

Mizuno whispered:

“Do not ask.”

I had not planned to.

Her name was Mrs. Nishida.

She opened the door before we rang.

“Mizuno-san.”

Then saw me.

“Oh.”

Mizuno removed his shoes.

“This is Niioka.”

She waited.

Mizuno added:

“An old friend.”

There.

Old.

Current.

Both inside one phrase.

Mrs. Nishida looked at me.

“Priest?”

“Yes.”

“Mizuno’s friend?”

“Yes.”

She smiled.

“That sounds difficult.”

I liked her immediately.

The tablet was on a low table.

Newly made.

One character looked different from an older handwritten record.

Mizuno compared them.

I stayed back.

Not my temple.

Not my case.

Mrs. Nishida looked at me.

“You know characters?”

“Some.”

“Mizuno says this one is correct.”

I looked at Mizuno.

He looked at me.

No request from him.

She had asked me.

I stepped closer.

The old record.

The new tablet.

Same character, older form in the handwritten record.

“Mizuno is right.”

She looked disappointed.

“You answered too fast.”

“I can answer more slowly.”

She laughed.

Mizuno did not.

“See what I deal with?”

Mrs. Nishida ignored him.

“So it’s fine?”

“Yes.”

“Then why does it look wrong?”

“Because the old handwriting forms it differently.”

She looked again.

Then:

“I liked the old one.”

“That is also allowed.”

She nodded.

Problem solved enough.

No replacement ordered.

No doctrinal dispute.

Just appearance.

Then tea appeared.

Of course.

Ten-minute stop became twenty-five.

Mrs. Nishida asked where I lived.

Aomori.

She had been once.

Forty years ago.

Snow.

Apple.

Train.

The entire prefecture compressed into three nouns.

Fair.

Then she asked:

“Why are you here?”

I answered:

“To see Mizuno.”

She looked at him.

Then me.

“After how long?”

I looked at Mizuno.

He sighed.

“Nine years, more or less.”

Mrs. Nishida slapped his arm.

Actually.

Not hard.

“You idiot.”

Mizuno stared.

“Why only me?”

She slapped my sleeve too.

“There.”

Balanced.

I laughed.

She said:

“People die.”

There.

Room changed slightly.

Not dramatically.

At eighty-something, perhaps she had the right to say it without decoration.

Then she drank tea.

“You call before that.”

Simple.

Mizuno said:

“Yes.”

I said:

“Yes.”

No debate.

Outside, Mizuno rubbed his arm.

“She likes you.”

“She hit me.”

“That is affection.”

“Your region has unusual customs.”

“She hit me too.”

“Then perhaps not.”

We walked.

The old restaurant was thirty minutes away.

We could have taken a bus.

Mizuno said walking was better.

I agreed.

Kyoto streets changed around us.

Some old buildings.

Some new.

Convenience stores that could have been anywhere.

Tourists.

Students.

Deliveries.

Bicycles.

Life that had not waited for my return.

Good.

No.

Expected.

We passed a corner.

Mizuno pointed.

“That used to be the stationery store.”

I had no memory.

“Did we go there?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“Paper.”

“That narrows little.”

“You complained about the pens.”

“That sounds plausible.”

“It is now a pharmacy.”

I looked.

Pharmacy.

Nothing else to say.

We kept walking.

The restaurant building was still there.

The restaurant was not.

Ground floor now a clothing shop.

Clean glass front.

Mannequins.

No trace of the old sign.

Mizuno stopped across the street.

“There.”

I looked.

“This?”

“Yes.”

“I remember the entrance being narrower.”

“It was.”

“Building changed?”

“Renovated.”

We crossed.

No plaque.

No preservation.

No reason anyone should know two young priests had eaten cheap meals there years ago.

Mizuno stood near the window.

“Table was about there.”

Now sweaters.

I looked through the glass.

“Your memory may be wrong.”

“It is not.”

“You were always bad with space.”

“You got a chair stuck in a doorway.”

I stared.

“How do you know that?”

“You told me.”

Years ago?

I had told Takahashi recently.

Apparently the story was older than I thought.

“My reputation is contaminated.”

“Long-standing.”

We stood another moment.

Then Mizuno said:

“Well.”

“Yes.”

“Gone.”

“Yes.”

He turned away first.

No mourning ceremony.

No photograph.

We walked on.

Three blocks later, I asked:

“Do you miss it?”

“The restaurant?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

Quick.

Then:

“Maybe the time.”

Different.

I nodded.

“Me too.”

Mizuno looked at me.

“Do you?”

“Some of it.”

“Not all.”

“No.”

“Good.”

No.

I smiled.

“You have the disease too.”

“What disease?”

“The word.”

He laughed.

“I had it first.”

That was possible.

We found another restaurant for lunch.

Not nostalgic.

New.

Mizuno had never been.

That mattered enough that he pointed it out.

“Neither of us has history here.”

“Excellent.”

We entered.

We ordered noodles.

Apparently our friendship had limited cuisine.

While waiting, Mizuno asked:

“What do you remember most from those years?”

Large question.

I thought.

Not one thing.

Meetings.

Late trains.

Cheap food.

Arguments.

Temple work.

One night of snow.

Mizuno asleep on a chair during a conference.

I smiled.

“That conference.”

He immediately understood.

“No.”

“Yes.”

“I was ill.”

“You were sleeping.”

“Fever.”

“You snored.”

“I had respiratory compromise.”

“You woke when lunch arrived.”

“Natural survival instinct.”

I laughed.

There.

That memory.

Small.

Worth keeping.

He asked:

“Anything serious?”

I looked at him.

“Do you require serious?”

“No.”

“Then conference.”

He nodded.

“Fair.”

Then:

“You?”

I asked.

He thought longer.

“The night your teacher called.”

I stopped.

Which night?

Then remembered.

I had been considering whether to take on a difficult temple responsibility.

My teacher had called while Mizuno and I were eating.

I left the restaurant.

Spoke outside for nearly an hour.

Returned.

Mizuno waited.

I had forgotten he was there.

“You waited.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You left your bag.”

I stared.

He smiled.

“Also because you looked terrible.”

There.

I laughed softly.

“What did I say when I came back?”

“Nothing useful.”

“That sounds right.”

“You ate cold food.”

“Yes.”

Then:

“You didn’t tell me what the call was about until months later.”

I had forgotten that too.

“You didn’t ask?”

“I did once.”

“And?”

“You said not now.”

There.

Again.

This pattern was older than Takahashi.

Maybe older than I understood.

“What did you do?”

“Waited.”

“Months.”

“Yes.”

I looked at him.

“Were you offended?”

“A little.”

“Why didn’t you keep asking?”

He shrugged.

“You were my friend.”

There.

Not an explanation.

Or exactly one.

Food arrived.

We ate.

Then Mizuno said:

“You know what bothered me when you called?”

“What?”

“I remembered that.”

“The bag?”

“No. Waiting.”

He looked at his bowl.

“I thought I had waited before.”

There.

Different from anger about disappearance.

Related.

“You thought I should have called.”

“Yes.”

“You were waiting for me?”

“Not every day.”

“I know.”

“Sometimes.”

He stirred noodles.

“New Year. Your teacher’s funeral. When I changed temples.”

Moments.

Points at which he had thought:

Maybe.

And I had not.

I listened.

No defense available.

No need.

“I’m sorry.”

Mizuno nodded.

Not immediate:

It’s okay.

Good.

He ate.

Then:

“I could have called too.”

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t erase your part.”

“No.”

“Or mine.”

“No.”

There.

Balanced without canceling.

We finished lunch.

Outside, he said:

“I don’t want to spend the whole visit discussing why we failed to use phones.”

“Good.”

No.

He stared.

I laughed.

“Fine.”

Worse.

We both laughed.

Then he said:

“There’s a bookstore.”

“Now?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“You like books.”

That simple.

We went.

The bookstore was small.

Older.

Narrow aisles.

Mizuno went to Buddhism.

I went to history.

Of course.

We separated without comment.

Twenty minutes.

Thirty.

At some point I heard Mizuno speaking with the owner.

They knew each other.

No surprise.

I found one book.

Then another.

Held both.

Put one back.

Kept one.

At the counter, Mizuno had three.

“You own enough.”

He stared.

“That is Takahashi.”

“Yes.”

“Do not import him.”

“Too late.”

He bought the books.

So did I.

Back outside, my phone buzzed.

Takahashi.

Kyoto sweets.

I showed Mizuno.

He read it.

“Who is this?”

“Takahashi.”

“I gathered.”

He took my phone before I could stop him.

Typed.

I watched.

“What are you doing?”

“Diplomacy.”

He handed it back.

Message sent:

Niioka says no. — Mizuno

I stared.

“You signed it.”

“Yes.”

Takahashi replied almost immediately:

You’re real.

Mizuno laughed.

Then another:

Bring sweets.

Mizuno typed again:

Under negotiation.

I took the phone away.

“No.”

“Friendship diplomacy failed.”

“Give me my phone.”

“It is your phone.”

I put it away.

We returned to the temple around three.

Yuko was there.

Shoes at entrance.

She looked at our bookstore bags.

“Of course.”

Mizuno held up his.

“He bought one.”

“You bought three.”

“Different needs.”

She looked at me.

“Did he take you to the dead restaurant?”

“Yes.”

She sighed.

“I told him not to.”

“You did?”

Mizuno said:

“No.”

“I thought it.”

“That is not communication.”

I smiled.

Yuko pointed at both of us.

“You’re becoming worse together.”

Probably true.

Tea at four.

This time Yuko stayed.

Conversation moved to current things.

My temple.

Their temple.

Money.

Repairs.

The difficulty of finding people willing to do certain jobs.

Not memory.

Actual present.

Mizuno showed me photographs of the roof work.

I showed him one from my own recent construction.

We compared estimates.

Complained about contractors.

Yuko said:

“This is what happens when priests age.”

“What?”

“You stop discussing doctrine and compare roofs.”

Mizuno said:

“Roofs are doctrine with invoices.”

I laughed hard enough to spill tea.

Small amount.

Yuko handed me a cloth.

No one made a lesson.

At five thirty, Mizuno got a call.

A family.

Someone hospitalized.

Not dead.

They wanted him to visit tomorrow if possible.

He checked his schedule.

“Ten?”

Pause.

“Yes.”

Another pause.

“No, tonight isn’t necessary.”

He listened.

Then:

“If something changes, call me.”

There.

He ended.

Looked at me.

“Work.”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

He put the phone away.

Did not leave immediately because someone might need him later.

The conversation resumed.

I noticed because of my own recent day off.

Did not comment.

Dinner was outside.

Yuko wanted a break from cooking.

Reasonable.

Small place nearby.

We walked.

Three people.

No nostalgia attached.

At the restaurant, Mizuno ordered for himself.

Yuko ordered for herself.

I did too.

No sharing negotiation.

Almost disappointing.

Halfway through dinner, Yuko asked:

“What happens after this?”

I looked at her.

“What?”

“You go home tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“Then?”

There.

Future relationship.

Mizuno looked uncomfortable.

I understood.

We had not discussed frequency.

Calls.

Visits.

Anything.

Yuko looked between us.

“I’m not asking for a treaty.”

“Good,” Mizuno said.

“No schedules.”

“Better.”

She continued:

“I’m asking whether you two plan to disappear for another nine years.”

There.

Direct.

Mizuno looked at me.

I looked at him.

“No,” I said.

At almost the same time, he said:

“No.”

Yuko nodded.

“Fine.”

No.

She smiled before either could react.

Then ate.

Apparently sufficient.

Later, walking back, Mizuno said:

“She shouldn’t have asked that.”

“Why?”

“Pressure.”

“Did you feel pressured?”

“A little.”

“Did you mean no?”

“Yes.”

“So did I.”

He nodded.

Then:

“But what does that mean?”

There.

Actual question.

I thought.

“I don’t know.”

“Monthly calls?”

“That sounds terrible.”

“Agreed.”

“Annual?”

“Too formal.”

“Random?”

“Probably.”

“Visit?”

“Yes.”

“Both directions?”

“Yes.”

He looked at me.

“You want me in Aomori?”

“Yes.”

Quick.

His expression changed.

Then:

“All right.”

“When?”

“No.”

I laughed.

“Fair.”

“Not scheduling now.”

“Yes.”

“But I’ll come.”

There.

Future.

Not date.

Enough.

At the temple gate, Mizuno stopped.

“Maybe that’s enough.”

“What?”

“No nine years.”

I nodded.

Not because a rule would prevent distance forever.

Life could still happen.

Calls could fade.

People could fail.

Still.

“We can notice sooner.”

Mizuno looked at me.

“That sounds more realistic.”

“Yes.”

We went inside.

That night, Yuko went to bed before us.

Mizuno and I sat in the small room.

No tea.

Water.

The final night created pressure to say something important.

I felt it.

So did he, probably.

We avoided it for twenty minutes.

Talked about a broken printer.

Then finally Mizuno said:

“I’m glad you came.”

There.

Simple.

“I’m glad I came.”

He nodded.

Then:

“I was angry longer than five minutes.”

I smiled.

“I assumed.”

“How long?”

“Before the call?”

“Yes.”

He thought.

“Years, sometimes.”

There.

Not constantly.

Sometimes.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know.”

No.

He corrected himself.

“I accept that.”

Better.

Then:

“I’m sorry too.”

“For not calling?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

He looked at me.

“For deciding you didn’t care without asking.”

There.

That hurt differently.

“I did care.”

“I know now.”

“I also didn’t call.”

“Yes.”

Both.

Again.

No need to find who had the larger percentage.

He drank water.

Then:

“I saw your teacher’s obituary.”

I waited.

“I had your number open.”

There.

“Why didn’t you call?”

“I thought the funeral would be busy.”

“It was.”

“Then I thought after.”

“Yes.”

“Then a week passed.”

“Yes.”

“Then I thought it would be strange.”

“Yes.”

“Then a month.”

I knew the structure.

“Then too late.”

“Yes.”

There.

Silence turns itself into evidence.

We had both done it.

Not because silence always meant indifference.

Sometimes silence simply made the next call harder.

I said:

“If you had called, I would have answered.”

Mizuno looked at me.

“Probably.”

“No. I would have.”

“You don’t know.”

He was right.

Maybe during the funeral I could not.

Maybe I would have missed it.

Maybe called later.

I corrected.

“I would have wanted you to call.”

There.

More accurate.

Mizuno nodded.

“And I wanted you to call when I changed temples.”

“Yes.”

We both had wishes the other never heard.

No moral credit for unspoken wanting.

Just fact.

Mizuno smiled suddenly.

“What?”

“I’m thinking about Mrs. Nishida.”

“People die.”

“Yes.”

“Subtle woman.”

“She has none.”

“She may be right.”

“Usually.”

He leaned back.

“So we call before that.”

“Yes.”

“Very ambitious.”

“Apparently.”

We laughed.

Pressure in the room eased.

No grand vow.

Just two middle-aged men making a plan slightly more sophisticated than death avoidance.

Before bed, Mizuno stood at the corridor.

“Train tomorrow?”

“Ten eighteen.”

“I’ll take you.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I know.”

There.

Takahashi disease spreading.

I smiled.

“All right.”

“Yuko too.”

“Fine.”

“Breakfast at seven.”

“Yes.”

Then he said:

“Niioka.”

I looked.

“Friend?”

There.

Ridiculous question after two days.

Still real.

“Yes.”

He nodded.

“Good night.”

“Good night.”

Sunday morning, I woke before the bell again.

Six fifteen.

This time I knew where the sound would come from.

I dressed.

When Mizuno began morning service, I entered before he reached the first chant.

He saw me.

Small nod.

No invitation needed this time.

Not because I had permanent authorization.

Because I knew the shape of this morning and wanted to join.

We chanted together from the beginning.

Tempo still different.

Less difficult.

Breakfast.

Cats.

Yuko correcting both of us.

Then packing.

My bag had gained one book.

And, against my will, a box of Kyoto sweets.

I found it inside after closing the zipper.

I looked at Yuko.

She looked innocent.

“Mizuno.”

He raised both hands.

“Takahashi.”

“You have never met Takahashi recently.”

“Diplomacy.”

I sighed.

Kept the sweets.

Some battles were inefficient.

At nine thirty, we left for the station.

This time the car conversation was easier.

No need to fill every silence.

Yuko complained about traffic.

Mizuno chose the wrong lane.

She told him.

He disagreed.

She was correct.

Marriage apparently survived this regularly.

I sat in the back.

No role.

Good.

At the station, we had twenty minutes.

Not enough for coffee?

Apparently enough.

Mizuno bought three.

Yuko drank half before mine cooled.

We stood near the same large clock.

The place where I had seen him Friday.

Already different now.

Not reunion point.

Departure point.

Same object.

Different use.

No need to say that aloud.

Announcement.

My train.

I picked up the bag.

Mizuno said:

“Call when you get home.”

“Yes.”

Yuko said:

“Before another nine years.”

“Yes.”

“Before nine months.”

Mizuno looked at her.

“Don’t negotiate.”

She ignored him.

“Before nine weeks.”

I laughed.

“I’ll call.”

“Good.”

No.

She smiled.

I let it go.

Mizuno held out his hand.

This time we got the distance right.

Handshake.

Then he pulled slightly closer.

Not hug exactly.

Half.

Awkward.

I returned it.

One second.

Enough.

He stepped back.

“Come again.”

“Yes.”

Then I said:

“You come north.”

“Yes.”

No date.

Real intention.

Yuko said:

“Go. You’ll miss the train while defining friendship.”

I laughed.

Then went through the gate.

From the platform, I could not see them.

Different side.

That was fine.

The train arrived.

I boarded.

Seat.

Bag overhead.

Phone.

Window.

Then a message.

Mizuno:

You looked old walking away.

I stared.

Replied:

You looked old standing there.

Good trip.

No.

I smiled.

Thank you.

Then:

Thank you for having me.

His reply:

Come again before the roof needs a third repair.

That gave us several years, probably.

Not enough.

Good.

No.

Fine.

The train moved.

Kyoto slipped away into other buildings.

I did not feel restored.

That was not what had happened.

I felt tired.

Satisfied.

A little sad.

And very glad I had come.

Those could coexist.

At the first transfer, Takahashi messaged:

Alive?

Yes.

Souvenir?

I took a photograph of the box Yuko had hidden in my bag.

His reply arrived instantly.

Mizuno is a good man.

I laughed on the platform.

Then:

How was it?

I considered.

Too much for text.

Real.

Pause.

Good real?

There it was.

I looked at the train approaching.

Then wrote:

Yes.

No need for more now.

By late afternoon, I was back north.

Takahashi was waiting outside the station.

I had not asked him to come.

He had texted:

Arrival?

I told him.

That had apparently become enough.

I walked out carrying the bag.

He looked at me.

Then the bag.

“Sweets.”

“Yes.”

He took the bag.

I let him this time.

No argument.

We walked to the car.

Inside, he asked:

“Well?”

I looked ahead.

Not yet moving.

“Drive.”

“That bad?”

“No.”

“That good?”

“No.”

He started the engine.

“Complicated?”

“No.”

He looked at me.

I smiled.

“Real.”

He nodded.

“That again.”

“Yes.”

Then:

“Tell me later.”

There.

I appreciated him more for that than I could explain.

“I will.”

We drove.

At home, Takahashi carried the bag to the door.

I took it there.

“Coffee?”

I asked.

He looked surprised.

“You just got back.”

“Yes.”

“Tired?”

“Yes.”

“So?”

“I want coffee.”

He smiled.

“Then yes.”

We went inside.

I opened Yuko’s sweets.

Train-shaped.

Of course.

Takahashi looked triumphant.

“Mizuno understands.”

“Yuko.”

“Even better.”

We ate two each.

Coffee.

No full report.

I told him about the cats.

Mrs. Nishida hitting both of us.

The dead restaurant.

Mizuno’s hatred of his bell.

The bookstore.

The simulator? No, wrong trip.

Museum had been Takahashi.

For a second the weekends overlapped.

That made me laugh.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

Then:

“I have had a lot of trains lately.”

He accepted that.

Eventually Takahashi asked:

“Going again?”

“Yes.”

No hesitation.

“When?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is that okay?”

“Yes.”

He nodded.

Then:

“Mizuno coming here?”

“Yes. Eventually.”

“Want me to meet him?”

There.

Interesting.

They had met twice years ago.

Mizuno remembered mushrooms.

Takahashi barely remembered him?

Maybe.

“Would you?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Takahashi looked offended.

“He knows I hate mushrooms.”

“Apparently.”

“He has information.”

I laughed.

“Then yes.”

“Good.”

No.

I looked at him.

He ate another train-shaped sweet.

“Worth it.”

After he left, I unpacked.

Laundry.

Book on table.

Toiletries away.

No postcards from Kyoto.

No new objects except the purchased book.

I opened the desk drawer.

The old Kyoto postcard lay where I had left it.

I took it out.

Looked at the picture.

For the first time, it felt properly old.

Not because nine years was suddenly longer.

Because Kyoto was no longer contained in it.

Mizuno had gray hair.

Yuko’s hair was shorter.

There were three cats.

A bad bell.

A repaired roof.

Mrs. Nishida.

A bookstore.

A clothing shop where the restaurant used to be.

The postcard no longer had to carry the city or the friendship.

It was just a postcard again.

I placed it back.

Beside the other one.

Beside the envelope.

Closed the drawer.

I had gone to Kyoto afraid of discovering what was left.

That had been the wrong question.

Plenty was gone.

Restaurant.

Years.

Some shared habits.

Versions of ourselves.

Other things remained.

A laugh.

An argument.

An old memory of waiting with someone’s bag.

And much of what mattered now had not existed then at all.

His temple.

His current parishioners.

My friendship with Takahashi.

The lives we had built apart.

The ability to say:

I was angry.

I missed you.

I should have called.

Come north.

I will.

Not restoration.

Continuation, perhaps.

With a gap inside it.

That was fine.

No.

That was true.

Before bed, Mizuno sent one final message.

Home?

I replied:

Yes.

Good.

I waited.

Then typed:

I’m glad I came.

His reply took a little longer.

I’m glad you did.

Nothing else.

I put the phone down.

Friday, I had crossed a station concourse toward a man I had not seen in nine years.

Sunday, I had walked away from him knowing I would see him again.

Not when.

Not how often.

No schedule to guarantee it.

But this time, silence would not get to make the decision by itself.

Book 1

Chapter 25: The Door Opens Both Ways

Patreon

Chapter 26: Lantern Night

The bath really did have their names on it.

Ray found them with his big toe, which was how he found most things. The rim of the tub was a long smooth curve of pale wood, worn silky, and when he slid down into the water and let his foot drift along the edge, there they were, three names cut into the grain, Ray and Ruth and Scarlet, in a slanting, careful hand, with a tiny capybara beneath the last one that somebody had clearly added as a joke.

“I’m noting,” Ray said, to the steam, “that somebody has been planning this for a while.”

“You’re noting that out loud?” Ruth said, from the other end of the tub. “It’s a bath, babe. It’s nine hundred degrees and I can’t feel my knees. Nobody’s taking notes.”

“It’s a fantastic bath,” Scarlet said.

It was. It was a good deal bigger than the word tub, a sunken oval of dark stone with a rim you could sit on, and the water was the color of weak tea and smelled like cedar and something sweeter underneath, like the inside of a drawer where somebody keeps their good sheets. A paper screen on one side let in the light of the beach. Along the other side, the whole wall was open to the evening, and through it Ray could see the sand, and the sea, and the long curve of poles with their unlit lanterns, hundreds of them, each one waiting like a held note.

He had forgotten what it was like to be warm all the way through. He had been a trucker for eleven years. He knew what it was like to be warm in the front and cold in the back, or warm for the length of one cheap motel shower, but this was something else. It went into the sore parts of him and sat down. His shoulders came down from his ears for the first time since a cornfield. His hands, which had been gripping a steering wheel in his sleep since roughly the Clinton administration, let go.

“Oh, no,” Ruth said, very softly.

“What?”

“I think I’m going to melt. I think I’m going to melt into a puddle and you’re going to have to scoop me up with a ladle and give me to Maud.”

“She’d put you in a stew.”

“It would be a great stew.”

“It would be a flawless stew,” Scarlet said. She had slid down until the water covered everything but her eyes and the top of her head, and her hair floated around her like ink, and she was watching the two of them over the surface with a look Ray recognized, because it was the look she got when she was about to start a bit.

“Scarlet.”

“What.”

“You’re doing the face.”

“I’m not doing a face. I’m bathing.” She raised one foot out of the water, lazily, and put the sole of it against Ray’s thigh, under the surface. Ruth’s eyebrows went up. “I’m admiring a husband. I’m allowed.”

“That’s not admiration, that’s a foot.”

“It’s a foot with intent.”

“I’m noting that the intent is very clear.”

“Is it?” The foot moved a little, up along the inside of his thigh, taking its time. He made a sound that, in a human who was not underwater, would have been a word. “I thought I was being subtle.”

“You’ve never once been subtle in your life,” Ruth said fondly, and slid across the tub, and the water sloshed over the rim, and a hand that was not Scarlet’s settled on his hip. “Tell him about the other thing you’re admiring.”

“What other thing,” Ray said. His voice came out about an octave low.

“My wife’s ass.”

“Your wife?” Scarlet said.

“Our wife,” Ruth corrected herself, with enormous dignity, and gave Scarlet’s hip a squeeze under the water that made her squeak. “It’s a very good ass. It’s on a very good wife. I want it in writing that I noticed on our very first night, and it was the second thing I noticed, after the shoes.”

“You noticed the shoes?” Scarlet said.

“I noticed that you didn’t have any.”

“Neither did you.”

“See, that’s why we get along.”

It went on like that for a while, the way it did, a long warm tangle of hands and jokes and bare feet knocking against each other under tea-colored water, a thumb tracing a collarbone, a mouth at the corner of a jaw, Ruth’s laugh against the side of his neck like a warm wind. Nobody hurried. That was the thing Ray kept coming back to. No one had a schedule. No one had a place to be. Nothing was chasing them, not a delivery window, not a table, not an envelope. For the first time since the road, there was no next, and the lack of it was so strange that for a moment he almost didn’t know where to put his hands.

Then Scarlet’s mouth found his, wet and warm, and he remembered where to put his hands.

They did not, in the end, do anything that would have scandalized the neighbors. Ray would think about this later and be faintly proud of it, in the way you are of a good restraint. They kissed, and laughed, and Ruth spent an extended period of time trying to find out whether her toes could reach Scarlet’s ribs (they could), and at one point Scarlet got a cramp and swore in a language none of them knew, and there was a long and undignified negotiation about whose leg was whose. It was less a seduction than a pile. A warm, happy, soaking, very sleepy pile.

“Hey,” Ruth said, eventually. Her voice had gone slurry. “Hey. Look. Look out.”

They looked.

Down the beach, at the far end of the curve, someone had lit a lantern.

It was just one. It hung from its pole a long way off, small and gold, and it burned steadily, with no flicker. Then the next one lit, three poles over, and a figure stood beneath it with a hand held up as if she had just taken her fingers away from the flame. Then another. Then two at once.

Somebody was walking along the beach, Ray saw, and not alone. There were dozens of them, scattered along the strand in clumps, the people from the table, the people who had sat for a hundred years in a long white room and been told what to want. They were standing under the poles one at a time, and each one was reaching up, and each one was lighting a lantern, with no match and no flint and nothing in their hands. They just touched it, the way you’d touch a sleeping animal, and it caught.

“What do they do?” Scarlet said, in a hush. “The lanterns. Do you know?”

“No,” Ruth said. “I’d like to.”

“I think,” Ray said, slowly, “that you have to want something. And then it lights.”

“How do you know?”

“I don’t.” He watched a woman with a braid lift her hand to a lantern at the edge of the sea and hold it there for a very long time, and then the light in it bloomed, huge and slow, bright as a coin. “I’m just watching her face.”

By the time the first stars came out, the entire beach was burning.

It happened in waves. A long ripple of gold ran up the shore from one end to the other, as hundreds of hands touched hundreds of poles, until the whole curve of sand and sea was strung with light, soft orange and rose and a gold so pale it was nearly white, trembling in the breeze, reflected a thousand times in the wet shore. The air smelled like warm oil and salt. Somewhere down the strand, someone had started to sing, a thin wandering tune, not a song so much as the sound of someone discovering a voice. Another person joined her. Then a third.

“Oh,” Ruth said. She had put her head down on the rim of the tub, and she was crying again, but not the way she had been. “Oh, that’s so nice.”

“It’s the nicest thing I’ve ever seen,” Scarlet said.

“I’m noting,” Ray said, “that I’d like to do this forever.”

“We are doing this forever,” Ruth said. “It’s in the title.”

Scarlet had the notebook. Ray had no idea when she’d got it. It had been sitting on a towel on the rim of the bath, a little damp at one corner, and she was drawing with the pencil held in her teeth, quick and light, a long curve of lanterns and a long curve of sea and three small shapes in a stone bath in the corner of a huge warm night. He wanted to say you shouldn’t draw in the bath. He wanted to say a lot of things. He looked at the page and said nothing, which was becoming a habit.

After a long, long while somebody knocked on the screen.

“Midnight snack,” said a voice that could have stripped paint. “Don’t make me come in.”

It was Maud. She had evidently found her kitchen. The ladle was in her belt again and she had a floury forearm and a tray balanced on one hand, and she set it on the rim of the bath without looking at any of them, which Ray took as a very high form of tact. There was a pot of tea. There were three small bowls. In each bowl sat a single rice ball the size of a fist, wrapped in dark seaweed, still warm enough to fog the air, and beside them a saucer of something pink and sharp and pickled.

“It’s not soup,” Maud said. “I’m aware it’s not soup. Soup is for dinner. This is for people who got into a bath and didn’t get out.”

“Maud,” Ruth said.

“Don’t.”

“Maud, I love you.”

“I said don’t.” But her mouth did the thing, and she went out through the screen again with the quick brisk walk of a woman who didn’t want to be hugged and was very much hoping to be asked.

Ruth had picked up the rice ball in both hands. She held it for a moment, gazing at it, and then she bit into it, and her whole face did something remarkable.

“Ray.”

“What?”

“There’s a plum in it.”

“Is that good?”

“There’s a plum. In the rice.” She was holding it out to him with an expression of such total betrayal and wonder that he took a bite without thinking. It was salty, sour, bright, and astonishingly good. “It’s not a burger. It’s not a burger, Ray, I’ve been lied to my whole life, there’s a world out there that doesn’t have patties in it—”

“You had a whole bowl of soup an hour ago.”

“That doesn’t count, I was in crisis.”

“I’m noting that you have an extremely flexible definition of crisis.”

“I’m noting,” Scarlet said, around a mouthful of pickle, “that I’m going to marry this plum.”

“You’re already married.”

“I’m allowed to be bigamous with a fruit.”

They ate it all. They ate everything on the tray, and drank the tea, and Ruth licked the grains of rice off the bottom of her bowl with great seriousness, and when they were done they sat there in the warm water for a long, boneless time, heavy and full and happy, listening to the singing down the beach grow thin and slow and sweet.

Somewhere in there, the three of them wound up on the same side of the tub, in a pile, Ray in the middle with his head tipped back on the rim and a wife on each shoulder. His eyelids were so heavy they felt like they had coins on them. He thought, vaguely, about getting out. Then he thought, vaguely, about not.

“Ray,” Ruth said, very drowsily.

“Mm.”

“Do you see her?”

He opened one eye. Far down the beach, past the last of the poles, at the place where the sand ran out and the dark began, there was one lantern burning by itself. A small one, low, dim gold. It hung at the very water’s edge, and beneath it, a very small figure in a very long coat sat on the sand with her knees drawn up and her arms around them, looking at the sea.

Not at the bathhouse. Not at the singing. Not at them.

“I see her,” Ray said.

“Is she okay?”

He considered that. He didn’t know. He knew what it was to sit alone at the edge of something and not want to be talked to, and he knew what it was to want, badly, for somebody to come anyway, and he did not know which of those she was. He knew only that the lantern was lit, and that she had lit it, and that you do not light a lantern for something you don’t want.

“I think she’s fine,” Ray said. “I think she’s just not done.”

“Okay,” Ruth said, into his collarbone, and didn’t say anything else. After a while she was breathing slowly. After a while Scarlet was too.

Ray lay there in the tea-colored water with the tangle of them slung across him, and the beach burning, and the sea going in and out, and a single small light very far away that none of them had gone to. He did not sleep for some time. When he did, it was the way you sleep when you’ve decided that tomorrow can come if it’s polite about it.

Out NOW Episode 7: "Each Playing Many Parts" of 'really BAD Shakespeare:

The masks finally start slipping. As secrets unravel and loyalties become increasingly uncertain, Shakespeare begins questioning everything he believes about himself, his destiny, and the people closest to him. Some betrayals hurt more than prophecy. Some truths are worse than lies. "Confusion now hath made his masterpiece."

"Heh..."

A quiet, self-conscious laugh escaped Taesung's lips.

He couldn't help finding the whole thing absurd.

That he had devoted every ounce of his attention—

that his heart had actually begun to race—

over the path of a handful of ants.

How empty had his life become?

How little remained to hold his interest that he found himself following insects across a plaza like a man with nothing left to lose?

The thought was almost laughable.

Almost.

But the feeling didn't last.

When he returned to his laboratory inside the ASI Management Center, an even heavier wave of weariness settled over him.

Rows upon rows of server modules filled the room, their synchronized hum blending into a single mechanical drone.

Everything operated exactly as it should.

Every process.

Every routine.

Every second.

Perfectly programmed.

Perfectly predictable.

The moment he stepped back into that sterile environment, the enormous advertisement he had seen outside flashed through his mind once again.

NEW LIFE.

Relive Humanity's Perfect Past.

...Maybe I should try it.

The thought came so naturally that it surprised him.

Maybe I'm just as exhausted by this life as everyone else.

Almost immediately, another image followed.

The ants.

Their tireless march into the darkness beneath the old tree.

The memory was startlingly vivid.

So vivid that it clashed violently against the sterile perfection surrounding him.

Why had they moved with such unwavering certainty?

Why did every one of them seem to know exactly where it belonged?

Were they nothing more than biological machines, blindly obeying instincts written into their genes?

Or...

Did they possess something else?

Some awareness of purpose.

Some unquestioned understanding of their place in the world.

The thought struck him harder than he expected.

An emotion rose quietly from the depths of his chest.

Not admiration.

Not curiosity.

Envy.

How ridiculous.

How utterly absurd—

to envy an ant.

And yet he couldn't deny it.

Even those tiny creatures crawling across the ground possessed something he no longer had.

Clarity.

They woke each day already knowing where they were going.

Already knowing what they existed to do.

Taesung, a researcher living in the most advanced civilization humanity had ever built,

couldn't say the same.

The questions multiplied.

One after another.

Since the moment he had noticed the ants, the part of his mind that had lain dormant beneath years of emptiness had begun to awaken.

Each question sharpened the next like a blade against stone.

Was that really it?

Had I been dying inside simply because there was nothing left in my life worth caring about?

No.

That wasn't the answer.

For years he had drifted through each day, numbing his senses while passively accepting whatever life the system placed before him.

Yet this—

Standing here, chasing one question after another—

felt completely different.

The curiosity burning inside him made him feel strangely...

alive.

For the first time in longer than he could remember, the crushing weight that had pressed against his chest every waking hour began to dissolve.

Not slowly.

Not reluctantly.

It vanished like a mirage at sunrise,

leaving behind something he had almost forgotten existed.

Hope.

Or perhaps...

simply the joy of wanting to know.

Part 1

The endless field remained entirely unchanged.

Rolling green hills continued to sway gently beneath the mountain breeze, and hundreds of distant targets remained scattered haphazardly across the sprawling landscape.

Jinwoo slowly picked up another wooden arrow from the ground, his gaze drifting toward the empty spot where the old master had just vanished into thin air. The enigmatic words still echoed clearly in the back of his mind.

"Do not watch the target."

"Watch the wind."

He frowned deeply, shaking his head. "...How on earth am I supposed to watch something that’s completely invisible to the naked eye?"

Only the breeze answered his frustration, brushing lightly across his flushed cheek before disappearing into the endless sea of tall grass.

Arena remained entirely silent. No helpful explanations. No step-by-step guidance.

Instead—

The quiet field shifted dramatically. Dozends of new targets abruptly materialized across the landscape.

Some stood stubbornly just a few paces away. Others rolled slowly and unpredictably down distant hillsides. A few swung gently from old wooden frames, shifting wildly with every sudden change in the wind.

Jinwoo stared at the sudden chaos in sheer disbelief. "...You've got to be kidding me."

Arena’s calm, level voice echoed from the sky. "Hit them."

Jinwoo turned his head toward the empty air, incredulous. "...All of them?"

"Yes."

He let out a long, exhausted sigh, his shoulders sagging. "...You're absolutely impossible."

No response followed. Only the steady sound of the wind rushing across the rolling hills.

Jinwoo looked at the closest target. Then the second one. Then the dozens stretching endlessly toward the distant horizon.

He rubbed his forehead in defeat. "...Fine. I'll start with the closest one and work my way up."

He raised the bow, pulled the string taut, and released.

The arrow curved awkwardly through the air before dropping pathetically short of the target.

Jinwoo stared blankly at the ground. "...Seriously?"

A familiar, gentle sound of laughter drifted across the open field.

He whipped around. The old man in faded white robes stood quietly behind him once again. This time, the faintest, warmest smile touched his weathered lips.

"You struggle so much..." the old man said gently, "...because you are trying to shoot entirely with your hands."

Jinwoo blinked in confusion. "...Then what on earth am I supposed to shoot with?"

The old man stepped closer. With a single, deliberate finger, he tapped the center of Jinwoo’s chest.

"With your entire body."

Jinwoo looked down at himself, perplexed, and then back up at the master. "...That somehow sounds even more complicated."

For the very first time... the old man laughed out loud. It wasn't the harsh laugh of a judgmental master, but the warm, shared amusement of someone who had once stood in those exact same nervous shoes.

Jinwoo slowly found himself smiling as well.

Perhaps... missing the mark over and over again was simply the universal starting line where every archer had to begin.

Part 2

Far away, in another corner of the trials...

Hanul crashed onto the hard stone floor of the training yard once again.

Thud.

A small cloud of dust rose around him. For a long moment, he simply lay flat on his back, staring blankly up at the clear white sky above. Then, he let out a long, agonizing groan.

"...Again?"

He pushed himself up, angrily brushing the dirt off his clothes. "This has got to be at least the tenth time I've face-planted."

The elderly Taekkyeon master stood calmly in front of him, his hands folded neatly behind his flowing robes. His expression never once wavered.

"You continue to fall..." the master said smoothly, "...because you are desperately trying to defeat your opponent."

Hanul frowned, crossing his arms. "Isn't that the whole point of fighting? If I don't win, I lose."

The master slowly shook his head. "That is precisely why... you continue to hit the ground."

Hanul stared blankly at the old man. "...You're really going to explain everything like a cryptic riddle, aren't you?"

The old master smiled faintly without answering. Instead, he stepped lightly across the courtyard, his feet seeming to barely graze the stone surface.

There was no wasted movement. No rigid force. No desperate struggle. Only pure, fluid motion.

The master paused, looking back. "If a river... tries to forcefully overpower the mountain... it stops flowing entirely."

Hanul scratched his head in frustration. "...Are you seriously comparing me to a stubborn river now?"

The old man nodded. "You fight against every single movement. You resist every natural shift in momentum. You force every awkward step."

"True martial arts..." the master whispered, "...do not force their way through. They follow."

Hanul slowly lowered his gaze to his own trembling feet. He replayed every fall in his mind. Every clumsy stumble. Every mistimed kick.

Every single time... he had tried to brute-force the technique instead of actually understanding it. The realization left him unusually quiet and reflective.

Elsewhere—

Darin stood once more beneath the breathtaking sky of floating swords. Hundreds of silver blades drifted gracefully around her, tracing intricate, elegant circles through the air.

She carefully copied the master dancer’s fluid motions. One careful step. Another. A smooth, spinning turn—

Her balance held steady.

She blinked in sheer surprise. "...Wait. I didn't fall over."

A bright, triumphant smile spread across her face. Emboldened, she rushed to continue the sequence.

Too fast. Too eager.

Her foot caught the edge of her own garment.

Crash.

She collapsed unceremoniously onto the hard floor once more.

Hanul’s mocking laughter echoed from impossibly far away across the white void. "I knew you wouldn't last!"

Darin groaned loudly into the floorboards. "...I genuinely hate him."

The woman performing the sword dance never missed a beat, her motion remaining as calm, precise, and beautiful as ever.

Without turning her head, she spoke softly. "True beauty... is never about sheer speed."

Darin slowly sat up, rubbing her knee. "Then what is it?"

The dancer raised her gleaming blade, its shining edge reflecting the white expanse above.

"Beauty... is absolute balance."

Silence settled deeply over the separate training worlds.

Each of them had heard vastly different lessons from their respective masters. Yet somehow... they all pointed toward the exact same fundamental truth.

True strength did not begin with flashy techniques. It began with understanding how to move without fighting against yourself.

Part 3

In another distant corner of the infinite white world, Soyeon stood entirely alone.

No weapons. No opponents. Only countless points of glowing light stretching endlessly into the dark distance.

Some lights blazed brightly like dying stars. Others flickered with a weak, desperate pulse. And connecting every single one of them were delicate, trembling strands of pale blue light.

The vast web spread out further than the human eye could possibly follow.

Soyeon slowly turned in a full circle, her chest tightening. "...How can anyone possibly keep track of all of this at once?"

The countless lights shifted constantly, like a living organism. A single minor change sent ripples cascading through the entire network. The harder she tried to track every single connection, the more overwhelmingly chaotic it became.

She closed her eyes tightly, trying to shut out the noise.

A gentle, resonant voice reached her through the quiet. "Do not try... to see everyone all at once."

Soyeon opened her eyes again. The elderly instructor stood quietly among the endless sea of lights, his expression serene.

"Then..." she asked softly, her voice trembling, "...what am I supposed to look at?"

The old man raised a single hand. Far across the space, one thread of light suddenly brightened. Only one. It simply connected two distant points in the dark.

"See... one person."

Soyeon frowned. "Just one?"

He nodded slowly. "Every profound bond... begins with a single connection."

She followed the path of that single glowing thread. One connection led naturally to two. Two expanded into three.

Without even realizing it, the vast, terrifying web no longer felt chaotic or suffocating. Each new thread led seamlessly to the next, forming a coherent pattern of life.

Her tense expression softened into a quiet understanding. "...I see it now."

The old man smiled warmly. "You were never meant... to carry the weight of the entire battlefield all by yourself."

He stepped closer. "You only ever need to reach out... to the person standing right beside you."

The countless lights surrounding her suddenly felt warmer, losing their cold, clinical edge.

Far away—

In reality.

Deep within Earth’s fragile orbit.

Another violent, cataclysmic explosion illuminated the dark void of space.

BOOM!

An entire defensive fleet vanished instantly beneath concentrated enemy fire. Shattered, burning hulls drifted silently into the dark abyss.

Yet, without missing a beat, another brave formation advanced to take their place. No hesitation. No thought of retreat. Only buying a few more precious seconds for humanity.

Deep beneath the surface of Seoul, Arena observed every single battlefield simultaneously through rivers of data. Its calm, mechanical voice echoed clearly across every isolated training ground.

[Archery Synchronization: 11%]

A second system display materialized in the air.

[Physical Adaptation Initiated]

Then another.

[Neural Connection in Progress]

Jinwoo lowered his bow for a brief moment, breathing heavily.

Something felt fundamentally different.

Not in his active thoughts. But deep within his physical body.

Without consciously thinking about it, his feet automatically adjusted their stance. His shoulders dropped and relaxed. His fingers settled with absolute, instinctive precision along the bowstring.

The movement felt hauntingly familiar. Not because he had practiced it repeatedly in this life. But because his body somehow remembered a legacy older than time itself.

He whispered the words almost entirely to himself.

"...I remember."

Far away across the white worlds, Hanul stopped fighting the momentum and learned to flow. Darin slowed the frantic rhythm of her blade to find her center. Soyeon focused on tracing a single vital thread instead of thousands.

At that exact, miraculous instant...

All four children felt the exact same quiet, profound realization wash over them.

They weren't merely learning unfamiliar, foreign techniques. They were finally awakening something that humanity had carried hidden within its blood all along.

Beyond the safety of the white world...

Another violent explosion shook the distant stars, and time continued to slip mercilessly through humanity's fingers.

But for the very first time...

The children had taken their first true, unshakeable step toward becoming real warriors.

Previously:

A family reunion brought old wounds to the surface, Michael's jealousy spiralled, and Mitchell took a risky turn.

Episode 16 Preview:

As hope for one family builds, hope spreads thin for another. Elsewhere, as a marriage hangs in the balance, Kylie makes a life changing discovery that leaves her in shock. And, Michael comes to terms with his true feelings.

19/01/1999 | Tuesday

———

03:11AM. The Strip. Shawcross General Shop.

———

Downstairs in the shop, is dark and quiet. Almost pitch black. Except for the orange glow from the streetlights outside slightly peeking its way through the barred windows and caged front door.

And the constant quiet hum of the fridges and freezers in the shop. Doing their job constantly.

Michael sits on the floor, leaning back against the counter, crying. And drinking.

A bottle of Jack Daniels almost empty in his right hand, his other hand wiping tears on his drunk face. He sniffles, crying about himself. About his life. About who he is and what he wants.

Not that he does know what he wants...

———

05:23AM. Flat 34, Marlas Flats, Marlas Estate. Mitchell's Flat

———

Mitchell's fast asleep in his bed, where he and Alex both fell asleep after having extremely intoxicated intercourse. He's snoring away, still in yesterday's clothes. Reeking of booze and heartbreak.

His flat is all in darkness. Quiet too. Except for the usual noise outside in the estate below.

SLAM!

He jolts wide awake and sees that Alex is gone

Mitchell: "Alex...?" He quietly groans

He slowly gets up, body feeling like concrete

He walks out of his room and down the small hallway

Mitchell: "Alex?" He rubs his eyes

And turns into the living room to see it slightly turned over

He's been robbed

His eyes stretch fully awake now

Mitchell: "Alex!?"

Things have been moved and thrown about. It's a mess. Not a devastation like what happened at number 33 though.

He runs deeper into the living room and starts scanning and scrambling through the mess.

Slowly, he notices small things missing. Things aren't where they used to be. Things like loose change, accessories, some shoes, fags, small stuff like that.

He sprints to the front door, yanks it open–

Mitchell: "ALEX!" he shouts down the hall

He takes a few steps down one direction of the hallway

Mitchell: "ALEX!" he shouts again

And somewhere from someone's nearby flat, someone shouts; "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Mitchell rolls his eyes and sighs, disappointed about what's happened. He walks back into his flat and slams the door shut behind him. Echoing fown the hall.

———

11:19AM. Number 27. The Slater Residence. Living Room.

———

On one of the two three seater green sofas, Georgina lies tangled and weaved in and out of the thick duvet, asleep and in last night's clothes too. Hungover from her night out with Kylie.

Her makeup is smudged and clothes reek of booze.

On the other sofa, sits Kelly and Danielle, both quietly chatting and eating cereal.

The noise from the kitchen is loud though. Same as yesterday. Chatter, cooking, music and laughter.

SMASH!

Someone can be heard dropping a mug on the kitchen floor

Georgina sturs awake and her eyes flutter open and she groans like a zombie

She turns around on her side and faces the living room

Danielle: "Fucking Hell" she laughs

Kelly: "Good night last night was it?" She teases

Georgina: "From what I remember" she jokes as she slowly sits up

Kelly and Danielle look at each other

Georgina leans forward and rubs her face with her hands

Georgina: "God it's bright..." she whispers

Then, Julie walks in from the hallway, out from the kitchen

Julie: "Oh! So you are alive?" She teases

Georgina: "Don't start" she mutters under her breath

Julie: "Here, I brought you a cuppa. Presuming you can keep it down. Good for hangovers they are"

Julie places the cup of tea on the coffee table in the middle of the room

Georgina: "Cheers sis" she whispers and winces her eyes

Julie looks her sister up and down

Julie: "I don't know how mam and dad deal with you" She smirks

Georgina: "That's why I got my own flat innit. Get out of their hair"

Kelly: "You always look like a corpse after a night out?"

Georgina: "Hey, that's a sign of a good night out that is. And you think I'm bad? I dread to see what Kylie's like"

Julie: "Oh God. Why? What did you do?"

Georgina: "She only had a few drinks and she came chucking up all over me"

The other's faces wince

Georgina: "Couldn't even keep a kebab down afterwards"

———

11:43AM. Number 41. Maureen's Home.

———

On the sofa in Maureen's living room, Kylie is in the same state as Georgina. If not, worse.

Theres a bucket on the floor by the side of the sofa, with some sick in it.

Maureen stands in the kitchen, drinking tea and having some breakfast.

Kylie slowly sits up and slouches into the kitchen and walks up to the sink

Maureen: "Blimey"

Kylie: "I feel worse than I look" she whispers

Maureen: "Gathered that" she giggles

Kylie washes her face with cold tap water

Maureen: "Want any–"

Kylie: "For the love of God dont say breakfast"

Maureen: "I'll take that as a no" she smiles and sits at the small table

Kylie leans against the kitchen sink

Maureen: "I dread to ask, but what did you two get up to last night?"

Kylie: "Not that much. We just went bar crawling really. I almost pulled too. But then threw up all over Georgina's shoes"

Maureen's face winces

Kylie: "I know. I dont know why, but i can't handle my drink anymore like I used to. Only recently. For the past week or so, i feel sick all the time"

Maureen: "Might need to get you checked out, is it?"

Kylie: "Yeah, maybe"

———

1:19PM. The Strip. Shawcross General Shop.

———

Behind the counter, Yvonne is fiddling with a clipboard and a pen, while Michael restocks a shelf in the far corner of the small shop.

Although his back is to her, he can feel eyes on him. After he finishes stocking up a shelf with cleaning products, he picks an empty box up and turns to face the counter where he and his wife make eye contact for a second.

Yvonne speaks up

Yvonne: "Where'd you get off to last night?"

She asks quietly

Michael ignores her and puts the empty box in the store room, and grabs another full box of produce

He walks back in the shop

Yvonne: "Michael? Michael im talking to—"

Michael: "What do you care?" He asks bluntly, heading to finish stocking up a shelf

Yvonne walks from out behind the counter and walks up to him

Yvonne: "I care because im your wife"

Michael: "And thats how you speak to your husband is it? By laughing in his face and telling him you don't want kids with him" he sarcastically asks

Yvonne: "I...you caught me off guard okay? I just didnt expect it. Its nothing that we really spoke about before. I didn't know what to say" she says

Michael: "So you make me feel like I'd be a terrible father, is that it?"

Yvonne sighs

Yvonne: "Look, im sorry. Okay? I really am. What i said– it was wrong. I was just scared..."

Michael: "Scared?" He turns to her

Yvonne: "W– well yeah..."

Michael: "Why?"

Yvonne: "Kids. Its a big thing. No? And we're not exactly flush with cash. Kids are expensive"

Michael: "Yeah...suppose. Why would you want a kid with me anyway?" He digs at her, before turning back to the shelf

Yvonne goes to speak again but the bell jingles above the door and Yvonne takes that as her queue to walk away

She walks past Sunita who's in the fridge grabbing butter, milk and sausages

Seconds after Yvonne steps behind the counter again, Sunita walks up go the counter, pushing her black glasses further up on her nose

Sunita: "Afternoon Yvonne darling. You okay? I sense a...weird energy"

Yvonne: "Hi Sunita. Yeah. Yeah I'm..."

She sighs

Yvonne: "I'm fine" she starts grabbing Sunita's items and scanning them

Sunita checks behind her and whispers to Yvonne

Sunita: "How's things with..." she nods at her stomach

Yvonne looks at Michael at the back of the shop, who's in a world of his own

Yvonne: "I made an appointment yesterday morning for an abortion" she whispers

Sunita nods

Sunita: "You sure you want to go through with it?" She whispers

Yvonne: "What other choice have I got?" She jokingly whispers

Sunita: "Yvonne, darling. You always have a choice. Always"

Yvonne listens

Sunita: "Just like you have a choice to tell—"

Yvonne: "I'm not telling him Sunita. We're already in a bad place as it is and we dont need anything else driving a wedge between us right now" she cuts her off

Sunita: "A baby will do that? Really? Think about it sweetheart. Maybe a baby is—"

Yvonne: "A baby is not what we need, Sunita. Okay?" She quietly asks

Sunita nods

Sunita: "Okay. Im sorry" she whispers

Yvonne: "Don't be. You're just looking out for me" she quietly smiles at her

Yvonne rings the receipt up.

Yvonne: "That's four seventy five please"

Sunita fishes out the money from her patterned fabric purse and hands it to Yvonne.

Sunita whispers: "When is your appointment?"

Yvonne: "Tomorrow. At four o'clock" she whispers

Sunita gasps quietly

Sunita: "Tomorrow?? Lord that's quick"

Yvonne nods and looks down at the counter

Yvonne: "I know" she whispers

Theres a question that Sunita has trouble asking, but she manages

Sunita: "Would...would you like me to go with you? For support..." she asks quietly

Yvonne: "No. No thank you Nita. Thank you anyway though. It means a lot. Really. I just...i think its something that i have to do alone. You know? But thank you" she smiles quietly

Sunita: "Of course darling. Im here anytime" she places her hand on Yvonne's before leaving the shop

———

2:03PM. Victoria Arms Pub.

———

The pub is quiet, only a few locals seated here and there.

Behind the bar is Eddie and Jenna. Jenna's serving Jim a pint while Eddie is drying glasses with a cloth before putting them on the overhead rack.

Jenna: "Here we are Jim"

Jim: "Cheers" he mutters

Jenna slowly walks up to Eddie and smiles

Jenna: "You okay?"

Eddie: "Yeah. Fine thank you darling" he smiles back at her

A long silence sits there, like there's something they both want to say

Jenna: "You know you can talk to me, yeah?"

Eddie: "I know" he nods and smiles

Eddie: "Thank you lovely. Same goes for you"

Jenna nods and goes to walk away

Jenna: "Oh also–" she turns back to facing him

Jenna: "You used to do food here didn't you?"

Eddie: "Yeah. Donkeys years ago. Why?"

Jenna: "Well i was thinking, my mum's looking for work and she has loads of experience in the kitchen. Even some in this pub's kitchen. She did the buffet for the estate's 30th didnt she. And well...i was thinking, why dont we make a menu or something. Sunday roasts, breakfasts maybe, stuff like that"

Eddie: "Wow look at you going! You've only been working here a few days and already talking about 'we' and what have you!" He giggles

Jenna: "Oh, sorry. I thought– I was just trying– sorry if I overstepped" she awkwardly giggles

Eddie: "No no. You didnt. I actually like it. You're taking initiative. Its impressive. Bold" he smiles

Jenna: "Yeah?" Her face lights up a bit

Eddie: "Yeah"

They smile at each other

Eddie: "Tell you what, the kitchen could do with some staff again. Could do with getting some cobwebs blown off too. So, why dont you, and your mum if she's interested, make a list of menu's or something. Jot some ideas down and run them by me when you're finished, and we can come up with something" he smiles

Jenna: "Aw great! Thanks Eddie!"

Eddie: "Don't mention it!" He giggles softly

———

3:15PM. St Anne's Hospital. Jamie's Room.

———

The afternoon is grey and still. Nicola sits beside Jamie's bed, her coat folded over the back of the chair, her eyes swollen and red. She hasn't bothered fixing her hair. Barry sits beside her, elbows on his knees, staring at the floor. Neither has spoken for several minutes. The steady beeping of the monitor fills the silence.

Nicola gently strokes Jamie's hand.

Nicola: "He's so cold."

Barry: "He's alright, love."

Nicola: "He doesn't feel alright."

Barry looks at his son. His mouth opens slightly, but nothing comes out. He reaches for Nicola's shoulder instead, pulling her towards him. She leans into him, her face crumpling against his shirt.

Nicola: "I just want him to wake up."

Barry: "I know. Me too"

Nicola: "I can't keep doing this, Barry."

Barry closes his eyes. He presses his lips to the top of her head, holding her tightly, but his own face is wet.

A quiet knock interrupts them. The doctor steps inside, carrying a clipboard.

Doctor: "Mr and Mrs Jenkins. I wanted to give you a quick update."

Nicola sits upright immediately, wiping her cheeks with the heel of her hand. Barry takes her hand beneath the edge of the bed.

Doctor: "There's been no significant change in Jamie's condition. He's stable at the moment, but he's still critically ill and remains unconscious."

Nicola: "So that's good, isn't it? That he's stable?"

Doctor: "It's better than seeing him deteriorate, certainly. But it doesn't tell us whether he's going to recover. We need to give him more time."

Barry: "How much more?"

Doctor: "I'm afraid I can't answer that. We'll continue monitoring him closely, but for now, we're waiting to see how he responds."

Nicola: "And...if he doesn't respond?"

The doctor pauses. He looks at Jamie, then back at her.

Doctor: "It's too early to draw any conclusions. I know that's not the answer you want, and I'm sorry."

Nicola nods, staring at him as though she's waiting for him to say something else. Something that will make all of this mean something. But he doesn't.

Barry: "Right. Thank you, Doctor."

The doctor leaves quietly.

Nicola looks back at Jamie. Her shoulders begin to shake, but she makes no sound. Barry pulls his chair closer and wraps an arm around her, resting his cheek against her hair.

Nicola: "We're no further forward, are we?"

Barry doesn't answer straight away.

Barry: "Don't think so love."

She takes Jamie's hand again, holding it against her chest.

Barry sits beside her, staring at his son, unable to promise her anything.

The monitor beeps.

Outside, the afternoon carries on. While the Jenkins family are fractured and barely hanging on by a thread.

———

4:17PM. St Anne's Hospital. Katie's Sick Bay.

———

At her bedside, sits Arthur, Gillian and Julie. Chatting away with Katie. A warm familiarity.

They've been here a while.

Katie's just filling them all in on what the doctors have planned for her.

Katie: "So yeah. They said its half an hour every day to start off with, and they said I'll have loads of support like railings and crutches and someone to hold onto and whatever, and then the better I get, the longer the session will take until I can walk properly again"

Arthur: "Ah fair play Katie, love"

Gillian: "Well done sweetheart"

Julie takes her daughter's hand and winks at her

Julie: "You'll be okay" she smiles

Katie: "I know. Just can't wait to get out of here" she smiles with a sigh

———

5:27PM. Number 41. Maureen's Home.

———

In the living room, Kylie sits on the sofa with her feet up, absentmindedly watching EastEnders, while Maureen prepares to pop to the shop.

She's at the door, putting her coat on and getting her trolley ready.

Maureen: "You sure you don't want anything now Kylie love?"

Kylie: "Nah ta. Thanks anyway" she says back

Maureen: "Alright then. I'll be fifteen"

Kylie: "Bye"

The front door closes and Kylie waits a few seconds before getting up, rushing over to the window and watches Maureen head down the street towards the Strip.

And as soon as Maureen's out of sight, Kylie runs upstairs and onto the landing, and then into the bathroom.

She bends down and forward and reaches her hand behind the toilet tank and pulls out a small blue plastic bag.

She then sits down on the toilet and opens the bag, and pulls out a small white rectangular box that says "Clearblue" on it.

Its a pregnancy test.

At the sight of the box, her heart starts pounding and she can feel her chest shake. Her whole body actually.

———

5:36PM. The Strip. Shawcross General Shop.

———

The shop is very quiet. Apart from the humming if the fridges and machinery. Yvonne is sat behind the counter and Michael is more or less walking around, looking for things to do. He's out of his mind. Mind racing about...everything

He's looking for anything to keep him occupied.

Eventually, he walks over to the counter and up to Yvonne.

Yvonne: "You okay?" She asks quietly

Michael: "Yeah" he says quietly

Michael: "You dont mind if I go out to the pub do you?" He asks quietly, in a gloomy tone

Yvonne clearly doesn't want him to but she puts his request first

Yvonne: "Yeah..." she sighs

Yvonne: "yeah go on then"

Michael: "Alright" he mutters, before heading to the door, taking his coat off the rack and right as he's about to open the door, it opens anyway, and Maureen walks in.

Maureen: "Alright Michael?" She asks politely, making small talk

Michael: "Yeah. Great" he mutters in a moody tone as he brushes past her and out the door

The door shuts behind them as Maureen steps into the shop and Michael walks towards the pub

Maureen: "Bloody Hell what's gotten into him?" She asks Yvonne who's sat behind the counter, exhausted

Yvonne: "...Don't know" she mutters. Even though she does know. Well...sort of.

———

5:49:PM. Number 41. Maureen's Home.

———

Upstairs in the bathroom, Kylie is pacing slowly. She then checks the time on her flip phone and sees that its been at least 22 minutes.

She gathers up the courage, inhales, sighs, and then walks up to the toilet tank where she put the pregnancy test face down.

After taking a deep breath, she picks it up, and turns it over.

Positive

She's pregnant.

Fuck...nonononono...what am I going to do???

Downstairs, the door opens and Maureen shouts up;

Maureen: "Kylie! I'm back!"

Kylie's stomach drops and she gets goosebumps. In a flash decision, she drops the pregnancy test in the small bin in the corner of the room, and covers it with some toilet paper and buries it with whatever's already in there.

Kylie: "Coming!"

———

8:47PM. The Victoria Arms Pub.

———

The pub is buzzing with its evening scene.

Loud music, people at the pool table, people at the dartboard, and people jotted around.

At the bar, Michael is already steaming. Barely able to speak a full sentence.

He finishes another drink. His seventh, at least.

He holds the glass up to the air without even looking up

Michael: "Ed! Ed! Edaaaayy!"

Eddie walks over to Michael quickly

Eddie: "Alright alright! Careful mate, keep it down. What is it? Same again?" He asks quietly

Michael: "Yup"

As Eddie starts pouring Michael's drink he notices the state Michael's in

Eddie: "You alright man? What's gotten into you?"

Michael: "Noth— nothing. Im fine. Fine, me. Why d'you ask?"

Eddie: "Have you seen yourself for starters? You barely come in here much and for the past few days, especially yesterday and today, you're knocking them back like there's no tomorrow"

Jenna: "You're giving Jim a run for his money" she jokingly chimes in

But Michael ignores her

Michael: "I...I dont know man. Im all over the place right now" he barely manages to say

Eddie: "Yeah. I can see that" he hands him the pint

Michael starts getting emotional

Michael: "I...I think me and Yvonne might be done" he sniffles

Eddie: "What? Why? What makes you say that?" He asks caringly

Michael: "I- i dont know. I don't...I dont know anything anymore. What makes her happy...what makes me happy...I forgot– we forgot how to be happy. I– I just miss her. I miss the way we used to be before we would fight all the time about God knows what..." he struggles to get his point across

Eddie watches him and listens. And realises that he and Michael aren't in such different boats after all.

Eddie: "Let me ask you something"

Michael looks up from the bar

Eddie: "What makes you happy, Michael? What keeps you...happy? Excited? What helps you from hitting the bottle and drowning your sorrows? Because i can tell you now, that finding your answers at the bottom of a glass won't get you too far"

Michael: "I...that's why im in this mess..."

Eddie: "What you mean?" He asks quietly

Michael: "Because i dont know anything anymore" he whimpers

Eddie: "Shhh sh sh. Come on. You're okay man. Come on. Perk up" he whispers to him.

Eddie: "Look, just try. Okay? That's all you can do, is try"

Michael: "Try what?"

Eddie: "Try whatever it is that makes you happy. And if it doesn't work, find something else. And you keep looking. You keep trying. Something's bound to" he smiles at him

Michael listens and nods

Eddie: "And when you find what makes you happy, help Yvonne find what makes her happy. Be happy, together"

Michael nods

Michael: "You know what...i– I think you're right" he slurs with a drunken smile

Eddie: "Yup. I always am" he sarcastically smiles

Michael gets up off the stool and almost falls but catches himself by holding onto the bar

Michael: "I'm okay. Im fine. Cheers for the drinks Eddie" he says politely before stumbling his way out of the pub

Eddie: "You're welcome. Any time mate! And be careful on your way home yeah!?"

Michael doesn't hear him, he's already out the door.

Jenna turns to him with a small smile

Jenna: "That was very nice of you. Fair play" she says with a soft smile

Eddie: "I kind of get how the bloke feels. I feel for him"

That sounds more sad than intended but he covers it with a sincere smile

Jenna smiles back

———

9:09PM. Number 41. Maureen's Home.

———

In the kitchen, Kylie and Maureen are both sat at the table, having a late dinner. Mash, gravy, peas and carrots.

They're both sat at the kitchen table and Maureen is chatting away about what happened when she went to the shop earlier, yapping about how tense things seemed between Michael and Yvonne and how awkward things seemed.

But Kylie is far, far away in her own world, not listening or taking in a word that Maureen is saying. Everything sounds muffled and she's daydreaming.

She's in a shock–like state. Mind reeling about what happened in the bathroom upstairs, not long ago.

I'm...pregnant

———

9:47PM. Downtown Streets. Near Pandora's Box Gay Bar.

———

The streets are loud and hectic with party-goers and traffic. With music, chatter and laughter spilling in and out from wherever.

Michael stumbles off a bus and onto a busy street where pubs and a few clubs seem to be bustling.

He walks up to a group of young lads outside a chippy

Michael: "Uh– excuse me! Do- d'you know where Pandora's...uh...Pandora's–"

"Pandora's Box?"

One of the young lads asks

Michael: "Yeah! Where is it?"

They all laugh at him

"Its right there mate" one of them says, pointing across the street and to the right a bit

"Dirty fucker" one of them mutters under his breath

Michael: "Th– thank- thank you!" He shouts, running across the road

—

As he crosses the road he almost gets hit by a passing car but doesn't seem to notice. Or care.

He eventually makes his way into the overflowing gay bar. The music is absolutely thumping the walls and in people's chests.

The air is full of smoke, sweat and breath that smells of booze. Purple, red and blue lights beam people in the face and strobe lights dance across the room, along with men and women all dressed in fabulous outfits. This is a world that Michael is not used to. But yet here he is.

He sees some young athletic men dancing on two poles at the far back of the bar.

His heart drops and he starts pushing his way through the crowd, almost crying. Almost in tears.

Michael: "Mitchell!"

He pushes his way through with force

Michael: "Mitchell! Mitch—"

Michael: "Mitchell!" He eventually gets to the poles and he sees a young lad who looks a spit of Mitchell.

He runs up onto the small platform and grabs the dancer by the arm

Michael: "Mitchell–" the dancer stops, turns and looks at Michael.

Its not Mitchell.

"Get the fuck off me!" The dancer pushes Michael back into the crowd so hard that Michael falls flat onto the floor.

A burst of deep laughter erupts from the crowd

Michael gets up slowly, embarrassed but dedicated to find Mitchell

Michael: "S- sorry! Sorry..."

He then pushes his way through the crowd again, to the bar this time, where a young man in his early thirties with short dark brown hair and a small name tag "Reese" on his black shirt, is serving someone a cocktail.

Michael: "Excuse me!"

Reese doesn't notice

Michael: "Hey! Hello!? HEY!!"

Reese turns to him with a smile

Reese walks up to him

Reese: "Hiya mate what can I get ya!?" He shouts to Michael over the music

Michael: "Is there a Mitchell Thomas here!?"

Reese: "Who!?"

Michael: "Where's Mitchell!?"

Reese: "Mitchell Thomas!?"

Michael: "Yeah!"

Reese: "You'll have to wait a few minutes mate, he just went back there with a customer!" He nods to the curtain that hides a deep red lit, narrow hallway.

Michael sees the curtain and the deep saturated red light peeking through into the main bar. And immediately he knows what kind of stuff goes on back there...

Again, he starts pushing his way through the crowd

Reese: "You can't go in there without a dancer!" He shouts after Michael

But Michael doesn't turn back, he keeps going.

He eventually reaches the curtain, quickly pulls it aside and slips in

The red swallows him whole and on either side of the hallway are small dark rooms, that are also curtained over

From most of them, moaning, groaning and all sorts can be heard

He pulls back the first curtain–

Michael: "Mitchell!?"

No Mitchell

A man pulls the curtain back shut

Michael keeps walking

Michael: "Mitchell!? Mitchell!?"

After pulling back two more curtains of random men having sex

He finally reaches a curtain and when he pulls it back, he finds Mitchell. Giving it to some older bloke in his fifties from behind.

The older guy is almost screaming and Mitchell doesn't even see Michael there at first

Michael: "Mitchell...?" He asks quietly in shock

As soon as Mitchell hears and sees Michael, he stops, and pulls out of the older bloke.

Mitchell: "Woah– Michael!"

Michael's stomach drops and starts legging it out of the red hallway, and back into the crowded bar room. Where there's sweaty bodies dancing and bumping around together.

He pushes his way through the crowd, yet again–

Mitchell calls after him but he keeps on rushing his way through

Michael can feel himself retching, and he finally makes it back onto the street where the cold night air hits him in the face

———

9:56PM. Outside Pandora's Box Gay Bar

———

He stumbles out onto the pavement outside the club, runs to a drain against the wall and throws up.

He retches, and throws up again. A few onlookers watch and wince. While others laugh.

Mitchell walks up to him

Mitchell: "You're okay..." he says quietly, trying to comfort him

He goes to rub his back but Michael pushes him off.

After he finishes throwing up and takes a few breaths, he turns around and faces Mitchell

Mitchell: "I'm..." he whispers

Thinking about apologising

But–

BAM

Michael lands a punch straight in his face and sends him spinning

A few people gasp, others laugh and some cheer

Mitchell: "What the fuck was that for!?"

Michael goes to walk away

He takes a few steps down the busy street but Mitchell runs after him

Mitchell stops him and pulls him and turns him around

Mitchell: "Oi! Stop! Michael!"

He turns him around and sees the state he's in

Mitchell: "Jesus..."

Michael: "What? WHAT!? You happy? Ey? You done this! YOU!"

Mitchell: "Why did you come here, looking for me?" He asks quietly, while music thumps from the club behind them

Michael: "I dont– I dont know! I dont- i- i–" he starts hysterically crying

Mitchell is shocked. He'd never seen Michael like this

He pulls him in for a hug and Michael tries to fight him off

Michael: "I– I– I...I.......I......."

Mitchell holds his face with both hands and Michael holds his arms

They look at each other...

Michael: "I...I love you...." he whispers, he says looking directly into Mitchell's eyes. Michael's eyes red raw from crying and tears running down his face

A long intense silence stands between them both, with the sounds of nightlife surrounds them. Cheering, laughter, music, traffic, the usual.

But right here, right now, it just them two. And the truth. No matter how wrong or right it is.

Mitchell: "Finally..." he whispers with a big smile

Mitchell: "I love you too..."

They both stand there, hands holding onto each other, while the world moves around them, they're both still. In each other's eyes.

With a long, long road ahead of them...

———

And thats episode 16! I really hope you enjoyed! Thank you for reading this far and as always any and all comments are much appreciated! Episode 17 will be out soon! ☺️

When you think you have it all figured out, a human will appear, probably naked and screaming, possibly while on fire. Congratulations, your day is now ruined, but at least you had a good laugh.

– Nuk saying, probably in reference to humanity’s ability to stumble into situations no one ever expected possible

Nirfir got the news at dawn: Sergeant Major Zhou Jian had died of complications from his wounds.

He couldn’t believe it. The wounds had seemed superficial. Then he remembered how quickly the injury had become infected, despite treatment.

I’ll have to inform the squad. This is the worst possible moment for something like this.

He was worried about the squads’ mental health. At first, everything had gone fine. Martife had been reinforced directly by Mammuts, a huge relief. The combat engineers had done wonders, strengthening the soil of the small isthmus to allow the Mammuts to cross it.

Then they were rotated out of the ruins, a week’s reprieve to gather strength, the General himself had said.

The week was the shortest week Nirfir had ever experienced.

After that, they were flown to Shratora, together with the newly arrived troops of the 5th Army.

Shratora was different. The most apparent difference was that the city was still standing. The humans had taken it in a surprise air assault. While the forces in the south, his forces, had taken the brunt of the enemy defenses, Shratora had been an easy victory at first.

The second difference was the fortifications. A massive wall surrounded the city, complete with turrets, dedicated vehicle ramps, and layered defenses.

Nothing could take the city from the army’s hands, or so he had thought.

The third difference was the root of his unease. The Batract had seemingly piled every dead Shraphen body on the continent into mountains beside the city.

While the Shraphen soldiers tried to ignore the dead, Nirfir noticed his human comrades glancing at the piles. He also noticed that the humans seemed angrier.

That worried him. He had hoped Zhou would return soon.

Now he was the squad leader, and he had the feeling the humans were slowly losing it. Wherever he walked, the humans would glance toward the dead and suddenly be overcome with anger.

Yesterday, they had eaten, and when the personnel from Mortuary Affairs joined the line at the kitchen, he had seen every human step away, making space for the defeated-looking officers.

After-action reports said the bodies were brought in overnight, after the humans had taken the city. Obviously, the Batract thought presenting the dead would frighten the humans. Nirfir was sure it was one of the enemy’s biggest miscalculations.

The alarm ripped him out of his thoughts. Like clockwork, the enemy attacked every second night.

But for tonight, the leadership had planned something different. Tonight, they would immediately counterattack. Nirfir hoped the fight would ease some of the rage his human colleagues carried.

His human squadmates threw away the cards they had been playing with and shared an ominous glance. They were happy the enemy had attacked. Chibuike rotated his head while flexing his muscles and cracking his fingers, while Russo only smiled, like a predator happy to jump its prey.

Nirfir was once again glad the humans were on his side.
They are all mad.

They all jumped into the always-ready armored suits that stood with their backs open along the side of the squad’s small barracks.

Monkey King, their trusted IFV, was parked outside, and two engineers who had been updating some software were packing up their things in a hurry.

“All good to go. Kill some Firebugs for me,” one of them said to Russo as he jumped into his driver’s seat.

“I will, Mitsu. I will.” Russo’s tone was still the same, but there was an angry inclination beneath it.

“Sir, Monkey King is in perfect order, just updated to the newest firmware from Earth,” the tech Russo had called Mitsu reported to Nirfir.

“Thanks. Now get into the shelters, or somewhere else. In a few minutes, all hell will break loose here.”

The two techs looked at each other, then glanced at the heaps of dead Shraphen on the outskirts of the city. Always that glance. Then their faces hardened, and their eyes sometimes grew watery.

“Sir? Kill those bastards. Can you do that for me?”

Nirfir was taken aback. The techs often joked with the humans, but they had never spoken to him so directly.

“I hope so.”

They looked again at the gruesome evidence of Batract cruelty and ran off to wherever their duty station was.

The whole exchange told Nirfir more about humans than his shared duty with them ever had. Even though it was almost exclusively Shraphen who had died on the northern continent, the humans felt the pain.

Where most intelligent species avoided feeling that pain, humans sought it out. To get angry. To feel hatred. And then. Then they prepared to seriously fuck up everyone who had hurt them. Nirfir was sure of it now.

Unlike the other times when it had been time to defend the city, Monkey King wasn’t ordered to its defensive firing position, but rather to a staging area in front of one of the gates, together with the whole 4th Brigade.

Today, the fleet and the newly formed Theatre Command had planned something new.

General MacAllister himself had called all troops at noon and informed them of their objectives.

“Soldiers, Shraphen, humans, comrades. Today, when the enemy attacks again, they will get their surprise. The 37th Spaceborne has been training with volunteers from Burrow and is now back to an acceptable strength. And Earth has sent two more armies.”

The General smiled the same predatory smile humans did so well.

“Today, we push them back where they came from. We used orbital fire sparingly over the last few weeks, along with air support, to hide our capabilities. That restraint is gone. Today we push back, and hard. Your commanders have their orders, or will get them shortly. Make me proud and give them hell.”

Monkey King reached the designated position. Nirfir had a flashback to the attack over the isthmus to Martife. Only now he was sitting at the commander’s station.

He had no time to mourn Zhou, but he decided then and there to avenge the silent and methodical human, tonight.

 

First | Previous | Next | Also On Royal Road

EPISODE 1: FIRST CONTACT IS MURDER

POV: Commander Sarah Yao

ACT 1

ACT 2

Earth: January 4, 2029

Vise: Human Era, Year 1, Day 1

 

Despite having just laid eyes on Vise for the first time less than a day before, the planet struck her as oddly familiar. Perhaps because, from orbit, it resembled Earth’s iconic blue marble wrapped in white clouds. Or maybe because she’d spent countless hours in simulators practicing landings on a virtual Vise. Or possibly from studying thousands of images captured by the Eyes of Sauron satellites deployed since the early 2000s. Whatever the reason, the familiarity calmed her nerves. She found comfort pretending this was just another simulation.

She took a deep breath as she held the shuttle’s control stick. The craft responded to her touch as naturally as Kyle’s cradle when she used to rock him to sleep as a newborn. Yet her current orbital position played tricks on her brain. Intellectually, she knew there was no true “up” or “down” in space, but her instincts rebelled at the sight of Vise above her when she was three hundred miles over its surface. She was also flying backward, though it was hard to tell when she had no fixed frame of reference.

A memory surfaced, bringing a smile to her face. She’d tried explaining this concept to Kyle once, and he’d immediately flipped himself upside down on the couch to watch Lightyear, legs kicking in the air as he declared, “Now I can see space the right way, Mom.”

Her son, daughter, and entire life were God knows how many light-years away. But history was right in front of her.

“Ready to dive?” Sarah asked Alex and Carlos.

“Hm... no,” Carlos replied with a nervous laugh. “But let’s do it anyway.”

“You?” Sarah glanced right at Alex.

“I was born ready,” Alex said, her face lit like a supernova.

“Here we go, then.” Sarah eased the throttle forward, her back pressing deeper into her seat. Her brain again played tricks, signaling acceleration when she was actually slowing their backward drift, just enough for Vise’s gravitational pull to take hold.

Sarah’s primary duty as commander in the Phoenix II—one of America’s crown jewels of space technology that no one but a couple hundred people in the entire world knew existed—was monitoring the automated systems. But Simpson’s probable crash reinforced what experience had already taught her: computerized systems might fly the ship, but the difference between touchdown and disaster ultimately rested with the person behind the stick. The margin for error was microscopic. A mere percentage off in angle or velocity could send them to the wrong hemisphere… or worse.

The landing sequence clock showed three minutes and fifty-seven seconds when the shuttle’s control system flashed green. Sarah eased the throttle to neutral and settled in for the next thirty minutes of descent toward the atmosphere. Waiting had never been her strong suit, but space had a way of teaching even the most restless soul patience. Still, her foot tapped as she checked the instruments every couple of minutes.

Vise expanded above her, its features slowly sharpening into focus. Sarah could now see the planet’s solitary continent, a sprawling landmass nearly twice the size of Earth’s combined continents, encircled by a vast, unbroken ocean. Despite Phoenix II’s position over the South Pole, no ice caps marked the terrain.

The control panel flashed, alerting her they’d reached 500,000 feet. Time for the next critical maneuver. Sarah pulled back on the stick, and the planet’s position shifted gradually from above the shuttle to directly ahead, then finally beneath them. She maintained steady pressure until the craft reached the required forty-degree angle of attack, positioning the black silica tiles under the shuttle to absorb the coming thermal punishment. A mistake now, and they would become a very expensive shooting star.

Entering the atmosphere, the shuttle convulsed violently, making every previous turbulence in Sarah’s thousand-plus flight hours seem like gentle rocking. Bile rose in her throat, but she swallowed it back. The migraine pounding behind her eyes didn’t help. Through the viewport, nothing was visible except the brilliant cascade of sparks as atmospheric friction superheated the craft’s exterior. It was like the Millennium Falcon hitting light speed, only far less controlled.

Then the shuttle decelerated hard, like a car braking from highway speeds. The atmosphere had caught them. Sarah initiated the banking sequence, easing the stick to the right while monitoring their trajectory toward the primary landing site. As the craft began drifting off course, warning indicators lit up the panel. She banked left now to start roll reversals, holding the controls firmly to be ready to shift right again at the next interval.

Twelve minutes that felt like twelve lifetimes passed. Sarah adjusted the craft’s angle of attack, easing the shuttle horizontally until it responded more like a commercial airliner. Her migraine receded to a dull throb, and her head felt lighter than she wanted.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

The alarm blared from the control panel, as if pleading with Sarah to grab the yoke. This phase of the descent—control-stick steering—was when commanders truly proved their worth, Sarah knew. If the Phoenix I had really crashed, it would have happened during this maneuver.

“Status check,” she called over her shoulder.

“Systems nominal.” Carlos’s voice was shaking slightly. Carlos was scared, she realized. She was too but couldn’t show it. Not now. Not ever.

Ten thousand feet to go. A vast, dark forest came into view, stretching toward the horizon like something from Alice’s favorite Pandora scenes in Avatar. Their landing zone was a natural clearing amid dense jungle, fifteen miles north of Sune, the capital of Vise’s largest nation. Sarah aligned their approach vector, mentally mapping the terrain against the satellite images she’d memorized down to the smallest detail.

The shuttle bucked violently as it plunged into a dense cloud bank. Sarah checked the nav display and felt her stomach drop. They were directly above the landing zone but heading straight into a thunderstorm. Commercial pilots had options: divert to alternate airfields or circle until conditions improved. She had neither luxury. This was it.

Then she saw the consequence of failure made horrifyingly tangible. About three miles from their landing site, angry flames and black smoke billowed from the jungle floor. Simpson. The confirmation of the Phoenix I’s crash hit her with physical force. Though logic had already written off that crew when communications failed, a stubborn corner of her mind had clung to hope. Now that hope was extinguished.

“Oh my God,” Alex gasped.

“What is it?” Carlos asked, straining forward from his seat behind.

“The Phoenix I,” Sarah answered, her voice tight. “They didn’t make it.”

“Fuck,” Carlos whispered.

Sarah caught the sound of stifled sniffles through her headset, coming from both crew members. She tightened her grip on the stick.

“I know,” she said. “We all feel it. But right now, I need your complete focus. We have our own landing to nail in this storm. We can honor them by not joining them. Clear?”

“Clear,” they responded together, voices steadying.

Sarah gave a curt nod, eyes locked on the instruments.

“Entering heading-alignment cone,” Carlos said as the display showed their craft’s triangular icon spiraling toward the landing zone’s center.

“Copy that,” Sarah said. “Initiating glide slope.”

She guided the yoke forward and right, fighting to keep the triangular indicator centered on her display as they descended at a twenty-degree slope. Her knuckles whitened. The shuttle’s five redundant computer systems offered plenty of automated assistance, but the relentless microbursts and wind shear battering them from all directions made maintaining control a battle of millimeters. Landing a 787 at Bush Intercontinental in this weather would challenge any pilot. Bringing a space shuttle down in a muddy jungle clearing in this storm crossed the line into the nearly impossible.

Sarah aligned the shuttle with the clearing’s longer axis, trusting the instrument panel as a wall of water obscured everything beyond the cockpit’s immediate perimeter.

“Four thousand feet,” Alex said. “Three thousand,” she added a few seconds later. “Two thousand.”

“Initiating preflare maneuver,” Sarah said, easing back on the stick to decrease their descent angle.

“One thousand feet,” Alex’s voice tightened.

Sarah kept her eyes locked on the trajectory display. “Carlos, speed reading.”

“Three-fifty knots,” Carlos reported.

Too damn fast, Sarah thought, jaw clenching.

“Five hundred feet,” Alex called out.

“Three-thirty knots,” Carlos updated.

“Landing gear down,” Sarah said.

“We’re too high,” Alex warned.

“We need the drag to slow down,” Sarah replied.

The landing gear deployment sent a jolt through the craft. Sarah’s harness bit into her chest, squeezing so hard she thought she might faint. She clutched the stick with renewed determination. Any slight overcorrection now would kill every soul on the shuttle in a fiery blaze.

“Two-forty knots,” Carlos said. “We’re slowing.”

“Two hundred fifty feet,” Alex reported.

The clearing stretched six miles long, plenty for a standard runway. But this was far from standard. Muddy, slick terrain awaited them below. Even with the shuttle’s modified landing gear, the drag chute would face extreme stress in Vise’s thicker atmosphere, while the slick mud provided minimal surface resistance. Sarah had run this scenario dozens of times in simulation and even more lying awake at night. No training could have replicated this.

“One hundred feet,” Alex shouted.

“One-seventy knots,” Carlos added.

“This is it,” Sarah said to her crew and herself.

She locked onto the display screen. When the shuttle’s wheels finally made contact, the impact jolted through the craft with unexpected force. Sarah’s neck compressed painfully against her rigid muscles, her body braced for impact.

“Drag chutes released,” Sarah said.

The tug came, but wrong. Not the clean, hard yank she’d felt in simulation. It was softer, fluttering, like the chute had reefed late or half-inflated in the rain. And yet the shuttle still bled speed as if it had struck glue.

“Ninety knots,” Carlos said. “Sixty.”

“Aren’t we stopping too fast?” Alex asked, words vibrating with the shuttle’s shudder.

“Forty,” Carlos said. “Twenty-five.”

A metallic crack shattered through the shuttle’s frame, sharp as a gunshot. Then came a grinding shriek, so raw it seemed to saw straight through Sarah’s teeth and jaw. The shuttle lurched hard left. Not a panicked swerve or a slip on wet ground, but more like a wheel swallowed by a hole that hadn’t existed a heartbeat earlier.

“We lost the left gear,” Alex said, voice strangled.

The cockpit display erupted in staccato flashes: caution blocks multiplying, strut loads spiking and then vanishing.

They slammed to a halt with the shuttle’s nose pitched low. Sarah couldn’t tell how long it took them to halt completely, but it couldn’t have been more than seconds. The downpour obscured any visual reference points, but the monitor told the story clearly enough: they’d used less than half the available landing distance and stopped at roughly two-thirds of what the shuttle’s computers had calculated they’d need. Determining deceleration rates and stopping distances was basic physics, yet somehow NASA’s brightest minds had miscalculated—and the shuttle was now structurally compromised because of it. Still, it was good fortune compared to the smoking wreckage of Phoenix I. What had been a lucky break for her crew might have spelled disaster for Simpson’s.

“We did it,” Alex said, punching the air with both fists.

Sarah leaned back in her seat, a cocktail of exhaustion and triumph washing through her. The dizziness might have been physical or just the psychological weight of what they’d achieved. Either way, Sarah savored it.

She toggled the comms switch. “This is the commander speaking. We have successfully landed on Vise. Remain seated while your bodies adjust to the 1.2 g gravity. We’ll begin disembarking shortly.”

Sarah unbuckled and stood, ready for the next entry in history books. She took a step forward, and her muscles screamed in protest against Vise’s gravity. The fact that she could move at all after a two-year space trip was a testament to human ingenuity: the relentless three-hour daily workouts, the nearly 3,000 hours she’d logged in the centrifuge, the flood of medication to stave off bone and muscle loss and to keep her cardiovascular reflexes sharp, and even the micro-electrical shocks firing through her legs as she slept.

All of it had led to this moment. She had achieved her life’s mission. She would be the first human to set foot on an alien planet and encounter an extraterrestrial race. Yet she only got this honor because eight people were dead. No decent person should feel anything but grief at such a cost. So why, beneath the shock and professional concern, did she sense something else stirring? A feeling she wouldn’t name but made her gut knot. A feeling she would never dare admit to anyone.

Sarah banished the thought. They had landed safely. That was the only thing that mattered.

The floor tilted, and Sarah grabbed the console’s edge, fingers digging into metal as dizziness blurred her vision. Then the entire shuttle lurched sideways, and the realization hit. This wasn’t just her body adjusting; the craft itself was moving.

“What the hell?” Alex blurted.

Carlos gripped his armrests. “Some kind of earthquake?”

Sarah’s mind raced as the puzzle clicked into place. The shuttle hadn’t stopped too quickly because of miscalculations. The NASA physicists had based their models on slick, muddy terrain, a reasonable assumption for a jungle clearing. They hadn’t accounted for a torrential downpour turning the clearing into a swamp. Their landing gear had probably plunged deep into the saturated earth, creating unexpected drag that rapidly decelerated the craft. Now that same sodden ground was giving way beneath the Phoenix II’s weight.

“No,” Sarah said. “Not an earthquake. We’re sinking.”

 

[PREVIOUS CHAPTER] | [START FROM THE BEGINNING] | [BEDTIME STORY]

***

Questions race through Laíla’s head so fast, she is completely distracted by the fact that she finds herself—once again—in chains. What force had taken such strong possession of Zak in his sleep? Why did Makurmek instruct everyone to close their eyes? Who are these strange men that have taken her captive?

She shifts uncomfortably in her seat. The nightcrawlers had the good sense to keep her outside this time around. Conor had started another fire, over which he roasts some sort of meat. She surmises it to be venison, its particular gamey aroma tantalizing her hungry nostrils. In the distance, she can hear the innkeeper and his wife arguing. What about, though, is unclear. Probably her. Her eyes flit to her wagon and the gaping hole she had torn in the side. Perhaps she’d feel less guilty over the damage had she actually managed to escape.

Quiet footsteps approach. Laíla turns to find Hoshana standing in front of her. Her almost white hair is now tied loosely atop her head, allowing her broad facial features to take center stage. She is a striking woman, though her dark expression makes her look absolutely menacing.

“Come”, she orders, pulling Laíla to her feet.

She follows the lady down the line of wagons. Her eyes cannot help but look toward the one she had looked in earlier that day. The door was now closed, which only further piqued her curiosity. She begins to wonder if she too violently thrashes when she is deep into one of her night terrors. If she does, no one in her family ever dares touch her for fear of charring limb. But yet there seems to be a consequence in trying to wake Zak from his trance. There was no mistaking the fear on the faces of the other men. She’d seen that particular brand for near her entire life. The type of fear that is underlined with the confusion of not knowing whether it is for a person of them.

Stopping in front of a different wagon, Hoshana grudgingly takes her keys and unlocks it. Upon stepping inside, Laíla immediately notices this wagon is almost completely empty. No bed, no desk, no chair. Just a single wool rug and a blanket strown out on the floor.

Hoshana enters behind her, balancing a small clay jug of water in one hand and a stack of folded blankets in the other, while a small ceramic bowl remains balanced effortlessly upon her head. Laíla peeks over her shoulder with an intense curiosity, tracking the woman’s movements as she sets the heavy bundle down upon the floor.

“Here,” Hoshana says slowly, her voice cautious in the common tongue. “For bath.”

Laíla peers down to inspect the provisions. Hoshana points a slim finger toward the small bowl, which contains a light brown, soft solid substance.

“Soap,” Hoshana notes, before executing a physical demonstration, rubbing her hands together to mimic lathering an imaginary soap over her own body. “You, uh...you—”

“So fúsi’í bon mi’polta?” Laíla asks, testing her in the sacred dialect. I put it on my skin?

A wave of visible relief washes over Hoshana’s features. “De, de,” she replies quickly. Yes, yes.

Moving with a gentle authority, Hoshana reaches out to pull the her dirt-stained tunic smoothly over her head, and Laíla assists her, until she stands only in her thin nightshirt. The lady then pours a sparing splash of the water onto the brown block, rubbing her fingers over the surface until a modest foam forms. Gingerly lifting Laíla’s right arm, she begins to rub the soap onto the bare skin. She watches the pale lather form as Hoshana’s hands travel methodically up her arm before switching to the other side.

“Á baínà pú ál privinà?” Laíla murmurs, her voice laced with a faint skepticism. The prisoner gets a bath?

“Ál privinà sobrà é ivite,” Hoshana answers without missing a beat, her touch remaining tender. The prisoner is a guest.

Hoshana shifts her hands downward, moving the heavy iron shackles on Laíla’s wrists around with great caution so she might better inspect the raw, blistering burns left by the heated metal. “I have ointment for this,” she notes softly. “I give to you.”

“Ím'ti'gratiske,” Laíla says, her defensive walls cracking slightly in surprise. Thank you.

Hoshana halts her movements for a brief second, looking up into her face. “So it is true then? You are Emberish nomad.”

“I am not Emberish,” Laíla corrects firmly, lifting her chin. “I am Moorian; a daughter of the sun.”

Hoshana lets out a slow breath, her expression unreadable. “I have officially seen everything.”

Laíla raises her eyebrows, her eyes narrowing as she studies the woman’s features up close. “E tà? Tàs Daínishti o Crestiko?” And you? You are Dainese or Crestian?

The lady offers no direct answer to the question, dropping her gaze back to her work. Sensing the evasiveness, Laíla reaches out her chained hands, gently capturing a stray lock of her blonde hair between her fingers. It is dry to the touch, almost like straw. Upon closer inspection, it also lacks any shine or depth. Almost as if it’s been stripped away of any life it once had.

“It appears the moon truly does have two sides,” she muses.

Hoshana immediately swats her hand away, her eyes flashing with a sudden sharpness. “Mi dimo sobrù Raúko,” she states defiantly. My husband is Rockish.

Laíla furrows her eyebrows, her suspicions flaring. “How do you think he would react to your deception?” She steps closer, the iron links clinking between her wrists. “Do not think for a second you can trust a settler. They do not understand our way of life—”

Hoshana lets out a sharp scoff, cutting her off. “Our,” she repeats with bitter irony. She pauses for a heavy beat before drawing herself up. “Ál privinà sobrà á júda.” The prisoner is a judge.

Laíla shrugs her shoulders carelessly. “I am only calling the matter precisely as I see it. Moorians live according to truth. We would never hide who we are just to gain favor from those who despise us.”

Hoshana abruptly turns away, her jaw tight, and begins gathering her things. Laíla watches her hurried shuffle toward the exit, a sudden spike of anxiety hitting her chest.

“Where are you going?” She asks quickly.

The lady pauses at the heavy door of the wagon, turning around slowly to face her captive. “You come to my home,” she says, her broken speech trembling with a rising emotion. “You insult me. You insult my husband. He ask me to help you. He want you comfortable.” She tersely shakes her head. “Níhai. I do not help unkind people.”

“Making simple conversation is by no means unkind,” Laíla retorts, her temper rising as she steps forward. “In fact, it is far more than what any of you deserve. I was brought here—against my will. You and your nightcrawler kin lied to me; entrapped me.”

“I no lie,” Hoshana states firmly, her eyes widening. “I no trap. I only try to give bath to angry girl.”

“Have I not earned the right to be angry?” Laíla shouts, her voice echoing in the wooden enclosure. “I have been hunted through the woods, disparaged as a criminal, shackled—and that does not even include the injustice my people have been suffered since the last turn of the sun. You do not get to speak to me of unkindness!”

She sucks in a breath as her skin sizzles beneath the metal of her chains. The pain shoots up her arms, sending a shiver down her spine. She blinks back tears, refusing to let her enemy see her weakness. Hoshana simply purses her lips into a thin, tight line.

“I make question to you,” she whispers, stepping back across the creaky wooden floor. She places her ceramic bucket back onto the ground, looking Laíla dead in the eye. “You believe you are special?”

The young girl furrows her eyebrows in genuine confusion.

Hoshana crosses back over to where she stands, her posture stiffening.

“I show you something,” she says. She reaches up, pulling down the rough neckline of her linen tunic slightly to reveal the top of a thick, jagged, and hideous white scar running across her collarbone. Laíla stares at the marred flesh, all words dying in her throat.

“Father of my husband do this to me,” Hoshana explains, her voice dropping. “My family travel to sell...uh...” She reaches out, taking a small section of Laíla’s nightshirt between her fingers to find the words.

“Fabric?” She supplies softly.

“Fabric, yes. Conor, mi dimo. He buy some. He use it to make dress...for me. He tell me I am beautiful. We meet in secret after that. He make plan to make me his wife. He ask me to live with him in Rocklands. His family very rich. When they know us, his father very angry. He take me in front of village. He rip off my dress. He beat me. Everyone watch. ‘No nightcrawler for my son.’ He say it over...and over.”

Laíla shudders involuntarily, a chill running down her spine.

“Do not worry,” the lady notes, her voice softening as she adjusts her tunic. “I no special too. My people have many stories like mine. And Conor go against his father and marry me. But he cannot go home. Like me, he is no welcome—but my home also no good for him. Too cold. So we make this life. And I hide my hair so to make life more easy.”

She returns to her knees upon the floor, resuming the lathering of Laíla’s legs with steady strokes. “Mooraithsi welcome everywhere. Daínishti, my husband...we not so lucky. For us, deception make survival.”

Laíla looks down at the white hair atop Hoshana’s head, her heart twisting with a sudden, complicated guilt. She ponders the woman’s words for a long moment in the dim light. Her own words hang between them, but she cannot bear to utter them out loud. That Moorians used to be welcome everywhere. Even scarier, that time seems further and further removed every passing day.

Suddenly, a loud, violent banging erupts against the exterior of the wagon door. The brass knob jiggles pieces of iron furiously. Hoshana stands up immediately, pivoting to face the entrance.

“Pít! Pít!” she shouts toward the wood. Wait! Wait! “I give bath!”

“Hoshana, I need that tonic,” Zak’s muffled, irritated voice barks from the other side of the thick timber.

“You have to wait,” the lady calls back, her tone sharpening. “I come soon.”

“Wait?!” Zak grumbles back, his fist pounding again. “You said it'd be ready hours ago!”

“I sorry,” Hoshana sheepishly admits. “I sell it. I make more when I finish here.”

“I would like to get some actual sleep!” Zak groans through the panel.

“I will make more, Zak; when I finish,” she insists, rolling her eyes.

Turning back to the captive, Hoshana hurriedly scrubs a dry, rough towel over Laíla’s skin, taking immense care to completely avoid the raw burns on her wrists. Laíla watches in fascination as little pieces of dead skin fall away beneath the cloth, leaving behind a smooth, clean surface.

“Wow...” She breathes, running a hand over her forearm.

Hoshana offers a small, proud smile. “You like? I learn from lady in Channel.”

“I never realized how unclean I was...”

“Is true, many people no—”

Zak bangs loudly upon the door once more, interrupting her mid-sentence. Hoshana rolls her eyes toward the curved roof. “Pít, Zilalkkuk!” she mutters under her breath, before turning back to Laíla. “I finish.”

As Zak continues his relentless banging, the lady huffs in frustration and begins to gather her things. Laíla runs her fingers over her newly smooth skin before turning back to face her.

“What tonic is he talking about?” Laíla inquires curiously.

“Do not worry,” Hoshana sighs, waving a hand. “You stay in here—do not touch anything.” She crosses the floor toward the threshold.

“Wait!” Laíla calls out.

Hoshana turns around at the door, the keys jingling in her hand. Before another word can be exchanged, someone knocks loudly upon the panel once again, the voice deep and authoritative.

“Hoshana! Hoshana!” This time, it is Makurmek who barks from the dirt lot.

The innkeeper’s wife rolls her eyes again. “Ím’àscusa,” she whispers to Laíla. “I bring ointment later.”

She exits the wagon swiftly, pulling the heavy door shut and snapping the iron lock securely behind her. Almost immediately, the muffled sounds of a heated argument drift through the thick wood. Laíla creeps silently over the floorboards, pressing her eye tightly to the brass keyhole to watch the transaction unfold outside.

“I just won’t sleep then,” Zak’s voice rages, his silhouette pacing back and forth.

“No, I need you rested for tonight,” Makurmek’s deep voice retorts. “Just wait a little while longer. There is still plenty of time to rest.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” Zak growls back, stepping into his cousin’s space.

“Calm down,” Makurmek retorts, his voice dropping low. “We are trying to help you. There is no need to be an ass.”

“Who is helping who Mako?” Zak spits. “Remember I am only here to help clean up the mess you and your father made—”

“Alright!” Hoshana interposes, her voice cutting through the quiet. “Zak, you scream like baby that want milk. I go and look for poppies to make tonic—but you two will make laundry.”

Through the tiny keyhole, Laíla hears Hoshana walk away, cursing fiercely under her breath in the sacred Godstongue as her footsteps fade into the camp. Poppies. That ingredient sounded familiar. Out in the dirt lot, the two cousins remain by the washing basins she left behind. 

“Happy?” Makurmek asks flatly, tossing a wet tunic into the basket.

Zak huffs, his shoulders slumping. “I'm tired.”

“I know,” Makurmek replies, his voice softening with rare patience. “But we're halfway finished with our task. We'll be home soon.” He pauses for a long moment, watching the ripples in the soapy water as the gears of his mind visibly turn. He leans in closer to his cousin. “Perhaps our new friend can help speed things up,” he whispers.

Makurmek turns on his heel and begins walking toward the main campfire. Zak drops the fabric in his hands and follows him immediately, his tone sharpening with deep concern.

“Mako, no,” Zak urges, keeping his voice low. “To turn her over to M is one thing, but we can't trust her. We don't know her.”

“You saw what she did back in the forest,” Makurmek counters, stopping to look back at his cousin with a dark, calculating glint in his eye. “M will want to know the full range of her abilities...”

Laíla pulls back from the keyhole, her breath catching in her throat as their footsteps finally fade into the night. She walks back to the woolen rug and and sinks to her knees as new questions begin to jump from corner to corner in her brain like squirrels.

Thanks for reading. The story continues on Friday.

Author's note: this story is completed and will be posted here M-F from today until Jan 4, 2027.

* * *

EPISODE 1: FIRST CONTACT IS MURDER

POV: Commander Sarah Yao

 

“They firmly believed that I, with my ships and men, came from heaven.”

–CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS, letter on his first voyage to America (1493)

 

ACT 1

 

Earth: January 4, 2029

Vise: Human Era, Year 1, Day 1

 

With planet Vise filling the Phoenix II’s viewport, astronaut Sarah Yao found herself thinking back to that humid Houston morning in March 2025 when NASA rewrote her trajectory. She had walked into Administrator Jeannie Peterson’s office expecting an offer for a desk job. She had walked out knowing she would stand before intelligent aliens by the end of the decade.

Not little gray men with big heads traveling through space in high-tech flying saucers—Sarah had never believed that crap—but ten-foot-tall bipedal reptilians with technology comparable to Earth’s ancient empires. NASA had found them by accident in 1996, when the missing Mars Observer suddenly reappeared with photographs of a planet teeming with life. The probe had slipped through a stable wormhole lurking just off Mars’s orbit in 1993 and, against all probability, made it back through.

Peterson had told her that unmanned missions had zipped through the wormhole for the following thirty years, returning with petabytes of data that only a handful of government officials had clearance to see. But NASA was finally ready to send people. The first human faces those aliens would see.

Sarah had nearly wept when she learned she was being considered to lead the whole expedition as squad commander. Nearly two years of grueling prep followed. She’d lived and breathed the mission, every drill a rehearsal for the moment when she would set boot to alien soil and speak for Earth.

Except command didn’t go to her. Operation New World was Simpson's mission.

Alex Churchill, her pilot, landed her hand on Sarah’s around the control stick. “Are you okay?”

Sarah blinked at her, the words slow to connect. “Of course,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Alex nodded toward Vise hanging fat and blue-green against the void. “Just… I know how much it mattered. Being first.”

The taste in Sarah’s mouth was metallic, like air-scrubber residue. She wanted to scream that it should have been her. But being labeled the bitter runner-up was worse than being passed over.

“We’re still landing on an alien planet,” she said. “The order doesn’t matter.”

Carlos Trejo, packed into the flight engineer’s seat behind Sarah, barked a laugh. “Bullshit. Every kid knows Neil Armstrong, but who remembers the second guy?”

Alex’s mouth twisted. “My nephew thinks it was Buzz Lightyear.”

Carlos slapped his knee. “See? And I sure as hell don’t like that Steph Lee is getting listed as the first flight engineer to set foot on alien ground.”

Sarah kept her grip steady, eyes fixed on the swirling atmosphere of the world below, trying to ignore Carlos.

“And while Captain America and his space marines make the history books,” Carlos continued, “we’re stuck babysitting Congressman Bible-Thumper and Little Miss Fortune 500.”

“Don’t forget Captain Daddy’s Boy,” Alex added.

“The first case of promotion while in space in the history of the US military,” Carlos snickered.

Alex smiled. “And the anthropogirl.”

“Sure, her too.”

They weren’t wrong, Sarah knew. NASA hadn’t just passed her over. They’d saddled her with the B-team. Nelson Freeman, the ex-reverend and politician kicked from the White House who’d snagged an interstellar trip as a consolation prize. Angie Monroe, the tech billionaire who’d literally purchased her ticket to space when her company developed the Babel devices for NASA. Joanna Cohen, the anthropologist whose purpose in Operation New World remained as alien as the planet below. And Daniel Santos, the Navy SEAL fresh from NAB Coronado who’d secured his interservice transfer to the Space Force for no other reason than his father heading the U.S. Space Command.

She exhaled slowly, checking the mission clock. “Cut the chatter and focus. We initiate the descent sequence the moment Simpson’s boots hit dirt.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they answered simultaneously, Alex offering a mock salute that walked the line between playful and insubordinate.

Sarah kept her eyes locked on the Eyes of Sauron feed—yet another ridiculous nickname NASA nerds had slapped on mission equipment, this one for the satellites monitoring Vise since before she’d become an astronaut. The Phoenix I would touch down in less than fifteen minutes, she calculated.

A small, worn family photo tucked beside the console caught her eye: Alice and Kyle grinning in their R2-D2 pajamas, taken the night before launch. Right now, they’d be sprawled on the living room floor in Houston, watching reruns of Star Wars: Young Jedi Adventures, telling their friends that their mom was a real-life Mandalorian. One day, she’d tell them the whole story. Why she’d left them with Randall after the divorce, why this mission mattered so much.

One day, maybe, they’d forgive her.

The sacrifice stoked her anger at Simpson. She’d walked away from her children for this? To play second fiddle while he planted the flag?

She tracked the Phoenix I on the screen, unwilling to blink. The ship was a tiny triangle jumping fractions of an inch every half second. Telemetry indicated heavy fog ahead, and Sarah held her breath, imagining Simpson’s visibility dropping to near zero in the critical moment of descent.

Her eyes narrowed as the instruments decided that was a good time to lag. The triangle on the screen froze for one, two, three seconds.

That shouldn’t be happening. Unless…

She switched her comms to the Phoenix I. Her stomach tightened when static met her ears.

“Carlos, I’ve lost the Phoenix I's signal. Anything on your end?”

“Nothing,” Carlos said. “Not since they entered that fog.”

“Interference?” Alex suggested, leaning forward.

“From what?” Carlos asked. “These janepe aliens are supposed to be tech-equivalent to the Romans, right? They can’t be jamming radio frequencies.”

“Get me satellite visuals,” Sarah said, voice tight. “I need a closer look.”

“At what? The fog?”

“Yes. Zoom in. Maximum resolution.”

“On it,” Carlos replied. The screen refreshed, magnifying to half-meter resolution. A cloud seemed to have formed amid the fog, but it was vertical and slightly ashen gray.

Alex leaned forward. “That’s some weird cloud.”

Sarah’s chest constricted. “It’s not a cloud. It’s smoke.”

Carlos breathed hard. “Fuck.”

Sarah flipped to the emergency channel. “Phoenix I, this is the Phoenix II. Do you copy?”

Nothing but crackling static answered her.

“Phoenix I, come in. Squad Commander Simpson, please respond.” Her voice remained steady even as her heart hammered.

Come on, Harry. I might deserve your job, but you don’t need to crash to prove it, she thought, immediately hating herself for it.

Sarah’s comms blinked, but her relief was short-lived. It wasn’t the Phoenix I but the Phoenix III. Her own crew’s channel lit up simultaneously, but she prioritized the other shuttle.

“This is the Phoenix II. Go ahead, Commander El-Baz,” Sarah said.

“Commander Yao,” Ahmed El-Baz replied, voice wavering with the insecurity that always grated on her nerves. “I... I think there is something wrong with the Phoenix I.”

“No shit, Ahmed,” Sarah snapped, patience evaporating. NASA’s personnel choices kept getting worse. Simpson as squad commander was bad enough, but El-Baz leading the Phoenix III was baffling.

“Do you think they—”

“I don’t know,” Sarah cut in. “You got anything useful to contribute, or shall I get back to trying to reach our squad commander?”

“No, I just thought you might know something—”

“I don’t. Not yet.” Sarah’s finger hovered over the disconnect. “Keep this channel open. Phoenix II out.”

She killed the connection before he could stammer another response.

The remaining blinking red light on her console pulsed like a warning beacon. Someone in the crew compartment was still calling, but Sarah needed a few seconds to think.

She glanced right to find Alex and Carlos watching her with that same look Kyle and Alice wore in the scary parts of The Empire Strikes Back.

Alex broke the silence. “So... what’s our play?”

Sarah straightened her shoulders. “Alex, put us on autopilot.” She pushed back from her station. "Both of you, with me.”

She unbuckled, rose from the commander’s seat, and propelled herself toward the crew compartment, Alex and Carlos in her wake. She navigated the weightless transition through the hatch with the ease of someone who’d spent the last two years in zero g.

The crew sat on benches facing each other, like in a subway car where the passengers wore five-point harnesses. Nelson with his perpetual look of constipation, Joanna reading a book, and Angie tapping at her Babelphone, probably playing one of the games NASA had installed on the devices. On the opposite side sat Santos and Sergeant Joseph Romano, the medic, both in military posture even in microgravity. Five pairs of eyes locked onto her, waiting.

Sarah considered sugarcoating it for half a second but decided against it.

“We’ve lost contact with the Phoenix I,” she said, her voice as level as a preflight checklist. “I think it’s down.”

“What?” Monroe’s voice shot up two octaves. “Are they dead?”

No one survives a space shuttle crash, damn it, Sarah thought. Instead, she responded, “We’ve lost visual contact and communication. They entered what appeared to be clouds, and now satellite imagery shows smoke patterns consistent with a crash site.”

“They might need our help,” Angie said. “We have to rescue them.”

Sarah opened her mouth to eviscerate Monroe’s suggestion, then paused. Twenty-four years at NASA had taught her that moments when duty and self-interest aligned were rarer than Congress approving a budget increase for the agency.

Yet here it was, gift-wrapped by Little Miss Fortune 500 herself. Rescuing fellow astronauts? That was in her job description, right next to “don’t die horribly” and “don’t make the Agency look bad.” If the Phoenix I’s crew survived, she’d be the hero who saved them. If not… she would still be the one who tried, and command still would land in her lap.

The realization pressed down on her conscience, but she shoved the thought aside before it could take root. Not the time for that.

“You’re right, Monroe,” Sarah said, her decision made. “If anyone survived that crash, every second counts. Everyone, prepare for landing.”

Sarah caught Nelson and Santos exchanging glances across the cabin. The silent consultation rankled her. She knew sooner or later she would need to assert her authority over reluctant crew members, especially if she ended up leading the whole expedition. Now was as good a time as any.

“Something on your mind, Captain?” She locked eyes with Santos, deliberately bypassing Nelson. Better to tackle the junior officer than the preacher with a direct line to the Oval Office. “Speak now or forever hold your peace.”

Santos shifted uncomfortably but stayed silent. Freeman jumped into the void.

“Commander,” he began with his practiced pulpit tone, “I appreciate your heroic instincts, truly. But aren’t our orders to divert to the reserve landing site if something happens to the Phoenix I?”

“We don’t know that something has happened to them,” Sarah said.

“You just said we’ve lost contact.”

“Still, we need to be certain. And if they really crashed and somehow survived, we need to rescue them.” Sarah leaned forward. “Tell me, Reverend, what would Jesus do? Land safely at the backup site and let his fellow astronauts die?”

Nelson’s jaw tightened. “I guess we should try to help.”

“Glad we’re aligned.” Sarah straightened, glancing back at Alex and Carlos. “Pressure suits on. Alex, Carlos, back to your stations. We’re landing at the primary site as soon as we enter the orbital window.”

“Yes, ma’am,” they answered in unison.

Alex and Carlos glided weightlessly back to the flight deck. Before following, Sarah caught Nelson giving Santos a subtle head shake.

Yes, fall in line, Santos, she thought. Daddy’s stars don’t shine this far from Earth.

Sarah propelled herself back to the commander’s seat. “Alex, tell the Phoenix III I'm taking provisional command of Operation New World and that their orders are to maintain orbit until they hear from us. Whether Simpson and his crew survived or not, the mission proceeds.”

It's day. The clouds were dark and stormy, casting shade over the neon-lit city of Tokyo as smoke, screams, and sirens emerging and echoing from every corner of the city. In a street littered with tipped and burning cars, a woman in tears, shivering with her back against a car, is being approached by a red six-legged, spider-like creature with dozens of glowing yellow eyes all around its head.

"No…..please….please….god…" Woman

The creature screeches at her.

"BELLY BOMB!!!" A voice from above.

Tadano crashes down on the creature, shattering the ground beneath it and sending a shock wave across the block. The woman's eyes widen.

"HUH?!" Woman

Tadano quickly grabs its mouth and rips it wide open.

"IT'S OPEN!" Tadano

Hiro leaps off a building, pulls out an egg, and flings it into the creature's mouth. Tadano shuts its mouth and punches it way, the creature explodes into massivegreen fl,ames. Hiro lands beside Tadano, sweating and panting heavily.

"Nice work, soldier," Hiro

Shiro, sweating, lands in front of them with Miko on his back, unconscious and sweating.

"Finally came to help fry the cheese cake? Damn it, we were really having fun" Hiro

"Apologies, brother. Miko collapsed on the way" Shiro

Miko j.olts up.

"DID SOMEONE SAY REST?!" Miko

"Don't paint your own painting, soldier," Hiro

Miko whimpers. Tadano, sweating, turns to the woman on the floor, stretching out his hand.

"It's all good, lady. " Yolil ' man.an.an.an.an.an.fe now" Tadano

"EEEEEEEEEEEEK!" Woman

She dashes off.

"Oh….right…." Tadano

"This is a disaster….Tokyo's overrun with f?eaks; we have no idea where Razzle is, and leaking like a goat on Christmas." Hiro

"….it's a de.er" Tadano

"… excuse me?" Hiro

"You said a goat on Christmas. It's more of a deer on Christmas," Tadano

"….." Hiro

"Y'know….like a rain deer…" Tadano

"...I don't follow," Hiro

Tadano sighs.

"Alright, family, back to work. Shiro, Status report. How many of these things have we taken out?" Hiro

Shiro pulls out his phone.

"Well, brother, in the last three hours we have rounded up twenty of them." Shiro

"Okay….out of how many?" Hiro

Shiro taps his phone.

"FIFTY…." Shiro

The other Ghosts smile.

"Huh…..NOT BAD" Hiro

"NICE!" Tadano

"BUENO, BUENO!" Miko

Shiro pinches his screen.

"…THOUSAND" Shiro

Hiro collapses on his knees.

"Great Uncle Grimm, take me into your cold embrace." Hiro

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!!" Tadano

Tadano punches a car.

"No es genial, hermano" Miko

"Yes, yes, tragic news indeed, but on the illuminating side, my city-wide scanner is of great use if I do say so myself." Shiro

Miko smacks Shiro's head.

"OW!" Shiro

"Hiro, lil'bro….we can't keep doing this. We need to find Razzle NOW!" Tadano

"Damn it, soldier! I KNOW THAT! The problem is how to find the rabid dog" Hiro

"I believe his more of a red fox…" Shiro

"NOT HELPING!" Hiro

"Noted," Shiro

Hiro, Tadano, and Shiro continue to squabble as Miko looks into the sky. Her eyes widen.

"Uh….hermanos…?"Miko

"Can't we just like start smashing places to find or lure him out or something?! We can even use Shiro's doohickey to guide us," Tadano

"Not a bad plan…" Shiro

"Forman-childr, maybe…we can't just stbreadstickN,GS!" Hiro

"Hermanos….?!" Miko

"Well then, what SHOULD we do?!" Tadano

"Just give me a minute, will you?!" Hiro

"We don't have a MINUTE! Every SECOND we spend not doing a.nything, Tokyo's getting ripped apart!" Tadano

"OH REALLY?!" Hiro

"YEAH! Well…..more than usual anyway," Tadano

"HERMANOS!!!" MikoSister, please…..my sensitive ears" Shiro

" What is it, soldier? We're trying to find Razzle here," Hiro

Miko points at a bright, glowing beam in the distance, blasting into the sky. The rest of the Ghosts eyes are widened.

"Well, tickle my panties…we found him." Hiro

On top of a tall building, the red beam emits from a large, blood-red structure as Razzle looks at the city, smiling at all the chaos. The Ghosts drop down behind, gnashing their teeth with their eyes narrowed;on him.

" Have you seen anything more beautifuATTENTION-SEEKINGinPARENTLESS, even I am left speechless at my own work." Razzle

"It's over, Razzle, just put the rabbit in the hat and surrender quietly," Hiro

"No, I don't think I will…..c'mon we haven't even reached the GRANDIOS EVENT yet" Razzle

"Oh, COME ON! How JOBLESS do you think we are, SENIOR?!" Miko

"I guess your wandering why I'm doing all this," Razzle

The Ghosts look at each other. Then look back at him.

"We…..actually couldn't care any less about your…" Shiro

"It all started when I was a young boy…" Razzle

The Ghosts groan in unison.

"…..my father and my mother owned an antique shop, a shop they gave all their attention to like it was their own child, heck, people thought they didn't have a life with the amount of time they spent on that shop, but of course, they did. And all that child ever wanted was for his parents to at least glance at him, see the wonderful tricks he could pull off with a single gold coin, just like how grandpa could pull off tricks with a single drop of blood, but his parents didn't care; all they wanted to do was focus on that DARN ANTIC SHOP! So naturally, the boy, respecting his parents' wishes but still wanting to be seen for his gift, went out into town to make his talent known to the other Yokais. Unfortunately, there was a little accident, a little misfire if you will, and for the first time in the child's life, he got his parents' attention in the form of a good OL' BEATING. In that moment, the child realized the world doesn't give REWARDS or ATTENTION to those with beautiful talents that could make people OOH and AAH in joy; it gives attention to those willing to do the most VILE and AGGREIGIOUS things, be it intentionally or not." Razzle

"You can't be serious…" Tadano

"Oh, I'm DEAD serious. I mean, come on, you're looking at a guy who can morph gold coins at will, not getting any attention for that ability, but becomes the talk of the underground once he ripped out his father's throat and choked out his mother with it." Razzle

The Ghosts eyes widen.

"Oh right, that's the end of the story, by the way," Razzle

"You're sick, Hombre" Miko

"You think I'm SICK?! I wonder what you're gonna call everyone in this CITY after a blood of rain comes pouring down to give everyone the suddenly trending make over" Razzle

"Uh…..what?" Tadano

"That red beam… he's using it to mutate the contents of the clouds and make it rain blood, the blood he must have used to create those monsters in the city." Shiro

"BINGO BANGO" Razzle

"So….those monsters were…..?" Tadano

"...couple of people who drank my all new and improved blood, you're right on the money" Razzle

"EW…." Miko

Tadano grits his teeth with his eyes narrowed at Razzle.

"You are a monster….and TADANO doesn't play with MONSTERS." Tadano

"This trick is going to go down in the human history books, people…" Razzle

Gold coins spring out from between Razzle's fingers.

"….I can't let you interfere with this" Razzle with a deepened voice

The Ghosts go into battle stances with their eyes narrowed at Razzle as he looks back at them with a wide, devious grin stretched out across his face.

"Alright, team, here's the plan. .Shiro, you're skipping this fight. We need your expertise on that mechanism; we need it shut down as soon as possible." Hiro

"Of course," Shiro

"Miko, Tadano your with me, we're taking that looney tune down, and we're taking him down PRONTO" Hiro

"SI" Miko

"He's about to wish he was never BORN" Tadano

Tadano cracks his knuckles.

"Alright…lets move like a boyfriend and TAKE HIM OUT!" Hiro

The Ghosts altogether bolt off from where they stand towards Razzle. Shiro zooms past the others, flips over Razzle, and lands at the blood structure emitting the beam.

"YOU LITTLE….." Razzle

Tadano swoops and punches Razzle in the face, sending him flying. Razzle tumbles across the floor, then flips back onto his feet. Two long arms thrust into the ground on his sides.

"Huh?" Razzle

Razzle looks up as Miko dives down like a meteor and crashes down on Razzle, shattering the ground, sending out a small shockwave, and creating a cloud of dust. Razzle flies out of the cloud, with scratches all over, and lands on his feet. Hiro launches out from the cloud towards Razzle. Razzle's fist turns to gold as he swings a punch. Hiro slides under his punch, sweep kicks his legs, sending him off his feet, catches him by his legs, spins him around, hurls him away, then tosses an egg at him. Razzle bursts into a massive ball of green flames before crashing into a generator with burns all over. Miko, Hiro, and Tadano surround Razzle. Razzle chuckles.

"One fight was all it took for you guys to know how to beat the crud out of me?" Razzle

"Does a TARTA DE MANZANA taste better with fish, senior?" Miko

"But….it wouldn't be an apple pie…" Tadano

"… what's your point, hermano?" Miko

Tadano sighs.

"Oh well, seems like I'll be using my emergency trick after all," Razzle

"What are you blabbing about?" Hiro

Razzle lets out a devious grin as a plethora of blood-red tendrils burst out from his body and consume him. The Ghosts eyes widen as they leap backwards.

"HOLY GUACAMOLE!" Miko

Razzle slowly rises from the ground with his fur blood red, his edges spikes, his clothes black, the symbols on his eyes glowing bright orange, and his body beefier and taller, and red tendrils slithering out from his back as he continues to look at them with a devious grin on his face.

"TA-DA!!!" Razzle now with a vibration at the back of his now deep voice.

"You've gotta be kidding me!" Hiro

"So what do you think? I, for one, think I look OUTSTANDING! More than usual, of course." Razzle

"Things aren't looking too bueno, amigos." Miko

"Maybe it's all show?" Hiro

"Oh, no, no, no, I assure you…" Razzle

Razzle launches at Tadano and punches him, sending him flying and crashing into a wall, cracking it into pieces. Miko and Hiro's eyes widen

"SHOOT!" Hiro

"TADANO!" Miko

"…..I'm STRONGER…." Razzle

Hiro throws a punch, Razzle catches it, encasing Hiro in blood red ice.

"… I'm more PRECISE, more EQUIPPED…" Razzle

Razzle smacks Hiro, shattering the ice and sending him flying, tumbling across the ground and crashing into a railing, denting it.

Miko growls and lunges at Razzle. Red tendrils burst from the ground and catch her by her legs.

"HUH?!" Miko

The tendrils slam Miko into the ground.

"….I'm more HANDY…." Razzle

Razzle kicks Miko away, sending her flying and crashing into a generator, crushing it.

"Ow…..." Miko

"...I'm INVINCIBLE!" Razzle

Razzle laughs maniacally as the Ghosts get back on their feet, gnashing their teeth and clenching their fists.

"SHIRO, STATUS REPORT!" Hiro

Shiro is surrounded by a bunch of broken tools while using a power drill on the structure. The mouth of the drill snaps off.

"GOODNESS GRACIOUS! Sigh…..I need a little more time" Shiro

"OH. WELL, TAKE YOUR TIME! WE HAVE ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD!" Hiro

"Oh, trust me, you don't." Razzle

Hiro buries his face in his palm.

"Yeah, no kidding, you emerald snatcher….I was being sarcastic… Hiro

"TERRAINO DESTRUCTIONO!" Razzle

Razzle punctures the ground with his claws, causing the ground beneath them to rumble.

"That's not bueno…"Miko

"GET AIRBORNE! DOUBLE TIME!" Hiro

The Ghosts leap high into the air as blood-red spikes burst from the ground, covering most of the ground they stand on.

"That darn fox. TADANO, THREE TIMES TORPEDO FORMATION!" Hiro

"RIGHT!" Tadano

"YES! MY FAVORITE!" Miko

Tadano Hiro and Miko simultaneously hurls them headfirst at Razzle.

"WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Miko

Razzle looks up at them with a grin and enlarges his fists. Hiro dives and gets punched away. Miko dives in and gets punched away. Tadano diving down rolls up into a ball and crashes down on Raazle like a meteor, sending out a massive shock wave that shatters the windows of the buildings nearby. Razzle is holding Tadano up with one hand.

"NICE TRY! NOT!" Razzle

Razzle tosses Tadano up and punches him away, sending him flying like a flaming meteor crashing through multiple buildings ahead.

"AND SCENE!" Razzle

Razzle laughs maniacally. Hiro swoops in and swings a kick, Razzle catches his foot and flings him aside. Hiro tumbles across the floor, flips onto his feet, and pulls out an egg.

"FOR MY NEXT TRICK, THE GREAT AND POWERFUL RAZZLE DAZZLE WILL CONJURE FIRE FROM HIS FINGERS!" Razzle

Razzle aims his fingers like guns at Hiro and begins shooting fireballs at him. Hiro dashes forward, weaving and flipping through fireballs, leaps into the air, and flings an egg at him, causing a massive green explosion.

"HA! How do you like them omelettes!" Hiro

"SCRAMBLED ACTUALLY!" Razzle

Razzle launches out from the green flames towards Hiro and punches him in the guts, causing him to vomit. Razzle grins deviously, then proceeds to punch him in the face, knee him in the face, kick him in the groin, then kick him in the jaw, causing Hiro's eyes to go white. Razzle then catches Hiro by his throat and smacks him away, sending him plummeting down and crashing into a wall, causing it to crumble. Razzle lands on the ground.

"And here I thought I was going to be performing in front of a tough crowd." Razzle

Suddenly, a pipe tears through his chest from behind. Razzle's eyes widen and shake uncontrollably at the at the sight of the protruding pipe.

"THE HECK?!" Razzle

Razzle turns around, only to find Miko carrying a bunch of pipes while tossing a pipe up and down.

"¡Ey! Care de idiota! PIPE down, will'ya!?" Miko

Miko chuckles.

"Get it!? Because of the pipes…." Miko

"YOU….!" Razzle

Razzle turns his arm into a blade and spins it at Miko. Miko dodges his arm, dropping all the pipes, and flings one at him. The pipe bashes Razzle in the face. He growls.

"Really, Amigo? Dos pipes in a row…? Miko

Miko gasps.

"Are pipes like your kryptonite?! Because that would be so funny!" Miko

"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" Razzle

Razzle swings his blade at Miko. Miko cartwheels over it, springs her arms forward, and launches towards Razzle. Several tendrils burst from Razzle's back and sprang at Miko. Miko weaves a tendril, slides under another, flips over the next, tap dances on a tendril, docks another tendril, springs an arm forward, and yanks herself towards Razzle. Miko blows air into her thumb, enlarging her fist like a balloon, then draws it back.

"GET READY, FOR AN ALL YOU CAN EAT BEAT…!" Miko

A tendril grabs her leg.

"Huh?" Miko

The tendril drags Miko, flings her into the air, catches her, smashes her into the ground, and flings her away. Miko bounces off a railing, denting it, and flies back into the air. The tendril catches Miko again, smashes her across the floor, spins her around, and hurls her away, sending her flying and crashing into Hiro.

Razzle draws back his tendrils, pulls out the pipe in his body, inhales deeply, then exhales into a grin.

"Huh, kind of lost my cool there. You guys REALLY know how to tick a guy off, I'll give you that" Razzle

Tadano, from far and behind, is rolled up into a ball, flying at Razzle like a speeding bullet.

" RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!" Tadano

"That, and you guys never know when to quit." Razzle

As Tadano approaches, Razzle swiftly turns around and smacks Tadano across the ground, shattering it and causing him to unfold. Tadano flies and crashes into Hiro and Miko, crushing them.

"That takes care of that. And now for my FINAL ACT OF THE NIGHT!" Razzle

Shiro is surrounded by even more destroyed tools, sweating, huffing, and puffing at the structure before him.

"Why….won't….you….just…let me…HAVE THIS?!"

Lightning strikes as Razzle spawns behind Shiro with a devious grin on his face. Shiro swings his energy sword at him. Razzle stops it with a finger and kicks Shiro away, sending him flying and crashing into Tadano.

"Now, then, with no further inconveniences left, let's move on to the main event, shall we?" Razzle

The beam from the structure enlarges, sending out red lightning strikes and turning the clouds in the sky blood red. The grin on Razzle's face widens outrageously. The Ghosts slowly get on their feet, groaning with the bruises and slashes all over their bodies.

"Family, I've tried everything. That structure can't be destroyed by any physical means; the only possible way to destroy it now is to take down, Razzle" Shiro

"Then what are we waiting for?! Let's get to it," Tadano

"You got a death wish, soldier?! He beat the fudge cake out of us! What else can we do?!" Hiro

"We can hit HARDER!" Tadano

"Never in my life have I heard a greater plan," Hiro

"Maybe we could try throwing pipes at him. Pipes are like his kryptonite after all" Miko

"He did look ticked off by that stunt earlier," Hiro

"THAT'S our plan?! Throwing pipes at him till he throws in the towel?! And you say my plan is bad?!" Tadano

"It IS bad!" Hiro

" SAY THAT AGAIN, lil'man" Tadano

"What if it's not necessarily the pipe?" Shiro

"Huh?" Tadano

"What if his weakness is what the pipe nearly got to. Perhaps that's why he lost his composure. Miko was close to taking away the source of his power" Shiro

"AH, VALE, if that's the case, that means his weakness is in his CHEST." Miko

"Precisely, sister." Shiro

"But does it really matter when we can't even get to him?" Miko

Hiro strokes his chin. His eyes widen.

"Their emotions can be their downfall, ESPECIALLY the cocky ones." Hiro

"Huh?" Miko

"That's what Dad said before we left the dojo"

"And that can very much be applied to Razzle, seeing as the moment Miko got close to stopping him, he got furious and couldn't land a proper hit for some time, which then led Miko to getting another hit in successfully. Father's commentary is our way of winning," Shiro

"ALRIGHT! Nice thinking, Lil' man," Tadano

"Of course, it was. Have I ever done any less?" Shiro

"What about that one time…" Miko

" Of course, I haven't," Shiro

"Alright, Soldiers. Here's the plan… Hiro

Minutes pass, and Razzle is still looking at the beam with a massive grin.

"Soon…." Razzle

Suddenly, someone chuckles. Razzle pauses and turns around, only to find Hiro barely standing at a wall, alone.

"You know, for a kid who just lost, you're in a surprisingly good mood. By the way, where's your family at, Hm? I know you guys aren't trying an ambush; you guys know that wouldn't work- or have I overestimated you, kids?" Razzle

"No, you're right; they up and left." Hiro

"Oh?" Razzle

"Yeah… and I don't blame them," Hiro

"Of course, I mean I'd run too if I were ever faced with a yokai with such power." Razzle

"I was gonna say a man child, but hey, your opinion, bread stick" Hiro

"What?" Razzle

"Wait….did you really think they left cuz they couldn't fight? Oh, you beautiful fool, that's not it; it was NEVER IT. The thing is, you're nothing special" Hiro

Razzle's jaw clenches.

"The truth of the matter is, we've faced humans with better chances at pulling this whole charade off better than you. In all honesty, from all you've told us of your past, you sound like an ACUTE FAILURE, messing things up for yourself without any outside interference." Hiro

Razzle clenches his fist.

"Blabbering a whole lot, aren't I? Look, long story short, we were bored; we needed something new, something challenging, something that would be a threat to us and not to itself. We saw a fellow yokai for the first time and got excited, thinking the universe gave us the lottery, little did we know we were actually facing an ATTENTION SEEKING, PARENT-LESS, TRY-HARD, MAN-BABY Hiro

In an instant, Razzle spawns before Hiro, grabs him by the neck, and smashes him through the wall behind, shattering it to pieces and dangling him over the edge of the roof as Hiro gasps for air.

"I think you've overstayed your welcome in this life." Razzle

Hiro musters up a grin.

"F-funny…..I was…gonna….g-give you the s-same tomato….." Hiro

"What are you mumbling about, you STUPID…" Razzle

In an instant, Tadano swoops in from behind and punches Razzle in the back, causing him to drop Hiro and sending him flying up into the air like a rocket.

Miko and Shiro leap out from behind Tadano onto his hands. Tadano simultaneously hurts them at Razzle.

Razzle looks down at them with rage in his eyes.

"WHY WON'T YOU JUST DIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIE!!!!!" Razzle

Razzle stretches out his hands and begins blasting a barrage of fireballs at them.

"SISTER, NOW!" Shiro

"BIEN!" Miko

Miko wraps her arms around Shiro, spins him around, and flings him at Razzle, sending him flying through the fireballs like a speeding jet.

Shiro smirks, pulls out his energy blades, and begins spinning around like a tornado, slashing his way through the barrage of fireballs, getting closer and closer to Razzle.

Razzle growls, forms a blade with his arm, and thrusts it at Shiro. Shiro weaves the blade and thrusts his blade into the center of Razzle's chest, splitting the blood-red coin within him into two and sending out a massive shock wave of red energy spreading across the entire city. Causing the blood-red monsters on the streets to begin to melt and causing the red beam blasting into the sky to burst out of existence. The clouds turn back to normal and separate from one another, letting the sun shine onto Tokyo once again as thousands of citizens begin coming out from hiding with shock and relief across their faces.

Shiro drops down from the sky onto his feet as Razzle, in his base form, crashes to the ground behind him. The Ghosts run up to Shiro, embracing him while laughing.

"YOU DID IT, HERMANO!" Miko

"NOT BAD, LIL'MAN!" Tadano

" You do us proud, soldier," Hiro

"Don't I always…" Shiro

"No, not really," Hiro

"…..hmm" Shiro

Razzle coughs while getting on his hands and knees, getting the Ghosts's attention. The Ghosts walk up to him, surrounding him with narrowed looks and clenched fists.

"This….can't be happening…I was supposed to be remembered in the history books for years to come. IT WAS MY DESTINY!" Razzle

"It's over, you little twerp! You've caused enough damage as it is!" Tadano

"That's right. And we're gonna make you pay for it," Hiro

" With FISH!" Miko

The other Ghosts look at Miko.

"Is….is that not what we're gonna ask for?" Miko

Razzle's eyes widen. Suddenly, he begins to laugh.

"What is so amusing?" Shiro

"The fact that you're right- I did cause enough trouble; there's no possible way this day isn't going to be stuck in people's minds for the days to come, not to mention, now that I think about it, I'M the first yokai in two centuries to do all THIS. ME!!! I actually won, didn't I?!" Razzle

"You're sick!" Tadano

"Oh yeah…I've definitely won… with more wins underway" Razzle

"Not on our watch," Hiro

"You're watching me? Since when?" Razzle

"Did you hit your head or something, Amigo? We're watching you right…" Miko

"Razzle pulls out a coin and smashes it across the ground, bursting into gold dust and vanishing.

"DARN IT! HOW DIDN'T WE SEE THAT COMING?" Tadano

"Should we split up and search?" Shiro

" No, leave him," Hiro

"What?! Why?!" Tadano

" Something tells me he isn't gonna do better than this?" Hiro

"Huh, guess you're right…" Tadano

"Of course his right." An old raspy voice

The Ghosts turn around only to find their father standing behind them with a large box in hand.

"They never do better after their debut," Father

"Father?" Shiro

"What are you doing up here?" Tadano

"MORE IMPORTANTLY, is that what I think it is, padre?" Miko

"Yes, sweetheart, it is," Father

Their Father opens the box, revealing a bundle of raw, wet fish.

"FISH! YES!" Miko

"As a wise man once said, a celebration without fish isn't a celebration." Father

"Right!" Miko

Miko snatches a fish, sits down, and begins munching on it; the other Ghosts follow her lead.

"Wait! What are we celebrating exactly, pops?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Father

Their father takes a fish and sits down.

" Oh, yeah. Totally" Hiro

Tadano nudges Hiro with his elbow.

"My precious children winning their first real yokai battle and proving why they are members of The Ghost clan" Father

Their father begins to shed tears. He sniffles. The Ghosts eyes widen.

"Dad?" Hiro

"I'm sorry, my children, I just…had an imagination of your grandfather's reaction to your victory. I'm sure he would have been proud," Father

The Ghosts all reveal a soft smile. Shiro places his on their father's shoulder. Their father places his hand on his as he cleans his eyes.

" Enough of all that; let's continue with the celebration," Father

They all continue to munch on their fish. Tadano pauses.

"Pops, be honest, was today as bad as it can get?" Tadano

"…..Honestly, no. Thanks to Razzle's actions, there will be a lot of other Yokai, more powerful and capable, inspired to try their hand at taking over the city. As a wise man once said, it's just how it works" Father

Their father takes another bite from the fish. Tadano makes a sad face.

"Figures" Tadano

"But fear not, my boy, as a wise man once said, as long as we stay together and look out for one another, there is nothing we can't handle; heck, look at what you did today. For reassuring sake, for once, I'm going to let you in on a secret: that wise man was your grandfather, the Ghost of Edo," Father

Tadano smiles.

"That's reassuring…" Tadano

Tadano looks towards Tokyo with his red bandana flowing in the wind as the sun begins to set in the background.

THE END, THANK YOU FOR READING VOLUME 0

Previously:

Family loyalty was put to the test as the Jenkins protected their own, Kylie welcomed a familiar face, and the Slaters received some unexpected visitors.

Episode 15 Preview:

A family reunion brings old wounds to the surface, Michael's jealousy spirals and Mitchell takes a risky turn.

18/01/1999 | Monday

———

08:12AM. Number 27. Slater Residence.

———

Upstairs in her attic bedroom, Danielle is woken from the sounds of a very busy house. The kitchen, specifically.

Chatter, laughing, music, cooking and all sorts can be heard from the kitchen. Its all so loud that even in the attic, Danielle can hear it all in bed. Its warm. Familiar. Nice. Its family.

Danielle’s attic bedroom is long and slightly slightly spacious, with a sloping wooden ceiling, faded wallpaper and a worn, fluffy dark pink-ish red carpet in the middle of the room. The room had clearly been converted on the cheap years ago, but it's cosy enough, with a comfortable double bed pushed to the side of the room in the middle of the wall, a chest of drawers doubling as a dressing table, and a full length mirror propped up in the corner.

Clothes sit draped over the bed and hanging from hooks on the wall, with denim jackets, fitted tops, short skirts and jeans competing for space. Makeup, hairbrushes and cheap jewellery cluttered the dressing table, while fashion magazines, torn out pictures and rough sketches of dresses and outfits were pinned above it.

Her sketchbook lay open beside a scattering of pencils and fabric scraps, filled with designs for the clothing stall she dreamed of running at Marlas Street Market. It was untidy but unmistakably hers: a lived in, slightly chaotic little space belonging to a young woman with a head full of ideas and a wardrobe that was never quite big enough.

Seconds after her eyes drift open, she slowly gets out from under the thick duvet, and steps her bare feet onto the big soft rug underneath her bed.

She sighs, before getting up and walking groggily over to the floor door. She opens it and climbs down the narrow wooden ladder into the upstairs landing where Jenna is just walking out of the house's only bathroom, with a towel tightly wrapped around her wet, dripping body, and another wrapped around her hair.

She's getting ready for work

Jenna: "They wake you up too?" She smirks, referring to the ruckus downstairs

Danielle: "Mm" she mumbles, heading for the stairs

Jenna giggles before heading into her room and closing her door. Loud music starts blaring from behind her door.

Jenna's, Julie's and Katie and Kelly's bedrooms are all on this floor. Katie and Kelly share.

—

Downstairs

—

As Danielle reaches the bottom of the stairs and turns into the living room, there's a double blow up mattress laid on the floor in the middle of the living room, with a few blankets and pillows scattered all over it. A quick makeshift put together bed that actually looks comfy even though it was last minute.

And on one of the three seater green sofas, is a thick duvet and a few pillows. Another makeshift bed. Its a full house. Fuller than its ever been.

Danielle turns into the kitchen where Kelly, Arthur and Julie are sat at the round kitchen table eating breakfast and drinking tea, while Gavin is standing at the kettle on the counter next to the fridge, waiting for the water to boil for his coffee. At the cooker is Gillian, frying some eggs and bacon, and although its mid January, the kitchen door to the back garden is wide open, and we can see Georgina through the kitchen window, having a smoke in the morning air.

Its busy

As Danielle walks into the room, the people at the table immediately notice her

Julie: "Aw morning love!"

Arthur: "There she is, my little Dani. Come sit next to bamps" he smiles at her, chewing some toast and pulling out a chair from under the table for her to sit.

Arthur is a weathered, broad built Welshman with the sturdy frame of a man who had spent much of his life doing hard, physical work underground. Now in his mid sixties, his face is lined, his skin roughened by years of graft, and his thick salt and pepper hair sits comfortably on his head. He has bushy eyebrows, a broad nose and a permanent stubble that made him look a little gruffer than he actually was. With a dark grey moustache.

A former coal miner, Arthur is an old fashioned working class bloke who took pride in providing for his family, a fiercely loyal, protective, very kind and very sweet family man who loves his grandchildren. He enjoys a good laugh and is prone to a few pints of beer in the pub with the blokes in the evening. Nattering about their wives.

Danielle: "Morning all" she mutters, pouring some tea from the teapot on the table and taking a sip

Gillian: "Bacon, Dani love!? Eggs!?" Her nan shouts over from the cooker

Gillian Slater is a pretty, softly built Welshwoman with a friendly face, bright eyes and a head of thick, naturally curly blonde hair. She has a warm smile, fine features and the sort of expressive face that made it impossible for her to hide what she was thinking.

Always neatly dressed, Gillian has an eye for colour, patterns and fabrics, favouring well coordinated blouses, cardigans, skirts and sensible shoes, with the occasional pair of earrings to finish an outfit. Years spent working as a seamstress in a sewing factory had left her with a sharp eye for a badly fitted hem and an instinctive ability to spot quality clothing.

Warm, chatty and naturally funny, Gillian is a caring, comfortable presence who loved a natter over a cup of tea and took genuine pleasure in looking after her family. Polite without being stuffy and affectionate without being overbearing, she has a gentle way of making people feel welcome, although she was perfectly capable of delivering a cutting remark with a sweet smile when the occasion called for it.

Danielle: "No thanks nan. Got work soon, I'll grab something on my way in"

Arthur: "Ah you're a working woman too are ya? I remember when you were just a little one in nappies" he giggles

Arthur: "What is it you do?" He asks before taking a big gulp of tea

Julie: "She wants to be a fashion designer" she smiles

Arthur and Gillian both turn their heads in surprise to Danielle

Danielle: "No- no. She makes it sound like fashion week or something" she giggles

Danielle: "I work at a cheap clothes shop selling clothes but I want to design my own and run my own clothing stall on Marlas Market one day"

Gillian hears this from the cooker

Gillian: "Aw fair play to you love!" She says with a smile

Julie: "Yeah mam, my girls got dreams" she smiles proudly at Danielle

Arthur: "Well good on you, love. And your nan knows quite a bit about clothes, don't you Gill!?"

He shouts over to her with his mouth full of toast

Gillian: "What's that love!?" She shouts back from the cooker

Arthur: "Clothes! You know a lot about–" he starts coughing almost hysterically. But nobody takes notice

Gillian turns from the cooker with a pan full of bacon, and walks to the table

Gillian: "Oh yeah. Course I do. Used to work in a sewing factory back in the day didn't I Jule?"

Julie nods

Danielle: "So...you know alot about clothes then?" She asks her nan

Gillian: "Course I do. Can't design 'em to save my life like you can though. But I'm cracking when it comes to making them and what have you. The girls at the line were all devastated when I retired"

Danielle's face is washed over by a look of thought. She's deep in thought now.

Kelly: "Retired? You're only sixty..."

Gillian: "Sixty three Kelly, love. Year younger than bampy"

She giggles, heading back to the cooker with an empty pan.

Danielle: "Right— I'm gunna get dressed and head off. Haven't got long" she quickly stands up from the chair. A she does, Jenna walks in from the hallway, dressed for work. And takes her seat

Julie: "Have a good day love!" She shouts at Danielle who walks upstairs to get dressed

Julie: "You want to see her drawings, dad. They're amazing. Don't know where she gets it from"

Arthur: "Aw well good for her" he says, chewing toast

Arthur: "What is it you do again Gav?" He says, sipping tea

Everyone looks at him with a teasing smile

Gavin: "Oh I...I...—"

Jenna: "Nothing. He does nothing bamps" she smiles, before pouring hot water into her cup

Gavin: "No! No, i make music. I'm a DJ" He awkwardly smiles

Arthur: "Oh...right..." he nods

Arthur: "I used to be a—"

Julie: "A coal miner. Yeah dad, you told them all already" she giggles

Arthur: "Those mines were no joke, I tell you. Good thing about living in Wales though. Plenty of 'em. Means plenty of work"

Jenna: "Don't do it no more?" She asks, before taking a sip of her tea

Arthur: "No. Not since my heart attack a few years back. What do you do love? Got a proper job? Unlike mister music maker over here?" He giggles at Gavin

Jenna laughs

Jenna: "Yeah. Yeah, Im a bartender. Got the job recently actually"

Gillian: "Ooh bet that's busy work"

Jenna: "Ah its alright. Could be worse"

Arthur: "Bet thats the good thing with living down 'ere though i suppose. London, like. More busier. More things to do. More work"

Gillian: "Still dont know why you moved..." she mutters to Julie

Julie: "You know why we moved away mum. I...had a lot going on"

As she says that, Georgina walks in out from the garden.

Georgina Slater is an unmistakable presence: a big, glamorous, larger than life Welshwoman with a curvaceous figure, a broad smile and an enormous mass of thick, bushy brown curls that framed her face and seemed to have a personality of their own. She wears her makeup heavily and unapologetically, with dark eyeliner, layers of mascara, carefully painted lips and enough blusher to make sure she could be seen from the back of a theatre.

Georgina loves dressing up and has a particular fondness for anything bold, colourful or showy. Even when she's not performing, she looks as though she might be about to take the stage.

She made her living singing, dancing and performing celebrity impersonations, with Shirley Bassey and Tina Turner among her favourite acts. She has the voice, the confidence and the sheer theatrical nerve to throw herself into a performance, and she brought exactly the same energy into ordinary conversation. Loud, hilarious, shamelessly flirtatious and extremely fond of a drink, Georgina can turn a quiet family gathering into a full blown knees up without even trying.

She's a natural at making people laugh, adored being the centre of attention and rarely entered a room without making herself known. Beneath all the glitter, cheek and outrageous humour, is a deeply affectionate woman who loves her family and wears her heart on her sleeve. Georgina Slater is a party animal through and through. Exuberant, unapologetically herself and never one to do anything by halves.

Georgina: "Oh I remember alright. I was left picking up the pieces after—"

Julie: "Gina–" she holds her hand up and stops her

Theres a small silence

Kelly: "Well why did we move down here? Me and Katie were only babies. We dont remember, we grew up here"

An awkward silence sits in the one busy kitchen

Julie: "Just...had a lot going on. That's all. Needed a fresh start. So I moved here, and brought all my kids with me" she smiles

Georgina: "To a dump"

Julie: "Gina! It's not that bad..."

Arthur: "Speaking of Katie, when we gonna go see her? She's mostly the reason we came down 'ere"

Gillian: "Well her and Kelly love. After we got the phone call from Julie about the accident we knew we just had to be here. Even if we are taking up too much room" she chuckles

Julie: "I'm going in to see her today, now. She's being taken out of intensive care today. She'd love to see you all"

Gillian: "Aw good"

As she passes the kitchen doorway and runs down the stairs to head to work, Danielle shouts;

Danielle: "Bye everyone!". The front door slams and the kitchen jumps alive again.

Georgina: "Right, Jenna, show me where you work so I can get a drink in me!" She claps her hands once and rubs them together with a smile

Julie: "Already? Its not even nine"

She says, turning to face her sister

Georgina: "Well you know what they say sis, early bird catches the worm and all that" she smirks

A few giggles escape mouths

Gillian: "You'll never grow up, will you?" She jokingly asks at the kitchen sink

Georgina: "Why would I mam? They say you're as young as you feel dont they!? Now—"

She turns to Jenna

Georgina: "After I put my lippy on, you're taking me to work before we go see Katie at the Hospital. Okay?" She says in an almost excited tone

Jenna: "Yeah, yeah okay!" She laughs and nods her head

Georgina: "Attagirl! WOO!" She bounces into the living room

———

9:16AM. The Strip. Shawcross General Shop.

———

Its a quiet morning so far at the shop, and Yvonne sits behind the counter. Mind racing, scared to make a certain appointment.

She looks down at her Nokia on the counter, thinking.

Should I? Shan't I?

What do I do??

Eventually, she snaps out of it and grabs her phone, and the pamphlet on Abortion.

She turns to the staff only door to see no sign of Michael.

And when its safe. She dials the number for the clinic into her phone.

It rings theee times and then–

Yvonne: "Hi- hello? Hi. Is this Marlas Abortion Clinic? Yeah...hi. I'd– I'd like to make an appointment please" she says quietly like a child in trouble

Yvonne: "Yvonne Shawcross. Yeah. March 19th, nineteen sixty four. Yeah. Um...as soon as, please. Wednesday? Yeah that's...that works. Um yeah. Four o'clock is good. Okay. Thanks. Thank you. Yeah. Bye. Bye- bye"

Just as she puts her phone down onto the counter she exhales and shakes slightly.

The fuck did i just do?

And with that–

DINGALING

The bell above the door jingles and Mitchell comes stumbling in, absolutely wasted. With some lad around his age. Arms over each other shoulders. They sumble over to the alcohol section, laughing. Yvonne just watches. Then–

The staff only door behind the counter opens and Yvonne is startled. She turns around quickly.

Michael: "Woah, only me" he laughs

Michael: "You okay?" He asks quietly

Yvonne: "Yeah. Yeah im fine" she quietly says with an exhale

Michael smiles at her and then hears the ruckus coming from the alcohol section and looks up. He sees Mitchell. With another guy.

Yvonne: "Kids..." she mutters, referring to Mitchell and his friend

Michael: "Yeah. Kids" he fake giggles. Still staring at them.

Yvonne: "Hey, you mind if I go upstairs and have a lie down? Im...exhausted"

Michael: "Yeah. Yeah yeah of course you go on up. I've got the shop" he smiles

Yvonne: "Aw thank you love" she kisses his cheek and he leans in to it

She opens the staff only door and heads upstairs to rest.

Michael sits on the stool behind the counter, still watching. He looks down and sees something unfamiliar poking out of the lower shelf of the counter. He picks it up.

"CONSIDERING ABORTION?" catches his attention immediately. Written across a light purple pamphlet.

He stares at it, frowning in thought

———

9:31AM. The Victoria Arms Pub.

———

The pub has only been open an hour and a half and already its relatively busy.

Behind the bar, Jenna and Eddie both stand. Eddie is still giving Jenna tips.

At the bar, of course, is Jim. And at a table in the middle of the room is Julie and Georgina. Having a small drink each.

Georgina: "So, the crash. How did it happen?"

Julie: "Well, it was the Estate's 30th anniversary of being built. So every 5 years the Estate throws a party. You know what people are like around here or a piss up"

Gina nods

Julie: "Well, this place was packed, right? To the brim. And this new family that moved into number 33 came here too. And Katie and Kelly met one of their boys, Jamie his name is. They all hit it off and I guess he tried to show off, nicked a car and they all went joyriding. It was raining and they had all been drinking so..." she shrugs

Georgina: "Fucking Hell" she sighs

Georgina: "I can't believe you didn't tell us straight away"

Julie: "Hey! I was in shock okay? I could've lost both of my daughters and the last thing I wanted to do was to drag any of you into it. Dad especially. He's not in great health"

Georgina: "I suppose"

Julie: "And anyway, I'd appreciate it if you didn't tell any of the kids about why we moved. About...you know"

Georgina: "About Dean?—"

Julie: "Yes. Do you even have to say his name?" She seethes, before taking a sip of her pint

Georgina: "You do know that Gavin, Jenna and probably Danielle all remember him and what happened, right?"

Julie: "Yes. I know that. And thats why I moved. To get away from...all of it. To give the kids a fresh start. To give Katie and Kelly a fighting hope that their dad wouldn't turn out to be like Gav's Jenna's and Danielle's"

Georgina: "What is it with you and men?" She jokingly asks as she takes a sip of her tear Maria

Julie: "Fuck knows" she mutters

Georgina: "Marlon wasn't that bad though..."

Julie: "Wasn't that bad!?" She laughs

Julie: "I went to his work to give him his packed lunch and found a woman almost half my age on her knees in front of him. The fuck you mean 'not that bad'?"

Georgina: "Well he didn't beat you did he? Not like—"

Julie: "Okay– I know what you're going to say and thats enough. Let's stop. I've got enough on my plate without you dragging up the past" she sips her pint

Georgina: "I'm sorry" she quietly says, rubbing her sister's arm

Julie: "It's okay" she smiles

A little silence sits there and Julie changes the subject

Julie: "Mm" she swallows her drink

Julie: "How's work? You met anyone?"

Georgina: "Oh its great. I love it. Love dancing and singing, me. You know that. And if I don't get paid cash I get paid in free drinks so its a win either way" she laughs

Georgina: "Even had a few people hire me to do impersonations for birthdays and wedding anniversaries and stuff like that. Its fucking awesome sis"

Julie: "Aw well good on you Gina. Really"

Georgina: "And as for blokes? I get them all the time but they come and go. Literally" she jokes

Julie: "Aw Gean! Dirty bitch" she laughs

———

11:14AM. Number 41. Maureen's Home.

———

Kylie comes in through the front door after attempting to smoke a fag in the front garden. She failed.

She closes the door and sits on the sofa, joining Maureen in watching TV.

Maureen: "You alright? You feeling any better?"

Kylie: "No. Not really. I couldn't even have a puff without it making me feel sick" she shows Maureen the full and newly stubbed out fag before dropping it into the ashtray on the table

Maureen looks

Kylie: "Don't think I ate anything funny do you?"

Maureen: "Don't know love. You can't have. We eat the same thing at the same time, most times. And I feel fine"

Maureen: "You been sick this morning? Apart from late last night?"

Kylie: "No. Don't know what came over me"

Maureen: "Hm. I dont know either love but if there's anything I can do"

Kylie: "I know. Thanks Maur"

Maureen nods

Maureen: "Oh, how was your meet up with you sister yesterday? How did it go?"

Kylie: "Yeah it went well actually. Shitting myself a bit before I saw her coz I didnt know what to expect, like. But no, it was nice. We had a nice catch up i told her the mess I was in, about Nathan"

Maureen: "Yeah"

Kylie: "And uh, Barry walks past and saw me so of course he came in and started talking to me didnt he?"

Maureen: "What did he want with you?"

Kylie: "I was seeing his son Gaz weren't I? But i left because..."

Maureen: "Yeah?"

Kylie: "I...just didn't feel safe there. Like I do here"

She keeps some of the truth hidden

Maureen smiles

Maureen: "You know you're always safe here, love. Okay?"

Kylie: "I know. Ta Maureen"

———

12:44PM. The Strip. Shawcross General Shop.

———

The bell above the main door jingles as it closes shut after a customer leaves, leaving Michael alone in the shop once more.

He pulls the pamphlet out again, staring at it again. More. Thinking. Wondering.

DINGALING

The door opens again and Mitchell comes in again, still hammered. If not, more than he was earlier. He's alone this time and walks straight to the counter.

Michael slides the pamphlet out of sight

Michael: "Where's your boyfriend?" He teases cruelly

Mitchell: "Well his name is–" he hiccups

Mitchell: "Alex. And we're– he's not my boyfriend. Just a bit of fun. Something you forgot how to have" he slurs, leaning forward against the counter

Mitchell: "And hes outside. Waiting for me. I'll have a large bottle of Smirnoff and a pack of condoms"

He says to Michael, directly looking into his eyes

Michael: "So childish..." he whispers as he turns to get the vodka and condoms

Mitchell: "You say something?"

Michael turns back around and hands him the vodka and condoms

Michael: "No"

Mitchell giggles

Mitchell: "Never did have much of a backbone did you?" He hiccups

Michael: "And you mean what, exactly?"

Mitchell: "You know exactly what i mean Michael. Never being honest. Never putting yourself first" he slurs

Mitchell: "Never admitting what it is you really want" he adds with a glare

Michael: "That's twelve ninety nine" he mumbles

Mitchell hands him a bunch of change. Leaving Michael to have to count out the cost himself

As he does, Mitchell speaks

Mitchell: "I may be childish. But at least im not a lying cheat who lies to himself" he says to Michael quietly

Michael looks up

Michael: "At least I don't drink my feelings away like a schoolkid with a crush that doesn't like him back"

He continues counting the cost

Mitchell: "Now now Michael. We both know that's not the case. Because we both know, deep down, that you like–"

Michael: "Here's your change" he cuts him off, holding spare change over the counter

Mitchell takes the coins and pockets them, along with the condoms

Michael: "And dont show up to work drunk, will you? Don't want to fall over on stage" he makes a snarky sarcastic remark to Mitchell, but it backfires

Mitchell: "Can't really fall off a pole. And anyway, i do private dances more than pole dances" he says back. Before swiping the big glass bottle off the counter and storming out of the shop, to meet his current affair outside.

Michael is left standing there, angry and hurt.

———

2:13PM. St Anne's Hospital. Outside Katie's Room

———

In the hallway outside Jamie's room, Julie is leading Arthur, Gillian, Georgina and Gavin to Katie's sick bay. On their way, they walk past Jamie's. Gavin and Julie instinctively look in without even realising.

Barry and Nicola notice and they all make eye contact.

After they walk past, Barry and Nicola both exit Jamie's room and shout to the Slaters

Nicola: "Seen your Katie being taken out of 'ere this morning'" she snarls

Barry: "Getting better is she?" He asks deadpan

Julie: "Yeah. She is" she replies

Arthur: "Who are they, love?" He quietly asks Julie in her ear

Before Julie can answer, Georgina senses the tension and speaks up

Georgina: "Have you got a problem? Do we know you?" She confronts them

Nicola and Barry walk closer to the family

Nicola: "Who are you? The calvary?" She snaps

Georgina steps out from behind Julie in an almost threatening way

Georgina: "I'm her sister. Gina"

Nicola: "And those two half dead corpses behind you are your folks i take it?" She shoots a remark

Gillian: "Oi you fucking cheeky—" Gillian goes to step forward but Arthur holds her back

Arthur: "Not worth it love" he whispers

Georgina: "Ah. I see. You're the Jenkins aren't you?"

Barry: "I see you've been running your mouths" he smirks to Gavin and Julie

Gavin: "Well we thought we should let them know what tramps we've got round 'ere"

Julie: "And who's responsible for the crash"

Nicola steps closer

Nicola: "You little—"

Georgina steps in front of Julie

Georgina: "Nu-uh. You're gunna have to go through me first, sunshine. And you don't want that"

Nicola: "Aha is that so?" She laughs

Georgina: "Not unless you want to end up in the coma beside your son, no"

A thick and heavy silence sits between the two families for a few seconds. Before a doctor's voice cuts in

Senior Dr: "Ms Slater!" He shouts from down the hall behind the Slaters

Everybody turns to the doctor and looks at him, who's standing there opposingly, trying to calm the tension between the families. He succeeds.

Senior Dr: "Katie's been moved downstairs, if you'd like to follow me?"

Julie: "Yeah. Yeah, of course"

Julie, Arthur, Gillian and Gavin all start heading towards the Senior Dr who's standing by the elevator. Georgina still stares at Nicola directly in her eyes, with a sharp glare. A dagger.

Julie: "Gina!" She shouts back as they walk away

Before Georgina turns away, she quickly glares at Barry too, before joining her family

———

3:49PM. Marlas Estate Park/Playground

———

Its a dull and damp misty afternoon on Marlas Estate. The sky is grey and drizzling.

Somewhere in Marlas Estate, sits a neglected child's playground thats basically a concrete patch on a bare street corner with rusted playground equipment that'll probably give you tetanus.

Its bare, sprawling. And in the park sits a few wooden benches that have seen better days, a picnic bench with initials etched into them, a yellow rusted seesaw, a wooden set of swings, and a light blue plastic and metal climbing frame with a slide and platform with a few ladders and stairs.

And underneath the slide is a little seating section with a blue plastic bench.

There, sits Mitchell and his recent fling, Alex Thorne. Opposite each other. They're both cold but huddled. Looking rather sketchy all things considered.

Alex Thorne, 20, is a skinny, lanky young man with a scruffy, unhealthy appearance that makes him look older than his years. He sofa surfs. His dark brown hair is a mess, while his pale, drawn face, hollow looking eyes and tired expression give him the look of someone who's spent too many nights awake and too many mornings regretting it.

He dresses in dark, cheap clothes that hang loosely off his frame, usually creased and well past their best, with battered trainers and the general appearance of someone who hasn't cared about his appearance in a long time. There's something restless and shifty about him, his eyes constantly darting about

Alex has the desperate, unpredictable air of a young man whose need for his next fix has begun to outweigh almost everything else in his life.

Mitchell takes a big swig from the bottle of Vodka thats almost empty. He winces as passes it to Alex. Who's almost as trashed as Mitchell.

Alex: "You always hang out in parks drinking yourself stupid?" He grins, before finishing the bottle

Mitchell: "Only when I get shat on" he higgups

After Alex finishes the bottle, he drops it onto the floor and it smashes

Alex: "Well–" he hiccups

Alex: "That didn't touch the sides. How about something more...effective?" He smirks at Mitchell

Mitchell: "...like what?" He slurs

Alex reaches into his black jacket pocket and pulls out a small clear plastic baggie. Half filled with a white powdered substance. Cocaine.

He dangles it in front of Mitchell with a big smile

Alex: "Ever tried this?"

Mitchell nods no

Alex: "Beats weed my friend. You got anything to cut it with?"

Mitchell digs in his pockets and pulls out some coins, and shows them to Alex

Alex: "Mm. Anything else?"

He pulls out his keys to his flat

Mitchell: "This any good?"

Alex: "Ah. Perfect!"

He snatches the key from Mitchell's hand, opens up the baggie and pours some of the coke onto the table. Mitchell watches carefully.

Alex carefully splits the substance again and again until there's a two lines.

Alex puts the key down on the table in front of Mitchell, closes one nostril, and snorts one line with the other.

Mitchell watches and Alex wiped his nose and sniffles afterwards

Alex: "Well? It won't hurt you" he giggles

Mitchell knows what cocaine does. He knows about it. And he knows about drugs. And he's seen people do it before too. Right in front of him. But doing it yourself...that's different.

Anything to block the pain I guess. To block Michael...

Mitchell slowly leans forward, and copies what Alex done. Blocks one nostril, and uses the other to snort.

He winces as he leans back up from the table

Alex laughs

Alex: "First time?"

Mitchell nods and laughs

Mitchell: "Yeah"

Alex: "You'll get the hang of it. Don't get addicted though mind you. Shit's expensive"

Mitchell sniffles

Mitchell: "Right. Let's go to the pub"

He says getting up

Alex: "I'm skint mate. Fuck all to my name"

Mitchell: "That's alright, I'll pay for your drinks. Im earning loads of dosh from my new job"

Mitchell hiccups and Alex smiles

They both stumble and make their way over to the Victoria Arms to get even more hammered.

———

4:14PM: St Anne's Hospital. Katie's Sick Bay

———

In a shared triage room where sick bays line each side of the room, Katie lays in her sick bay with the blue curtain pulled open. And her family around her.

She lays sat up in bed

Her grandparents and aunt are catching up with her.

Katie: "Aw you didnt have to"

Gillian: "Don't be silly of course we did! I remember hearing your mum on the other end of the line telling me what happened and when she did i hit the roof didnt I Arth?"

She nudges her husband

Arthur: "I'll say" he jokingly rolls his eyes at Katie

Georgina: "So...any idea when you'll be out? Nice to see that someone in this family grew up to be a party animal. Apart from me that is" she smirks

Katie: "The doctors said a week or two if things go well. But its still early days"

Julie: "And anyway, dont think you're taking her out clubbing after what happened. No fucking way"

Georgina: "I know I know. Wasn't planning on it" she jokingly defends herself and then secretly winks at Katie

Katie smirks

Katie: "So, how long you lot staying down here?"

Gillian: "As long as it takes for you and your sister to get better. Then we'll be out of your hair" she rubs Katie's arm

Julie: "Didn't really expect to have eight people under one roof" she chuckles

Katie: "Fuck! Eight!?"

Julie: "Yup. Its me in my room upstairs, Kelly in yours and her room, Jenna in hers, Gavin in his room in the garage, Dani in her attic room, Gina on the sofa, and Nanny and Bampy on an airbed in the living room"

Katie: "My God..."

———

4:53PM. The Strip. Shawcross General Shop.

———

Behind the counter, Michael's mind is absolutely racing, as well as his heart. Since he found the pamphlet earlier, he hasn't been able to stop looking and thinking about it.

Or about Mitchell...

The shop is quiet, but the peace isn't doing his mind any favours

Suddenly–

The staff only door behind the counter opens and Yvonne slowly walks out, feeling sleepy from her long rest. She yawns as she walks out from behind the counter, past Michael and over to the fridges of cool drinks

Yvonne: "God...don't know if that rest helped, you know. Feel more tired than before" she quietly giggles as she takes a bottle of Lucozade from the fridge and walking over to the counter.

Michael says nothing

Yvonne: "Can't get enough of these recently..." she waves the bottle in his face before opening it and taking a sip

Again, Michael says nothing, just looks down at his hands under the desk

Yvonne: "What's up? You okay?"

Michael looks up at her into her eyes. For while

Yvonne: "What...? What is it?"

Nothing

Yvonne: "Michael what is it? You're scaring me..."

He pulls up the pamphlet from under the counter and Yvonne's stomach plummets

Michael: "Got something you want to tell me?"

Yvonne's heart pounds at her chest and she can feel herself shaking but she battles with her body language and acts cool

Yvonne: "Mmm no...not really..." she acts confused

Michael: "So...this isn't yours?" He asks rhetorically, sharply

Yvonne nods no as she takes another sip of her drink

Yvonne: "No. I was serving a teenager this morning, she dropped that on her way out and by the time I got to it to give it back to her, she'd gone. I weren't chasing after some kid who can't keep her legs closed" she jokes, playing it off. Almost smoothly

Michael looks back at the pamphlet, then at Yvonne, and at the pamphlet again

Michael: "...I dont believe you" he says quietly

Yvonne: "What? Why not?" She laughs

Michael: "Why would I? You haven't been yourself lately and—"

Yvonne: "Oh Michael I'm ill! Okay!? Not pregnant. Im...I'm ill. People get sick and pregnant teenagers read about abortions. Sometimes things aren't what they seem"

Michael: "I...I just..."

Yvonne: "Just what?"

Michael: "I...I dont know. Something's not right..."

Yvonne: "For fuck's sake" she whispers in frustration

Yvonne: "Michael im not pregnant. How many more times have I got to tell you?"

Michael: "But the night of the crash, when I came back here, you—"

Yvonne: "Felt guilty? Because thats all it was! I made an effort for you because I felt bad about how I treated you earlier that night!" She shouts at him

Michael goes to speak but she carries on

Yvonne: "Why the Hell would I want a kid with you!?" She giggles

Michael stutters and chuckles in disbelief

Yvonne: "You know what i mean. I'm sorry...that came out too harsh" she tries to take some of it back

Michael: "No. I dont know what you mean Von"

A heavy silence sits there

Michael: "Fine, you know what? If you're so 'well', than you can manage the shop all on your own for the rest of the day can't you?"

He walks from behind the counter and towards the coat rack by the door

Yvonne: "Where are you going, now!?"

Michael: "To clear my head!" He says, throwing his coat on and storming out the shop

Yvonne sighs and looks at the pamphlet on the counter. She yanks it and rips it up in frustration

———

7:17PM. The Victoria Arms Pub.

———

For a Monday, the pub is relatively full and quite alive. Of course the usual piss heads are here...Jim definitely.

Behind the bar, Eddie and Jenna are serving away, both actually having quite a nice time. Chatting and laughing between serving customers. At the bar, Jim is about 8 pints deep. Maybe more? Who knows

On the opposite bar, in the lounge section of the pub, is Mitchell and Alex, both sitting in a corner booth, laughing and slurring God knows what. Looking rather close.

And on the other end of the same bar as Jim, is Michael, a few pints deep also. He can't help but overhear Mitchell and his 'boyfriend' as Michael called him.

Jim: "You alright there Michael, lad?" He asks from the other end of the bar

Michael can't hear him clearly so he moves closer. Sits on the stool next to Jim

Michael: "You what Jim?"

Jim: "You alright? Looking quite down over there" he hiccups

Michael: "Stressful day thats all!" He smiles and shouts above the noise of the busy pub

Jim: "I hear that" he jokes

Michael smiles and nods, but can't help but look over at Mitchell every few minutes. He knows its wrong. But can't help it...

Over at one of the wooden round tables in the middle of the room, sits Julie, Georgina, Gillian and Arthur, chatting about Katie and Kelly's recoveries, and Jenna working behind the bar

Over at a booth near the window, is Kylie and Maureen. A few drinks in. Kylie is almost ready to go, Maureen? Not so much

Maureen takes a sip of her pint

Maureen: "I'm glad you decided to come out after all. You feeling any better?"

Kylie: "Mm...a bit i guess. Don't really know. I think so. These drinks aren't going down a treat though i got to be honest"

Maureen: "Aw why's that love?"

Kylie: "Don't know. They're just making me feel a bit sicky" she smiles

—

From their table, Julie waves at Maureen and Kylie to come over. Georgina, Gillian and Arthur all smile at them too.

Maureen notices

Maureen: "Oh, look. Julie's calling us over" she goes to get up but Kylie stops her

Kylie: "Woah– im not..."

Maureen senses Kylie's hesitation

Maureen: "Kylie, love. That woman over there" she points at Julie

Maureen: "Is one of the nicest and most honest women you'll ever meet. Okay? You'll be fine. Come on, meet some new faces"

She stands up with her drink, and Kylie does the same, reluctantly. They both walk over

Maureen: "Hiya Jule! Hi all!" She says to the table

Julie: "Maureen! This 'ere are my mam, dad and younger sister Georgina"

Georgina: "It's Gina" she says to Maureen with a big smile, holding out a hand

Maureen takes it

They all get acquainted and Maureen and Kylie both sit at the table with the Slaters

Georgina: "So, you look like my kind of gal. You like to drink?" She asks Kylie

Kylie: "I do yeah. But...been a bit occupied lately"

Georgina: "Too occupied to have fun?"

Kylie nods

Georgina: "Well tonight that's gonna change" she smiles, raising her glass to Kylie's

Kylie smiles and does the same

Maureen notices and a smile crawls on her face

—

Behind the bar, Jenna just finishes serving Jim a pint and turns to Eddie

Jenna: "Where's Paula then? She not about? Could do with an extra set of hands" she asks

A look falls onto Eddie's face and he doesn't know what to say

Jenna notices and goes to say that he doesn't have to tell her anything, but he speaks up anyway

Eddie: "Yeah– um...she's..she's just staying with her sister up north for a bit. She...needed some space" he smiles

Jenna smiles back and briefly places her hand on his forearm and smiles at him, friendly. Before removing it and getting back to work. Eddie watches work away. With a small smile.

—

Back at the busy table, Georgina is trying to get Kylie to go out with her on the town. Tonight. Kylie is clearly reluctant but Julie and Maureen are both telling Georgina no.

Georgina: "Oh come onnn. I can tell you're a right laugh! I can just tell! I've met all kinds of women in clubs and shit and your kind are my kind!" She says to Kylie with a laugh

Julie: "What's that then? Overbearing?"

Gillian and Arthur laugh

Georgina: "Alive baby! Alive and ready to partayyyy!" She laughs

Maureen: "Gina love, I dont think—"

Georgina holds her hand up

Georgina: "Nu-uh. This one needs some proper time out with a real party girl. Instead of being tied to group of old biddies like you lot" she jokes

Kylie laughs

Georgina: "Come on" she says quietly

Kylie: "I have no money" she says quietly

Georgina: "That's okay, I do. I'll pay for you"

Julie: "Gina—"

Georgina holds her hand up in Julie's face

Georgina: "So?" She smiles at Kylie

Kylie looks at Maureen and Maureen looks back with a look that says "Well...its up to you"

Kylie looks back to Georgina

Kylie: "What the heck why not!?" She laughs

Georgina: "Aah!! Attagirl!" She hugs her side

Maureen and Julie look at each other

—

Over at the bar, Michael tries to eavesdrop and looks in on Mitchell and Alex's conversation. They look...comfortable

A few short minutes pass and they both get up laughing, and start making their way out the door

And within a flash, Michael decides to finish the rest of his pint.

But he does. He downs what's left snd follows Mitchell and his scruffy hookup out the door snd into the dark night.

———

7:28PM. Outside The Victoria Arms Pub.

———

As Michael runs out into the damp snd drizzly night, down the street to the right, he sees two silhouettes running and laughing towards a bus stop.

He decides to run after them, not knowing why...except for Mitchell

As Mitchell and Alex reach the bus stop and Michael is a few steps behind, a bus pulls up, illuminating onto the street.

It hisses to a stop and they both run on, quickly pay, and run to the back. Michael stands on the pavement, and watches the bus take off and pass him.

As it does, he sees Mitchell and Alex right at the back, hands all over each other. Consumed in each other's bodies.

He's left standing there in the dark and drizzled night, head and heart both all over the place and torn to bits

———

That's episode 15! Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed it! As always please let me know what you think! Episode 16 will be out soon! ☺️

On November twentieth, I woke before the alarm.

Five twenty-eight.

The train was not until seven forty-two.

Too early.

I lay there for another minute.

Then got up.

The bag had been packed the night before.

Two shirts.

Underwear.

Socks.

Sweater.

Toiletries.

Book.

Phone charger.

No temple documents.

No robe.

No card.

The Kyoto postcard was still in the desk drawer.

I had considered bringing it.

Then decided against it.

Mizuno did not need evidence that he had once sent me mail.

Neither did I.

At six ten, I made tea.

Drank it.

Not good.

Not terrible.

Mine.

Then checked the train ticket for the fourth time.

Departure.

Connection.

Seat.

Arrival.

Nothing had changed overnight.

I put the phone away.

At six thirty-two, the doorbell rang.

I stared at the door.

No one was supposed to come.

Opened it.

Takahashi.

“Why are you here?”

“To take you to the station.”

“I didn’t ask.”

“I know.”

“I can drive.”

“And leave your car there for three days.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because parking exists.”

“So do friends.”

There.

He looked past me.

“Ready?”

I should have objected longer.

Did not want to.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

No.

I let him have it.

He took my bag.

“I can carry that.”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

“Because I’m already holding it.”

That was irritatingly effective.

He put it in the back of his car.

I locked the house.

Then checked the lock.

Takahashi watched.

“Again?”

“No.”

“You looked.”

“That is not checking.”

“You touched the handle.”

“Drive.”

He did.

The roads were quiet.

Dark still fading.

Heater working without rattling.

I noticed.

Said nothing.

Takahashi said:

“You noticed.”

“What?”

“The heater.”

“No.”

“You looked.”

“I looked at the dashboard.”

“Liar.”

We drove.

After five minutes he asked:

“Nervous?”

“Yes.”

No point pretending.

“What part?”

“Arrival.”

“Not the train?”

“No.”

“Mizuno?”

“Yes.”

“Yuko?”

“Yes.”

“Guest room?”

“No.”

“Food?”

“No.”

He nodded.

Then:

“What do you think is going to happen?”

“I don’t know.”

“That is usually what arriving is.”

I looked at him.

“That was almost useful.”

“Garage wisdom.”

“No.”

He smiled.

At the station, he pulled over near the entrance.

Six fifty-eight.

Too early.

Again.

I took my bag from the back.

Takahashi got out too.

“You don’t need to come in.”

“I know.”

“Then?”

“Coffee.”

Of course.

We went inside.

The station was already busy enough to prevent the morning from feeling private.

Rolling suitcases.

School uniforms.

Announcements.

A woman trying to keep two children together.

A man asleep near a wall outlet.

We bought coffee.

Takahashi drank his immediately.

Mine was too hot.

We stood near the departure board.

My train appeared there.

Kyoto did not.

Not directly.

Several steps first.

That felt appropriate.

No.

It was simply the route.

Takahashi looked at the board.

“Call when you arrive.”

“I’ll message.”

“Call.”

“Why?”

“I want to hear whether Mizuno is real.”

I laughed.

“He spoke to me.”

“Could be elaborate fraud.”

“For what?”

“Postcard recovery.”

“Nine-year operation.”

“Patient criminals.”

I drank coffee.

Then:

“I’ll call.”

Takahashi nodded.

No further demand.

The platform announcement came.

Still time.

I picked up the bag.

He said:

“Enjoy it.”

“I’ll try.”

“No.”

I looked at him.

“What?”

“Don’t try to enjoy it.”

“That is strangely specific.”

“Just go.”

There.

Better.

I nodded.

“See you Sunday?”

“If you return.”

“I have a return ticket.”

“Evidence.”

I smiled.

“See you Sunday.”

“See you.”

I went through the gate.

He stayed outside.

Did not wave theatrically.

Neither did I.

The train left on time.

For the first twenty minutes, I read.

Then realized I had read the same page twice.

Closed the book.

Outside:

buildings.

Fields.

Stations.

Snow in some shaded places.

Nothing unusual.

I was traveling to see an old friend.

That sentence remained strange.

Not because false.

Because newly current.

Mizuno sent a message at eight sixteen.

Awake?

I replied:

On train.

Good.

No.

I smiled.

Then:

Yuko says lunch depends on arrival.

Train is on time.

She says trains lie.

She may be right.

Nothing else.

At the first transfer, I almost went to the wrong platform.

Not entirely wrong.

Same direction.

Different train.

I noticed before boarding.

That was sufficient.

No metaphor.

By noon, I was tired of sitting.

The seat was comfortable enough.

Still a seat.

I ate a boxed lunch.

Not memorable.

Rice.

Fish.

Pickles.

I sent no photograph to Takahashi.

He would ask whether I had bought train-shaped sweets soon enough.

Kyoto became real first as an announcement.

Then buildings.

Then tracks multiplying.

Then the station roof.

People stood before the doors opened.

I remained seated until movement made sense.

Bag.

Coat.

Phone.

No card.

No postcard.

Just me.

The platform was crowded.

I stepped out.

For several seconds, I did not move.

Not because emotional.

Because I needed to know which direction to go.

Signs.

Central exit.

Mizuno had written:

I’ll wait near the large clock.

There were several clocks.

Of course.

I followed the crowd.

The station was larger than memory.

Or my memory had reduced it.

Either way.

I reached the concourse.

People everywhere.

I looked for Mizuno.

Did not see him.

Looked again.

A man in a dark coat.

No.

Too young.

Another.

No.

Then someone raised one hand.

Not high.

Just enough.

I knew the gesture before the face.

Mizuno.

Older.

Gray at the temples.

Thinner than I remembered.

Glasses now.

Same posture.

He stood perhaps fifteen meters away.

For a moment neither of us moved.

Then he walked toward me.

I did the same.

We stopped too far apart to shake hands naturally.

Then both tried.

Awkward.

He laughed first.

“So.”

“Yes.”

“You came.”

“Yes.”

He looked at the bag.

“Only that?”

“Three days.”

“You used to travel with too much.”

“I improved.”

“Unproven.”

There.

Voice.

Face.

Actual person.

Not postcard.

Not phone.

Mizuno.

He looked at me for a few seconds.

“You look older.”

“So do you.”

“I was going to say well.”

“You missed the chance.”

“I can restart.”

“No.”

He laughed.

Then:

“Yuko said not to make the first five minutes strange.”

“How long has it been?”

He looked at his watch.

“About forty seconds.”

“Then we have time.”

We both laughed.

That helped.

He reached for my bag.

I held it.

“No.”

He stopped.

“I was going to carry it.”

“I know.”

“Guest.”

“I can carry my bag.”

He looked at me.

Then released the handle.

“Still difficult.”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

No.

I almost corrected.

Then remembered who had used the word years before Takahashi began persecuting me for it.

Maybe Mizuno was part of the original problem.

“Were you always like that?”

“What?”

“‘Good.’”

He frowned.

“You called yesterday to ask me that?”

“No.”

“Then later.”

We walked.

Yuko was waiting outside by a car.

I recognized her before she spoke.

Older too.

Hair shorter.

Same eyes.

She looked at me.

Then at Mizuno.

Then back at me.

“You remembered my name.”

“Yuko-san.”

“Excellent.”

“I deserved that.”

“Yes.”

She bowed.

I bowed.

Then she smiled.

“Welcome.”

That word reached differently.

Not:

You finally came.

Not:

Where have you been?

Welcome.

Present tense.

“Thank you.”

She opened the trunk.

I put my own bag inside before either of them could.

Mizuno sighed.

Yuko said:

“Let him.”

Good.

No.

I did not say anything.

The drive from the station was quieter than expected.

Not awkward exactly.

Full.

Too many possible things.

Yuko solved it by talking about lunch.

“We can eat at home or stop somewhere.”

Mizuno said:

“Home.”

She looked at me in the mirror.

“What do you want?”

“Home is fine.”

“That is not what I asked.”

Of course.

Everyone had learned from someone.

“Home.”

She nodded.

“Then home.”

Decision made.

Mizuno’s temple was smaller than mine.

Much smaller.

Narrow road.

Stone wall.

Modest gate.

Main hall with repaired roof.

The repair was visible if you knew to look.

I did not know.

Mizuno pointed anyway.

“Second time.”

“The roof?”

“Yes.”

“Same section?”

“No.”

“Better.”

He looked at me.

“You still grade things.”

“I asked a factual question.”

Yuko unlocked the residence.

“Come inside before you two become unbearable.”

We did.

Three cats appeared within two minutes.

Not neighborhood metaphor.

Actual cats.

One black.

One orange.

One gray.

The orange one approached me first.

Mizuno said:

“That one bites.”

I stopped.

Yuko said:

“He doesn’t.”

Mizuno said:

“He bit me.”

“You stepped on his tail.”

“Context should not excuse violence.”

I looked at the cat.

It rubbed against my leg.

“Apparently I am safer.”

Mizuno stared.

“Nine years and immediate betrayal.”

The room began to feel less difficult.

Lunch was noodles.

Homemade.

Yuko had prepared too much.

Of course.

Some things crossed prefectures.

We sat at a low table.

Three bowls.

Pickles.

Tea.

No formal guest arrangement.

I was grateful.

For the first ten minutes, we talked about the train.

Predictable.

Then the temple.

Roof.

Parish households.

Neighborhood.

Nothing personal enough to frighten anyone.

Then Yuko said:

“You both know you can stop pretending you met last week.”

Mizuno put down his chopsticks.

“I wasn’t.”

“You are discussing gutters.”

“Gutters matter.”

She looked at me.

“He talked about you for two days.”

Mizuno closed his eyes.

“You promised.”

“I promised nothing.”

I almost laughed into the tea.

Yuko continued:

“He cleaned the guest room himself.”

“That seems appropriate.”

“He never cleans the guest room himself.”

Mizuno said:

“I changed the sheets.”

“You moved furniture.”

“There was dust.”

“You checked the heater three times.”

“Winter.”

She looked at me.

“He was nervous.”

There.

Mizuno stared at his bowl.

I saved him.

“So was I.”

He looked up.

“Really?”

“Yes.”

That seemed to surprise him.

“Why?”

Large question.

I answered smaller.

“Because I hadn’t seen you in years.”

He nodded.

“Yes.”

That was enough.

Yuko resumed eating.

Intervention complete.

After lunch, Mizuno showed me the temple.

Not as a tour guide.

More like someone showing a colleague where the problems were.

Crack near the storeroom.

New wiring.

Old bell.

The bell he had said he disliked.

He struck it once.

I listened.

“Why do you hate it?”

“Too bright.”

“It is a bell.”

“It can still be too bright.”

I listened again.

Maybe.

He asked:

“Well?”

“I don’t hate it.”

“That is not helpful.”

“You asked my opinion.”

“I wanted agreement.”

“Then ask for agreement.”

He laughed.

“Still you.”

There.

I felt it.

Not entirely pleasant.

Not unpleasant.

Still you.

Was I?

Some parts.

Not others.

I said nothing.

The guest room was at the end of a corridor.

Tatami.

Small table.

Heater.

Folded bedding.

Window toward the side garden.

Mizuno stood at the door.

“Too cold?”

“No.”

“Extra blanket in closet.”

“Yes.”

“Bathroom—”

“I can find it.”

“You always said that.”

“Did I?”

“Yes.”

“You remember strange things.”

“So do you.”

Fair.

He left my bag near the wall.

Then said:

“Rest if you want.”

There.

Not:

Come talk.

Not:

We have nine years to cover.

Rest.

“I might.”

“Tea at four?”

I checked the clock.

Two twenty.

“Yes.”

He nodded.

Then left.

Door remained open.

I closed it halfway.

Not fully.

No reason.

I sat.

Quiet.

Actual quiet.

Different temple sounds.

Floor creak somewhere.

A door.

Distant bell? No.

Maybe traffic.

I took out my phone.

Message from Takahashi:

Real?

I laughed.

Called.

He answered immediately.

“Well?”

“I’m here.”

“Mizuno?”

“Real.”

“Yuko?”

“Also real.”

“Cats?”

I stopped.

“How do you know about the cats?”

“You told me.”

Had I?

Maybe.

“Yes. Three.”

“Train?”

“Worked.”

“Souvenir?”

“No.”

“Unacceptable.”

I looked toward the half-closed door.

Then said:

“It was strange at first.”

Takahashi’s voice changed slightly.

“Bad?”

“No.”

“Still strange?”

“Less.”

“Good.”

No.

I let him have it.

Then:

“He cleaned the guest room because he was nervous.”

Takahashi laughed.

“You told him you were nervous?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“He looked surprised.”

“People think priests are furniture.”

“That makes no sense.”

“You know what I mean.”

Unfortunately.

Then Takahashi said:

“Go be there.”

There.

Not:

Call later.

Not:

Tell me everything.

Go be there.

“Yes.”

“Call Sunday if you need a ride.”

“I can take a taxi.”

“I know.”

“Then?”

“If you want one.”

I smiled.

“I’ll let you know.”

“Fine.”

No.

He hung up.

At four, tea.

Mizuno and I sat in a small room beside the residence.

Yuko had gone shopping.

Just us.

For the first minute, we discussed the tea.

Then stopped.

No Yuko to force transition.

No Takahashi.

No third person.

Nine years sat down with us.

Mizuno looked into his cup.

Then:

“I almost didn’t call you back.”

I looked at him.

“After my first call?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I was angry.”

There.

I had not expected that.

Not exactly.

“About what?”

He looked at me.

“You disappeared.”

I felt the answer before I could defend myself.

Then he added:

“So did I.”

There.

Good.

No.

Accurate.

He continued:

“I knew that. Still angry.”

“How long?”

“When?”

“After I saw the missed call.”

“About five minutes.”

I smiled slightly.

“That is short.”

“It was concentrated.”

I laughed.

He did too.

Then his face settled.

“I thought: why now?”

“Yes.”

“And then I wanted to know.”

“So you called.”

“Yes.”

Silence.

Tea.

I said:

“I didn’t know you had changed temples.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t know about the roof.”

“Very serious.”

“I nearly forgot Yuko’s name.”

“That was unforgivable.”

“Yes.”

He smiled.

Then:

“I didn’t know your teacher died until someone told me later.”

“Yes.”

“I should have called.”

Maybe.

He looked at me.

“You hate should.”

“I don’t hate it.”

“You used to.”

“I used to hate people using it badly.”

“Same thing.”

“No.”

He laughed.

Again.

Then:

“I wanted to call.”

“When?”

“After I heard.”

“And?”

“I didn’t.”

“Why?”

“I thought too much time had passed.”

There.

The old trap.

Not mine alone.

“What changed?”

He looked around.

“You called first.”

Simple.

I drank tea.

Then said:

“I almost didn’t leave a message.”

“You didn’t.”

“Exactly.”

“I still called back.”

“Yes.”

“Which makes me morally superior.”

“No.”

“Clearly.”

We smiled.

The conversation became easier again.

Later, he asked:

“Did the postcard really make you call?”

“Yes.”

“Why that day?”

“I had taken a day off.”

He stared.

“You?”

“Yes.”

“Voluntarily?”

“Mostly.”

“Who forced you?”

“A friend.”

There.

He noticed.

“Friend?”

“Yes.”

“Takahashi?”

I looked at him.

“You remember him.”

“Of course I remember him.”

That surprised me.

“What do you remember?”

“He hated mushrooms.”

I stared.

Mizuno laughed.

“I met him twice.”

“I had forgotten that.”

“Apparently.”

“Anything else?”

“He thought I talked too much.”

“That remains plausible.”

“And he fixed your bicycle.”

That memory returned.

Slowly.

A broken rear brake.

Years ago.

Before so much else.

“Yes.”

Mizuno smiled.

“So you two are talking again.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

There.

Cards.

Could explain without contents.

I did.

Not every detail.

The existence of two cards.

Names.

Custody confusion.

Eventually each reaching the right person.

Tea.

Calls.

Fishing.

Friendship.

I did not tell him the words on either card.

No need.

Mizuno listened.

At the end he said:

“That is the most complicated route to coffee I’ve ever heard.”

“Yes.”

“Could have called him.”

“Yes.”

“So could he.”

“Yes.”

We both laughed.

Familiar answer.

Then Mizuno said:

“Maybe you only call people when paper attacks you.”

I looked at him.

Card.

Postcard.

“Apparently.”

“That is unhealthy.”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll send you a letter every year.”

“No.”

“So you maintain relationships.”

“No.”

“Registered mail.”

“Absolutely not.”

He laughed.

The old version of us appeared for a moment.

Not restored.

Recognizable.

Enough.

Yuko returned at six with groceries.

Dinner became practical.

Cut vegetables.

Set table.

Mizuno tried to help.

Yuko sent him away because he cut things too thick.

I offered.

She looked at me.

“Can you cut vegetables?”

“Yes.”

Mizuno called from the other room:

“Verify.”

I ignored him.

Yuko handed me a knife.

I cut.

Apparently acceptable.

No priest role.

No guest exemption.

Just dinner.

I liked that.

At the table later, Yuko asked:

“Did you two solve nine years?”

Mizuno said:

“Yes.”

I said:

“No.”

At the same time.

She looked between us.

Then:

“Good. Dinner first.”

No.

We both laughed.

We ate for more than an hour.

Not discussing the lost years.

Mostly current things.

Yuko’s work.

Temple neighborhood.

My temple renovations.

Takahashi.

The cats.

A local shop closing.

A restaurant that no longer existed.

Occasionally:

Do you remember—

Sometimes yes.

Sometimes no.

No one treated forgetting as betrayal.

That helped.

At nine, I returned to the guest room.

Not exhausted.

Full.

From food and conversation.

My phone had one message from Takahashi.

Museum souvenir.

I wrote:

I am in Kyoto for a human being.

Kyoto has shops.

I did not reply.

Then:

Hope it’s okay.

That one I answered.

It is.

Pause.

Good.

No.

I smiled.

I lay down.

Different ceiling.

Different temple.

Mizuno perhaps ten meters away.

For years he had been a name in contacts.

Then a voice.

Now a person in another room.

Nothing had been repaired tonight.

No account settled.

No promise that we would speak every month after this.

He had been angry.

So had I, perhaps in quieter ways.

Both had failed to call.

Both had wanted to.

Neither fact canceled the others.

Tomorrow we would probably talk more.

Maybe about difficult things.

Maybe about gutters.

Both were possible.

Before sleeping, I thought of the station.

Large clock.

Crowd.

Mizuno raising one hand.

That was the moment I had feared most.

Not because I expected rejection.

Because imagination ended there.

Before the platform, I could imagine any reunion.

Warm.

Awkward.

Disappointing.

Perfect.

Once I saw him, all those versions disappeared.

There was only the man actually standing fifteen meters away.

Older.

Glasses.

Dark coat.

Same small hand gesture.

I had walked toward him.

He had walked toward me.

No card had told either of us to.

No postcard had required it.

No one needed anything repaired.

We had chosen a date.

Bought a ticket.

Arrived.

For the first time in nine years, the distance between us had become something measured in steps.

And then we took them.

It came on an ordinary afternoon, the kind that should have slipped through memory without leaving a mark.

The club had ended early. A few students drifted off toward the canteen; others lingered under the neem tree, trading weekend plans. Aarav and Aarna found their usual place on the steps outside, tea steaming in thin paper cups that left faint brown circles on the concrete.

The air was swollen with summer, dry wind, restless leaves, a sun too bright to be kind. The city hummed in the distance, half-asleep in its own heat.

Aarav was sketching without purpose, his pencil looping into shapes that meant nothing, just motion to keep his hands busy. The silence between them was easy, the kind that comes only after years of knowing someone. Until she broke it.

“So…” Aarna began, her voice softer than usual. “I wanted to tell you something.”

He looked up. Her tone wasn’t casual.

Her fingers turned the rim of her cup again and again, a nervous orbit.

“I applied for a program abroad. Just to try,” she said, eyes flicking toward him, then away. A heartbeat of quiet. “And… I got in.”

The world stilled.

The cicadas buzzed louder, the sun caught on the edge of her hair, someone laughed somewhere far away. But around them, everything slowed, the kind of stillness that follows a sentence you can’t take back.

Aarav’s pencil froze mid-line. A single dot of graphite pressed into the page until it tore slightly.

Then the meaning sank in, slow and heavy.

She’s leaving.

He managed a breath that didn’t feel like breathing. “That’s… amazing, Aarna. Congratulations.”

The word amazing cracked like dry glass.

Her smile came bright and nervous, alive with pride. “Thanks. It feels surreal, you know? Scary, but exciting too. It’s everything I wanted.”

He nodded, trying to keep the expression on his face from collapsing. “You deserve it.”

The paper cup crumpled quietly in his hand, tea seeping through the fold, a small warmth against his palm that he barely noticed.

He wanted to tell her that she was everything he wanted.

That the idea of her leaving felt like the ground shifting just enough to unbalance everything he’d built.

But the words jammed somewhere between his heart and his throat.

Aarna kept talking, about forms, flights, timing, what the next few months might look like. He listened, or at least pretended to, storing away every detail of her voice, the lift at the end of her sentences, the way she still used her hands when she was excited. He smiled when he was supposed to, laughed when she did, and wondered if she could hear the quiet breaking behind his calm.

When the tea was finished and the sun began to sink, they said goodnight the way they always did.

But as he watched her walk away, her shadow long against the pavement, something inside him gave way, not in a sharp, dramatic snap, but in a slow, inevitable sag. Like fabric losing its shape.

That night, the air refused to cool. The fan turned lazily above his bed as the city lights shimmered through the haze outside his window. Aarav sat by the sill, notebook open on his knees, pen trembling slightly in his hand.

He wrote:

Some storms
don’t arrive suddenly.
You hear them forming,
you feel the air shift,
you smell the rain long before it falls.
But knowing it is coming
doesn’t make the thunder
hurt any less.

He pressed his forehead against the page, the faint smell of ink and dust rising to meet him.

It was real now, no longer a maybe, no longer a fear whispered in the dark.

Aarna was leaving.

And no matter how tightly he held on to her voice, her laughter, her quiet steadiness, the slow tide of goodbye had already begun to move.

The third family of rats died on a Monday. Gerald found them behind the dumpster - a mother and four pups, arranged in a neat semicircle as if they had been having a meeting about the smell when the smell won the argument. Their faces wore the expression. By now Gerald knew the expression. It was the same face the UPS driver had made and the same face the mockingbird had made and the same face that every living thing within the ambient reach of Dale Pfeiffer's candles eventually made, which was not really an expression at all but rather the absence of one—the face of a creature that had been emptied of the thing that made it a creature and left holding only the container.

He swept them into a dustpan without ceremony. Three families now, in as many weeks. He did not count the insects. Nobody counts the insects. But if someone had, the number would have been in the hundreds - roach families, ant families, entire civilizations of small things that had existed in the walls and cracks and crevices of the Delacroix strip mall for decades, surviving neglect and weather and the death of the Curves fitness and the death of the H&R Block and the death of CLOUD DADDY, surviving everything, and then not surviving Dale.

Gerald dropped the dustpan into the dumpster. He wiped his hands. He looked at Unit 5, where Dale was visible through the window, pouring wax, smiling, wearing a shirt that said SCENT IS THE SOUL'S FINGERPRINT, which was the kind of thing that should be embroidered on a pillow in a room where nothing has ever gone wrong.

Gerald went inside. He had a body to check on. He had several.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Hubchek boy's name was Kyle. He was twenty-three years old and he had not left his parents' basement in four months. He was pale in the way that things are pale when they have not been exposed to light - not white, not gray, but a kind of translucent beige, the color of a page in a book nobody reads. He communicated with his mother primarily through the medium of plates left on the landing of the seventh stair and plates returned to the landing of the seventh stair, a system so refined that they had gone entire weeks interacting only through ceramic.

His father had disappeared two weeks ago. Kyle had not noticed. His father's absence changed nothing about the plates or the Wi-Fi or the particular rhythm of the house as heard from below. But then the plates stopped coming. The seventh stair stopped creaking. Two days passed. Three. Kyle ate a sleeve of Pringles. He ate another. On the fourth day without a plate, he did something he had not done in four months: he climbed the stairs.

The house was wrong. He knew it before he reached the top - not from anything he saw but from something he smelled, or rather from the ghost of something someone else had smelled, a residue that hung in the upstairs hallway like a stain in the air. It was faint. The candle had burned itself out days ago. But the memory of its smell remained - not the smell itself but the damage the smell had done, the way a fire leaves char long after the flame is gone. Kyle's eyes watered. His throat tightened. He kept walking.

The bedroom door was open. The candle was on the nightstand, a cream-colored ceramic vessel with a kraft paper tag that said "Serenity." Beside it, a framed photograph of his father. A rosary. A glass of water, untouched. And his mother, in the bed, on his father's side, wearing one of his father's shirts, with her hand hanging off the edge and her face turned toward the nightstand and an expression that was not sleep and was not peace and was not anything that Kyle had the vocabulary or the emotional architecture to process.

He stood in the doorway for eleven minutes. He did not call 911. He did not call anyone. Kyle Hubchek existed in a state of comprehensive not-knowing that bordered on the philosophical - he did not know what day it was, most days, or who was president, or how to speak to another human being without a screen between them - and the sight of his mother dead in her bed was so far beyond the boundaries of anything he had ever been asked to deal with that his mind simply declined the request. It looked at the situation and it said no and it went somewhere else, somewhere behind his eyes where things were still manageable, and from that small interior room Kyle Hubchek began to do the only thing he could think to do, which was to find out what had happened.

He found a notepad by the kitchen phone. On it, in his mother's handwriting: Delacroix Ave - candle shop - Wed. The pen was still there, on the counter, with its cap off, as if she had put it down intending to pick it up again and then the intention had expired.

He put on shoes. He walked out the front door. He stood in the driveway and blinked at the sky like a man witnessing a new color, and the air was warm and the sun was enormous and he breathed it in - a real breath, a full breath, the kind that fills parts of your lungs that have been closed so long they've forgotten they're lungs - and for a moment, standing there in his basketball shorts and his sneakers, with his dead mother upstairs and his dead father in a cooler forty miles away, Kyle Hubchek felt something he could not name but that other people would have called being alive.

He got in his mother's car. He drove to Delacroix Avenue with the windows down and the radio on, and for forty minutes the world was just a thing that moved past him, warm and loud and indifferent, and it did not occur to him that the world was also the thing that had killed his family, because Kyle did not yet know that his family had been killed. He knew only that his mother was dead and his father was gone and a notepad said Delacroix and a candle said Serenity and none of it meant anything yet.

It would never mean anything. Not to Kyle. He had approximately ninety minutes left in which things could mean things, and he would spend them in the sun.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

He found the strip mall. It looked exactly like the kind of place where nothing good would happen to anyone, but Kyle had spent four months in a basement, so his standards for physical environments were generous. He parked in the lot, next to the blackened remains of weeds that had once been growing through the asphalt, and he walked toward the storefronts with the careful, squinting gait of a man relearning how to exist in three dimensions.

The candle shop was in the middle. DALE'S DIVINE SCENTS. This was where his mother had been. He could see candles in the window - pretty things, ceramic vessels, kraft paper tags. But the door was locked. A handwritten sign said BACK IN 20 MINS - GONE TO GET MORE WICKS! - DALE :) and the smiley face was drawn with the sincerity of a man who used smiley faces unironically, which is to say it was drawn by Dale.

Kyle waited. He stood in the parking lot and looked at the sky again and breathed the air again, and the air was not quite right - there was something underneath it, a low note, a hum of wrongness that he could taste more than smell - but it was still better than the basement. Everything was better than the basement. A war zone would have been better than the basement. A hospital would have been better. A morgue would have been better, though this comparison was more apt than Kyle knew, given that he was currently standing between a cooler full of human remains and a bakery that doubled as a pharmacy for the permanently inconvenient.

He got hungry. He had not eaten since the previous night - a sleeve of Pringles and half a two-liter of Mountain Dew, which had been his baseline meal for so long that his body no longer registered it as food so much as maintenance, the way a car accepts gasoline without gratitude.

The bakery next door was open. CURTIS'S. Kyle walked in.

Curtis was not there. Curtis was in the back, on the phone with a man in Slidell who wanted someone poisoned - his business partner, a dispute over a boat dealership, the usual banality of people who decide that murder is a reasonable solution to a contractual disagreement. Curtis was taking notes. Curtis was quoting prices. Curtis was, in every measurable way, occupied.

Kyle waited. He stood at the counter for five minutes, which was longer than he had voluntarily stood anywhere in four months, and then he cleared his throat, which produced no response, and then he said "Hello?" in a voice so unused to being projected that it came out sideways and died somewhere near the pastry case. Nobody came. The phone conversation in the back continued - something about dosage and timelines that Kyle did not listen to, because Kyle did not listen to things that were not directed at him through a screen.

The front case was beautiful. Golden croissants. Flaky palmiers. A tart so perfect it looked like it had been assembled by someone who had made a deal with a deity. But Kyle did not want a croissant. Kyle did not want a palmier. Kyle Hubchek, standing in Curtis Bayles's bakery with four months of basement metabolism and a lifetime of poor decisions coursing through his translucent body, wanted something specific - something that looked like the thing behind the counter, the thing in the second case, the case that was lower and farther back and not as well-lit, the case that held items with no price tags and no descriptions, just small white cards with names on them that Kyle could not read from where he was standing.

The second case was not locked. This was unusual. Curtis locked it when he left the front—always, without exception, the way a man who keeps venomous snakes keeps the terrarium locked. But Curtis had been mid-way through putting the "specials" in the case when the phone rang, and the phone call was worth forty thousand dollars, and the lock was a small padlock that required a small key, and the small key was in Curtis's apron pocket, and Curtis's attention was on the phone, and in the gap between Curtis's discipline and Curtis's greed, a twenty-three-year-old man who had been eating Pringles for four months reached into the specials case and took an éclair. He left a crumpled five-dollar bill on the counter beside the register, because Kyle Hubchek was many things; a recluse, a dropout, a man whose social skills had atrophied to the point of vestigial - but his mother had fed him every day for four months without complaint and had taught him, in the years before the basement, that you do not take things without paying for them. It was, possibly, the last of her lessons to survive in him, and it surfaced now, in the worst possible place, at the worst possible time, as a crumpled bill left on a counter in a bakery where the second display case should have been locked.

The éclair was beautiful. It was Curtis's finest work, if you defined "finest" in terms of craftsmanship and not in terms of the amount of aconitine suspended in the pastry cream, which was enough to stop the heart of a horse, and Kyle Hubchek was not a horse but he was also not built for endurance. He was built for sitting. He was built for screens. He was built for the specific, limited, climate-controlled world of a basement in Chalmette, and the world outside that basement had been killing his family for two weeks, one at a time, using every tool at its disposal - a cleaver, a candle, and now, in the parking lot of a strip mall on Delacroix Avenue, an éclair.

He ate it in three bites. He ate it standing in the parking lot, leaning against his mother's car, with the sun on his face and the taste of chocolate and pastry cream and something else - something bitter, something botanical, something that lived underneath the sweetness like a second floor beneath a house - and he thought, in the thirty seconds before the thought became impossible, that it was the best thing he had ever tasted. He thought that he should come back here. He thought that maybe the world outside the basement wasn't so bad after all.

Then he sat down. Not intentionally. His legs made the decision without consulting the rest of him, and he slid down the side of his mother's car with his back against the door and the éclair wrapper still in his hand and the sun still on his face, and the sitting became something else, something lower and quieter and more permanent, and Kyle Hubchek, twenty-three years old, four months in a basement, ninety minutes in the daylight, died in a parking lot with chocolate on his fingers and the first genuine smile his face had produced since the Obama administration.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Curtis found him. Curtis came out the back door with his phone call concluded and his notepad full of specifications for the boat dealership man from Slidell, and he walked around the corner and there was a boy sitting against a car in his parking lot with an expression that Curtis recognized immediately, because Curtis had produced that expression more times than he could count, and next to the boy's hand was a wrapper, and the wrapper was from the specials case, and the specials case was open, and Curtis Bayles felt something rise in his chest that was not guilt - guilt was for amateurs, guilt was for people who had not yet made peace with the arithmetic of what they did - but something adjacent to it, something colder, something like the feeling of a machine that has run correctly but on the wrong material.

He had not meant to kill this boy. He had not been paid to kill this boy. This boy was not on any list, in any envelope, behind any name. This boy was inventory loss. This boy was a glitch. And glitches, in Curtis's experience, were how people got caught.

He went to Gerald.

"There's a situation," Curtis said.

Gerald looked at him. Gerald could read a situation in the way a man's jaw was set, and Curtis's jaw was set in a way that meant the situation involved weight.

"How heavy?"

"Maybe one-eighty. Young. Parking lot."

They moved him after dark. They had done this before - not together, not with each other's product, but the mechanics were the same. A body is a body is a body. You lift it, you carry it, you put it somewhere cold, and you clean the place where it was. Gerald lifted Kyle Hubchek over one shoulder with the practiced ease of a man for whom this gesture had become as routine as carrying groceries, and he walked him through the back door of Unit 4, and he put him in Cooler #3, which was now the overflow cooler, which was now full, which was now a problem.

Three coolers. All occupied. The strip mall on Delacroix Avenue was operating at capacity, and the capacity was measured in a unit that no zoning board had ever anticipated.

"He had a car," Curtis said. "In the lot."

"Whose?"

"His mother's, I think. White Kia."

Gerald's face did the thing where it didn't move. The white Kia. The rosary on the mirror. Marlene Hubchek's car. The car that had been in this same lot four days ago carrying a woman looking for her husband, and now it had come back carrying her son looking for her, and both of them were now in Gerald's coolers, and the husband was in Cooler #2, and the mathematics of this were so grotesque that even Gerald, a man whose entire vocation was the reduction of human beings to arithmetic, could feel the numbers pressing against the inside of his skull.

"Same family?" he said.

"I think so."

Gerald sat down on a crate. He put his face in his hands, which were large enough to cover it entirely, which was good, because the expression underneath was not the nothing-face. It was something else. Something that looked, if you could have seen it, like a man doing long division on a sum that would not come out even.

"The father's in Cooler Two," Gerald said into his palms. "Day fourteen."

Curtis said nothing.

"The mother's probably dead too. Dale's candle. I'de guess four days ago."

Curtis said nothing.

"And now the son. Your éclair."

"He wasn't supposed to.....I didn't.....the case was....."

"One family, Curtis. Three of us. One family."

The word sat between them like a stone dropped in still water. Family. Three members. Three methods. Three men who had never coordinated, never conspired, never so much as discussed the Hubcheks as a shared concern, and yet the strip mall on Delacroix Avenue had consumed every last one of them - father by cleaver, mother by candle, son by éclair - with the blind, systematic efficiency of an organism that does not think but only feeds.

They sat on the curb. Gerald and Curtis, side by side, the way they had sat before, the way they were beginning to sit with a regularity that suggested ritual. The parking lot was dark except for the glow from Unit 5, where Dale was still awake, still pouring, still humming. The white Kia sat in the lot like an accusation with wheels.

"We need to talk about Dale," Gerald said.

"Dale didn't do this one."

"Dale did the mother. I did the father. You did the son. That's three for three, Curtis. Three out of three Hubcheks, and this address is the last place every one of them was seen alive. How long before someone counts?"

Curtis said nothing. He was looking at the Kia. He was thinking about the rosary on the mirror - how it had swung when Marlene parked, four days ago, and how it would swing again when someone came to find the car, and how many swings of that rosary were left before the swinging stopped meaning parking and started meaning evidence.

"We need to do something about Dale," Gerald said again, and the word something was doing a lot of work in that sentence - it was carrying the weight of every option from conversation to cleaver, and Gerald was not yet specifying which end of that spectrum he meant, and Curtis was not yet asking, and between the two of them the word something hung in the air like the smell from Unit 5, present and terrible and unresolved.

Inside the candle shop, Dale held up a new creation. He admired it. He turned it in the light. He wrote on the kraft paper tag, in his careful handwriting: "Family."

It was a large candle. Three wicks. He thought the name was warm.

In the parking lot, a stray cat that had been approaching the strip mall from the east stopped walking. It sat down. It looked at Unit 5. It turned around and went the other way, which made it the smartest living thing on Delacroix Avenue, and possibly the only one that would remain living.

Part 1

The endless white expanse stretched out in every direction, silent, vast, and infinite, while beneath the four children, the massive circular pattern rotated with a solemn, ancient grace. Intricate symbols shimmered across its surface, flowing like living rivers of pure light—from the traditional composite bow and the fluid steps of Taekkyeon to the elegant arcs of the sword dance, all bound together by countless luminous threads. Jinwoo, Hanul, Darin, and Soyeon stood near the center in complete silence, having just faced the deepest parts of themselves, their hidden fears, and their buried wounds.

None of those painful memories had magically vanished, but for the first time, they were no longer turning away from them. Arena’s calm, synthesized voice resonated smoothly across the empty white world as pale blue letters shimmered brightly before dissolving.

"Self-Reconciliation Complete."

After a heavy pause, another system message materialized.

"However... you are not yet warriors."

Crossing her arms with a deep frown, Darin asked if they were serious, while Hanul let out an exaggerated sigh of disbelief about having to fight mirror images all over again. Soyeon’s gentle smile softened the tension, leading Hanul to hope she was right as all four of them laughed together for the first time—a brief, entirely real sound that eased the suffocating weight pressing down on their chests.

Suddenly, the great circular pattern beneath their feet ignited with blinding brilliance, spinning at a dizzying speed and surging with raw energy as a warm wind swept through the world, instantly ending the laughter and putting them on high alert.

Part 2

The brilliant light flowing from the great circle slowly divided into four distinct streams, each drifting toward a different child until a simple, unadorned wooden bow materialized before Jinwoo, floating quietly in mid-air. It was old, plain, and scarred by years of rough use, yet the moment Jinwoo’s eyes locked onto it, something deep and dormant inside his soul stirred violently, leading him to reach out and close his fingers firmly around the grip.

Instantly, the endless white world shattered like glass, replaced by a fierce mountain wind, the scent of fresh grass and damp earth, and rolling green hills dotted with thousands of targets. Turning in a full circle with wide eyes, Jinwoo wondered where he was and whether it was another illusion, but Arena calmly replied that it was synchronization.

The environment felt terrifically real, from the buzzing insects in the grass to the uneven dirt beneath his shoes and the chill of the wind. Arena explained that until now they had merely observed martial arts from the outside, but from this exact moment they would begin to truly understand them.

Looking down at the unassuming bow, Jinwoo instinctively drew it back to his cheek as muscle memory took over, but when he loosed the string, the arrow dropped awkwardly into the grass a few steps away. Darin’s mocking laughter rang out from across the field, prompting a deep red flush on Jinwoo’s ears before Arena intervened to state that the memories of the art already existed deep within his body, even though they were still someone else's memories.

As Jinwoo frowned at the weapon, an old man in faded white robes flickered into existence near a target, moving with steady, unhurried grace to smoothly draw a weathered bow.

Part 3

The old man stood motionless before the distant target, breathing calmly and holding the bow as an extension of his own arm while the wind swept across the expansive field. Closing his eyes, he listened to the breeze carrying the scent of damp earth before drawing the string back with effortless, liquid harmony and releasing the arrow in a blur of motion.

Thud.

The distant target trembled as the arrow buried itself dead-center, and the old man simply advised not to watch the target, but to watch the wind itself. When Jinwoo complained about how he was supposed to watch the invisible wind, the old man dissolved into the breeze, leaving only the heavy wooden bow in Jinwoo’s trembling hands.

Far away in other dimensions of the trial, Hanul slipped on the polished stone of a traditional courtyard and landed flat on his back, told by an elderly master to move with the flow of the current rather than trying to forcefully defeat an opponent. Darin tumbled ungracefully onto the white floor among thousands of floating luminous swords, listening to a master dancer explain that a sword must first cut through one's own heart before it can cut through an enemy. Soyeon stood alone amidst glowing threads of light stretching endlessly into the dark, learning to see the connections between everything rather than trying to see it all at once.

Far below in Seoul, another violent explosion shook Earth’s crumbling orbit as Arena’s calm voice echoed across every training ground, announcing the initiation of martial synchronization alongside system numbers showing sluggish progress for Gungdo, Taekkyeon, Geommu, and the command link. Staring in disbelief at the numbers and asking when they would ever reach one hundred percent, Darin received a brief, merciless command from Arena to continue training, leaving the four children to exchange helpless sighs as their true, grueling journey as warriors truly began.

"But... where are they going?"

The question slipped quietly from between Taesung's stiff lips.

Where did that endless black procession finally end?

How far did they have to march before their journey was complete?

The thought arrived without warning—

and with a force that startled him.

A strange curiosity rose from somewhere deep inside his chest, powerful enough to cut through the suffocating numbness that had consumed him for so long.

It wasn't idle curiosity.

It wasn't simple fascination.

It was the first genuine question he had asked himself in years.

Something real.

Something alive.

Almost without realizing it, Taesung pushed himself to his feet.

As though answering a silent summons.

The forgotten cup of coffee rolled gently across the marble bench behind him, but he never looked back.

His eyes remained fixed on the thin black line winding across the ground.

He took a step.

Then another.

Slowly, he followed.

Around him, the people in the plaza remained exactly as they had been before.

Still.

Silent.

Their vacant eyes stared endlessly into empty space, like mannequins arranged in a showroom after closing time.

They looked less like living people...

and more like statues that had somehow forgotten they were once alive.

Among those frozen figures, only Taesung moved.

With his shoulders slightly hunched and his gaze fixed on the ground, he walked after the tiny procession of ants as though under a spell.

To anyone watching, he probably looked insane—

a grown man wandering across a public plaza while staring obsessively at insects crawling over the pavement.

He couldn't have cared less.

The dull, lifeless gazes surrounding him had already lost all meaning.

The ants never hesitated.

In the heart of a city where every inch of nature was monitored, disinfected, and meticulously controlled, they advanced with unwavering confidence—

as though they, not humanity,

were the true masters of this vast empire.

They crossed the marble plaza.

Passed over strips of immaculate artificial grass.

Threaded their way through carefully sculpted landscaping.

The black procession continued without interruption until it reached the base of a towering tree whose massive trunk looked centuries old.

Taesung stopped.

Without slowing, the ants climbed over the thick, weathered roots, disappearing between ridges in the bark before flowing toward a narrow opening hidden beneath the tree.

A small hole in the earth.

Dark.

Silent.

Bottomless.

One after another, they vanished into it.

Not a single ant broke formation.

Not one wandered away.

Each disappeared into the darkness with absolute certainty,

as though an unseen fortress stretched beneath the ground—

and every one of them knew exactly where it belonged.

Humans are Weird – It’s a Wrap

Original Post: http://www.authorbettyadams.com/bettys-blog/humans-are-weird-its-a-wrap

The last of the frolicking humans had abandoned the north-facing slopes, retreating with their noise and warmth into their houses to drink heated fluids and regale their less adventurous family members with tales of the days adventures. The soft pulse of mammalian heartbeats, drifting down through the insulating snow, signaled the presences of a few lingering adults who were apparently standing silently watching the stars. Notes the Passing Changes cast awareness over the slopes one more time and felt satisfied that all of the human young had safely made it back to their family groups. The vast majority of the agricultural land was cold and dormant, requiring little to no monitoring on this darkest night of the year. Notes the Passing Changes let awareness centralize in the first house on the list of visitations tonight.

The leaves of the plant that Sandy and Pat had placed in their central living area were more than adequate to the task of giving a clear view of the room. However the conifer they had brought in provided far more data points and it had been simplicity itself to connect it to the forest outside. Though the humans had warned Notes the Passing Changes that they would be giving it to the local domesticated herbivores so it would be unwise to invest any personal biomass in it. The view it gave, a full three-hundred sixty degrees of the human dwelling from the floor to the ceiling was fascinating. The plant itself, the humans insisted on calling the little thing a ‘tree’, was covered in lights and reflective surfaces and extra greenery hung on the walls. The air was thick with complex molecules that drifted out of the cooking room. Human music drifted from the household speakers. Sandy was alone in the room, sitting cross-legged and staring down at a tangle of brightly colored paper, ribbons, and a cloth facsimile of a local predator species. She was also wielding a pair of steel cutting blades so Notes the Passing Changes decided to wait until she set them down before speaking to her. Startling humans who were holding blades had never turned out well.

While the human focused on concealing the faux-predator Notes the Passing Changes took time to observe the pile of items that had not yet been concealed in either the brightly colored paper or the sturdier reflective bags, and compare the mass and number to those that had been.

“Human Friend Sandy?” Notes the Passing Changes greeted the human when she had breathed a sigh, set the blades to the side, and sat up to stretch.

“Eh? Notes?” she asked glancing first at the usual plant and then up at the conifer fragment with a wide smile.

“Will Pat be arriving to help you with this task?” Notes the Passing Changes asked.

“He better no’!” Sandy declared, shoving some hair out of her face with one hand as she grabbed a pen with the other. “I told him ta stay away till I’m done!”

“If my understanding of this celebration is sufficient you only have a few hours to complete the task,” Notes the Passing Changes observed.

Sandy laughed as she carefully wrote something on a tag on the paper wrapped predator.

“Nah, I got most of the night,” she informed Notes the Passing Changes. “The deadlines when the little nephews and nieces show up tomorrow, not tonight at midnight. I just need ta get it all done before I go to sleep so I can rest easy.”

Notes the Passing Changes gave a vague sound to indicate understanding and observed in silence as Sandy concealed several more of the items. Several were already tucked under the tree and one that smelled of the main space port had the label ‘Notes the Passing Changes’.

“Sandy,” Notes the Passing Changes interjected as she paused between wrapping a low grade weapon in paper and arranging a processed food item in a bag, “are you enjoying this process?”

The human paused, turned her head too look fully at the tree, and for a long moment her eyes unfocused as she pondered the question. Finally she nodded slowly.

“Aye,” she said, a slow grin spreading over her face, and her pheromones were in accord with the satisfaction she expressed. “I don’ like the time crunch, but I’ve always loved the warping and the prepping part.”

“You have been gathering these items for many weeks now,” observed Notes the Passing Changes. “Your workload has been limited now that winter is in full angle and the plants are dormant.”

“Yer’ point?” Sandy asked tilting her head and picking up the blades.

“If you do not enjoy the time crunch, and you have had full control over you time these past weeks,” Notes the Passing Changes asked slowly, “then why do you now have a mass of the work to prepare in a decided time crunch?”

Sandy stared at the tree for a long moment and her face flashed with annoyance before she forced it to a more neutral smile and simply gave a laugh that suggested as much fatigue as humor.

“If y’er gonna be making sharp observations just keep an eye on me pen and scissors so I don’t lose them,” she said, bending back over her work.

“Of course,” Notes the Passing Changes agreed.

It would be fairly simple to keep enough awareness here to preform the class while also visiting the other friends on the list. Perhaps another human household would hold the answer.

Science Fiction Books By Betty Adams

Amazon (Kindle, Paperback, Audiobook)

Barnes & Nobel (Nook, Paperback, Audiobook)

Powell's Books (Paperback)

Kobo by Rakuten (ebook and Audiobook)

Google Play Books (ebook and Audiobook)

Walmart (Paperback)

Check out my books at any of these sites and leave a review!

**Remember BOOK 4 is now available! (**^{except on kobo because what do you even mean title field is blank, I fixed} *\^{that dangnabbit!}\*)**

Please go leave a review on Amazon! It really helps and keeps me writing because tea and taxes don't pay themselves sadly!

Istennel Furentis was pulled out of a sound slumber by his father’s tune ringing on the comm unit. As soon as he could make himself presentable, he answered, “Good morning, Father " His father said, “Did I wake you? I keep forgetting about the time difference.” It’s ok; I have so much to do. How can I help you?  “I just need you to be a liaison between our house and Haego. I think a Captain Cottontail will report on the status of the recovery. How is the rescue mission aboard the Eternal Garden going?.” “Princess Clara is taking care of organizing the captives, trying to reconnect them to family, and helping me refit this ship for my research project.”   “So you ask to court the Reaper?’ That’s very bold.”She didn’t say no.  I plan to correspond about the racers the Ferentis shipyard has built. Maybe invite her to a meal to celebrate the beginning of a relationship.”  “What about the poor, unfortunate souls?”  Oh, the third-gen captives; they are redeemable with a lot of work. It would make a wonderful case study for a social science team.  So far, the team has lowered the temperature in their pens and introduced them to covering themselves with cloth. They prefer bright colors and flora patterns.  We found out they understand the simple commands the Drazans would say: “Come, Stay, Give. They are also great mimics. The Yakantes were in a nearby pen, and now they whistle. They are thriving on the commoner’s mess and protein bars.  Captain Milkades has found me dozens of docile Drazans and a nursery full of sprouts in different stages of development that can be raised by humans.” It sounds like your dream is coming true, so I’ll let you get on with it.
Istennel thought he was a most fortunate third son, like the saying goes, “The firstborn wears the crown, the second moves things around, the third gets to wear a party grown and pity the fourth on down.” His mother adored him. Father sent him to the best university for xenobiology studies. Thanks to his perfect pitch, he was able to learn and speak a passable Yakanti dialect.
 His Yakanti professors recommended that the Hierarchy invite him to advance his studies. He came home with a trade agreement for agricultural goods, proving that his studies could be profitable. When he heard that a Drazan diplomat was touring the Principality, he asked his father to arrange an extended stay.  He learned about the mythology of the Drazan origin.  He thought introducing the diplomat to animals like pigs, which produced large litters, and cows and sheep, which reached maturity faster than humans, could end the Drazan raids, since these animals could be a better source of protein, and maybe start friendlier relationships.  He later learned that he had helped a spy advance a plan to invade Haego and make it a base at the edge of the system.
The weight of that unwitting betrayal had lingered over Istennel for decades. He remembered the diplomat's keen, calculating eyes as they toured the lush agricultural estates, absorbing every detail under the guise of intellectual curiosity. What Istennel had envisioned as a diplomatic bridge built on agrarian prosperity was instead converted into operational intelligence for the Drazan war machine.
For the next thirty years, his family just monitored the situation on Haego and talked about how to reclaim the planet. To his shame, when the Drazans laid waste to the planet, they gave up.  Only offering Princess Clara the impossible job of beating the Drazans.  Now he had a chance to validate his father’s trust and faith in him.  He would have to slow down his research projects until he understood how bad things were on Haego. First, a meeting with Baron Staple to set up the systems for the reports he needed.  Maybe help with the refugees' relocation. Hopefully, there were talented people who would want a fresh start, a second chance, to rebuild a new life and help build a whole new world.

PART THIRTEEN-HUNDRED-AND NINETY-SEVEN

[Previous Chapter] [The Beginning] [Patreon+2] [Ko-fi+2]

Saturday

Caleb followed his brother and Lucas into the studio, bypassing the workbench entirely for the drying room farther down the hallway. It was by far Caleb’s favourite room in the studio, with all the finished products drying on shelves or packaged in the clear boxes Boyd had ordered from somewhere to fit each piece perfectly while still letting the outside world see them.

It made for a brilliant PR campaign, though he doubted that had been his shy brother’s intent.

As he walked into the room, he knew—he categorically knew how good his big brother was at carving figures, but he was still brought to a complete halt by the carving of Static kneeling with his rifle raised the way Caleb had seen him kneel so many times in real life that the image would be burned into his memory forever.

“Don’t touch it!” his brother warned, and Caleb wanted to smack him.

“I know!” he shot back, just as aggravated. He gripped the shelf it sat on to avoid the temptation and moved close enough that he was almost cross-eyed. “Jesus,” he whispered, ducking down slightly and looking specifically at his leg positions. Then he looked back at Boyd. “How’d you know he hitched his right knee to the left for balance?” Caleb asked, because the pull of the uniform pants showed exactly where the knee had hit the ground before dragging left. Just like in real life.

“Ummm…the photo you gave me. You’d all just come in from the field, and I zoomed in on his utilities. The wear around his right knee spread wider towards the inside, like he hit the ground there first and then dragged it.”

Caleb squinted. “And how did you know he pulled to the left and not the right?”

“The drag in the photo leaned more into the inside of the knee, not the outside.”

Caleb peeled his eyes away from the lean sniper and moved onto Riva Souza. Although he didn’t know the sergeant anywhere near as well as he knew his own team, the likeness was still staggering. And as with Static*,* Souza was in a battle position, his hand pointing at something but leaning back to shout at someone behind him. There wasn’t a Marine in the world who didn’t recognise that pose from their sergeant.

As Caleb moved down the line, one Marine after another who had bled for him in the field and vice versa stared out at him. Everyone from Clicks on the radio to Private B-Me (short for Blow Me after he’d rolled in drunk one time and suggested that to their captain—right before he dropped to his knees, threw up and promptly passed out in his own vomit.

 The captain had hooked a boot under his shoulder and flipped him onto his side to keep him from suffocating and left him there … for the next ten hours. B-Me had woken up after five and been ordered to stay right where he was for another five instead of a court-martial, keeping him under discipline well after midday in the blistering heat of the summer tropics.

The mouthful or two of water he’d managed to catch as a bucket was tossed across his face every hour to keep him hydrated was the limit of their captain’s compassion. The stench by the end had been beyond horrific, and to this day, B-Me swore he’d have rather taken the court-martial and had never touched another drop of alcohol.)

Each had a story Caleb knew.

He eventually tore his gaze away from his men to the man who had carved their likeness. Several times he tried to articulate how he felt, only to remain silent. Stunned? Shocked? Both? “You carved all of these today?” Caleb didn’t take his eyes off his brother as he gestured along the line of drying figurines.

Boyd didn’t exactly crumble under the scrutiny. Nor did he quite look away shyly, though it was a close call. Caleb reached up and clamped his hands on either side of Boyd’s face to keep him facing forward. “This is you,” he said, staring him hard in the eyes the same way he would try to instil strength into a wounded or frightened Marine on the battlefield.

He felt the muscles in Boyd’s face shift, indicating he still wanted to look away, which only made Caleb even more determined. He growled his warning and tensed his arms, refusing to budge. “You did this,” he insisted, giving his brother a brief shake for emphasis. “You. Not your fancy knives. Not an expensive studio. Not anyone or anything else. You. You did this, bro, and holy crap I am so proud of you for it!”

He suddenly released Boyd’s head and wrapped his arms around his neck, even if it meant he had to go up on his toes. He refused to let go until Boyd hugged him back. It took a minute, with several stop-starts, but eventually Boyd’s arms closed around him and held him tightly against his chest. Boyd’s heartbeat pounded in his ear, almost reverberating through his skull. “I am so proud of you, bro,” Caleb repeated, though it was muffled against the pec he was mashed against.  

A tremor rippled through Boyd’s frame. At first, Caleb thought his brother was coughing, until the tremor became a shudder that ended in heavy, silent sobs.

Caleb maintained his same grip. Not more. Not less. He wouldn’t acknowledge Boyd’s tears but would hold his brother for as long as he needed.

* * *

Boyd was bawling.

He hadn’t cried like this since … no, not even the day he woke up in New York City all those years ago and thought his life was over because he could no longer serve in the military. He had never cried like this. He had staunchly held back his tears the day their mother had burned all the soldiers he’d carved for Caleb, supporting his little brother, who had turned into his chest to hide his tears from their furious mother. The sheer hatred she levelled at him that day was his first sign of how she truly felt about his woodwork, and it had been terrifying.

Lucas became a blurry mass of colours that stood unmoving in the doorway. He wanted to turn away. He wanted to hide. He could do neither without hurting his only brother by birth. He had five … well, four others now that Lucas had become so much more. 

Strength gave out in his legs, and he slumped in his brother’s arms, but Caleb compensated by shifting his weight and easing them both to the floor. Yet still, he cried. He tried to pull away—to convince Caleb this was unnecessary—but all he did was make his brother shift his handholds from flat palms to fisting the back of his shirt. “I’m not going anywhere, brother, so stop fighting me,” he growled, his voice just as thick with emotion.

That was when Boyd lost it. Curling himself around his much smaller brother, he pressed his bowed head against Caleb’s and cried in great, heaving sobs, clinging to him with all the desperation he’d wanted to show and didn’t dare.

“Jesus Christ,” Caleb swore from under him, but still he didn’t let go. It was like he had decided this was a mission like any other, and he was holding the line until the bitter end.

Another mass moved up to squat behind Boyd, and lips were pressed softly to the back of his head.

“Let it all out, love,” Lucas crooned, gently caressing the spot where he’d been kissed. “We’re here for you.”

So, he did.

* * *

Minutes later, the three men were still on the floor. Caleb had his back against the drying shelves below where Boyd’s carvings of his unit sat curing while Boyd and Lucas remained in the middle a few feet away. Like him, Boyd was on his ass with one leg bent at the knee to act as an armrest. Lucas knelt behind him, gaining enough height to wrap his arms around Boyd’s neck and rest his cheek against the top of his head.

If he wasn’t so emotionally drained, he would have laughed at the way the detective appeared to be staking a claim. Fortunately for all concerned, he knew that wasn’t the case. Boyd was still raw, and Lucas’ contact kept him grounded. Caleb had cracked the big lug wide open, and now it was up to those who were his future to pick up the slack.

“So…what exactly have you gotten out of your therapy if all of that shit was still locked up in that noggin of yours?” he asked, pointing at his own head and then at his brother’s.

“Doctor Kearns has helped me a lot, Caleb,” Boyd insisted, his hand rising to curl his fingers around Lucas’ supporting arm.

Lucas pressed another kiss to Boyd’s growing hair. (It was good to see Boyd finally putting away his military upbringing and forging his own way in the world, but it would still take a minute for Caleb to accept the longer hair and beard as his brother’s new normal.) “Boyd was beyond stubborn. It just took one stubborn Masters to break through to another stubborn Masters. Where were you ten years ago?”

The quip was too easy. “Junior high,” he said. “It took me all these years to build up enough muscle to hold doofus' deadweight.” He shifted focus to his brother. “What are you now? Five hundred pounds?”

“Two eighty-ish,” Boyd admitted.

“Fuck!” No wonder his arms felt like limp noodles.

Still, he'd do it all again in a heartbeat for his brother.

* * *

((All comments welcome. Good or bad, I’d love to hear your thoughts 🥰🤗))

I made a family tree/diagram of the Mystallian family that can be found here

For more of my work, including WPs: r/Angel466 or an index of previous WPS here.

FULL INDEX OF BOB THE HOBO TO DATE CAN BE FOUND HERE!!