Chapter 63: Natural Selection

I wrote this chapter under the strong—and undeniably traumatic—influence of furniture shopping together. Of course, my significant other is by no means a demoness… though after hours of wandering through a furniture labyrinth, bickering over the right shade of beige, and trying to survive the home decor aisle, I'm beginning to suspect that certain circles of Hell were modeled directly after big-box furniture stores. Any resemblance to ancient night terrors and dark entities is, of course, entirely coincidental. Probably.

​A Saturday late morning in the sprawling furniture showroom on Aleja Krakowska had all the makings of a textbook disaster. For ordinary pairs of mortals, weekend home furnishing shopping was already a survival test for relationships, but today it took on a completely new, apocalyptic dimension.

​The moment a flame-red-haired woman in a perfectly tailored leather jacket walked through the automatic sliding doors, holding the arm of a young man in a loose hoodie, all movement froze within a fifty-meter radius. Shoppers—entire families previously choosing TV cabinets, married couples arguing over shades of grey, and elderly people testing the firmness of mattresses—abandoned their activities in a fraction of a second. A muffled, nervous rustle of jackets, the quiet cry of a panicked child, and the hurried patter of shoes heading toward the emergency exits echoed down the aisles. Someone dropped a paper coffee cup in haste, which rolled with a dull thud across the gleaming floor. In less than three minutes, the vast sectional sofa display was completely deserted.

​Only from behind a tall rack of lamps protruded two tense silhouettes of Bureau of Paranormal Entities agents in dark suits. Through their walkie-talkies, in trembling whispers, they reported to headquarters that the target was apparently merely conducting a “modernization process of the relaxation area.” They stood as if their presence could change anything…

​“Seriously, this one is actually fine… Naamah?” Michał sighed quietly, scratching the back of his neck and pointing at a massive, modular sectional in bottle green. “We’ve been sitting on it for ten minutes. It’s soft, it has a wide armrest—though it could be a bit softer—it has absolutely everything you could ask for from a piece of furniture.”

​“Stop whining, Michał. We’re buying a sofa for our wing in the villa, not for some government office hallway,” the demon snorted quietly, casting a critical glance of her emerald eyes over the fabric. She took two springy steps toward a neighboring model in the premium section. “Wiktor and Elżbieta furnished their part with those heavy, suffocating antiques. It smells of museums and mothballs over there, despite Tas’s presence. We are going to have an oasis of comfort. Come here. Let’s sit on this one too.”

​The young man walked over obediently, pulled the fabric handle, and with a soft click unfolded the right side of the couch. Naamah sank onto the seat with feline grace, instantly pulling her knees to her chin and testing the springiness.

​“Oh, see? Like this, it’s definitely better. And a bit shallower when folded up,” she assessed approvingly, running her hand over the upholstery. “In human form, I’m barely over a meter sixty tall, and on that first, deeper one, my feet didn’t reach the floor at all. I looked like a little girl waiting for a carousel.”

​“Because you’re used to lying across, with your head exclusively on my lap,” Michał muttered under his breath, crossing his arms over his chest with practiced patience for her, while the agent in the distance tripped over his own feet, trying to pass for a store mannequin. “Though this one is admittedly firmer when unfolded, in my opinion…” He placed his hand down and pressed.

​Naamah clapped her hands, the dry sound echoing off the high ceiling of the hall.

​“Hop on, we fit without any problem!” she purred, patting the upholstery right beside her hips. “Look, it has much larger cushions, which offsets the firmness when unfolded. You can literally sink into them.”

​Michał lay down beside her, leaning his back against a cushion and raising an eyebrow.

​“Once on it, though, I don't see any difference,” he said, shaking his head. “Zero, absolute zero. Although… you have to give it credit, the armrest is definitely softer, from what I checked. On the previous one, it dug right into the bone.”

​“A fair point, my dear,” the demon smiled, running her fingers luxuriously over the velvet. “See? You’re starting to think practically and appreciate the comfort of our shared space.”

​Standing five meters away, the young saleswoman in a company red vest with a nametag reading “Klaudia” looked as if she were about to faint at any moment. Her fingers clenched onto a clipboard with order forms so tightly that the plastic creaked in the sterile silence of the showroom, and her teeth chattered in a rapid, nervous staccato. She heard their every word. She knew perfectly well who she was dealing with—everyone recognized the face of the red-haired demon who had appeared on television years ago. The girl trembled all over, praying in panic that this change of decor would not end in catastrophe.

​“And what about the color?” Naamah asked suddenly, looking directly at the girl.

​The saleswoman flinched as if struck by an electric shock, then swallowed hard, unable to squeeze out even a single syllable.

​“These are the options, Naamah…” Michał cut in quickly, taking pity on the shell-shocked employee. He pointed a finger at the fabric swatch hanging loosely over the edge of the backrest. “They have grey, beige, graphite, and this dark brown.”

​Naamah narrowed her eyes, slowly trailing her fingertips over the swatches.

​“Hmm… Definitely this darkest one. In the event of blood spills, stains will be least visible.”

​Klaudia’s knees buckled. A short, choked squeak escaped her throat, and the clipboard with papers nearly slipped from her hands onto the polished floor. In her horror-dilated pupils reflected a vision of slaughter, dark rituals, and gore dripping down luxurious furniture in the Pułtusk villa of the damned. She began to tremble so violently that she backed away two steps, nearly crashing into a shelf of decorative pillows.

​Michał immediately raised both hands in a placating gesture, blushing furiously to the tips of his ears.

​“Relax! For heaven’s sake, relax…” he blurted out hastily, waving his hands nervously. “It’s purely because I was popping a pimple on my face in front of the TV in our living room the other day, and then I mindlessly lay down and stained a light pillow. That’s what she means. Relax, nobody’s going to die here, I swear… A purely human, stupid thing.”

​Naamah burst into a guttural, melodic laugh that carried down the empty aisle, magnifying the surrealism of the entire situation. She rested her chin on Michał’s shoulder, fixing amused emerald eyes on the hyperventilating, trembling girl.

​“My dear speaks the truth, my good lady,” the demon purred with predatory courtesy. “Today, as it happens, I am not eviscerating anyone. We’ll take this dark graphite. Please write up the slip, we’ll pay by card. And have them deliver it directly to the address in Pułtusk, to our wing, by the end of this week. If the couriers are late… only then will I think about blood. Right, Michał?”

​“Stop scaring her, I beg of you…” the resigned boy groaned, burying his face in his hands, while the deathly pale saleswoman tried with a trembling pen to hit the first field of the order form.

​Half an hour later, they were standing in the middle of the textile department.

​“Michał, search for the pillow! A second one just like it, with the exact same idiotic gnome pattern,” Naamah demanded in a tone that brooked no argument, pointing a fingernail at a plump, holiday throw pillow.

​Michał sighed heavily, leaning with both hands on the rim of a huge wire clearance bin.

​“There isn’t one, I told you. This was the last. I ransacked this entire coop from the bottom up.”

​“What do you mean: there isn’t one?” the demon bristled, narrowing her eyes menacingly. Before the boy could protest, she rolled up the sleeves of her jacket and, with absolute determination, dove into the pile of pillows with both hands, flinging them aside with an energy worthy of a starving terrier. “I’m digging out the whole container. Help me instead of standing there like a statue.”

​“You can see with the naked eye that there isn’t one,” he groaned, half-heartedly grabbing the corner of another pillow. “Why do you need two that are identical? Take this other one, it’s from a similar series. It’ll match.”

​“No. Search…” she muttered fiercely, tossing more pillows behind her at dizzying speed. Stars, reindeer, and geometric snowflakes showered onto the floor. Suddenly, she froze, fixing a disappointed gaze on the bottom of the emptying bin. “To hell with it… There really isn’t a second one.”

​Michał shook his head in pity, straightening his back. He had harbored a fragile hope that this consumer marathon was coming to an end, but Naamah’s gaze traveled straight to the neighboring aisle with porcelain. Her eyes flared with a fresh, dangerous gleam of covetousness.

​“Oh. I want this teacup too,” she declared with satisfaction, stepping up to a glass shelf and picking up an elegant, richly gilded vintage cup.

​“Those are bought in sets, Naamah,” he noted in an exhausted voice. “Look at the tag. This is just a display item; the saucers and the rest are probably boxed up in the warehouse.”

​“I don’t know, I couldn't care less! It’s on display, so from now on, it’s mine. Search, Michał, find the saucer for it! Move it.”

​The boy covered his face with his hand, taking a deep breath so as not to lose what little hard-won patience he had left.

​“But why do we need another teacup or mug?” he blurted out in quiet despair. “There are already loads of mugs in the cupboards. We literally have dinnerware for an entire company of soldiers! From those idiotic ones with little hearts, through your favorite giant mug that says ‘I AM A DEVIL’, all the way to the one with ‘Mój najlepszy barman’ that you bought me as a gift yourself about two weeks ago. The shelves are bowing; physically, nothing new can fit in there.”

​Naamah tilted her head sensually, and in the corners of her lips blossomed that cool, disarmingly carefree smirk that usually made the skin on ordinary mortals’ necks crawl.

​“Then I’ll toss out a few of the old ones,” she remarked with icy calm, as if planning a selection of souls. “We’ll do a little cleaning. The uglier ones will go in the trash, and this gold one will take the place of honor. Well, what are you waiting for, darling? Find the saucer, because the couriers with our new sofa won’t arrive before us anyway.”

​Three hours later, having returned home, Michał began thinking aloud about the logistics of the whole endeavor.

​“Look, we arranged the new sofa, even with carry-in. But what about our old one? I have to take it apart into smaller pieces and haul it to the dumpster. In a few days, the municipality happens to be collecting bulky waste in Pułtusk.” The boy pulled a set of Allen keys from a cabinet, as if mentally bracing himself for the work ahead.

​Naamah looked at him with genuine pity.

​“You must be joking, my dear, thinking you’ll wrestle with that huge piece of junk alone. What do you have me and my claws for? I’ll slice it into tiny pieces in a minute, and you can carry it out in bags.”

​Michał shuddered, remembering all too well what things looked like after being subjected to her infernal strength.

​“No, Naamah. The point is not to tear everything to shreds. If you strike the upholstery, dust, foam, and old splinters will scatter across the entire living room, and then I’ll spend hours running around with a broom and vacuum, wiping and sucking those scraps off the floor.”

​“Trust me, my dear. Trust me,” the demon purred, moving closer and taking hold of his arm.

​“Don’t do it your way,” Michał insisted, looking at her with growing unease. “And don't open any damn portal just to dump it into the Abyss. I'm being careful with my soul as it is… You told me yourself recently that it blackened even further because of your portals and our return from vacation. It made me feel strangely cold inside. Don’t open it, please.”

​Naamah’s eyes flared a deep, predatory emerald. She laughed low, snuggling into his arm, delighted by the fact that darkness was slowly yet inevitably eating away at his human nature. But seeing his stubborn expression, she sighed conciliatorily:

​“All right. Have it your way. I’ll slice it smoothly, with a clean cut, to make things easier for you without unnecessary labor on your part. I won’t open a portal, I promise. Satisfied?”

​At the same time, in the stifling, iron- and sulfur-scented corridors of Lucyfer’s palace, time passed to its own brutal rhythm.

​Lucjanhir stood in the darkness of his own chamber, methodically and in absolute silence attempting to piece together Emma’s consciousness. What Naamah had left behind were not wounds. It was a catastrophe. Emma’s consciousness resembled a web shredded into microscopic fibers rather than a coherent entity. Her kera vessel, though regenerated, was in tatters, thoroughly stripped of any pride after enduring over a hundred years of unimaginable, methodical torment and pain at the hands of the Mother of Nightmares, in which the slow peeling of strips of skin was merely innocent fun.

​Now, at least, she was no longer attacking him in the blind, roaring frenzy of a fallen kera. She was quiet. Catatonic.

​“You are Emma Jones…” Lucyfer’s bastard repeated in a weary, calm voice, infusing her ruined mind with his authority and her own memories, rebuilding the ruins of her identity brick by brick. “You are Emma Jones…”

​Using his power, he adjusted his subjective perception of the passage of time, enabling himself to enter her bubble of active time. His hands were shaking. Never before had he seen anyone so utterly broken…

​When the fallen one finally managed to blink, regaining a shadow of her former spark in her eye, Lucjanhir exhaled heavily and left the chamber. He needed air. Even if the air here reeked of sulfur and scorched earth.

​The lofty, ornate corridor pulsed with the heavy aura of the palace. He passed massive pillars and caught sight of Lilith. She walked with a calm, swaying gait, holding a crystal goblet of dark wine in her slender hand. She was talking about something with Marquis Ronove, breaking into quiet, rich laughter that naturally curdled the blood of lesser demons.

​Lucjanhir felt his jaw clench. He approached her with a springy, firm stride. Ronove bowed slightly and prudently slipped into the shadows, sensing the impending collision.

​“You left her to Naamah’s mercy…” Lucjanhir snapped harshly, stopping right before the demon.

​Lilith slowly took a sip of wine, lowering the goblet. She looked at him with an icy, black abyss in her eyes.

​“I don't have to explain anything to you, Lucjanhir. She called me a harlot. A ‘whore’, to use that modern, earthly slang. For wanting to help her through it—zero gratitude… She got what she deserved.”

​“And for that single word you left her there to Naamah’s mercy?!” the archdemon snarled, leaning over her until the air around them began to burn with the clash of their powers. “I saw, touching her mind, exactly what she was doing to her… Why did it last over a hundred years? Why didn't she stop the moment she realized that Emma wasn’t growing stronger under those tortures, that her blood wasn’t thickening?!”

​Lilith smiled mockingly, and her indifference was far worse than anger. She did not raise her voice by even half a tone, yet the walls of the corridor began to tremble to their foundations.

​“Take it up with Father,” she replied smoothly, lazily twirling the goblet in her fingers. “He was the one who tasked Naamah with it, and since she took a liking to it, after a long break caused by her stay on Earth, she had some extra fun once I left her alone. But I will say this to you only once, Lucjanhir: right now, I don't want to see either you or Emma anywhere in my space in the near future. And I advise you to reconsider the way you’re looking at me right now. If that tone full of grievances and that glare repeat themselves even once, you’re in for a time similar to what Emma spent. With the difference that you will be howling under my claws.”

​Lucjanhir’s eyes narrowed predatorily. Infernal pride would not allow him to yield.

​“I am an archdemon now, Lilith,” he rasped slowly. “Since that clash, through my father’s doing, I have become far stronger.”

​“Oh, I know that full well,” she laughed with genuine amusement, placing a cool hand on his shoulder. There wasn't an ounce of warmth in her touch. “You might scratch me a little, desperately fighting back against my fun. But not even Father will help you, because you know perfectly well he would never dare refuse me. And I can promise you one thing, my dear bastard: after my flaying, you won't grow stronger in the slightest. Quite the contrary. You will weaken so much that you'll begin to resemble an ordinary mid-tier. And you know I can do it. You wouldn't be the first high-ranking fool condemned by Lucyfer to being diminished. You know that I can do it myself even without his permission, simply because I feel like it.”

​Lilith’s long claw tapped warningly against Lucjanhir’s chest. He understood, staring at the relaxed, wine-sipping demon, that in the ruthless hierarchy of the Abyss his newly acquired power was merely a meaningless illusion when it came to the favorite, the former first concubine of the Ruler himself.

​He stepped back in silence, slowly lowering his tone and allowing her to leave. Lilith’s shadow danced across the corridor stones, painfully reminding him who really called the shots here.

​An infernal hour of objective time later, Lucjanhir stood in the middle of his father’s monumental chamber, fixing his eyes on the figure seated upon the throne of black basalt. Lucyfer, absolute Ruler of the Abyss, before whom heaven trembled, sat sprawled in it with his legs casually crossed. In one hand he held a goblet of dark liquor, while with the other he lazily stroked the throne’s armrest. He looked like an entity who, after eons of managing an endless chaos of screams and grievances, had finally achieved long-awaited peace.

​“Ruler, Father… tell me, why…” Lucjanhir choked out, clenching his fists. Sharp frustration bled through his voice, mingled with ultimate, icy desperation.

​Lucyfer sighed heavily, took a hearty draught, and closed his eyes with an expression of blissful relaxation.

​“You know why, Son. Lilith surely told you already. I wanted to see whether a kera could grow stronger. In the future, do not provoke Lilith, or you'll get what's coming to you,” he answered in a calm, almost fatherly tone, though deep beneath it vibrated the ancient terror of the First Inhabitant of Hell.

​“You are the Ruler,” the archdemon blurted out, unable to keep his composure. “With a snap of your fingers, you could cut her arrogance short. You could remind her of her place. The same applies to Naamah. Why did she torture her, knowing she wasn’t growing stronger… It was pointless…”

​“I am the Ruler,” Lucyfer agreed mildly, opening one eye. “Which by no means makes me stupid, my son. She is my absolute favorite. And ever since she’s been with that Stanisław of hers… she finally leaves me in peace. Which, I must admit, pleases me immensely. You know full well she can force certain things out of me; she can throw such a fit in the palace that even the oldest residents hide in corners, barking in terror—myself included. But as for Emma? I don’t argue with her on that matter. She left her, so she left her, and Naamah had her fun—end of story. And I advise you: be glad it wasn’t you who ended up under her claw.”

​The Ruler of Hell smiled at his thoughts, slightly shaking his head, and then topped off his wine from a levitating carafe.

​“Besides, I finally have peace from Naamah too, ever since she settled down for good on that earthly vale,” he continued, and in his bass voice resonated the authentic, immense relief of a weary monarch whose most troublesome concubines had finally let him live. “She came, did her business in the chambers, flayed your friend while having a grand old time doing it, and went right back to that Michał of hers on the mortal coil. Do you know what kind of peace I have in the Abyss now? Honestly, practically like Heaven… Nobody nags over my head, nobody demands anything, nobody screams at the palace butchers, no groans are heard, there's no chaos over laws in the capital and other zones. Perfect, absolute silence aside from the torments decreed by Heaven. My subjects adore me; the chain keeps growing longer.”

​Lucjanhir froze. He stared at the entity before whom demons trembled, yet saw only an all-powerful, yet mortally exhausted old man. A father who was willing to sacrifice literally any subordinate, any soul, and even his own son for the luxury of having no arguments with his two most volatile exes.

​“As for Emma…” Lucyfer turned serious for a fraction of a second, tapping a fingernail against the crystal goblet. “With your help, she will eventually recover; you'll put her back together. Though I don’t deny that I am deeply disappointed in her. I assigned it to Naamah because I wanted to test your friend’s hidden potential. So many decades beneath the claws of the Mother of Nightmares, and she didn't grow stronger one bit. Not in the slightest.”

​An icy claw of ultimate, cosmic dread slowly closed around Lucjanhir’s throat. He realized that in the brutal, absurd politics of Hell, neither his rank of archdemon, nor his newly gained power, nor even his close blood ties to the Ruler himself could protect him. He was completely on his own. The Sovereign would rather sip his wine in peace, watching indifferently as his son was skinned alive by Lilith, than risk even a single day of domestic squabbles in the palace. In the realm of the damned, there was absolutely no higher justice—there was only a father’s blissful peace, purchased at the cost of the unspeakable torment of others.

Chapter 62: Theater of Grace. Part 2/2

Evening arrived quickly.

​“So first thing tomorrow morning, having thought it over, I'm going straight to church after all, since my soul blackened a bit from those words,” Michał said firmly, staring at her with a resolute expression. “I have to counter it. I'll confess, prostrate myself on the floor, and pray every Sunday until my soul returns to its former state.”

​Naamah blinked slowly, and then a broad, predatory smile blossomed on her face, spelling serious trouble for him.

​“You must be joking, my dear...” she purred with amusement, propping herself up on an elbow. “To church? You? Without me, without my permission? Clearly, I need to tickle you for a couple of hours so that at dawn you won't even have the strength to lift your eyelids, let alone make pilgrimages to the parish house.”

​Before he could protest or even scramble up from the mattress, the demon pounced on him with inhuman agility. She pinned his thighs down with her own weight, locking his hips perfectly, and without a shred of mercy grabbed both of his bare feet with her hands.

​“You can squirm all you want. You'd better bite down on the pillow, because I guarantee you'll be weeping with laughter in a moment...”

​Her long, slender fingers—devoid of lethal talons, yet endowed with diabolical, unerring precision—began to dance mercilessly over the soles, heels, and most sensitive hollows of his feet.

​Michał exploded instantly. He jerked wildly, but her grip held firm. A shrill, completely uncontrollable roar of laughter mixed with a panicked wail tore from his throat. He writhed like a snake, digging his fists into the bedding, bucking his hips, and shedding tears that streamed down his temples. He struggled to catch ragged gasps of air while Naamah watched this comical agony with pure, sadistic satisfaction. It lasted a solid fifteen minutes—fifteen minutes of uninterrupted, bloodless torment.

​Finally, she eased the pressure for a fraction of a second, though she had no intention of letting go of his ankles.

​“Well, my dear?” she asked sweetly, raising an eyebrow. “Do you still want to go to that church tomorrow?”

​“Yes!” the young man rasped with the last of his breath, greedily sucking air into his tense chest. “I'll... I will!”

​“Wrong answer. Very wrong answer,” she chuckled gutturally.

​For the next few minutes, the bedroom was filled with Michał's hysterical, choking laughter, the rustle of the chaotically churning duvet, and her mocking, velvety chuckle. The young man was losing all track of time; his abdominal muscles burned like living fire, spots danced before his eyes, and his lungs were desperately starved of air.

​“Are you going?!” she repeated the question, drawing her face close to his knees.

​“No... I won't! I won't go, I swear!” he sputtered in panic, choking on his own tears.

​“Very good. See how simple it is? Don't oppose me,” she purred with satisfaction, but her fingers did not halt their relentless march for even a moment.

​“Mercy! I beg you... mercy!” he whimpered, tossing his head helplessly on the pillow.

​“Just a couple more minutes, darling. Forgive me, but you writhe so wonderfully and delightfully... I simply cannot deny myself the sight.”

​At the climax of the hysterical laughter, Michał's body refused to obey him altogether. Overwhelmed by violent spasms of his diaphragm and lower abdominal muscles, he lost all control of his bladder.

​Naamah instantly pulled her hands back and sprang off the bed, standing on the rug with her hands on her hips. She looked at the soaked sheet, and then at Michał, who lay limp, breathless, and beet red.

​“Oh boy... you pissed yourself laughing,” she remarked with open amusement, shaking her head in disbelief. “We'll have to change the bedding. But don't worry, I've seen far worse fluids in my life. I'm not mad. I'll change the sheets right now, and you rest. That's more than enough tickling for tonight.”

​She walked over to the edge of the bed and efficiently began stripping the wet fabric, giggling quietly under her breath.

​“I truly thank fate for those feet of yours... It makes things so remarkably easy for me. See? No bloodshed, no tearing out guts, no inflicting pain, and I've already molded you. And suddenly you don't feel like running to the parish house in the morning at all.” She tossed the crumpled sheets into the laundry basket, then pulled a fresh set smelling of lavender from the closet. “Pick a movie before I finish making the bed anew,” she called over her shoulder. “Though after this show, you probably won't be aiming for a comedy. Pick some dark thriller.”

​Michał lay there for a long while with his mouth open, absently massaging his aching, numb stomach. Every deeper breath caused him genuine pain.

​“Holy fuck...” he groaned hoarsely, staring blankly at the ceiling. “I literally have terrible muscle soreness...”

​Naamah pulled the corner of the fitted sheet over the mattress, straightened up, and winked at him.

​“And that was precisely the point, my dear. Precisely that,” she said, after which she bounded back onto the bed with feline grace and knelt on the mattress. “What are you waiting for? Lie down!”

​Naamah sat astride the edge of the mattress, and in the darkness of the bedroom, her emerald irises flared with a deep, phosphorescent glow. The air around the bed instantly thickened, taking on a heavy, overpowering scent of cinnamon, myrrh, and heated flesh.

​“And now, for that darkening of your soul and your brazen words to the messenger, you deserve a handsome reward, my dear,” she purred low, and the vibration of her voice instantly sent heat pulsing through Michał's loins. “You know full well by now that I can reward with interest... You will not sleep tonight, I promise you that. You will moan, but solely from pleasure. It's time for games you haven't yet had the chance to experience. A little rougher and, shall we say, considerably more... intense. But you'll like them, you'll see. You won't feel a speck of pain, I swear upon the Abyss, though the physical sensations will be extreme, teetering on the very edge of your endurance.”

​She leaned over him, her cool, silky lips brushing against his taut collarbone. With one fluid, effortless jerk, she tore the hem of her silk shirt, the fabric giving way in her hands with a soft snap.

​“Hands up.”

​Michał, still disoriented and stunned by the abrupt shift in mood after the recent storm of laughter, obediently and fearfully raised his arms. Before he could say anything, the demon skillfully and tightly bound his wrists with the strip of soft silk, securing them to the headboard. The loop didn't cut into his skin, but it held him in an absolute checkmate.

​“Bite the pillow...” she whispered right into his ear, gliding her bare chest across his stomach.

​In a fraction of a second, the tips of her fingers hardened, and slender, black claws sprouted from her nails. As she began trailing them down his torso, Michał hissed through gritted teeth and arched his back:

​“Ow! You're scratching... The claws are too sharp!”

​Naamah chuckled softly, her hot breath washing over his heated neck:

​“From your violent reaction, I gather that quite the contrary—you like it very much. I have to approach this a little harder because of the scarring from your burns. The tissue there is tougher, it requires a deeper stimulus. They are sharp, yes, but they won't leave permanent marks, darling. They are only meant to cut through that superficial layer of sensation and give you pure pleasure. In a moment, I'll close my hand around your testicles. Gently, methodically, and then I will strike them rhythmically until you harden to the maximum. And then I will mount you.”

​She slid down lower, the chill of her skin colliding with the heat radiating from him. Her hand slipped unerringly between his thighs. Her fingers closed in a precise, measured grip around his testicles, after which she delivered the first short, springy strike.

​Michał jerked violently on the mattress. A strangled, hoarse moan tore from his throat, in which shock blended with a massive surge of dopamine hitting his brain directly. His body tightened like a bowstring, and a pulsing, searing tension exploded in his lower abdomen.

​“That was the first,” Naamah purred with satisfaction, feeling the sudden, involuntary reaction of his body beneath her hand. “Now the second and immediately the third... each next one will be harder, so I advise you: get up...”

​Two more rhythmic strikes landed in a split second, and the precision with which she metered out the force and pressure caused Michał to sink his teeth into the pillow fabric, stifling the wildly rising rush. Every nerve in his lower abdomen sang with a pure, hypnotic current. Blood surged in a violent wave, and his member stiffened to its absolute maximum, throbbing hard beneath her merciless grip.

​The demon raised her gaze, and purple flames of untamed lust danced in her emerald eyes.

​“Oh yes... You're ready now, my treasure,” she giggled predatorily, sliding her knees along his hips and rising over him in the darkness.

​“Oh God... Naamah...” Michał rasped out, digging his toes into the bedding while sweat bathed his forehead and his breath broke in shallow, choking gasps. She mounted him…

​45 minutes later…

​“Hands above you, I said!” she snapped mercilessly, moving her hips at a hypnotic, wild pace. “You can do it, you can do it one more time... my dear. I know it's hard for you because of those burns and scars, but you can match my rhythm, you can do it! Look at me! Look at my swaying breasts, look at my hair, look me right in the eyes!”

​Her emerald eyes gleamed with an inhuman glow, and the tempest of red locks coiled around her shoulders like flames. She sped up even further, cutting through the air with the sharp scent of cinnamon and heated flesh. Every time she slammed down onto him triggered an explosion of shivers, driving him deeper and deeper into the mattress.

​“Look me in the eyes!” she repeated imperiously, capturing him with a gaze that paralyzed the last remnants of reason. “Hands above your head, I said... Now I will force the final climax.”

​In a split second, her talon flashed in the gloom. With a single precise, silent slash, she sliced through the strip of silk binding him, and the remnants of the torn shirt fell limply onto the headboard. With her other hand, she seized his testicles—the grip was on the verge...

​“And now you may touch my breasts,” she granted with predatory mercy, leaning down low over his chest.

​In a fraction of a second, Michał understood her intent. She had restricted his freedom and held him in check the entire night only to put the finishing touch on it at the very end—so that sudden liberty and the touch of her silky skin would flood his senses with a massive wave of dopamine. He clamped his hands onto her full, heated breasts, and his abdominal muscles clenched in a monstrous, involuntary spasm. She tightened her grip... Driven deep into her body, he drowned in an overwhelming, throbbing climax with a guttural, ragged cry.

​Naamah slowed down, sensuously sinking onto his torso and letting the final tremors roll through his exhausted body.

​“There, there... rest, my dear.” She rubbed her cheek against his sweaty shoulder. “See? I know how to reward...”

​Michał lay there with his mouth open, his chest heaving violently, his head buzzing from an absolute sensory overload. He swallowed hard and looked at her with a half-conscious gaze:

​“But... but you didn't finish...”

​Naamah raised her head, and an affectionate little smile blossomed on her full lips. She trailed her hand across his hot forehead, brushing away damp strands of hair:

​“I'll finish tomorrow, darling. During your caresses, with your hands... Rest today, my dear. You've definitely earned it,” she giggled softly, stroking his heated chest soothingly. She nestled her face into the crook of his neck, purring like a sated, contented predator after a successful hunt. “Tomorrow, a movie, and then we're going on a trip somewhere. Since Tas is safe and nobody from up above is hanging over our heads anymore, I finally have plenty of free time. No more sitting cooped up forever in the villa and taking short, boring walks around Pułtusk under the eyes of undercover agents. It's time to explore somewhere further with my man... Or maybe a proper all-inclusive in the tropics? We can afford it; the government will gladly pay for our every whim.”

​Michał lay flat on his back, still feeling the echoes of the recent ecstasy in his muscles and loins. He swallowed hard and raised an eyebrow dubiously:

​“You want to fly by plane?” he wheezed hoarsely. “Airport check-in alone will drive you insane. Waiting in lines, security gates, X-raying bags, inspections... Before we even reach the jet bridge, you'll burn that entire terminal to cinders. Besides—passports. Do you even have a passport? Unless we fly somewhere within the European Union, then an ID card is enough. Darling, you don't even have an ID card...”

​Naamah scoffed mockingly, propping herself up on her elbow and looking at him with boundless pity:

​“Michał, for the love of the Abyss, who do you think you're sleeping with? I can tear open a portal in a split second. We won't be flying for even a minute; we'll simply take two steps and land. Where do you feel like spending the near future?”

​The boy blinked, trying to wrap his head around this surreal prospect. His tired brain offered up the first exotic association he remembered from movies and travel agency brochures:

​“The Bahamas...?”

​“The Bahamas? Works for me, let it be the Bahamas,” she agreed without hesitation.

​With one fluid motion, she slid out of bed. Not bothering with clothes, she walked over to the nightstand with feline ease and reached for the smartphone lying there—the direct emergency number to their liaison at the Bureau for Paranormal Entities. She dialed and put it on speaker, not waiting at all for the duty officer to finish his rigid, official protocol.

​“I'm calling to inform you... yes, this is Naamah,” she said coldly straight into the microphone, lazily twirling a strand of red hair around her finger. “Tomorrow Michał and I are showing up in the Bahamas. We want the best possible resort, a beach, and total peace and quiet.”

​“Wait, Naamah...” Michał interjected from the bed, furrowing his brow. “The Bahamas are a former British colony, they belong to the Commonwealth with King Charles as head of state, but they're a stone's throw from Florida. The Americans treat those waters almost like their own backyard...”

​Naamah waved her hand dismissively toward the phone, as if the duty officer could see it through the connection:

​“Then tell the USA that we'll be there tomorrow! I don't care about your problems with borders or spheres of influence. And by the way... on second thought: Elżbieta, Wiktor, Tas, Adelajda, and Cezary will be joining us. No more boredom, we're having a family demonic getaway. I don't give a damn how you work it out formally with the Americans. I'm calling Adelajda and Cezary, bye!”

​She hung up without a shred of hesitation, tossed the phone onto an armchair, and turned to the flabbergasted Michał with a silvery, wild laugh.

​“See?” she purred, winking at him. “Settled. Time to wake the rest of the gang and start packing swimwear.”

​“Fucking awesome!” shouted Michał in sheer delight, stumbling out of the rippling, trembling portal straight into the blinding Caribbean sun and soft, white sand. A warm breeze struck his face, carrying the scent of salt and tropical flora. The boy swayed slightly, still hearing an unsettling resonance in his ears. “Man, those sounds... those groans of the damned! I heard them for a fraction of a second.”

​“Still, there are far fewer of them ever since safety zones were introduced,” Cezary Wójcik grunted, adjusting his sunglasses and gazing around the turquoise lagoon with the look of a man who had finally escaped the house.

​“That's thanks to you, honey,” Adelajda added with a radiant smile, resting a hand on his shoulder. In her breezy, light dress, she looked stunning, and the sea breeze played with her blonde locks. “If not for your painstaking work in the Abyss at Lucifer's side, the roar from the cauldrons would be bleeding through every fissure between dimensions.”

​Naamah scoffed quietly, flicking invisible dust from her silk wrap.

​“Too bad Wiktor, Elżbieta, and Tas chickened out and refused to use the portal,” the Mother of Nightmares huffed, pouting. “I clearly told them: a proper blindfold, noise-canceling headphones, and nothing would have happened to the little one. We barely grazed the border of the Abyss, just the edge of the wastelands, Tas wasn't in any danger whatsoever! But no, they had to insist on ordinary, mortal flights.”

​She turned abruptly toward Michał, a vigilant, possessive spark flashing in her emerald eyes:

​“And you, my dear? I hope you didn't open your eyes along the way?”

​“No, Naamah, I swear. Just like you said, not for a split second,” Michał replied quickly, holding up his hands in a defensive gesture. “I care far too much about what little sanity I have left to go peeking at infernal landscapes.”

​Before he could even lower his hands, the deafening, metallic roar of afterburners shattered the beach's paradisiacal calm. A shadow sliced across the sand at dizzying speed—right above the palm tree line, barely a few hundred meters overhead, an American F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet patrolling the archipelago's airspace roared past. The blast hammered their eardrums, and the shockwave rippled across the water in the bay.

​Cezary instantly cursed under his breath, and Adelajda narrowed her eyes.

​“I told them!” Naamah snarled, every trace of holiday sweetness instantly evaporating from her voice. “I called those fools in Warsaw! They were supposed to sort this out with the Americans immediately! No more flying over my head!”

​The demon didn't even raise a hand. She merely drilled a murderous, purple-glowing stare into the receding silhouette of the steel bird. The air around her hissed from a violent spike in temperature.

​In a split second, thick, pitch-black smoke billowed from the fighter jet's left engine. The turbine's roar turned into a choking rattle, and the aircraft banked sharply on its wing, losing altitude. The pilot immediately initiated emergency procedures, banking toward the base in Florida and fleeing in panic from the airspace over the island.

​With an indifferent scoff, Naamah tucked a red lock behind her ear, extinguishing the flame in her eyes.

​“I didn't kill him; let them witness my kindness,” she remarked coldly, pleased with the result. “Let him limp back to base on one engine and file a report with his generals. Did they think I was joking? Idiots. The next one who tries snooping around here will end up in the ocean.”

​She turned to the dumbfounded Michał, and within a fraction of a second, a wide, sensuous smile returned to her lips:

​“Right! Now then, darling... where is this all-inclusive of ours? I want a drink with a little umbrella and a private sunbed.”

​Instant panic erupted on the beach. Vacationers hastily rolled up their towels, abandoned sun loungers, and practically trampled one another at the exit from the sand onto the hotel promenade, fleeing the sight of the red-haired demon who had just crippled a fighter jet's engine with a single glance.

​When the four of them reached the paved path leading straight to the luxury resort, Michał swayed under the weight of the massive luggage.

​“Jesus, Naamah... how many clothes did you bring?!” he panted, readjusting his grip on a colossal burgundy suitcase that weighed as if it were packed with lead ingots.

​“Here, let me help you,” Cezary said, heaving up Adelajda's equally monumental trunk with a sigh. Although Wójcik's demonized muscles were tough, even he had to put some effort into it. “Every woman likes having everything on hand. The two of us fit into ordinary duffel bags, but them...”

​“True. Women, whether from hell or alive, are all the exact same,” Michał muttered, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “As if there weren't shops right here on site! I could understand if we had to pinch every penny, but since the government is paying for everything...”

​“No complaining there, my dears!” Adelajda laughed, adjusting her sunglasses and tossing back her blonde hair. “We have three adjoining suites reserved. In about fifteen hours, Wiktor and Elżbieta should arrive with little Tas, so everything has to be ready.”

​“Alright, let's head in...” Michał said, pausing for a moment before the revolving glass doors and discreetly glancing around. “There are so many agents, though. Seriously, do they really think they're invisible? What good is dressing in Hawaiian shirts and pretending to be tourists when every single one of them stands stiff as a broomstick, has an earpiece in, and watches us from behind the palm trees through binoculars?”

​“Leave the clowns be, let them sweat in this sun,” Naamah waved her hand dismissively.

​“I'll do the talking,” Cezary quickly decided, straightening his shirt. “I'll speak with the receptionist. She's probably already trembling in terror.”

​The hotel lobby hit them with the pleasant, icy chill of air conditioning, the fragrance of orchids, and an ear-ringing, absolute silence. A few foreign guests sitting in the lobby froze with drinks in their hands, and the young woman behind the marble counter was pale as chalk.

​Cezary walked up to the desk, leaned comfortably against the counter, and gave her the most reassuring smile he could muster:

​“Hello. We have a reservation for three rooms for ten days. Under the name Adelajda Bawarska.”

​“I-I know... I-I know...” stammered the receptionist, her hands trembling so violently that her plastic pen tapped against the counter like a woodpecker. Her eyes were wide as saucers, glued in paralyzing terror to Naamah, who was sensuously stretching a short distance away.

​“Please don't be afraid, take it easy,” Wójcik said gently, resting a hand on the counter. “We know that you know. Don't worry, nothing bad will happen here.”

​“Th-these are... these are the keycards to the rooms, bedrooms, and the common living room...” the girl squeezed out, sliding three elegant holders across the marble with reverent care.

​Cezary collected the cards, then glanced curiously at the resort activity brochures standing nearby:

​“Do you offer scuba diving with an instructor?”

​“Y-ye... yes. W-we do. The hotel has private boats and full gear...”

​“Splendid. We'll take that, please,” Cezary smiled broadly, glancing over his shoulder at a beaming Adelajda and a nodding Michał. “For tomorrow morning, well after breakfast? We'd like to see the local reefs.”

​“Alright, you two go take the luggage up to the rooms, and we're heading for drinks,” Adelajda said, sliding her sunglasses down to the tip of her nose and glancing inquiringly at Naamah.

​“Actually, if you drink them normally at the bar, maybe the staff will finally get a little used to us and stop fainting at the sight of us...” Cezary muttered, grabbing the suitcases.

​“Darling, order me a double gin and tonic...” Michał quickly chimed in, wiping sweat from his brow.

​Naamah narrowed her eyes, looking him up and down with a teasing smirk.

​“It's hot out here, outside that is; the sun is beating down incredibly fiercely. I'm me, hellfire doesn't faze me, but you? A double gin in this sweltering heat? Don't go getting drunk, my dear.”

​“Don't worry, darling, just one and I'm done,” the boy laughed, rubbing his hands together like a kid at an amusement park. “There's too much to do here. I googled all the local attractions back in Warsaw: from surfing to jet skis, all the way to parasailing behind a speedboat. Scuba diving tomorrow, but I'm starting strong today too, and that drink is just a welcome toast.”

​Five hours later, the Caribbean sun hung at its zenith, mercilessly baking the white sand and turquoise water.

​Naamah lay on a wide, canopied daybed, lazily sipping a cocktail. She fixed her gaze on the surf line, where Michał—for the fifteenth time in a row—was stubbornly scrambling onto a surfboard under the watchful eye of an instructor sweating with fear.

​“God, Michał, wrap it up already! How long can you spend learning to surf?!” she called toward the water with predatory impatience.

​“Nooo! The waves are just fucking awesome!” shouted the thrilled boy, spitting out saltwater and catching his balance. “The Baltic is nothing compared to this, just tiny ripples! And my instructor is brilliant! At four, I've already got parasailing booked behind a speedboat, reserved it at the front desk!”

​Naamah sighed with theatrical suffering and turned her head toward Adelajda, who was already sipping her next drink on the sun lounger beside her.

​“What, would you have preferred he drank more and sat politely on his butt stroking your hair instead?” Adelajda laughed, fanning herself with a straw hat. “Meanwhile, Cezary went off by himself to climb the island's highest peak. He swore that if the view is nice, he'll drag me up there tomorrow by force.”

​“Of two evils, I think I prefer his surfing lessons over hiking in the mountains,” Naamah scoffed, then sprang from the daybed with a lithe step, strode to the water's edge, and put her hands on her hips. “Darling! Time to christen the room and the bed! You can fly on that parasail of yours tomorrow, that's more than enough for today! We have a solid ten days ahead of us, and you're already burnt red as a lobster, despite that damn UV sunscreen I slathered all over you!”

​“No, not yet! Just another hour or so, darling, please!” Michał protested, proudly flexing his shoulders before her, which in the bright daylight had already turned the color of a ripe tomato.

​“Ow! Ow, fuck, gentler! Rub that yogurt in lighter!” groaned Michał, lying helplessly on his stomach on the cool sheet in the hotel bedroom. Every millimeter of his back, shoulders, and neck burned with a living, throbbing fire. “Alright, you were right... Tomorrow I am not taking off my shirt on that beach at all, no way in hell!”

​Naamah, sitting on the edge of the bed with a plastic cup of cool plain yogurt, deliberately and with full premeditation pressed her hand down harder against his sunburned shoulder blades.

​“Ow! Lighter, I said!” he whimpered into the pillow.

​“Did I tell you on the beach? I did! You don't listen to your mistress, so now you get what's coming to you,” she scoffed with spiteful satisfaction, sinking her fingers barely a millimeter deeper so he would feel every second of his disobedience. “I warned you that the sun here strips skin faster than lesser demons in the Abyss. But no, the great mister surfer just had to catch waves!”

​She set the cup on the nightstand, wiped her hands on a towel, and crossed her arms over her chest, casting an indignant, demonstrative look down at him.

​“Some fucking christening of the bed this is...” she huffed, pouting and turning her head. “I had planned an exquisite welcome to the tropics, and now I have to play your nurse because touching you with a finger risks a hysterical scream! You owe me a massive debt, Michał. And I will settle it with interest as soon as that mortal skin of yours stops glowing in the dark.”

​A few hours later…

​The door to the suite's shared living room opened silently, admitting Wiktor and Elżbieta. The former cop immediately locked his eyes on Michał, who sat stiffly on the edge of an armchair, afraid to lean against the backrest, with his entire chest and arms coated in a thick, drying layer of white dairy.

​“What the fuck happened to you, Michał?” Wiktor asked in disbelief, looking him up and down.

​“Hey... Did you finally arrive? How's the little guy?” Michał mumbled, struggling to turn merely his neck so as not to stretch the stinging skin.

​“Sleeping like a rock after the flight,” Wiktor muttered, dropping his bag against the wall. “Nice bedrooms and living room, the government didn't spare any expense. I heard at the front desk that we're supposedly scuba diving tomorrow. Tas will love the reef and the fish... Where did Cezary and Adelajda go?”

​“Cezary went alone during the day to the highest peak on the island...” Michał explained, wincing with every deep breath. “When he got back, he was raving like a man possessed and literally dragged Adelajda up there by force, saying she simply had to see it. The view, that is. And now the sun is setting, so they're probably standing on the ledge admiring the panorama.” The young man turned his gaze to the demon lounging on the sofa, sipping her drink. “Are we going up there tomorrow too, Naamah?”

​“You must be dreaming, my dear,” Naamah scoffed, not even lifting her eyes from the glass. “If you care that much, you'll fly up there on my wings. I have not the slightest intention of trudging uphill for two or three hours at your snail-like, human walking pace in this heat. Either my wings, and you finally get to see my semi-demonic form—with horns, black claws, and fangs, though I guarantee you I'll still be damn sexy to you... or you arrange a proper off-road vehicle. Otherwise, don't count on this trip at all.”

​Wiktor let out a deep chuckle, leaning against the doorframe and glancing with amusement at the suffering bartender.

​“If I were you, I'd choose the semi-demonic form, Michał. Absolutely. Granted, once you see her in all that glory, you might be too scared to bed her, but the sight is well worth it. I still get chills to this day whenever I see Elżbieta with wings in that blood-red gown of hers...” Adamski sighed with theatrical regret, glancing at Báthory. “A real shame this hotel doesn't have a proper cellar.”

​“Right now, he's so horribly sunburned that the promised christening of the bed with me has been canceled,” Naamah laughed. “Even in my completely normal, human form!” The demon narrowed her emerald eyes, a wicked smirk curling on her lips. “Or maybe not... Frankly, I don't give a shit about your burns, darling. I told you on the beach: put on a shirt! You didn't listen? Well, now you're paying for it. So grab the tub, rub that yogurt or kefir on yourself, and get ready for an evening just like yesterday's.”

​She locked a predatory gaze on him, in which a spark danced.

​“I'm kidding, of course... or maybe not. It all depends on how much effort you put into massaging my head. And not just my head, my dear... We'll see if you try hard enough to make me come in this new place by the grace of your hands.”

"I want you to complete it by five today. And please, don't leave without notifying me again, or I will have to do something about it," Nathan said to Rambo

Rambo looked at him without blinking as he cleared his throat. "Ahem"

"OK, sir," he said before turning back to his computer to finish his work

By five, he had completed his work and notified his boss. Rambo picked up his bag to leave; just then, his friend Jacob, who used to sit next to Rambo every day, stopped him

"Yo, Let's get something to eat, man; it's my last day here after all"

"No, I gotta go home. I am getting late, Jacob; we can meet next week if you want," he replied

"If you want? What the f*** are you talking about, man? Let's go"

"No, Jacob, I don't want to," Rambo replied and left the desk in a hurry

Later that same day. Rambo sat at the edge of his bed, staring at his wall, his eyes wide, as he kept staring at the wall without blinking

"Doesn't matter what I think; objective truths are going to be objective truths. Why will someone love me? Why will someone like me? What do I provide to them? nothing. Why was I born in this accursed world? All I can ever do in this world is to get rich and get love"

His phone rang; it was his father. He picked up the phone slowly and brought it to his ear. "Hello?" Rambo said

"H-hey, listen, I know you are-"

"I am what? different? Not worthy of your love?"

"No, that's not… well, you aren't wrong. Meet me in an hour…"

The kids with their mothers played in the park. A man sat in a wheelchair watching the kids play, as Rambo and his Father (Mehra) sat on a bench in a corner.

"What are you grateful for?" Mehra asked Rambo

Rambo turned towards Mehra to face him. "… I know how it goes. Come on…"

Mehra smiled genuinely. "I am diagnosed with cancer," Mehra said, facing Rambo, and saw Rambo's face turn all red

Rambo looked down at the grass before meeting his father's eyes. "Dad…" and hugged him tightly before pulling his face back and looking at his dad crying; he never saw his dad cry like that.

"Life is hard, Rambo,"

His father said before wiping his own tears.

Rambo looked at him before turning his face away, breathing deeply through his chest.

"What did the doctor say?" Rambo asked. "Incurable, very low chances- that's what he said," Mehra replied

"… I am grateful that you and Mom are still alive… I am grateful that I can walk. I can read books; I am grateful. I am grateful that I have eyes-"

Mehra watched Rambo talk and said, "You are interesting to talk to… I missed it; I wasted my whole life; you are a great son. I am deeply, very, very sorry"

Rambo said nothing as his Father continued, "I am grateful we had this conversation"

The next day,

"My life is only this, just because I wasn't born as a son of a CEO of a company"

Rambo, mixed in his thoughts, noticed Jacob pulling the chair. "Hey, man, I am late," he said and waited for Rambo to react. Rambo looked at Jacob. "So, what's the emergency?" he asked Jacob

Jacob laughed loudly. "I just wanted to meet you, man… after all, we worked in the same place for three years. Come on, we are friends," he said

"Jacob, co-workers are never your friend; that's what you told me," Rambo said to Jacob and continued, "… W-what is your biggest regret in life?" Rambo asked

"That I let go of my childhood friend Morgan," Jacob replied almost instantly

Rambo looked at Jacob as Jacob continued, "And I am trying to fix my mistake man…"

Rambo sat in his office chair, his eyes wide as he stared at the computer without blinking. He noticed his boss coming his way; he adjusted his chair slightly and looked at Nathan. "Rambo, in my office, now," Nathan said, and hurried his way to his office.

Rambo knocked on the door before entering; he sat in the chair close to Nathan as Nathan stopped typing on his laptop and faced Rambo

"How would you like a promotion, Rambo?" Nathan said, then added, before Rambo could reply, "I am promoting you to a senior position"

"That's awesome," Rambo smiled and said to Nathan

"You will have four people in your department working under you from now on. Start reading books on leadership, Rambo," Nathan said and smiled as Rambo stood up, thanked Nathan, and went outside.

Rambo's phone rang. He took out his phone to see a message from Jacob: "Tonight, BAR B.Q. plan? Some of my friends are coming too; it will be fun"

"Done," Rambo replied to Jacob

"After tonight, I should also hold a dinner for celebration; I'll call Mom and Dad, and… and… Sarah too…"

Chapter 62: Theater of Grace

​Two months after Naamah's return from hell. Early November.

​In the spacious living room of the suburban residence in Pułtusk near Warsaw, a lazy calm reigned. Upstairs, all was quiet—six-year-old Tas sat in his room, absorbed in lessons with his new private tutor, seconded from the ministry to the bureau of paranormal entities. It was her third day; her voice still trembled at the sight of Wiktor, Elżbieta, and especially Naamah…

​Wiktor knocked on the door:

​“Excuse me, would you like some tea, coffee, perhaps a cookie?”

​“No, thank you... Although, yes, please,” she glanced at her empty water bottle. “Tea?”

​“Dad, can I have some chocolate?”

​“Ms. Aleksandra, is he being well-behaved and paying attention during the lesson?”

​“Yes, my predecessor did a very good job.”

​“Alright, son. Since Ms. Aleksandra says you're paying attention and behaving, you'll get it.”

​“Yes! I want the milk one, not the dark one.”

​“I know. Keep studying, I'll be back in a couple of minutes…”

​Downstairs, on the large screen mounted on the wall, the news ticker of a television station flickered silently. The broadcast was live.

​Michał sat on the couch with a mug of coffee in his hands, staring stunned at the screen. The footage was being transmitted live from St. Peter's Square in Rome. The crowd surged in ecstasy, weeping, and hysterical fervor. Hovering between Bernini's colonnade was a two-winged angel—not a monumental seraph with six flaming wings. This one resembled a slender youth cast from cool, pale silver, with two feathered wings. Evidently, he was not a warrior; he carried no luminous sword.

​The angel descended to a height of barely a meter above the cobblestones. He reached out his hand and reverently placed it on the forehead of an elderly man, paralyzed from the waist down.

​A gentle white light flashed. No thunder, no destructive grinding of spacetime. In a fraction of a second, the mortal's emaciated legs twitched. Weeping, the man rose from the wheelchair, falling to his knees and kissing the ground beneath the messenger's hovering feet.

​“Heaven has started playing dirty,” Naamah said with a mocking chuckle.

​She was sitting right next to Michał, unceremoniously resting her shapely, bare legs against his thigh. A mocking, hellish spark danced in her emerald eyes as she tossed her thick, chestnut-red tresses over her back with a single fluid motion.

​Wiktor Adamski, leaning against one of the walls, didn't even flinch. He sipped coffee from a large mug, lazily watching the screen with the expression of a boxer assessing a sparring match between second-rate fighters. Beside him stood Elżbieta Báthory. The Blood Countess lazily rolled a crystal glass of heavy wine between her fingers. A cold, well-known grimace of cynicism formed on her aristocratic, pale face.

​“Clever bastards...” Elżbieta scoffed quietly, a shadow of old memories lingering in the corners of her lips. “During my life in Čachtice, I used to do the same thing. When the peasants began whispering too loudly in the woods about disappearing wenches, I would toss gold from my carriage straight into the mud for the commoners. A handful of silver coins was enough to make the mob drop to their knees, forget the blood on the cobblestones, and kiss the wheels of my carriage, praising their lady's generosity. Human memory is pathetically short if you throw them a little alms.”

​Suddenly, the news ticker flashed red. The studio director frantically switched the image to a second window—a broadcast from the abbey at Monte Cassino.

​The exact same thing was happening there. Another two-winged messenger hovered over the square, touching a blind woman with his hand. In a fraction of a second, her irises, clouded with cataracts, flooded with vivid, deep blue. The woman shrieked with joy, looking around.

​Naamah burst into a throaty, silvery laugh that set the silk folds of her robe shimmering.

​“They sent low-ranking messengers! Their light barely blinds mortals, they gave them simple healing tasks, and released them like trained pigeons!” She shook her head with amusement, nuzzling Michał's neck with her nose. “Those up above must have a massive moral hangover after that incident of ours five years ago... Honestly, I'm surprised it took them this many Earth years to decide to fix their PR after that clash.”

​Michał furrowed his brow, staring at the screen with evident cognitive dissonance. As someone raised in a world where medicine had its insurmountable limits, he saw it from an entirely different perspective.

​“Mercy, love for one's neighbor... What's so bad about that?” the young man muttered quietly, without taking his eyes off the television. “At least a few people got up from wheelchairs, and a few others regained their sight. For them, it's their entire life...”

​Before he finished his sentence, the angel at the Vatican folded his luminous wings, flickered in the air like a fading afterimage, and simply dissolved into the blue sky, leaving behind a hysterical, frenzy-praying crowd. Thousands of hands reached toward the void, begging for just one more touch. In vain.

​A moment later, the same thing happened at Monte Cassino. The second messenger healed only three crippled people, after which he dematerialized without a word into the sunlight.

​“Strange...” a disoriented Michał muttered, placing his mug on the coffee table. “They flew in for just a moment, touched a few people, and simply took off into the heavens? Why didn't they go down to the rest? There were hundreds of sick people swarming around them.”

​Naamah nudged him with her nose, and sitting atop him, looked down at him with an indulgent, predatory smirk and playfully tugged his ear.

​“My little fool... It's pure calculation. If miracles were handed out left and right, who would pray for them? Who would pay for them with devout obedience—the way you pay, stroking me for hours on end in our bedchamber?” She chuckled softly, trailing a fingernail along the line of his collarbone. “Grace has to be a luxury commodity, rationed and scarce. It is meant to evoke hunger, not satiety—just like mine when I bestow pleasure upon you. Show them the finger of God, heal a handful of the chosen before the cameras, and the rest will spend the next few centuries begging on their knees, praying and deluding themselves that next time it will be their turn.”

​Wiktor scoffed softly over his mug, exchanging a knowing glance with Elżbieta.

​“Brilliant in its simplicity,” the former cop concluded coldly, scratching his chin. “Five years ago, they tore Castle Square apart, killed people, Emma included, and sowed fear among the populace with their soulless fanaticism. All it took was one morning, two low-ranking messengers, and a few people healed in front of the TV cameras.”

​“Exactly, darling. Listen to Wiktor, he's right,” Naamah purred, snuggling closer into Michał's shoulder and closing her eyes. “Whoever dreamed this up up there just erased the memory of the blood and casualties from five years ago in a single stroke. And the church attendance stats? You'll see, starting tomorrow they'll be bursting at the seams. Mortals will once again flock to temples with songs on their lips, because they were shown a miracle on TV.”

​“Then I suppose I should cut back on the caressing, darling, because lately, really...” Michał began, curling the corners of his mouth in mock surrender and trying to pull his hand back.

​“Oh no, my dear!” Naamah instantly seized his wrist. Her grip, though velvety, was ironclad, leaving no illusions about her superior strength. She moved his hand back onto her red tresses, purring deep in her chest. “Remember that I am a demon of the Abyss; I can always force you... though on second thought, today you shall taste pure pleasure at my hand. I am in an exceptionally good mood.”

​“Do you two really have to talk about that over morning coffee?” Wiktor chuckled, shaking his head and leaning his broad back against the kitchen island counter.

​Elżbieta Báthory chimed in with a melodious voice laced with laughter, taking another sip of wine.

​“Tas isn't here, he's studying upstairs,” Naamah scoffed, not even deigning to lift her head from Michał's shoulder. “Besides, Wiktor, don't go acting like a prude all of a sudden. I can hear you two from the other wing of the house every time you come back from the basement, and somehow none of us complain.”

​Wiktor merely grinned, raising his mug in a silent toast.

​“Point for you,” he remarked, then glanced back toward the muted screen, where the news ticker was still churning out coverage of the miracles in St. Peter's Square. “Still, if his 'pleas for mercy' are going to last all night, at least close the door to your wing. I'd rather the kid focus on his lessons, not on the sounds coming from your bedroom.”

​“We'll see how well-behaved Michał will be,” Naamah purred, brushing her lips against the boy's neck so that a shiver instantly ran down the nape of his neck. “If he earns it, I might even let him walk out tomorrow morning under his own power for a stroll. But in the meantime... let the angels heal their mortals. Down on this earthly vale, I have far more interesting things to do.”

​Before any of them could crack another joke, a ruthless, sterile brightness flooded the entire interior of the villa. The light didn't spill through the windows in waves like a sunrise—it burst in with momentum, cutting through the living room with sharp, geometric shadows and searing away every warm hue from the surroundings. The window glass vibrated quietly, and the smell of ozone mixed with ionized, icy chill filled the air.

​Outside, in the vast courtyard surrounding the estate, muffled shouts and the panicked clatter of weapons being cocked rang out. The black vans carrying government agents stationed around the perimeter danced in the reflections of the titanic radiance. The Government Bureau for Paranormal Entities, trained to handle the dark, sulfurous aura of the household members, froze in complete chaos this time.

​Wiktor set down his mug with such force that the thick countertop of the kitchen island creaked. In his eyes, the human irises instantly extinguished, giving way to a pitch-black darkness heralding battle readiness. With one fluid motion, Elżbieta Báthory set down her glass, and her slender fingers instantly elongated into razor-sharp, black talons.

​“This isn't some low-ranking messenger sent to heal cripples...” hissed Naamah, leaping to her feet.

​In a fraction of a second, her sensual, domestic demeanor vanished. Her emerald eyes flared with primal, damnation fire, and a heavy, blood-red nebula billowed around her shoulders. She looked through the large panoramic window, where, among the paralyzed agents, a monumental figure with four large, shimmering wings, clad in armor of liquid silver, was descending.

​“It's an archangel. A powerful archangel,” the Mother of Nightmares said with icy coldness, not a trace of amusement left in her voice. She turned abruptly toward Wiktor and Elżbieta: “Tas. But you know that as his parents.”

​“We know,” Adamski growled shortly, absolute gravity ringing in his voice. He exchanged a glance with Elżbieta, who was already gliding noiselessly, like a predatory cat, toward the stairs to the upper floor to cut off access to their six-year-old son's room and, if necessary, shield him with her own body.

​Naamah headed toward the terrace exit, then stopped abruptly and turned to the young man.

​“I'm going out,” she said firmly. “Michał, you stay inside. Understand? Stay here, behind Wiktor's back.”

​Michał locked his gaze on her burning eyes, clenched his fists, and took a step forward. Fear choked his throat, and the monstrous pressure of the celestial aura made the skin on his face burn like a sunburn, but a stubbornness appeared in his gaze that the demon had not expected.

​“No,” the boy said firmly. “I'm coming with you.”

​Naamah narrowed her eyelids dangerously, a low, warning growl escaping her throat:

​“Have you completely lost your mind?! This isn't a stroll around Pułtusk, Michał! This entity didn't fly here to hand out smiles. A single glance from him could tear your mortal body apart...”

​“I sleep with a demon,” Michał countered, not yielding an inch and looking right into her fiery eyes. “I've seen you bend steel pipes, and I've heard stories about tearing out entrails in hell. If I live with you, sleep with you, and haven't gone insane yet, then I want to see an angel. With my own eyes, not through a glass TV screen or a patio doorway.”

​A dead silence fell over the living room for a fraction of a second, broken only by the low hum of the celestial light outside. Wiktor, standing at the foot of the stairs with his arms braced to strike, glanced at Michał with a hint of wry, daring respect.

​Naamah gritted her teeth, and the cascade of red hair lifted slightly under the influence of the power surging beneath her skin. She looked the young man up and down—she saw his hands trembling, but she also saw that he had no intention of backing down.

​“You are a complete lunatic,” she bit out, yet beneath the veneer of fury, a dark, predatory pride glinted in her eyes. She grabbed his arm, pulling him to her side. “Not a single step. Stay hidden in my shadow. If you step even an inch beyond my shadow, you'll burn.”

​The patio doors burst open with a crash, letting them out straight into the blinding glare of archangelic majesty.

​The blinding glare slowly dimmed, as though the heavenly messenger had realized in a split second that further demonstration of raw power would reduce to ash not only the government agents lying on the driveway, but Michał himself. The cold, platinum light condensed into a narrow pillar, within which the four wings now pulsed in a much gentler, geometric rhythm.

​Naamah stood barely half a step in front of Michał. Hot, sulfurous gore dripped from her splayed, obsidian-black claws, and a thick veil of darkness coiled around her, filtering every quantum of the destructive, celestial light. Every muscle of hers was taut to the limit—she was like a predator ready to leap at the messenger's throat in a heartbeat, regardless of the consequences.

​The archangel, however, did not even raise a hand to fight. He looked past her shoulder, and his soulless, metallic voice rolled across the yard with the resonance of a bronze bell:

​“I did not come here for battle. I am here solely to deliver a decree: Tas is safe. He is not the Antichrist. The records in the Silver City have been amended; the sentence has been revoked. He may live normally on this earthly vale.”

​In an upstairs window of the residence, the burgundy-black silhouette of Elżbieta Báthory flickered for a moment; upon hearing those words, she exhaled, though she did not lower her guard.

​The archangel's gaze slowly shifted to Michał. Luminous, pupil-less eyes scrutinized the young man with icy, inhuman astonishment. The atmospheric pressure of his aura spiked violently again, grinding the gravel beneath the archangel's feet.

​“And you, mortal... You live and sleep with a demon. With one of the most powerful and cruel beings of the Abyss. It is a wonder you still breathe. And a wonder that your soul still remains bright and untouched by her rot...” The archangel furrowed his brow, ruthless, bureaucratic censure ringing in his voice: “Yet you do not attend church. You reject the sacraments and temples. Change that!”

​Naamah growled gutturally, her talons grinding together as she braced to pounce.

​“Why are you shouting? I can hear you perfectly well,” Michał spoke calmly.

​His voice cracked, choked by a dreadful spasm of his larynx. His heart hammered in his chest with such violence that he felt his pulse pounding in his temples. He took an unsteady, hesitant step to the side, edging out from behind the demon's back, even though she instinctively swept her clawed hand, trying to shove him back into her saving shadow.

​Michał was trembling all over. His knees buckled under the weight of the archangel's aura, and icy sweat ran down his temples and neck. The skin on his face burned with living fire from merely looking at the entity's luminous form; his stomach rose into his throat, and every instinct of self-preservation screamed at him to drop to his knees and cover his head with his hands. Yet in his glassy, terrified eyes smoldered a desperate, fierce defiance. He clenched his trembling hands into fists so tightly that his knuckles turned white, and struggling for ragged breaths, forced out:

​“I th-think... I think it's enough to simply... be a good person,” he coughed out, trying not to look away from the blazing visage, even though the glare was burning his retinas. “I try to be one. Without fear and without falsehood. Any decent human being, even if they haven't memorized the commandments, instinctively lives by them if they have even an ounce of empathy in them. That's how I live. And I don't go to church, and... and I won't go.” His voice trembled again, but he lifted his chin, choking back tears of rage and memories. “Nobody up there helped me when I was dying in agony after the accident! In the fire... when boiling, burning oil was pouring over my body! Where were you then with that mercy of yours, when I lay there for weeks, howling in pain as a kid?!”

​“Temporal suffering ennobles the soul,” the archangel replied in an impassive tone, devoid of any pity. “It is an ordeal that burns away flaws and teaches humility.”

​“Ennobles?!” Michał repeated with a hysterical, helpless sneer that barely made it past his constricted throat. “I don't think so! Especially when it happens to a defenseless child... Then it's just a senseless, fucking, blind nightmare!”

​He stretched out a trembling hand and gestured toward the moaning agents lying in the grass and the crumpled vans.

​“Your colleagues in Rome and at Monte Cassino just healed a few cripples and blind people in front of the cameras, and then bolted back into the clouds after a minute!” he rattled off in a nervous, ragged rhythm, as if afraid he would run out of breath any second. “Marketing... your marketing is top-notch, I'll give you that! But it's an empty circus! A cheap crowd-pleasing show to herd frightened sheep back into the temples after the slaughter five years ago! You want to win this dispute over souls with Hell, but you're doing it strictly for show... I only realized that after hearing what Naamah, Wiktor, and Elżbieta said!”

​The halo above the angel's brow vibrated violently, slicing through the air with a sharp, piercing screech that made Michał wince in pain and involuntarily take half a step back.

​“Do not be insolent!” the messenger thundered, the vibration of his voice echoing in the young man's bones. “Remember that the Scales of Souls shall weigh your every word! They shall weigh your audacity when the end arrives!”

​Michał swallowed hard. He was mortally terrified by the prospect of judgment, feeling his legs turn to jelly, but he did not lower his eyes.

​“I-I will say... what I believe is right. After all, we have free will, don't we?!” he spat out with desperate defiance. “I'll tell you one thing for the road: you're losing this fight through your own doing. You're losing because you cannot appreciate genuinely good people! In this world, or at least in the domain I fall under, the honest and the good usually get screwed over the most and fare the worst! Besides... in all religions and pantheons across the world, it's probably the exact same thing!”

​The archangel fixed a long, glacial stare upon the shuddering, pale mortal. For the first time, alongside absolute pride, a shadow of cold dismay flickered within him. He did not say another word.

​The wings unfurled with a dry, thundering crack, whipping billows of dust into the air. In a fraction of a second, the entity shot straight up into the heavens, turning into a fading streak of pure white light that ripped through the clouds and vanished into the stratosphere. The shockwave nearly knocked Michał off his feet.

​An ear-ringing, dead silence fell over the driveway, broken only by the groans of the recovering agents.

​Michał staggered, rested his hands on his knees, and began desperately gulping in air, choking on his own breath. His hands shook as if in a fever.

​Naamah slowly retracted her claws, and her fangs disappeared behind her full lips. She walked over to him with a slow, fluid stride. Her emerald eyes were unnaturally dilated, and her face displayed a mixture of absolute astonishment and wild, boundless fascination.

​“You really have gone mad, Michał...” she breathed in quiet, predatory delight, placing her hand on the trembling nape of his neck. “Even I could feel that he was no mid-tier entity... And you decided to give him a lecture on morality.”

​Naamah slowly narrowed her emerald eyes, sizing Michał up with a gaze that harbored satisfaction. She stepped half a pace closer, raised a slender hand, and lightly brushed the tip of a sharp fingernail over the spot right above his heart.

​“Your soul blackened a little from those brazen words...” she purred softly, a deep, infernal vibration ringing in her velvety voice. “Those up above despise that kind of talk with a vengeance. Ask Wiktor... he didn't earn the title of Blasphemer for nothing. But unfortunately, my dear, it hasn't blackened enough yet for me to have even a shred of certainty that after death you'll unquestionably end up straight in my chambers.”

​Michał's throat instantly went dry, and an icy chill ran down his back. In a split second, the true meaning of her words hit him. He remembered the stories about Stanisław—the nightmare of fifty-five years of methodical flaying, ripping out entrails, and breaking the vessel to forge the infernal shell into a powerful demon. The vision of Naamah potentially subjecting him to that very same torture in her chambers chilled him almost as much as the sight of the archangel.

​“Come on, relax,” she scoffed, amused at the panic in his gaze. She rested her hands on his hips and slid them upward, threading her fingers into the hair at the nape of his neck. “I'm not going to kill you right now, not yet. I can't...”

​The young man swallowed, struggling to control the shaking of his hands. Color slowly returned to his pale face.

​“You simply love me...” Naamah stated suddenly with a predatory gleam in her eye, looking down at him. “I'm sure of it now. I might even decide that you should talk to them more often. For my sake, of course. You'd end up with me much faster.”

​“Oh, hell no!” Michał blurted out in panic, shaking his head at the mere memory of the archangel's searing, icy radiance. “That was definitively the first and last time! But I'm still not going to church...”

​“Sure, sure... as if you had any say in the matter, my dear,” she purred mockingly, locking her predatory gaze straight into his dilated pupils. A smile bloomed on her lips that promised not a minute of peace for him. “Tonight you won't sleep, for all this insolence and this whole darkening of your soul. Oh, you definitely won't close your eyes, my dear... You will not sleep, understand? I'll see to it personally, and no begging for mercy, no pleading for me to stop will help you. And believe me, I don't mean tickling.”

​

So for starters i was 15 when this happened, i am now 20. I was friends with this girl (20 at the time) for about 2 years at this point. She was my brothers ex girlfriend but her and i grew really close and continued to be friends after the fact that they broke up.

Anyways, one day she asked me to hangout with these guys who were both around my age, one was 15 and the brother was 16. Of course i said yes. We would then hangout with them almost every weekend since the first hangout. I began to like this guy, let’s call him john, who is my age. She began to like the brother who is 16 we will call him will… remember she is TWENTY YEARS OLD. So yeah we had our little double couple friend group for a moment until they broke up and everything went to shit. *me and the guy i liked never officially dated just a fwb kind of situation. *

So when my friend and Will broke up she began doing EVERYTHING and i mean everything to get him to like her again. Now here is a very important detail, John and wills mom was an active addict who would constantly ask us for money. Me being 15 i didn’t have much to give and also didn’t want to continue to feed an addiction, but my friend would constantly give her money because of wanting Will back. So naturally their mom liked her A a lot.

Will began to take a liking to me, and would not hide it. This really bothered my friend understandably. She started acting very off towards me every time we would hangout with them even though she continued to bring me around them. There were multiple times where i heard my friend and their mom talking shit about me. Their mom even accused me of wanting her husband, who mind you was also in an active addiction and was like 45 years old?? Anyways yeah they would talk shit about me to each other constantly. It was at a point where i was getting very uncomfortable hanging out with them. Here’s what really set the tone though…

One day their mom found a few wendy’s coupons for a free frosty so naturally we went to wendy’s lol. My friend was making slick comments to me all day. I truly don’t understand why she hated me so bad for the actions and feelings of a different individual and was so jealous over me even though i was 15 years old.
Once we get there they order the frostys but i had to use the bathroom so i left to do it before the frostys came out. When i come back out they hand me it and i eat it thinking nothing of it. About an hour later i have the WORST stomach pain of my life like genuinely about to shit myself. So i’m like hanging out with everyone fighting for my life hoping it goes away and i see my friend eyeing me. She wasn’t looking at me like “oh what’s wrong” she was looking at me like she wasn’t surprised to see me start sweating and panic in my eyes as im literally on the verge of SHITTING MYSELD.

I then ask her to take me home because like i’m not trying to blow up their toilet, and you know what she does… SHE ASKS BOTH WILL AND JOHN TO COME. Mind you she’s never done that before. So i’m sitting in the car for 30 mins deep breathing sweating like a pig PRAYING i don’t shit myself in front of everyone. Worst 30 minutes of my life. (i did not shit myself in the car for anyone who might wonder.) Anyways i get home relieve myself and realize what just happened. I never got to confront her for it. It’s just crazy looking back at how these 2 grown ass women really plotted on me when i was 15 because a guy my age liked me lol. Moral of the story, don’t become friends with jealous older women or women who take a liking to teenagers!

p.s i suck at telling stories.

Along of major companies slave there workers over night grave shift and usually have the person come home to another burden bills, children and other responsibilities. But my partner come to me serval times complaining about having other co worker speak about her BBL SHE REPORTED IT TO HR . Then a week later she showed me a. Photo of a man on Facebook where she said he had a wife that worked there but took me by surprise as that she knew his exact name idk how big companies warehouses work but there should be a Law to to protect workers identities Becuase she knew his Facebook and everything but she felt defenceless becuase she was new to the company and she knew her word only went so far
But during lunch breaks she would call me before work after work just keep cumminication as of late she hasent answered my calls for who know what apparent reason but when I ask if she was going to see me on her day off she acting like she didn’t care about anything but her work the same thing keeping her life in order was slowly distorting the person I love but who knows what’s happening now but I feel like the relationships she endured in her job felt due to co dependency you scratch my back I’ll rub urs type of deal and also I notice her pay would be every 7 days taking home about 1900 and week then her pay switch To twice a month 3500 payments idk where the money is going and I don’t know why I stayed with the taste in my mouth like I know I deserved more she even went on to tell a friend group I didn’t know that I’m stalking her but she clearly send over a picture of me. When I wasent looking idk what to say but I’m upset with this behaviour and I blame her job this company that didn’t care about her family or home they just wanted them to be a slave to their company but usually they would change schedules every six months but I haven’t heard or see a change coming from them anytime soon but yeah jack here checking out

I was completely focused, entirely cut off from the outside world. Things had finally reached the point I'd been waiting for in the film I'd been watching for a full hour, and I was at the height of my concentration. The detective, who had been tracking down the culprit for the past hour, was now very close to catching and exposing him, and I was incredibly curious. He was about to open the door, walk in, and discover the culprit's identity. I was moments away from finding out whether my suspect was right.

When we look at something, we also see what's to our left and right, albeit vaguely. While watching the television directly in front of us, we can perceive the fan a meter to its right swiveling from side to side. Other objects and movements become blurrier as they move farther away from the center of our field of vision. Everyone knows this and is usually aware of it. Even if your grandfather, sitting to your right at dinner, isn't looking at you, he'll notice if you secretly flip off your brother sitting across from you.

At that moment, the world was nothing more than a rectangle to me. My field of vision had no depth. Ten eagles could have been flying around the room, and I wouldn't have noticed them unless they passed in front of the screen. I had to find out who the culprit was.

Even if you bring your eyes into sharp focus, your ears can't do the same and remain even more open to the outside world than your eyes. When you listen to a song you love, your ears become fully absorbed in it, and your eyes join in, too. You drift away, and your field of vision narrows. But your ears can't join your eyes in doing the same.

“Albert, shut your laptop,” I heard a whisper just as the detective was about to open the door.

At first, I thought it had come from the film. There was no character named Albert in it, and the laptop had very little to do with the plot, but still, I didn't want to take my eyes off the screen before the detective opened that door. However, I'd started thinking by then. A new thought had formed in my mind, and it had weakened my focus. I would enjoy finding out who the culprit was a little less.

I paused the film. I was still looking at the screen, but my field of vision had widened and become rounded again.

I thought I saw a ripple on my right. A moving, blurry image, about a meter in size.

When I turned my head to look, there was nothing there. I looked back at the screen. I thought to myself that being this focused wasn't good either. It bothered me that I was experiencing a mental activity so intensely when the only reason for it was a film. Was finding out who the culprit was really that important? I never focused this intensely when writing my stories, working on a thesis I had to finish, or learning Spanish in the course I'd recently started. That was probably why I'd heard the whisper, too. It was a trick of my mind.

I turned back to the screen. My desire to find out had diminished. Reluctantly, I pressed play.

But then I saw that ripple again. A transparent, shapeless thing, moving randomly. Like a transparent fire, its movements resembled those of a burning flame. I pressed pause.

When I turned my head to the right, it wasn't there again.

A sense of unease had come over me. I stared at the spot where the blur had been. There was no movement at all. All the objects stood still, just as they were.

This time, I saw the same ripple on my left, right in front of the laptop on my lap. I sharply turned my eyes back to the screen. Nothing. The detective walking toward the door, the confident expression on his face. That was all.

I set the laptop aside. I threw off the blanket I'd pulled up to my chest, got out of bed, and sat down at my desk.

I picked up my Spanish dictionary and opened it to a random page to calm myself down a little. I read a few words. The ripple was above me. I looked up at the ceiling, and now it was on the left. I turned to the left, and it moved to the right. Its size changed every time. Sometimes it was a one-meter rectangle, sometimes a scattered circle ten centimeters in diameter, and sometimes a thick line stretching from the floor to the ceiling.

I left the room, and it was on my right, in the shape of a circle. I couldn't get rid of it. My palms were sweating. Now it was on my left. I kept turning my head from side to side, up and down. And I could never bring it into my vertical field of vision; it was always outside it.

I wiped my sweaty palms on my T-shirt. Now it was above me. I tried closing my eyes. But I couldn't. The moment I closed them, a sharp fear would immediately take hold of me, and I'd open them again before even two seconds had passed. My gaze had grown much faster now. Left, right, up, left, down, right, up. I was looking around like crazy. I was like a camera trying to bring an image into focus.

I finally ended up with a stiff neck after one wrong movement.

I could no longer turn my head to the left.

And the ripple was on my left.

I turned to the left with my whole body. It stayed on my left. I turned left once more. It slipped to my left again.

I had turned a full circle. Now it only appeared on my left. It seemed to have found my weak spot. Every time I turned, I instinctively turned my neck a little, too. You know what a stiff neck is like. It's quite painful and sudden. During the day, you forget that your neck is stiff, and if someone calls out to you from your left, you turn to look at them. You feel that sharp little ache.

So I stopped trying to catch it. It stayed on my left, rippling. Sometimes it stretched out, sometimes it shrank, and sometimes it disappeared quickly and reappeared. I moved my pupils as far to the left as I could. Yes, now it had moved to the right, because my field of vision on the left had been reduced to zero.

Now only my pupils were moving. But the image was even closer. And it was getting closer and closer.

Finally, while I was looking straight ahead, I saw it. It hadn't gone away. It's impossible to describe its shape.

“I'm x56 c 66 bmf 8 bmd 8 g 9 kdr 8 889 klkw 999 c 3 d 3 v 3 m 3 g 3 o 3 12345. Thank you for playing with me. By the way, the killer is Michael,” said a voice from very far away, heavily echoing and robotic, sounding a little like a creaking door.

Without knowing why, I tried to catch it with my hand. It was an arm's length away. I'd acted impulsively out of excitement. And it vanished instantly.

The quick, deep breath I drew through my nose passed through my nose hairs and rubbed against my completely dried-out nasopharynx, producing a sound that was a mixture of a faint snore and a low-pitched whistle. I held the breath in my lungs for a while, then slowly exhaled.

I went back into my room, sat down in the armchair, and for some reason, burst into tears. It was like a catharsis. I couldn't remember ever crying this intensely before. Or maybe I was simply crying out of fear, but I wasn't sure that fear could trigger such an intense crying response.

I wiped my eyes, and just as I was about to get up to wash my face, the ripple began speaking from the ceiling, right next to the lamp. It had watched me cry the whole time. Strange.

“If you want to play with me again, all you have to do is look in the mirror and say my name three times, and don't worry, your memory will be erased by tomorrow evening. You'll only remember my name. You'll try to figure out what the hell it was, whether it was your old Wi-Fi password or something. Anyway, Albert, I'm out of here. Take care. It was nice meeting you.”

Aryan’s fingers tightened around the iron railing of his balcony. Down on the street, a ball rolled onto the road. Before the child could run after it, a metallic arm extended from the wall with a swift whoosh and caught the ball in mid-air.

When the ball was returned, the child did not smile. Instead, he stared at the robotic arm in terror and buried his face in the folds of his mother’s sari.

Aryan clenched his jaw. He remembered his own childhood, when he used to run freely along that very street. The streets were safe now, but they were silent.

A drone glided through the window and placed his dinner on the table. The flatbread was perfectly circular, as though cut by a laser. Aryan put a piece into his mouth. It had no taste. Instead, a cold, metallic smell spread across his tongue. He pushed the plate away. His breathing quickened.

From an old box in the storeroom, he took out a small piece of iron and a metal file. He remembered a lesson his mentor had taught him long ago at the factory.

"It is your hands that give life to metal, Aryan."

He moved the file across the iron.

Scrrr... scrrr...

The sound travelled through his fingers like an electric current. He wanted to make a bird. Not one of those things machines knew how to manufacture, but a bird bearing the unmistakable marks of human fingers.

Suddenly, his smartwatch flashed red.

"WARNING! Unlicensed fabrication detected. Fine: 1,000 Neuro-Credits. Cease activity immediately."

Aryan ignored it. He moved the file faster.

At last, a tiny metal bird took shape in his hands. He leaned over the balcony, eager to give it to the child standing below.

"Here! This is for you!"

The bird glinted in the fading light as he tossed it into the air. But before the child could catch it, a Universal Hand shot out of nowhere and seized it mid-flight.

Before Aryan’s eyes, the little metal bird was crushed inside the mechanical grip. It was compressed into a square block and dropped into the waste bin below.

The child ran indoors in fear.

Aryan felt that he was no longer a human being, but merely a glitch—something frightening and out of place in the child’s world.

Then the soft voice began speaking inside his head. A reprimand delivered through the neural link, courtesy of the algorithm.

"Aryan, your heart rate has reached a dangerous level. Your permission for self-agency has been revoked for the next 24 hours. Please remain calm."

Aryan sank into his chair, exhausted.

The sunset had turned the sky a deep, glowing red. But for a fleeting moment—

Flicker.

A patch of pixels in one corner of the crimson sky glitched.

For just an instant, he saw what lay behind that beautiful red: a grey sky and dust-covered buildings.

The real world!

His heart surged with excitement and beat once more with a life he thought he had lost.

But within seconds, the system corrected the error. The red returned, brighter than before.

The voice inside his head now sounded even more soothing.

"Don't worry, Aryan. We've fixed everything. Why don't we give you another sunset? An evening in Kochi, in 1997. The smell of earth after the rain... the songs of birds... even your mother's laughter. We can simulate it all for you."

"You don't have to do anything. Just close your eyes."

Aryan looked at his hands. Smooth, unscarred, useless hands that bore none of the calluses earned through years of honest work.

Slowly, he closed his eyes.

Before him, the artificial sun descended gently towards the horizon. In his ears, birds from a forgotten past began to sing. On his tongue, the taste of food from those old days returned.

But even in that darkness, a tiny spark remained.

The final ache of someone who had once witnessed a real sunset.

The real world had long since fallen into darkness.

Yet, even in that darkness, the memory of a glitch remained.

— Unni. K. S.

Circa 2007

After teetering down the stairs and saying goodnight to Carl the doorman, we hop a cab the quick 10 blocks to Meatpacking and get in line for the newest opening. Vivi and I get in line like primed peacocks, and Dante goes to talk to the doorman. Often times a man in your party can be a massive disadvantage at one of these openings, but Dante has radar for who the gay or curious bouncer daddies were and got us to the front post haste.

We slide through the gilded doors at 12:30 - early bird special, and as we survey the room. I begin making a mental map of the place like a deranged party pirate. I see Vivi’s eyes land on a group of young men, tourists likely, they had already been hustled into buying a bottle. We can see them slurring their words as they argue over the $2000 check the bottle girl just dropped off and make our way over. Polos, popped collars - they definitely won’t make it until 4 am - so we help ourselves to their Grey Goose and mixers.

“Hey. Hey.” One of the bros stops us.

“Oh hey, hey.” Valentina bats her eyes and runs her finger down his chest circling around the little logo of the man on the horse playing polo, “Aren’t you handsome?”

Vivi has honed her skills since living in the city and flirts with the best of them when she wants what she wants.

I see a man, dressed not in a polo but a navy button down and crisp jeans start to make his way towards Dante, but he stops in front of me with one eye on Dante. “Aren’t you a lovely Amazonian? Fabulous shoes,” he looks me up and down.

I avert my gaze and whisper in his ear as I hold Dante’s hand, “Now… young man…What are your dating preferences?”

He laughs out loud, “my dating preferences are whoever likes to do lines and give head” and looks from my eyes to Dante’s eyes.

I let go of Dante’s hand and excuse myself to the dance floor to lose myself in the music.  It only takes a moment to find a nameless and faceless dance partner and I let the music move us.

I spend hours on the dance floor, ignoring my throbbing feet, letting myself move. Partners coming and going, all faceless, all nameless. Every once in a while, one of them will press a napkin or piece of paper with a phone number on it into my hand, or slide it into my purse, but those papers always make their way into the garbage.  I periodically scan the room looking for Valentina who has probably gotten her 5^th number of the evening, tucked safely in her purse to be used expeditiously. She’s the wise one, her game far from sloppy. She never moves onto a new man, until the last one has left the club. Guaranteed she’ll be fed all week with dinner dates. Men always want to take care of her in hopes that she’ll one day marry them and make Sunday dinners with all the fixings. Baked ziti, chicken cutlets, eggplant parm, Sunday sauce with braciole, sausage and meatballs - hot Italian mom vibes waft off her like no other 22-year-old woman I know. A counterpoint to sad, sad broken Sally.

I see Dante emerge from the bathroom with Mr. Bang a Lang Coke Head.  I don’t love this for Dante, but he has a thing for straight and straight passing men so whatever will be will be. They separate as though nothing ever happened and Dante joins me on the dance floor.

The music plays on, the pulsing pushing pulsing energy vibrating its rhythm through the sidewalks, subway tunnels, over the bridges and into the water, reverberating back through the tiny island crushed with 8 million people. The rhythm takes us through the night. I can feel the sun rotating its way around, the sky offering its first glimmer of solar rays meeting the stars.

“Last call. Last call. Last call.” Echoes through the club. I can smell myself, and everyone I’ve danced with clinging to my dress.

“One more shot for the road,” Vivi lines up three tequila shots, and we down them as the lights flip on exposing us all. Eyes blinking, pupils contracting, we take account of the room, everyone scattering like cockroaches to the darkest corners. They mill outside to catch taxis or begin the slog home on foot and train. We see some women begin to remove their shoes, feet sticking to the floor, one slimy step at a time.

Vivi and I look down at each other’s feet. Stilettos firmly cemented on, numbness creeping up my leg. 

“Taxi time, ladies?” Dante asks.

We nod in unison.

We watch some yellow ones go by, lights off. The number of people pouring out of the surrounding clubs continues to multiply.  One goes by with a light on and a crush of about 30 people approach waving at it. My inner hope sinks.

“Or… we could go to the coffee shop down the block for pancakes and eggs followed by the walk of shame home,” Vivi offers. Her passion for pancakes at 4am was well known and endless.  We see a number of black town cars pull up and unassuming drunk partiers engage them.

“Viv, I can’t tonight, I want to grab a taxi, grab a slice and be in bed by sunrise,” Dante groans.

“Pancakes and walk or pizza and taxi? Sally? It’s your deciding vote.”

“Ok.” I say, pulling myself up, “Elbows out. We catch a taxi, yellow ones only.”

Valentina rolls her eyes, but she knows the drill.

My mind begins to play its games as I scan the streets for a yellow one, lights on. I circulate a pizza mantra to conjure our automobile. A pavement pound and a pizza. A chase and some cheese. A dash for some dough. A sprint and a slice. I close my eyes and motion to them, “Come on.”

We walk up to the corner where there’s already gaggles of girls waiting. Sweat stained dresses, heels in hand, mascara running down their glistening faces. Lip gloss and stick smeared all over their faces as though they were making out with one another for the attention of it all. I stay composed and move to the front of this pack, teetering on the edge of the curb. Vivi and I look up the block.

One cab - light off. Two cab - light off.

Cab number three turns the corner and the light is on. It’s about a block away as it approaches, wheels turning in slow motion. Two courses of action exist. One - we can leave this pack of ladies and run up the cobblestones in our stilettos to intercept the taxi before one of these vomitous bitches beat us to it. Two - we fight the pack for the taxi once it pulls up.

“Ready?” Vivi looks at me, she knows my legs are longer and faster in heels.

“Ready.” I nod and I take off. My legs begin steadily moving over the rounded irregular edges of the stones.  I’m halfway down the block and can see Dante’s back already starting to walk north, on his mission to get his snack, when the unexpected happens. One of the ladies on the corner catches our game, “Oh no. Oh no you don’t!” I hear her yell.  I look behind me and this wench in bare feet is gaining on me. I continue on, jumping from stone to stone like a gazelle, horns out ready to fight.  I have my arm up, hailing the taxi. The cabbie slows down and begins to pull over, when I feel the wench grab my dress behind me and pull me to the ground. What a brave cunt, I think to myself.  I hear Vivi close behind, shoes stopping abruptly. I look over and “Bam.” Vivi slaps her face so hard this interloper falls back.

“Sally.” Vivi extends her hand and helps me up and we see the girl’s gaggle of girlfriends start to approach like some crazed group of zombies. “We gotta go.” She opens the cab door ushering me in and the cab driver is laughing.

“Ladies you better get in,” he chuckles. “Where to?”

“23^rd and 9^th please” I manage.

The tires spin and we giggle the whole way up - magically transported to the slice shop. We see Dante through the window, crumpling up his cheese grease-soaked napkin. He picks up a box and greets us at the door.

“Darlings, I got you to-go slices. It’s time for bed.”

We follow him into our building, where the morning doorman, Fred, greets us to the smell of our pizza and partying.

I’ve never been the adventurous type. Not really.

But when you’re sixteen, and boredom stretches so far you can feel it pressing against your skull, even the quietest, most lifeless corners of the world seem like they’re hiding something worth discovering.

That’s why my friends and I started exploring abandoned places, factories, barns, crumbling cabins along the coast. The thrill wasn’t danger; it was the illusion of control, the ability to step somewhere forbidden and claim it as ours for a few hours.

That’s how I ended up stranded on this island.

Not stranded in a dramatic, shipwrecked way with a storm to blame. No, it was just a foolish plan gone wrong.

We’d rented a small motorboat, convinced ourselves we could cross a stretch of the bay to a supposedly uninhabited island. Halfway there, the engine sputtered, died, and I didn’t have the knowledge, or the courage, to fix it.

By nightfall, the island’s shore loomed dark and unwelcoming, a jagged silhouette against the horizon. We made landfall, grateful to set foot somewhere solid, even if it was small, wild, and completely uninviting.

The first night was uneventful. I pitched a tarp between a couple of scrubby trees, built a fire from driftwood, and listened to the waves crashing against the rocks. The wind carried a hint of salt and rot.

Somewhere in the distance, a gull cried. That was it.

That was the island. It felt ordinary.

Ordinary enough that I almost believed I could fix the boat in the morning and leave.

Morning came, and with it, the first hint that something was wrong.

The boat.

I’d tied it securely to a boulder on the shore, double-checked every knot. But now, it lay halfway up the beach, a good twenty feet from where I’d left it.

The tide hadn’t risen high enough to carry it there. I checked the knots. Perfectly intact. Nothing could have moved it except… the island.

I laughed it off. Of course I did. Boredom, fatigue, the thrill of isolation, it must have been a dream, a trick of memory.

I untied the boat and tried again, rowing out to the horizon with all my strength. The water was calm, deceptively calm, reflecting the sky as if inviting me to leave.

Hours later, I returned.

The island had somehow shifted the boat back to shore. Not dramatically, not violently, but subtly, perfectly, deliberately.

That’s when the unease started. Not the outright terror, the kind that freezes your chest, but the creeping, insidious feeling that someone, or something, was paying attention.

The tide receded in strange patterns. Rocks I’d stepped over yesterday now obstructed the paths I’d taken. Trees leaned slightly toward the path I avoided. Even my footprints vanished overnight.

I began keeping track.

Every escape attempt, no matter how careful or clever, ended with failure.

Fires I built to signal passing ships went out the instant I turned my back.

Attempts to climb cliffs to get a better view were met with shifting terrain, boulders I had relied on gave way, sand under my boots loosened impossibly, vines twisted around my ankles.

I started talking to myself to stay sane. “It’s just an island,” I whispered. “It’s just trees and rocks. It can’t care about me.” But my words felt hollow.

The way the branches rustled in the wind, or didn’t, seemed deliberate.

The horizon, once clear, now mocked me with its unattainable expanse.

Each day, it felt further away, like the island itself was stretching the world to keep me contained.

Keep me far far away from what used to be home.

This is home now. Though, zI'm forced to be a resident here.

I explored inland, searching for caves, fallen trees, or even signs of previous visitors. There were remnants, old driftwood shelters, cracked clay pots, half-buried tools that might have belonged to fishermen or campers long gone.

Nothing alive. Nothing human. And yet, the island itself felt… alive. Felt human even...

My shadow stretched too long on the sand, moving slightly before I did. Rocks shifted overnight. Birds I swore perched in one tree were suddenly twenty feet away, facing me with beady, curious eyes.

I started rationing attempts to leave, but compulsion overtook logic. Each time, I built rafts, tied knots, burned fires, hoped someone would see them. Each time, the island intervened in ways too precise to be coincidence.

Once, I placed a note in a bottle, cast it into the waves.

It returned the next morning, the paper wet, the message rewritten in a strange, jagged script I didn’t recognize.

I wasn’t losing my mind, or at least I don’t think I was.

I began noticing patterns. Small, insidious details: sand moved to cover my tracks, driftwood shifted overnight, vines blocked paths I’d cleared, and cliffs seemed steeper when I approached them. If the island wasn’t alive, it was playing tricks as if it were. Every attempt to leave ended in the same subtle, perfect defeat.

By the third week, despair had crept in. My days blurred together. Sleep came in short, shallow bursts, punctuated by nightmares of tidal waves and impossible cliffs. I dreamt of hands made of sand pulling me backward, of trees that bent toward me like they wanted to swallow me whole.

I accepted that I might never leave.

The final attempt came one evening.

I had scavenged enough driftwood for a raft that looked seaworthy. I lashed the boards together with every scrap of rope I could find. I checked the tide, waited for calm water, and pushed it into the waves. I paddled with everything I had, heart hammering, lungs burning.

I didn’t glance back.

When I did, the raft had drifted back to shore. Again.

Only this time, I noticed something new.

The horizon itself seemed wrong, farther away than it had ever been. The beach stretched endlessly, and the trees, well, they weren’t quite trees anymore.

They leaned in toward me as if the island were breathing, expanding around me, enclosing me. A subtle hum rose from the ground beneath my feet, faint at first, then insistent. It vibrated through my bones.

I sank to my knees, gasping.

The island doesn’t just trap you. It absorbs you. Every failed attempt is a lesson. Every obstacle is deliberate. You are not merely stranded; you are being integrated.

The wind shifted, carrying a sound I had begun to dread: footsteps where there were none, soft scraping noises in the brush, and a whisper I could swear was my own voice, just behind me, urging me to turn back.

I crawled to the shore, tore myself from the raft, and ran. The island was patient, like a caring parent waiting for their child to return from war.

My footprints vanished as I sprinted. I stumbled over rocks that weren’t there before. Branches reached for me.

I collapsed at the base of a cliff, chest heaving, and for a moment, the island was silent. I looked out at the endless horizon, the distant sun slipping below it, and realized: the island doesn’t want me to leave, not to punish me.

I reflected.

The island had always blessed me with firewood. Drinking water. And plenty of fruit to eat. It's Eden on Earth.

It simply wants the world beyond its shores to never step foot on it. But yet, here I am.

And maybe… it has always been so lonely.

It wanted company.

But more importantly, it wanted a friend.

I am the friend it chose... but it will never let me go...

High in the lush frontier lands with trees with green leaves, grey rocks, and a small farm. A cowboy made his home in a cozy cabin with glass windows that looked out over a rushing grey rocky mountain wet stream. Out in the stable, his quarter horse was tucked away, safe from the evening chill. Indoors, warm and he swallowed his orange pills the shape of mike & ikes and for the morning. The cowboy forgot his name and some parts of his own past, He only remembered he had family from the wild west including Billy the boy, He is now just called the cowboy or frontier.  Late into the nighttime a sudden storm with a blue lightning shock. The rain lashed out down against the wooden homestead, drumming into the horse's water silver bowl with a sharp, beating that sounded like water forced through a strainer. He drank sarsaparilla looking in the mountain range. There was a far building called the - BLACKWOOD INSTITUTE -   Back As the physicians that worked there had a somewhat grey rolling table trolley of a red vial called a cure that could cure any disease such as cancer, epilepsy, ADHD, Parkinson's disease and more. 18 physicians, scientists and 2 intelligent theorists with white robes rolled it into a grey Doctors room. Their machines were hissing. The vial contains many atoms such as normal and nuclear atoms with quanta. Destroying life's DNA. Dr Fleming grabbed one sweating from struggling on his fists and slowly tried to study it by putting it on the long table. with Doctor Addison in the back yelling out “be careful!” As Fleming was close to slipping the glass vial with bubbly red liquid. Doctor Drew was with them seeing it slip and the atoms split between slowly as the vial filled with a red liquid struck hitting the floor like the bomb from 1945 from WWII. It was a fireball blast of more than  1000 suns as one man said. The doctors ran out and hit the elevators and hit a glowing button Ø  going to ground zero. where the bomb will not hit them, Radioactive particles live out the land as a shockwave comes out with something like zombies ghouls walking around. People called them ghouls as they describe. Back at the cabin the Cowboy drank a bottle of sarsaparilla and finished the whole thing.  Many glass bottles were on the cabin floor,  A camo colored binoculars laid on a table, The ban notified if there was a fire near, Seeing the Fireball burning his cabin around with windows exploded , "That's a big flame almost grabbing the Walkie-Talkie. he said, as he retracted and recoil to the back on his wooden floor with burns. But in the cabin the horses were alive. with turning the land to radioactive areas. The cowboy had an outfit, a satchel filled with items such as cigarettes, coins and drinks. a yellow tinted Geiger counter taped up, and his leather ripped hat. He brought a back rifle with him and a revolver. He wanted to know if his friend was still okay. He opened outside, “his mailman has been giving him mail, at a bad-time now he is just a skeleton, holding ripped paper from my newspaper. He rode through new Man-Made settlements, raiders or bandits. As he was shooting down ghouls as they bled out. His friend's house was about 2 days away. By coming down the mountain seeing settlements made from ruined cars and trucks, with homes or wood, scrapped up objects and scratched windows.  He walked through a broken road seeing a Stop Sign bent, road signs and traffic lights taped up, soon enough an officer stopped him. Want to get through? “Yes sir” The Cowboy said as the Officer in blue leathered police uniform with a suit and belt,  said you got trade to get through its kind the law now. The Cowboy said ""the Horse is not for sale ""we never asked about that horse” He passed down 2 shiny quarters “Toll roads still exist throughout the war as he moaned, The Officer said “Thats It? At least you passed something not a Marlboro cigarette” He went throughout the wasteland seeing a new settlement. not heading that area until later, He saw a white diner then hoped for the horse, a ghoul walked by, Thanks for helping. Shooting him down. Stay put as he tied up a horse. The sign was neon colored saying DINER–24-7, making the words with wood and painting them.  The windows taped and boarded up. The Cowboy walked into the diner, “Got any food?” The owner replied “Well I guess the world has ended, It's hard to find food," said the man covered in ash. Give me anything from that leather satchel I see” The cowboy replied saying I have a drink, does that count?. “Sure,” the owner said,. You can get bread, passing down bread towards this man's hands. The Diner was filled with colors, destroyed ripped posters were on the wall, next to a destroyed glass jukebox. “BUDLITE” “COCA-COLA” next to its restaurants MENU poster with breakfast, lunch, and dinner and desserts, The Diner was neon, colorful, lights flickered, since you killed the rotten ghoulish monsters outside my diner I will give it to you for free, passing to the cowboy the coins. “Okay” said the Cowboy, The cowboy sat on a seat eating his bread, as he finished he stated “ I gotta go find my friend. He is out there somewhere, “Okay be safe” the worker said. He hopped broken glass back on the horse as he pulled and untied his reins, gave him a small kick, saw a barbershop seeing the pole not spinning, and as well in front of the diner was a big Shopping mall made from bricks and windows. He walked in kicking down a wooden door and jumped off a horse. “Welp, is it open? Are people alive?” He walked inside was the lights were shadowy and dim. People raided the areas killing the ghoulish. bringing Prayer Votive candles for light, He looked around the building with 12 men looking back as different eyes and hair colored some dyed, and they all tattooed their Blood Type like they did in historical war. They both helped out their weapons, as one of the raiders shot a man-made pistol from wood. The Cowboy shot with a rifle bleeding dead, “Raider zone i guess” He said.  He took out pulling a pistol shot by shot hitting the raiders legs crippled, as the guns flew out in the air falling. He recoiled after a bullet hit out, Looking through shelves seeing Aidkits and food shelfs, at the bottom it was dusty and empty, He saw 2  rotary phones by the shelf by the cash register. He walked up to a blackphone and pretended to call his family, “For Dinner get some Club Soda, Salisbury Steak, and some Icecream after, as he set the phone down “ done with this bullcrap.” Walking out towards the horse that smells like leather, Hopping on seeing a church with pews held back like barricades and a dead man. like he was a soldier fighting off, holding a greyish pistol,  he saw a small town, He found some ghouls, he grabbed out a shotgun and shot some. They bleed out, destroyed again, Another 3 groups of ghouls of ghoulish creatures came from the left, putting the gun in the back he used the revolver, as they died for mercy. He spotted a somewhat settlement showed off in the east side man-made, a Ford F-Series truck , barricaded farm fence, and a whole wood house aligned, people are there  from the right are towns”, he went to the town and went in an abandoned house, as that what he said, seeing destroyed neighborhoods, glass demolished. Bones, only bark and no leaves, The door was loose, Tried that one, went to the back of the door and tied the horse to a fence, grabbed some pillowsheets off the couch and moved it towards the garage area. Dust bunnies flew towards him. It was late. He found a switch to turn off lights in the garage closing the doors, Rubbish around his horse making sounds until The horses feel asleep, 30 Minutes later he heard doors opening sounding like 2 men raiding and ransacking the area, Hearing  a guy saying “Dude Don’t make any sound, someone is sleeping here. As someone else said Ok Ok, whispering, Hearing a fridge open taking a bottle of beer, Someone taking coins off of a shelf, which made the the man wake up, Feeling cold, walking towards them  he grabbed out a revolver putting new rounds in, Gave them a Threat to go away, “ Sir put everything down” putting the bandits at gunpoint,  I'm trying to sleep, bring that ba-ck. They implied well not to die. Ran out like a kid scared of a Dressed up clown during Halloween times, knocking the door on the floor, “those idiots,“the Cowboy said, He went back to the garage and saw something interesting, A leathered box with an analog watch, glossy white.  “Man, what has he been collecting?” He said “Nobody Owns it now, Well I can take it,” putting it on his arm checking the time. On the second day, he opened the door, and took a cigarette. He found out there was a Storm bunker outside. He walked towards it . It cracked its fingers to open it, twisting the knob. A man with his friend and his wife stayed there from the blast, The food was almost gone, They got a small scare from some man trespassing. “Are you okay?” “Yes," a young man replied . It's just a fallout now. The blast has stopped” He passed food from his satchel to the young men. “I got to go,”  He walked over. He made a mounting block out of wood and went on the horse, “Walk on!” The cowboy said to his horse, as he untied him running out towards the street nearest to the church and settlements, As he rode through he did not have a white map, He new what the house look like, Driving the another street, Seeing it, Is that it, It looks more "Updated” from the ghoulish war, The house had barricades with zombies dead on the barricade. All over for the zombies to die, Ghouls came from the left and the right there's too many to shoot at he said, As he knocked on the garage door, A shadowy of a Caucasian figure of him appeared wearing leathered welding goggles shined, Like seeing a Cyclops from the Odyssey, Dusty he stated, while shooting down the rest of the ghouls. His friend was named John. He had an interesting thing that he did, making shining blades and somewhat killing axes. He said his latest was removing 2 licence plates from cars and making a blade, “gas is expensive.” Nobody drives much now. He made blades as well.  He looked at the cowboy, “Well you have an addiction to cigarettes and drinks.” You need to stop and get help, Same with you making blades, “OK that was uncalled for.” John Implied, The Cowboy showed his arm, I have a long scratch, His geiger counter was clicking from the radiation 14 clicks per minute every second, You got something, It was purple and red, John said “Welp, come to the Kitchen” his hands pointed while it was ashy from work,. As they both walked in He opened up a top wood cabinet for medicine by a sink with dirty plates. It was a needle with a lot of potency. Stabbing him to stay still and the needle made a sharp dense hissing sound, Breath in, As the Cowboy took a breath gagging he saw the scratch wither away such as his radioactive count went to 1 to 0 on the geiger counter. John opened up a fridge filled with magnets on the door. A list to buy before the blast. And a blueprint of his weapons. Having food and drinks inside,  Here take this are you thirsty,  passing him an alcoholic beverage of beer like throwing off a baseball in sporting events. The Cowboy said I do drink alcoholic beverages man , not a lot though, You got any Sasparilla? Rootbeer? “I was waiting for you to say this”. He went to the Garage taking a wooden crate of 9 bottles of Sarsaparilla bottles, grabbing a rusty red crowbar with dust flying in the air, he came back showing the cowboy the open crate of sarsaparilla, The cowboy put one his a leather satchel, Did you feel or see it, John questioned? What? What do you mean? The high big explosion of that atomic bomb, “Any type of flash?, which made the world end,”  John said he felt it and saw a glimpse of it, “What did you see?” The cowboy stated “I was out in the Mountains drinking my sarsaparilla, taking my orange pills, I saw the blast in the distance out my windows why windows broke, My drink was empty and dry, first a blast next a drink that was empty. We need to discover what happened.” The cowboy thought it was a good idea. Let's take a day here though for a break,  John questioned but “you really had to bring a horse here? “Smelled like leather” He stated “”yes i did“, He responded with" “He's my giddyup pal, Why do you want to wait a day?” John questioned back at him,

“Where to land first, Where not to go? “John told him on the leathered floor there's a couch you can sit on tonight. The cowboy said “sure why not” the room went quiet as the horse made the sound, Huph!, they planned out a map, Got any paper?,  John said there's probably some ripped paper in the garage, there's tons of pens in there also” As he moved and grabbed pens and a paper there John and him drew out a map of the land. “wait what's the name” The lands so destroyed I forgot” The cowboy drew the settlement he saw, such as the diner and the church, That's much as we know now, Then he drew the institute and 20 dots which stated how many people destroyed us, he put the Sarsaparilla bottles, more coins and the map, aged paper. John walked next to the cowboy Riding his horse, “have you seen this settlement” named “DRYWOOD”

Dropping off the horse, Stay put! John brought his important blades he uses

“Throughout my house working John” replied they saw 2 wooden boxes on top were gas-lit lanterns and they opened a blue long farm door with a screeching sound. “Needs some oil” John implied. Many men and women and kids were there,  a furnace lit laid on the floor, cooking carrot stew. A man in wrinkles waiting to finish. “Smells like Someone died in the stew, was it you or the carrot stew?” coffee boiled near him.

They had a giant geiger counter, to be careful, a whiteboard to tell if they are okay, 5 tallys 卌 of knowing who died, Many men and women were there, Some old, some younger,  They had a small area for teaching kids there, at the bottom a newsrack with someone writing news of today drawing paper with stencil and paper, 

A few kids walked across near beds laying on the ground, “are you scared at anytime you fight someone” a small girl asked “not really at all anymore” as the cowboy said taking the hat off crouching on his knees on the wet wood broken apart on the floor, I used to be,  “Be careful out there, “ she said  The Cowboy said,  “Alright.”.

Next towards a minifridge filled with bottles and other treats and food. Filled with magnets on the shelf, that were postcards from around the world, some International GERMANY, ROME USA, ICELAND,  USA,  shifted to the left bent, John said “someone travels a lot, Jesus.”

 “Cowboy, we need to meet the Overseer, “ The Cowboy questioned who's the Overseer? The Cowboy questioned  a scratched up sign in red wood (-DON’T SHOOT, DO NOT STEAL -). With her signature The cowboy  knocked on the door,  “housekeeping!” “not that funny.” Come in, The Overseer said.

The Cowboy and John walked in and saw her sitting on a wood chair with a desk in front,  So, you need something? Staring down at the spill of shining coins on her desk  like she just won a match in VEGAS by her pen and paper by a broken radio station. Have you heard of  the Institute? The Explosion? She said yes, definitely a shockwave came through. He set a map down on the desk,  could you help us and the cowboy get there at any chance, “pay in coins if you need help” “Okay” The men responded, grabbing 5 coins. She wrote on the map more locations. More towns were drawn out, A gas station? That's a death wish, You gotta head there first, kill the ghouls, take some items, I believe someone still works in the establishment, 2 story Hotels, “useless junk buildings is that important?” John said. You got any other pen coloring to draw out where to head to the institute, “Yes i do, It's going to take days” she grabbed a red pen drawing nine of what lines where to ride the horse to, Alright I see a gas station,  A big town that used to popular, it had a blockbuster back in the 1999s, Now some malls and a starbucks, “is that where you got this coffee from” John asked,  “Kinda, same flavoring and package. We give them our mail.“ she replied,  The cowboy walked out hearing people talk through the settlement, 

Someone had a tableleg armed and ready. as a weapon, Did they borrow John's weapons? He went outside and hopped on the horse. He checked the map, walked in the north  and moved to the east and right. Then we will get there. John was beside him,  The neighborhood looked ransacked or it was in terrible condition, like a hurricane or tornado came through, As ghouls walked after him while RUNNING.  John moved fast around with his blade up and down killing ghouls at their neck, their red blood came out.ripping their shirt.  Walking towards the gas station with coca-cola posters ripped apart  John asked “are we going to risk it?” Guess The cowboy said to let the horse stay put, The door was half open. A white sign said. <- HELP GHOULS ARE ATTACKING -  PLEASE HELP - > the ink was still wet fairly new as John rubbed it. He wrote interestingly but eloquently, John and the Cowboy walked in seeing 5 ghouls, John getting 2 at the back. I will shoot the 3 in my area, as John  killed the zombies in the back row area and the cowboy killed the 2 in the front. The room smelled like a dead farm animal rotting in weeks. A man crouch flinching back and forth, GOD GOD, YOU SAVED ME I WAS ABOUT TO DIE, EATING ME LEAVING MY BONES FRESH AND EMPTY, “you will become one of them, “ the cowboy said,  Here take anything for free They looked throughout the gas station, Broken microwaves, not important, They took lays chips for each other. Thank you, the cashier said, charismatic. Leaving a bell rang with tied aluminum cans with coins inside like some notifier. If someone opened up the door,  he hopped on the horse with John putting things in the leather satchel, the geiger counter clicked up and down,  walking on through the distance, “TROT” he said, making the horse faster.

 Walking on the world just looked empty with the sky being dark, stopping at a 4 street corner. He turned to the right seeing the town the Overseer told them, A water fountain was not working muggy and terribly working becoming somewhat of a pool. At a Mexican restaurant, A geiger counter clicked on his suit slowly, Huh, it would be alr-ight, He looked through a broken window, seeing soda bottles still in use,  Mexican coke and some vivid green, red and purple glass jarritos bottles,  ghoulish people  were in there,   coming out trying to attack, the Blockbuster sign still there covered by a big black sign nailed in the room was closed off.  “Guess we are at town now John, That's what she told me Its on map,” The ghouls broke throughout the doors with glass cuts on their body,  John help by slicing them to bits hitting with his rusty blade he owned, He got off the horse two clicks and to tell the horse to stay put. He tied his horse to the side 

He looked in the restaurant as some caps were open with a drink spilled out fizzing on tables, the Mexican restaurant was empty, with coke posters, while outside was more gloomy. Checking behind the register taking coins from the cash register. Bottles of rum,beer,wine and laid on the counters. He left to see the BLOCKBUSTER through a crack of a window, it was empty. Mold feels through with copper wires.  STARBUCKS but it was misspelled another settlement laid out on his map. The cowboy grabbed an ink pen and put an X on that area. He opened it seeing men and females, there were no kids,  BAKERY signs, canned beans at a trading post ammunition bullets and rounds with guns, the back kitchen became a shelter area for beds,  A man at the front said welcome to The LAST CUP. and very  small settlement to survive -, 

2 improved guards like a knight stared at the cowboy. They wore somewhat of a respirator mask, and used highlighters with red to make their eyes look like reddish demon eyes. If you get no water you get no coffee. “The smell of alcoholic beverages and coffee filled the air,”  A scavenger said in the back, "Is it fine if we stay here tonight? He gave 3 shiny coins to the owner for him and John to sleep, as The cowboy whispered to John,

“One more day” the horse fell asleep such as everyone else, they woke up in morning with a grey shiny working ventilation blowing the cowboys face, He squeezed his eyes short, He got off and grabbed his satchel and guns, He asked someone for a glass bottle, that was empty, “ I have one”, an old man said, replying We need a towel, lighter and gas, The guard asked him, are you making a molotov?, “Yes” to win a war threat” ‘’To destroy a threat”  The second guard asked the cowboy what breed is horse? "Quarter Horse that's not for sale” the cowboy said, He got the horse and checked his watch, Its around 4 am, John yawned, “this early” he asked “You want to win or lose” The cowboy explained “okay” as they walked off He but the Molotov bottles in his satchel, One more ride off i hope as John walked by, He looked back a the map,  a few more towns to head through seeing a water tower in text town, It was destroyed the big sign of the towns watertower, with paint falling off, looked sanskrit or somewhat arabic, broken destroyed rocks and  rubble destroyed on the road, with trucks and dead men with dead ghouls, “guess we don't need to kill them”  John said while walking through seeing 2 story houses and another church, with the white paint falling off screaming, Raiders contained the area, One smoked a cigarette another had rum slipping out of its hands, They saw the Cowboy “HEY!” as they grab a weapon, The Horse is ours now” If No, if do you want to die, “no” said the cowboy  John sliced the raiders head bleeding as zombies walked by, The Cowboy gave 12 shots to each zombies arms and legs, Telling the horse to trot, seeing a giant tower in the distance, white but shadowy, “TROT” he said he was seeing another town filled with houses,  THICk plywood with some garage doors half staying off the horses with some ghoul screaming upstairs,  still trotting, He got to the front of the institute, He saw a large fence with a code, “locked darn it” John said, Hold up, Its still armed, seeing 5 people with a full army suit and a clipped on geiger counter on the suit,  the Cowboy he whispered to John “silent follow as he was dropping of his horse, Stay put, they went to left near trees,  Grabbing his gun reloading, Shooting one man in the head, you want to slice the other man up? John said he is armed,  The Cowboy shoot him, Crippled his legs,  John grabbed his certain weapon slicing the man's head off,  killing him like they killed bad men in 1789, The front doors were locked, “Check his suit, “ The cowboy told John, The guard had silver skeleton keys as they put it throughout a hole “CLING-CLANG”  as the doors opened softly, John put his weapon down in an umbrella basket for now, He saw 2 soda machines,  PEPSI, COCA-COLA, Hold up John stated, He took a coin and dispensed a coke can, “CLANK” “you really wanted to do that?” The cowboy asked, “He laughed. Come on! It's funny, it's still in use!” They saw throughout a table with a glass period table of elements with real atoms, uranium, radium, oxygen, and more, The room tasted odd, Metallic and tasted like blood in the mouth,  Terminals screens with still on, The Cowboy sat down the leather satchel, 2 MOVs (MOVIES) on different screens the first and second computer, He started to hear clicking from his suit from the geiger counter, The building got radioactive fast, He took pills from the satchel for a few minutes and wore it after, and walked past, They both saw the problem, they used radioactive materials, causing a chemical reaction, destroying the world, They have become death, Like the first man to  make a bomb, They have become death destroyer of worlds, saying it slowly, he saw 2 vials, NEEDLES on the table, as seeing  a box of Dynatime by Nobel, John sat that on the floor, Okay, This can work,  they moved to towards a doctors office , seeing the crater, and unused vials, and written physics on a whiteboard, walking out The cowboy frontier saw an elevator shaft, 5 buttons glowed throughout the room,  pressed the lowest button Ø.  he did not know the meaning of that,  The bottom button of GROUND ZERO, the elevator flickered lights and  shook and took them slowly there, The doors opened slowly, loudly and shaking the shaft, Seeing the male physicists,  “Its been years” with their skin aged up dry aged paper, with white hairs balding. The cowboy took out a revolver, I just have a question putting them at a gunpoint, “John head back up, wire the TNT, As the cowboy put it up towards to Doctor Fleming's ear like an old telephone,  The Doctors were in a bunker, a ground zero safe zone like cold war, John tied up every part of the denomination and the lever to explode it outside, The Cowboy asked Fleming, What caused the Land to get disturbed by death?, Why did life want to end us, Accidents happen! he replied, “we used radioactive materials, The cure could of happen if we did not a theorist replied,” Addison said in the back bunkbed, by chips and a furnace, The cowboy responded “You can not do this, You remember bombs happened multiple times,  Some accidental like Chernoybl” Shooting the men the shaft, As a menace He grabbed the molotov”Here take this for cover” throwing it down burning there body into flames with smoke getting on the cowboys face as he went up to the top, John said I got the Explosion to start, Get back outside to start, "remember this will not end the war, It just will kill the men that started threats” The cowboy told, John added 4 blue copper wires next toward to his red copper wires, “rip off your shirt and stay back” “why? so?” said the cowboy,  “you can get burns “burns”  He ran back to his horse, took off his hat and gave eye cover, still seeing a hollow bottom area, John said Three ,Two, “DONT COUNTDOWN funny numbers, DO IT” “push” as he put down the lever and ran off towards the horse ripping a sleeve off and gave cover by the horse, A gigantic orange flash with smoke revealing with fire came through burning half the population of creatures of ghouls some still lived on, , Shaking the ground “shockwave” John said rocks broke apart with another shockwave, as towns saw it from miles, “they did it” surprised a smaller bomb killing the institute DEAD, the town was still ghoulish but people still live on, The Cow hopped on the saddlepad and pulled reins as they walked out towards towns of the ruins, “You almost killed yourself man, John said “Benjamin Franklin once said Join or die, this can be really similar to that problem,” The cowboy responded, “I guess man, I did weave my horse, The horse panted as he questioned, Those monsters, ghouls or bandits, died from a shiny bullet. “

The one with bandits murdered, They head straight towards The LAST CUP, They went towards the front door as the cowboy let the horse stay put,  opening the door-knob with a twist, The Cowboy jumped off the quarter horse, still seeing the fire in the distance, asking “Did You See it?” John asked, Everyone was surprised, a man read some important news in the back. saying, “Yes,”  The 2 men John and the Cowboy were sweating deeply, “The owner said Everything is free for a week” as the one officer smoke a cigar, The Cowboy took his sarsaparilla out, as he took a drink, “good stuff man” The main cowboy said and gave John a bottle, We should tell the other settlement, “yep” as they said that the temperature of ventilation blew towards their legs and arms, the fire on the candle and the smoke shook to the left and right, Lets go,  As he drove out back on the horse the cowboy  looked up seeing his demolished house, John said “stay with me” walking towards a few roads as it moved right , traffic lights broken, with taking time The Overseer open the door, Come in my office, She held a bottle of wine out of her fridge, He dropped off the horse, People looked at him like he was heroic, She pointed the room as “come in here” “you saved our soul “SOS” thank you 

It took around 3-4 days. He was sweating deeply like he was out from under the water . They used radioactive particles, “radium” “uranium” "some what of black-purple tinted antimatter” “ antimatter ? She questioned” John broke  and coughed into conversation.” I studied a little of that on break times in college, “Antimatter is a form of matter composed of antiparticles. Your bananas include antimatter giving off isotopes, he wrote on the map paper, with a pen, drawing out describing it“ and made a chemical reaction, I saw a crater deep, Now the Institute is just a white-greyish destroyed tower filled with gravestones and a radioactive cure, She passed down her coins, “a reward” hearing sounds of quarters, and coins, The Overseer grabbed a shiny glass, and put wine in and chugged it, John and the cowboy walked out, “your welcome,”A man towards to newsrack, signed new important sheets of paper, PEACE! THE WAR ENDED, EXPLOSION AT THE BLACKWOOD INSTITUTE TOWERS, drawing the towers and a giant dash of explosions, telling the story in the news, the world was still smoking, Burning” hoping on the horse going to Johns place, Then he tied the horse up dropping off, Closing the garage sounding like a shaking tin foil, looking at John's weapons shining from light, blades of 2  license plates with certain cuts, random axes, A giant rock axe, in his eyes and leathered goggles for weathering, , going upstairs to the room setting down a memory remember it , a memory that he will never lose“ They went to set to bed, taking off his geiger counter clip,  remembering the first the blast at the beginning start of this and the second fireball explosion for of what's destroyed.”

“That's it” “Anymore?”  That's all” The cowboy asked?   John replied The cowboy layed on the bed, not a problem sleeping with boots still on, drips came from a white sink with a blast destroying the white Ceramic.

Till now. Some new problems will come soon,—---- we will build a horse stable tomorrow, “thanks” Will we solve a new problem? Probably not, unless some new war like this would break out, we never thought this one would happen beforehand.

This will be our new history, “It is” “huh” John asked, “The settlement wrote news about us” The cowboy told him of what we ended of what somewhat death created, we can say we ended “the war” but not fully, 

John walked and  laid on the couch as the Cowboy laid in the bedroom, The satchel laid beside him with bottles falling out next to quarter, as they fell asleep in a heroic way, the lights became dim as the sun set down,

—THE END—

Hollins was bored on this day. He had found his daily autopilot making his mind melt away into goop. The sad thing was how things weren't the absolute worse, he grew up in the absolute worse and his life was not so bad. However he grew tired. He started to see what people could say and do before they did those things. He stopped asking redundant questions. Fear had even left him. If for some reason he died today this was a good thing in his mind. Hollins was so bored he was tired all day. He tried to help his mind by owning a cat, but the cat only seemed to make things worse. His brown striped cats was not a bad cat or anything, just a... just a normal cat.

Hollins was so bored he even wondered about breaking the rules. The problem was how Hollins was plagued by his own karma. If he stole something from work or left behind a mess, he would somehow pay for his crimes ten fold. However, if Hollins did anything selfless(maybe over tip a waiter, or buy a homeless man a fifty dollar Visa Gift Card) nothing would come of it. Hollins lived in a prison. His nice apartment always welcomed him with all of the colors he needed to see, but he always felt alone in a massive prison cell. Hollins had even dated a few times. A couple of the girls were serious, but it never lasted longer than a year. He would take them out, even let them stay at his home for awhile, but he would grow bored of their personas fast. He never judged anyone. It wasn't his style, but because he would see their next thoughts before they even flinched people were just NPC's to him now. He would talk to a few friends after or during work, but this was because, as Hollins had discovered, if he never vented to others his darkest thoughts would take over.

One day Hollins had found himself in a mental ward after losing three days. The doctors told him he needed to talk more. This was like telling a fat man he needed to lose weight. Telling a quiet man to talk was blasphemy. So now he talks.

Of course, this was ending too. He couldn't talk to anyone without letting out several mental sighs in fifteen minutes. He wondered if a man couldn't grow bored to death, literally. But a week and a half ago... a plan.

Hollins would kill himself. He would buy a gun and do himself fast. Suicide was a bad thing and he had even talked some of his more depressed friends out of it over the years. But Hollins had reached his breaking point. If someone would miss him it would not last. His job would replace him. And the days would go on. So he bought a gun. It was a nice little revolver that was probably too expensive for one little use, but it would do the job.

Hollins pulled the gun from his tan khakis and smiled. It was about to end. He was finally about to sleep. No dreams. No hunger. No nothing. Hollins sat down on a sidewalk with his feet in the street. The road was still a bit wet from the morning rain but while Hollins would not survive this, he figured his shoes would do just fine, even a little wet. Hollins turned the gun around in his left hand then wrapped a finger around the trigger. There was no one around, so why not? He pointed it upward and fired his gun! It was much louder than he expected, and the kick was strong, but when he undouded a bullet into his brain none of those facts would matter.

"Hey dude"

Across the street was a man sitting on the opposite sidewalk. Hollins swore there was no one there when he last blinked. The man was a latin fellow by skin but he could be anyone by his clothes. He wore a simple white t-shirt and maybe brand new blue jeans.

"I'm- I'm sorry" Hollins said shakily.

"For what" the man didn't even look curious. He seemed to know the answer to his question but his smile said 'formality'.

"Firing my gun? The loud noise? Please, I didn't mean to upset"

"I'm sure you didn't brother. Look, I'm bored, like you. So you want to change things up?"

"What? I uh-"

"It's cool dude. I used to hate this shit too. I think you might have lasted longer than I did but who gives a shit? Right?" The man rubbed his hand on the nasty sidewalk he was sitting on.

"Bored I uh-" This guy seemed different somehow. Usually after seconds Hollins knew so much about any given person. But this guy seemed... He seemed odd. He seemed different.

"Yeah. Trying to figure me out? Look, you'll get there but I'll help a bit. What if you were missing something?" His smile only grew.

"I'm sorry sir, I'm good. I'm not interested in whatever stuff you're selling." A salesman. This guy was probably a salesman.

"Selling? Gods no. That would mean I would get something out of our little conversation."

"Look sir, just uh-. Just move on, or whatever."

"Sure." His smile never wavered. "I can move on. Obviously. But what if we both did? What if I gave you something to... How about your boredom ended?"

Hollins was now squinting at the man. He could see him just fine. The man looked to be in his early twenties, but the way he spoke threw things off a bit. He said dude like he smoked a great deal of pot and was enjoying his twenties. But some of his other mannerisms spoke as if he was decades older than Hollins. "Alright sir, I don't really know what you want from me, but I'm excited to get my night over with. Just leave me be."

"So you can kill yourself? How about you don't do that?"

"I uh-" It was probably not a secret at this point but Hollins would only deny his future actions with the gun.

"Yeah yeah dude. Look how about you don't die right now?" He stood up.

"Please sir, just leave me be." Hollins stood up himself and even put his gun in his front pocket.

"Okay. But don't act like I never asked." The man pulled out a long golden key. There were no doors or anything around, so what use would a key have? He held out the key and turned it as if he were using it to a door. "Last chance?"

Hollins ran across the street with no time to kill. From where he now stood he could see the other side of the door, and his mind could not compute. "What is that sir?"

"That dude, that's the Edge. We head out there and we can go wherever we like. I can get you a key and you can learn what it's like to forget about being bored."

Most of the doorway held back bright colors of white and black. The black took over most of the other side but the white helped it all glow quite brightly. "The Edge? So we fall through or something?"

"Nah. It's just a name someone cooked up a long time ago I suppose. It's on the Edge of reality or something silly like that." The man held out his hand and pointed throught the door. "You first."

Hollins was amazed. He knew he had lost the ability to be surprised over the many years, but here he was, surprised. "So I can just go? Where will it take me?"

"Your new home I suppose. Just go on through. I'll be with you."

Hollins stepped through the doorway and looked around, surrounded by white and black. "Wow! The Edge huh? It's gorgeous!"

The man locked up and spun around fast with his hands over Hollins mouth. "Dude, shut up!"

Hollins pulled the hands away. "What? What's wrong?"

"I will explain everything when we get there." There was no smile on his face, only worry. "I thought you were the quiet type?"

"I am. This is just... Wow."

SSSSSSSSSssssssssssss......

From everywhere(it seemed) there were these hisses. The white lights! Before they were almost melting away or slipping down into nothing, but now each bit of white Hollins could see was turning around. When each stopped turning Hollins could make out one eye on each and... and teeth. Hollins could not tell how far out these creatures were but they were all of different sizes and each of them seemed, they seemed hungry.

"Shit!" The guy with the key shook his head and started turning his key again. He was opening another doorway.

"What are those things?" Hollins shouted.

"I'll tell you in a few seconds dude, just get throught the door!" Hollins was obviously scared but suddenly, pain. He looked down to see one of those creatures fly off with what was probably his right leg.

"Help!" The man with the key looked down to see several of the white worms moving toward Hollins. The man wouldn't make it. So the man with the key closed the door as he watched the head of Hollins slide off with intense speed.

"I guess they don't all make it. I'm sorry dude."

I never really been a big fan of coming to the internet to let people judge your personal experiences and decisions. But honestly these past couple months have been the worst and hopefully now that I’m letting my voice be heard something can be done about it.

This started 3 months ago. My boyfriend and I we’ll call him Zack for the purpose of being discreet. Zack and I have always had our problems but we tend to get over them after a while, well,, one day was one of those days where i honestly couldn’t be bothered with him. We already had been arguing the whole week but i guess he wanted to make things right by telling me to meet him at this fancy restaurant called fogo de cho around 8pm.

The reason this story is even happening is because during this so called date or whatever he had been on the phone during our date night with his boys he said for a good 30 minutes and i just found that to be so disrespectful.. i ended up walking out on him and taking my car back home. As soon as i pulled into the driveway that night i noticed my neighbor on his porch just relaxing. We’ll call him tom for this sake of the video. Now I had knew tom since I moved into this house a couple years back and he never gave me any red flags, which is why I felt so comfortable telling him about my problems.

After walking up to him and having a brief chat about everything that’s been going on while crying he agreed with everything I was saying which.. let me feel heard and wanted… I guess you can see where this is going but he invited me inside to comfort me to which I agreed. We took shots, chatted and relaxed together all night, and we ended up sleeping together. Ik it may sound crazy but I was comfortable with him and wasn’t really expecting much of it. The next day I left and all seemed fine until he asked where I was going. I didn’t find it too weird as it was 6am so I told him I’m going home. He laughed and said
“Wym? You are home now”
At the time I thought it was just pointless flirting but I told him I still technically have a boyfriend and this is something I need to think through.

. he laughed and agreed.. but then he asked something that made me question his intentions. He told me to be safe and asked me to start sharing locations with him. I don’t even share locations with my own mother so i obviously denied it and started walking out. As I started leaving all I could feel was his gaze as I walked past his bed to the exit.. when I opened the door he asked when we can do this again and I said I’ll let him know and proceeded to leave his house .

As I walked past his window i literally locked eyes with tom with such a weird expression on his face.. not a smile but .. maybe a grin is the best way to describe it.

A couple weeks would past and , honestly Tom was acting pretty normal, a simple hi and bye as I left to and from home.. although.. I did see him out a tad bit more, but more so stores and things like that like at Walmart or target.

Things began to look a bit better between me and my bf honestly, he apologized and we started going out more and spending more time which is all I asked for… often times tom would see me with my boyfriend and I noticed he wouldn’t wave just glance occasionally at me while I was with him.

A couple weeks would go by and this is when things started to get weird . Remember I said I’d see tom occasionally more often …well now the occasionally more often turned into damn near every where I went.. clubs.. dates.. even at my fucking job id see tom walking around somewhere acting like he had business always being where I was.

Where I drew the line was one day.. as I was leaving the bathroom at a target, I turned the corner and Tom’s head was peaking from behind the corner of the men’s bathroom as it was right across from the woman’s . I yelled his name and he didn’t respond and acted like I didn’t see him.

I started to dread everything going on in life but I couldn’t tell my bf or dad cause I knew I’d be judged and left alone. I felt trapped. And when I didn’t think things could get any worse I got a phone call… from Zack.. sounding historical.. at first I couldn’t make out why he was yelling and calling me all types of names but after understanding what he was mad over.. he told me he had received a picture from a random number . The pic was of me sleeping on a man with his head cut out of the pic.. but i instantly knew that this was Tom’s doing . I couldn’t help but just endure everything Zack said for the time being to which he eventually hung up. Almost immediately after I heard something fall in my garage.

I didn’t think too much of it until I heard frantic footsteps running outside. I went downstairs to go check what made the noise and immediately I noticed something propping the garage door open just barely.. a brick . I was confused bc I didn’t recall the last time I’ve even used a brick let alone prop my door open

. I started to put 2amd 2 together for the worst case scenario and initially I didn’t see anything wrong in the garage, until I started examining my car.. I

noticed a pair of plyers sitting right next to my back right tire, which immediately made me start examining each aspect of it.. until I started seeing some bent metal pieces on the inside of my tire , something was poking out of it.. I reached into it and after 10 mins.. I couldn’t believe what I pulled out.. it was an AirTag. I was so confused and scared I couldn’t even think. Someone had been stalking me, and I’m sure ik who it was. Now my fears turnt into rage with knowing tom was sabotaging my life i grabbed the AirTag and I stormed to his house.

Upon arriving I noticed his car was gone.. but his blinds had small cracks in them all of which were angled at my house. As well as seeing out I could also slightly see inside his house, I felt my heart drop bc as I peeped inside his window.. I could make out seeing a barrage of pics of me standing outside of various places. The same places I would always see tom at continently. I immediately ran back to my house feeling nauseous.

I put the AirTag in an envelope and took it straight to police 5 days ago as they investigate it.

Fast forward to about 2 days ago while still still having the paranoia of tom, it was troubling for me sleep some nights but ultimately this is why I’m telling this story .

I was in my room watching cartoons and I heard my stairs making ever so slightly creeping noises. I paused the tv and so did the steps.i unpaused it and I heard more creeping.. I was sure I locked all the doors so the only people able to get in my house were my mom and dad who would usually pop up unannounced but something about this didn’t seem right.. i

crept to the stairs and right before i turned the corner of the stairs , i called out my dad’s name for reassurance. but what I heard in response and what i seen still creeps me out as I type .. in response to me calling out to hear my dads voice i looked down the stairs and at the middle of the staircase with a camera in hand
It was tom . He replied
“hey its me I was just checking on you”

I yelled Tom wtf are you doing how did u get in.

And as if he didn’t even hear me

He said “ I’ll see you tomorrow “

And turned around and ran out. I wasn’t able to get a pic because I was frozen in fear,, but I called the police they arrived 10 minsater. They searched the house and couldn’t find anything. They told me their still doing there investigation and have no evidence of him breaking in. It’s only been a couple days but I know something else will happen so let this be my word if anything is to happen to me. You know who it was

It was a breezy, chilly Sunday morning. I wanted to try this newly opened cafe, they had this famous mocha tea. The craving for mocha recently grew for me. It has this earthy, frothy flavourish which calms you from within, well at least for me it works that way. I could hear Vivaldi four seasons from the speaker played in a soft low volume. There were hardly any people beside one or two. I guess not many favour mornings that too on a weekend. I ordered my drink, and sat at the table. I sat on the chair beside the glass wall. A girl in her late 20s sat just three chairs ahead of me. She had her phone in her hand and her drink in the other. Eyes on her phone. I squeezed my eye a bit to see what she was drinking. Her hand went for a sip, and I saw her looking at me. I was taken aback, kind of awkward. But she gave me a soft smile. I gave a smile too. The cafe had a calm vibe to it. I felt nice, relaxed. I looked at the counter. The waitress was coming in my direction, but without any tray. She came and told me, in a low voice, “Sir, we are extremely sorry but the machine has stopped working due to technical malfunction. Can we serve you any other of our drinks”. She spoke in a soft voice, but I felt everyone could hear us. I felt disappointed to be honest. All I wanted was to have a good Mocha drink. The waitress was still looking at me, waiting for my response. I replied, “No, thank you. I do not want any drink, I can come back later”. I tried to be polite. My eyes went to the counter, where another waitress was coming in our direction, and she whispered something to the waitress standing besides me. I looked at the girl sitting across from me, she had almost half of her drink. She looked at me, I shrugged. She smiled at me. She showed me her drink and kind of gave the expression that it is quite delightful. The waitress finished talking. “Sir, we can serve you Mocha. But you have to wait for 10-15 mins”. I thought for 5 seconds, and I whispered to her, “I want to taste what she is having”, pointing my eyes in the direction of that girl. “Alright Sir, we can serve you that”. I smiled at both of them. The girl was looking at me, her glass full empty. She smiled at me, this time I could see her white pearl teeth. She got up from her chair, put on her earphones, adjusted her bag, and walked towards the door and left. I was waiting for my drink. Now I was eagerly waiting...

A couple of weeks ago, I stopped at a gas station on my way home because I needed to grab something to drink. It was a pretty normal day, and I wasn't in a rush, so I took my time getting out of the car.

When I got back to my car, I noticed a black bag sitting on the ground near the parking spot next to me.

At first, I didn't think much of it. I figured someone had probably left some random stuff behind, but when I looked a little closer, I could see what looked like cash inside. I picked it up and opened it just enough to see what was in there, and I honestly couldn't believe what I was looking at. There were stacks of hundred-dollar bills inside.

I looked around the parking lot to see if anyone seemed to be looking for something, but nobody was around. I was genuinely confused because it didn't even make sense for that much money to be sitting there. I counted it a couple of times because I thought I had to be wrong, but it came out to $10,000.

The weirdest part was that I hadn't done anything special to find it. I wasn't looking for money or doing anything different from what I normally do. I had literally just stopped to get a drink. If I had parked in another spot or left a minute earlier, I probably would've never even noticed the bag.

I spent the rest of the day thinking about how random the whole situation was. It was one of those things that sounds completely made up when you tell someone about it, but it actually happened. I never expected anything like that to happen to me, especially on a day when I had absolutely nothing going on.

Looking back, it still feels crazy how much can happen in such a short amount of time. I went to a gas station for something that probably cost a couple of dollars, and somehow ended up in a situation involving $10,000. It was pure dumb luck, and I still don't think I could ever plan for something like that if I tried.

The Count was eating cabbage stew with potatoes in his shabby tenement apartment overlooking the street where workingmen and their tired horses pulled tovar to and from the manufacturies all day—the crampiness of the place a merciless reminder of the once-great estate he had been forced to sell to satisfy his debts; the family estate, with its magnificent portraits of distinguished forebears under whose gaze he would now feel small, undignified and ashamed—when he happened to scratch his ear and his ear fell off (...splash...) into the stew.

Hungry, he ate it.

Then he bandaged his head and went to the doctor.

The doctor was an old friend.

“Sasha,” said the doctor, “how are you?”

The Count showed the doctor where his ear used to be. The doctor examined him. “Sasha, you are suffering from poor health,” the doctor concluded.

“Don't I know it—but what is wrong with me?” said the Count.

The doctor explained that “the poor health” was a specific condition. “Your body is decaying. It is rejecting the state of being destitute. For your own good, make money, Sasha.”

“How?” asked the Count.

However, the doctor was unable to provide an answer, Sasha remained poor and his body began to fall apart, piece by piece.

History marched on.

Anarchists set off bombs, socialists agitated against the established order with western ideas, and a revolution broke out, led—and increasingly dominated—by a party of Marxists.

Without one arm and with his skull showing through sections of his missing face, the Count decided to beg for their mercy.

“I need money,” he implored the local peasant-faced leader. “It is a matter of life and death. I have a disease, you see…”

“What happened to the money you had?” one of the party members asked.

He would perhaps have cringed at the Count's appearance, but the experience of the revolution had hardened him against the grotesque.

“It was lost,” said the Count.

Another party member, a sneering woman in a suit, said: “Surely you meant ‘money inherited after centuries of ruthless exploitation,’ comrade Pavlovich.”

“Indeed, that is more accurate,” said the leader.

(Months later, he would be accused of contact with foreign enemies and exiled, and she would take his place as leader.)

“But I have read your books,” said the Count, “Your principles, they are egalitarian, noble. ‘To each according to his need.’”

The party members laughed.

The laughter was cold.

The street was cold, and the Count shuffled along it with what was left of his head cast down. He was wrapped in scraps of fur and rags.

Like a leper he existed, at the very edge of society, forgotten, consuming rodents and refuse, physically declining—diminishing—a limbless skeletal wretch from whom even the other impoverished dregs averted their eyes. Thus, he was consigned to the dustbin of history...

The boy knocked on the door again.

“Anybody home?” he said.

It was the 1990s.

A babushka opened the door—widowed, most likely; devout—and eyed him with a century's worth of suspicion.

The boy smiled.

He held out money.

“Has the voucher come in the mail already?” he asked politely.

“What voucher?” the babushka asked.

The boy described what it looked like. “The new government is giving ownership of the old, broken state enterprises to all citizens. But, because everybody gets it, everybody gets only a little.” He paused to let that sink in. “Tell me, what is the use to you of owning a tiny fraction of a factory, a malfunctioning power plant? Wouldn't you rather have money instead?”

After dark, he returned to the apartment where he was paid and left the bag of vouchers he'd collected.

He took his pay off the kitchen table.

Usually, the doors in the apartment were all closed.

Today, one was open.

He peeked in:

A woman was inside. She was naked, moaning and she was holding—caressing in a way that made the boy's guts want to invert themselves—a football-sized lump of hairless human flesh: a lump of flesh with an eyeball in it, an ear, a nose and lips, which commanded suddenly: “Shut the door!”

The boy was not invited back after that.

He fell tragically from a window.

The small, quiet drones drifted in peaceful horizontal lines before releasing molten thermite on the protestors below.

His purchase of the port at Klaipėda had recently been announced.

Elsewhere, the construction of the new, southerly pipeline was proceeding as planned.

The war continued.

The data centres on the vast, deforested Siberian lands hummed with artificial intelligence.

He switched off his infoview, returning him to where his body was: his country estate, where the Chinese cyberneticist had almost finished upgrading his bionic memory capacity.

That said, it was no longer accurate to say he was here—or anywhere.

He was everywhere.

Seated, he felt limitless within his osseointegrated beta-titanium endoskeleton. If he wanted to, he could have killed the cyberneticist at the snap of a nitinol tendon, with the superhuman strength of his electroactive polymer musculature. “Alexander,” he “heard” somebody say. “Yes?” he silently replied. The cyberneticist applied the final touches. It was the European President speaking. “Winter is coming,” she was “saying,” “and we've yet to agree how to reroute the gas to avoid running afoul of our sanctions.” It was amusing, he thought, to still be so theatrically staging the appearance of a rule-based global order in this era of pure power…

Later, he strolled through his estate alone, all comms silenced, considering the portraits of his ancestors on the walls. Each generation is capable of everything, he thought, except imagining its own obsolescence.

Then he sat down to dine.

Cabbage stew with potatoes and a human ear. Not his own, of course, but the power resided in the symbol. The game may be played always into the future, but one must never forget one's origin. Tradition was often the boot on the throat of the present.

After a slow start, it was truly shaping up to be a magnificent millennium.

सोमगढ़ नाम के एक अजीब गाँव में लोगों के सुख-दुख उनकी परछाइयों के रंगों से पता चलते थे। खुश होने पर परछाई सुनहरी और उदास होने पर नीली हो जाती थी। लेकिन उसी गाँव में रहने वाले कबीर की कोई परछाई ही नहीं थी। वह पूरी तरह परछाई-विहीन था, इसलिए लोग उसे मनहूस और भावनाहीन समझते थे। कोई उससे बात नहीं करता था।

एक रात, आसमान से एक रहस्यमयी काला धुआं उतरा जिसने पूरे गाँव को घेर लिया। उस धुएं ने धीरे-धीरे हर इंसान की परछाई के रंग को सोखना शुरू कर दिया। जैसे ही जिसकी परछाई गायब होती, वह इंसान बेजान और पत्थर जैसा होने लगता। पूरा गाँव चीख-पुकार से भर गया।

तभी कबीर आगे बढ़ा। चूंकि उसके पास खोने के लिए कोई परछाई नहीं थी, इसलिए उस काले धुएं का कबीर पर कोई असर नहीं हुआ। कबीर ने गाँव के बीचों-बीच खड़े होकर अपनी आँखें बंद कीं और अपने दिल में छिपे बरसों के अकेलेपन, प्यार और करुणा को समेटा। उसके भीतर की निस्वार्थ भावना इतनी मजबूत थी कि अचानक उसके सीने से एक तेज, सफेद रोशनी निकली।

वह रोशनी इतनी पवित्र थी कि उसने उस काले धुएं को हमेशा के लिए मिटा दिया। सभी लोगों की परछाइयां और उनकी जान वापस आ गई। उस दिन गाँव वालों को अहसास हुआ कि कबीर के पास दिखाने के लिए परछाई भले न हो, लेकिन उसके पास एक ऐसा दिल था जो पूरे गाँव के अंधेरे को मिटा सकता था। अगर आपकी परछाई का कोई रंग होता, तो आपके दिल के हाल के हिसाब से आज आपकी परछाई किस रंग की होती? कमेंट में जरूर बताएं।"

It is not strange for cats to go missing in our village. With almost no natural predators, everyone's cats are outdoor cats. They sometimes wander off or get run over, but when the fifth cat disappeared, people started asking more questions and keeping their cats inside. Even I started letting my precious orange cat Gingy out less. She didn't mind much; she already spent most of her time purring on my lap inside.

Some suspected wolves when a deep, unnatural animal growl began echoing through the village at night. People stopped letting their cats out at night, and barely let them out during the day.

I stopped letting out Gingy too. She loved running through our yard at night, chasing fireflies and meowing at other cats. I could see her bright green eyes staring at me each time the sun set, but I knew it was for the best. 

After a while, Gingy got used to staying home at night watching TV with me, but when the growls came, her whole behaviour changed. She'd perk up her ears, run to the door, and meow at it. It would always take at least 10 minutes of pets and a treat to calm her down.

Some time later, after the growls appeared, the first death came. Mr. Harlow was an older man who had a few chicken coops and a nice garden. He always waved when you passed and stopped to talk about your day.

One morning, his neighbour came to visit. Mr. Harlow's fence was broken down, the chicken coops were empty, and his body was full of scratches and bite marks. Not even a feather was left behind. 

People stopped going out alone even during the day. More and more cats disappeared. The growls came more frequently. Gingy now meowed at the door all night, and even treats couldn't quiet her.

Around this time, another attack came. While patrolling his yard, Mr. Harlow's neighbour saw a few of the missing cats on the roof, watching him with their glowing eyes. Then the growl came, closer than ever. All the cats stopped and turned their eyes to him. He stood frozen. Something jumped at him and scratched him. He tried to turn, but a few other animals jumped on him. He fired his gun into the ether. The animals were gone before he got off the ground, and the cats disappeared too.

One night Gingy sat on my lap, purring, when the growl came again. Gingy perked up her ears, shot her eyes to the door, and ran to it.

"Gingy, not again."

The meows. She scratched at the door with her paw.

"Gingy, please!"

She let out the most bloodcurdling meow and got up on her hind legs.

"Jesus."

I got up and went to the kitchen for a treat, even though it probably wouldn't work. I opened the package. She went silent. Then, through the silence, a door creaked. I looked back. Gingy hung from the door handle with her front paws as the door slowly opened.

"Gingy!"

She jumped down and slipped into the night. The treat dropped to the floor. I opened the door and rushed out after her. The outside air was cold. The growls were so loud outside. The streets were empty; only the lamps shone down. Gingy ran in the middle of the street toward the forest. 

"Gingy!" 

She got off the road and ran into the tall spruce trees. I took a deep breath and ran after her. The trees swallowed the light. I couldn't see Gingy, but I could still hear the growls nearby, and I was sure she was heading there. 

The deep growl echoed to my left. I crouched down by a tree and slowly looked there. All the village cats sat around a strange creature; its large silhouette towered over them, its huge glowing eyes stared at them, and it let out another deep growl. The cats turned and began walking toward the village in unison. 

My heart beat against my ribs. So many cats, and the thing was so huge, but my Gingy was among them. I swallowed and let out a silent pst pst, the one she'd always listened to. Gingy stopped and looked my way. I gripped the tree bark and pst pst again. She let out a silent meow and walked toward me. I was scared the other cats would turn, but they kept heading toward the village, their leader at the back.

"Gingy, come."

I reached for her soft, ginger fur. Her eyes looked into mine, but no recognition passed through them; they looked empty.

"Gingy?"

She let out a loud hiss and jumped at my hand. Sharp pain shot through it. She scratched and bit it aggressively.

"Gingy, stop!"

But she kept biting. I hated it, but I had to punch her to make her let go. Warm blood trickled down my hand. Gingy ran back to the cats, and they all stopped and looked my way. Panic ran through me, but the large thing let out another growl, and they turned back toward the village. I turned and bolted through the empty forest. The twigs hit my face. My feet slipped in the dewed grass. I kept expecting the big cat to jump on my back at any moment, but before I knew it, I was out in the village next to ours.

They bandaged my hand and called the police. When the policeman arrived, the whole village was quiet. The doors hung open. Everyone from my village lay in their houses in a pool of blood, with scratch and bite marks all over their bodies. The police found nothing but a few whiskers and soft, orange fur on the floor.

They let me go the next afternoon once the houses were clear. I was barely able to function. Out of habit, I reached for Gingy's bowl. Then I saw my bandaged hand.

Hi everyone! I’m working on a story set in Bolívar, Colombia, in 1979.

I don’t speak Spanish, and I’m finding it surprisingly difficult to find photographs of houses, patios, and everyday life in the region during that period.

If anyone was born in or lived in Bolívar or in Colombia elsewhere back then, I would be incredibly grateful if you could share some photos or memories!

I’m especially curious about the little details of everyday life:

What did houses and patios look like?
How did people make coffee?
How did they deal with mosquitoes during the hot summer months?
How safe or dangerous was it to live there at the time?
If you remember your parents or grandparents from that era, what did they look like? What music did they listen to?
What time did people usually go to bed and wake up?
What kinds of gifts did people give when someone had their first child?
Did your family have a refrigerator? If not, how did you keep food fresh?

I’m interested in the ordinary, seemingly insignificant details that bring a place and a time to life. Personal memories of the houshold, family stories, old photographs, or even a few sentences describing how things used to be would mean so much to me.

Thank you! ❤️

Two weeks ago, I went dress shopping with my sister for her upcoming wedding.

​We walked into an upscale luxury bridal boutique that carried designer gowns and high-end wedding attire. It was definitely expensive, but still somewhat manageable for someone willing to splurge for a special occasion.

​The salesperson—a very attentive woman—invited us in, sat us down, and brought out an iPad to show us various designs while offering us complimentary refreshments. She even brought over several accessories for us to check out. The service was top-tier, and we felt like royalty.

​Then, a man walked in.

​He looked to be in his 60s, wearing plain sweatpants and a relaxed t-shirt. He looked completely decent, but for some reason, the sales associate instantly deemed him "out of place."

​Without skipping a beat, she walked up to him and rudely demanded to know what he wanted. My sister and I shrank back into our seats, feeling an immediate wave of secondhand embarrassment. The man’s face turned bright red as he looked around, visibly uncomfortable and caught off guard.

​He quietly explained that he was looking for a wedding dress for his daughter.

​Instead of helping him, the salesperson made that face—the sneering, condescending look people give when they think you’re beneath them. In an equally icy tone, she informed him that they didn't carry anything within his budget.

​The man looked baffled, clearly trying to process why she was making assumptions about his wallet. He glanced over at my sister and me sitting on the couch, where we were silently wishing the floor would open up and swallow us whole. Feeling humiliated, he gave us a sheepish smile and started walking toward us to escape the interaction.

​The salesperson immediately tried to step in and cut him off, but my sister and I stood up to ask how we could help. He asked if we knew of any other nearby bridal shops, explaining that he had just wandered into the first store he saw. My sister gladly gave him a list of places we had researched.

​Just as he turned to leave, the store manager intercepted him.

​"Excuse me, sir, why are you leaving?" the manager asked politely.

​The man calmly replied, "Well, your associate informed me that nothing here is within my budget, so I need to find a store that caters to what I can afford."

​If looks could kill, the manager’s piercing glare at the salesperson would have ended her right then and there. Turning back to the man with utmost professionalism, the manager asked, "May I ask what your budget is?"

​The man didn't blink. "I'm looking to spend anywhere between $50,000 and $100,000."

​My sister and I—sitting there with our modest $3,000 budget—watched in pure awe like we were witnessing a movie climax unfold in real time.

​The manager instantly went into hyper-drive, practically begging the man to let him guide him into the store's exclusive VIP lounge. The man hesitated, saying he’d rather check out the other stores we suggested, but the manager insisted. Smiling at us, the man kindly invited my sister and me to join him in the VIP section so we wouldn't miss out.

​In the lounge, they rolled out gowns ranging from $22,000 to $88,000. After viewing several of them, the man politely declined, claiming none of them looked gorgeous or high-end enough to justify the price tag. Honestly, my sister and I agreed—they seemed wildly overpriced for what they were.

​He thanked the manager, and we all walked out of the store together.

​We ended up walking to one of the nearby shops my sister had recommended. While we were browsing, the man joined us and ended up buying a stunning $7,000 gown for his daughter right on the spot.

​Seeing him drop $7k so effortlessly shocked us, but the biggest revelation came right before we parted ways.

​He leaned in and confessed with a smirk that his actual budget had always been under $10,000. He had pulled the $100k number out of thin air just to teach the arrogant sales associate a lesson and watch her sweat.

​My sister and I were in complete shock, but we couldn't stop laughing. It was the most satisfying, poetic justice we’ve ever witnessed!

I’ve told some people but can’t really tell anyone else therefore I’m here… In 2nd grade I found out my mom really wasn’t my mom and she was my step mom, that was news to me in all the way it could be. I was told by my dads mom my grandma without their permission and my parents were pissed. Skip a little in 3rd grade I didn’t want to live with my step mom anymore so I cried and cried to my dad asking to leave and we did the same nights We went to his parents house and he dropped me off and said he had to go back so he could work tomorrow and I would see him tomorrow afternoon and instead he OD’d.. that was a whole thing and I thought it was my fault my entire life since but that’s besides the point. My bio mom contacted my dad about a month after he OD’d out of the blue. Talked to her on the phone and then never heard from her again. Literally… Honestly don’t remember much after that…. So fast forward to 6th grade first year of middle school and someone’s mom passed away in my grade and it was a big ordeal and my terrible ass saw the attention and wanted it so I began telling friends that my bio mom died on Christmas Day in a 18 wheeler wreck when I was two and all this and that. Two years later on Christmas Day I’m at the family Christmas and everyone just got done open gifts and everything then I see my dad jump out of his seat on the phone and rushed outside my step mom followed then slowly everyone but the kids was outside so I peek out there and my dad is crying and everyone is comforting him and idk what’s going on.. after a while everyone starts coming back in and is acting like nothing happened so when my dad came in I asked him what was going on and he said dw about it’s adult stuff. So I shrugged it off and went back to doing whatever and the night played out normally then we go home like normal then my dad called me to the living room and sat me down proceeded to start balling and then tell me that my bio mom died yesterday on Christmas Eve in a 18 wheeler involved accident… I was baffled and freaking out because I thought I just saw the future.. I have always had almost daily Déjà vu and I was scared but I couldn’t tell anyone or was to scared to. So once again fast forward to my first couple years of high school and my step mom is starting to treat me worse and worse and I would honestly wish death upon her a lot. I mean a lot and it was terrible but it’s how I really felt. So fast forward to 9 days into junior year, it’s a Saturday I just started my job got up at 5 because it was a 6-2 and had fun because it’s an awesome job. Come home and my dad wasn’t home so I asked my mom because his trucks were still in the driveway and she said oh he is at the Mexican restaurant with the neighbor drinking and jokingly said at least he is not driving… I then went to my room and did a whole lot of nothing until around 3 I see a dad arrived home noti from Life360 and then a minute later a dad left home and so i figured he went somewhere else and didn’t think anything of it. Then around 4 I hear some dishes crash and hear my mom then say my name expecting her to tell me to do the dishes. Nope she opened my door sobbing told me my dad was at the hospital he got in a wreck don’t tell your sisters. So I start freaking out and texted her so we know anything and she said no. So about 20 mins later I texted her again and she read it and didn’t respond so I thought the worst. Anyway aunt shows up ik its definitely the worst news possible they acted to nice to my sisters and they knew the entire time but i didn’t find out until my grandparents pulled up and I instantly knew… but yea my dad passed the third week of August and I just feel like it was a punishment of some sort for everything I said about my step mom even though I don’t know how to feel about god or anything like that.. I don’t know how to feel about anything and I have felt lifeless these past months. Just wish I can hit reset or something. Sorry for the length I’ve been meaning to trauma dump for a while.

*Trigger Warning* depictions of depression and implication of past self harm

Lines from some old Christmas song blared, waking him with a start. Moaning, his hand fumbled with the snooze button long enough to hear who was kissing Santa Claus before he rolled over. Eyes opened, he studied the little red screen until he understood that it said 7 AM. He had no idea why he had set the alarm for Saturday, but since he would not be able to sleep now, there was no point in lying there much longer.

Charlie sat up. He heard the cracking of his back as he stretched. Rising, he stifled a yawn as he trudged to the bathroom. Taking care not to glance in the mirror, he stripped and got in the shower.

Knowing the hot shower could not last forever, Charlie concentrated on how nice it felt, ignoring the faint tugging at the back of his mind. Today would be good. It had started a little early, but Charlie was sure he could keep his mind peaceful for a day.

As soon as he shut the water off, the cold enveloped him. Charlie knew it would not be long before he showed up to force the chill into Charlie’s core. Grabbing a towel, Charlie stepped out and pressed his hands to his temple, trying to engulf his mind in distractions. Staring straight into the mirror, hating everything he saw, he realized it was no use today. He was already with Charlie.

He dressed slowly, wanting to prolong the moment, wanting anything to keep from leaving the tiny, warm room. He heaved a deep sigh and opened the door, his heart sinking. He had awoken in a good, happy mood. But, of course, that never seems to matter, clearly displayed by the smiling man standing by Charlie’s bed.

Lu. What a name. It was much too simple for so complex a man. There he lounged, long and slender, dressed in his usual black attire, his white face grinning, eyes bright. At first glance, he looked like a charming man; he held himself casually and his deep eyes hardly appeared red from a distance. When Charlie entered the room Lu chuckled softly, a melodic, terrifying sound. He knew Charlie would ignore him, and that just would not do.

“Why such a sour mood? Aren’t you glad to see me?” Lu inquired placidly. “You wish for someone with whom to confide; yet when I offer just that, you turn away. Very rude indeed, Charlie.”

His smooth, light voice forced warmth and kindness, yet underneath held something more sinister. Charlie heard this, as he always did, and chose to look away, afraid Lu’s eyes would read the depths of his own.

Lu glided closer and rested a hand on Charlie’s shoulder. He said, “You really should learn to speak up. I hear your thoughts clearly, but you could at least humor me with actual conversation.”

He gave Charlie’s shoulder a sharp squeeze and Charlie was shocked with the image of his father, stumbling through snow, searching for a road sign or phone or anything. Two white lights flashed behind him and Charlie was shaking, standing again in his room, realizing what Lu had just done. The bastard was going to give him hell today.

Shaking Lu off, Charlie stepped a few paces away, looking into those deep, knowing eyes he wished he had never seen. He sighed deeply and said, “I want to be left alone today.”

Lu frowned. 

“You really don’t care for my feelings at all do you?”

“You really don’t care for mine, either.”

“Oh, but I do. I care for them very much… I merely prefer the ones that you don’t,” Lu said, smirking. 

Charlie closed his eyes, gritted his teeth and said, “I see. You like sadness and anger and hatred. You get off by making me feel like sh-”

“Who are you talking to?”

His eyes shot open when he heard Ruthie’s voice, and he was shocked to see that he was alone but for her. 
He turned to see her standing in the doorway. She was still in her nightie and was rubbing her eyes sleepily. 

His initial reaction was to tell her to leave, but he realized he had raised his voice before and awakened her. He could not be angry with her when she stood there looking up at him with innocent concern. She was only eight and would not understand if he tried to explain to her, but she loved her older brother too much to be sent away without an answer.

Charlie thought for a moment and said wistfully, “I was reciting some old play from English class. It was nothing. How about I make you some breakfast?”

Ruthie’s blank expression quickly shifted to eagerness as she agreed to his proposal and ran to the stairs, her tangly, brown curls bouncing around her face.

Charlie went to follow her as a white, spiderlike hand touched his arm, causing him to turn. He knew Lu had not actually left, but the disappointment still etched his face. This only brought the other man amusement. He swiftly pointed to the nightstand before stepping past Charlie and disappearing down the hallway.

Charlie looked at the nightstand and regretfully grasped the tiny, glinting piece of metal. Stowing it away in his pocket, he lightly ran his forefinger along the tiny blade, utterly aware of the scars hidden beneath his sleeve.

After an eventful morning flipping pancakes, coloring Muppets pictures, and scrubbing syrup out of Ruthie’s hair, Charlie felt warm. He sat in the living room watching Ruthie do a puzzle. He would have helped her right away, but she always insisted on doing it herself, though she ended up asking Charlie to help anyway. He laughed a little thinking about it.  

He stared at the blank television screen, not even thinking to turn it on. They did not have cable and the local stations never had cartoons. Just as he was about to ask if Ruthie was done attempting to force the wrong piece into place, Kathy walked by. He glanced up to see her still in her robe and looking as though she would keep it that way all day. She opened the fridge and the light emphasized the bags under her eyes. Looking away when her eyes wandered over to him, Charlie stared ahead, furrowing his brow and crossing his arms.

He heard Kathy sigh and start shuffling off to her bedroom. Charlie felt the guilt immediately and turned to her. 

“Good morning, Mom.”

Kathy halted and looked at him, searching his eyes. She replied, “Good morning, hon.” 

She began to leave again and he said, “I thought I would take Ruthie to Cheryl’s today. You know, since she likes to play there and it would be nice to get out…”

Kathy smiled an odd smile, nodding her head and agreeing. Charlie knew the smile was there to mask the sadness in her eyes. He grinned at her, attempting to tell her with his expression that he did not wish her to be sad. She nodded again, understanding, and walked off to her room, leaving Charlie to ponder her behavior. She had been mourning, just as he had, but she had also stopped caring. He knew that she still loved him, but she had turned to alcohol recently, which left him to care for Ruthie more and take her away when he knew Kathy was going to drink. She was never violent, but she had become rather mean at times and said things Charlie knew she had never meant. Still, he felt better when Ruthie was out of the house and was not exposed to her mother’s problems.

Charlie leaned forward and told Ruthie to gather up the puzzle and put on some clothes. She trotted off without picking up the puzzle and Charlie grabbed the pieces and tossed them into the box. He put a few toys in Ruthie’s little backpack and handed it to her as she came down the stairs. Wrapping her puffy green jacket around her, Charlie guided her to the front door and hollered goodbye to his mother.

They walked along the street holding hands. Ruthie hummed a tune while Charlie kept her out of the road. Without realizing what he was seeing, Charlie stared at the person walking a couple meters ahead. It was not until they were approaching the driveway of Cheryl’s house when Charlie noticed how thin the man was. He wore all black and underneath his white blonde hair his neck was ghostly. Charlie frowned and walked Ruthie to the door. He exchanged “hellos” and hugged Ruthie goodbye. He did not want to walk back home now.

He meandered along the drive and glanced down the street. No one was there and he sighed freely.

“He seems to be gone.”

Charlie turned with a start and stared angrily into Lu’s face. The latter merely smiled in his way, lazily placing his hands in his pockets. 

Charlie decided to find a distraction, so he started toward the busy shopping street. Lu stepped easily into place beside him and spoke not a word more, enjoying Charlie’s annoyance too greatly.

How hideous he felt when Lu was near him. That is what he did to him; he made him feel sick to his stomach. When would he leave Charlie alone? Just as Lu most likely had intended, Charlie’s scars seemed to burn in an irritating way, tingling only in his mind. He fiddled with his sleeve, wishing for anything to rescue him now. 

As they entered the busy street, Charlie cringed at the sight of Lu’s hungry eyes searching the crowd, picking out the weak ones. They passed by a medical clinic and Charlie faltered for a moment when he noticed a young woman stepping outside. She looked petrified and wrapped her arms around herself, shuddering with sobs. Wondering what could be the matter, Charlie noticed Lu watching the girl. Lu’s eyes danced and he smirked a terrible smirk that chilled Charlie’s insides. Wanting to be away from the poor girl, Charlie quickened his pace, hoping Lu would follow. He looked over his shoulder and his heart sank.

Lu drifted forward and began whispering in the girl’s ear. She did not appear to see Lu, but clearly heard his voice in her head. Charlie racked his brains for something to do when he noticed something bright on the girl’s arm. It seemed to glow in one spot and it must have felt warm; the girl seemed to notice it anyway, for she placed one hand on the spot and looked stunned. Lu saw it as well and his face contorted with rage. Charlie, on the other hand, grinned widely.
 
“Tom.”

As he spoke the name, a tall, slightly built man with thick curly hair and plain white clothes faded into view beside the girl. Charlie was astonished; he had stopped speaking to Tom so long ago that he had forgotten his name until now. How he could forget Tom seemed quite senseless. The quiet man never intruded, yet he had stuck around until Charlie had completely forgotten him. 

Lu straightened up and stepped away from the girl, the anger in his eyes unyielding as Tom spoke softly to the girl. Her face was stained with tears, but she was no longer sobbing. She kept glancing around, obviously wondering if someone was actually speaking to her.  She seemed to not care in the end and merely allowed Tom’s words to carry her back inside. She looked around once more as she stepped through the door and smiled to herself.

Charlie watched as the two men before him bore into each other’s eyes, gray into red. Without a word, Tom looked away and his eyes found Charlie’s instead. His soft, serious face broke into a wide smile as he walked forward, arms wide. Charlie accepted the hug more than willingly and knew Tom would only let go once he did. Stepping back, he looked up into the face of this friend he had so missed. Tom looked right back, his old, wise eyes somehow fitting perfectly on his young face. The two stood this way until Lu broke the silence.

“How very sweet. I might just vomit. Charlie, how can you embrace this man? I thought he had forgotten you. He left as soon as you ceased speaking to him. He can’t handle the fact that you choose to spend your time in my company instead,” he said scathingly.

Tom’s eyes widened as he took Lu in. He spoke softly, “I never forgot Charlie. I have always been with him. You know that. I think you have led him astray long enough.”

Charlie bit his lip and leaned away from Tom, looking down and saying, “But you did leave. I haven’t seen you in months. I hardly remembered your name just now… because you’ve been gone.”
  Charlie was glad his eyes were averted because Tom’s piercing stare would have been too much to handle. He waited patiently, though, for Tom to respond. He unconsciously rubbed his arm, running his fingers along the rough skin. He only stopped when Tom’s warm hand grasped his arm and he looked up to see sorrow in those old eyes.

“I never left you. Charlie… you never wanted to listen when I tried to help, you said that getting better was too much work, so you ignored me. Even so, I have always stood by. You woke up one day and chose not to see me, and so you did not. Charlie, you would have left this world by now if I had not held onto you. Every time you fight Lu and choose to be happy, I am with you. I will never leave you,” Tom said at last, while Lu scoffed unintelligibly.

Charlie stood between the two men, one of light, the other of darkness, and was torn. He could not think why he would be torn between these two. One forced misery upon him, the other offered hope. 

Just as he began to say something, Lu reached out and grabbed his arm, pushing Tom’s hand away. His eyes flashing, Lu smiled his awful smile and Charlie was thrust into a whirlwind of dreadful memories: himself, taking the blade to his arm; his mother, drinking her sadness away; his father, in the hospital, breathing his final breath. Lu laughed eagerly as Charlie shuddered and stumbled back into an alleyway. 

With every heaving breath, the pain of sorrow ached his body more heavily. Charlie dropped to his knees and stared up into the white, chaotically joyous face above him. This was the end and he was ready. He wanted the world to vanish and leave him to be nothing, alone. Just as Lu leaned over him, guiding his hand to his pocket, a stronger hand pushed Lu back with such force that he stumbled and fell over.

Tom stood over Charlie, his jaw set and brow furrowed. He tried to push his fear away, but Charlie was utterly shocked. Not only had Tom acted violently, he was angry. Charlie had never seen him angry before, and he did not think that he liked it. He crawled away from Tom, cutting his hand on some glass. He swiftly wiped it on his jacket and attempted to get up. Tom, his expression softening, leaned over and lifted Charlie into his arms, humming a lullaby he recognized from another life.

Charlie, limp in Tom’s arms, felt a warmth spread through him as glorious images syphoned their way into his mind: the lullaby Tom was singing, but coming from his mother’s smiling face; Ruthie coloring picture upon picture of Muppets; his mother again, only in her robe, humming the lullaby and sobbing, looking at a picture of Charlie and Ruthie. He closed his eyes to the warm moisture he felt, trying to hold in every feeling and emotion he had been hiding since his father had died and Lu had begun tormenting him. 

Lu was standing a few paces away, looking at the sight of Charlie in Tom’s arms with disgust and fury. He lost all of his cool composure and shouted, “You could end it all now, Charlie! This worthless excuse for a man can never make you happy enough! Your life will never be perfect and your father will always be dead! You are worthless and have no purpose here!”

He spat on the ground at Tom’s feet, standing his ground. At this, Charlie stepped once again between the two men, torn. He observed Lu, confused by his lack of coolness. He had always seemed so sure, yet now he showed his weakness: a challenge. To Charlie’s right stood Tom, serious and concerned, yet sure.  Charlie wanted him to speak, to tell Charlie that Lu was wrong, to tell him that he should stay.

Tom sighed deeply and looked to the sky. He spoke with measured words when he said, “You have the ability to do whatever you please, Charlie. Only know that the good parts of life will always make the bad parts worth it. Know that there will always be at least one person who loves you.”

On the last word, Tom pierced Charlie with his deep, gray eyes. He glanced at his left arm, lined with sadness, and knew what he wanted. He knew now more than he ever had what the right thing to do was. 

He turned and pushed the man away, falling into the other.

Charlie and Ruthie came inside and put away their coats. Charlie glanced into his mother’s room as he walked Ruthie to get ready for bed. Kathy was doing a crossword while some game show flashed on the television. He kept walking.

Once Ruthie had brushed her teeth and changed, Charlie tucked her in and went downstairs. He lingered outside his mother’s room for a moment before stepping inside. She looked up as he entered and put down her pen. She stretched and smiled at him as he sat on the edge of the bed. He looked down at the picture in his hands and grinned. He leaned over and placed the photo in his mother’s hand and watched her face. She gave him a teary smile and kissed his cheek. He laid his head on her lap and began humming his childhood lullaby, happiness spreading through him as his mother stroked his hair and joined in.

When he left her room an hour or so later and grabbed the bottle that was next to her bed, and she did not object, which he took to be quite a good sign. He had kissed her goodnight and left her singing happily. He shuffled up the stairs and made his way to bed. As he lay there, he rubbed his arm and smiled, knowing that the scars would fade. Life could be beautiful.
He felt a warm hand touch his head and he whispered goodnight. 

It was an ordinary day in the Avatar Realm. A young man, adorned with countless supernatural powers and abilities, named Isaak and nicknamed "Blue Man" by others, decided to visit his shorter, but older cousin, a young, powerless woman named Emily. The two had grown up together and developed a close familial bond, which had grown stronger ever since they aged into adulthood.

Throughout their lives, Isaak had repeatedly mentioned to his family, including his beloved cousin that he had gone on many adventures around the dimension they call home, named the "Avatar Realm," and befriended all sorts of creatures, including animals with the capability of speaking to humans. While impressed with these tales, none of his family members actually believed that they were true, Emily included. However, she would eventually decide to humor him and go on an adventure with him to search for proof that his tales were true, actively desiring to believe his adventurous tales.

Little did she know that she would indeed learn that his tales were true and not in a pleasant way.

The following day, Isaak woke her from her sleep in the morning and asked her to come with him so that she can finally experience an adventure where she could have a chance to meet one of Isaak's animal friends. Excited at the opportunity, Emily immediately agreed to go with him on this adventure before proceeding to ask where their destination was. Isaak told her that they were heading to the great outback plains, where animals traditionally native to Earth's region of Australia resided, modern, and extinct. This included the mighty prehistoric lizard known as "Megalania," which immediately set Emily's nerves off, but Isaak reassured her that she would be fine with him around due to his supernatural powers and abilities. Relieved, Emily agreed to come with him and allow herself a chance to experience proof of his tall tales.

Several minutes later, the two cousins arrived in the outback landscape, where Isaak promised they would be going, arriving quickly due to one of his teleportation devices allowing them to reach their desired destinations instantaneously Immediately upon arriving, Emily began sweating profusely and doubling over, which Isaak realized was due to her lack of enhanced endurance, stamina, and adaptability to rapidly different environments. He decided to give her this ability before proceeding onwards, which allowed her to once again get back to her feet and keep moving by Isaak's side. Little did either character know that their adventure was about to become wild and unpredictable.

Only a few hundred feet away, a massive Megalania lizard, dubbed "Lanier" by most other inhabitants of the outback, humans, animals and avatars alike, was asleep in the midday heat, when he smelled humans nearby. Immediately hungering for flesh, he awoke to search for the potential prey. Lanier was misanthropic and enjoyed hunting down humans for food, and so this behavior for him was no different. As he rose from his resting position, he scared away scores of nearby kookaburras, kangaroos, and dingoes, being a major source of intimidation for other animals around him due to his size and status as an apex predator. While not the last of his kind, he was the only Megalania seen within the outback environment for centuries; most others resided within an underground world inhabited entirely by dinosaurs and other prehistoric reptiles, dubbed the "dinosaur world" by everyone. As such, Lanier alone was feared as the top apex predator, with all other creatures fleeing in terror whenever he was nearby or active.

Meanwhile, Isaak and Emily had proceeded to search for proof of his fantasy matching reality to a degree and quickly found a kangaroo running away from Lanier, who was shouting to them to run away. Realizing that Isaak's claims about talking animals were true, Emily stood there momentarily in shock before recovering and allowing herself to continue onward with the expedition. Moments later, however, they were encountered and cornered by the gigantic Lanier.

He towered over the pair. At full height, he stood nearly twice as tall as both Isaak and Emily combined; Emily claimed that he was "a true Megalania" due to his size. Lanier possessed dark olive yellow scales, menacing, glowing yellow eyes, and a long, dark blue, forked tongue; due to his physical build, the two cousins described the giant lizard as of truly monstrous proportions. Isaak said that Lanier reminded him of a Komodo dragon, except that Lanier was much, much larger than any he knew.

As soon as he stepped forward before the pair, Lanier prepared to beat the pair senseless. He targeted Emily first and charged directly at her; however, Isaak used his superhuman strength to hold back Lanier from attacking his beloved cousin. Taking advantage of the situation, Emily quickly ran into a small space, just as Lanier used his tail as a whip to throw Isaak off to the side. Isaak then rushed back into action to protect Emily, tackling Lanier to the ground and refusing to allow him to get close to his cousin. Emily proceeded to run away from the fight against the monstrous reptile entirely; just as Lanier looked in her direction, Isaak quickly leaped up to a higher level of ground above where they were standing before Lanier could reach her and then proceeded to shove a massive boulder in front of Lanier, blocking his path. Unable to stop in time, Lanier crashed directly into the rock, knocking himself unconscious; Isaak and Emily quickly turned tail and ran far away before using the teleportation device to return home.

Upon arriving back at their home, Isaak was repeatedly thanked and praised by Emily for saving her life, all while Isaak asked her if she believed him now in full after experiencing the attack of the monstrous lizard. She nodded her head before calmly confirming that she did, and she asked him if she could come on more of his adventures with him. Happy that he had a companion to join him on his adventures, Isaak happily agreed to let Emily come along with him.

Next time the pair saw each other at the following family convention hosted annually, Isaak and Emily decided to mutually tell the story to their other relatives. Initially, their other relatives did not believe them so easily and asked for proof, at which point Emily remembered that she had taken a picture of Lanier immediately after he was defeated. She presented it as proof of their encounter, and all of the other relatives' jaws dropped in shock at the sight of the prehistoric lizard.

Meanwhile, back in the outback, Lanier finally awoke from being dazed and silently scowled before plotting revenge against Isaak and Emily, swearing to kill both of them if he ever sees them again. He then walked away, far off into the outback.

Let me know your thoughts about this story and volume in the comments.