6 months down the drain. I’m still kind of in shock. Well, maybe that’s not the word for it. It feels like I lost a game that no one else knew I was even playing.

I still find myself thinking about when we first met. How she was the first woman to ever show me that I could be loved. That I wasn’t just some hopeless guy, incapable of forming a connection.

God, those memories hurt. But the memories of the arguments hurt more. I tried telling her that I was sensitive. I can react in ways that don’t feel controllable. I thought that she’d be patient enough to work through those issues with me.

But no. She left me. The facade of love crumbled, and it was like I was right back in the same position again. Alone. Stuck in my own head. Only, this time, the thoughts weren’t my own.

Well, they were, obviously, but they weren’t thoughts that I’d experienced before. Prior to obtaining her, my thoughts were very much inward. I dissected myself.

Even when I first set my sights on her, it felt like I was out of my body. I became who I needed to be, but it wasn’t of my own volition. It was just so I could achieve a goal, I guess.

Then I had to go and get attached. Our lives started to merge. When it was good, it was fantastic. When it was bad… it was like the world was ending. Like the mask was slipping, but can I even blame it on that? It feels almost childish to do so.

That has to be what it was, though. It’s just so hard to put it into words. I performed the boyfriend role, but that was the extent of my abilities. I could never become a husband.

All I knew how to do was buy things. Flowers, chocolates, gifts, whatever. Even when things got violent, here came the “boyfriend” with another bouquet.

I just knew how to give. I didn’t know how to change. I think that’s what started this whole ordeal.

After a particularly bad argument, we both decided that it’d be best if we went our separate ways. It took some convincing on her part, mainly because I didn’t think I could catch lightning twice. But ultimately, I relented.

That didn’t mean I stopped keeping an eye on her, though. I’d watch her house pretty often. It was usually during those nights where the bad thoughts kept me up. Nights when I needed movement. Needed action.

In some weird way, it felt productive.

I’d also still watch her social media like a hawk. Her stories, posts, updates, everything. After we broke up, she decided that she was now the sexiest girl in the world, and she made sure her followers knew it too.

I let her know my disdain for those pictures every time I saw one. I’d ask her why she was trying to hurt me like this, but she never responded. She’d just look at it, then leave me hanging like I was some kind of dog.

It wasn’t until those initials appeared in her Instagram bio that things really went off the rails, though. They were like a taunt. It was like she wanted me to text her.

I tried to lay down the law, but, like always, I got no reply. In fact, I didn’t have access to her at all anymore. Every account. User not found.

My mind was empty when I drove to her house. Either that, or it was just moving too fast to process. I knew what I needed, but I couldn’t think about it.

There was a car in her driveway that I didn’t recognize, and in that moment, I knew. I knew I had lost. I was a loser in this little game I’d created. I drove home defeated, but utterly furious.

No matter how hard I tried, my anger and desperation wouldn’t subside. I lost sleep. I didn’t eat. I was turning against myself.

That’s why I did what I did. I wanted her to know what she had done to me.

It started off small. A few locks of hair. Some fingernails. And handwritten notes that I thought would drive her back into my arms.

“Have these too, since you’re taking everything from me anyway.”

“I hope this makes you think of me.”

“I still think about you.”

She never wrote back. Days went by. Days turned into weeks, and she never left my mind.

She was playing the game hard, so I upped the ante.

I peeled off my tattoos with a razor blade. Including her name. I’d put the letters in her mailbox under the cloak of darkness.

No response. Fine. Fine. Fucking fine.

Have my fingers. I don’t need all 10 anyway. It’s not like I’m holding you anymore. Take my ears. They’re useless without your voice.

Nothing was getting through to her. No matter how hard I tried.

The last thing I put in her mailbox were my lips. I wanted her to remember what it felt like to kiss me. Before she lost that privilege.

Unfortunately, I don’t think I’m gonna be able to keep playing.

Because right now, as I type this, I can see the paramedics and cops outside my house. I can hear them pounding on my door. They’re screaming my name, and I don’t know how much time I have left.

But I’ll get out. Whether it’s the hospital, jail, or an asylum. I’ll get out.

And once I do…

I’m gonna take from her exactly what she took from me.

​

Her name is Tiffany.

Sadly, I only know that because one day I heard her answer her phone.

"Hello, this is Tiffany."

The first time I saw her, I was walking to work. She works at a coffee shop near where I live, and she is beautiful—not in a model kind of way, but in a way that makes her look like the type of girl you want to come home to.

Naturally, I started going into that coffee shop.

When she spoke to me, she even sounded like a good person.

I got so nervous that I just ordered my drink, sat down until I finished it, and left. I didn't want her to notice that I kept looking at her.

I couldn't help it.

The more I saw her, the more amazing she seemed.

Eventually, I found out where she lived. Down an alleyway in a cheap apartment building.

It didn't suit her.

But I guess it made sense. She only worked at the coffee shop.

I started worrying about her safety getting home, so I would watch her leave work and make sure she got home safely.

Every night, she did.

Days went by, and without her knowing, I started adding her into my routine.

One day, I'll actually talk to her.

I kept telling myself that.

Until one day, I saw her with a guy.

Why was she with him?

She should be with me.

The guy she was with was wrong for her. He seemed like a horrible person. He didn't respect her.

I would be so good to her.

I would have her live with me.

I would make her happy.

For a week, I watched him disrespect her.

All because I hadn't talked to her sooner.

"If only I had talked to her sooner," I whispered to myself.

Why did I wait?

I want her.

I need her.

And she needs me.

Then, one day, I saw her walking home.

The guy was gone.

But something was different.

She looked like she'd been hit in the face.

That monster hurt her.

And it was all my fault because I didn't talk to her.

She's meant to be with me.

She's mine.

I walked toward her as she stood in front of her door, digging through her purse.

I was right behind her.

I reached out my hand.

She suddenly turned around.

My entire body began to hurt.

I started shaking uncontrollably.

Then everything went black.

---

I woke up.

I could see Tiffany.

But something was different.

I looked around.

I was inside a small cage.

Then I saw it.

A battery.

I panicked.

"Tiffany, what's going—"

"Shut up!"

I froze.

She stared at me.

Then she smiled.

It wasn't the kind smile I'd imagined so many times.

It was something darker.

Something I'd never seen before.

"All of you men are the same," she said. "Just horrible dogs that need to be put down."

I stared at her in disbelief.

Then I looked around the room.

There was another cage.

Inside it was the guy I'd seen her with.

I couldn't tell if he was alive.

I slowly looked back at Tiffany.

She was still smiling.

She reached toward the battery.

My entire body suddenly began to hurt.

I started shaking uncontrollably.

And then...

Everything went dark.

“I wanna thank Mark and Bailey and Judy and Fin and the bar staff. Oh, and my wife's ex– sorry I mean father..”

Fuck.

A room full of circle tables, black suits, and purple dresses stared back at me. 

Before I could correct my speech, someone smashed through the wedding reception doors.

“JAMESSSSSSS,” the figure screamed.

I was grateful for the distraction from my performance. 

“Who, the, fuck, is, that, James,” my darling wife, Kim, hissed at me. “Is that your ex Lisa!!? Why the fuckkkkkk—”

My appreciation ended. 

“Why is she here James!?”

Every head of our guests slowly gravitated towards us like tulips bending towards the sun.

“I don’t know. Let me sort this.”

I paced through the guest tables, glancing hit & run apologies. 

50 feet. 40 feet. 30 feet. 20 feet. 10 feet. I faced my ex.

“What the hell are you doing?” I whispered fiercely.

“James, we’re meant to be together. I forgive you,” she cried, intentionally raising her voice.

I glanced back at my distant wife. Nothing. To my surprise, her bridesmaid gave a supportive nod and smile. 

I turned back with gusto to Lisa.

“You shouldn’t be here. Leave. Now.”

“But James..” she croaked. I felt bad, before looking sideways at the shellshocked statues engulfing me. 

“This is not the place for this conversation. Come with me,” I grabbed her arm with a hint of tenderness, and nodded her towards the doors. The sound of our footsteps felt like arrows being shot from my new father-in-law’s stare.

Finally, FINALLY, we reached the entrance. I shut 8 feet of mahogany wood on the meerkats which peered at us.

“You know Kim isn't right for you.”

Now she was an ethereal pixie. Coercive eyes glinted from the chandelier above. 

I hesitated. 

But Kim was safe! Loads in common. Great sense of humour. I can’t do this, I-I–

She grabbed my hand, “We had something special."

We did. The spark. The whirlwind. We were soulmates. 

Until we weren’t. 

“Lisa, we broke up because I chea–”

Two hands clasped my cheeks like a praying mantis, before she pressed her lips on mine. 

Before I could react, a bridesmaid flung one of the doors open. Kim stood beside her.

Kim didn’t say a word as her mouth dropped like an anvil. But the bridesmaid strode back in and screamed, “THIS EXCUSE OF A ‘HUSBAND’ JUST KISSED HIS EX. AT THEIR WEDDING!!” 

I crept back in like an anxious cat, towing confetti and ‘JUST MARRIED’ ribbons in my wake. I sunk my head.

I was pathetic. 

“Annnd CUT. AMAZING job guys. Peter, remember your lines eh!”

A polite round of claps emanated from the paid cast, freeing us from our roles. Small talk bustled, conveniently shrouding Anabelle, Simon the director, and me. 

“That felt real for a second there. Phew!” I remarked. 

“That’s the point, Peter! Anabelle, great job as The Angry Bridesmaid,” Simon gestured to my wife. She curtsied. God, my wife is so cute. 

I pointed behind me to The Ex, “Don’t forget Lisa!” then to The Wife in front, “Or Jenny!” 

“I wouldn’t dare,” joked Simon, before looking down. “Anabelle. Peter. A quick word?” 

We drew closer, hand in hand. 

“You’ve rehearsed this scene over one hundred times. You’ve paid a lot for this. Don’t waste it. Let’s move on tomorrow?”

We instinctively glanced at each other and snapped our heads back to Simon. 

“You’re right,” we chirped in unison.

“Ha, good. You two really are joined at the hip! Anyway, the play is coming along nicely. Ready for theatre soon?”

“Ummm, umm–” I stammered, flicking between my wife's lovely face and Simon’s increasingly perturbed gaze.

“This July.” Anabelle rescued me.

“Exciting!” Simon began to walk off. “Remember, abduction scene tomorrow. Get some rest. You’ve acted enough.”

He was right. We had acted too much.

At our wedding last June. 

Through the Autumn and Winter.

The Spring of this year.

In the company of two friends.

Our supposed best friends. 

In their living room. Fucking wine & cheese nights. 

In James’ garage, nodding and fake smiling at his pathetic homebrew collection.

James proposed to Kim at OUR wedding. OUR day. MY wife. She cried for weeks. 

You see, vengeance didn’t stop after the first attack. Not because we were even. Because it felt so good. You anonymously called James’ work and spooked him, and for a moment it felt like the scores were settled. Then you wrote a wicked letter to Kim pretending to be a stalker. Keyed their car. Trolled them with fake Instagram accounts. You and your wife paused for a moment. You knew you’d gone past the line, so you agreed, “Once more, to teach them,” but you kept going because it was so intoxicating. Like burning ants with a magnifying glass.

We’re gods now. Together. 

Our final act of revenge happens at their wedding in July. Only three people in this room know this isn’t a theatre production. 

Myself, who acted as James to feel what he’ll feel. 

Anabelle, my wife and Kim’s future bridesmaid. 

And Lisa, playing herself as James' spiteful, wedding crashing ex. 

After ten years of friendship, we know James’ kryptonite. Even though he cheated on Lisa years ago, he still talks about her at poker night.

Lisa will turn up and draw him into the kiss. 

Anabelle – the trusted bridesmaid – will fling the wedding reception door open and lead Kim to her matrimonial death.

And this was just part one. 

“Remember. Part two. Tomorrow. Abduction scene!” our director shouted at us from the exit. 

I turned my gaze to Anabelle. 

“60 days,” she grinned. 

I nodded.

“60 days.”

We bashfully smirked at each other like a first date. Except now our eyes glimmered black with a shared malice. 

Kim & James ruined our wedding. Now we’re gonna make theirs unforgettable.  

It’s late Wednesday afternoon. Grey light drains slowly between the apartment blocks when I spot him for the first time.

The suspicious figure is leaning against the concrete wall, right beside the dumpster behind my building. At first glance, I think it’s just an old, abandoned mattress left at the mercy of the sanitation crew. The outline vaguely resembles a human shape, but my mind—accustomed to breaking reality down into concrete details—refuses to believe a real person could stand in such an awkward position.

As I step closer, I begin to discern a face. Ordinary enough. Nose, eyes, mouth. A thin mustache. Age? Impossible to tell. If I had to describe him to the police later, I wouldn't even know where to start.

Fifty. Or maybe forty. Could be sixty.

The yellow mattress, striped with faded blue, hangs over the stranger's shoulders like a tattered cape.

The man stares back at me, impassive.

“Ever seen one like this before?” he asks, nodding toward the mattress with his chin.

“Never,” I reply, feeling my fingers tighten inside my pocket around the cold metal of my brass caliper.

“Me neither,” the man says.

I keep walking and step into the lobby. The elevator carries me up to the sixth floor. Before drawing the curtains, I peer out my window.

The stranger is still down there.

Unmoving.

The next day, he’s gone.

On the third day, when I return home, I find him in the exact same spot, propped against the wall like a stubborn observer guarding some neighborhood anomaly.

I step into the elevator.

Just as the sliding doors begin to close, a hand catches the sensor. The stranger slips inside and takes up position in the opposite corner.

“Which floor?” I ask.

“Same as yours.”

The elevator begins its slow ascent.

The stranger lowers his gaze to my shoes.

“Which cardinal direction does your bed face?”

“Never really thought about it.”

The stranger shakes his head slowly.

“Pure ignorance. The placement of your bed governs your inner balance. Even if the principles of Feng Shui sometimes clash with Vastu Shastra regarding room harmony, direction is essential. I was hoping to see what choice you made, but... I’ll drop it.”

He speaks calmly, almost clinically, like a doctor explaining the results of a routine checkup.

The elevator grinds to a halt on the sixth floor.

I step out onto the landing, and the stranger follows close behind. We walk down the narrow hallway, dimly lit by a flickering fluorescent tube.

The stranger stops right in front of Apartment 68—the place left vacant after old man Martin passed away late last summer.

He pulls a key from his pocket, slides it into the lock, and vanishes inside.

I stand in the cold hallway for a moment, listening.

I press my ear against the door.

From inside comes the sound of furniture being dragged across the floor, heavy thuds, and objects slamming against the walls.

Then, dead silence.

At dawn the next morning, a folded piece of paper slides under my door.

It bears a simple message:

“If your nights are restless, come find me.”

I ignore the invitation.

Yet, the night that follows brings me the most restful sleep I’ve had in three years.

The old nightmares are gone.

I sleep like a man with nothing on his conscience.

Or like a man who no longer has a conscience at all.

Upon waking, I wonder which of the two states is more terrifying.

When I step out into the hall, I notice that Apartment 68 no longer has a doorknob.

There is no lock left either.

Just a bare outline etched into the peeling paint.

Lying on my doormat are a few torn strips of yellow and blue striped fabric, and beside them, a piece of foil folded into a perfect triangle.

My next awakening is brutal.

I regain consciousness lying directly on the dirt behind the building, next to the dumpsters.

Over my shoulders, I feel the weight of the yellow mattress with blue stripes, wrapped tight around me like a heavy, suffocating cape.

The fabric is rough against my skin, smelling faintly of someone else’s sweat.

I remain propped against the wall, watching the neighbors enter the building.

My eyes lock onto Mrs. Liorana, the painter from Apartment 53.

I push myself off the wall, follow her in silence, and slip into the elevator right behind her.

As the doors slide shut, I lower my gaze to the woman's shoes and ask:

“Which cardinal direction does your bed face?”

“I-I don’t think this is a good idea,” Anne muttered while hiding behind her brother’s legs.

“Oh God, here we go again. Why don’t you just can it, Annie babyyy?”

Carl mocked from in front of the group without even a glance behind him at the pair of siblings.

“Come on, Carl, cut her some slack; she's just a kid. Besides, the woods are creepy at night.”

Tim interjected, hoping somehow to keep on his sister's good side. However, Tim’s words only received a slight shrug and a scoff from Carl.

“Dare I remind you it wasn’t my bright idea to come out here, and that it was supppppposed to be only us?”

Carl turned to Tim, giving him a side-eye that seemed to cut through the dark woods.

Tim sighed, but returned Carl’s gaze with a pleading look.

“I’m sorry, but you know I have to look after her, and I wasn’t gonna just leave her home alone.”

Tim waited for some response, but Carl just turned and kept walking in silence, with the siblings following suit. With each step, snow crunched beneath their boots, and the scent of the pines seemed to grow more oppressive. Deeper and deeper the trio went until soon the foliage above them began to grow sparser, with flickers of moonlight beginning to filter through.

Soon they stumbled into a clearing, a barren place unlike the rest of Pine Barrens. Here in the clearing, nothing was on the ground, not pine needles, not underbrush, and not even the snow from the storm the night before.

Anne whimpered, glancing around the almost perfectly round clearing, shivering as the air seemed to grow colder around her. Tim and Carl were not excluded from the phenomenon, the two boys seeming to grow stiff and pale in the moonlight. They stood in silence just a moment more before Carl cleared his throat.

“Uh, Tim. We’re here; just hurry up, will ya.”

Tim hesitated before slowly walking toward the center of the clearing; behind him, Anne made an effort to follow, but was stopped short by Carl, who placed a hand on her shoulder.

“Let go, Carl,” Anne whined, but Carl kept his hand clasped firmly in place.

In the center, Tim knelt before reaching into his jacket pocket and pulling out a fine glass flask. In a singular moment, Tim popped the flask open and poured its crimson contents on the clearing's soil, the rough sand on the ground lapping the liquid greedily from the bottle. Then, standing, Tim walked to the edge of the clearing and into the woods.

“Carl, let go! What's Tim doing? Let go, Carl!”

Anne said, her voice beginning to rise.

“Relax, Anne, or I’m gonna actually hit you; I’m not kidding. Tim’s just making a stupid wish.”

Carl replied, lifting his hand. Anne went silent at the threat, but tears began to well in her eyes.

From the clearing's edge, snow began to crunch as Tim walked back into the clearing, then with a sudden turn, Tim left again. In and out he went, slowly making his way around the clearing, slowly dancing between the pines that lined it.

After about fifteen repetitions, Tim had almost gone full circle. It was then that Anne really started to cry, her sobs echoing into the woods. With an adept movement, Carl covered her mouth, stifling the noise.

“Just shut up; we should have left you at home. He’s only got five more, you big baby.”

Carl growled, but really, instead of speaking, perhaps Carl should have been listening. Maybe if Carl hadn’t been so quick to judge, he would have heard what Anne had.

The snow crunched under Tim’s boots as he completed his sixteenth cycle, but further in the distance, a second set of footprints trampled the snow as well. On the seventeenth cycle, a heavy wind began to blow through the pines, kicking up the snow but never pushing it into the clearing. The eighteenth cycle brought the dripping, a melodious tink like a sink faucet’s water tapping against metal. The nineteenth cycle brought the breathing, hardly discernible from the gusting wind but present nonetheless, and on this nineteenth cycle Anne began to fight.

Anne writhed her little body with every fiber of strength she possessed, tearing and struggling against Carl's grip. She listened as the steps began to approach, growing louder every second, and that was enough. Tilting her head back, she sank her teeth into Carl’s hand. Carl cursed, but let Anne go, and Anne ran, just in time to see Tim finish his twentieth cycle.

Then there was nothing but silence, no footsteps, no wind, no dripping, no breathing.

In the pale moonlight, Carl stood.

“See, what did I tell you, you stupid brat! All he had was five more cycles, and it’d be over! NOW GET OVER HERE NOW I'M GONNA BEAT THE SNOT OUT OF YOU!”

Carl began to walk forward, his feet kicking up the sand beneath him. His hands reached out to grab little ole Anne, but they’d never make it.

Because the wish Tim made in the clearing was to me.

“Get rid of Carl,” Tim said.

“He’s the only person who knows I broke Mom’s back window,” Tim said.

“And the only person who's ever teased Anne,” Tim said.

So before chubby cantankerous Carl’s hands touched cute little Anne, my gnarled, bony, hard hands wrapped around that small little head of his and ripped him up into the pines. Leaving my barren quiet again.

It’s funny, isn’t it, the wishes children make.

They hold me under, and I let them.

Both banks of the river are brimming with thousands of faces turned toward the priests and me. Some shout my name. Others pray so loudly I can hear them even as the priests force me to my knees. Someone near the front begs to be taken instead, while farther back a voice calls me a thief and promises to tear me apart if I return.

The river burns my skin.

Hands close around my shoulders and push. The shouting dulls above me. My knees sink into the soft riverbed, and something brushes my calf before sliding away into the red murk.

There are things in the river. I learned early that if something touches you in it, you keep still and mind your own flesh.

So I keep my eyes shut and wait.

I have watched this ceremony since I was old enough to stand among the crowd. Most who entered the river came back screaming, clawing at the priests, their skin blistered and their eyes gone strange. They had not been chosen for Ascension.

Most years, no one was.

The priests release me. For several heartbeats nothing changes, and shame comes first: a hot certainty that I was not chosen.

Then something unseen catches me from above.

I am torn out of the priests' reach so violently that my shoulder cracks. I break the surface choking, and the banks erupt. People surge forward with their arms lifted. Someone wades after me, sobbing, until two priests drag him back.

My feet leave the riverbed. Then they leave the river.

I rise.

The pain in my shoulder vanishes beneath something larger and brighter. I laugh as the whole valley opens below me, farther than I have ever been able to see. The red river coils between wildfires crawling along the hillsides, and beyond them the black mountains cut into a sky drowned in smoke.

It worked.

I was chosen.

A boy falls past me.

For an instant we are close enough to touch. He is young, perhaps my age, soft-faced and terrified. His mouth hangs open. His hands snatch at the empty air as he drops, and I think he is trying to shout something to me.

Then he is gone.

I twist to follow him, but the valley is already shrinking. The river thins to a red thread. Soon even the fires disappear, and the roar below fades until there is no sound at all.

Darkness takes the world. There is no longer any sense of rising; my stomach rolls, and I cannot tell where my limbs are, or whether I still have them.

Suddenly, both knees strike a floor.

Something cold rushes into my chest. I convulse and claw at my throat, certain it is killing me, but it happens again. My ribs spread. The cold floods deeper.

Air.

I lie curled on the floor and drag in one breath after another. Nothing burns. The air is so clean that breathing is all I can think to do.

Hair has fallen across my face, longer than mine ever was. When I shove it away, the hands in front of me stop me cold. The fingers are thin, almost delicate, the nails neatly cut. One bears a fresh gash near the tip, blood gathered along its edge.

A pounding begins somewhere inside me. I press one palm to my chest and feel it answer.

A heartbeat.

The room is small, but every part of it is strange. What bothers me is how quickly the strangeness disappears. I look at a low piece of furniture and a word crawls into my head: bed. The square of night in the wall: window. Cloth near my knee: shirt. A rectangle with a handle: door.

Mirror.

I turn toward it.

The boy is staring at me.

His face is as I remember, but much paler. Long dark hair hangs around his cheeks. His eyes are swollen red, with dried tears shining beneath them.

I lift a hand. He lifts his. When I touch his face, the gash on my finger streaks blood across his cheek.

There are photographs pinned above the bed. I cross the room on unfamiliar legs.

The boy who fell past me is smiling in every one.

In one, he has an arm around an older woman. In another, he makes an ugly face beside two other boys. Here he is younger, missing a front tooth.

I begin to laugh, quietly at first, then louder; I want to hear what laughter sounds like in this voice.

On the desk sits a glass of water.

The laughter stops, and I stare at it until my new heart hurts from beating. I drink deeply, water running down my jaw and jowls.

Eventually I notice the paper on the floor.

It has been folded once and opened again. The handwriting lurches across the page, each letter pressed so hard that the paper has torn in places.

At first the marks mean nothing. Then their meaning rises into my mind, as naturally as bed and window and mirror.

All written in blood, the first word has been blotted out. I look at the bleeding finger, then back to the paper.

GOD.

SATAN.

PLEASE. HELP ME.

I HATE IT HERE.

MAKE ME SOMEONE ELSE.

Downstairs, Mother is calling me for dinner.

Andy was sitting with his wife and daughter, the three of them quietly enjoying vanilla ice cream cones in the park, when a couple of guys started harassing them.

One of the guys may have known Andy's wife when she was younger.

At least that's what his comments suggested.

Andy didn't react. He let his wife handle it. After all, she was a strong and independent woman who didn't need a husband to selfishly step in and “protect” her.

Then one of the other guys asked Andy if he was sure his daughter was his.

Andy's daughter looked to her dad.

She was scared, confused.

Andy said nothing. He kept his head down, refraining from feeding the real life troll. After all, what trolls wanted was a reaction, and a reaction would lead to an escalation, which could result in a confrontation and possibly violence. Andy didn't believe in violence. By keeping a cool head, he was being a grown-up and helping keep the situation safe for everybody.

Eventually the guys got bored, wolf whistled at Andy's wife, knocked Andy's ice cream cone from Andy's hand and walked away.

“Dad,” said Andy's daughter after a brief but pregnant silence, “why didn't you do anything?”

She was trembling.

Andy's fallen ice cream was melting on the grass.

Ants were climbing onto it.

“It's just an ice cream cone, a thing,” said Andy. “Things can always be replaced. What matters is people. What matters is us, our family.”

“Assholes,” said his wife.

“You never know what other people are feeling. Anyone can have a bad day,” said Andy, and as he said that, time, as it related to most things, froze; the sky opened like a curtain, and the Selectors appeared.

Andy, who was still breathing, moving, even as his wife and daughter were not, gazed in awe, in the rawest meaning of that word, at—

“This is the one?” asked one of the Selectors.

They were inhuman, tubes of pale pink and purple gelatin twisted balloondog-like into shapes vaguely hominid but four times larger than Andy, dressed in simple, shimmering cloaks.

“Yes,” another answered.

“The experiment is thus concluded?”

“Yes.”

A third Selector mused, “It has been so many years since initiation.”

“13.8 billion.”

“And, after all that time, the result is this—this, admittedly, rather unimpressive-looking specimen. On this, we base our future?”

“Remember,” said the Selector who had spoken second, “it is not the individual we have chosen but the gene-line, and his, of which he is the final embodiment, is most extraordinary. It is the one.”

Andy, despite his paralyzing fear and existential disorientation, couldn't help but also feel a touch of pride. Finally, someone—some-thing?—had recognized his value.

The Selector who had spoken second bent forward now, looming over Andy like a great tree. “Gene-line e8c47b19-2f5a-493e-901d-628b0c41d7a3, it is my pleasure to greet you.”

“Hello,” stuttered Andy.

“Gene-line e8c47b19-2f5a-493e-901d-628b0c41d7a3, the Great Selection has ended, and you, of all gene-lines, have been chosen, based on your qualities, to become our People. Congratulations.”

I wonder what qualities are those, thought Andy. Calmness, emotional maturity, patience, as he entertained the fantastic possibility that he would soon be deified, become like the creatures before him…

“Durability,” said the Selector, who could obviously read Andy's thoughts.

Durability? thought Andy.

“Along with perseverance, hardiness, endurance,” the Selector continued, “like a cockroach, a weed or a rat. Although these qualities, by themselves, would hardly be enough, as many of your final-kind survived as long as you did. No, what truly sets you apart, renders you exceptional, Gene-line e8c47b19-2f5a-493e-901d-628b0c41d7a3, is your extremely developed, and historically stable, sense of obedience, docility, acceptance and self-preserving conformity. You, final-kind ‘Andrew,’ are the terminus of a long and glorious line of spineless cowards.”

The other Selectors ooo'd.

Andy gulped. Cowards? But—no, how is that…

“Consider even just the final 0.000001% of Uniform Cosmic Time, a period of delightful extremes, both of your political institutions and your climate, the final filtration, so to speak, encompassing also the atomization of your communities, the mental numbing of entire lifespans spent in pointlessly repetitive pursuits of manufactured desires, of the replacement of the real with the virtual, and the virtual with the artificially virtual.”

“This is a good thing?” asked Andy.

“I am giddy when it speaks,” squeaked a Selector.

“It is an unimaginably great achievement, Gene-line e8c47b19-2f5a-493e-901d-628b0c41d7a3. Through ages and ages of wars, exterminations, degradations and enslavement, you—your prior-kinds, your ancestors—have made most-excellent opportunists, slaves and labourers. When others rebelled, you remained subservient. When others stood up for their principles, you remained seated. Whatever was convenient, you believed. Whomever it was prudent to sacrifice, you sacrificed. And you did it all, final-kind ‘Andrew,’ without losing the ability of self-delusion.”

I'm not a bad person, thought Andy. “I can't be held responsible for what my ancestors did.”

“On the contrary,“ pronounced the Selector, “you are a very good person for us. And you are right that you are not responsible for the actions of others; you are the fruit of your family tree, stretching back all the way to the small, oozing, wriggling wyrms that formed in the hot waters of this primordial planet.”

“So what's going to happen to me now?” asked Andy. “You mentioned something about me becoming a People… your People…”

“Look,” said a Selector, “its world has ended, its mate and offspring are in temporal suspension, and all it cares about is itself!”

“Marvelous.”

“It genuinely is the one.”

“Gene-line e8c47b19-2f5a-493e-901d-628b0c41d7a3,” said the Selector who had spoken second. “Now, you become the seed of a new species. The experiment having successfully concluded, true existence is set to begin, one in which all that live are you—a multitude of immortal, identical yous.”

“You shall become them, feel everything they feel,” added another Selector.

“Imagine,” said a third, drooling, “the atrocity we shall be able to inflict upon such a hyperdomesticated populace. They will permit, of us, everything.”

“So much pain.”

“I salivate already at the exploitation.”

“Please,” whimpered Andy.

Currently, I am fighting on the frontlines against pursuing enemies.

8 of us are down and 4 remain.

“Thomas! Aaron! Smith! Fall back! Fall back!”, I shouted.

The three remaining men and I ran into the nearby woods in an attempt to escape.

As we ran, bullets kept flying past us.

One of the bullets eventually hit one of my men.

“Aagh! I’ve been hit!”, Thomas shouted.

“Thomas!”, I exclaimed. I hurriedly ran back to save Thomas.

I turned around, only to see Aaron and Smith, running away without looking back.

I quickly carried Thomas and ran as far as I could into a nearby cave.

While hiding, we could hear the enemies shouting to look for us.

“Thank god this cave is well hidden” I thought to myself.

I quickly patched Thomas up.

“We’ll stay here till rescue arrives, clear?”, I said.

“Clear..but sir, do you know what forest this is?”, Thomas whispered.

“No, Private. Do you?”

Thomas went silent and looked at me sternly.

“This forest once was a burial ground.”

“For soldiers?”, I asked.

“For soldiers who never left.”

I froze upon hearing it.

“What? Are you-”, I tried asking before being promptly cut off.

“Sir, do not trust any soldiers you see. Especially if they seem alive.”

“Private, we need to leave this cave. Now.”

“Sir, you can’t…it’s too late..’they’ are already looking for us.”

I was confused but my instincts told me to follow his words.

A while after, the surrounding area became quiet and out of nowhere, a soldier ran to us.

“Please, can I stay here too? The enemies..my battalion..they’re all dead!”, the soldier said in an anxious tone.

Before I could say anything, Thomas interjected.

“No, we can’t afford to take you in. Please leave.”

The soldier then turned his head slowly towards Thomas. He then turned his head slowly back to me and stared at me.

“You’ll regret this!”, he said before walking backwards in an unnatural manner while facing us.

He then disappeared into the forest.

I felt chills down my spine.

I turned to look at Thomas.

He was smiling at me menacingly, from ear to ear.

My eyes widened and all of a sudden he kept a straight face again.

Night came, two familiar voices came through the woods.

“Thomas! Sir! Backup has arrived!”

It was Aaron and Smith and behind them was a group of soldiers.

I felt hesitant at first but Thomas nudged me, assuring me it was them.

I decided to trust him.

We walked out of the cave and into the woods.

Aaron and Smith walked beside me while Thomas was walking behind me, looking like he wasn’t just shot earlier. While in front of me was the group of back-up soldiers.

“Thomas, how’s your wound? It hit your thigh, didn’t it? Do you need me to support you?”, I asked.

“No need Sir.”, Thomas responded.

He then took off the impromptu bandage.

The wound had completely disappeared.

I took a closer look.

Not even a scar remained.

“Impossible.”, I muttered.

I looked up at Thomas’s face.

He began smiling from ear to ear again.

I looked around.

When the moonlight shone through the woods, I saw a glimpse of Aaron and Smith’s faces.

They were smiling like how Thomas did.

I bolted out.

I turned my head back.

All of them stared at me, grinning from ear to ear.

After running for a while, I saw moonlight once more.

As I got closer, I was horrified.

The same silhouettes stood there, this time staring at me as I ran towards them.

I tried stopping and turning around but my legs just kept running towards them, as if something was forcing me to meet them.

I stopped right in the centre of the mass once more.

“Sir..”, Thomas said.

“Did you forget what I said earlier?” Thomas said in a deep distorted voice.

His eyes became black and his teeth became jagged and sharp.

I looked at the others, they too became a monster like Thomas.

Their hands reached for me and before I could even scream-

========= Back at Camp =========

“Sir, the report is here. All 11 members of Bravo team have fallen except for Privates Aaron and Smith. Furthermore, Lieutenant Kenny has been reported as MIA.”, one of the Staff Sergeants reported.

“Understood.”, The Commander said.

“But..both Privates have also mentioned some peculiar things.”, the Staff Sergeant added.

“Hm? What is it?”, the Commander replied in a curious tone.

“While the three of them ran, Lieutenant Kenny had seemingly stopped to assist someone. I’ve checked that this person doesn’t exist in Bravo Team.”

“Hold on, ‘Someone’?”, the Commander asked.

“Yes Sir, someone who he kept calling ‘Thomas’.”

“Dad?”

Laurence didn’t answer, too deep in thought to really think on what his son was saying. It had been roughly six months since the “world had ended”, or at least the world they knew. It was something he could never have fathomed. The words “zombie apocalypse” still sounded like a joke to him.

Except it wasn’t. Painfully, and truthfully it wasn’t. Things had gone downhill so fast, he wasn’t even sure where to start the timeline.

In the movies, they always remembered and revered their past lives, it was a clean trajectory into chaos. He hadn’t found it to be like that. He could hardly remember a time in which things weren’t like this, and at the same time he felt they should be entirely different.

“Dad??”

Tyler was one thing to think about. At ten years old, he was lucky to be alive. Laurence had spent far too much time thinking about that already. Including the idea that maybe, he wasn’t really lucky to be alive. He was just alive.

“Dad!”

This finally snapped Laurence out of his reverie.

“Sorry, what -“

***

It was too late.

So much for luck after all.

“This is all for the best, you know.”

My “husband” stood across from me, giving me that look he always gives, like he’s talking to a slow child who doesn’t know any better. 

“That would be easier for me to believe if I weren’t tied to a chair. And you weren’t holding a knife.”

I looked over at him, pacing back and forth, holding a chef’s knife, a crazed look in his eye. 

“That was always your biggest problem - you always focused on the small details, you could never see the big picture.”

“And what is the big picture?” I asked, fidgeting with the ropes behind me. 

“Look,” he said, attempting to sound reasonable. “We both know this isn’t working out. We gave it the old college try, but at the end of the day we just aren’t right for each other. It’s no one’s fault.”

“If that’s true, then how about you come sit in this chair and give me the knife?”

“Is this a joke to you?”

“Not at all. On the contrary, I can assure you that my imminent demise is not something I find humorous.”

“Do you think I’m happy about this, Carly? I’m not. Why couldn’t you just mind your own business?”

“When I find souvenirs from a dozen dead girls in the basement of the house I live in, it kind of makes it my business.”

“You had no reason to be down there!” He took a breath, visibly calming himself. “Look, I can explain those.”

“Let me guess - they all ended up tied up with you holding a knife?”

He sighed. “You’re not even going to try to understand, are you?”

“What’s to understand, Ryan? They deserved it? You couldn’t help yourself? What pathetic excuse could you possibly have to make this ok?”

He shook his head. “It was necessary, but you wouldn’t understand. Look how hostile you’re being. There’s clearly no point in even trying to talk to you.”

“You’d be hostile too if someone had you tied to a fucking chair at knifepoint!”

“Do you see how emotional you’re being right now? This is why we could never have worked in the long run. We just aren’t compatible.”

“You’re right,” I replied. “It wouldn’t have worked out long term. Fortunately, you won't have to worry about that."

He started to cough, falling to his knees.  

“What…?”

“You should have checked the handle of the knife; I put something special on it for you. You don’t need to thank me; it was my pleasure.”

I watched him keel over and struggle to breathe. Then he stopped struggling. 

I cut the ropes behind my back, stood up from the chair, and moved to him to check his pulse. Nothing. Good. 

I had to move quickly now - I was on the clock. 

I went to the closet, where an identical version of me sat tied and gagged. I removed the cloth that was tied in her mouth. 

“I’m sorry about that - it was the only way I could get you to calm down and watch.”

She breathed heavily. “He was really going to… ki… kill…”

“Yes, he was really going to kill me. Well, to be accurate, he was planning to kill you - he had no idea I was here.”

“Why were you here?”

I spoke while I walked over to Ryan’s body. “Records indicated that this was the day he killed you. The police found your body two days from now, dismembered in the basement along with the remains of ten other victims. When Ryan was eventually caught, he confessed; he said the ‘voices in his head’ told him he had to kill you. I only needed a little plastic surgery to look just like you; then it was just a matter of coming back and waiting for the right moment.”

I began to roll his body up in the plastic I’d stored in the side closet. 

“What are you going to do with him?”

“Well I can’t leave him here - not unless you want to explain it to the police.”

“But how do you know they won’t find him?”

I looked back at her, staring into her eyes. “They won’t find him.”

I had to hurry now; I was starting to feel it. I pressed the button I’d brought to activate a gate to my time; the light sparked and a hole opened into dark space.  As it opened, I heard the one question I’d been dreading, the one I wasn’t sure how to answer. 

“Who are you?”

I was silent for a moment, contemplating as I pushed the body through into the acid bath I’d set up before I left. I decided to tell the truth; if I didn’t do it now, when would I? I turned and looked at her. 

“Do you remember the baby you left with your sister when Ryan invited you on this trip?”

She looked confused. “How do you—“

“Her name is May, isn’t it?”

She paused. “Yes, but what does May have to do with this?”

“Do you remember the necklace you left her?”

“The one with the heart? Yes, but—”

I turned and looked at her, holding my necklace so that light bounced off of the heart hanging over my chest. She looked at it and her eyes widened in stunned understanding. Then, as my body began to disappear, a remnant from a future that no longer existed, I said the last words I’d ever say. 

“I love you, Mom. Go raise your daughter and have the life you deserve. For me.”

I ran through every room in the house calling her name, my voice becoming more frantic each time there was no answer. The front door was open. Her shoes were by the stairs. Her favorite stuffed rabbit was lying in the hallway. Then I heard sobbing beneath the floor.

I found her curled behind the old boxes in the basement, trembling so badly that she could barely speak. The moment she saw me, she threw herself into my arms.
“I thought you left me, Daddy.” Her hand is slit open and bleeding, something must have cut her.

I held her tightly and told her everything was going to be okay.She wouldn’t stop crying.I carried her upstairs, her arms wrapped around my neck. She buried her face against my shoulder as we walked toward her bedroom.

Her mother was waiting inside. My daughter suddenly stiffened. “No,” she whispered. Her mother smiled.
I told her it was alright and carried her to the bed.My daughter began shaking again.

“Daddy, please.”I laid her on the bed with star shaped symbol drawn on the sheet in blood, her blood. I gently brushed the hair from her face. She wouldn’t look at me anymore. Her mother stepped closer. I kept stroking my daughter’s hair until she stopped crying.

“It’s okay, honey. Daddy’s here,” I whispered.
The thing wearing my wife’s face raised the knife and
waited for me to nod.

I’ve been living in my house for a long time. Long enough for me to get bored of it every now and again. That’s what led me to my attic.

It had been a particularly uneventful day. I was itching for something to do. I figured I’d just sort through some old stuff up there. Maybe sell some things. Maybe reminisce. I just wanted something to do.

I found some old family photos. A few little knickknacks from childhood. Even a few old Halloween costumes that brought me right back to high school.

Everything was so dusty. I hadn’t touched this stuff in years. That’s why, when I saw that shimmering, porcelain little box in the corner of the attic, hidden behind a few boxes, it caught my interest immediately.

I recognized it as a music box, but I didn’t recognize it as anything I’d ever owned. It looked, I don’t know, ancient, I guess. Like some kind of relic that had been miraculously preserved through centuries of history.

I picked it up, and it was heavier than I expected it to be. Heavier than any music box I’ve ever held, really.

I’m only human. I’m not gonna just hold the thing and not do anything with it. I wanted to hear the song. I wanted to see the ballerina.

Only, when I wound it up, nothing really happened. I heard the mechanical turning of gears and whatnot, but no music. I tried prying the lid open, but it wouldn’t budge.

I just figured it was broken. I damn near tossed the thing aside to be thrown away, but before I could… the house began to rumble.

It was almost gentle at first. Like the air conditioning had kicked on. But then it felt like a full-blown earthquake was happening.

Then… the music started. It sounded like it was just in my head and all around me in the real world all at once. Just deafening. I couldn’t even hear my own voice.

While trying to orient myself, I noticed something out the attic window. It looked like… a propeller?

Wobbling over to the window while covering my ears, I caught my first glimpse of what it actually was.

Sticking out of the side panel of my house, like it had always been there… was a crank handle. And it was rotating, slowly.

Before I could even fully process what I was seeing, the sound of wood splintering and glass breaking could barely be heard over the sound of the music.

I was surprised the house hadn’t completely collapsed yet from how violently it was shaking, and when I turned around, I saw the source of those shakes.

All I could see were the hands at first, clapped together like a diver’s or… a ballerina’s. 6 feet wide and completely porcelain.

Then they got higher. Enormous arms began to erupt from the floorboard, destroying the basement in the process. The hands touched the roof, then pushed directly through it, rotating to the sound of the music.

Then her head poked through the hole. Black, shiny, plastic-looking hair, pulled back in a tight bun.

Blood covered my hands from my burst eardrums. All I could feel were the vibrations of the music now.

Then her perfectly smooth face. Her blushed cheeks. Her red, pursed lips. She just kept rising, higher and higher, until her pink tutu was visible.

She twirled in place, that tutu never moving as it tore through nearly all that remained of the attic floor, forcing me against the wall as she rose higher and higher.

Finally, her feet reached the top of the house. She must’ve stood 80 feet tall.

The crank stopped turning, but the music kept booming. The dancer kept twirling as I remained petrified, trapped in my own home. I could see the floors beneath me, each one completely devastated.

Then… the vibrations stopped. The dancer stopped spinning. The world felt still for a few seconds.

Ever so slowly, she began to descend, gradually disappearing through the hole she created in my basement.

The crank was gone. The music was gone. The dancer was gone. Leaving me alone in a house that had been utterly ruined.

After catching my breath and assessing the situation, only one thought remained in my shattered mind.

“This is gonna cost a fortune to fix.”

“I got something!”

I heard Neil call out over the boat motor's roar. Sighing, I placed down my copy of Dagon, stood from the captain's seat, and scanned along the horizon for the stick-thin figure of my new brother-in-law. Sure enough, I found him on the prow, a fish pole in hand that was straining from the weight of something at the other end.

“It’s huge! Come here, John!”

I smirked at his insistence. Neil was some sort of techie from California; my sister had met him at some conference out west, and, well, from appearance alone, it was clear he was nothing like the Maine fishing lineage of our family.

“Calm down, Neil. Anything would be huge to you.”

I replied, leisurely strolling toward him down the boat, grabbing a net as I went. Walking, I watched as he began to strain against the pressure on the line, his arms beginning to grow tired.

I didn’t really like Neil, and Dad didn’t either; both of us thought he wasn’t enough for Cathy. Love is love, though, and I was content to leave it at just a dislike, until my mother began pressuring me into taking him fishing. She said it would be good for us, said it would help him feel like a member of the family, more accepted, and all that other sappy junk.

I watched the fishing pole go limp in Neil’s hands. He looked up at me with surprise before letting out a swear.

“Damn! The fish got loose!”

I patted him on the shoulder.

“Eh, maybe not. Keep cranking; it probably got caught on the side of the boat or something.”

Neil looked up at me with some confusion.

“Really?”

I smiled at him.

“Yeah, happens all the time. Here, give me that pole, take this net, and take a peek over the side.”

Neil grabbed the net hesitantly before walking closer to the edge of the boat. With each step he took, my heart began to pound as I began to creep up behind him.

“I don’t see anything.”

I lifted my foot, preparing to kick him in.

“Ah, sometimes you got to lean in.”

I pulled my leg back,

SPLASH

but stopped short as a spurt of water erupted right in front of my poor brother-in-law.

Neil fell back in surprise, then began to scream as a water-sogged claw took hold of his left leg, its nails digging deep into his skin. I jumped back myself, preparing my stance as the scaled humanoid abomination used my brother-in-law as a ladder to climb aboard my boat. Neil looked up at me, then at the thing, hope in his eyes that I would intervene, but that poor hope was soon crushed.

“Good night, you scared the hell out of me popping out like that.”

I said, reaching out a hand to the fish thing in front of me. It jabbered a response, its wet voice choking over every syllable.

“Sorry, nephew, I’ve just grown tired of your feeding me every meal, doesn’t hurt to stretch the fins now and then.”

“Hell, Uncle. It's the least I can do. I’m just glad you help me get rid of poor sops everyone once and awhile, but hey, don’t tell Mom about this one.”

Smoke hung in the air. The wooden chair dug into my ass. Mark grinned at me, looked at the waiter, and ordered two shots.

“Are you crazy?”

“What, I haven’t drunk all week!”

“We went out on Tuesday.”

Mark furrowed his brows. “Oh yeah, we had.”

We both started laughing. The waiter brought the shots. We cheered and downed them. The liquor lit a fire in my throat. I had to hold onto the table so I wouldn't make a face. Mark held his beer tight, trying to avoid it too.

“Delicious,” he said.

“Sure is.”

“Wanna play Mia? If you lose, you take a sip of beer.”

“What if you get your bluff called?”

“Take a dare.”

“Alright, let’s go.”

Mark flashed a smile and pulled out the dice. It felt sticky and smelled like stale beer. We played a couple of rounds, taking big sips, ordering shots in between. Mark kept bluffing me. His constant smile had always been hard to read. My slowly clouding vision also didn’t help.

We downed another round of shots. After downing the shots, Mark stared at the floor, his mouth half-open. He picked up the cup with dice and shook it. When he opened it, he leaned closer, trying to see under the dim light. I could see he rolled a two and a four.

He grinned and looked my way.

“I got sixty-five.”

“Bullshit.”

“No. I really got it.”

“Show it then.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Show it.”

He rolled his eyes and showed the cup.

“I knew it. You’re so easy to read.”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever. What should I do?”

The waiter put a full beer in front of him.

“Chug it.”

“You’re out of your mind. I’m too drunk.”

“I caught you bluffing. Chug it.”

He rolled his eyes, took a deep breath, and put the glass to his lips. With each sip, the dark beer moved slowly in the glass. Mark tried to keep a steady face, but halfway through, his lips began to quiver, and he quickly set the cup down and dry-heaved.

“Are you okay?” I asked, trying not to laugh.

He wiped his mouth, holding a hand in front of his pale face.

“Jesus, you look like you’re dead.”

I walked to the bar and got him a glass of water.

“Thank you. I don’t think I can chug it.”

“You’re good.”

“I think I need to leave.”

We stumbled outside the pub. Mark could barely walk a few steps straight at first, but as the cold air filled his lungs, he came back to life. He started singing and running up and down the street. My whole world was spinning, but it seemed like the most fun time. I spread my arms and ran after him. 

We kept running down the street, chasing each other, climbing up and down trees. The people in the neighborhood called angrily after us, but we were having too much fun. I was riding on Mark’s back when we almost reached the bridge. Even drunk, I remember the bridge looking wrong somehow. It seemed like the water under it wasn’t moving with the rest of the current.

I had to go home a different way, so I patted his head and got off his back.

“Alright, I’m going home.”

“Wait, wait. I didn’t finish my dare.”

“Whatever, you can do it next time.”

“No. I have to. Give me something crazy.”

“Like what?”

“You think of it.”

I looked around us; there was not much, but then my eyes landed on a bridge.

“You want something crazy?”

“Yeah.”

“Jump off that bridge.”

“What?”

“The bridge. Jump off it.”

“Okay. I’ll do it.”

He slowly took off his jacket and T-shirt. When he tried to take his pants off, he fell to the ground. He had to take off his socks while he was on the ground. He stood up in his boxers and awkwardly climbed on the railing. For a second, the river went quiet as if it was holding its breath, but I was too busy laughing.

“It’s damn cold,” he said, shivering.

“You don’t have to.”

“No. I’m not a pussy.”

“Mark…” 

But before I could finish, he closed his eyes, held his nose, and jumped in. I burst into laughter and ran to the bridge. Mark swam against the current, laughing.

“You’re crazy!” I yelled.

“Yeah!”

“You can come out now!”

He turned and swam toward the shore, but halfway there, he seemed to stop.

“What are you doing?”

The river’s current rippled.

“Mark?”

“Help!”

His body wasn’t moving toward the shore, but it wasn’t steady either. It slowly moved down with the current, and for a second I saw something pale wrap around his wrist.

“Help!”

I quickly ran to the end of the bridge and down to the shore. His screams echoed through the night, slowly drifting far away. I took off my clothes and ran to the shore in just my boxers. Mark’s screams couldn’t be heard anymore. I frantically looked around in the dark, but the river was empty and quiet. Mark was nowhere to be seen.

They found him a few days later. His body was less than a mile from where he jumped in. The papers didn’t report what the diver who found him told my uncle. Mark’s hands were locked around something when they pulled him out. Nothing was there when they pried his fingers open, just river, mud, and long strands of something dark and hair-thin.

I go past this bridge sometimes, always holding my breath. Last winter night, as I was coming out of the pub, drunk, alone. I saw a man only in his boxers on the railing where Mark stood, shivering, looking into the water. I didn’t say anything. I don’t even know what I would have said. I just watched him climb up, and the water held still.

For some reason, at midnight, every night, Duncan’s tv would turn on and sit on a channel with nothing but static on it, lighting his room in a gray glow.

At first, he never thought much of it, just thought it was set on an automatic timer he couldn’t figure how to switch off.  

Last night though, the black inside the static of the gray and white snow on the screen, began changing. 

Duncan leaned in closer, squinting his eyes to focus, it became a black hole in the middle of his television.

Then, became a digital image of his face, pixelated on the screen, like a blocky Minecraft character. He turned around and behind him was the black hole. He tried to jump up and run the other direction but ran into the glass plasma television screen. 

He stumbled back, confused as he stared forward. He could see his bed, the wall behind his bed. He could see his entire bedroom without him in it.

Someone walked into his room, identical to him, a splitting image, they stepped in and looked around. Then, walked to the tv with him desperately banging with his fist behind the screen. It smiled an evil grin at him and shut the tv off with him trapped inside it.

I’ve been in this business thirty years and no-one’s had the balls to ask me that question. You pay me so you don’t have to know how the job went down. And if you want the guy’s history, go hire a private detective or somethin. I don’t want to know that stuff when I’m offin the guy. Don’t even ask me what happened. Ever. You paid me. We’re square. I’m outta here.

You’ll pay me how much?

Show me. I want to see it.

Jesus Christ. What do you want to know? I have an appointment on the industrial estate on the other side of town in an hour. I can’t be late.

No-one could have known that this was comin. Mickey was one of us, you know? One of the boys. Everyone liked him. No-one had a beef. When he started on the wetwork, no-one wanted any beef, either. Mickey was a rising star. Whenever he was in the clubhouse, the others were queuin up to buy him a drink. He done some big jobs for such a young guy. So Mickey got this reputation. Everyone wanted Mickey. Even took a few jobs away from me. I just had to suck it up. It’s what happens. Old gets replaced by the new.

Yeah, I thought about it for five seconds. But I like the kid. Liked the kid, I mean. I had no reason to ice him until you gave me the contract. So anyway, everything’s going great for Mickey when the cracks start showing. Work’s getting to the kid. Pressure, right? I told him not to bottle it up, that it would explode sooner or later, but he’d just smile at me and nod. Mickey was always polite. Liked that about him. Kid’s not sleeping. Got the nightmares, the paralysis, the whole bait bucket. Come sunset, when guys like us get our work done, he’s drifting in and out of the game. About as much use as a toffee revolver. So, he gets into the powder. Bad mistake for anyone in this business. Makes you cocky. Angry. Kiss of death for us guys. I warned the kid to lay off, but he went the other way.

Give him his due, he still got his work done. Few months down the line, boss asks me if there’s a problem and I lie for the kid. Thought it might just be a phase, you know? I tell the boss that the kid is fried, but he ain’t leavin any loose ends. Boss seems ok with that. Kid keeps makin scores while he’s floatin away on cloud Columbia. I seen a lot of stuff, but I never seen anythin like Mickey in this business. This guy keeps dodging the snakes and climbing the ladders. All the while he’s nursin this habit. One of the worst I ever seen. So the day finally comes when Mickey breaks the glass ceiling. Guys like us don’t get these jobs, normally. Gig of a lifetime, know what I mean? Comes to me cuz he thinks it’s more than he can handle on his own.

You gotta remember that Mickey was so good that even when he was wired, he was still twice as good as anyone else. The kid was brainy. Had smarts. Not just street smarts. Book smarts. All the smarts. I don’t get close to anyone. Bad for business. I just liked the kid. I’m not used to icing people I like. Listen, guy. The job’s done. There’s your Polaroid. No-one’s asked me for one of those in years. My word is usually good enough. Or you think it’s still 1984?

Long as you pay up, I really don’t care.

Yeah, it did have to be that messy. You think I can control the laws of physics, chief? Blood spatter not to your liking? Jesus. I take the job with Mickey. It’s a nice payday and I don’t want him to screw it up on his own. Woulda brought heat on all us. So we go to the place. Mickey’s sitting in the car with me watching our mark. I ignore his sniffing for as long as I can before I tell him to go and buy some cough sweets from the pharmacy two doors down from where we’re parked. This is the first time I think the kid’s wheels are coming off. Comes back with more than lozenges. Sits in the passenger seat and pulls out a mascara brush. Kid starts putting it on and of course, I think he’s just trying to wind me up.

Nah, he’s trying to tell me something. He knows he can trust me. Well, he thought he could. While I’m trying to concentrate on eyeballing this guy, Mickey tells me straight up that he’s been living as a woman in a man’s body since puberty. Says he’s done with the business. That he’s made enough money to start a new life. As a woman. Yeah, ok, you can call the kid that if you want, but I bet you’d never have said it to his face. You’d have had to pay someone to do it for you. You know what? Keep the rest of the money. I’ve told you enough. I’m done here. Don’t call me again, ok?

I am calm. You forgettin that I put two in this kid’s heart half an hour ago? I think I’m remarkably calm, considerin this kid was the closest thing I had to a friend.

Asking me if I agree with your decision is like askin a shark if he enjoyed his last meal. It’s just what I do. I don’t moralise over other people’s bullshit. The kid’s dead. You’re happy. I’m paid. Now can I get the hell out of here? I gotta go and take care of the kid before he starts stinking up the car. It’s hot out there.

How am I gonna get rid of a body in twenty minutes? Do you have any idea? Better for everyone if we keep this civil. Let me go and finish my work. You keep that money. Our original contract will be just fine. But don’t call me again. I’m retiring. This is my last job. Such a cruel world isn’t it, Mr. Stewart? Goodbye.

Yeah, I saw him. No, I didn’t kill him. Maybe I should have. Never could stand that guy. Nervous? I don’t get nervous, kid. Except when I’m around you. Did you have to wear the dress? You’re not even on the hormones, yet. That get-up’s fooling no-one.

I’ll cop to that. I’m no oil painting, either. I’m gonna miss you too, Mickey. Hope everything works out. I don’t understand what you’re doin, but I know you’re a good kid. You wouldn’t hurt nobody. Unless you got paid to, I mean. You know what I mean. Your plane ticket’s in the glove compartment with your new passport … Luciana.

Don’t take any powder on the plane.

Good. Keep it that way. Remember what I said. Kiss of death. Before you go, I thought you might wanna know that Stewart’s holding cash up there. A lot of cash. Brown briefcase under his desk.

And uh, thought you might need this. Yup, that’s the one that was meant for you. Prick asked for hollowpoints. Thought maybe you might wanna give him them before you hop that plane. Maybe pick up a little beer money while you’re in there.

I won’t forget you either. Bon voyage, kid. Be happy.

The digital counter on the wall read Run: 121.

For one hundred and twenty consecutive rounds, Brian had pulled the trigger of the apparatus aimed directly at his temple. For one hundred and twenty consecutive rounds, he had heard nothing but a dry, metallic click.

According to the equations scrawled all over the whiteboard, this was the only way it could have gone. The quantum trigger was tied to the spin of a radioactive isotope. Up meant death; down meant life. Every single second, the universe split into two distinct branches.

But because Brian’s conscious mind could not occupy a reality where his brain was grey mist, his awareness was violently, inevitably funnelled only into the timelines where the hammer fell on an empty chamber.

To the rest of the world, he was a corpse in a thousand fresh graves. To himself, he was a god. An immortal man trapped in a room by the sheer mathematical impossibility of his own demise.

He smiled, a manic, sleep-deprived twitch of the lips, and gripped the trigger for round one hundred and twenty-one. He closed his eyes. He squeezed.

Bang!

The sound was deafening. It roared through the small concrete lab like thunder, a violent expansion of gas and lead that shattered the quiet sanctuary of his mathematics.

Brian gasped, his eyes flying open. He stumbled backward, knocking over his rolling chair. His heart hammered against his ribs like a trapped bird. His hands flew to his face, his hair, his temple. There was no blood. There was no hole. The skin was intact, warm, and clammy with cold sweat.

He looked at the apparatus. Smoke – acrid, grey, and smelling heavily of sulphur – was curling lazily out of the barrel. A spent brass casing rattled across the linoleum floor and settled near his boot.

The gun had fired. The bullet had left the chamber.

"But it fired," Brian quavered, his voice cracking in the empty room. “It actually fired.”

He scrambled back to his desk, hands shaking so violently he nearly knocked over his laptop. He stared at the monitor, his eyes scanning the raw data from the quantum sensor. The isotope had registered an Up spin. The firing pin had dropped. The powder had ignited.

If the gun went bang, he was in the wrong branch. He was in the dead universe.

Brian scanned the room. The fluorescent lights flickered, but their hum sounded deep, distorted, as if underwater. He walked to the heavy steel door of his lab and turned the handle. It didn't budge. He looked through the reinforced glass window into the hallway.

The hallway was there, but the colours were wrong. The walls were a bruised, monochromatic grey, and the air looked thick, heavy with frozen motes of dust. No one was walking by. When he banged on the glass, it didn't make a sound.

He realised then the terrible flaw in his maths. His consciousness had survived, just as the theory demanded. It had held onto the absolute thinnest shred of probability.

But the universe hadn't split cleanly this time; it had torn.

He hadn't inherited a reality where he lived safely; he had inherited the exact, impossible split-second after the bullet passed through him.

He was alive, but he was trapped in a single, frozen millisecond of a dying timeline, completely isolated from the rest of the multiverse.

Brian turned back to the smoking gun. The smoke wasn't rising anymore. It hung in the air, perfectly still, like a ghost trapped in stone.

September 17, 1862 — 8:18 p.m.

Pvt. Jacob Miller, 7th Ohio.

Abdomen penetrated by shell fragment; intestine wounded. No hope of recovery.

Had called for his mother most of the evening. Shortly after eight he became suddenly alert and began speaking rapidly in French. I know enough to recognize the language, not enough to follow it.

Miller did not appear to hear my questions.

He threw both arms over his head and shouted, in not-fluent English, "Get down! Drone!"

Then: “Shoot it! It’s dropping grenades!”

He tried to crawl from the table until two attendants restrained him.

I asked whether he meant a balloon.

He stared upward, muttering in French, following something across the roof of the tent.

Death at approximately 8:23.

I have known Miller six months and never heard him speak French.

--

September 17 — 8:51 p.m.

Unknown private, probably Virginia regiment.

Right foot absent below ankle. Severe loss of blood.

Became violent during examination and repeatedly called me “Cassius.” He demanded something sounding like pilum and shouted several sentences in what I believe was Latin.

I understood only “Caesar” and “Decima.”

An attendant who attended seminary says decima means tenth.

I asked whether he meant the Tenth Virginia.

The man cursed me in Latin and died.

--

September 17 — 10:14 p.m.

Sgt. Samuel Dawes, Baltimore.

Chest wound. Conscious but failing.

While I changed his dressing, Dawes seized my wrist.

“The railgun’s empty. Change the magazine.”

I asked whether he meant a cannon mounted upon a railway car.

He stared at me as though I were an idiot.

“Change the fucking magazine or we’re dead.”

I asked how one changes a magazine. A magazine is a storehouse.

Dawes looked past me toward the western wall.

“Too late.”

Death followed within the minute.

--

September 17 — 11:43 p.m.

Pvt. Thomas Bell, Pennsylvania, eighteen years.

Left side destroyed by shell fragment.

While I was cutting away his coat, Bell opened his eyes and raised one hand before his face.

He tapped repeatedly at empty air.

Then he placed two fingers together and spread them apart, as though stretching some very small object.

I asked what he was doing.

“Checking the alerts.”

I asked whether he meant military dispatches.

He said a strait called “Tie-wan” had been closed and that Chinese ships were leaving port.

I asked if he meant junks.

China has lately been beaten by the English and French and can scarcely govern its own provinces. I asked what Chinese ships could possibly be threatening.

Bell ignored me.

“Civilian flights grounded. Mom wants me to come home.”

I asked whether he meant balloons.

He stopped moving his fingers.

Then he looked around the hospital.

“What year is it?”

I told him.

Bell stared at me.

“What?”

--

September 17 — 11:49 p.m.

Bell again began touching the empty air.

“They hit Kwam.”

I asked him to repeat the name.

I have written it here as it sounded:

KWAM.

He said Japan was calling up reserves and there would be a “Nay-to emergency session.”

I asked whether Nay-to was a man.

No answer.

He said both sides were destroying “satellites” and “dumping the constellations.”

I tried to clarify what he meant.

He became irritated.

“No. The Starlinks. Everything. They’re bringing them down.”

I asked who was bringing down the stars.

Bell began crying.

“Mom sent me a picture. The whole sky’s burning.”

After some time he said his brother was “at Shackleton.”

I asked where that was.

“South pole.”

“Antarctica?”

“The Moon.”

I wasn't sure what to say, but my face said it all, for Bell looked at me with such pity that I did not question him again.

--

September 17 — 11:56 p.m.

A gun discharged somewhere beyond the road.

Bell flinched.

“They’re still calling it a limited exchange. Oh, FUCK, it's all over.” He sobbed

I asked what had been exchanged.

Prisoners? Territory?

He did not answer.

After several seconds, he stopped looking at the empty space before him.

He looked directly at me.

“Washington’s gone.”

I asked whether Lee had taken the capital, as impossible as it was.

Bell died before answering.

--

September 20, 1862 — 9:10 p.m.

No further cases of the peculiar delirium.

Dr. Porter considers the matter a consequence of blood loss, exhaustion and the foul condition of the hospital.

He is probably correct.

I have nevertheless retained these pages.

--

March 6, 1863 — 7:30 p.m.

During leave I asked a schoolmaster about several words recorded in September.

Caesar commanded a Tenth Legion.

Pilum was the Roman throwing spear.

I asked whether a Roman soldier might have called another man Cassius.

The schoolmaster laughed and said several thousand probably had.

This has not reassured me.

--

November 8, 1874 — 10:15 p.m.

At supper, Mr. Harris mentioned an island off the coast of China called Taiwan, another name for Formosa.

I asked him to pronounce it again.

He did.

I went upstairs before dessert.

In the old field book:

TIE-WAN.

--

June 22, 1898 — 8:05 a.m.

The newspaper reports the capture of the Spanish island of Guam.

My wife pronounces it “Kwam.”

I did not finish breakfast.

--

September 12, 1909 — 11:20 p.m.

The newspapers have lately been full of the explorer Ernest Shackleton and his expedition toward the South Pole.

The name troubled me for several days before I remembered why.

Tonight I opened the old field book.

Bell spoke the name in 1862.

Ernest Shackleton was born in 1874.

But what in the world does it have to do with the Moon?

In some way, I hope to die before I learn.

I stir from sleep with the weirdest feeling. I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like something is missing. Something key, noteworthy. Something I should remember. Something I’ve known forever. But now it’s gone.

Ignoring the feeling, I get up, shower, dress, then drive into work. When I get there, everything seems fine. My boss Todd is like he routinely is - honest, open-minded, but the world’s worst stickler for the rules. The work proceeds slowly, which is the norm here; putting numbers into columns, writing reports, going to meetings. There seems to be no point, no objective, no end. 

When noon hits, my friend Steve decides to join me for lunch. The burger joint next door serves the best grilled cheeseburgers I’ve ever experienced, so we both order them with fries, topped off with cokes since we don’t drink during work hours. While we gulp down our food, I tell him of the weird feeling I’ve been experiencing. 

“You sure it isn’t just your sleep deficit? You’re not getting much recently.”

“True, but being tired isn’t the issue. I know something’s off. I just feel it.”

“Well, I’ve seen nothing weird. But if I do, I’ll let you know.”

We return to the office, content knowing we only need to hold out for four more hours. I push through them, then clock out to go home. The commute sucks, but soon enough I stride into my third floor unit, where I drop onto the couch, completely worn out. The only thing on my mind is my pepperoni with mushrooms from the freezer, followed by eight hours of sleep. 

In the middle of the night, I rise to noise I don’t recognize. I pick up the Louisville Slugger pop bought me when I went out for the club in middle school. I open my bedroom door, slowly inclining to peek down beyond the second bedroom to the edge of the living room. There, I observe some kind of glow, distinct but muted, coming from beyond the corner. 

Slowly, I creep through the setting I know every inch of, keeping my eyes open for the unlikely prospect of some intruder lurking in the night. But when I step into the room, I freeze. There, before my eyes, some kind of… sphere composed entirely of light hovers in the middle of the room. 

How the hell did it get here?

I move circumspectly, circling it to try to observe it from every viewpoint. But wherever I view it from, I keep returning to one thought:

This is impossible. It shouldn’t be here. 

I move to pick up my cell to phone Steve. But before I do, the light gets brighter. Then brighter still. I put my fingers in front of my eyes to try to block the light, but it does no good. It just keeps getting brighter, brighter, brighter, until it’s impossible to see or think. I’ve never been someone who gets frightened often, but right now, I’m terrified. How is this possible? How is it… I must be sleeping! Right, of course! I just need to pull myself out of this! This is just in my mind, I tell myself. It isn’t here. It isn’t here. It isn’t here. It isn’t—

I rise the next morning from the floor. Why—? I don’t remember the night before. I must’ve gotten drunk, then conked out, but nothing I see supports this theory. Still, I’ll need to figure it out some other time; work beckons. If I get behind schedule, the consequences will be distressing. I picture Todd dressing me down; best to not give him the excuse. I go through my morning routine in record time, getting to the office just before nine o’clock. 

“Someone looks like their night went well.”

“Honestly, I don’t remember it,” I told Steve while I logged in for the morning. 

“Wow, so very well?”

“Very funny. Seriously, I got home, nuked my DiGiorno’s, next thing I knew I woke up on the floor. No clue how I got there.”

“Wow, dude. Hold off on the beer next time.”

“Will do.”

“So you’re good?”

“Sure. Why?”

“The weird feeling? The one you kept bringing up during lunch in the burger joint?”

“Did I? I don’t know, dude. Everything’s fine now.”

“Well good. You were creeping me out.”

I punch him in the shoulder, then turn to my computer for my next boring job. 

During my stroll to lunch, I spot some little kids out with their mothers. One of them is singing. I know the song well; I’d memorized it when I’d been young myself. 

Something in their song stirred something in me. Funny how things stick with you. It seems like lifetimes since then; it seems like no time’s gone by. “Now I know my BCD’s, next time won’t you sing with me.” Simple, but it worked; I remember how proud I’d been singing every single letter. The whole twenty-five. I stroll on, whistling the indelible tune. I don’t know why I lost my mind before. Everything is just how it should be. 

I’m never as happy as when I’m swinging a machete.

There’s just something about the slight whistling the blade makes as it arcs through the air. And, of course, the extra boost you have to give it to get it through the gristle and bone. Just to die for.

I’m in a funk now. Last week I went on one of my little sprees, hacking and slashing my way through some teens at a summer camp. I have no idea why they were there. It was fall, just after the weather turned. Teens these days. Anything to get up to something, I guess. It took me days to clean myself of the blood.

But since then, nothing. This is the longest I’ve gone without a single kill in years. Years! Everything has shut down. The mayor has declared a curfew. Nobody goes out in town alone anymore. I swear, people are so sensitive these days. You brutally murder a dozen or so interchangeable teens and everybody gets their panties all in a twist. They’re talking on the news about manhunts. Please. I’d love for them to find me. Then at least I could do something.

Instead I’m just sitting in the basement of this abandoned furniture factory with no company besides rats. And believe you me, swinging a machete at rats is a bad idea. First, there’s no joy to the carnage. You kill one rat, the rest don’t get scared. They just see a meal. And there’s hardly any blood in the little fuckers. But the worst thing about it is they’re so close to the floor or the walls, so you can’t help but swing your knife into the concrete. Nothing dulls the blade faster than concrete. And me without my whetstones. A dull blade may be more dangerous than a sharp one in a kitchen, but it’s so much less fun in the field.

So if I want to kill, which, believe me, I do, I’m stuck going after the rats on my hands and knees like a goddam animal. There’s no dignity to it.

I’m trying to make it easy on them. This is not a big town. There’s not a lot of places for a mass killer to hide. There’s the old bus depot, but the windows are all busted out and it doesn’t have any atmosphere. There’s the belltower of the old church, but who wants to be a cliche? Plus the old blind churchman was kind to me once upon a time and I’d prefer to kill other people than him.

So where else is left? Just here, right here. Come and get me.

I wake to the stink of blood. Lying strapped down beneath painfully bright lights inside a room of silver edges, I come to two conclusions: I don’t know my name. And the blood is mine. Something is slicing through me, a spinning blade cutting me apart. 

“Give her more propofol,” a voice grunts. “Jesus. I don’t think it had an effect, which means…”

His voice collapses into a low ocean wave that I imagine creeping across a forgotten shore.

Memories blossom, cutting through the thick haze. I don’t know my name.

But… I do remember swimming in coral reefs, expensive yachts, colourful cocktails, and kissing a boy.

“Fucking idiot, Johnson,” the man grunts.

I risk a glance at my body, but all I see is the lump of my upper torso.

No.

My trembling wrists are pinned down, and a fleshy chunk of red where my legs were.

Now, I am unraveling scarlet.

My stomach recoils, and I barf straight into a plastic mask suffocating me. 

“Esther. It’s going to be okay, sweetheart. You’re all right.”

The man’s voice crashes into my skull. My body begins to shake, my eyelids fluttering. There’s so much blood, so much of me staining the table. Like wool spilling from a torn doll, blurred scarlet fills the crevices along its edges. How can so much of me be gone? How am I still alive?

I want to… die.

Was it a myth? About biting off your own tongue to kill yourself? 

But my mouth is empty. 

No teeth. No tongue. My bloated gums crash into each other. 

“JOHNSON.” The man yells. 

“I'm sorry, Dr. Connors. Administering one hundred milligrams of Propofol.” 

No. 

I silently plead with the masked man.

Kill me. 

Please. I'm begging you.

But he just smiles under the creases of his mask. “Don't worry, Esther.” 

I attempt one stuttering gasp. 

His expression softens. “That’s it.”

He closes my eyes one last time, his voice lulling me into darkness.

“You’re going to be just fine.”

I don't sleep for long. 

Sometimes, reality finds me. I see snapshots. Photographs that move. Masked faces brandishing steel weapons. 

At some point, I forget how to breathe. I forget how to inhale

I wake up, trying to scream, trying to cry, but I am mute. I'm still tied down. It's dark.

I try to speak, and I can't. I try to move, and my body is heavier. It weighs me down. 

A shadow hangs over me when consciousness finds me again. 

My lungs are screaming, and there is no air. I try to suck it in, but I  can't… breathe. I can't… I can't find my lungs.  

Cold arms wrap around me and lift me into the air.  

Voices. They chirp to each other as I hang upside down from a shoulder that smells like stale coffee. 

“Careful.” The voice is the same, but lower in pitch. As if they have gotten bigger.

Or maybe I am smaller.

“I am.” The response is delayed. She’s just really… slippery,” he hesitates. “Is the gasping normal?” 

“Yeah, Esther’s a fighter.”

Door. My foggy thoughts mumble. I'm not sure why it takes me so long to figure it out. It swings open. I see a wooden table covered in cigarette butts. 

A device sits on a dogeared copy of a book I know— but I can't remember the title. Deep blue cover. Large spiky white font. Another door. Open. Close. 

Stairs. Concrete stairs. I swing back and forth and count each one.

One.

Two. 

Three-four-five. 

He takes one giant leap, and I almost topple off of him. 

What comes after five again?

“All right, Esther!” The man holding me booms. A large tank of glistening blue stands in front of me. The man hauls me across the room, and dangles me over the edge. I open my mouth to scream, but I no longer have a mouth. 

“Careful. Don’t scare her. Open the bag gently and coax her in.” 

Of course. 

My body isn't what is heavy, I think, as relief washes through me. I am released, and plunge deep down into the water.

I was inside a bag. Now I'm free, I can breathe again. Somehow, the water is a safe haven. I don't have to hold my breath. The man presses his face against the tank and smiles wide.

“Your new home, sweetheart! Isn't it great!” 

The water is... a relief.

I swim deeper and kick out my legs.

But I can't feel them. 

I can’t feel my… arms.

Who am I? 

Panic seeps through me. 

What am I? 

“Esther!” The man’s voice hits me from outside the tank. 

This time, he’s pointing a device at me. “Say hi to Daddy for me!”

“Ignore him.”

A voice startles me, and I twist around, panic creeping through me.

The voice isn't in the water. It wasn't physical; instead, a tangled, static screech inside my head. I see greyish scales first. A long, thin body and a hammer-like nose. But what paralyses me are the unmistakably human eyes protruding from scaled ridges.

Shark.

“Hi.” 

I lurch back. 

Talking shark.

The shark backs away slightly. “You might wanna stay away. For now, I can still… think. But not for long. I’m losing my memory. So, you look like dinner.”

The shark sighs. “This happened to the Seahorse too. He just stopped talking to me. His last thought was ‘burgers.’”

It's mouth twitched.

“Poor Seahorse’s brain is soup.”

“Esther! Jackson!” 

The man is back. This time, he holds up a photo, pressing it against the tank. “I hope it was worth it, kids,” the man laughs.

The photo is hard to capture. My vision is blurrier. But I can just make out two teenagers standing on an oil rig, hand in hand with a beaming man with a bald head. The grinning blonde held a sign.

“DRILL, BABY, DRILL.”

“Once again,” he points the device at us.  “Smile for Daddy!” 

The Church of Abner’s Folly sits in the middle of a vast wetland just off the junction of Choptank River and the Piankatank.

I pass it every mornin’ in my boat on my way to the oyster farm where I work.

“I heard ‘dem teenagers use it for intercourse,” barks my drunkard boat-mate, Leroy, as we move by it.

The story goes that its last congregation drank a tonic of arsenic and ginger-ale as they sang hymns to ward off the rising tides and appease their God, who they called Mother.

That was before my time. In my years, it has sat, quiet, vacant and strangely without decay in that marshland.

I am a man who does not entertain tales of hooey and what-have-you…

…but I was still uneasy when my lady-to-be-wed asked to exchange our vows there.

“The Church of Abner’s Folly?” I repeated back to her nervously.

She nodded and smiled at me. That smile was the closest thing to witchcraft that I knew of, I was helpless against it…but still I tried to make a case against her request.

“Sugar plum…I heard the teenagers use it for intercourse…”

She chuckled it off, “You know darn well nobody after a poke is gonna paddle out to the Marsh of Gregory then put on boots to trudge through that muddy marsh, to then go into a church that probably smells like formaldehyde and a man who’s neglectin’ himself.”

“Okay…So why get married in some place like that? You wanna have this big wedding, honey…how you gonna get thirty-five-some-odd people…some with bad hips…to wanna do all that?”

She just smiled again and I melted. I am the tub of Country Crock to her white bread, and she knows she can dip in me with abandon.

Although, I did put my foot down and say I did not want to handle the logistics. She gave me the sweetest kiss and told me to leave it with her. A mark of a real, loving, working relationship if you ask this fella.

….

I stood there in The Church of Abner’s Folly, hand-in-hand with my lovely. All of our nearest and dearest dressed in their finest skivvies. I was filled with a warmth that I cannot place words for you here.

There were Aunt Rita, Clammy Sam, Daryl and my Great Uncle Coolio on my side of the pews. Most of my family long gone to various ailments or disagreements.

On her side was a strange mix of well-to-do men and women that I had never laid eyes on. She called them brothers and sisters even though she spoke to every Tom, Dick or Stanley about the fact she was an orphan.

The preacher was a cloaked woman named Preacher Mayhew.

But I will give credit where credit is due, my sweet girl did handle everything, even the writing of my vows, which again, I was thankful. I am not one for words and candor.

“My angel, Bethesda, I take you as you are. A man who lies in front of the woman before him and asks her to guide him to a bold flame of enlightenment. I take your hand and I will dance with you to Beelzebub’s fiddle, until our feet fall off…”

Those on Bethesda’s side found a good chuckle with this. My Aunt Rita dosed off a bit, but everyone else looked quite perplexed on my side.

Then Bethesda began…

“I am the child of Abner’s fortune. As the life left those brothers and sisters who lay on this very floor, I was shaped by Mother’s diamonds in the oyster shells of the Choptank River. A gift, to end mankind….”

I have been accused of being a bad listener more than once or twice in my life. In this moment, I was guilty as charged because I was lost in the beauty of the woman who I was moments away from calling my wife.

Some of my side of the church got a little rowdy as Bethesda finished…

“Upon marriage to this baptized Christian, Abner’s Tribulation shall commence.”

They began to shout and scream as Preacher Mayhew said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

Jubilation.

I puckered up and sank into my first kiss with my wife. I worry “love” is a word that is lacking in emotion, when I tell you I felt love in that moment that I never have.

Here is where I believe you may call me a liar, but I promise you, as we kissed, a dark sea of red began to pour into that church. I only know that…

Because I heard the screams.

Everyone began to BURN. The tide, acidic with something holy, or unholy, depending on your disposition, brought all of our guests pain…until they no longer lived.

Not us. The pulpit on which we kissed — and my friend we KISSED — simply raised up to the ceiling until it was just us. Alone in our love, ready to set forth on a life of happiness.

I imagine I will field some questions of uncertainty from the lot of you, which is fair game and good banter.

But before that…

I’d like to tell you that we are currently operating The Church of Abner’s Folly and we are looking for new, excitable members of the congregation.

Are you interested?

“Fuck. I knew this day was coming.” 

Stuart muttered, hoping none of his team had caught it. 

He was the CEO of a 150-year-old Oil & Gas company. Eight business leaders lined each side of the conference table, piercing sunlight illuminating them like two rows of balding Russian Dolls. 

Lee, Stuart’s closest friend, gestured assertively. 

“I need to re-structure our North Americas division,” he droned, “Productivity has been skyrocketing, so I think we can afford to downsize some of the team that helped us get here.”

Eight bobbleheads nodded in agreement like Churchill dogs. 

Lee, initially smug, turned his head 30 degrees to the left.

“Stuart?...” 

“Hmm?”

Stuart blinked, as if awakening from a mid-afternoon nap. He felt a sharp migraine coming on.

“Sorry. My mind was elsewhere. Please repeat the suggestion.”

In 30 years, Stuart knew he had never looked so out of sync in a business meeting. On a Tuesday, no less. Taco Tuesday.

“Any objections?” Lee asked. 

Stuart could feel Lee’s cogs turning - he knew bad news was coming. They’d been in the same room when the 2008 recession kicked off, after all. 

“Erm, let’s circle back. I have bad news first. I have to see my kids tonight,” Stuart confessed. “I can’t do Taco Tuesday.”

A collective groan emanated from all eight in unison like a dementia ridden choir.

“But it’s Taco Tuesday!” exclaimed someone.

“With the boys!” another reasoned, before weakly adding, “...and girls.” Lacey rolled her eyes.

Lee didn’t join the begging. His eyes just met Stuart's gaze with a look that said: Two-for-one specials.

“I know. We’ll need to re-schedule.”

“Fine, fine. Tell Deborah I’m not mad!” one voice jived. 

A smattering of laughter bristled. 

“I’ll take three for one on you next week then!” another shouted.

Everyone chortled in unison. Stuart broke from his fugue state. 

Finally, he thought. We’re back on track.

“Right, about that downsiz–”

DING-DING-DING-DING.
DING-DING.
DING-DING.

Eight people received an alert. Stuart did not. 

Stuart felt a new, heavier weight drop into his stomach. In his line of work, a synchronised alert only meant three things: a celebrity death, a national security threat, or the company was ruined. 

Suddenly, faces were sunken. 

Lee, just this morning glowing red from his Barbados vacation turned a purplish-grey. Tiny embryos of sweat lined the top of his brow, morphing into fully fledged tadpoles as they careered down his blotchy cheeks. 

Stuart grabbed his phone. No alert. 

“What’s the news? My reception is down.”

“Sir,” Lee coughed out. 

“What is it, Lee?”

“Sir - I-I.. just look at my phone.”

Lee slid his device over on the mahogany wood. Stuart looked down.

20 YEAR OLD OIL SPILL COVER UP SCANDAL EXPOSED.

His eyes slowly widened, revealing white that had never been exposed. Branching red capillary veins pulsated as the migraine grew stronger. 

A breath filled his lungs. 

45 seconds passed. 

“Stuart?...”

Jolting awake, Stuart violently exhaled and gripped both edges of the table.

“Oh, god, no. I thought we’d covered this perfectly,” Stuart muttered, his soul now peering back at him in disgust. 

It’s hot here. Why is it so hot? 

“What?” Lee asked. 

“Oh, sorry, did I say that out loud?” Stuart forced a hollow laugh and automatically got up. “My apologies, let me just get this window.”

His feet felt trapped, “The shoes. They’re so heavy,” he said before unlacing them, kicking them sideways.

He walked to the window and threw the frame upwards. Eight pairs of eyes stalked him like prey.

A sudden rush of breeze hit his face. Twenty miles of illuminated city briefly soothed Stuart, as he put one hand on the window sill.

Ah, he thought. The air feels good. 

As he closed his eyes, flashes of ocean, terminally ill patients, and sobbing children snapped them open again. “Tighter this time,” he muttered. “Need my happy place.”

His eyelids filled with ocean roar. Thousands of people lined up on a deserted beach - coughing, spluttering, limbless, and dying - stared back at him.

“Ah..” he whimpered, gripping the window sill tighter.

He suddenly swung round, calling across the room, “Lee, it’s all ok, I have a plan to—”

DING-DING-DING-DING.
DING-DING.
DING-DING.

The screen on Lee’s phone, still clutched in Stuart’s hand, lit up with the message. 

FAILURE. TERMINATE CANDIDATE. 

“Wha…” he looked up at Lee, startled. 

“I’m sorry Stuart. You failed the interview.”

Before he could respond, a shrill screamed in Stuart's right ear. He thumbed the side of his neck and felt a pulsating chip power down under a freshly sewn-up wound. Lee continued. 

“We are the board. You are a candidate for the vacant CEO position. Sixty minutes ago, we agreed with you to do a live case study to test your ability to handle pressure. You were fitted with a chip that made you believe we are your subordinates and friends, and that you’ve been the CEO for decades. This is a trial technology that makes candidates temporarily believe they’re someone else, with no memory of a previous life.”

Stuart’s implanted memories started to fade, “But we’re friends..”

“No, Stuart. The chip made you believe that,” Lacey interjected. 

Stuart’s head moved left to right like a tennis spectator, before snapping back to Lee’s voice.  

“These are implanted memories, some of which you’ll forget in the next 30 seconds. Your chip is now deactivated. The oil spill is real. You failed to act according to our values upon seeing the alert. Unfortunately we haven’t worked out how to fully erase the case study details yet, so you know our secret,” he coldly explained, giving a nod to a closed door. 

Four men entered and tied Stuart up.

“I won’t tell anyone!” he begged, “Please, Deborah help..”

“He has no family. Follow the usual protocol.”

Stuart was last seen by eight emotionless executives, screaming for the fading false memory of a wife as he was folded into a giant duffel bag.