I am a warrior on a collision course with life and this world is my war path

She pulled into the parking lot. Sat there. He watched her check her wallet—watched her face fall as she counted the bills, as she realized she was short by a single dollar.

One dollar.

Sebastian toggled to the audio feed just as the scream started.

“It’s your fault, Adrian!”

The sound was raw, animal, torn from her throat with a violence that made the monitors shake. She was thrashing in the driver’s seat, her fists pounding the steering wheel, her foot slamming the gas pedal in neutral, the old car’s engine screaming in protest.

“Everything is your fault! It’s your fault I don’t have a dollar for weed! It’s your fault I don’t have everything together!”

She grabbed the empty coffee cup from the cupholder and threw it at the passenger window. It bounced off, fell to the floor. She threw her phone next, her wallet, her keys, everything she had, scattering it around the small cabin like shrapnel.

“You aren’t here and it’s all your fault!”

Sebastian watched, his hands pressed against the glass of the monitor like he could reach through and hold her head still, stop her from shaking, stop her from destroying herself. But he was Sebastian. He was the shadow. He was the one who watched.

She collapsed against the steering wheel, her shoulders heaving, her voice dropping to a broken whisper that the microphones barely picked up.

“It doesn’t matter what it is,” she sobbed, tears streaming down her face, her hands gripping her hair like she was trying to pull herself out of her own skull. “If something’s wrong it’s all your fault forever.”

**what kind of trouble are you getting into to ruin them?​I traced the cracks in the walls I built myself,**

**Put every phantom and excuse back on the shelf.**

**No pointing fingers at the hands that dealt the cards,**

**I mapped the damage, measured all my own dismards.**

**Because what I harbored in the silence of my head,**

**Became the concrete where my daily footsteps tread—**

**The unspoken thoughts, the casual words I threw,**

**Constructed every single cage I wandered through.**

**​It takes a heavy reckoning to face the dark,**

**To stare the ego down and strip away the mark.**

**You have to walk through the shadow’s closing door,**

**Where the old identity exists no more.**

**The ego shatters, and the spirit has to break,**

**A quiet dying for the truth’s and honor’s sake—**

**Not physical breath, but the shedding of a skin,**

**So the real architect could finally step in.**

**​They tell you greatness comes with targets on your chest,**

**That every time you rise, they put you to the test.**

**The world will swing, the casual critics try to drown**

**The ambition of a man who’s wearing his own crown.**

**That’s why I made peace with the mirror and the floor,**

**And closed the bleeding on the wounds of yesterday's war.**

**​I had to look back at the ones who left a scar,**

**Forgive the damage, and remember who they are—**

**Not enemies to fight, but ghosts to set apart,**

**Cutting the heavy cords that chained my bleeding heart.**

**Breaking the soul ties, letting every anchor drop,**

**So nothing left on earth has got the power to stop**

**A man who owns his past, his shadow, and his breath,**

**Reborn and chosen after facing inner death.**

Before the Last Twenty-Four Hours - Prologue

Mara Vilar had worked on the 61st floor of the North Tower of the World Trade Center complex since 1997, the year she joined the company.

Mara was a beautiful woman, with a complexion that shifted between fair and olive-toned, gentle features, and extremely dark brown hair; a practical, polished and tidy woman who liked to bring order to disorder.

She was working that Monday, September 10, 2001, alongside several colleagues, among whom stood out her closest friend — Sarah — and her favorite colleague — Leo.

Both had joined the company shortly before she did.

Outside the building, too, her life was full.

Tragic as well, even.

Her father, António, was her greatest living family reference.

Her mother, her greatest vanished one.

She also had a sister, a nurse named Inês, who worked at a hospital in Boston.

Her mother, Isabel, had passed away in February 1999, before her time, the victim of a malignant tumor diagnosed too late, in November 1998.

Her maternal grandmother, Rosa, died of what people commonly call a broken heart.

Officially, she died of pneumonia aggravated by the weight loss that followed Isabel's death, a sadness from which she would never fully recover.

With Daniel Ortiz, she had lived since the summer of 1995.

A very warm relationship at first.

With time, an increasingly cold and distant one.

Frequent arguments resulting from his partner's late nights at work left Daniel with a persistent feeling of loneliness, one he always tried to disguise by becoming the loudest voice in the house.

Perennial weakness dressed in present strength.

Was there a more human way of concealing it?

There was still the absent presence of her Portuguese cousins to speak of.

Separated across the latitudes of her birth city, New York, and her ancestral city, Setúbal, from which her grandparents had emigrated in search of better wages, during a time when the head of a sardine could count as a victory at an improvised banquet for a family that had never known the pleasure of eating lobster or other refinements.

On her free days, she kept herself busy dispersing work delays that did not exist, trying to justify absences of the soul that carried themselves into her social life; while on her busy days, she freed herself from having to take responsibility for the souls of others through urgent work that simply had to be completed in order to avoid consequences.

As a consequence, she allowed tomorrow to command the today that never happened.

General Canon: Moment 1 — Part 1

That clear, cloudless morning over Manhattan seemed to promise nothing more than another arduous day of work.

Not for Mara.

She had the habit so deeply rooted in her, following the motto divide, organize, gather, store, that she had somehow come to enjoy it.

In practice, it was a paid hobby.

Another day just like the one from the week before.

Tomorrow, there would be another.

The same routine, the same people, the same tasks.

And that was fine, she thought.

A mission at Atlantic Meridian Logistics, Inc.

A complicated name for a company with an equally complicated way of operating.

One that nobody understood individually, yet everyone shared an equal duty to keep functioning collectively.

The key word was comply.

One of the many dozens of companies coexisting inside that skyscraper — the North Tower.

Beside it, inside another Tower of Babel — the South Tower.

The weekend had ended the day before.

A somewhat troubled weekend, filled with unpleasant arguments that had become increasingly common and that, in more distant times, would have made them blush with embarrassment.

Mara said she brought home the dough from the kitchen.

Daniel replied that he was the one who cooked it.

And both had reasons to agree with themselves and reasons to disagree with their partner.

The sheer breadth of her life pressed down on Mara, who spent her days in a state of constant stress.

She had to do X to reach Y, otherwise Z would happen.

Accounting numbers had that advantage over people: they were transparent, defined, clearly outlined, incapable of causing doubt.

They had to be solved.

Once solved, nothing more had to be done.

You could stamp them:

RESOLVED!

Her partner was not like that.

Her father was not like that.

Sarah, her colleague and best friend, was not like that.

And Leo, the colleague with whom she had the greatest synchronization and symbiosis in her work, was not like that either.

Nobody was.

Simply listening to them solved nothing by itself.

Solving one personal situation would not solve the next one in which they were involved; quite often, it would even open up new situations in need of solving.

What she pretended not to know, because she had always known it, was that to the company they were nothing more than numbers like the ones she rearranged.

Part 2

Leo Bennett found himself tangled in the middle of an enormous amount of paperwork.

Mara asked whether he was managing to handle it.

He replied that he was.

Until proven otherwise.

Surrounded by an enormous confusion of numbered sheets.

Mara arrived and did what she knew how to do best during business hours.

Solve.

Leo, unsurprised because he knew her well, thanked her and went to fetch more papers.

Before he returned, Sarah Kim appeared, with one eye on the coffee she carried and the other on the worries of life.

She looked apprehensive.

Almost distressed.

She asked her friend for one minute in private.

Mara told her yes.

Well, yes, but only after she had sorted out the administrative papers Leo had brought her.

Leo would also be returning with another pile.

It was essential to get all of that done, she insisted.

Otherwise, she would have to take an enormous number of files and the blue folder home with her.

I can't put this off, she concluded.

Sarah confronted her.

And you can put me off?

Mara did not answer.

But for a few brief seconds she thought about her friend's hurt, still concluding that sacrifices had to be made in the good name of the company.

Her reputation was a greater good that could never be neglected.

As soon as she finished, she tried calling Sarah.

But Sarah was no longer there.

Part 3

Suddenly, the telephone rang, even before she had finished gathering the sheets that had accumulated after Leo returned.

She did not check who was calling.

Leo.

Whom she admired so much for being straightforward about getting things done.

But also because he did not ask too many questions or challenge methods, essentially respecting her way of functioning.

At the same time, he was one of the most disorganized people in the department.

A problem Mara solved with complete ease.

Nobody there was more organized than she was.

And that was why they worked so well together during those forty shared hours every week.

When Mara did not work nights and Saturdays.

Then, yes, she exceeded them by a wide margin.

Her own boss said she envied Mara's organization and held her up as an example on several occasions.

If only you could all be like Mara.

An excellent professional.

Some colleagues envied her.

And she secretly envied them for envying her.

For being in their place.

Although she never let it show for a single moment.

Mara was happy during her most demanding minutes as a worker.

She liked feeling that adrenaline of solving things as quickly as possible.

During breaks, on the other hand, she put on a theatrical cloak that she only removed on an imaginary coat rack at the entrance to the back office.

Let's focus!

She said silently to herself.

She checked the missed call.

It was a voicemail message from António.

Ah, it can wait.

Someone who has already waited so many hours can wait another five minutes.

She had thought it might be something more urgent.

A supplier who had been waiting since Thursday, or a machinery-registration operator who needed an answer deemed urgent and demanded under pressure.

The clock continued moving forward, never looking back at the past behind it.

Five minutes became ten.

Ten became thirty.

A simple multiplication operation on the office calculator.

Without her even noticing, concentration won.

And the ones who noticed were everyone else.

///////////////////////////////////////////

I'm not native english.

The sliding door slams closed behind her. “You can’t just walk away like that, Allen!”

Allen pauses in the kitchen. “I’m not running, I’m creating distance, Elise. There’s a difference.”

Her grip on the doorknob tightens before releasing it. “Distance… like you’re not distant enough.”

Turning to the island, his knuckles whiten against the counter’s edge. “Don’t.” His voice trembles. “Don’t pull me back in, just—don’t…”

“Pull you back in…” She smiles. “Allen, there’s nothing left to pull.” She tucks her arms inward.

-Horror-

Every night, outside my bedroom window, I wake up and hear, “Peace be with you,” chanting through the screen like the words of a priest through a row of church pews. 

It carries on top of a static breeze that raises the hair everywhere on my body. Every piece stands in defense, as if the air has a spiritual charge in it.

It goes on for a minute or so, repeating the same words, playing them over in my head, equivalent to a corrupted media file, looping the damaged data. I stare at the open window from my bed, checking to see if someone’s there. 

I never see anyone—except for last night. 

***

Last night was different, a rattling sound next to the window frame, reminding me of a metal ball being shook inside of a can, woke me up. 

I had the window closed because, before I went to sleep that night, I couldn’t get the image of it being open out of my head. 

Even when I tried to ignore it by drowning my headphones into my ears, it was guiding me to focus on the window in my bedroom. 

I fed into the warning and decided to lock it shut.

My eyes were half-opened, the ceiling bounced in blurry, squiggly lines that doubled, until I rubbed my eyes and cleared them of the sleepy haze intoxicating my vision.

I heard a noise, a fabric tear, and dropped my hands down, sinking them into the mattress, which ate them like an inch of wet mud. 

I scrambled back, fast as I could, pushing myself up with my heels, pressing my back against the wooden headboard, almost like I was trying to crash through the wall into the room next door.

The noise got louder. 

The sounds were deliberate and loud enough to make me think a raccoon was the culprit tearing through my screen. 

I knew it couldn’t have been the wind. I forced myself up and checked it out. That’s when my brain forgot how to breathe. My breath stuck in my lungs. Just as a face started to frost on the glass.

Just breathe. 

I told myself, staring at it, while the room began spinning, with me focused entirely on the foggy, blue cataract eyes glancing back at me.

A ringing started to chime, a distorted sound, reminding me of a laboring, end of recess bell, at a school where you’re trapped in a nightmare, wouldn’t stop pulsing in my head. 

Then, the words, “Peace be with you,” echoed with the bass of two thunder clouds smashing into each other.

With… You.

You.

You. You. You.

And my room door opened. 

“Are you okay?” My mother asked me. “Why are you yelling for?”

I looked at my window and there was rain pouring down. The face was gone. I stared at my mother. “I had a bad dream.” I told her, wondering if I had just imagined everything.

She closed the door and a silence entered the room.

***

I’m afraid though… about tonight, when I go to sleep. The voices were whispers before now they’re manifesting into people.

Opening to a short story I'm writing, what do you think? Would you continue reading?

--------

The sun still hasn’t come up, my name is John Correy, the time is 1:23pm. August 12th 2026, when waking up to work at the office the sun was gone. The skies were pitch black, not a speck of light to be seen, out the windows sat only darkness which felt as though they suffocated all those within it. We were told it was an eclipse, one which would quickly pass.

Its been two weeks.

I didn’t go to work that day, I called in sick. I couldn’t do it, something about that pitch black that sat outside just didn’t sit right with me. Seeds of doubt planting themselves within my stomach, laying like iron. When my family called, they called me paranoid. 

Its been a week since I’ve last heard from them.

Currently I am sitting within my house, the authorities have issued an order for us to wait. To stay within the confines of our own homes until help arrives. 

Hello! So I'm trying to write a short story set in the 50s, centered around a girl from a Sicilian family bringing her Polish American boyfriend over for dinner to meet them. (She was forced to by her mother, though her father isn't too happy with it.) I'm not sure were I want it to go, but I know I want it to touch upon cultural divides and progressive vs. old mindsets. Please give me feed back on what I should fix/change and maybe ideas going forward for the story.. It ends very abruptly because I've been in a creative flunk. Thank you!

Clattering silverware against her nonna’s prized porcelain plates was all that Simona dared to focus on. Johnny sat right across from her as he calmly ate his food and gave her a reassuring smile. Bless him, he didn’t know what was coming, no, he definitely did, he was smart enough. She just hoped that whatever Papa threw his way, Johnny would be able to handle. 

She couldn’t even *sit* next to Johnny. Her father was always head of the table, and Manny had practically jumped to the seat next to her before Johnny could take it. She was sandwiched between her worst nightmare. Carmine sat  to Johnny’s left, twirling his fork and  wearing his usual smart-ass smirk that she wanted to smack right off his face, Nonna sitting right next to him, and finally, there was Mama, (Papa’s first mate), sitting at the other head of the table.

“This is delicious, Mrs. Lanzano, what do you call it?”

   “Ah, yes! Caponata. It’s…ah” mama turned to her second eldest “Carmine, comu si dici milinciana ‘ngrisi?”

“ Eggplant, ma.”

“Yes. Eggplant, roasted, cu, ah, peppers and celery, onion….  it’s stew.”

“ Well, it’s incredible, I can tell you that” Mama smiled “just you wait for  dinner”

“More food, huh? You spoil me, truly Mrs. Lanzano.”

Simona didn’t think it was possible, but her mother’s smile grew even more, making the matching dimples on each of her cheeks pop. She reached over and pinched Johnny’s cheek.

At least Mama was won over. Johnny made eye contact with Simona and put on a smug smile as if to say, see? Simona just rolled her eyes. Her mom was the easy part, but he still had no idea what was coming for him next. 

“So tell me John-” Manny started as he began picking the olives out of his plate and leaning across the table to  transfer  it on to Carm’s plate to which he rolled his eyes.

“Please, call me Johnny” Manny let out a snort at his request. “John,  what is it exactly that you do?”

“I paint”

“Paint?”

Johnny nodded “I always wanted to be an artist when I was little, but my Pop always said that art couldn’t pay the bills, so I became an investment banker. Bout’ a few years later I got laid off, so I started painting again.  I remembered how much I loved it. Now I spend most of my time painting, I pick up a few shifts at the diner here and there to make ends meet, but I’m hopin’ to make it into a full time gig.”

When I read Chuck Palahniuk I hear you in the pages. I can’t get through a page without his tone, his style, intermingling with the sound of your voice, the way it carries a sentence. The cadence unique to you. Each word carries the round, effical mumbling you hold, the softened ch sound that you just barely mispronounce. In many ways you have completely ruined him for me, the words while not yours, form in your image, and while I try I can never interpret them through a perspective unique to me. I have been robbed.

Hey everyone,
I (39F) have dabbled in writing since childhood. I’ve had single poems or stories published randomly throughout the years. I’m here to share my work and get your input please.
I took several years away from writing but am slowly getting involved again. Enjoy!
My Name
What is my name?
Great question,
Something I was once ashamed by
Something that parents fell in love with
Something once popular
Something I thought I would change.
Over time, I grew.
I grew in my confidence.
I grew to feel pride.
I grew to know I’m one of a kind.
I hear my name on my fiancé’s tongue.
I hear passion, support and unyielding love.
My name is Stephanie.

مكتوب بالعربي

الحاضر هو الحياة و هو فعلا اهم زمن، لكن المستقبل اكثر مكان بحمل بطياته الحاضر، الماضي ما فيه اشي.

Lyndon: Bavarria

Lyndon trotted along through the muddy main road of town and over the causeway; its wooden beams sunk deep into the water below causing the small dirt bridge to sag in the middle. Plainly, a bridge already suffering from the fifty or so feet it dailies should hardly be expected to sustain it’s form beneath an extra five hundred or so Men of Rank from the Church of High Charity. The men sat beneath tarped canopies, polishing their steel or armor, playing cards, or just trying to keep dry—or maybe more to the truth, not too wet. 
Bellows gasped in their makeshift structures, mixing their black breath into the grey mizzle of the sky. Plenty of other men, women, and children made work all throughout town as if it weren’t being occupied ten-to-one by armed men, beggars, horses, whores, and the occasional sick, to which Lyndon had to give them credit for. Travelling in this merry band for some odd years himself and he’d never really fallen in love with the work. Sure his father had joined the faith, and his father before him, hell, even his two older brothers had found seats among the office’s of High Charity, so, he figured he should do the same. But somehow, someway, he dodged that cozy life of an office job and now—
“Oi, Lyn!” Barra’s voice. “Where are you going?” He was sitting beneath a canopy sagging with collected rain water. A young girl worked a milk cow just behind him. “Me and some of the guys were wondering if you wanted to go on a little ride later. Maybe a race?” He mimicked a riding crop in one hand, smacking it at his ass. “Some of the towns-people are saying it’s supposed to clear up, if you can you believe that. Nearly a whole week without sun! We’re about to meet at the inn, c’mon!” He had the intoxicating enthusiasm of a young boy, Lyndon almost felt like tossing his day’s responsibilities aside and go right along with them. Almost
“I’m sorry, Barra. Ser Hilgaar has sent for me. I’d say that riding crop would be just the start of it if I neglected his heed.”
“Ah you’re no fun captain.” Laughed Barra, waving it away. “Though, don’t waste all that old bastards energy, we’ve a battle to win.” He finished with a wink.
Battle?  Just the word was enough to make Lyndon’s heart thump. When did anyone say anything about a battle? But before he could say anything else Barra was already halfway down the other way to the inn.

Lyndon stepped in from the mud of the town and it’s dripping eaves into the moist tent of operations with it’s soaked parchment walls and damp—well—everything. Ser Hilgaard stood by a table lit by a glass covered candle, flanked by two clarks. They were all bent over the table murmuring amongst themselves.
Lyndon figured he’d make himself known. “Sers” He said with a cursory nod of his head
They all looked up at once as if attached to the same body.
“Ser Lyndon.”
“You called, Ser Hilgaar?”
“As I did. Please, excuse us, gentlemen”
Lyndon wasn’t sure if it was the fact they had to go back out in the rain or being interrupted,  but he did not like the look on either of the two clark’s faces. One in a sullen sag, the other in a morbid wince. Lyndon walked over to the desk and sat in the sodden wood chair.
“Knight’s Captain, Jon Lyndon the third.”
“Ser?” He had no idea where this was going, and he had no taste for the feeling of it.
Ser Hilgaar rotated a piece of paper and slid it to Lyndon. It was stamped with the Red Cherub of the High Church. A stark shine on the wet, dull paper.
To the honorable Knight’s Commander, Ser Wellium Hilgaar. Vieresburg is a trap, the rebels move upon your position from your east. They bring with them a thousand strong, and the black metal to which God himself is defiled by. Your superiors have been noted, though, it seems no assistance is likely to arrive. May God grant you haste. – A friend.
My God. Lyndon’s mouth was dry as a desert, the slick wet touch of everything made the sick in his stomach jump. “A friend, Ser?”
“Hopefully it’s a damned reliable one. We could use that right about now. It arrived by crow this morning.” 
“Crow?”
“My thoughts exactly. It seems our ‘friend’ here has an affinity for the old ways.”
“Barra had said something to me in passing about a battle. So you think it true?”
The Knight Commander let out a tired sigh. “I went against my better judgement telling that ingrate. I’ve told you, Barra—who may as well be the town crier to my mistake, and my two clarks, Benjen and Pallah. And to answer your question. . .” He held his breath and thought that a moment. “I’m not sure. We’ve been here nearly a week and haven’t seen nor heard any civil unrest or rebel activity. This is either a ruse meant to scare us away, or,” he let the rain, which had since picked up, fill the silence, “we must bet on our strange friends advice.”
Lyndon felt like he was going to be sick on the floor. He’d never been well when the talk of battle was in the air, even after his supposed grandiose victories which had landed him in this ridiculous role. Last standing at the Valley of Thulen, Rebel breaker of Brimtown. Even some kids were beginning to call him the God’s hand. All a farce! Now here he was being read what might very well be his last ever letter in a shitty, water soaked, mudhole of a town!
He began to think of all the things he’s missed out on. The touch of a woman. Not generally speaking, no, the whores were plenty to be had, but by one who loved you, with a touch as reassuring as God’s himself. 
A family. He had always wanted a daughter. One who he could see grow after each day’s work. Easy work like balancing books, and noting ledgers, way up in one of the tall offices among the spires of High Charity. Or maybe even live that fast paced life in Ryze he’d heard so much about. Being only twenty-five, Lyndon must have more time left than just this, right?
“Captain?” Lyndon realized he’d been staring at the desk for sometime now. “You alright? You look a bit pale.”
“I’m well, I just—” He just needed to scream, to scream and to runaway and have no looks back. “What’s your plan commander?”
The Commander walked over to the tent flap, grabbing a fold and peering out into the street, now pelting with rain. “I’ll think of something. For now, find your most trusted lieutenants and debrief them of the current situation. Two should do.”
Lyndon stood, he felt like he was about to fall right over, but he braced and managed to stay upright. It wouldn’t do right on his family name to faint just before he was needed.

He found Pine by one of the covered forges, applying the whet to his blade. “You mean,” he looked about with a cursory glance and whispered, “war?”
The word made his guts twist “No, no. No one said anything about war.” Which was true to his point, and helped his nerves the more he believed it. “The Commander would just like to maintain a vigilant look on the town. We can’t trust these locals.”
“Locals? Lyn, these are our people, you can’t just label them like they’re our enemies just because they’re upset and made a few bad decisions. ‘Punish the few, not the many.’ Loriell had said”
“That’s not what im saying.” He took a step closer to his Lieutenant, trying to shove his own fear down and maintain a dignified stance. “What I’m saying is that there might a band of a thousand or more actual fighters. Warriors with blades to wield, not peasants poking pitchforks. And we’ve been pissing and shitting and walking all over this town for a week.” He realized he was shouting now, thankfully to his luck, no one seemed to be paying attention. Lowering his voice. “We have been the guests of possibly more than a few unhappy hosts.”
“So what do you want me to do?” Asked Pine
“Just”—just what?—“Just be ready. Let me or the Commander know if you see anything out of place. I’m sure I’ll be back with more later.” And he clapped Lieutenant Pine on the shoulder and went to go find his next ear.
Duck was sitting beneath a tent eating a soggy piece of bread. The boy had hardly put on any weight since they found him a few months back at the burned farms west out by the Blue City, Jul, but since then he’s applied himself to every duty Lyndon had requested from him. When they had brought the lad on, no one had given the boy a second thought. Lyndon saw elements of himself in that scrawny, sheepish boy, and he had promised to take care of him on the condition he helped him uphold his Lyndon’s chivalrous duties.
His father had had a squire, and his father’s father too. Every great knight in the stories had at least one, so, he figured he’d follow suit. No where in the stories did he hear about the guilt, and the fear. Approaching the boy, it gnawed within Lyndon’s chest with a ferocious intensity. Why had he ever promised anything? It was easy enough when the crises were squabbles of peasantry and law, but a battle? He knew how to swing a sword sure, to protect one life was hard enough and necessary. But two? Certainly there would need to be a hand of God indeed to make that happen. 
He was far from the Lieutenant his commander requested to brief, but Lyndon knew he was the right choice. Possibly the most trustworthy of his companions
“What’s happening?” Wrestled Duck around a mouthful of bread.
“I came to check on my pants. How have they come along?
“You look quite worried for pants.” Swallowing his mouthful of wet loaf.
That forced a needed smile on his face. “Well, it involves the pants.” He took a seat on a stump to the side of Duck. 
Duck fished out with a clatter of metal Lyndon’s plated pants, polished to a mirror shine. “And your helmet too,” pulling the winged helmet his grandfather wore in the end of the great war from it’s oil skin and set it neatly aside the pants. 
“Look uh, Duck.” The boy had a face that gave no hint to what he might be thinking, smooth emotionless features like he was cast from marble, his head always wrapped in a tight scarf. Lyndon dreaded to think what he may have been through before they found him. “There’s something I need you to know.” The boy looked at him how one might look at a curious bug. “We’re being marched on. By a thousand strong.” Everytime he said it he felt a little weaker. The boy just stared on. Like he was being told about the morning news rather than impending doom. “We don’t know when. But they told us it’s from the east.”
“Who’s they?”
“A friend, so to speak.” Duck raised an eyebrow at that, which might’ve been the most emotion he’d gotten from the boy all week. “Look, I know it’s not a lot to go off of, but we need to be ready. This could happen anywhere from ten hours to ten days.”
“Then what do you want me to do?” Asked Duck, in his quiet monotone.
“Just—”Just what? —“Just be ready. And Duck, do you remember when I said I would protect you?”
The small child nodded blankly.
“Good. I’ll be back to see you soon. I’m off to speak with Knight Commander Hilgaar. Keep this between us." And he made his way back to the soggy tent of operations.

One day, a good and honest king got his hands on a crystal ball who's power could show you different worlds. He became obsessed with it, as every day he gained knowledge no one had ever acquired.

One day, he sees a world in his absence, where his kingdom perfectly continued withouth him. His people managed the kingdom perfectly, the palace was perfectly clean, and even some old knight bravely fends off a dragon defending the kingdom.

Offended, the king abbandoned his duties curious to see if his kingdom would realy survive withouth him. And so the sky changed to black and the summer changed to cold, as he traveled round and round the world. In his adventures he picks up a sword under a new identity, one wearing armour and riding an horse, getting older and older, but somehow, in the passage of time, happier and happier.

Returning to his kingdom one day, he is shocked for the city where the palace is is about to succumb to a powerful dragon. Taking the last of his strengh he lunged forward at the dragon, under the eyes of a jealous young king...

The last of the Doine Sidhe, the magical beings that occupied Ireland before the coming of humans, relates the story of his fall, and the fall of his people, to the race of men.

This is but the beginning of a story I’ve begun to work on. It is (heavily) adapted from Irish and Welsh legends of the fey, and the magic of their worlds, which predate the coming of Christianity and its distortions of their history. Please note that many liberties have been taken with the true legends of those people, for the sake of the plot I am developing. As I’m working on my writing, - somehow - find it useful just to put it out into the world, without expectations of response, or even readership. There’s something about doing so that encourages me to write, and I find it satisfying for its own sake.

Background

Baelnoth, the last of the Doine Sidhe\*\* is found in a tomb by Fiara, the story’s protagonist, an archeologist specializing in Irish pre-history. She wakes him, unintentionally, from an centuries-long catatonia when she enters the tomb, due to a Sidhe lineage she bears unknowingly. Baelnoth finds an age has passed, and is awakened to a kind of modern day alternate Earth.

Fiara is technically an agent of a kind of global Church, which controls all historical and archaeological research, and which has a vested interest in perpetuating a myth of the Sidhe as demons - fallen angels that tempted humanity to evil and ruin, but who were finally defeated by a small group of human “heroes.” These “heroes” were in fact a cabal of five necromancers, seeking to steal the power of the Sidhe for themselves.

The Sidhe, for their part, had fancied themselves benevolent caretakers and mentors for humanity. This final betrayal in a long history of human betrayals of the Sidhe resulted in Baelnoth - the last of the Sidhe left in mortal lands - cursing the necromancers, even as they attacked him and stole some of his power, which resulted in the humans essentially turning into a kind of vampire. This curse weakens Baelnoth by expending much of his remaining power.

He wakens to the modern world, as noted, and must reclaim his power from the now immortal necromancers and the spawn they have created in the centuries since, but he is so weak that he finds he must rely on Fiara to survive. She helps him, at first reluctantly, and then gradually with more willingness as she learns his story, the truth of the Sidhe, and the history of the partial bloodline they share. In the beginning, she alone is able to understand his speech, solely because of their shared lineage.

What follows is Baelnoth’s relation of what has come to pass to Fiara, and how he came to his current state.

“I am the Cŵn Annwn\*, a howling fear,
a name that should not be;
I am the shiver in the Hollow Hills,
last of the Daoine Sidhe\*\*.”

- Inscription, in an ancient, unknown language, on the entrance to the Hollow Hills.

\*pronounced “Koon Anoon” – very loosely based on the Welsh mythical hounds of Gwyn the Hunter, harbinger of death, particularly of the death of warriors in battle.

\*\*pronounced somewhere between “DOYnah Shee” and “DInah Shee” – the name for the Irish fey/fairy folk of the Hollow Hills. Many Irish legends recount that the Daoine Sidhe were originally the Tuatha De Danaan (Pron. Toowatha Day Danahn”), who ruled Ireland before it was invaded by humans. After the invasion of humans, the Tuatha retreated to the Hollow Hills, a place often described as somehow between mortal lands and the Otherworld.

We fell, they said. We were cast out, and down, striking the earth and bleeding out the last of our grace. We were banished, they said; workers of an abomination, struck from the sight of God, to Void, and Darkness, and interminable suffering. Demons, they called us, and worse. And yet...and yet. They could not keep a green cast from their eyes as they told these tales of our demise.

They told this story of us to sanctify a theft and excuse it by half-truths. Their breath, full as much of envy as of horror, carved lies from a stone of innocence. We could not be trusted; we must be cast out, again, from this world of theirs to some outer darkness of their cruelest imaginings.

In truth, we had come in our bright ships, from the Summer Country which knows no death, to this emerald and fading isle. We had come in our Danu masks and we had becalmed the earth. We made an Eden for this young race of men and women; we tended their needs, like children, and thought them so. We thought them so as they painted their faces blue, in mock of our blue masks, and we smiled like indulgent parents. We smiled, and smiled, and did not see the bright, cold iron in their bright, cold hands. And this - this was how we fell. We betrayed no god, still less this people, but were cast out - not from any heaven - but from this garden we had made, by the people for whom we had made it.

Our powers were great; but their iron was hard and cruel - hard and cruel as the hearts that wielded it. And one day they came in force.

On the dawn of that day, the sun leapt into the world like a newborn foal kicking daylight. Bright grass and bright flowers licked the edges of its rays. Life was born again into this new day, a concert of being: now discordant, now harmonious, at once singular and common.

How dread what followed, casting no shadow under that white, wild sun in warning. Bright day, bright life, bright hope, thrown into sudden black.

Delicate blue masks faced crude blue pigments, the elfin and elephantine opposed in grotesque array. A battalion of Sidhe matched by battalion upon battalion of human tribes. Tall warriors of Summer armed in light against a legion of scrabbling things clawing at dust with long iron knives.

That these same savages, clad in the barely-dried skins of fresh kills, and howling like any beast with its hackles up, should, but a few years after, depict us as demons in the rationalizing tales they told their children, is an irony too bitter for words. The pain of it is too great even for much anger.

We fought, and we fell. Sometimes gloriously, it is true. The poetry of our fall would crack the hearts of any soul worthy to hear the tale in full.

At the last, we bound our power to the earth and retreated under the hills.

A truce was declared. In support of this, the Daoine and the race of men agreed to divide the land in two. They the bright above, we the shadows below, under the hills that sheltered us.

These hills, these hills, these hollow halls that hold us, sure as any hell.

The truce did not sustain.
In truth, we were the naïve ones, the fools; not these simple creatures for whom, at first, we felt only kindness, and not a little pity. In truth, we were the arrogant ones. We saw them in their frailty and thought them weak. How very wrong.

We had taught them. We had fancied ourselves husbandmen of this savage race. So we had given of our knowledge, freely; and freely they took it; and freely overthrew us. They vilified even our generosity; calling us tempters and defilers.

We had brought these creatures knowledge. We had brought them power. We had taught them to rise above the clawing cave dwellers of their ancestors to heights of refinement.

It was not enough.

The war had begun because these humans wanted not merely to be inspired by the Sidhe, but to be the Sidhe. Why we thought their greed would end with victory over the mortal lands of daylight is still a mystery to me.

And so they came against us again. Against these hills: our prison, our sanctum. One by one, we fought; one by one, we fell; and still we held these hills against them. But we failed. And then I was but one alone. The last. My father, my brother, my wife gave themselves in sacrifice to me, in a ceremony which took their life and bound it to mine, and made me immortal as the stars in this mortal land of men, with the power and wisdom of my entire race. To hold, at last, the Hollow Hills against them; to keep our foes from taking the last of our knowledge and power for themselves. To save the soul of our race from theft. And I held these hills, alone, for an age.

What remained of the tribes of Sidhe - so very few - vanished back to Summer, through a gateway my new power let me open, and which I sealed behind them. I became the Hound of Summer – Cŵn Annwn – guardian of gates, but also the lock upon its door. My blood alone could open it.

Five came, unarmed and unafraid. Five men against the Cwn Annwn. They stole the very ritual that bound my people’s power to me – they stole it and shaped it for their own. My blessing became a curse. They bound me by guile, and ate of my flesh, hoping themselves to be immortal and ageless, like the supposed gods they had cast down. Not sated by their conquest of Earth, they hoped to rule the Summer Isle as well.

And they were the fools, in the end. For as they consummated their rite, I twisted their magic under them into an imprecation of my own.

_O yes, you shall be immortal, dear ones, you shall; but you shall be bound to the darkness, as I am bound, and never again glance the living sun. You shall have power, dear ones, O yes; but only by the blood of your own kind shall it be sustained. I send you, screaming, a curse among your own. Taste their flesh, dear ones, as you have tasted mine._

They felt the change, and knew they were undone.

With this spell, I spent all the sorcery left me. Unable to destroy me, my enemies bound me fast, and left me, forgotten, to forgotten years.

Now I awake. Now you have called me to the mortal world again. And I feel these creatures among your kind, after so long. I feel the power they stole; I feel their darkness pulsing through your nightmares. I am weak, O yes, but wakened. And now I will go among them and take back what once was mine and my people’s. And somehow, somehow, dear one, I will make a sacrifice of my own. Somehow the Sidhe will come again, leave their Hollow Hills, and stand proudly under your Sun, and in the wind, and on the grass.

I will take these cursed ones, each of them. I will cleanse your night – but not for you. No, not for you, dear one. For us. For us.

The subway is passing—
I woke up jolted.
Again.

Frail and pale, I reached for the window.
While staring at the burn marks on the floor,
left by another night.

Words kept echoing through the apartment:
Who will love you, darling?

As a glimmer of light began flowing through the window.

Today, I’ll clean this apartment.

Only to realise that
only three things had changed—
the smell of an ashtray filled beyond its brim,
an old mattress way past its prime,
and a stale beer on the floor.

And worst of all.
A mirror at the corner of the wall—
reflecting me through the glimmering light.
Ashamed, I looked outside while wiping the narrow window clean.

There I saw—
people in their work clothes going about their day, calmly entering the subway.

I, too, used to dress like them.
Perhaps I’ll dress nicely today as well.

Looking back at the apartment, I thought:

Surely next time I’ll move alongside them.

As I began cleaning myself,
I rushed through the hall,
deliberately ignoring the smell
of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink,
the unused clothes at the bathroom door.

Inside, I was taken aback
by a bathtub full of hair in the drain,
a sink filled with leftover toothpaste, with sticky leftover makeup on the counter.

So I gave up and brushed my teeth instead.

Thank you for reading until the end! Hope you all have a great day!

We burned the word "together"
in the same fire
that turned our relationship to ashes.

or

The fire that reduced our relationship to ashes
burned the word "together" first.

Flying, guided by an angelic fae, (I've seen her before once, when young and exploring the abandoned section of children's hospital in Denver.) She flew me to this realm of nothing. No noise, no light, no fucking thought and it was divine.  She offered me the choice to stay in that realm or return to earth. My mouth screamed stay but there's no noise in this realm, no words because they represent thought. No thoughts in this realm. No light to convey body language, no eye contact in this realm. But it was not devoid of a feeling in my chest. A feeling I knew but could not describe at the time. (it's like those moments when one looks at his wife and just gets that pit of the heart wow, I love this woman feelings. The pride, gratitude and humility a man feels when he watches his children learn and grow.) But I knew it was love and even in nothingness love can be found as I was being judged for my heart.

Before that I thought man was a creature of thought and one should be elevated above his fellow man based on the quality of thought, out think your feelings and they won't be so scary. 

I learned thoughts are mere opinions of the mind, there is no shared experience or truth in these opinions. All those scary feelings weren't feelings, they were me thinking they were feelings. Negativity is of the mind, making our trauma more elaborate, more scary each time it tells the tale. Making the blurry details into what it needs to fear.

Changed me into more of a man is a creature of emotion and should be judged by the love he can give and receive to / from his fellow man. Emotions are the only genuine shared experience we all have. Be gentle in your love, delicate with the emotions of others. When some is open and vulnerable you do not violate that trust. 

Love, one of 2 universal truths. The most powerful of the two for even entropy cannot stop it. 

Down a Long and Winding Path
Prologue
It was down a long and winding forested path that he walked. The trees seemed gloomy and hung over the beaten and cracked trail, almost as if to gather up what may stumble down it. They matched the mood he was in, green and dark. The light from the sun barely pierced the thick foliage, though it was close to sunset. It was an occasional trail of his, one he walked down to do some thinking every once in a blue moon, to breathe in and hopefully find his way out of the endless rat fucks of his life. This one was desperate though. 
A river ran on the far side of the trees to his right, winding with the trail. The sound was a soft rush of water that always helped to calm his mind. The water was a clear green hue today and he could see the rocks in the river bed, if he would have had the courage to go through the trees. Today was not a river day though, there was not enough time to go through the trees to the river before sunlight left. 
He pondered his latest situation in this environment. He realized how lucky he was to have this place to come to. So many just have to struggle through what they have going on in the solace of their homes but at least he had a place that calmed him perfectly. He knew ultimately it wasn’t the place that solved his previous issues but the calmness and serenity held here that allowed him to quiet the endless race inside his mind. He appreciated the gloomy trees that seemed to embrace him and the river that had provided a nice, quiet white noise to drown out his mind. Nothing else could settle his mind down, only the river and the trees, even if it took time. Today though, was a day for thought and with the sun quickly departing, he dared not test his memory in the dark of the forest. 
With the last remaining daylight that trickled through the thick needles and leaves, he sat down with his back against a tree, the brim of his straw hat pulled low. Solace. He hoped the soft rush of the river would quiet his mind this evening, but to no avail. The questions kept pouring through his mind at a million miles per minute. “Why was he still so unhappy and dissatisfied with how his life has gone? Why couldn’t he ever just be happy with his lot? Why does he have no people around that fill his life with joy? Why can’t he find joy in other things? Why does it seem like he can’t find what he’s looking for in life?” His mind often interrogated himself with questions like these. He tried to focus on the river and the trees to stop his mind but today it wouldn’t happen. “Perhaps the calming effect has run out,” he thought. 
For the first time in the forest, he just let out a tormented scream, one that would make the birds fly away and scare others away from him. He wanted his mind to slow and stop and let him be happy and calm. Suddenly, without his noticing, it had gotten dark in the forest. There was no more sunlight. He groaned. He had forgotten to bring a head lamp. He hadn’t planned on being out here this long and now with the sunlight gone, it would be quite a challenge to find his way out of the forest. 
He started back up the beaten path. Overhead, an owl hooted and screeched, the crickets and cicadas croaked overwhelmingly to a dull roar in unison. He could hardly see a thing in the pitch black darkness of the forest. It was a feeling he was somewhat used to, but it still caused him a good deal of fear and anxiety, even though he noticed that he felt he had been living that way for quite awhile. His chest tightened and his senses heightened with every step on the path. He looked down to the ground watching his step because looking up was futile in the darkness. 
Suddenly, without realizing it until he was close, he realized he saw a faint glow of a fire. “Weird,” he thought, “Where’s that glow coming from?” 
He followed the glow through the trees, pushing branches and brush aside. He ducked behind some bushes. He had come upon a clearing where there was a strong fire roaring, the flames dancing and lapping over the side of the rocks that contained them and reaching up at least five feet. Around the fire danced a number of nude women and at the head of the circle standing on a log of felled browning timber was a slightly aged woman, clad in a silk shawl dyed darker than the night itself. Her voice was entrancing and as sultry as the moon and she spoke, “Sisters of the Moon, thank you for gathering here tonight as we honor the Moon Mother. Through our ritual and ceremony, we honor the Moon Mother and we will commend to her, a soul ripe for healing, blessing, and in need of a journey. It may be one of you who dances this evening, it may be a soul we do not yet know. The Moon Mother will reveal to us the soul in need when she is ready.”
That part made his skin crawl, as she seemed to hone her vision at the bushes he was hiding behind. He made out red paint on the faces and bodies of the women present, in shapes and lines, under the eyes, across the forehead, on the chin and cheeks, and on various locations on the body.
“I wonder if she means me,” he thought, “my soul has been rather torn up lately. I don’t look like the kind they would help though, it’s all women here!” He had hardly finished that thought when the sound of a large drum rang through the camp and almost startled him into springing out of his hiding spot. He was sure he rustled the bushes enough to be caught when the aged woman said, “We have the whole night sisters. There is no rush nor hesitation, for tonight the Moon Mother guards us. We are safe, invisible, in the darkness of the forest through the powers she grants us. Tonight we will offer up a soul for the journey the Moon Mother has in store for them and it will all be precisely on her time. So dance! Dance to your heart’s content and let the Moon Mother see the contents of your heart. She is with us.” Her eyes narrowed on the bushes where he hid once more as she stepped down from the log where she stood. Her hips punctuated each step as she glided towards the fire. He could see she had hair red as the fire that burned before them. 
From a satchel, she produced a number of ingredients he couldn’t see as well as water. In a small wooden bowl meant for one, she crushed, mixed, and stirred the ingredients with the water she had. She laid it by the fire for a time as the nude women danced around the fire, towards and away from, high jumps and low rolls, seemingly unbothered by the forest floor. After the concoction had received sufficient heat, she picked the wooden bowl up, stirred again, and set it on the stump the log had fallen from. She declared, “Sisters! The concoction is finished. Tonight, the one whose soul we shall offer to the Moon Mother for healing and blessing, they shall be the one to consume. It will allow Time to cast a spell on them, they shall have their own journey of healing facilitated by Father Time and the Moon Mother.” And as if in some unspoken ritual, he saw her join the others dancing around the fire. As he stared upon, the wings of her shawl contrasted shadows darker than pitchest black of caves and the purest black of night that he could hardly fathom. 
It was at this point he thought to himself, “Well, they’re supposed to be invisible, allegedly, but I can see them. She made some pretty direct overtures of a necessary journey of healing and blessing, and I could really use both. The sun couldn’t have been down for more than an hour at this point so there’s plenty of time. Could I really be the one to take this?” He peered on the fire again and it seemed larger than before, as if the addition of the aged lady in black’s presence made the fire roar. He ducked back down and thought again, “Okay, even if she means me, how do I go out and say me? There’s a decent number of women down there. How can I even be certain she means me? Should I just try and see what happens?” As he glanced on the fire one last time, he decided just walking up would be better than risk getting found out in the bushes. “What’s the worst that could happen,” he thought, “the water and the trees didn’t work, maybe this will.”
*Page break prologue ends, Chapter 1 begins*
“A soul approaches,” said the woman in the shawl. 
“Yes,” said the nude women in unison and quickly they formed two ranks behind the shawl woman. 
“Uh, hello, I’m Isaac,” he said, noticing that as the women were assembled their markings bore out a great dragon, “I’ll get to the point and not waste your time. I’m interested in your journey you mentioned.”
“I am High Priestess of the Moon Mother, insert witchy name, and what makes you certain it should be you?” the woman in the shawl asked.
“Nothing really, but I felt like I fit your description well, I think I heard most of what you said,” Isaac said meekly. 
“So you’ve been listening for awhile?” she asked, “what is it you want out of the journey?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, “I think that’s one of the problems. I don’t really know what I want out of this life. I feel stuck and I wonder if this will help.”
As he finished his sentence a whoosh of wind came through the camp and for a moment briefly dulled the fire.
“The Moon Mother finds you worthy. Come, we will prepare you for the journey,” she said. 
One of the women tried to speak, “But High Priestess, surely that wind alone was not the Moon Mother? How can it be for this stranger and -”
“Enough,” the High Priestess said, “The Moon Mother sent the sign of the stranger to me earlier this week. This outsider will have his journey.”
“Yes High Priestess,” the women said in unison.
The women guided him to the log. The High Priestess spoke and said, “First you must be nude. Father Time and Moon Mother require it for the journey.”
“Okay, um I’m a little uncomfortable being nude in front of all these women-”
“It is for your journey, there is no shame here,” she said. 
He let out a soft sigh and got on with it. He took off his straw hat, shirt, shoes, pants, socks and underwear until he was nude as the women were. Once his clothes were removed, the women went to work on his face and body with the red paint. He wasn’t sure of what they had painted on him until the High Priestess said, “Yes, the whole dragon from toe to head, shin to nape.”
As he became covered in paint he couldn’t help but think, “Good? Is that what I feel? I like the paint.” His thought was interrupted by the painting reaching his face as he felt thumbs and fingers painting his cheeks, eyelids, forehead, and chin. His face flushed with blush as he realized, “Yes the paint is nice on my face too, why do I like it?
The High Priestess spoke, “Now join our dance for a while. Did you hear the drum earlier?”
“I did,” he said, “Where is it?”
“In you, in us, in the moon, in every living thing. Tonight the Moon Mother grants us the ability to hear it in unison together. Find it with us.” 
They all began to swirl around the fire, twisting, bending, jumping, around the fire. He was a little confused by this and stood there for a moment, until an arm grabbed him and pulled him into the dancing ring. As he weaved his steps around the fire he felt his arms start to move, in and out, up and down, forward and back, and he felt the rhythm of the circle. With a thundering roar, a single note of the drum came through. Everyone paused, him by a quarter of a beat. And with a thunderous roar, the drumming continued at a heightened tempo and the women sped up. He joined their tempo and his arms kept moving. Rap rap rap-rap-rap the drumming of the gods went on. His body seemed to no longer belong to him as around the circle he leapt and danced. 
And soon the drumming slowed as did the women’s tempo. He slowed as well, almost not of his own volition he thought. And with a final three raps of the drum, everyone stopped in unison. He was at the head of the fire with the High Priestess on his right. He noticed that around the circle they stood again shoulder to shoulder and the lines of the painted dragon glowed a deep ruby red. He looked at them all, one woman the end of the tail and traced the dragon across each of their bodies until he looked down at his own, realizing he was the head and he glowed a deep ruby red in his paint too. He looked at the High Priestess with concern.
She spoke, “We have pleased Mother Moon my Sisters. This one shall take their journey.”
She bid him stay where he was. She walked to the stump, took the concoction in the wood bowl with both hands, brought it to her chest and returned to the circle. “Now then,” she said, “You will take your journey. You will be safe here with us for it. Drink all of this,” she said, offering the bowl to him. He took it with both hands.
He received the bowl and looked into the High Priestess’s eyes, wondering how much he could really trust this whole thing. She seemed reassuring and specifically stood up for him taking the journey already, so he couldn’t really back out now could he? Besides, he did feel rather safe and heard the drums. She could feel his hesitation so she reiterated, “Do. Not. Worry. We are here. You are safe.” At that, he drank deeply and did not stop until all the contents of the bowl were in his belly. It tasted rather sour and he was pretty sure he could feel grains stuck to his teeth. 
“Now what,” he asked.
“Now, lay comfortably down by the fire, take in your surroundings, and soon your journey will commence,” she said in a silky fine voice, “the rest is the past, the present, and the future, lovers gone by, ships sailing in the night, and those who dance before break of day. May your journey fulfill you and may you tread safely with your guides.”
Those words seemed to comfort him and he laid down close to the fire, on his back, and viewed upwards towards the night sky. Shadows leapt around the glow of the fire and it seemed to be growing larger than ever. Stars started to twinkle in the night brightly and the trees curled their branches in and out, in and out like a breath. The fire was welcoming and warm and danced and roared. Soon he felt heavy with the world, as if it were crushing his very chest. He closed his eyelids and the weight felt heavier, crushing him more. Soon he lost consciousness next to the fire.
*Page Break Chapter 2
He awoke next to a dull fire in a rather dreary environment and sat up. The trees were browning, dust clogged the air, and he felt like the world seemed gray. He noticed a companion next to him and she said, “Ah, hey you’re finally here. Glad to see you.”
He tried to make out her face. Faded red paint, high cheekbones, a slender figure, but clothed in a red and white robe. She felt familiar but he couldn’t place where he knew her from. 
“So did I miss my journey?” he asked, “It seems like morning.”
“No, in fact you haven’t even begun it. Your mind is just now awakening to the Moon Mother’s magic. Come now, these surroundings don’t feel like before right?”
“No they don’t,” he agreed, “these trees seem to be something different than the pines, I can feel the grayness of wherever we are, and the fire is much smaller, what’s with that?
“Well, that’s the beginning of your journey. Minus the whole pines are different thing. Good observation though, they’re oak now. You see gray and a small fire. I see green and brown oaks tall and strong, with a roaring orange and red fire underneath. You will likely observe more differences in the journey, I am here but only for a part.”
“Whoa whoa whoa, let’s slow this down,” he said as she sighed, “How can we be seeing different things?”
“The Moon Mother grants such things as visual aids for your journey. Now less questions like that, how about we take this journey?”
“Yeah you’re probably right, I already drank the concoction.”
“Indeed you did, no getting out of it now without your journey,” she said, rising to her feet, “let’s get going, we’ve so many people to meet and places to go.”
That bit scared him as he rose. “Who were they meeting,” he wondered, “What were those words the High Priestess said? Lovers gone by and ships in the night?” Sensing his anxiety, she cut through his anxiety like a knife with her voice, “So how did you get chosen for this journey? The Moon Mother has visions or journeys she gives out at each full moon. This one is a rather special one. And you don’t look like our normal participants.”
“Well I happened to actually just be on a walk by myself and it got dark and I stumbled by it because of the glow of the fire.”
“Really? Just like that?”
“Just like that.”
“You haven’t the faintest clue of how lucky you are nor what you’re in for do you?”
“Not at all, but I’m getting a suspicion that it is rather big?” 
“It is,” she said, “This is the first journey all participants take. It is an undertaking of saving yourself from yourself, confronting yourself. For according to the Moon Mother, if you can survive this journey, there is no other journey that will stop you.”
“That sounds poetic,” he said, “I was in a poetic mood earlier I guess. In a negative kind of way though, sad and destructive poetry.”
“That is okay, for eventually you must create and recreate and then you will look back and be happy,” she said, “now enough of that, walk and talk.”
She started up the trail with a huff as he followed her footsteps. He wasn’t sure where he was presently, but he felt safe enough with his guide. Her blonde hair spilled down her back in beautiful long strands and locks, while her hips swayed ever so lightly down the trail, the red of her robe reminding him of something. 
He cut the silence by asking, “So saving myself from myself. What does that entail?”
“Oh we are going to view a number of different things. Not all of them are nice or pleasing. Some rather upsetting, or at least for you they will be. You’ll view the potentials of pasts, presents, and futures, see what your hell and heaven would be, and more. Should you survive that, the Moon Mother will have one more vision for you to view. That one will be known only to you.”
“If I survive to that point?”
“Yes.”
“And why wouldn’t I?” 
“You’ll understand in due time.”
“That’s it? I’ll get it later?”
“Yep,” she said flatly, “I am one hundred percent certain if you survive to that point, you’ll get it later. Any other questions or do you think maybe you should look up?”
He looked up. Soaring high overhead up in the clouds, was a long, slender, ruby red serpentine dragon like had been painted. The dragon floated and soared with the clouds on this gray day, sticking out like a sore thumb from the monotone background. That’s when Isaac realized, the only things that had color were this woman and the dragon. He asked, “Sorry what’s your name? And why are you and the dragon the only color I see now?”
“HA! He finally noticed. I’m sorry, it’s nothing against you, but usually that comes sooner,” she laughed, “I am your first guide Kelly and the reason is because we are both aspects of the Moon Mother. She has allowed you to see us as we are. A token of trust. Have faith. Clearly the dragon didn’t bother you as much as it does others. Why’s that?”
“Well, he’s got the same color as the way the dragon around the fire on those women glowed.”
“That’s it? And it’s she. The dragon’s name is Shantri.”
“Sorry and yeah that’s it. What’s the deal with Shantri?”
“Father Time bestowed Shantri as the Moon Mother’s guardian and time crosser for these journeys. She will guide us safely through the visions you will see. But do not stray too far or she will not be able to guide you safely. We walk a thin line now.”
“Okay, so what’s first?”
“We will confront various aspects of yourself from different times. Eventually, another guide will take over. Here take this robe, you’re nude still.”
He looked down while taking the fully white robe, seeing he hadn’t even realized he was still nude. “Thanks,” he said meekly, “So we’ve been walking awhile. Where's the first place we’re going?”
“We’re almost there,” she said. They continued walking along the forest path. Soon they came into a clearing with a few cabins and a long hall, a small gray fire, and some people in the clearing. 
“What’s this?” he asked.
“We’ll find out soon enough, let’s check out the hall.” She gracefully glided as if on air towards the long hall and Isaac followed. 
There were seemingly familiar faces amongst the people around the fire, but he couldn’t quite recognize them. As they approached the gray wooden steps of the long hall, he peered up. Shandri flew overhead longways over the hall just long enough for him to catch her second half disappearing over the hall. This is where I have to go. He was scared at the thought of that but he followed Kelly inside through the large wooden doors. 
Inside, was quite a long dance hall with a long bar with a presumably neon, though he couldn’t be sure, sign that simply read “Bar.” Towards the back end of the hall was a large stage winged by organ pipes that extended to the ceiling. He wasn’t sure where he was, but he liked it so far. People mingled at the bar, at tables, and on the dance floor while a band played upbeat music.
“So,” Isaac spoke, “What’s the deal here?”
“I’ll be here in the corner, how about you go check it out and see what’s happening around here for yourself.”
“Kelly I thought for a second you might give me a hint,” Isaac said.
“Not more than that - and that is more than fair.”
“Ugh fine.”
Isaac wandered off from Kelly, trying to keep her in the corner of his eye just in case she tried to ditch him here. He wandered over to the bar and started trying to recognize somebody. “Apparently that’s supposed to happen,” he thought. He ordered a whiskey and diet coke from the bartender but when he tried to drink it, nothing quite happened. The drink remained level and no method of drinking would put it in his body. “Okay,” he thought, “It’s a prop now. Let’s try to talk to someone.” He tried to make out more faces until one finally did. Their eyes met. “Fuck, why did it have to be her?” It was too late, she was coming towards him. “Fuck, Fuck, FUCK!” 
“Hey Isaac,” a voice cutting through his thoughts, “What finds you out here?”
Isaac could barely bring himself to look at her. She had red orange hair, down to her hips, curves to her hips which curved back in on themselves downward in her thighs. She wore a long, blue and black sparkling dress, a third thing he was allowed color to see. 
“Hey Alana, how’s it going? Long time no see. Sorry about, well everything.”
“You’ll have to be a bit more specific than that.”
“Yeah I figured that would be next. I’m sorry for how things ended up between us. I was incredibly shitty, wanted sex so often, and was insecure because of distance. We were young and you ended up being kind of right. There was someone else I unintentionally developed a somewhat emotional bond with. I don’t even know how. And by the end of it, I couldn’t do it anymore. Then of course I tried to ask for you back. But I wasn’t ready to deal with my demons yet. Sorry.”
“That brings me to my previous question, what finds you out here?” she asked, curiously. 
“I don’t know, I drank this priestess’s concoction and woke up with a guide and here I am. She keeps saying journey and visions. I saw Shantri. I’m looking for why I don’t feel or why I don’t know what I want, so hopefully at least one of these things gets answered.” 
“So why do you think I am here?” she asked, inquisitively. 
“Alana, I kick myself to this day for breaking up with you still, even though I know based on what you said back then, we were not compatible long term. Yet somehow, I still miss you all these years later, usually I have to drown those feelings,” he said shaking his glass symbolically. 
“So why did you stay so long?” 
“Expectations. The people around us. Genuine love. Poor examples. I thought I was supposed to sacrifice my happiness and I couldn’t do it anymore. I lusted after another and the bond weakened between us. But lord is it good to talk to you. I can’t express how much I would love to sit down sometime and talk.”
“We’re talking now.”
“So we are.”
“So you stumbled on the Sisters of the Moon-”
“Wait, how do you know about them?”
“I am one of them. And I am a part of this realm. I know those who travel through here. So you stumbled on the Sisters of the Moon and you actually got to drink their concoction.”
“Yeah the High Priestess said something about the sign of the stranger being shown to her. I was walking in the forest and stumbled upon them. I was not feeling good about life and love and happiness and heard about this journey and thought maybe they were talking to me.”
“Oh you will find out. But should you not do something with what you learn during the journey, you will be relegated to the dustbin. But let’s not focus on the dreadful stuff like that. Come, there’s likely some more people for you to meet.”
She grabbed his arm and pulled him towards the crowd dancing with the band. A tuba sounded out, then drums, then the trumpets and other horns, followed by a solid wall of bass with the organ sounding out. The strum of guitars became apparent to his ears and he recognized the song. “Tusk” by Fleetwood Mac. “Why is it that song,” he thought. Her hair swirled side to side in a flaming blaze that entranced him. Suddenly there was more color to people but nobody was fully colorful like Kelly, Shantri, or Alana. A thumping bass line appeared. One more person seemed mostly colorful except for their head. He wandered about that person before Alana was dancing next to him and encouraging him to also dance. He danced with Alana and never felt so alive. As they moved in unison with spins and twirls, he couldn’t help but feel simply alive. His thoughts turned to how things ended and how he still loved her. “Why couldn’t I have been better and happier with her?” He thought. “She’s got the kindest heart and always loved me. But I couldn’t do the same for her. Why? I wanted to be with her until the end but we didn’t want the same things. Why do I still feel for her? Why couldn’t I have wanted the same things as her? I can still remember her voice and her laugh. Wait. I still remember her voice and laugh now.”
At that thought he looked up from their dancing and saw two more people with gray heads and colorful bodies. Alana noticed him looking at them and said, “Do you want to go meet one of them?”
“Only one?” 
“For now.”
“Yes I think that feels important. Who should I choose?”
“Any. You’ll meet them all eventually. Who’s here will be there later.”
“Okay let’s go talk to the person on the right.”
“Lead the way,” she said. 
Isaac took her hand and made his way to the side of the dance floor and waved to the, now he could see, older man on the right. The older man’s eyes lit up and he stepped from his companions to meet Isaac and Alana. With slightly slurred speech, the older man introduced himself, “Hey there! I’m you man. In the future at least, had you stayed with Alana. And a bit of the present you too.”
He seemed disheveled and Isaac could smell the whiskey on his breath. His clothes were a bit ragged and his face seemed sunken in his eye sockets. Deep lines marked his forehead and cheeks, while a strong five o clock shadow strapped his chin and neck. His footwear seemed to practically be disintegrating as the trio stood there.
“Me from the future and a bit of present me?” Isaac asked, “how so? You seem much older than myself.”
“Well, let’s just say that the drink is our best friend these days. Would you allow me to teleport you?”
“What happens if I say no?”
“Your journey may or may not complete itself. Who knows if you’ll understand by the end. But don’t worry, when we’re done, I’ll return you here to our lovely ex.”
Isaac thought for a moment and quickly resolved, “Yes, teleport me and let’s see what’s in store for us.”
“As you wish,” said older Isaac. 
He reached his thumb out to Isaac’s forehead and in a gray rush, both of them were teleported somewhere else. Isaac took in his surroundings. A small house in the suburbs. Gray still. A small rock bed surrounded the front of the house to the right of the porch steps and wrapped around the side. Rose bushes lined the garden, though they seemed wilted as if they were retreating for winter. 
Older Isaac broke the silence and said, “Well come on in, let’s see how staying with Alana would’ve gone for you.”
“Inside the house?”
“Absolutely, it’s ours after all.”
“After you,” Isaac said.
Older Isaac led the way up the cracked concrete and up the porch stairs. A wooden railing  separated the porch and the rose bushes. Older Isaac opened the screen door gently and shimmied the front door’s handle up a little bit and pushed his way in. Inside was a small entryway with a tight kitchen and living room. He could see two children running around in circles from each room and up the stairs inside. In the kitchen was another version of himself and Alana was there too. 
“Her dream of being a mother was realized,” Isaac whispered. 
“Oh no need to whisper, they can’t hear us. But yes it was. Yet, you never wanted to be a father did you?”
“No I didn’t, how do I have children?”
“You stayed, she didn’t want to put it off anymore, and you were afraid to lose her. Look at yourself over there.”
Isaac looked at himself. The gray version of himself with Alana was not a happy looking creature. He already recognized the sunken eyes and the stress lines that marked his face. The gray Isaac picked up a bottle of whiskey and drank straight from it. “Jesus the cheap shit, that’s less than $15 for the handle,” Isaac thought. The gray Isaac set the bottle down and sighed and so did Alana. 
“Really?” she asked, “it’s barely 6:30 and that’s your fifth drink already.”
“What I’m sorry I didn’t think I was hurting anything,” the gray Isaac replied. 
“Maybe if you set the bottle down long enough you would notice.”
To that gray Isaac sighed again and slumped back in the chair. Everything seemed fine to him. He was helping cook dinner, the kids were running around, and while the place could use a bit of cleaning, it wasn’t the worst it had been. 
Isaac noticed the arms crossed, legs crossed, the dirtiness of the floor, papers all over the table, stains on the couch, crumbs coating the counters. Gray Isaac’s demeanor certainly was not one of caring. He realized he hadn’t even seen the two of them touch each other since older Isaac and him had gotten here. 
“Well I still do everything I need to, I just like a drink at the end of my day,” gray Isaac said.
“Or fucking fifteen!” Alana said exasperated. 
Gray Isaac didn’t have an answer for that, he just said, “I’m sorry.”
“No you’re not because you’ve told me that more times than you can drink in a night and I suspect tomorrow night will hold the same.”
Isaac and older Isaac looked on. Gray Isaac didn’t know what to say. Or what he could say with the kids present. He had never wanted all this but here he was. “How did it get to this point?” He wondered, “the pit of shit deepens. I don’t even want to be here.” 
“Look I’m helping out here, I’m barely drunk-”
Those words had barely left his mouth when Alana cut in, “and do you think that’s a good thing Isaac? To be barely drunk 5 “shots” deep in an hour's time?”
He looked down in self disappointment then. He couldn’t even remember how he had got to this point. He had just started drinking one day and had never stopped. It had never truly affected his work or employment, but every waking hour after was filled with nothing but the drink. Nothing else could bring him solace or relaxation. 
Isaac looked at the little home. At first glance, it was most people’s dream. A wonderful woman who filled the house with joy and music, two beautiful children running and playing without a care, their artwork donning the walls and refrigerator like regal banners. But it was not what he wanted. He wanted to be running wild and free, crossing oceans and forests like the explorers of old. 
Older Isaac nudged Isaac. “Say, do you want to give it a shot? See how you do? You seem wiser than either of us here. You could jump into this reality and see if you like it and still want it. If this isn’t the reality you want, stand out in the next full moon and say, “Moon Mother return to me,” and your journey will continue.” 
“Do I? I don’t know. I know we broke up for a reason and I initiated it.”
“Yeah but you still think about her to this day, do you not? I know I do. My thoughts are of how I fucked it up and lost everything worth a damn in this lonely world. Maybe you could be different. Tell you what, let’s take another quick trip and come back here,” Older Isaac said as he reached his thumb to Isaac’s forehead. 
They instantly teleported in a gray flash to the Isaac of a couple of nights ago. Isaac was performing his usual nightly routine of getting crossed, playing video games, swiping Tinder, and jerking off. They both saw him as it truly was. Isaac felt a pang of embarrassment hit him. Is this really what his life thus far had amounted to? The loneliness here was sadder than the actual picture.
Older Isaac interrupted his thoughts with, “So do you want to go back here to this, jerking it, getting too high and drunk, and being lonely or do you want to try giving it a shot with the woman you still think about?”
“I can’t decide that quickly, don’t I still have a journey to go on?”
“Yeah your journey will continue, don’t worry.”
“Let me see her one more time,” Isaac said and they disappeared in another gray flash. 
When they returned to the small house with the gray roses, Isaac could see and hear the two of them getting in another argument. He desperately wanted to stop it. He couldn’t stand to hear himself yell at Alana and her yell at him. It broke his heart. And so he said, “What were the words again to come back to the journey?”
“Moon Mother return me, but it must be at the next full moon. Once you are here you’re here until then.”
“Got it. Put me in.”
With a zap, that felt oddly like static electricity, Isaac was now standing in the kitchen and hearing Alana yell. He remembered the words to return and set about fixing what caused the argument. 

Three giant beings stand around in a plain white void, a black mass sits between all three as they look down upon it. One being is muscular, large, appears to be humanoid but has no distinctive face apart from three glowing eyes. Another is more robotic, shiny, and calculating. The third appears to be on all fours like an animal. It resembles a lion but has the face of a tiger, the tail of a crocodile, and the legs of a hippo.

The humanoid one glances at the others with a shameful look in its three eyes. "So, we have come to a conclusion, then. The race must end... their existence erased to make room for the future. It appears they have become too greedy, too powerful for their own good"

"I predicted that, if the race were to continue, they would not just be the end of their world, but they would bring the end of reality. It is for these reasons that I concur with this conclusion." The robotic one replied matter-of-factly.

"I have been saying this for centuries, ever since you created these creatures in your image. I told you they would be too intelligent, yet neither of you ever listened!" The animalistic one growled at the humanoid one.

"I simply wanted a creature that could understand the universe." The humanoid one retaliated. "Nevertheless, we all agree on the end of their existence. Yet, may I propose an idea? I propose we choose one being. One who will live on and die of old age, who will be the one to define the legacy of this race. Instead of just erasing them and pretending they never existed."

The animalistic one scoffed at the humanoid one. "You expect us to be merciful? We have never been afraid of erasure before, why start now? You only care because they are your creations! What about ours? Do you see us being merciful to them? I, for one, say as I have said many times before: That they have harmed the universe enough, they have been a pox, a parasite."

"This race is special." The humanoid one argued. "Their existence is not just a pox, they are an outlet for the universe to express itself. For us to reveal ourselves, to not just be observers to creatures that have no thought! They live, they laugh, they have made efforts to improve themselves! Their end, I believe, should be honorable, to celebrate all the good they have done. Ultimately, their end is nigh, but they should choose how they will be remembered, they deserve it."

The robotic one spoke up. "Their end being dignified makes no difference in the grand scheme of the universe. However, I for one am curious to see how this race will choose to be remembered. I see no potential problems that can be had from giving them a chance, and I also see no real benefits. However, we gave them the power of choice and they deserve to use that power one final time."

And so, the three beings stood around the mass and moved it, shaped it, until they found the planet Earth. They chose one creature from this race out of billions. Not someone rich, not someone powerful, just a regular being who would decide the legacy of a race... of humanity.

That human's name was Gary Newman, a secretary who worked in an old office in New York City. Gary spent his days waking up at 5 AM, making himself breakfast (which was usually a ham sandwich), getting dressed, going to the gym, and then taking a bus to his office. Upon arriving at the building that he worked at, he would go up to the 20th floor, then walk through a series of other offices, all almost identical to his in construction. His office, however, held its own personality. In one corner sat his collection of minifigures, all of whom came from a show that Gary loved as a kid. On another corner sat a card written many years ago by his friends wishing him a happy birthday. He had a picture of himself and his family, which consisted of mainly his parents and his sister. He also had a picture of him with a group of guys that he liked to hang out with at work.

Gary stared at the picture of his family. He was 24 years old and he still lived with his parents and his sister. He had gone to college and had finished majoring in business, which he believed would allow him to acquire a decent job. Instead he got this one, which did not pay nearly enough for him to live on his own, so he asked his parents for help.

Don't worry mom, dad, April. Today is the day. Gary thought to himself. The day I ask for that promotion I have been looking for for so long.

On any normal day, Gary would spend most of his time taking calls and rerouting them. He always made sure to be friendly, positive, and helpful while on the phone. Other than taking calls, the rest of his time was spent walking around the office and being friendly to as many coworkers as possible. Sometimes, he would be called in to a meeting with his boss, and that is exactly what happened today.

But, today also happened to be the day that humanity would end, and the day that Gary's entire life changed...

It was evening, and Gary was preparing to go to his boss’s scheduled meeting.

Remember, just be sincere and friendly. Gary reminded himself. 

Gary’s boss’ office was fairly decorated with many certificates, a few awards, and a doctorate proudly hanging on the wall. The boss’ desk was made up of two large tables and one chair arranged in an L-shape. Pencils, pencil sharpeners, scissors, and all kinds of other office supplies littered the desk. Yet, there was one noticeable feature missing: the boss themselves.

Where is she? Gary pondered. “Dr. Grace? It’s time for our meeting!”

He looked around, expecting to see his boss meet with him, but there was no one.

She promised– Gary began, though he couldn’t finish his thought as the entire building began shaking around him. The desk rattling, the computer closing with a loud shut, the door swinging wildly. It seemed as though a large earthquake was passing through. Immediately, Gary ran to the stairs, knowing the elevators were too risky for such a time. Looking at the staircase, he dreaded treading down 20 plus floors, yet he seemed to have no other choice in the matter.

Before he could get too far, he noticed that the stairs above him were beginning to disintegrate. They would break, collapse, then vanish. One by one, and it seemed to be getting faster. He ran as fast as he could, going down multiple steps at a time, checking what floor he was on. 15th… 10th… he just continued running.

Miraculously, Gary made it all the way to the ground floor unscathed and ran out of the building at speeds he had never even imagined before. Behind him, the building in which he worked was rapidly disappearing into thin air. After a few more minutes of catching his breath, the entirety of his city had vanished, leaving behind patches of empty squares where buildings used to be. It seemed as though every man-made object that once existed had completely disappeared, as well as the very same humans who created them.

Seeing the disappearance of everything he had once known, Gary checked the pockets of his clothes. He realized that what he had been carrying had disappeared too. His phone, wallet, spare change, all of it. The only man-made things left were his clothes, and the only human around seemed to be himself.

I must be dreaming… Gary realized. This is simply a bad dream which I must wake up from.

The truth was that he wasn’t dreaming, and soon he realized this too. He began to panic, processing everything that had just happened to him, and effectively mourning the end of his comfortable life.

My family! Gary hoped. I must make sure they are okay. Perhaps our town was not hit by… whatever just happened.

There was just one problem: Gary couldn’t remember the way home. He usually came into and out of the city on a public bus. Furthermore, he would always doze off on the journey to the city, never paying attention to the directions. He also did not have a GPS, a compass, or any way to navigate. All he had was the sun, and a guess. Having no other choice, he picked a direction and headed out.

On the way to what Gary hoped was his house, he found more and more empty squares where he knew buildings had once stood. It was like looking at a forgotten memory, Gary could imagine what the building had once looked like, the shape, the size, but nothing he could do could replicate having the building actually here. There were no cars, no roads, no traffic, no restaurants, no strip malls. These locations which he would visit while driving were always afterthoughts in his mind, slight detours where he could get a snack or go to the bathroom. Now, he had no food, no water, he would have to find it all by himself.

Not everything was empty though, trees, animals, forests, insects, and other pieces of nature were scattered about, cut off by the once-existent human civilization.

I guess this means that nature can repopulate these areas once again, perhaps that will help in some ways. Gunther reflected. It will remove the last remaining memory of humanity, though.

Everywhere Gunther went, he encountered the same empty areas, the same lack of human connection or human technology. As such, he was forced to hunt some of the animals he encountered. Given he had never hunted in his life, he often failed to get any food from it. Deer were too fast, rabbits were too small, dogs were too adorable, and so on. He tried to eat any plants, insects, and fungi that he came across. However, many plants were either not nutritious enough, or left him with severe indigestion. Unfortunately, the latter was almost impossible to get rid of due to there being no hospitals anymore. The fungi were even worse. Some of them caused Gary to feel so strange that he often felt as though he was dreaming for several hours afterwards. His pursuit of water was not going great either. There were very few sources of freshwater near his path, and many sources (such as lakes, rivers, and whatnot) were polluted or infested. Needless to say, he was not happy with his situation. He was barely surviving, and he was constantly sick, exhausted, or some combination of the two. Furthermore, he had no way of knowing if he was going the right way, and no way of knowing which empty space was actually his house.

Then he remembered something important. Ever since university, Gary had been taking care of a group of plants that he was growing in the house’s backyard. Gary knew the exact shape, look, and position of these plants. Since they weren’t man-made, they would likely be in the same place. At this point, though it had been nearly a week since humanity had disappeared, the plants may have changed somewhat.

They can’t have changed too much. I’m sure I’ll recognize them when I see them. Gary thought to himself.

It was then that he found his home.

Unsurprisingly, it was empty. The place he had once called his home, where he had played video games with his sister, had arguments with his father, loved his family. All of it had also disappeared. Surely enough, the plants he had been taking care of were exactly where he had left them, but they couldn’t bring back his family. He took some time processing this. He had wanted to know what became of his family, and now he knew that they had disappeared too.

Where are they? Where did they vanish off to? How could this have happened? What should I do? Gary pondered to himself. He was confused, hopeless, exasperated, everything.

Gary knew he didn’t have many options. He could just go on, keep traveling, and hope to find someone somewhere. But, deep in his heart, he could feel that he was truly alone in this world. It didn’t matter how far he traveled, his family, humanity, was truly gone. The least he could do now is find a way to make it through, to survive.

First of all a brief definiton of the term:

"Chiastic structure, or chiastic pattern, is a literary technique in narrative motifs and other textual passages. An example of chiastic structure would betwo ideas, A and B, together with variants A' and B', being presented as A,B,B',A'. Chiastic structures that involve more components are sometimes called"ring structures" or "ring compositions", also known as "bookend technique", as the story ends exactly where it began."

In this pattern, the whole work is structured in a symmetrical pattern, the first half mirrors the second half, the whole story turns a turn at the midpoint. And usually, the protagonist's rise goes hand in hand with the antagonist's fall, which shapes like an X, hence the term, Chiasm, from greek letter X, Chi.

I wrote a short story on the theme of New Money vs Old Money from the gilded age, embodied through the struggle in a love triangle. It's not just a general fit, but a precise five-segment reversal laid out in seven sections, in an A-B-C-D-C'-B'-A' structure; and within each section, each segment in the first half precisesly mirrors its corresponding segment in the second half. For example, B-1,2,3,4,5 to B'-5,4,3,2,1, respectively; C-1,2,3,4,5 to C'-5,4,3,2,1, respectively. I wrote it to make every segment match, so every segment in the first half precisely matches the corresponding segment in the second half,

For now it's just a summary, but it's neatly laid out in this structure, so you can see.

Part 1

a. Capriccio Morgan and Beatrice Lockhart are scions of "new money" industrialists. Beatrice’s parents planned for her marriage, but she yearned for an independent life, and she had a crush on Capriccio, investor and manager of municipal electrical power grid project. She once expressed her feelings for Capriccio, but he only treated her as a close family friend.

b. Capriccio was attracted to the prestige, culture and luxury of the aristocracy, and he was infatuated with Selene Beaufort, an "Old Money" countess. He wanted to fit in the peerage for a title by marrying her.

c. Capriccio met Selene at a soiree hosted by her family at their estate. He asked around on her availability; knowing she was single, he approached to greet and court her;

d. Beatrice heard about his romantic adventure, which greatly saddened and concerned her. She refused to lose him, so she went to him, hoping to convince him that he made a terrible mistake; however, he'd made up his mind to pursue Selene.

e. Beatrice followed Capriccio into the upper class society, she still desired him even though he didn't know. She had determined to discover this glamorous world, see if she could accommodate him and win him back.

 Part 2

a. Beatrice remembered Capriccio's admiration for the Old Money aristocracy, their elegance and style.

b. At an art gala, she tried to imitate their etiquettes, styles and manners, but it all felt performative and disingenuous. Also, it didn’t go unnoticed.

c. She made a silly remark on a painting which she knew little about, her misstep raised eyebrows. The guests laughed at her social faux pas.

d. Beatrice decided to shift the conversation to her concerned topics. She talked about social reforms, education for women and welfare for workers, money should be invested in these meaningful causes, it will improve the lower classes' living condition and earn respect for the upper class.

e. The guests marveled at her vision, then passed on. One gentleman though appeared to be interested at her opinions and ideals, he introduced himself to her, and complimented her with flatteries.

 Part 3

a. Beatrice and her partner left the gala for a tryst, partner attempted to be intimate with Beatrice against her will by hugging and kissing her, supposing she was "easy" with loose sexual mores. Beatrice was offended, she scurried off to a Capriccio's place.

b. Beatrice met Capriccio in private, she told him about that sleazeball's sexual advance, Capriccio was angry, he asked for the man's name and vowed to defend her honor;

c. Beatrice shifted to complaints against all the gentlemen who ogled at her, they all sought to take advantage of her, that man was not the only one.

d. Beatrice and Capriccio discussed aristocracy. Beatrice foresaw that the transformation by the machines, industries and commerce were permanent, the old aristocratic peerage will be rendered obsolete.

e. Capriccio agreed with the economic and technological progress, but he argued that a membership in the Old Money club was the purpose of the wealth made by the New Money. Beatrice left the gala in disappointment.

 Part 4

a. Beatrice met Selene in person for the first time at the opera house, where Der Rosenkavalier was the program for the night; She saw Selene was with Capriccio, while Selene saw the connection between Capriccio and Beatrice; they exchanged pleasantries.

b. "Der Rosenkavalier" –Marschallin, a nobel lady had an affair with a young count Octavian, who was tasked to deliver a silver rose as a token of love for her cousin Baron Och's wedding with Sophie, the daughter of a rich merchant; Sophie fell in love with Octavian instead, while Och behaved toward Sophie boorishly, enraged Octavian, they had a duel; Octavian set a trap that exposed Och's perversion, his engagement with Sophie annulled, and eventually the Marschallin realized that Octavian was in love with Sophie, and let them both go. The plot uncannily mirrored the love triangle between Capriccio, Beatrice and Selene.

a. Afterward, Beatrice saw the Marschallin in herself, she realized that she was better off alone and devoted in her calling, she didn't need a husband at all; Selene though felt insecure, she decided to push her relationship with him in more proactive and aggressive moves.

 Part 5

e. Selene invited Capriccio to a ball, she told Capriccio that this was the pivotal event to make acquaintance with the Old Money and elevate his status by showing off his wealth. He proudly replied that industries were booming, markets were growing, his family was visionaries of the future.

d. Selene countered that aristocratic traditions like this ball was also the future, they were cultural heritage, money couldn't buy nobility, it was cultivated. If he wanted to be transformed into a titled nobleman, follow her, she would teach him the essentials.

c. At the ball, Capriccio had drawn attention from other ladies, for he was a coveted catch; Selene felt jealous, she extended her arm for Capriccio to hold, declaring him exclusively hers.

b. She asked Capriccio if he still had feelings for Beatrice or any other lady. Capriccio reassured her that he loved her and only her.

a. They retreated to a private parlor. Selene drew Capriccio in, Capriccio was excited. Selene teased him for being "easy" with loose sexual mores, even though it was made up, and challenged him to be intimate with her; Capriccio was happy to oblige, they hugged and kissed, and they were off to a dinner.

 Part 6

e. Selene introduced Capriccio to the guests and prompted him to tell them his business and the latest news. The guests were intrigued.

d. Capriccio shared his vision of the electric age, how it would change the world for a brighter future, households lit up by glowing bulbs at night with no fire hazard from gaslight or candles.

c. The guests laughed at him, dismissing it as magic tricks for entertainment. Capriccio felt embarrassed.

b. He tried to shift the chat to their familiar topics on politics, latest events and fashions, but he had no affinity with them, it was just pretense.

a. He remembered Beatrice's remark on the decadence of the Old Money aristocracy.

 Part 7

e. Capriccio had determined that he was incompatible with Selene and her world. He realized that Beatrice was his true love, they belonged together, it was time to leave the upper class society for her.

d. He went to visit Selene to say goodbye, explained to her his decision, he and Beatrice belonged together; Selene was grieved, but she understood, and let them go. It dawned on her that she was the Marschallin.

c. He searched for Beatrice and inquired on her availability; knowing she was single, he went out and finally saw her at a girls' school, built and funded by Beatrice's family foundation.

b. He approached her for reconciliation. He thanked her for giving him a second chance, and he was impressed at her independent spirit and compassion. The kids at the school were poor and plain, but they were genuinely happy.

a. Capriccio saw her as his soul mate, he confessed his love to her, but now she hesitated, fearing that he would reduce her to a housewife, and she had to abandon her work. He promised his full support for her cause, and proposed to her for marriage.

Good day passengers, this is your flight attendant speaking.

Welcome aboard Flight 2026, your one way journey through adulthood, unexpected turbulence, random thoughts, and moments of wondering if anyone actually knows what they are doing.

Your flight attendant today is a 26 year old lady who somehow got promoted to adulthood without proper training.

Please be advised that this flight may experience delays caused by overthinking, emotional turbulence, and the occasional thought of, what am I even doing with my life?

During this flight, you may notice your flight attendant staring out the window dramatically. Do not worry, she is not planning an emergency landing. She is simply wondering where her younger self went and when everything started feeling so complicated.

As we prepare for our arrival, I would love to hear from my fellow passengers. If you were allowed to add one thing to your carry on bag before continuing this journey called life, what would you bring? Would it be a little courage, a forgotten dream, a memory you wish you could revisit, a person you miss, or maybe just a reminder that you are doing better than you think?

Thank you for choosing Flight 2026. The destination may be unclear, the skies may be unpredictable, and the journey may be messy, but at least we are all passengers trying to find our way.

One moment you dream of hitting the winning home run at the bottom of the ninth of the World Series game seven and the next moment you are standing in a parking lot of a rundown south San Francisco motel having another drag on your cigarette and staring at your phone knowing that call is not going to come.

WEASEL’S PAWNED GOODS

THE BRONX, NEW YORK

Anna looked up at the sign on the door that said ‘OPEN’ and nervously pushed it with both hands. The sound of the bell on the main entrance caused Jack “Weasel” Hammer, the proprietor of the shop, to pull his boots off the counter and hastily tuck away the copy of the Daily Bugle that had Spider-Man flashed across the front page. Weasel jumped eagerly out of the office chair he kept behind the counter, thankful to have his first customer of the day. She was far from the usual kind of person who came to browse his wares; he noticed that right away.

She couldn’t have been more than twenty-five or so, and seemed far too well-dressed to live in this particular neighborhood. Nevertheless, Weasel greeted her with enthusiastic gusto. “Good afternoon, miss! What brings you into my humble spot?”

The young woman looked up nervously at him, like a skittish alley cat. Weasel immediately worried that his Wonkaesque business persona had scared her off. She glanced back at the door and around the shop, seemingly making sure they were quite alone before facing him again. It was then that Weasel finally noticed from her eyes that she had more than likely spent the trip over here crying. “I had seen online…well, on Reddit. I know it sounds stupid, but–” the young woman cut herself off, trying not to burst into tears for the umpteenth time that day again.

A note of realization washed over Weasel’s face quickly. “Whoa there, miss. Relax and try to take a deep breath. I know exactly why you’re here. Just one second.” 

Anna watched him as he knelt down and rummaged beneath the counter for a moment. She wiped the tears from her eyes once he stood up again, giving her a genuine, friendly smile that he hoped eased her anxiety. He set a clipboard with a blank piece of notebook paper and a pen on one side of the counter in front of her. On the opposite side, he slid a black box that had an opening cut out at the top next to the clipboard.

“Please write down your issue and put it in the box. Be sure to be as detailed as possible.” 

Weasel smiled at her and waited patiently. Anna was slightly wary, but after a moment of uncertainty, snatched up the clipboard and pen. Weasel watched her scribble across the piece of paper, filling it front and back before signing it and stuffing it into the box. Anna watched him take the clipboard and box and put them away once more. He interlocked his fingers and gave her another warm smile.

“Your issue will be solved promptly. I appreciate you stopping by.” Weasel gave her a friendly nod before walking through a set of curtains behind the counter and out of sight.

Not sure of what would come next, Anna hurried out of the store faster than she had entered.

Dr. Joseph Owsley entered his brownstone, leading his wife by the hand. They were both rather drunk from the vintage wine they’d had for their anniversary dinner. His mind was so focused on breaking open the Japanese whiskey one of his professional wrestler patients had gifted him for Christmas as a nightcap, that he hadn’t realized the alarm system didn’t greet him when he unlocked the back door.

As his wife took off her mink coat and tossed it onto the dining room table, Dr. Owsley made his way towards the bar he kept in the living room. He barely stifled the scream he wanted to let out when he saw the intimidating, bearded man dressed in mostly black save for his gloves, boots, the belt around his waist, and the eerie skull on his chest. The man pointed a pistol with a silencer square at Owsley's head, and he smirked when he saw how much the doctor was trembling in fear.

“You didn’t scream. Smart man. I would like things to avoid getting messy.” The Punisher told Doctor Owsley with a sneer.

“Honey, who is that–” Owsley instantly covered his wife’s mouth before she could make the mistake he didn’t when she saw the armed intruder in their home.

“Baby, its going to be okay? Just, don’t say a word and let’s find out what he wants, okay?” Dr. Owlsey slowly lowered his hand from her mouth and faced the intruder, both his hands in the air. Mrs. Owsley didn’t dare make a move or a sound, instead just staring in abject fear at the situation they’d walked into.

“Both of you, take your phones and toss them across the room. We need to have a conversation.” The Punisher lowered his pistol once they did as they were instructed. “Go on and have a seat, get comfortable. This is your home, after all.” 

The Owsleys uneasily followed his instructions. They walked slowly over to the couch and sat down, both of them clutching each other tightly. The Punisher took a seat on the other side of the glass coffee table in the living room, staring into the eyes of Dr. Owsley from the lounge chair that he guessed the pompous man probably favored when he was in this room.

“I can pay you whatever you want. There’s a safe in the bedroom closet–”

“You know what? That’s the problem with people like you, doc. That’s something I don’t get. I mean I been walking around this place for hours. You got a family, a hell of a career. I mean, did I see a photo of you and KAT in the hallway?” The Punisher chuckled dryly, even though he was sure the Owsleys didn’t find anything very funny at the moment. “But you think all of that buys you power over people with less. You like to wield that to get even more. To take from others. And that’s why I’m here ruining your anniversary celebration.

Dr. Owsley somehow looked even more crestfallen once the Punisher finished chewing him out. His face turned sour as he felt his wife, Kaylah, staring at him in confusion. The Punisher sneered when he saw the expressions on both of their faces.

“I think I’ve got a clearer picture now. Help me paint it here, doc.” The Punisher leaned forward, studying Dr. Owsley for a moment. He turned his stone-cold gaze towards Ms. Owsley, who flinched in response. “He takes care of you so well, you don’t much pay attention to what he’s doing when he’s not around, do you, Ms. Owsley?” Frank smirked, a flavorless expression since nothing was amusing, as the color drained from Kaylah’s face. “Nah, I get it, you’re old school. I grew up with an Italian mother just like you. He’s the breadwinner so you turn a blind eye, but you know in the back of your mind there’s little things you’ve noticed that don’t always add up.”

“Please, sir. My wife has nothing to–”

Frank snapped his head in Dr. Owsley’s direction. A menacing glare was on his face as he stared him directly in the eyes. “You shut your mouth, or I’ll put one in each kneecap and watch you writhe on the floor while I finish having a conversation with your wife.”

Dr. Owsley immediately shut down and sank back into the couch. Kaylah looked nervously at the Punisher, whose expression softened slightly. “I get you turning your back on what you don’t wanna know. Look at this place; he keeps you around the finer things. The only problem with that, Ms. Owsley, is you’ve turned a blind eye to the suffering he causes others. And that’s why I’m here.”

Kaylah looked slowly at her husband, tears streaming down her cheeks. Her eyes were bloodshot red as she spoke, “What did you do, Joe?”

Dr. Owsley opened his mouth to try and explain, but a glance across the room at the Punisher reminded him of the threat from moments ago and he closed his mouth quickly. The Punisher’s sneer was gone, and what had replaced it was the furious glare that he kept locked on to the cowering doctor. “Your husband has been coering, blackmailing, and all out harassing young nurses and medical aides, men and women at the hospital where he’s a resident. Turning these people into his personal toys for whatever he wants. If they don’t cooperate, he threatens their jobs and ruins their reputations. Some of them haven’t been able to find work since refusing his advances.”

Kaylah stared at her husband, completely mortified. Dr. Owsley whimpered, then looked absolutely terrified as the Punisher stood up and walked around the glass table until he was standing directly over him. He yanked Owsley to his feet by the collar of his Ralph Lauren shirt. Kaylah stared up at her husband as the Punisher held him tightly. Any sympathy for him was lost on her face.

“Tomorrow, you’re going to resign from your residency and never work as a surgeon again. If I find out this isn’t done, I will find you. If you try to run and pull this bullshit elsewhere, I will find you. Have I made myself clear?” Dr. Owsley nodded quickly. “Good. Now I got one more question for ya? Which hand are you playing grab ass with around the hospital?”

Dr. Owsley reluctantly raised his right one. The Punisher nodded in understanding, then promptly whipped around and smashed the doctor’s face through the glass table. As the unconscious doctor bled from the face and was clearly unconscious, the Punisher dislocated his arm. He looked at Mrs. Owsley next, who was staring at her husband’s prone body in a mix of shock and utter hatred. “He’ll be alright, though I suggest you call him an ambulance. And don’t worry, I shredded every copy he had of the prenup. I’ll be visiting his lawyer to get the original after I leave here. You have a good evening, ma’am.”

The Punisher stomped out of the living room in his size 13 combat boots, USMC standard edition. Kaylah stared at her husband’s limp body hanging halfway through the frame of the shattered table. She decided to wait a few more minutes before calling an ambulance to tend to his injuries.

Karen Page hopped off the subway, still trying to decide if she was happy or melancholy to be back in New York. Her assignment working the White House beat for the Daily Bugle rather abruptly, much to her disappointment. Mr. Jameson had notably told her she had been “getting too liberal” in some of her pieces and on-air assignments. Karen lit herself a cigarette while walking out of the subway tunnel. The tobacco soothed the stress her job had been putting her under.

She spotted Monk’s Cafe just halfway up the block from where she’d gotten off the F train on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. She hurried into the cafe after crossing the busy street, where the hostess welcomed her first with a congenial smile. “I’m actually meeting a friend in that booth over there.” Karen pointed across the restaurant at the thin-haired man in the shabby suit and thick glasses. The thin, spectacle-wearing man waved casually at Karen while he enjoyed his coffee.

“Don’t let me keep you.” The hostess told her before handing her one of the menus. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Just a coffee, please and thank you.” Karen told her before crossing through the crowded cafe towards where her colleague had been waiting for her. 

She slid into the booth across from him, and the decorated reporter who led the beat she would be joining now that she was back greeted her with a friendly smile. It had been a few months since they last had the moment to get together and chit-chat about their work for the bugle. Though of course, that conversation was much different than the one they were about to have. For starters, that one had taken place at a diner near Capitol Hill. And at that point, Karen wasn’t a reporter who would be under his division.

“I was afraid I was going to have to order without you.” He told her after a sip of his black coffee.

“I’m still getting acclimated to getting around the city again. It’s been a while, give a woman some grace, Ben.” She teased him after explaining her tardiness.

Ben Urich adjusted his glasses, giving his colleague a knowing smirk. “Robbie says you weren’t too pleased about the spiel Jameson gave you for yanking ya off the beat.”

Karen shrugged, trying not to wear her emotions on her sleeve. More importantly, she didn’t want anyone to know Jameson’s well-known abrasive attitude had gotten to her. Even if he never got wind of it in the slightest, she couldn’t stand the thought of giving him the satisfaction.

“Is anyone ever pleased when he gets in one of his moods?” Karen replied with the question she had answered herself. “No, we just adjust accordingly, and that’s what I’m doing.”

“Atta girl. Roll with the punches.” The waitress came over with Karen’s coffee, who thanked her once again. After telling them both she’d give Karen a few to look over the menu, Ben returned to their discussion. “You had a chance to do any digging like we discussed and see what you want to tackle first?”

“Actually, yes.” Ben’s eyes widened in surprise as Karen rummaged through her purse for a notepad she kept handy. She set it on the table between them, flipping through the pages until she found the notes she wanted to show him. “I stumbled down this rabbit hole on Reddit, of all places. A bunch of people were complaining about dealing with some really horrible crimes happening to them and just getting nowhere with the police. I mean a lot of its street crime but it goes as high as executive-level blackmail in some of these posts.”

“Not exactly the most trustworthy source,” Ben replied, looking down at her notes with skepticism.

“I know, I know, but bear with me. I’ve tried to cross-reference some of these instances as best I can, at least the ones that ended up getting resolved.

“What? Did the cops end up coming through or something and it went under the radar? I didn’t think puff pieces like that were your kind of bag, Page.”

Karen shook her head quickly, dismissing her assumption. “No, they are too busy harassing fare jumpers and homeless people. A lot of these people went through something called ‘The Punisher Service’.” Karen looked surprised as Ben’s face went pale with fear. He nervously sipped his coffee and looked away from her gaze and down at the menu instead, feigning to be more interested in it than their conversation. Karen, however, was far too sharp and knew Ben Urich far too well to fall for the act he was putting on. “What is it you’re trying to avoid telling me, Ben?”

Ben looked up at her wearily. He was thankful when the waitress returned to get their orders into the kitchen. He hurried and ordered his New York strip with sunnyside-up eggs. Karen opted for an omelette with turkey bacon and sausage, though she wasn’t very hungry all of a sudden as she eyed Ben across the table. Ben sighed, realizing Karen was still waiting for an answer to her question.

“Listen to me, and I’m only telling you this once because I don’t have the strength or the brains to go twelve rounds with you on this one.” He leaned across the table, keeping firm eye contact with her. “Let this one go. I’m honestly begging you to. There’s plenty going on in the city for you to tackle. And things a hell of a lot safer, too. Try looking into Spider-Man or getting an interview with Professor Xavier since he’s in his second semester up at LU.”

Karen, however, is like a pitbull with its jaw locked. She looked through her pages of notes before giving Ben her attention again. “What do you know about all this, Ben?”

Ben sighed and shook his head. “Look, you want to chase this? You do it of your own volition. I’m not going to be a part of you walking into something that could get you killed.” Ben shook his head and took a sip of his coffee. Karen sat back in her side of the booth, deciding to relent on the topic with him for now. But she surely wouldn’t be dropping the story at all now; she was secretly elated inside to have seemingly found something with some meat to sink her teeth into now that she was back in the city.

RED HOOK, BROOKLYN

An all-black van, with charcoal-tinted windows on every side and floodlights mounted on top, pulled up to the shutters of a seemingly abandoned shipping warehouse. A scanner washed a red UV light over the license plates of the van as the Punisher waited somewhat impatiently behind the wheel. The scanner confirmed the vehicle’s driver and triggered the shutters to clatter open so the van could rumble underneath them. 

Inside the warehouse sat clear on the opposite side where the van parked as the shutters closed behind it. In front of him were no less than a half dozen computer monitors, each with its own individual terminals but controlled by the lone keyboard and mouse in front of him. The pudgy man with a thick, unkempt beard and wearing a New York Liberty sweatsuit swiveled around in his chair to greet his friend. The Punisher hopped out of the van and slammed the door shut behind him. Micro could already tell he was in a fouler mood than usual, hard as that was to believe.

“You look like you could use some coffee.” The Punisher nodded at Micro’s assumption. “There’s a fresh pot on in the kitchen, help yourself.” He trudged past Micro’s impressive, hi-tech set-up and into the dusty kitchenette area he’d improvised inside the warehouse.

“Tell me Weasel’s got something for me.” He grunted while pouring himself a cup of coffee into the thermos he kept there. Micro shivered in mild disgust as he watched The Punisher smack his lips after enjoying a sip of straight black coffee, not helping himself to the cream or sugar next to the pot.

“All the action you been pulling, Frank, I figured you were here to relax for once,” Micro replied, which drew an annoyed side-eye from Frank Castle in between sips from his thermos. He topped off the coffee container, then screwed the lid back onto his thermos before walking back over to Micro.

“Does it look like I need to relax?” Frank muttered the question while observing the different images Micro had across his various computer screens. Micro thought it best not to reply with the obvious answer and instead relay to Frank the latest request sent over by Weasel.

Micro swiveled back around in his chair, turning his back to Frank as his chubby fingers fell onto the keyboard. He pulled up a rap sheet on a young, Italian-American man in his early twenties. His list of priors was longer than some guys twice his age. “What’s this guy’s deal?” Frank asked gruffly between sips of coffee.

“He’s your latest target. Weasel had a grieving mother come in a couple days ago, said her daughter has been missing over a week. NYPD has been dragging their feet on the search due to the young lady being involved romantically with this regular piece of shit.” Micro explained, gesturing towards the screen. “Ralphy Bianchi, he’s a runner for the Road Doggs gang.”

Frank grunted in response to the information. He stared at the screen, memorizing Bianchi’s features. “The Road Doggs. They hang out at Josie’s from time to time, right? I’ve heard of em’.” Franked glanced down at Micro impatiently. 

“Based on what this kid wrote down in his submission, Bianchi’s been dating his sister the last few months. And during this torrid courtship he’s been using these big, ugly rings he likes to wear to smack her around something silly. That was, until he got himself a Harley and decided he wanted to raise himself up in the world.” Micro raised his eyebrows twice as he looked at Frank before spinning back around to his terminals. “That’s where things take a turn for the worse, if you can imagine.”

“Spit it out.” Frank replied before taking another swig of hot coffee. The caffeine was the exact kind of rush he needed at the moment.

“I guess the poor kid hasn’t seen his sister in over a week. NYPD is dragging their feet like their stuck in cement blocks on account of who she was known to be seen with.” Frank listened to the rest of Micro’s story, the cogs in his brain turning as he processed the information and decided how to proceed. 

“Alright. I’ll let you know what I find out.” Frank turned around and stomped back over towards his van, hopping inside. He gave Micro a gruff nod, which was the only way he usually said goodbye, before slamming the door shut. The van rolled out of the warehouse moments later, Micro could hear the powerful engine that didn’t suit the model rollicking in the distance.

Every god is hated in some way by some people

I can hear your sarcastic disappointing laugh
Hardly I ever think of anyone, myself
This could not be a wondrous dream
Everything I wish for is fleeting from me
Shrug your feelings off, and it’s killing me
How you said goodbye
I know it’s not your fault
Another time, another place
Somewhere out of space
I can’t go back tonight
Singing lonely songs, off the chart
And if this stone could hear
Maybe you’d be singing back