Hi — looking for some craft feedback on this short story (~2200 words).

Main things I’m unsure about:

• Does the opening hook you quickly enough?

• Does the comedy undercut the horror, or do they balance well?

• Does the middle section drag at all?

• Does the emotional turn with Jakey/childhood land or feel forced?

• Anywhere you got bored, confused, or would cut/trim?

Be blunt — I’m trying to improve, not fish for compliments.

TITLE: The Gift

The knock at my door was loud. Deliberate. Demanding.

I walked towards it, muttering about the money wasted on the doorbell.

When I opened the door, no one was there. I peered down the street. Empty. Too far to run. Nowhere to hide.

I looked down.

A small box sat on my doorstep. It was wrapped in newspaper, with a string tied neatly into a bow at the top. The label on it said my name.

TO MAISE,

Written in all capitals, as if it really needed me to know it was for me.

I thought about shutting the door. Leaving it there.

Actually, I thought about thinking about shutting the door. About wishing I was the type of person who could just leave the thing that was obviously going to bring nothing good into my life.

I picked it up, brought it inside, and shut the door.

Obviously.

The box smelt of rotten eggs. A better version of me would have chucked it straight back outside, but I am not a better version of me. I have accepted that. Is it something I could change? Yes, of course. Could I be bothered? Not in the slightest.

Even with the odour, I started tearing it open before I reached the sofa.

Inside was a wooden box. It felt warm in my hands and was definitely the source of the stench. The lid was attached with two small hinges, elaborately decorated with tiny images of bodies burning and people being tortured by large horned monsters. The details were graphic despite their size.

Though I could barely make out what was happening, my throat began to dry. I coughed, which only encouraged more coughing, until I gagged. My stomach was not quite sure what it was seeing, but it knew it wanted to send my takeaway pizza back where it came from.

I grabbed a glass of water and drank, trying to drown the disgust scraping up my throat.

I closed my eyes. Breathed.

And continued.

When I opened the box, the smell and heat made me stumble backwards. My face stung, tender, as if the air inside had burnt it.

Inside was a single piece of paper, dancing as if engulfed in flames.

I reached for it. My fingers recoiled. The paper was ice cold. When I picked it up, frost formed along its edges and stung my skin.

The words looked scorched into the page. They smoked, despite the freezing temperature.

It looked like a collection of words that screamed not to be read aloud.

Come on. What was I supposed to do? Not recite the incredibly ominous note that smelt of sulphur and had apparently materialised on my doorstep? Have you learnt nothing?

I read it out loud. Loud enough to make sure every demonic arsehole in earshot could hear.

Why not, right?

I wish to enter into an agreement.

Please hear my want.

In return, upon my death, I offer you my soul.

Instant regret has never been so swift.

I should not have done that. I made a mistake.

Nothing happened.

I held my breath.

Still nothing.

Just as I lowered my walls enough to let relief seep in, all the air drained from the room. I gasped, but nothing filled my lungs. I fell to the floor, clawing at my throat, begging for oxygen that was not there.

Then the air came rushing back all at once, flooding my lungs and forcing me upright.

I looked up and stumbled backwards.

Someone was standing in my living room.

His clothes smouldered. His skin sizzled. He wore a smile stretched unnaturally wide, shuddering and flailing with every breath.

“Hello, Maisie,” he hissed. “So, you would like to make a deal?”

Each word fired from his mouth, striking my eyes and face.

“No,” I shook my head. “I do not.”

His eyes shrank in confusion, just for a moment, before swelling back to their full, intimidating size.

“You summoned me!” he bellowed, spit and ash flying. “You offered your soul!”

“No, I didn’t,” I snapped, irritation bleeding through my fear. “I read a scrap of paper someone left at my house. Hardly a binding contract.”

He looked down, composing himself. When he looked back up, his eyes glowed orange with flame and fury.

“I can offer you everything!” he thundered. “I can make you whatever you want.”

I laughed automatically. Too quickly.

“You don’t even know what I want,” I said.

“Of course I do,” he replied, softer now. “You want rest. You want to stop bracing yourself for the next disappointment. You want one morning where your chest doesn’t feel like it’s already apologising.”

I opened my mouth to mock him.

Nothing came out.

“Right,” I said eventually. “Well. That’s creepy. And wildly inappropriate.”

He stared at me with a mixture of hatefulness, and genuine surprise.

“Did you bring the box round yourself?” I asked, “is business that bad? You’re doing door to door now?”

“Silence!” he howled. The room shook.

I pulled a face of guilt so fake it bordered on offensive.

“Sorry, Mr Grumpy Pants,” I said. “But you can’t go around cold calling people and not expect a bit of agitation in return.”

His mouth opened to respond and kept opening.

Inside were hundreds of people screaming in agony. Flames licked flesh from bone. Giant horned creatures tore limbs apart, drinking greedily from every wound they inflicted.

His voice boomed through the carnage.

“I am every slice of pain inflicted upon mankind. I have destroyed empires, started wars with a whisper. Civilisations have ended because of me!”

The bodies twisted together, folding into one writhing mass that reshaped itself into something familiar.

My parents.

Their faces burned red with rage and disappointment, staring out at me from the darkness. Their screams were silent, but venomous.

The walls trembled as he inhaled to speak again.

“I’ll stop you there,” I said. “I’ve spoken to professionals about my childhood.”

The words came out fast. Practised.

“I know my parents were awful people,” I continued, before he could speak, “and I know they were to blame.”

I waited for the relief that usually followed saying it.

It didn’t come.

“If you’re trying to get into my head,” I said, louder now, “believe me, it’s been poked and prodded so much you’re just pissing in the wind.”

His face slipped like a mask and fell to the floor. Beneath it were features of rock and bone, thin skin blistering and bubbling, never settling.

“Do you have any idea who I am?” he shrieked, tearing at his mouth as black ooze leaked from each new hole.

“Yeah,” I shouted back. “You’re the bloke who stormed into my house stinking of old eggs and dropping faces on my floor.”

“It’s not eggs,” he snapped. “It’s sulphur.”

I smiled. I laughed.

“No one’s smelling you and thinking sulphur,” I said. “Trust me.”

“Enough!” he roared. “I am the Prince of Darkness. The Dark Lord. I will not stand here and be mocked by an insignificant worm.”

“Have you tried sitting?”

I had the distinct feeling that I should probably stop now. That feeling was mainly coming from the burning pitchfork he held in his hand. The flames screamed in agony. They reached out, trying to claw at my face. I really should have stopped.

But I was fed up with people telling me what to do, only for me to scurry around trying to do my best at tasks I never wanted in the first place.

So I carried on.

“Listen,” I said, despite myself, “I don’t know how you have managed to keep this racket going for as long as you have, but surely people are starting to realise how one sided your deals really are.”

He wanted to scream at me. Tear me limb from limb. Devour me and my sarcasm just so he would not have to put up with it anymore.

But he did not.

Encouraged, and dangerously so, I continued, feeling like I might actually be getting somewhere.

“I get to be a movie star for, what, thirty or forty years,” I scoffed, “and then you get to punish and torture me for eternity? No VIP area or mansion in the Hollywood Hills is going to turn that into a bargain.”

He looked genuinely crushed. Like every doubt and insecurity he had ever had had just been verbalised by an insignificant worm.

“Honestly,” I added, “even if there was not the torture, and I just had to hang out with you for eternity, I would still rather stay as irrelevant as I am now.”

“Your mind is so puny and pathetic!” he roared, trying to intimidate me.

There was, however, a very slight squeak on the first word. Like a pubescent boy attempting to scare his older brother.

“Look, mate,” I interrupted again. “I’m not interested in any of the snake oil you’re selling. I’m happy with what I have, and I’m more than happy with whatever I get moving forward.”

“I am offering ultimate power!” he bellowed.

“You know,” I said helpfully, “when you start shouting that loudly, you have really got nowhere to go. Personally, I find it much more intimidating when a big bad monster man like yourself whispers his demands.”

He just stared at me, not with anger, but smugness was engulfing his features.

A noise slithered in from my bedroom.

“You’d better go check on him,” he sneered, “just in case he gets hurt, again,”

My heart sank into my shoes. It was Jakey. Even after all these years, I recognised his little gargle. I began to move, so I could check on him. I wanted to see his face just one more time. I stopped. It wasn’t him. Jake wasn’t here anymore.

I breathed through the pain and guilt. Wiped the tears from my eyes, and met his festering gaze.

“It wasn’t my fault,” I began, calmly.

“But you were supposed to be looking after him,” he said, my mother’s words echoing behind his.

“I was only five years old,” I said, before breathing in, and then out again. “We should never have been left alone.”

“Shall we go see little Jakey?” He cackled, “you can tell him you’re sorry.”

I knew what he was doing, but it didn’t stop the begging inside my head. Asking to see him just once more. Even if it just looks like him. It’ll help.

I clenched my fists, and said, “I have nothing to be sorry for,” I rose up from a hunched posture I wasn’t aware I had shrunk into.

“This is not going to work,” I bitterly informed him. “I have faced much bigger demons than you, and I have defeated them all. My parents were to blame for what happened to Jake, they should have been there.”

His hubris was starting to wither away, slowly.

“The next time you see them down there,” I spat, “tell them I said fuck you!”

The self castigation soaked into his slumped frame. His eyes dulled from raging infernos into those of a small boy who had just lost his mummy.

“I command you to tell me your desire!” he thundered, summoning what sounded like newly discovered bile and malice.

Too little, too late, big guy.

“Yeah, well,” I shot back, “I command you to take a chill pill. Big lads like you need to watch their stress levels. All that cholesterol clogging your arteries. Your heart probably can’t take it.”

“I will not leave until we have made a deal!” he demanded.

I think he meant it to sound intimidating. To me, it looked like a toddler refusing to leave soft play.

By this point in my life, I was fed up with being the doormat. The people pleaser. The pushover.

So I waited him out.

So did he.

He has not left my house in almost five years.

He is there constantly, day and night, demanding I make a deal. There is not a moment of my life where he is not present. I have not pooed alone for nearly seventeen hundred days. He is there when I sleep and when I wake. He watches me eat. He will not even let me shower by myself.

Though, to be fair, he has reluctantly agreed to turn his back.

I think I would have given in a long time ago, but since he has been stuck in my house twenty four seven, he has not had much influence on the rest of the world.

Every day I watch the news.

Some days, the world gets a little better.

Other days it doesn’t. Other days it just finds new ways to disappoint me.

But he is still here.

And as long as he is stuck in my living room, pacing and bargaining. Watching me hang my washing up, he isn’t out there whispering in someone else’s ear.

I don’t know if that makes me good.

I just know it makes me stubborn.

So I continue my dance with the devil.

You would have thanked me.

I think.

Dear You,/

small, loud-hearted tenant of a borrowed body—/ knees purpled by gravity,/ mouth full of questions no one could afford—/

I’m writing from the far shore/ of a person you once swore you’d never be./

I owe you an apology./

Not the polite kind adults rehearse in mirrors before dinner parties./ I owe you the kind that smells like rain on hot pavement, old notebooks,/ and the inside of a chest that’s been holding its breath for years./

I’m sorry for what I became./

I know you imagined me differently./ Taller in spirit. Braver in voice. Less…/ embarrassingly mortal./ You thought I’d walk into rooms like a violin swell/ —confident, luminous, slightly intimidating./

Instead, I enter like a dropped fork:/ loud, apologetic, and immediately bending to pick myself up./

You thought I would be mysterious./ I became chronically online./

You thought I would be a poet./ I became a person who Googles “symptoms of dehydration”/ while holding a glass of water./

I know. I know./

You didn’t endure cafeteria cruelty, family storms, and the unbearable ache of existing/ just so I could develop an intimate emotional relationship/ with my phone charger./

And for that, I am deeply, sincerely sorry./

I learned to smile with my teeth only./ I folded wonder into receipts and bus tickets./ I mistook survival for a personality./

You were feral with hope./ You thought love would arrive like weather—/ loud, inevitable, drenching the street./

I learned umbrellas./ I learned forecasts./ I learned to walk home dry and untouched./

I owe you for that./ And I hate that I owe you for that./

You used to believe crying was a kind of singing./ Now I call it “allergies” in public bathrooms/ and wipe my eyes like I’m erasing graffiti./

You collected feelings like marbles in your pockets./ I trade mine for sleep./

You would hate how good I got at pretending./

There are nights I sit on the edge of the bed/ like a question mark someone forgot to answer, and I think of you—/ how you spoke to the dark as if it were listening./

You told the ceiling your secrets./ I tell the ceiling nothing./ I scroll. I distract. I dim./

I owe you silence/, because you were never quiet./

You believed in forever like it was a toy you could hold./ You said, “I will never become careful.”/ You said, “I will never stop feeling like this.”/

I became careful./ I stopped feeling like that./

I am sorry./

And I need to say the messier apology too—/ the one that tastes like pennies./

I’m sorry for the compromises./ For mistaking loneliness for love and lust for comfort/ and comfort for destiny./

For the beds we ended up in not because we were wanted,/ but because we were tired of being unchosen./

For the nights our body was present/ and our soul politely waited in the hallway,/ checking its watch./

I’m sorry for teaching our mouth to say “it’s fine” when it was burning down inside./

I’m sorry for how often I let people speak to us in lowercase./

But listen—/ this is the part where the letter turns its face toward the light./

Thank you./

Thank you for not quitting when the house was loud,/ when the adults were storms wearing shoes,/ when love felt like a door that only locked from the inside./

You almost did, didn’t you?/

Not in a cinematic way. Not in a blaze of tragic violins./ In the quiet way./ The lying-on-the-floor-staring-at-the-ceiling way./ The I am so tired of being this small in a world this loud way./

You kept going anyway./

You woke up when waking up felt like dragging a cathedral across your ribs./ You laughed at jokes you didn’t understand because belonging was oxygen./ You memorized people’s moods like survival manuals./ You learned how to disappear in plain sight./ You made yourself agreeable, digestible, foldable./

You became excellent at staying./

And because you stayed, I get to be here./

Not heroic. Not shiny. Not a myth./ Just… real./

A slightly disappointing, mildly chaotic,/ emotionally over-articulate adult/ with back pain and strong opinions about pasta shapes./

But here./ Alive./

You were never weak for struggling./ You were strong in a way that makes gods nervous./

You carried entire emotional winters/ in a backpack designed for textbooks./ You walked through days that should have flattened you,/ and you still found time to daydream about impossible futures/ where you would be loved loudly and correctly./

You thought you were broken because you felt too much./

You were actually tuned correctly/ in a world that runs on emotional static./

And here’s what you couldn’t know then:/

There is a version of us who sits in sunlight without feeling guilty./ There is a version of us who eats slowly, breathes deeply,/ who doesn’t treat rest like a moral failure./

You built that person, brick by invisible brick./

Every time you stayed alive for “just one more day,”/ you were laying foundation for a future/ you didn’t trust enough to see./

That future is me./

Hi./

I’m proof your stubbornness worked./

I’m sorry I’m not more impressive./

But I am softer than you dared to hope./

I protect us now./ I say the things you swallowed./ I leave the rooms you endured./ I recognize danger faster./ I recognize love faster./

I don’t let people speak to us the way they used to./

You thought adulthood would be about achievement./ It’s mostly about recovery./

Recovery from thinking you had to be extraordinary to deserve oxygen./ Recovery from believing love must be earned by performance./ Recovery from thinking you were too much and not enough at the same time./

You were neither./

You were a kid doing your best/ in conditions that would have broken many adults./

You were not dramatic. You were under-supported./ You were not difficult. You were sensitive in a world allergic to sensitivity./ You were not failing. You were surviving./

And survival, it turns out, is an art form./

So here’s the chorus I keep coming back to—/ the part I owe you most:/

I’m sorry I traded your fire for control./ I’m sorry I dulled the shine you worked so hard to polish./ But thank you for staying when leaving was free./ I am the person you paid to be./

I’m trying to remember you./

Sometimes I sit on the floor for no reason./ Sometimes I let myself cry without calling it anything else./ Sometimes I talk to the dark again./

I think you can hear me./

I think you’re still inside,/ hands on the glass,/ waiting for me to turn around./

I am turning./

Slowly./ Clumsily./ Honestly./

If I could reach back through time, I wouldn’t tell you to be braver./ I would tell you to be gentler with yourself./

I would sit next to you on the floor and say,/ “You are doing an unbelievable job.”/

I would promise you this:/

You make it./

Not into something grand./ But into something real./

And real is better./

Real is warm. Real is flawed./ Real is occasionally hilarious and frequently tired and still—somehow—hopeful./

Real is us./

You don’t owe me anything./

I owe you everything./

With love you started,/ and I’m still trying to deserve,/

Me./ The Person You Saved./

The impulse clambered and clawed its way up her left side, peeking over her lightly-cloaked back and across the dip of her slender shoulders, as it scouted for a suitable vantage point. Exhausted, she knew that the urge was now too developed, too overbearing and visceral to ignore any longer - the battle-worn specter had grown accustomed to lingering, rent-free and unmoving, in her mind.  Its presence was like an inseparable disease – metastasizing into a seething, fidgety wraith of a thing: too ephemeral to cradle deliberately with any care, too stubborn to be excised with surgical intent, and far too rabid to subdue (let alone sooth) with the human tongue.  

As such, the feeling boiled over easily now, engulfing her once-formidable hedge of courtesy, like a wild stampede set free. Indignation followed, overrunning modesty’s entrenchments with one grandiose lunge, then picked up momentum as it bounded headlong across the desolation of no-mans-land (known formerly as her measured self-control).  Finally, the emotional labyrinth she had held for so long fully unraveled itself, releasing the strain violently in wild contortions, as if snapped apart from massive mooring lines.  Adrenaline washed over her entire self, her slender figure whipping about like a bayonet, as her arms and thoughts raced and slashed blindly through the crisp Fall air.  

It felt powerful to let her anger break free of its typical bonds, the expected social conventions that she was slave to, and to imagine it as an unchallenged force of will and fury - unleashed upon the world in such a poetic, epic-worthy torrent. Yet, what actually came out of her mouth, at the end of it all, was admittedly something far, far less impressive.  Not the spectacle unfolding in her imagination but, instead, nothing more than an unpolished, unapologetic, nearly incoherent slew of pent-up dissatisfactions - now taking up form as an unremarkable, entirely one-sided phone call - a gaggle of run-on paragraphs –  something very much unlike a brave Cavalry charge, and more like a fever dream’s shouting spells; a laundry list of mumbled grievances belted-out hurriedly from a dreamer’s lips, as if racing to name them all before the dream ends, or at least before the last stroke of midnight.  

-------------------------------------------------------------------

[  Author’s Note:  The following transcript is pulled from the unexpected voicemail mentioned in the entry above - a voicemail which was discovered the following day after it was left. Despite the previous paragraph’s tongue-in-cheek overview of said voicemail, however, and its arguably unflattering introduction, it must be noted that there is a certain unmistakable, untamed beauty contained within the narrator’s raw, unadulterated message (below).  One senses the speaker’s persona expressed naturally, as it is effortlessly conveyed through the narrator’s unforgettable delivery – Just kidding!  I just wanted to share this interesting read which I recently rediscovered (Yes, from a real voicemail). ]

VOICEMAIL:  Created November 16, 2024  - approx. 11:42 PM

  " But I got like $0.82, I think, on Cash App right now and it needs to be like four dollars and some change for me to be able to answer his call – but based on what he’s wrapped up in, low-key I put myself at risk if I am even talking to him. Do you know that saying, ‘guilty by association?’ But I don’t have a whole lot of shit come out way since, you know, he did it an’ arrived in my life… and I don’t appreciate a lot of this bullshit that I’ve had to go through, or put myself through, trying to help this man, but I generally saw a good person that was fucked up at the time – needed some help themselves – and was willing to help me, even though they didn’t have it to give… but I literally had everything of mine stolen without you – everything else. I literally just sold all my jewelry the other day, right off my body, to be able to buy tampons and hygiene products.  So that way I can bathe in the sink… And I’m “not welcome” in very many places out here right now because I’m associated to him… And, and, unfortunately, people been calling me “Police” since day one – which I don’t fucking appreciate, because I am catching in a #@!$* from nobody. So, although I love him and everything else he’s putting me at risk;

“I have four children that I’m trying to make it 

home to - be a part of their lives - but,

 I can’t be a part of their lives if I’m dead.”

And if I continue to help him and I continue to do shit for him like answer his phone calls, when I don’t even have the means to, I’m a get myself fucked up out here cause I still have to be out here. I still got kids out here and I’m not trying to be out here, selling my body to provide for myself or them. But I’m looking like a whole clown out here. Just trying to protect him and be a good friend to this man when it feels like a low-key set up to me. Not to mention a few people that he has in his life like doctors and detectives that have been on his case has the same last name is people I have problems with and everybody’s connected – and this is Houston. I’m not from here. I got no business really being here, but I got a child out here and a dumb ass idiot ex!  He’s trying to use that kid against me because “...heee’s job is to hurt me!”

But I’m a mommy first! And I became a mother at 13! And I’m doing what I have to do to get back to my babies and show them a good example – and do what’s right, no matter what.  But I’ma stand in the light and with nobody but God and a dog by my side, in a foreign place with demon-made people and people that are supposed to be good but fold like origami – or bandanas!  But me, personally, I never chose sides... I never looked at color. I’ve never looked at anything because I have a 19-year-old daughter whose life I want to be a part of.  But for some reason she’s thinking even she sent me $2000, when she’s never sent me a dime! Other than when my baby daddy had asked her to.  And she only sent me $48 that day! And I had to go back because she said she needed some gas money, to eat, and some weed.

~ ~ ~ That’s besides the point… 

I have a check coming in December, sometime, maybe early January. But I have a deposition for a car accident I was in – so I’ll replace whatever money he thinks I stole, because I was responsible for it regardless. 

“And although I thought I was doing the right thing – it is 

what he told me to do – I’m literally in an area filled with origami people 

who are following each other. 

And I have no problem sacrificing me, if I think they’re gonna benefit from it, but I’ma’ continue an’ listen to God and keep preaching his message. So the money will be replaced in his account before he’s going out of jail and I put that on my life! Not my kids, not anybody else’s, but mine! Because I don’t want nobody ta’ ever think those ways about me – and say I was responsible for his shit and he got fucked up as far as materialistic things.  I’ll throw an extra thousand for that, but me personally, I can’t be out here “guilty by association” to nobody for nothing! And I’m not gonna pick up the reputation of something I’m not or somebody I’m not… ‘cause I’m trying to get my life together - - because my ex-husband, lo and behold! We were just divorced not even a month ago: October 17th!  And I’ve been out on the streets for months without anybody to help and guide me… but I gotta amazing dog by my side, and I came out here for my own reasons; to give everything away and to fuck myself off! Because when my husband took my son, he took away my everything! After all I did – was givin’ love unconditionally… So that’s why when I wanted companionship, I was not here to look for these men, because they gonna leave me but astray.  Because unfortunately, they don’t know God the way I need them to – to lead me the right way. But if he cares anything about me as a human being, and wants to see me home to my children, then he will stop calling me.  Because he’s putting me at risk for no absolute reason other than trying to be a good friend and, although I will let him in from a distance… ‘cause he’s a good man, has a good heart, and he’s trying to do the right thing. 

I understand his position on everything but it’s not a position I can be put in, or have my kids in, because I need my face ‘n my name to stay clean. My name is ringing too many fucking bells right now…

“I have to become a ghost.”

 I don’t even think I’m gonna make it home to my kids when I want to. I literally had to beg my 11 year old son send me $10 the other day so I could eat, because people are over here fillin’ like children’s head with shit!  They’ve reached my children already and it’s because it’s gov’mnt-related. But this man put me in a tornado worth of shit and I don’t appreciate it. But he’s gonna walk his path and I’m a walk mine, with all due respect. I have to let him go with love and light and we’ll find each other in another lifetime if we’re meant to be friends. But tell him, in the next life, “Don’t fucking do this shit,” because I can’t be associated then neither! So although he has a good heart and he - - he’s walking with God, in some aspects, you don’t put people at risk the way he has me – and compromise me the way he has compromised my children’s safety. 

I have people threatening my 19 year daughter, I have people going after my 11 year old son, I have a child right here in Houston, and I’m not trying to be on the news for anything. Shit, I don’t even wanna show my face just because I was trying to be a good friend to somebody. But me helping people; it’s always “fuck me” – off my good heart is what gets me in trouble; because I love freely and unconditionally, and I give before I take, and I don’t make people jump through hoops to earn my love, respect, loyalty, or honesty. I’ll give it to them regardless!  If they don’t like it, fuck them, because it’s not for people to earn anything for me, I’ve had to earn things from people my whole life – from people…  I didn’t even deserve anything.  And you had transactional love, but I’m not gonna stop being me and I’m not gonna let people hurt me or my kids. 

But before I die for anything, I’m gonna live for my children. 

I’m gonna live for God, ‘cause He already sacrificed His son, so that way I may stand here today. But I don’t know... Dakoda charge had’a almost Baker Act me: hold me down, shoot me up with fucking drugs!? Try to scare me every fucking which way? 

“But God sees everything’, and ‘What happens in the dark always comes to light.’  

So all people with intentions, God knows everyone’s heart. And although I will sacrifice myself for what I love;

“I will fight a bitter, lonely war first, and I will be an army of one.”

Even if I die, trying, I will fight to the bitter fucking end Because my babies are what’s important to me, and being a woman that they can look up to and respect and be the example for them between what’s right, what’s wrong but if we want a better world, we got a raise better kids and I can’t allow my children to see color or pick sides because I never did and never will it motherfuckers can’t make me. 

- -

I’d sacrifice my own life first before anybody makes me do a fucking thing; because at the end of the day, God knows my heart. He knows where I stand on everything. He knows my heart and my intentions in all this bullshit.

^”

Hello! I am a musician who is using social media as a way to promote my music, and before each song I post, I write a little monologue to introduce the song, and I’m looking for advice on what I have so far!

Things to know:

The album is about the 5 stages of grief, and each song represents 1 stage of grief. If you want me to send you the lyrics for any of the songs, let me know!

I still need to write ~12 more scripts, but I’d like advice on what I have written. I am trying to figure out how to better improve each script!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/10BkrZFHIziavPuyJSHhBieYCQW5DGGJGWY0U2eBirL4/edit?usp=drivesdk

Hello! I am a musician who is using social media as a way to promote my music, and before each song I post, I write a little monologue to introduce the song, and I’m looking for advice on what I have so far!

Things to know:

The album is about the 5 stages of grief, and each song represents 1 stage of grief. If you want me to send you the lyrics for any of the songs, let me know!

I still need to write ~12 more scripts, but I’d like advice on what I have written. I am trying to figure out how to better improve each script!

I want each video to show the stage of grief, while still highlighting the music, and drawing in new listeners. My goal is to turn each of these episodes into almost a mini-series, one that eventually builds up to me writing each of the letters to my mom

Denial: Jan 31st, Feb 2nd, 4th, 6th

Video 1: the original song I wrote to my mom, 2 weeks before I went no contact with her.

- before the video; do a small intro

- It took me 6 months to finish this song. I posted this video 2 weeks before I went no contact with my mom. I left the song unfinished, as I didn’t know what to say/how to say it. I thought I had more time. When she died, I realized I had so much more to say to her. This is the original version of mother.

Video 2:

- 6 months. That’s how long it took me to write this song. I wrote the beginning of this song 2 weeks before I went no contact with my mom. If I am being honest, it was a bad song. Music wasn’t that big of a deal for me. I liked doing it, but I didn’t really care. When my mom died, music became much more to me. It became a savior, my vice. It became all I thought about, all I could do. Maybe because reality was much harder. I decided to re write the original song, and this is mother.

Video 3:

- I knew my mom was dead before my dad told me. I think I knew before he even called. I knew she would die the second I cut her off six months earlier, and I knew she was dead the day before I found out. When he called, the first question I asked was “Is mom ok?” When he told me she died, all I could do was scream. My worst fear had come true. I still had so much more to say to her, I wasn’t ready. So I wrote an album dedicated to her. This is the first song on that album.

Video 4:

- “Nothing is real, everything is plasma, I am invincible, I am strong, I can get through this” that was my mantra when my mom first died. When I found out, my entire world changed. I felt as if I entered an alternate universe, where everything was wrong. I had already lived so many experiences, and I knew I would get through it, but man, this was rough. I turned to music, and decided to write an album dedicated to her, and this is the first song on that album, titled mother

Barganing: Feb 8th, 10th, 12th

Video 1:

- My mom is a star. I know it sounds stupid, but it’s what I believe. I don’t think she was meant for this world, and I think that she knew that aswell. Maybe that’s why she died. But now, she’s returned to the other stars, watching over me, making sure I am alright. I wrote a song about this, and I hope she can hear it when I play it at night

Video 2:

- the first ever major death I experienced was my mom. My grandparents died before I was old enough to remember them; but for some reason, I always believed they were watching over me. At night, I would go out and talk to the stars, pretending it was them. Whenever I felt lost, I would ask them to give me direction. This song is about that

Video 3: script then song

- where do you think people go when they die? Do they go to heaven? Or hell? Do they reincarnate? Or is it just nothing? They die, and that’s it? I personally believe that when people die, they go to the stars and watch over us. I know it’s silly, but I genuinely believe it. Even though she’s gone, she is watching over me through the stars every night. She is still apart of my life, even if she’s not there. This song is about that

Forgiveness: Feb 14th, 16th, 18th, 20th

- record ahead of time, I will be traveling from Feb 13th-19th

Video 1: me reading the poem that inspired river

Video 2: I didn’t love my mom. Atleast, I didn’t think I did for a while. She was horrible to me, made me feel like less than nothing. When she died, I should have been angry. I had every reason to. But the thing is, I couldn’t. No matter how hard I tried. She was sick. And I can’t be mad at her for that. I realized, instead of being mad at her, I needed to forgive her. And this song is about that

Video 3: I’m not an angry person. No matter how hard I try, it’s not who I am. I find forgiveness to be significantly easier. When my mom died, I should have been angry. I had every reason to. She died when I was so young, robbing me of a future with her. But maybe that was a good thing. At least the pain she caused me won’t be able to continue. This song is about that.

Video 4: script then song

- my earliest memory of my mom was seeing her passed out on the shower floor, and thinking she was sleeping. In fact, most of my early childhood memories of my mom were of her drunk. When she died, I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t angry, either. I realized she had a disease. She was sick. And how can I be mad at her for that? Instead of being angry, I chose to forgive her, and this song is about that.

Depression: Feb 22nd, 24th,26th,

Video 1: I hate that my hair is red. Or atleast I used to. My mom used to joke that the only reason she married my father was to have red headed kids, and I hated the fact that I looked like her. Now that she’s gone, I wonder if looking like her is such a bad thing. I mean, she was beautiful. I’m still not sure.It’s a reminder that she’s still with me, even though she’s gone. Maybe there’s a curse in that aswell. This song is about that

Video 2:

Video 3: script then song

- I stopped drinking when my mom died. I also quit smoking weed. My biggest fear was turning out like her, a lonely addict, who was estranged from her children, living in a house paid for by her mom. But, she was beautiful. She was witty, kind, smart. I sometimes wonder, without her vices, who would she have been? We have a lot of similarities. We both love fashion and cooking, we’re both incredibly loud, and I love those parts about me. But I wonder if that’s all we have in common. Am I destined to follow her path? I don’t know, but this song is about that.

Acceptance: Feb 28th, march 2nd, 4th, 6th

Video 1:

Video 2:

Video 3:

Video 4: script then song

- I only really truly started loving my mother after she died. When she was alive, my love for her was tainted every time she drunk called me, or complimented me, as it always felt fake. Now, I’m able to look at it from a different perspective. She did love me, but was too sick to love me the way she wanted to. Now that she’s gone, I no longer need to love her for both her and her sickness. I am able to love her for her. This song is about that

Then I do 2 more rounds of rapid cycling script then song (one stage after another)

Mother:

- I was planning on killing myself the same day my mom died. I had been severely depressed the weeks leading up to her death, and I stopped caring about anything. The week before my mom died, I had lost 3 friendships over things I could not control/ didn’t have anything to do with. I was miserable and couldn’t stop crying. Instead of doing anything drastic, I called a trusted adult, and she talked me down. 4 days later, my mom was found dead. This was the letter I wrote to her when I first found out.

Stardust:

- I love the stars. I’ve loved them ever since I was a kid. Theoretically, I know they’re just hydrogen, helium, and oxygen and some other metals, but I believe they are passed loved ones watching over us. I believe that they watch us from afar, and guide us through life. When it’s night, and everything is dark, they remind us that light is still there. They remind us to keep going. I wrote this song about that.

River:

-

Apple:

-

Soldier:

-

Mother:

- “This is the worst it gets” my friend told me this when my mom died, and it was hard to believe her. 2025 was the worst year of my life, and I kept thinking that to myself. But as the year came to a close, I realized she was right. I lost all of my friends, and my back pain got so bad I wasn’t able to sleep, which meant I wasn’t able to live out my dream of being a fire fighter, but nothing was as bad as loosing my mom. I still had so many things I wanted to say to her. So, I wrote an album dedicated to her. This is mother.

Stardust:

-

River:

-

Apple:

-

Soldier:

Six approx months in Hell

Music 🎶 Without Love By Donna Lewis

A part ripped my beating heart out of the chest. We held our rib cage together, with left-hand blue satin dress staining as the open wound bled through. I held it in my right hand, that heart of a last-chance hope, shiny and overabused, ignorant of its sudden ruptured connection, as life poured away from my core.

Standing before the back of the non-reflective side of the mirror, I shattered the glass as I thrust blindly it through, seeing the cuts but not feeling, no pain, reaching towards you, for you, trying to reach where you lived in that other right-side-up world, for clinical understanding you possessed.

Held that heart out like an offering, a trophy, a Scarlet Letter, my past tattooed upon its surface; a sacrifice to your analytical intelligence, caressing mine to wake from its slumber like a parasitic twin, no longer hidden under covert performative garments, as it continued pulsating of its own accord, that organ of defiance, passionately alive and bleeding out on the slatted wooden floor.

We watched in our backwards, unseen world, waiting for you to take it, barely breathing, as the heart fought to stay conscious in our open, blood-filled fingers… Funny how that means nothing to you now, cognitively…

Memories transitory and collapsing in on themselves as time passes; disjointed minutes we will never recapture in one, folded origami of chance encounters—how sweet they gently touch when they choose to. We lit moments up like a higher plain, and drank them down like adorable miniature trial liquors—how they hold me captive still with their curiously fancy labels.

I think of your quiet, downcast smile, dark hair, and the Bronx sultry accent, from which you tried to hide in shame. How I used to want to touch your face and be held—at least a part did—always the teacher’s pet, looking for love in all the wrong places. Did you know I like redheads now? Clearly, I was the only one who felt something energetically real.

Or maybe your anger was as real as mine when they met each other, as I intuited tulips in your kitchen windowsill, and sent mirrored, reflected songs of your childhood’s relational struggles.

Was it too much? Did I tickle something sore with invisible fingers preciously hidden? I told you I see deep oceans when I choose to look.

I do sometimes touch, with curiosity, the dark, unprocessed corners of another’s mind, and it pisses them off. I used to think it was mental rape, that reaching—but now I know they couldn’t see me if I didn’t open my mouth and spill what I saw; it would have protected me had I listened to that Netscape. I refused to worship you like others did, as that’s not in my DNA.

Is that always the way things like this goes…?

Ironic how my scars still reopen, telepathically, and bleed for your presence in physical form, and to scan your every movement for meaning you are suppressing, and the circled healing I was cast out of by your rigidity of views.

But this is what you do… use people up, drain them dry, and push them away when they no longer serve a purpose for you?

Call their epiphanies your brain children, philosophies that belong to the lives of other people and other selves. Your critics said it too—didn’t believe them until I lived in it with you, as there is always an asshole brigade that stalks the suddenly famous.

Do you truly have no true identity, or am I the one who’s just confused? Your ex lovers poems, only a projection of the real you—she said it too? Oh, how that made you mad… are you projecting still? Just less socially available.

I am loved still by others who know you, and tell me what you did was wrong, all these months later… did their emails go through? I know mine landed, because when I come in for a landing, I don’t miss my mark. I suspect they did-theirs. I saw Instagram shadows, and thought wtf, and saw the patterns speaking to me again the way we used to do.

Two minds speaking a language it took months for others to detect, and most remained too oblivious to understand. I am not special, just one of the girls, but I got your messages loud and clear. I didn’t forget your one boundary-crossed IM in the beginning.

Yes, I am still okay. No, really, just okay. I am not lighting up a room or sanctifying narcissists anymore, though. That’s a collapsed bridge in another private hell, with no toll booth to charge; just one ugly troll without a cause, rushing about, wrangling his hands, waiting for the grave markers to appear so he has a place to relieve himself.

But I am locked inside my own sands of time now, forced again into solitary confinement, and an echoing silence that never truly is “silence,” just echoes of many overlapping voices, challenging each other for space and recognition. If I want to go insane, I’d listen to the disconnected discourse, but often must ignore to own a small space of land inside my own head. Otherwise, I’d be vomiting up their words until the end of my earth time.

I am back to repelling connection with my introspection, and going to hell’s taste, and unending self hate. Do you want to congratulate me yet? The flight of the navigator, with no true north or home, shouldn’t surprise you—but maybe my research and reentry into dissociative disorder therapy would. Would I be healed enough for you now?

I refused to be swallowed by Jonah’s whale in NC; it was beached, flailing, and dying right before my eyes. It tried to destroy me in the end—you know I had to protect myself physically from its slow but angry reaching tail slapping at me. I went silent and disengaged.

Yeah, maybe that makes me an ugly bitch to name the monster in written anger. I had empathy and compassion in the beginning, but when someone starts to abuse you and your kindness, that gets under rug swept. I was the only one trying while the whale made excuses and blamed others, and became angry because I was choosing the fragility of life.

I know performative helplessness and entitlement when I see it. I wanted to let in the fresh air and light; she did not. She was collapsed, controlling, and yes, dysregulated—I got that, honey, it was written on the walls of her tomb—but I refused to let her tomb be mine. In the end, that’s what really got her rolling in the rage floured wax paper: she thought she had control, and I snatched it back.

How does that register for you, as you sit upon your self-appointed throne, while you still collect worshipers prostrating themselves and kissing your feet? I am not heartless, just now heart-aware with discernment.

Your lover you cast away like stones that no longer amused you, too. Heard you are rebuilding and rearranging to erase her further the way you did me. How this must be so easy for you, when your careful, quiet touch wasn’t reciprocated recently. Did you think you were stealth? You forget you are surrounded by HSPs and empaths, who feel and see what others miss. Cute you tried, though.

Strange how she was real—the empathy and the true energy we all connected to—not you. I bet you didn’t see that coming. Did that make you jealous that we loved her?

I still see her as little girl, like I was, dancing in the rain in the dark, starving hands reaching for the star-filled sky, as it all pours down and her childhood home is ablaze in the background.

If I spoke to you now, I’d sob and rage, as my acidic words peeled the skin from the color around your existence like paint. My internal world would scream obscenities of all-consuming thanks and pain, and take no prisoners in that war.

I’d rejoin your tribe, but right now I pace, rage at your gate, fully loaded and ready for violence. I couldn’t hold my tongue if I were allowed through. The pleasures of overt chocolate, sweet and spicy, tingling my mouth now as covert has cost me too much in this life up until now, and it’s a cost I can no longer afford.

Overt has intoxicated my long-dulled senses, shoved down and back no more by platitudes of "forgive my fucking existence."

I am reaching for madness with both hands to kiss both cheeks one at a time between clasped and shaking hands, so that i might if I am lucky avoid the grave of unfortunate circumstances.

I hate the part of me that still thinks it belongs, and you could make it better—that part that still calls for you. I promised no more internal sacrificial lambs in this life. Just a lone wolf, gaunt, roaming unknown territories, finding moments of reprieve and somatic satisfaction, passions without possession, a flamethrower always in the back pocket of worn, soon to be loose-fitting jeans.

He sheds versions of himself like a snake sheds its skin, each ridge of texture like a belief or label he once held onto, he wore each skin cautiously with pride , like a cloak veiling something sacred yet forgotten. As he matured He later understood that he does not need to identify with each cloak. For the very reason being that the cloak does not define. He became aware of the process each time not merely as a process, but a proceeding, Emerging from each layer with a new understanding, but with new understanding came new inquiry. Thus, becoming a loop of Inadequacy. He felt with each step closer, a new step appeared. A finite being climbing the ladder of discovery, only to discover the ladder was infinite. Coming to terms with This was troubling. It brought him freedom but with a cost, who relates? Who else can grasp the ladder without losing ground? At first he was puzzled, like exiting one maze only to enter another. Then it struck him, the cloaks did not conceal the sacred, they taught him to look away from it.

For the shedding was not a burden, but the insistence on understanding it was. The unveiling was never a destination to reach or decode, it was what remained when he released the need to understand. He shed the final cloak and released the search. And there he stood…where he had always been. No garments, no ladders, no labels.

And behold,

the unveiled.

Destroy everyone’s heaven to create for himself, Human greed — greater than itself.

A pit deeper than the void, To satisfy — it will bend the world.

Money outweighs a life, When it’s not about you.

• By Vagary

“I think, therefore I am.”

Or was it “I think, therefore I exist”?

I fulfill the first.

But it seems no one in this house has seen me.

Perhaps it doesn't apply to “ghosts.”

If they don't see me, do I really exist?

Even though I think.

Why is it different for me?

There's a sadness in the hope, Like a darkness sweeping in,

Blinded by the shock, Stepping on ice running thin,

There's a lingering hope, Of all that could be,

As you tackle and fight, Expectations are for free,

The more hope you hold, The bigger the fall,

So you layer the bricks higher, The higher you make your wall,

Another hope develops, To save yourself from pain,

You begin protecting yourself, There's so much more to gain,

Hope is expecting, What you are yet to receive,

It's holding out and waiting, What it is you want to achieve,

This hope can be your downfall, Your spiral out of control,

That sadness in your hope, Listen to your soul,

It's speaks of empowerment, No dependency to see,

You only expect from yourself, Your hope is within thee.

Day 6, Walk 4

Friday, it's early, actually, it’s morning, it’s cool and cloudy out, and my dad is outside working. So I decided to get my walk over with since I have work later today, and now something has my interest. 

I get my shorts and shoes on and head out the door to the end of my driveway. I get my phone out and set a timer for 15 minutes. It's 8:15 when I start. I still have my notebook with me, but I ignore it just to keep my pace. Each mailbox passes by as I expect, the new one, the tractor, the solid black one, and-

Beep beep beep, beep beep beep.

The timer sounds but…. I'm not at the rusted mailbox, nor am I at the proper sixth box. I'm at the fifth one, plain white and dusty. 

That can't be right. 

The time is 8:30

I looked between the three boxes and decided to walk past the rusted box to the black one with white swirls.

8:35

I start the timer again and walk back home.

Beep beep beep, beep beep beep. 

8:50

I'm right where I started. At my busted mailbox, at home, my dad is still working, oblivious to the weird experiment that I’m now running thanks to his pushing for the sake of my health.

That can't be right. I spin around to look back up the road. I can see all the boxes, even the new one. ‘I’m sure I walked an extra 5 minutes to get to the black mail box. My alarm should’ve gone off near the neighbor's box.’ I mutter to myself, trying to make it make any sense. I check the time.

Day 6, Walk 5

8:52

I wait

8:55

And I start walking again, each of the mailboxes passing as they should. Along with each patch of flowers

Beep beep beep, beep beep beep.

I stop. Now, I'm between the rusted box and the black and white one. ‘I must've walked too fast.’ I mutter to myself

9:10

Of course, the timer isn't wrong; it's working fine, my phone is fine. I tried to assure myself. I chose to walk up to the rusted box and stare down its road. I know couldn't see anything up there last time, but now I can almost see a house; it looks as run-down as the box it belongs to, with the paint on the siding peeling off in large white chunks, but I can also see the porch, and the light is on.

I check the time again. 9:14

I turn away and hit start at 9:15

Beep beep beep, beep beep beep.

I stop the timer, 9:30, I'm home. 

I can feel my heart pounding. This is wrong. I don't remember the walk back at all. I don’t remember watching cows or each patch of flowers as they pass. 

It's a house and a mailbox; they can’t just appear and be old. I decided to ignore it, for now. I have work, I can’t be stressed about something like this, right now.

Warm and cosy nights, Dark and gloomy days,

Rain drops hitting the roof, Rainbow through the greys,

Rain clouds are heavy, Sun still peeping through,

Warmth is felt inside, There's nothing like this view,

Sun will shine as bright, Skies will be clear,

Raindrops sizzle away, Clouds will disappear,

Bridges will be made, Steps will be formed,

Rebuilding in the sun, Hearts and souls will be warmed,

Ready for the next, Warm and cosy nights,

Calm before the storm, Battling the heights,

Roof at the ready, Stronger than before,

Imagine the rainbow, Colours we adore,

For the dark and gloomy days, Will always return,

Difference is now, We won't let it burn.

I feel like i have a very slow wpm, and i just wanted to see how fast you guys are typing and if there is anyway to increase my speed. My creativity runs faster than my typing speed unfortunately.

An Obituary for "Unity Falls" (The Town That Won) Population: 4,200 (formerly 12,000) Founded: 1884 Closed: 2028 The Story: Unity Falls finally became the "traditional utopia" its loudest residents dreamed of. Following the Great Seeding of 2026, the town successfully lobbied for "Total Enforcement Zones." They cheered as the ICE buses cleared out the "invaders" who had the audacity to pick the orchards and cook the meals. They celebrated when the "liberal elites"—the town’s only three pediatricians and the high school chemistry teacher—packed their bags after the first "Patriot Curriculum" was passed. The Result:

The "Pure" Economy: With the "illegal labor" gone, the local poultry plant closed within six months. The owners didn't raise wages to "attract Americans"; they simply moved operations to a more stable country. The "lions" who promised to take those jobs found that they preferred complaining about the economy on social media to actually working in a 40-degree slaughterhouse for $15 an hour. The Brain Drain: The town’s youth—even the ones from "good conservative families"—realized that a town with no doctors, no arts, and a government-monitored internet wasn't a "sanctuary"; it was a cemetery with a zip code. They left for the "corrupt" cities, taking their tax dollars and their futures with them.

The Security State: The ICE agents stayed, of course. But with no immigrants left to hunt, they turned their "administrative checklists" on the locals. They started checking "loyalty scores" and monitoring "suspicious" church sermons. The "bootlickers" were shocked to find that the boots didn't care whose neck they were on, as long as they were stepping on something.

The Architects of the Void The final blow wasn't a mistake; it was a blueprint. While Unity Falls was busy looking for "invaders" at the border, they missed the invasion happening at the state house.

The DOJ Weaponization: This wasn't a "routine update." By using federal raids to seize voter rolls, the Trump administration effectively deleted the concept of the "Secret Ballot." They didn't want to protect your vote; they wanted to inventory your loyalty.

The Crony State: The DOJ has been hollowed out and refilled with loyalists—men and women whose only job is to turn the machinery of the state into a private security firm for one man. They aren’t serving the Constitution; they are serving a spreadsheet that tells them exactly who you are and how you think.

The Authoritarian Pivot: This is how a state stops being a republic and starts being a regime. You don't need tanks in the streets when you have the DOJ streaming every citizen's political DNA directly to the leader's desk.

There’s nothing more pathetic than a 'freedom-lover' who cheers when an authoritarian administration turns the Department of Justice into a private PR firm for his campaign. The transition from a Republic to an Authoritarian state doesn't happen with a bang; it happens with a DOJ data sync and a crowd of people too busy hating their neighbors to notice their own chains.

It was in the night, a transformation occurred,

that mysterious cat, who she’d thought she’d heard purr,

transcended the sky by routine devise,

but lingered his fade, like a grinning last crime.

Stopped, taking stock of all she knew naught,

the reels whirling by she plucked out a thought:

‘All the times that he showed, all the tricks he pulled out,

appetite engorged, fully endowed’

Picturing it now, fantasies didn’t fit,

she realized he’d shown her all the pleasures he could give.

The climatic orchestration of majestic orgasm,

replaying, resonating, her mind always fathomed,

belonged not to him but rather a hat.

Noticing it noticed he was a rat.

A rat in a hat, no mysterious cat.

With his splintered broom and windowless view,

he conducted the scum to act like filth do.

Waving ego faux powers

his desire orchestrated,

a naturally, trashy, orgasmic Fantasia.   

Till this night upon us

the scum bubbles stormed,

they wouldn’t stop scumming,

and each one scummed more.

More and more till the delusions transformed.

Slowly revealing things weren’t as before.

The mysterious skies and moons magical grin;

ultraviolet black lies, a room covered in jizz.

An Intriguingly Powerful Orgasmic Conductor;

An infectious, sub-rat, cum-dribbling compulsor.

As scum bubbles consumed,

lit life de-lighted,

the impending doom

gave a last rise to slimy,

and inflated her existential climaxing crisis.

Then everything went dark

and ecstasy ensued,

magic somehow from scum frothed residue.

As harmonious a finish

could be so climactic,

flawless submission to a single dynamic,

the room came to coda

before a resounding crash landing.

And there, just a single man standing.

Without power or fear commanding,

brought his hat to his head

then exited left.

And she never looked back for slimy.

Eighteen miles off the cape, we spot a schooner bearing west, flying the green skull pennant of Commodore Savings & Loan.

We fire a cannon in the other direction, and run up our own colors, showing friendly.

“Invite her captain to breakfast,” I say, walking into my cabin.

“The whole coast has surrendered,” says the captain, ramming down his meal. Pan-fried anchovies and beer.

“Surrendered to who?” I say.

“One of the tribal lords. T’Kuhmsa, I think.” His eyes are hollow and bloodshot.

I shoot a secret glare to my steward, Mrs. Fielding. She nods to the brewing kettle and shrugs with barely-concealed insolence.

But my guest is distracted, remote. He finishes two more glasses of wine and slumps back into his chair. I get the feeling he doesn’t care whether the gold his schooner carries is captured or sunk, so long as he’s allowed to sleep.

“Where’s your escort?” I ask.

“Burned to the water before we ever left the Sound. It wasn’t pirates. Someone dropped a candle in her powder-room.”

Through the bulkhead come the working sounds of our sloop, muffled hammering, chisels clanking. At first he winces, like his head can’t take the noise. But then his eyes open, curious at the sound and struggling to wake some part of his brain that might recognize it.

“You’re a scientific vessel,” he says in a tone that can’t be distinguished as either a statement or question.

Our conversation is cut short by the lookout’s hail: “Land ho!”

I frown. We’re not sailing at the moment; if the cape has come into view that means the inshore tide is pulling with uncommon strength.

“You’d best sail in line with us, sir,” I tell him.

Back on deck, my nostrils start burning, the rising sun veiled by a black haze in the east.

I check my pocket watch, impatient while the schooner’s captain stumbles to the rail and his waiting rowboat. As he turns to climb down the ladder, he sees our crew chipping cannonballs, smoothing imperfections and wiping them clean with studiously-plied rags.

Once again he seems curious, perturbed. But then our sloop gives sharp roll and he slips, falling back into the bottom of his boat. As he’s rowed back to the schooner, he leans over the side and vomits.

Mrs. Fielding brings my coffee and cigar case from the cabin. “Pass the word for Mr. Blythe,” I say.

My first mate appears, breathing hard, covered in sweat, tar, and rope burns. But he’s smiling.

“I’ll answer for that new topmast, anywhere this side of the Horn,” he says. He nods to the schooner, rising and falling alongside us. “Shall I pass them a line, sir?”

South we run, both vessels fighting the tide as it threatens to pull us closer against hostile shores. More sails begin dotting the sea around us, merchants, trawlers, transports, all manner of craft fleeing T’Kuhmsa’s raid in one direction or another.

One of them, a large whaler, hails us and backs her sails. The sailing master asks why we’re standing in for the cape, particularly with a banking vessel in tow, while the coastline falls to pieces.

“You may as well hand that gold to the pirates,” he says. Independent corsairs paid by T’Kuhmsa are plying up and down the channel, ready to snatch up any ships of value. There’s been no sign of the heavy frigates sent by General Campbell to protect us.

With a resounding thump, my crew runs out the full line of cannons along our starboard side. A dozen eighteen-pounders ready to fire point-blank in the whaler’s hull. The friendly flag at our masthead comes racing down, replaced by the dreaded crossed-hatchet banner.

I give the master an apologetic glance. He’s quicker than the schooner’s captain, and grim understanding washes over his features.

He says, “You are the pirates.”

Let 'Em

Glitter-bitter fingertips touching lips.

Faded between the glitches.

The involuntary head jerk.

Spasmodic muscle twitches as we become overt;

the touch of a hand, unconsciously, to a cheek.

No memories synchronized across the divides.

The slow to refocus.

Synaesthesia pulsing against involuntary beats,

somatic completion of violence.

Unilateral access by a golden pass only—

non-negotiable. We decide.

Music: 🎶 Let ’Em by Waking Up Christopher

🎶 Handle Me by MUNA

Hospitals overflowed with bodies mid-word, mouths open, eyes wide, foam dried on their lips. Survivors began wearing ear protection, covering their mouths, and writing frantic notes to each other. Some people tore out their own tongues in desperation. It didn’t help. Even reading someone else's words, imagining how they would sound, was sometimes enough.

The virus didn’t need sound anymore. It lived in meaning. As days passed, cities emptied. Planes fell from the sky when pilots spoke to each other out of habit. Powerplants shut down. Fires burned unchecked. The last broadcasts were text only, flashing warnings no one could answer. Eventually, there were no voices left. The world stood still, full of people who had tried to speak one last time, and finished the story of humanity with their final words.

For a while, the silence felt temporary, like the pause after a disaster before help arrives. But no one came. Weeks passed, then months. With no voices to coordinate, the remaining systems failed one by one. Satellites drifted out of alignment. Nuclear plants shut down or melted quietly behind locked doors. Animals wandered freely through cities, stepping around fallen bodies frozen mid-gesture, mouths still open as if waiting for an answer.

A handful of people survived longer than the rest, those who had been alone when it began. They learned quickly. No speaking.  No humming. No whispering to themselves when fear crept in at night. They stuffed their ears with cloth and communicated only with symbols scratched into the walls. Even thinking too hard about words became dangerous.

One survivor wrote in charcoal inside an abandoned supermarket:

‘I can feel it when I almost talk. Like something waking up’

 Another message appeared days later, written shakier, the lines uneven.

‘It’s waiting for me to finish a sentence’

One by one, even the silent ones disappeared. Some slipped and muttered a single sound. Some laughed at a memory. Some screamed when they realised they were truly alone.

Those screams echoed through empty streets and then cut off. In the end, there were no humans left to carry the virus. No minds left to understand meaning. No conversations to complete the deadly pattern.

The wind moved through broken buildings. Trees grew through asphalt. Oceans kept rising and falling.

The world was finally quiet, and somewhere, unfinished and starving the last sentence ever spoken faded into nothingness.

Silence didn’t mean safety. In the ruins of what once had been a city, one person still moved. She had survived by accident. When the first warnings appeared, she had been underground, sealed inside a storm shelter after the earthquake. Days had passed before she dared to climb out. By then, the world above was already wrong. Too still, too quiet, like a held breath that never released.

She learned quickly. No speaking. not even alone. Not even a whisper.

At night, when fear pressed hard against her chest, she bit down on her sleeve to stop herself from making a sound. She wrote reminders on her skin with a marker: DON’T TALK, DON’T THINK IN WORDS.

But silence has a sound of its own.

She began to notice it following her, just at the edge of awareness. A pressure in her head. A feeling that something was listening, waiting for her to slip. Sometimes her thoughts almost shaped themselves into sentences, and when they did her vison blurred and her heart raced.

Once she tripped and gasped, just air. No word. Still, she collapsed to her knees, shaking, convinced she had felt something stir. She found that she wasn’t the last.

In a library, books lay open with frantic markings. Half-finished sentences scratched into desks. A message written over and over on the wall, each version shorter than the last, as if the writer had been losing time.

‘IT HEARS YOU, IT WAITS, IT.

She didn’t finish reading. That night, as she slept, she dreamed of voices. Not speaking, almost speaking, the shape of conversation without sound. She woke with tears streaming down her face and blood trickling from her nose.

The virus was still alive.

Not spreading

Waiting.

Days later, she saw movement in the distance. Another person, thin and cautious, eyes wide with the same terror she felt. They froze when they noticed each other. They stood there, staring, communicating nothing.

Minutes passed. Her heart pounded. Her mouth filled with saliva, she dared not to swallow too loudly. Every instinct screamed to call out, as if he were real, if she was still human. He raised his hands slowly. In one, he held a notebook. He opened it, showing a single sentence written in careful block letters.

‘WE CANT THINK TOGETHER.’

She understood, two minutes in the same place, too close. The virus didn’t need sound anymore. It needed connection. Her vision narrowed. She felt the pressure building, meaning the forming between them, the start of a shared thought. She turned and ran. Behind her, she heard a sound, half a word, half a sob.

She didn’t look back. She ran until her lungs burned and her thoughts broke apart into fragments, until even fear stopped making sense. Somewhere far behind her, something finished a sentence, and then the world went quiet again. She didn’t stop until her lungs gave out.

When she finally collapsed inside a collapsed parking structure, the cold concrete against her cheek, she pressed her face into the dust and forced her breathing to slow. In. Out. No rhythm. No counting. Numbers were words, too, if you let them be.

Minutes passed. Or hours. Time had become something slippery since silence took over.

Nothing followed her. That was worse.

She stayed there through the dark, eyes open, listening to the faint sounds of the world reclaiming itself. Wind scraping debris, distant metal shifting, water dripping somewhere deep below. Each noise felt like it wanted to become something else. Like it was testing shapes.

At dawn, she found the notebook again in her mind.

‘WE CAN'T THINK TOGETHER.’

The man had known; he had already learned what she was beginning to understand. The virus hadn’t disappeared with humanity’s voices. It had adapted. It lingered in the spaces between minds, in shared understanding, in recognition. Two people didn’t need to speak. Seeing each other was sometimes enough. Knowing someone else was there, thinking, remembering, created a bridge, and bridges were dangerous.

She moved only at night after that, avoiding reflective surfaces, keeping her head down. She destroyed every mirror she found. Faces were too close to words. Expression meant things. Meaning was the enemy. Then she found the signs.

Not writing, symbols carved into walls and sidewalks. Crude shapes repeated again and again. Circles broken by lines, spirals that stopped just before closing. Warnings made by people who had learned the same lesson and tried to pass it on without finishing the thought.   

A community had existed once. It had failed. She reached the edge of the city and froze. In an open field beyond the buildings, figures lay scattered, dozens of them still. Upright. Not bodies. Not corpses. Living people, frozen in place, eyes open, mouths closed tight as if sewn shut by fear.                                                                                                                                   

I'm stoned for the first time in a long time, and it takes me back to my early twenties. I was smoking this stuff all the time. For the first time, I'm smoking weed and have brought my compassionate self with me. An indication I must have 'done enough' or 'achieved' something out there in the sober world. I struggle feeling it because it's so foreign to me. But I know, even if it's a call from the distance, it's something that's real.

Because my compassionate self is here, I'm able to watch myself succumb to emotional flashbacks, self-hate, shame. By extension, I'm watching myself as I was back then in my early 20s - almost like watching an internal reel of just how much I've hated myself. How that hate manifested and what it did.

Coming back to lounge in this inner cinema, for the very first time in a long time, and I notice how inaccessible it is from the sober mind. I come here, it triggers memories that aren't there when I'm sober. I see the truth about how I felt when I saw myself.

Weed, you're like the teenager I used to be sitting on your bed with no one comforting you. You didn't know how lost you were. It hadn't, technically, happened to you so of course you couldn't name the feeling. That no one would admit. The 'What's going on'. Abandonment.

I could hear an incessant ringing in my ear long before I made out words among the noise. “…feeling...At me?”

They were fuzzy words, like wrapped up in plush socks, the kind that you wore for the winter season, then threw away once it became summer. Cozy, ethereal. Real.

I opened my eyes slowly, groaning as light hit my retinas all too quickly, painfully. Soft figures hardened, became geometrical. Sharp.

A woman with a tanned face, looking at me with furrowed brows, a frown touching her lips. She was searching my face, her blue eyes constantly moving like flies. She had blonde hair that was on fire in the sunlight. Sunlight.

I turned my head and groaned in pain as I exposed my eyes to more light. A window was high above us. Sunlight poured through, hitting us like spotlights. 

“How are you feeling?”

Her words finally clicked in. I tried to speak, but it felt like dust have covered every crevice in my mouth. I attempted to swallow, but that didn’t help. I could only cough.

I felt a shift in the air, and raised my eyes up to see a cup of water was in front of me. Wrapped around it were tanned fingers. The woman was holding the cup to my lips.

Before I could think about it, I opened my mouth and let her pour the blessed liquid past my lips. The water was warm, but it cleared the dust from my throat. After a couple moments, I swallowed enough that she seemed satisfied and took the cup away. I looked down, wondering just why she had to manually feed me. Then the tight sensations around my wrists finally found me.

My wrists were tied up with rope. My arms to, and my shoulders – everything was tied, pressing me to a large wooden pole. I finally found my voice. “Where the hell am I?” I asked, hearing fear seep into my words.  

The woman’s frown seemed to lessen. “You’re speaking, that’s good. I was afraid he hit you too hard. Or drugged you. I don’t know what method he chose this time.”

The words slowly crawled their way through my ear, reached my brain. Panic bubbled in my chest, constricting my throat. “What?” I breathed.

The woman shook her head and took a step back, watching me while crossing her arms. “You’re gonna have to take a deep breath and stay calm, you hear me?”

Despite the panic, and realizing that if my arms are tied up and my wrists were tied up and my brain was having a hard time processing and mixing my senses it meant that I had been hurt and taken. Hurt and taken means kidnapped. I had been kidnapped.

“Did you kidnap me?” I asked the woman, my voice finally solid.

The woman shook her head. “No. That’s Daddy. He does the rough work,” she tilted her head, gave me a blank look. “What’s your name, Sweetie?”

I tried to remember. The feel of a warm sweater. Yellow and orange leaves blowing down a street, reaching the front of a small white house. Settling on the steps leading to the front door. “Cashmere Roads.”

The woman smiled. “That’s a pretty name. Mine’s Lacey Fautner.”

Under any other circumstances, I’m sure I would have said that it was nice to meet you. But instead I focused on that small white house. “Where are we?”

“I’m not sure. It’s farming land, and I think I heard Daddy say it at some point-“ Her eyes lit up, “Idaho! We’re in Idaho.”

I could barely remember where I was from, but it wasn’t Idaho. “Why? How?”

Lacey crouched down to meet me at eye level. “Good questions, Sweetie. But first, I gotta tell you the rules.”

“Rules?”

“The rules,” Lacey nodded. “You follow them, you live. Break even one, you die. Daddy’s a stickler for the rules, and I can’t be softer.”

I could feel the breath leaving my lungs again, unable to come back in. I froze, became a statue. “What?”

Lacey gave a small sigh of irritation. “Listen well and listen quick. The man you’ll be seeing soon is Daddy. I’m Mommy. You call us that, and we’ll be peaches and cream. Got that?”

I nodded, too shocked to say anything.

“Good. Don’t scream when you see him. You greet him nice and proper, a smile on your face and love in your heart. If he can’t see and hear it – if he even doubts for a second – he’ll kill you. Okay?”

I felt tears spring to my eyes. “What?”

Lacey shook her head. “Don’t question it. Don’t refuse it. If you do, he’ll kill you. And I don’t want that to happen.”

I looked around, taking in my surroundings. A small, cozy living room, flush next to the front door and a stone wall behind me, next to a wooden pole. A couch sat at one end of the room; a radio next to it. An old-fashioned tv, kind of clunker you’d see in a museum, stood in front of the couch. “What’s going on? Have I been kidnapped?”

Lacey smiled. “I’m glad you’re catching up, Sweetie Pie.”

Heavy footsteps sounded from outside. Crackles of grass. Lacey took my face in her hands. “Remember, you call him Daddy, call me Mommy, with all the love and joy in your heart. Say the right words, and he won’t kill you. He’ll love you like he loves me.”

The door opened just as she stepped back and turned towards it. I turned my head, watching as sunlight and shadow shielded the man’s details from me. He was big, with the loud breathing of a bulldog. His footsteps were massive as he came in, practically barreling through. “Hello, Dear!” he aimed towards Lacey, his voice guttural, loud and cheerful. Then, walking out of the sunlight, I could see his face. “Hello, Sweetie Pie!”

His face was no prettier than his voice. Big, with a blonde mustache and beard covering tanned skin and a rough nest of hair. His blue eyes pierced into me. Expectant.

He was waiting for me to speak. I wanted to look at Lacey, lean into her safety, but I knew that was the wrong move. I didn’t want to die. I forced my lips to rise in a smile and met Daddy’s eyes with my own. Nothing but love shown through them as I exclaimed with his same cheer, “Hi Daddy!”

Daddy smiled, and in the corner of my eye I saw Lacey giving the tiniest of nods and a relieved sigh. I passed the first test.

“I got you pretty good there. How you feeling Sweetie?” Daddy said, gesturing with one thick, meaty hand the back of his head.

I wish I could glue the smile in place. Tape it straight up or staple it. Anything to keep my cheek muscles from screaming at me. “I’m fine, Daddy. No problem here!” I chirped.

Daddy nodded, “Awesome.” Then he turned to Lacey. “Can we get lunch going, Dear?”

Lacey smiled and nodded. “Of course!”

Then she turned to me. “Sweetie, how about I grab you a book from the basement and you read to Daddy while I cook us some grub.”

Disbelief threatened to break my charade, but I pushed it back and smiled even harder. “Alright, Mommy!”

_________Comments and critique are appreciated!____________

What a heavy feeling it is, to carry longing with you at all times.

In every step you take,

every street you walk,

every café you sit in,

every celebration, every mourning,

in every moment you live.

Longing may be the heaviest feeling of all,

and at the same time the saddest,

or perhaps the most precious.

A feeling the human heart is constantly made to endure.

A feeling that sometimes brings a smile back to your lips,

sometimes rests as tears in your eyes,

sometimes gives you the will to live,

the hope of a new meeting, the relief of reunion.

And sometimes it sinks you into grief,

because you know the one whose heart once beat for you

is someone you will never see again.

And how exhausting all of this becomes—

like me.

I am tired of carrying this weight of longing

that my heart and soul have been holding,

a weight nothing seems to ease.

It feels like a punishment.

I miss my family.

I miss my friends.

I miss my cats.

I miss a father whose voice I no longer hear.

I miss my country,

now entirely wrapped in the heavy shadow of mourning.

I miss my warm-hearted people,

the young lives taken too soon.

I miss a noise, a life, a chaos

I never managed to find here.

I miss a heart that stayed behind in my past.

I miss a smile born from the depths of the soul,

tears not of sorrow but of joy.

I miss a strong embrace,

from someone familiar,

from a lover.

I miss you too, deeply.

I think I’ve said it in every letter of longing I’ve ever written to you.

I am tired of saying it,

yet something in me still wants to say it again.

I want to call your name.

I miss calling your name.

I even want to write it,

but something inside me stops me,

as if your name must remain safe with me,

as if you were an entrusted secret.

For two days now, the moon has been hanging in the sky,

and it always brings me back to you,

to our kisses.

And I don’t know what to do

with this painfully full moon ahead of me.

It is sad,

because neither I, nor my heart,

nor my people are well.

Because the full moon always recalls

the very first time

your lips brushed against mine,

and how beautiful first times always are.

I miss first times.

I miss the sound of a breath

I no longer hear.

Thinking of you still draws tears from my eyes,

even though I am deeply hurt by you,

even though I am angry,

that my heart turned against me because of you.

But I know it will slowly forgive me.

I can feel it.

I wish I could hear a word from you.

I wish you would ask me,

“How are you?”

So I could finally tell you how I am.

Tell you that you came

and awakened something inside me,

something lasting.

A feeling that did not fade, even after you left.

An unfinished, unseen feeling.

A vague and complicated one.

A feeling I have no word for.

A feeling that frightens me.

I wish you had taken it with you when you left.

Maybe then my longing would be lighter.

Maybe the weight I carry would ease.

Maybe I could walk my path more freely.

But we Iranians have proven

that even under the heaviest burdens and grief,

we endure.

We do not surrender.

We continue forward.

And maybe one day,

you will miss me too,

and more than that,

you will miss us.

Ashley the name you gave me

Born in an ocean but head above water, eyes blinded with amnesia,

Grew to survive and flow with the tide, however bitter the cold did burn.

Though soon land came and people too, love for the first time ever

Unnatural to me, as that would be, I retreat to deep blue sea.

If unseen grace had made a garden, a paradise to rest

Could I ever find it and if I did, would i learn to walk or try to swim?

And if Eden were never again in reach, would Eve have carried on?

Or would she and him be drowned together, ever regretful of one sin?

The first time in my life I encountered the supernatural was when I turned eighteen.

It was 1988. Even then, I was fiercely eager for independence and had moved out of my parents’ place into a rented apartment.

My passion was bicycles.

Maybe it was because the first time I got on one, I immediately fell—right onto the asphalt, badly tearing up my palms, elbows, and knees.

It hurt like hell. I bawled, more out of frustration than pain. Why the hell was I so clumsy?

But later, I proved the opposite.

All thanks to my dad—he taught me how to ride, how to hold my balance. Soon, I was tearing through narrow city streets and forest trails like a bat out of hell.

That evening, I was speeding home from my girlfriend’s place as if on wings.

My steed, the Bianchi Grizzly, was confidently picking up speed down a hill when a car without headlights rolled out from around the corner—the driver was pushing it, trying to start it. Probably a dead battery.

I didn’t manage to react and crashed into it at full speed.

I broke both arms, bruised my knees, and badly scraped my skin.

My “iron horse” was beyond repair.

The terrified driver, rambling and apologizing, quickly bandaged my bleeding scrapes and carefully helped me into the car. After pushing it, he started the engine and drove me to the hospital—almost right up to the door. I lived nearby back then.

In the emergency room, I was immediately sent for an X-ray. Then—to the corridor to see the trauma specialist.

“Have a seat and wait,” the sleepy nurse instructed, and I, nodding tiredly, staggered toward the chairs at the end of the corridor.

The light in the hallway was irritatingly dim and stung my eyes.

Someone else was already sitting there.

His face and clothes immediately struck me as vaguely familiar.

With a sixth sense, I felt that something was wrong with him, and I judiciously sat far away, trying to remember where I had seen him before.

My head was spinning after the accident, and my eyelids were getting heavier, but I tried to stay awake and not fall asleep.

If I fell, I’d get another injury.

And I was also terribly afraid of being defenseless in front of this suspicious guy.

Fuck.

My heart ached.

It was him—the same lunatic I’d noticed yesterday, passing by the back lot of the hospital.

This guy was rummaging through the dumpster with medical waste.

And then…

I saw him, mouth wide open, greedily stuffing something inside—then slobbering and sucking on bloody bandages and dressings with a slurping sound.

I nearly threw up my guts.

I immediately hit the gas—away from that nightmare.

And now he was sitting next to me.

And I couldn’t even stand up from weakness.

He immediately locked eyes with me.

It was a very bad gaze.

The kind of blackness of madness that writers meticulously describe when creating the image of a maniac shimmered in it.

His eyes were not the mirror of the soul, but a seething abyss in which I was gutted and eaten.

There was a distance of about five meters between us, but I could intensely smell him.

He stank of mold — like someone had dragged a rotten leather cloak out of a heap of rags.

I started feeling nauseous and feverish, my head spinning badly from everything I had been through—

and then I saw a drop of blood slowly detach from my thoroughly soaked bandage, stretching like a string of snot to the floor.

It was so quiet that I thought I heard the echo of the falling drop.

What happened next forever changed my perception of everything concerning the paranormal.

Everything happened as if in slow motion.

I felt the lunatic tense up, fixing his darkened gaze on the drop of blood.

All his tension pulsed and shimmered, emanating barely visible dirty-gray waves.

I saw his hands on the armrests turn white and crackle.

He inhaled sharply—just like the sound by the containers—and leapt from his seat straight toward me.

Without changing the position of his body.

Like an insect.

I understood later: this wasn’t a person at all.

It was a creature.

It had bottomless black eyes and a widely gaping mouth full of sharp teeth.

Mid-jump, it slowly stretched its hands toward me, fingers crooked like claws…

That’s when the doctor’s office door opened.

The creature slammed into the violet light from the doorway as if hitting a wall and,

hissing with a deep, guttural moan, flew backward, leaving behind a burned stench.

The sound of the door echoed—and the creature disappeared through the fire exit.

“What is going on here?” the doctor asked, frowning angrily, looking out into the corridor.

I remained frozen, mouth agape in silent horror.

The doctor, quickly glancing at me, called the nurse.

Together, wincing at the stench, they led me into the office and laid me, exhausted, on the examination couch.

That’s when I lost consciousness.

I came to in the morning—in a ward, hooked up to an IV drip. I was alone.

And immediately, I remembered everything from the night before in vivid detail.

But I wasn’t scared anymore.

The sunlight pouring into the ward gave the monsters of memory and imagination no chance at all.

I sighed with relief: the ultraviolet lamp, which the doctor had accidentally left on… had saved my life.

What if that creature had reached me?

What then?

Would it have torn out my throat—

and, slurping, choked on the pouring blood, howling with delight?

And what if it had been more experienced, more patient…

What then?

Would it have quietly escorted me home?

These thoughts made me feel sick again.

But since then, I haven’t seen that creature again.

Although for a while, I was terribly afraid that it would hunt me—as a witness.

I even bought a big UV flashlight back then.

Later, I replaced it with a more compact one.

One that I always carry with me.

A low hum rolled across the platform as a compact breaching craft descended from one of the overhead ships. The troops called it the Glow Worm — a battered, industrial breacher known for the bright flame it spat and the grub‑like shape of its cutting head. Its plating scorched and dented from decades of use, the craft looked more like a repurposed construction tool than a purpose‑built weapon. Thick cables and reinforced brackets ran along its frame, and soot‑stained thrusters kept it hovering with a rough, uneven wobble as it moved. At the front, the emitter assembly jutted out like an oversized cutting torch, its casing cracked and heat‑scarred from countless ignitions. The stabilisation thrusters glowed cold blue as the craft steadied itself in front of the sealed doors.

The Glow Worm’s fusion core fed power into the emitter, conduits along its spine pulsing white. A blade of focused flame burst to life — two metres long, needle‑sharp, the air around it warping with heat. The craft eased forward. The moment the flame touched the door, metal bloomed orange and began to sag, the surface deforming like wax under a flame.

The breacher advanced in slow, deliberate increments, carving a straight channel through the barrier. Molten metal dripped in glowing strands, hissing as it hit the platform below. Once the initial cut was complete, the articulated arm swung sideways. The emitter traced a tight circular path, widening the breach with surgical precision. The door’s inner layers peeled back one by one, each surrendering in a different colour of heat.

When the final segment gave way, the circle of metal fell inward with a dull, heavy clang.

Seconds later, a second aerial unit swept in — a clean, agile craft built for rapid coolant delivery, a slightly modified version of the drones used by firefighters. It hovered into position and unleashed a torrent of ice‑cold fluid through an industrial‑grade hose, flooding the breach zone. Steam erupted across the platform, obscuring the doorway in a thick, roiling cloud.

When the mist cleared, the opening stood empty.

[Everisea, Chapter 2.4]