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Selection of 2020 Works

Knightfly December 11, 2019
While the smoke cloud behind me loomed, I closed the hatch and climbed down, avoiding the carcasses’ smell.
With two fingers pressed on my nose, I lounged around my shelter to retain relaxation, sitting on an incomplete chair.
Radiation got me, and I died silently, alone.
“Good evening, traveler. It’s time to depart.” A man with a gray beard, white hair, and light yellow skin tone stood with a light covering below his nose. One scar was enough to get me emgaged, but he grabbed me and threw me onto the school bus.
“You’re not the only one here. Be nice and eerie!” He tipped his hat and slammed the bus. I couldn’t hear it, but as soon as he slammed, the bus roared to life, gaining speed as it slid along this foggy pathway.
Like a rocking boat, I got up in the bus and staggered across the hallway, recognizing none of the passengers’ faces.
Before sitting down, I assessed every person that occupied the bus, sorting out a list in my head.
I walked to an empty seat and sat down, turning to the clouds outside. I stared for a while and removed my glasses to clean. That’s when I realized. I haven’t been myself. I haven’t been in my body.
I stared at my reflection and saw it. I saw my new self. I had golden buzz-cut hair, a collar tunic, and hooded eyes.
If this wan’t enough, I had no idea how I even got here.
I pictured myself signing up for this sci-fi fantasy school trip.
“Welcome to Timeless, a school organized to meet chosen people who’ve died and are chosen to eradicate entire civilizations from scratch.”
That’s what he said, but where am I really?
We all looked around except me. Some stood up. Some covered their heads. I just closed my eyes.
Wanting to see a little bit, I put a hand over my face and opened my eyes. I waved it up and down to free myself from this reality, but nothing works.
A dozen dressed individuals entered the classroom. They walked up to each one us, stopping like they were assigned to us before we were even here. They stared at us and we stared at them.
“If you want to succeed and do well in the future, listen to me when I tell you about your world,” was their first message to us.
“What world?” we asked, hoping we misheard.
They covered our eyes and showed us an illusion of our world. We gasped, forcing ourselves to calm down and chin up.
I was peeved. When are they going to explain what we should do? I thought.
“Where is it you are taking us?” Brian, one of us, asked.
Jeje, one of the dressed individuals, replies, “Each of you is going to different worlds. You will eradicate entire civilizations we ask you to eradicate.”
“Oh,” said Brian, sitting back down. “I want to live.”
“You will get to live soon enough,” Jeje said, smiling.
We stopped conversing once it was dinnertime, bringing ourselves wearily to the tables in the cafeteria.
No one else was there except the persons we’ve seen. In addition to everything we’ve learned today, this was unusual and creepy.
We ate beef stew thoughtfully. The lights mesmerized us. They were floating balls of light that moved arbitrarily.
“Those are the people wished for us to protect and murder,” Alain, one of the dressed individuals, said.
There were red and yellow lights.
“Who’s your leader?” Anna, one of us, asked.
“Lord Rred, spelled with a double ‘r’.”
I woke up with a coffee in my hand. I haven’t finished my morning coffee! I thought.
I wore a belt pack and held a torch. It wasn’t dark, but I wanted to at least know where I am.
Ice-Cold Knight Armor Jan 28, 2020
The ice-cold knight armor shimerred in the night. Its dangling plates clanged against each other in tiny tectonic shifts as the gladiator bearing it steadily moved past the battle’s aftereffects. The light shone high. It stayed high for the night was finally over. The gladiator’s arm bore bruises of big and small, short and tall, and deep and shallow. His back had a familiar sword stuck in it. He was backstabbed. No one knew who he was; no one knew where he got it. Aran was his name. He knew that. The forest was nearby. He had gotten far to get there. His will couldn’t hold the ache no longer. The forest’s flowers and ferns accompanied him, continuing wherever he went in it. The gladiator’s sword sacrificed the trees, granting a life’s rest through a pacifistic abode. A group of bandits arrived, seeking food. They reached the gladiator’s hideout. They hadn’t noticed its freshness until the gladiator’s grip hardened to slam the one farthest from the group. They snapped their head toward the thud around their rear ends. The playmaker was hidden with a grasp on the bandit’s body. The remaining bandits had their weapons drawn and pupils enlarged. With their eyes darting around, they blocked each other’s backs. The gladiator crashed them with a log as a rank-splitter.  One bandit fell on his buttocks. He quickly jumped to position, joining his adjusting retaliatory bandits. He swiped, catapulting the end of the log to thud the launching slash the youngest bandit threw. The bandit groaned, falling to his knees then to the ground. With gritted teeth and pleasurable warmongering, the leader cheered and propelled the gladiator, forcing him into a defensive stance. The gladiator huffed, going into a battle dance. He waved right and left, giving alarm for perspective. The other bandits drew back from the youngest, closing in along with their battle-hardened leader who had just gotten a hit right off her nape. She grinned on coming eye to eye with her group.
Alice Died April 16, 2020
Alice died. Her spirit floated upwards and into the sky. The god of that universe grabbed her and brought her into the Lobby Room where living beings await their next life.
Alice Gesture, the human, came into consciousness and found herself with a cup of coffee on her hand. She looked around and realized the back of a patient elder turn around.
“You asked to be undisturbed that you might rest before you go,” the elder reminded.
A recollection of thoughts did it for her. She replied, “Yes, thank you. Is it time?”
“Not yet. You may go outside for a while and breathe in the cold air.” He offered me a scarf.
She accepted it and put it on, quietly bracing myself for the brisk wind.
Everything outside moved as if time wasn’t present. Everything progressed and was demolished at the same time. Everything was there and wasn’t there at the same time. It was Earth, but it wasn’t Earth at the same time; it was unfamiliar to her humanity.
Later, after picking up her broadened view of the world, she jumped into the portal out of there.
The portal closed. She fell to the ground instead of the portal. She looked back. “What… what happened?”  
“Come here for a second,” the man said. “Pick a few perks you’d like for your run.”
I stared at a holographic display listing a selection of perks available for taking. He explained the descriptions under every perk.
The first perk I considered taking was a passive perk called Inner Peace. Inner Peace is a perk, giving 25% increased emotional self-regulation.
Humans are born with a set of random stats, including emotional self-regulation. Nature affects those stats as well as nurture does.
The second perk was called Boozer. Boozer is a perk, giving 30% decreased effects from drugs.
The third perk was an activated perk called Frozen Touch. Once touched target, activate to exhaust target’s legs by 20%.
Yesami, Malkov, and Junjirou Apr 20, 2020
God accepted only three people to his home: Yesami, Malkov, and Junjiro. His home was fairly furnished, fit for someone spending the last days of their life.
Inside the house, God asked the three visitors to sit down. He explained they couldn’t stay because of Enteria’s cataclysmic condition. He needed them there and not here.
These three people died on Earth, but they’ve all been selected to reincarnate in a new world named Enteria.
“How strong is the enemy?” Junjirou reciprocated his reply.
God answered with pressured lips, “Stronger than you, fellows, are now.”
Malkov, who quietly watched them talk, began to speak up, “Are you sure we have time to prepare for what we’re facing.”
At the farthest left of the couch, Yesami exclaimed, “Yes, yes. Tell us, please.”
God smirked. “I brought you with a plan in mind, and your time of arrival on Enteria was a part of that plan. You have a month.”
They complained, “Are we capable of beating whatever we need to beat?”
“Yes, you will be, after a month.”
“But—”
He turned his back and saw the time. “Okay, I will be bringing you guys there.”
“If you say so,” Junjirou replied.
Before God was able to leave, Malkov asked, looking at the deity’s body, “By the way, are you a female or a male?‌ Or do you not have a gender?”
“I’m mostly seen as a genderless deity, but I am male.” The androgynous god grinned.
Fading from visibility like paint being scraped off to reveal a white, clear canvas, he disappeared.
They noticed there was no village anywhere. They decided to follow the road below their feet. “This should lead us to a village in no time,” Malkov said.
After wandering about for a sign, they found more bamboos and a sign of rural life. They found Flintlock village. 
They entered the village, socially confident. They spoke with the villagers, and they were fluent in the language as hoped. 
They rested at an inn once the time grew ominous, lying down, consciously breathing. What were we doing here?‌ they thought.
Junjirou woke up early to get himself outside the door immediately. He needed to search the borders to clear his depth of fears.
No other villages were in sight except for a couple of ruins lain to moss. He got back before the others woke up and thought up a plan for how they’d get food.
He ran around, talking to the villagers and asking them if he they could teach him how to cook.
They glanced at his face, subtly, at his ears and at his head, at his eyes, at his mouth, and lastly, at his body. Specifically, they were most concerned about the clothes.
They asked him to help with their chores for the day. He finished the task of only two villagers, but they promised to help him learn something for each chore done.
He went back home, tired and hungry. He knew, one day, they had to use the coins the deity gave them, but he grew burdened about depending too much on supernatural powers.
He didn’t find Yesami and Malkov, however. He thought, What could they be doing at this time?
Yesami and Malkov came back at around 12 midnight, but Junjirou was already asleep.
Junjirou woke up with ice-blue eyes staring at him. 
“He’s awake,” said the ice-blue-eyed girl, getting up from sitting on the bed.
He got up from his bed and groaned, “Am I alive?”
“Eat this,” Malkov asserted. “Yesami and I cooked this.”
“Oh, thank you for this.” He took a bite. “It’s good …” he said, slipping deep into thought.
“We helped you finish the other tasks you couldn’t finish yesterday,” Yesami explained.
“May I ask about the villager in our room?” Junjirou asked.
Yesami answered: “She wants to thank us for helping out at the tasks. She taught me and Malkov how to prepare some food and cook some food.”
“Is she the one giving the rewards from the tasks or something?” Junjirou asked.
Malkov answered: “No, she isn’t. She came here on her own terms.”
“What happened to the promised reward from the villages we did the tasks for?” Junjirou asked one more time.
Yesami answered:‌ “They gave us information about the country’s situation. Two of which are of the necromonsters that have entered through the west border of the country, and the sole ruler’s efforts to stop them. The sole ruler is a benevolent dictator by the way.”
Junjirou responds: “What kind of dictator is benevolent? I thought all dictators were bad.”
“ ‘Dictators’ are rulers with absolute power; This doesn’t specify what they’ll do with that absolute power,” Malkov said firmly.
“Excuse me, but what are your plans anyway?” 
Laws of Magic May 6, 2020
Rising out of sleep, he browsed through some interesting articles that made him think: I’m done with Latin spells. I want explicit words introducing magic, not sixteen syllables of jargon.
He cornered his noodles by holding both sides of the bowl and ate it up, leaving only its jarring smell.
Unfinished, he visited the lab and observed an recently abandoned experiment. Coming into terms with why he left, he walked away. 
Arriving at another experiment, he got an English dictionary and thesaurus, stopping at words might and serenity. He thought they might be good for categorizing something.
He went to his worktable and considered his next experiment. “Might can indicate power and serenity can indicate peace,” he said, hoping to provoke an answer. “These can be the only two categories of magic… where spells are created under!”
He munched several apples, sipping in the fresh juice that spilled out.
After illustrating a fraction of his plan, he wrote a list of laws, thinking about the frictions between such laws, in a journal.
Having previously set up a library of spells as a child, he took it upon himself to make creativity the driving force behind magic. Thus, he administered the ability to create spells, and at which, spells were a property of creators.
He checked the world and the experiment, glancing at his watch every three seconds as the world began its first days.
During this learning period, magic was dormant. Everybody grew up and wondered about everything. They had no distinct idea besides what they’ve already seen.
Dreams, however, breathed life to the human race. Dreams gave those brought up in controlling tribes freedom and ease, and they wanted that to become real.
Consequently, the first movement spurred, calling for dogmatism and fanaticism to be stopped. Orchestrated by a person named Aerobok  
THE LAW OF MAGIC
Once I finished the laws of magic, I read out loud the first law: “Sharing magic power among your people is one way to empower a group. Another way would be getting them to create spells of their own because that would increase spell power. The second law: Speaking of sharing, if a creator permits another, that person would be able to use the spells he created, given they had sufficient magic power. The third law: If you ever find this world to be care-free, remember that creating spells requires a vivid imagination, which requires consistent imagination. Thus, meditation and magic are used interchangeably.
Beginning, the Man of Evil May 17, 2020
Stuck in golden attire, he found himself unsightly in the sight of the city he built. He tore his clothes and told his concubines to exit the room. His lips were chaffed. He was faint from lack of food. His body ached where he lied with. He left the room with nothing but food fair for a journey. Once he reached his door, no one called, and he was free.
He opened his eyes. It was raining, and there was a boy beside him. He recalled his decision and gave the boy a few taps. The boy woke up, asking the man why he’s sleeping here instead of in a house.
He answered, “I sleep here because I don’t want to be bothered.”
The boy smiles. “You’re like Papa. Papa doesn’t like people bothering him while he rests.”
He continued, “Now, go back to your house unless you want to be punished.”
The boy replied that he couldn’t because it was raining.
Groaning, the man sighed, sitting up. He waited with the boy for the rain to stop. Once the rain stopped, the boy waved goodbye, but his mother and father were there behind him. They stared at him then at the man. They demanded the boy’s and the man’s reasons for being here.
The boy and the man explained themselves, but the mother and father didn’t buy it. The mother gave the father permission to beat him up, and he did.
The man, however, casted a spell that paralyzed the father. The boy shrieked, and the mother was shocked. She ran to call the guards to arrest the man, but the man tazed her with an electic spell. She fell unconcious.
The boy was shouting and crying all over, accusing the man of being evil. He slammed his fists at the man, but the man shrugged him off, going away unfazed.
The man asked the boy to stop, but the boy followed him. He followed him until they reached a cave. The man told the boy to stop chasing, but the boy refused. The man became upset, but he did nothing, waiting for the rain to stop. He meditated while the rain poured.
The boy, however, heard guards coming and shouted for help. The man was surprised, bringing himself back to his senses.
The boy went out of the cave and said the man was in the cave.
The man ached in his heart, feeling betrayed.
Once the guards arrived, the boy dashed over to the guards, hiding behind them.
The man was upset, but he didn’t lift a finger and instead explained what happened.
The guards were confused for a while. We have to consider that, they thought. That might be the case. However, the boy who crouched behind them became angry, saying the man was clearly guilty for going against his parents. He said he believed his parents and fought for them. The guards were sympathetic and aimed their spears at the man.
The man, astounded, grew angry. He casted a spell that burned them all up, saying he couldn’t be trapped like this.
In addition to the guards, the boy’s burned body were unsightly to the man, making him leave.
He walked off in the rain, looking for another cave to meditate under. He couldn’t bear the feeling of betrayal. From his parents and friends to his servants and wives, he felt betrayed and used. He picked up pace and ran into the unknown.
He sat down and thought, Should I have killed that boy? My power isn’t something I believe I should use like that.
He made a enormous cave his home and lived in it. However, adventurers came for his bounty and hidden treasure.
Fifty years later, from the deaths of billions of adventurers, he became known as the Man of Evil.
He walked along a narrow coast of sad thoughts, but somehow, this sadness had a ringing comfortably familiar to him. It was a ring of silence. The sound people make when they stop talking, stop lying, stop crying, stop shouting, and stop living. I only want peace. 
It was his only intention.
Ten Milliseconds Short May 20, 2020
“In special days, I make special arrangements, and I know who I want present already,” said my former classmate to me as he carried his swiss knife.
Hearing everything, I did not reply and nodded instead.
“It’s this feeling that I don’t want anyone present that bothers me. Am I not the party popper? Why can’t I be with anyone?” He put back the swiss knife into his pocket, lighting a cigarettes and leaning onto the balustrade . For ten whole minutes, he smoked and kept quiet.
I had said that that was how I felt: I told him, “A long time ago, one effed-up day, I decided and said, ‘I can’t handle people at all.’ My introspections gradually changed after that.”
We sat on the couch with our heads resting against the furniture. Our arms fell, our eyes twitched, and our minds stopped bickering.
“Annie, Annie. Wake up!” I tapped her on the back, but her eyes hadn’t moved. Sitting down, I looked at the sky, and the silhouette watching us overshadowed me.
It was a big scowled man. Revealing an arm, He held me up, inhaling the faint smell on my right shoulder. “What have we here?” he said. “This isn’t blood.”
My inability to move pushed me to my limit. My throat closed up. I went limp. I stared into nowhere.
A “hey” brought me back into reality. “Hareta, what’s going on?” Annie woke up. She could tell I was uncomfortable.
I said, “Excuse me, my friend doesn’t want this. Please gently place him down.”
The hooded big man shoved back a deadpan stare. He didn’t place him down, but he asked “Why?”
“What ‘why’?” I asked.
Eyes growing malevolent, he replied, “Can’t you clearly tell I’m doing this even if you don’t want to?
“If you want, you can try to run, but I’m taking you both with me.”
I couldn’t get carried away and give up on Annie too. She had been talking back to him, but he had given the message. “Run,” I said, “if you can.”
She shrugged it off.
World of Wonders May 20, 2020
My friend, Davis reminded me that some people end up hating things that they’ve loved most for some time, and that’s what happened with me and the world.
I appreciate humanity’s existence, but I wouldn’t engage myself with anyone unless it was required to live a easygoing life.
Davis, of course, has never been a friend really. We met in a camp. He was my counselor, and I was a camper. I just called him a friend because our one-time one-hour conversation made me see him as one. After that camp ended, I never saw him again even on social media.
Maybe I appreciated him because I didn’t know more about him. I mean, first impressions are great, but daily life with anybody might not be what I expect.
Around 60-80 years later, I died and arrived here in Dursghest somehow. Dursghest is a city in a different world, populated by people from my previous world.
If it’s heaven, it may as well be because I intend to stay here.
Meanwhile, everyone has powers based on their desires, hopes, and regrets before they slept on their deathbeds.
I’ve met Sally; she has the ability to revive people. There are many others like her for some reason. Is reviving people a trend nowadays?
I’ve also met Adrian; he has stared at me longer than comfort provides. He has the power to assess what a person’s life goals are. I might be weird if that’s the case. He handles the security work here.
There’s also Caterer who sees dead people. These dead people are most likely replicas of the people who died.
I, however, don’t have a power. To clarify, I don’t have a power I want to tell anyone. I can’t die.
I notice that people don’t have violent powers here. This makes me think, Who handles what power people get?
Before I was able to say sorry, a person appeared from above and offered his hand. “My name’s Dog, and welcome to the party!” he said, raising his other hand in the air.
“Thank you,” I said. “My name is Luke.” I shook his hand gently.
He grinned, crouching down to fix his shoe laces.
I asked him: “Everyone here is wearing plain clothes. Why is that?”
He looked around and replied, “Oh, everyone likes cool stuff, am I right?”
“Probably,” I said.
He smiled, “Well, I better be going or you know — the world might collapse because of a lack of order… . I was kidding, of course!” He took his legs and jumped into the air, soaring with hands in his pockets.
I frowned. He didn’t answer my question, I thought.
I walked back to the middle of Durghest. My home was back there. We were provided personally styled homes because there was this one guy named Rick who could make anything he wanted with his powers. I suggested making it as minimal as possible. I might just be a minimalist.
Sally, coming from reviving a body who tried jumping off a building for the first time, sought me out for questioning. She asked me, “So, where did you live?”
I said, “I lived in Iceland.”
Sally, who was skeptic, replied, “You’re not going to planning to kill us all because of how peaceful it was in your past life?”
I flinched and ached in the head. “What?” I exclaimed. “Why?”
“Here in Durghest, people live the opposite of their past lives because of boredom,” she said, slamming her palms onto her face.
Did her face hurt? I thought.
She sat down beside me, placing her hand on my shoulder. “Don’t be a dick, okay?” she told me. “For yourself.” After getting up, she looked back and smiled, forcing me to nervously smile back.
“Yes, Maam,” I whispered.
When she left the room, I thought, She really hits differently from when we first met.
Now that I think about it, there are people being kept in prison here, but they aren’t any lifetime sentences. The max length is around 2 years if I heard correctly.
Later, sitting down, I stared at the platform where I first arrived. Why isn’t a person arriving here every half-second? I thought.
Light shone from the sky and beamed down onto the platform. “It’s a new one,” I whispered.
His name was Davis, but he looked nothing like the Davis I knew. He was ragged and unshaven, but his curious expressions didn’t look bleak at all.
I wondered at how he managed to become like that until he mentioned his power. He was immortal.
I gasped and gripped my chest to ease incoming chest pain, but the chest pains didn’t come. Oh right, I thought. I can’t die.
“I know you don’t give a damn,” called a voice from behind me. It was Adrian.
I coughed.
“You’re not a violent type, but you don’t want to be here, don’t you?” he huffed.
I stayed quiet for a while. What is he saying? I thought.
With skeptic eyes, he sighed. “I have the perfect job for you,” he said.
My eyes lit up. “Thank you, kind Sir!” I exclaimed, offering my hand.
He shook me off like I was touching him. “Stay away from me,” he said. “I don’t like people touching me, and I know you feel the same too.” He left me slightly frowning at his coherent behavior.
We arrived at a library, and I was invited to take the job as librarian. I took a glimpse into the future and thought about how much I would enjoy this place. I frowned. “You think I can look at books all day without wanting to be a writer?” I explained.
He lit up. “Maybe you can be a writer? Creative forms tend to die down when people realize their powers don’t line up with their hopes here.”
I intended to do just that.
“I’ve heard immortals make really good artworks… and books!” he exclaimed. He realized his behavior and calmed himself.
We departed to my house, and it was altered to fit a creative writer’s abode. I gave my respects to Rick once again, saying that he might as well be an artist. He chuckled and said, “I was a painter in my previous life, but I died dreaming of making the perfect home for my kids.”
Adrian bowed before leaving my premises, and I wondered, Why am I here again?
I wrote several short stories over a day, and this wasn’t an easy process. Nobody likes reading things nobody cares about, so I wrote a book about fantasy and magic. If powers are anything here, magic would be a comprehensible trope.
Dog, the flying dude, visited me several times to check out the way I write my stories. He said it was interesting.
I asked him, “What is your power?”
He gazed at me and replied, “I’m the god of this world.”
“Would all this be a dream?” is a question I ask myself every night, but a new one popped out: “Why is Dog a god?”
“Why did I die again?” I said, tucking myself to sleep. “This world is an interesting concept of a dream.”
Community of Seers May 29, 2020
A communal chest in the middle of a village welcomes famished newcomers. In front of the chest, the newcomers talk about their release from lab rat prison. They grieved on the deaths of those who didn’t survive and berated those who sacrificed others for their lives.
“I did only what anyone would have done! Who knew I’d be given the choice to sacrifice myself for five others that I didn’t know well? Of course, I would save myself!”
“Ghost giants arrived on Seawalk Island, generally meaning that Aphei summoned this new creature,” said Alliya, one of the townspeople.
“Aphei is a. He made elves—remember?” Ferifi, a classmate of Alliya, said,
Meanwhile, a 15-year-old player opened the chest, making the guards peer at what he’s getting. Getting his items, he looked at the guards. The guards stared for a second and then nod. “Have a nice day!” is the boy’s reply.
Observing the boy, a girl behind the corner of a statue mused, He’s not here for me?
“Don’t stare at someone you want to talk to,” said the guard close to her. “Don’t me wrong. People aren’t—”
“Thanos Effrie,” she said.
“Thanos Effrie?” the guard asked.
“Thanos Effrie is his name.” She glanced at the guard and went on her way.
Some guards arrived and pulled him away, but the aforementioned girl didn’t notice, leaving him to disappear with the rest.
An onlooker, properly suited and standing, has her eyes locked on one particular target.
“Hey, wait for me!” said the girl running after the boy. She scampered toward him, making her way through crowds of crowds of people. She heard several reactions during her run.
“Huh,” said a black gray-suited man with a bowler.
“You,” said a bald albino wearing ranger pants and a white dress.
“Excuse me?” said a white humanoid with four arcs over the sides of her head and two over her forehead. She was 2 heads taller than everyone there.
After Thanos Effrie’s follower ended her search, the curiosity building in the crowd peaked as rumours that ghost giants are rambling inside the village become facts to the mass.
One group notices this and finds their leader. Jonathan Leviathan comes atop a historical podium’s remnants, upholding his title as Reality Reconcilation Reliance’s leader. He stares, seeing that people are occupied; he stays silent and waits, His grand stance is coming out soon.
Lines of people from the crowd form as they notice the stature of one fellow above a broken down historical site. “I know you know there aren’t ghost giants anywhere. Up, down, below, above.” He gulps. “Ghost giants are a figure of speech, and we hear it all the time as kids.” He looks at the younger people who make up most of the crowd. “However, we aren’t kids, and we won’t be fooled. Right?”
“But—” A few voices in the audience shiver as they’re the travelers who spoke good of the ghost giants.
“That’s why we can’t let people use a figure of speech to fool us. Do you know what happens if we believe this? We become sheep to the slaughter, and we are not sheep! We are intelligent and diligent people! All of us are!”
 “Bring all those selfish, self-destructive sheep to the slaughter! We’re not letting them take us! We’re not of the sheepfold!”
The leader grinned. “We are the peacebringers of society!” He went ballistic; his eyes expressed malicious intent.
Meanwhile, Thanos Effrie
God-King June 2, 2020
From an adventurous group, three deities, Heliophilia, Hiraeth, Halcyon arrived at one of three remnants from an attack.
The remnant, Fort Bricolage welcomed them to the gathering, Ludic.
God-King Hara-arara, host of the gathering, invited the fourteen deities of the Jayoko Alliance, briefly stating his intentions for a bout.
The fourteen deities arrived as requested, and so did Heliophilia, Hiraeth, Halcyon.
Equinox brought three of his freshly conjured ghouls, telling them to observe.
Beside Equinox’s ghouls and creatures of other deities, Wil Kins, a human, stood there frightened. Where am I? Why am I here? he thought, holding a hand to his mouth, gasping. He fell to the ground and backed away from the ghouls.
In the court, the God-King eagerly grasped his cup and then stood proudly. He closed his eyes. When he opened them, he disappeared. Everyone else closed their eyes too; they disappeared.
Equinox’s ghouls, the other creatures, and Wil Kins couldn’t go though because of a mission. Fort Bricolage was still in a world after all.
Once the God-King and the deities opened their eyes, what they saw wasn’t the court but the 21st century of Earth.
He inserted every human on Earth into a timeless room. He recreated the Earth after that.
Outside the fort and walking toward a nearby village, the creatures left behind disguised themselves as proper human travelers.
Once they arrived, they read a sign that read out, “Maltalent”. When the villagers saw them, they lit up, not because they knew what they were but because of their number. “Are you from Petrichor? Or from the Arara Latibule?” an old woman asked them.
“We are but travelers who have met on a road we haven’t gone to before,” Hydria, a creature of Iccry-ptozo, replied.
“I see.” She went back to cleaning up her garden, unconvinced.
“We escaped our village because of an bandit raid, leaving the village that sacrificed themselves for us. It’s been 1 and a half years.”
She lit up. “I see.” She was sure now.
“You’re the Karoshis!” Her sure face interrupted the travelers’ hopes in correcting her. “I heard there were fourty-two Karoshis, but there are fifty-seven of you.”
“Yes we’re not—”
“The Karoshis are better than I’ve heard!”
 “How would you know if we’re not deserters?” Advancing from the center of the creatures, Mord, a creature of Woolgathering, murmured.
“Deserters aren’t confident: they’re either self-important or cowardly. You fellows radiated confidence even from before you entered our grounds. Our scout, Litost informed me and believed you.” The elder stated, offering shelter to the disguised creatures.
The creatures were baffled, but they silently agreed, nodding at each other. They had a ticket to advance their learning and took good care of it.
“You may have put down the name, denying any future calling, but even now, we still do thank you for your service.” The elder’s last words that afternoon piqued and put the creatures to an existential sleep.
“In this timeless room,” the deity Equinox said, “every one of you are free to go around! If you’re worried about others touching you, that won’t be allowed! Now, before I continue my annoucements, you may rest a good thirty minutes in perfect peace.”
The God-King had tasked Equinox with the role of a wholesome taskmaster, teleporting the deity to the timeless room.
A small voice picked up the ears of many people. “Is it safe here? Where are we?”
“I don’t know, kid. This might be the worst event to some and the best event to some, depending on how that god will handle things.”
A adult female stood up. Her hair was ruined, but you could make out her bob with bangs. She did an accidental curtsy as she struggled to stand up. Once she got to her feet, she explained, “I heard a voice and hid. I thought it was just me because it came from everywhere.” She brushed her intrusive hair out of her eyes and sighed,
She noticed everyone was either five or seven meters away from her.”Wha! Why is everyone distancing themselves?”
“We can’t stand closer than five meters from each other,” an adult male, Flâneur said.
“We still have around 2 meters of space to move around,” said Numinous, a mid-forties male. Eighteen meters away from Flâneur, he asked him, “Invite people to calm each other down by giving a small word of advice.” He quickly turned and told the same to a man next to him. Flâneur got the idea and did the same.
Once everyone within speaking range of Numinous was spoken to, Flâneur asked him, “What should I tell them?”
“We’re all in this together.” He smirked. “Something similar to what we hear everyday, but this time it’s almost true.”
Meanwhile, one hundred fifty meters away from Numinous, a woman stood up passively. “This isn’t Earth?” she asked.
“The Earth is gone Miss,” replied Flâneur. Everything around them grew anxious and annoyed. “If you c–”
“Shut up. Please shut up for a sec!” A woman with a religious life fell to her knees. She was on the brink of breaking, but she still prayed.
Flâneur lowered his voice to an undertone and spoke to the woman who asked. “Okay, I know it’s hard but if you can, tell people we’re all in this together almost.”
“… almost? Sure, I’ll tell them that, but is it true?”
“Almost true. Physically and mentally–”
“Please will you shut up about the nonsense already! This isn’t what should be.” She cried herself to rest.
“Okay, everyone! As some have noticed, physical and mental deformities and ailments have been healed. Whoever was talking earlier might have been the cause for t–”
“Now you’re defending the murderer?” said a man with a blue jeans and a blue polo that came out of his left side. “My daughter died because of that freak!”
Another voice came out of the mass. “What the yuck are you talking about? Do you have any idea what you’ve done and who you’ve killed? It was your daughter that you killed. You killed her, you fatheryucker!”
“Shat shat shat! Shut up already.” People heated up. Equinox reacted, teleporting back in and making a chopping sound.
Everyone stopped. They sat, and Equinox finished off his announcements: “Earth is done, and so is everyone here. We’re returning back to Earth.”He counted down from five, making sure everyone was healthy before he ended. Before he reached one, he said, “Welcome to the New Earth. I’m Equinox.”
Meanwhile,
They arrived on New Earth, and fourteen dressed individuals greeted them. “Welcome to your reformed Earth. I’m Shoshin; May I introduce you to life here?” As soon as they heard what he said, they looked at each other and shrugged.
Surrounded by rolling forest hills and billions of people, they each wanted a human leader under Equinox, Shoshin, and the thirteen dressed individuals. Shoshin replied, “Knowledgeable humanoids will accompany you. Don’t worry about leaders when you can have guides.”
They either nodded, replied “yes”, or stayed passive, compliant with each other’s decision. Phenomenal numbers of people in one group made results, particularly creative expressions.
Shoshin created one humanoid, a guide, for every four or five people.
“Since we’re patient and we don’t want to travel far, I’m teleporting every one of us to the location of the places.” He had a sincere smile on his face, contrasting Equinox’s playful grin. This displaced everyone’s progressive presence of mind and relieved them.
As soon as Shoshin teleported everyone and himself, Equinox was on the other side already, resting with an asian squat.
“Have you seen the community murals here? Perplexing, isn’t it?” His back was turned on the artworks he talked about, but this wasn’t modern art.
Numinous approached the villages. “The art on the walls… that’s painting—”
Shoshin interjected, “Painting with fire.” He nodded, closing his book and adjusting his glasses. He noticed Flâneur, a adult female, and Numinous staring. “Oh, the book? I keep a journal; most find journaling calms existential distress.”
Flâneur cleared his throat. “This is the first village we’re observing.” He looked behind him then stared at everyone. “Don’t worry. We informed them of your arrival.” He stood up from his squat and swaggered toward the village. “Follow me, everyone.”
Deadpan, Shoshin watched him and made his way onto the villages’ grounds as well. Everyone else strolled behind him.
On the path we took, the murals or art on the walls conveyed a duality of tragedy and mission. There were starers, bystanders, and armed guards. They grew expressionless as the path was shown to be a long way. Before they had a grumbling stomach, a friendly face invited them to eat.
Shoshin’s face said, “Let’s all eat. Now have an apple!” He spoke under his breath, “Don’t worry. Your common supplements wants and needs completes this apple, my apple. Call this the healthiest apple if you will.” He ate only one in three seconds. Averting some people’s ASMR triggers, everyone else did something similar.
“Mob mentality in eating is obvious, compared to other micro-expressions and decisions,” replied Querencia, one of Equinox’s creatures. She was patting her friend, Honne, who was one more of Equinox’s. There were two of them plus the third one: Acronychal was eating an apple. He muttered something as he crunched on an acorn.
Wil Kins and the other creatures stretched from behind the three to the front of them. They had different still faces: some have a misantrope’s and some have a small smile.
Honne turned to everyone and told a joke. After one second, everyone laughed one after another. He took note of this and went back to walking with both hands in pockets.
A king on New Earth opened his eyes. He was on bed, sitting. Showing his glorified self to the mirror, he cussed a handful of times.
He is Eigengrau, the interpreter of dying elephants, and Eigengrau, the king of eight castles. He stays at New Earth, preparing himself for Olivia and her people.
Two dozen years ago, Olivia, a supposed prophetess, came to his quarters in the night when he was still a prince. “I am Olivia, god of this world and god evermore! Welcome a new people to my land! This is my voice!” He believed her words and waited, casting away anyone that belittled her vision. Olivia’s testament was a paragon of divinity to him.
“Is she here? Is she here?” He hurried onto the carpet and rolled into the sunlight. “This is it. My priestess!”
Shoshin stood at the castle’s boundary, waiting for the king to respond.
The king’s dashing rush was put to the stop by a hand gesture by him. He asked, “Excuse me, but, are you the king?”
“Are you my priestess?” He quivered, seeing the male version of the recalled beauty.
“I am the priestess. Now, we will be making our way around your castle. Thank you.” He closed the gate, shutting off any words the king had to say.
The king fell to his knees. “My wife. I remember you at this day. Please be with me.” He went back to his castle, informing everyone there about his choice. He ran out changed to his casual attie, and followed the male version of the woman he adored.
“Hey, is that running person one of us?” an adult female with orange hair said.
“Yes, that should be. Give me a sec. He must enjoy cosplay! … or is that roleplay?” Numinous held in his giggles.
We have no right to judge, but he does give off that vibe, thought the curly-haired, spectacle-wearing girl.
The thirteenth, the fouteenth, and the fifteenth goddess were three hundred miles south of them. Heliophilia, Hiraeth, Halcyon
“Halcyon, you ain’t backing out.”
“I won’t. Remember my name.”
“Shat, don’t die out there fam.” He put on his cap.
“You bet we won’t,” Heliophilia pushed Halcyon off the building and jumped.
Halcyon voiced out, “The looters are ten miles south. Be ready to take them down.” He glanced at the location they were dropping off to.
“Sure gangster,” joked Heliophilia. She smirked.
Ten years went by for the three deities before the God-King released the humans to New Earth. Now, they still don’t know who they are, but they are fully themselves even in mortal bodies.
They flew by voicing out incantations every thirty-two seconds. This incantation called the wind to pick them up for a while.
They landed at Fort Lachesism, one of the remnants of three major attacks, but this place was bombarded with three terrorist organizations.
Far Lands June 6, 2020
I walked past a couple of acres. There was no sound; only the souls of the wind covered our tracks. I had to make a decision: leave my group or stay behind. I wanted to keep going, but the Orcs kept on bringing goat heads straight from their body. The ritual is coming to a close. I had no choice but to follow the path Creeca formed for me. I shuddered and carried my body over the final hill before the City of Campus.
In harsh times, there used to be hopeful memories of where I began. I would go around stopping at villages with a dragon under me. This was especially common during the Espiaca period of humanity. I am an immortal, and that’s how I reached this place: the reality-shattering farthest lands.
In reality, there was no limit to how far we could walk, but a single civilization created a boundary that would be known as the Far Lands. This place was especially quiet most of the way because of the monsters that bred all over this parts of the Earth.
I showed my group who only lived because of a power all beings had: common folk. Without this power, I wouldn’t have been able to share my immortality to them as long as they held my living and willing human body. Pain was also impossible in this state, but we had instincts not to do certain things that would otherwise cause us pain.
The group was amazed at how far I could walk, but they soon got used to it after walking almost a couple of miles. In total, since the start of our journey, we traveled over a million miles walking, but we walked faster because of a innate strength someone in our group shared. All this time took 38 years.
We were here now.
My name is Coulton Poster, I live as a freeman among the Natives. This is a challenge as my people find out the objective of this three people who arrived at our sweet home. They are human beings too, but they are alien nonetheless. They seem to be unaware of where they stepped. 
This is the border. Outside of this is the edge of the world or the edge of our world precisely. The world out there is plain and unstoppable. It is a neverending cycle out there, and my people have decided to go. This is the warcry of the Natives.
They are a nuisance; that’s why we must either stop them or bring them as slaves. If they are strong enough, we shall clasp hands despite their long ears and their foreign attire.
We called them over in our language. They smiled and raised their hand, running over with friendly gestures. They repeated a sentence we couldn’t grasp until he stopped at one word and pointed at himself. That’s it; his name is Waralocka.
I am not the elder of my village, but I ask a lot of questions which qualifies me in the slightest.
“Elder, please allow me to ask them and teach them our ways. I need to know from whence they came and how far they’ve come.”
“Sure man,” said the oldest but most quiet elder in our group. He never talked in a way that his voice overtakes ours. He is a good man, but he isn’t a freeman; he is a noble.
Our place was assured of since we came here; the Far Lands people accept us. I talked to my group about this discovery; they agreed, nodding their head.
We spent a few years here and helped them as freemen; we hoped to abolish their slavery, and we did. This made us heroes of the uncivilized, but knowledge and empathy shall be dispersed. We shall create genius heroes.
We spoke about the often praised hopes of leaving the border, but we just arrived here. It’s been a good 10 years since then, but we longed to connect the people of the world, but they have different plans. 
They believed in an end to the world’s questions; they believed in a round earth. I told them the world is infinite, but their common knowledge didn’t agree. I speculated again and again, “Could I be wrong?” I wondered about that and failed to find a definite answer, but a defining feeling was available. I picked up my things and left the town. This was the end for me for a while. The people who I brought with me came with me and said, “If you are leaving, we are going with you. We have no attachments to this world, but it’d be great if we stayed alive a little bit longer.”
They sticked to me, following me on my journey to the same world, but where I was going was a world that passed 48 years without us. We were hungry in mind, tired in mind, and wondering, “Is this world all we have left?”
We passed by the same route as the monsters roamed around. They attacked us, but since we practically glued ourselves to each other. We couldn’t die; we were all immortal. This scared all the monsters away, sometimes including the big ones. We were also fast enough to outrun most of them, since most of them tend to be big and slow instead of small and fast. The big ones tend to be passive and unalert because of their fierce strength. We were safe most of the way because of that and because of my power.
I was growing tired day by day. “Can we make a perfect world?” I asked them. “Or at least, a world where we’re all safe and connected?”
I relieved myself by mating with one of my friends. I gave birth to two girls and one boy; this wasn’t what I wanted originally, but this is especially amusuing too.
I made sure to bring these boys up in fear and awe of the unknown, but they had to adore the safety of control and knowledge as well. They were smart, tactical, and fearing. They ran at every fight, devising plans again and again to face their fear. The plans they devised earned them respect and honor in the face of my aged group.
I was fine with them dying if they spent a good time living their life. I had no questions if they ever died because if they ever died, I would fight knowing I gave birth to people like me. They were “half-immortal”, similar to my immortality but fragile nonetheless. They can die, but they come to life after a couple of hours. This means they can get stuck inside something’s body eternally. 
This might be excruciating and painful, but they can die if they want to. Immortals can die if they want to. It’s a question of their will, but since they have such strong confidence and will, they almost never do such a thing. They would spend years trapped in a cave trying to get out and never want to die. Even in the presence of the unknown, they’ll fight; I’ll fight. 
When we arrived at the area where villages are common, I met Von that day. His voice was intelligible in my ear, but it was barely noticeable until you really think about it. He told me gods exist and people should tremble and fear, but I wasn’t afraid. Why? Because there’s no use living your whole life afraid of the infinite.
After a couple of years listening and testing him, I declared to myself Von is real.
Von broke a cup. He carried someone up in the air and made him fall into some hay. He carried water as if it was solid. He closed all the doors of a village. He did all that as soon as he said he would. I can’t see him, but I can hear him. He said he was a god, and I should admit to believing him already. I did and I laughed sadly.
I couldn’t sleep. Desired thoughts wouldn’t come to my mind, and because of that, I couldn’t sleep.
A dream came to me, and for other reason, I realized. “You’re not immortal, are you? That’s why you came to me.” I asked him in a secluded part of the village.
“I am sadly mortal,” Von replied. He put two fingers on both cheeks and formed a frown.
Sneaking from behind a house, a boy called out to us and asked, “Who are you talking to man?” I recognized him. He was the messy-haired boy Von made fly.
The air beside me pieced itself together to form Von. “We are gods of this world,” Von said. “Bow down at our feet or the lands will burn with crimson air.”
“Ok wtf.”
“We’re humans, friend,” I said.
“I see. Well, I’m heading off ‘cause I don’t want any more s**t today.” He walked away and shrugged as if everything besides the norm is a bother and he would rather have a peaceful life.
The boy came right around. “What is going on in this world?”
“You don’t need to—”
“Don’t shush him just like—”
“But you shushed m—”
“Just don’t, okay?”
“Okay.”
The boy put a hand to his chin and asked, “You guys want someone to experiment on?”
We flinched and asked, “You don’t want to die, right?”
“I don’t, and I can’t die.”
Von nodded approvingly. I told the boy, “This is the highway.”
“Join in,” Von said.
I hesistated and replied, “Okay, son. Get in.”
He smirked. “Heh.”
Later on our walk to the next village, I stopped in front of an inn and told Von, “Take him. You want him, right?”
Von cringed. “No uh-uh! I don’t need him.”
I opened the door to the inn. Von huffed. “Hey, wait. Where are you going?”
I sighed. “I want to sleep.” I went in.
“Sleep? When there are adventures to be told?”
“Uh. I’m tired.” I sat down.
The boy was looking around and asked, “What’s happening?”’
“He doesn’t want to do anything.”
“What do you mean? He wants to sleep in broad daylight.”
“Oh. I do that all the time!”
“Really?”
“When I’m really tired after jumping off a tall building thrice, I sleep for long hours. I’m not actually tired, but I sometimes have this unconscious desire to sleep even if I don’t need it.”
I raised my hand. “You’re immortal, aren’t you?”
Everyone in the shop turned and stared with alien eyes.
We instantly stopped our conversation and laughed it off. “Jumping off buildings is basically immortal, am I right?”
They all turned away slowly and then the boy answered, “Yeah!” They looked at him with ill-humoured eyes.
“Yeah, I love parkour! I haven’t broken a single leg. I’m that good!” he said shyly.
They stopped, stared at each other, and went back to normal.
“Do you guys have a house I can stay at?”
The boy looked at Von and at his shirt. “No, I don’t. Von has though.”
Von’s eyes showed a calm collected person. “Stay at my home. There’s cake.”
Later, at the cake house, he showed the two rooms available for guests. “Use these. I hate having guests at my house, but you two are a exception.”
After Von finished showed him the rooms of the house, the boy with us stood at the side, heavy breathing against the wall accopanied by a sweaty flaunt. His eyes were at the floor, speechless. When his eyes stopped at us, he made a run for it. He was muttering on his way to the guest room.
“He must hate fancy houses,” I noted.
Von stood there, cold and detached. He excused himself and left.
I sat on the bed and frowned. “Immortal, rich, and secure is better than immortal and distraught.” I breathed against the air. “What world could I live in if I was perfect?”
My group had left me after getting tired of staying with me eighteen hours a day. They had to touch me to be immortal, and they didn’t want that. They also knew that I didn’t want anything to do with adventurers, so they left.
I wanted a fire of passion, and I didn’t have that. I need something.
Gamble June 6, 2020
Cold stares pictured every mirror I looked at. Nothing mirrored this clear feeling. I had lost all hatred for this face: the image of someone’s murder. I extended a cane over my chair and pulled over to me to hurl my injured feet on. This is my first night at the palace and blood was already shed. I can’t let this be my last bounty. I have other plans beside imprisoning myself underneath a castle.
I took a slot and spun a gamble.
Round Head June 7, 2020
My round head faced the human-faced giant crab when the armour that had protected me has mostly left me leaving behind sabatons and rags for protection. I dropped my sword and ran straight to the screeching crab, blacking out when I collided with it.
I had shuddered when I awoke. Undeneath dirty, muddy rags put me on a tightrope. I staggered toward a place to puke when I had dropped to the ground. My body retched up and blasted a gush of vomit.
I stuttered when a figure behind me moved. I looked around and locked eyes with the figure. “Who’s there?” I asked it.
The misty shadowy stranger strolled toward me with a lofty figure. His eyes radiated intellect as if it knew whence I came.
When the mud dropped from my belly, the wind caught me naked and chilled me.
I backed down and retreated, throwing more than a couple of rocks at it. He had dodged the rocks and moved back into pursuit when I swiped the sweat out of my forehead.
I avoided the trees and branches of the forest that I had come into, letting out another sack of sweat to dry. I wiped my forehead again.
Taking note of sounds and signs from the area I ran through, I aimed.
10 seconds into the forest, the dark misty figure marked the trees he passed through, leaping over branches and ponds. He arrived at where he hid, so I quickly bashed him to a halt. He groaned, meaning the daze kept him unsteady. I bashed him again. Blood streamed from his nostrils and his fingers quivered. I bashed him for the final time, causing him to lose his balance and fall down.
The dark misty figure woke up. The noose around his neck, attached to a thick tree’s branch, triggered him, but his hands and legs were tied and he was left to stare.
Leaning back, I stared at him and stood up. I asked, “What’s this?” I pointed at a tree with a curious look.
He replied in his own language the word for “tree”.
I accepted what he said and looked around, asking him what they were. We concluded the day on a bright note, but I was still hungry.
I couldn’t find any food when I searched nearby, but I had the defenceless humanoid figure tied up beside me. I threw its sword somewhere hidden. Black particles might reveal its sword’s location however.
I left the dark misty figure to starve, aiming for food farther than I last searched. 10 minutes out of the forest, I saw sixteen hunters that were humanoid goats. I couldn’t eat them, but I might be able to locate a source of food.
According to their appearance, they arrived from around a mile away. Separating themselves also meant they looked for something or sought to inspect this new area.
Beasts that were 6.5 m wide and 2.7 m tall rambled around the land, staying close to plants and laying right next to them.
With a swift fall of a friend, the other goats people ran to help, directly applying bandages to their injured friend.
When the goat people went to check if the beasts were aggressive or not, a beast had impaled their friend, holding him three feet off the ground.
The unsuspecting goatmen retreated, increasing their chances for a proper fight. They got their rocks and threw at the beasts. Since the goatmen were still reachable, they charged at them. The goat people find a tall rock to get onto, and they attacked again from there. The rocks caused most of the beasts to back down, but there were a four creatures couldn’t let them go and died.
When the beasts retreated out of a thrown rock’s reach, they got down and salvaged the bodies. I waited until they left carrying two beasts, returning to the area after checking the dark misty humanoid’s condition.
I cut a fallen beast with a makeshift dagger I had created before the goat people left the area. I brought my share of the creature and left before the other beasts come along to mourn their dead.
I fed the dark misty humanoid some raw flesh. He accepted it and ate it untied. With a dagger in hand, I tied him up but we weren’t staying here.
Knowing the absence of life on the side where I had awakened and had met the humanoid I pulled with a rope, I sought the land there.
The whiff of sea met me near a village at the coasts. Goat people lived there; contact with them was necesssary.
Stepping stones decorated the road up the hill to the village. The friendly atmosphere did contrast the signs of warning set near the forest grounds.
I had proved the humanity of the village through their way of living when I caught sight of their watchtowers.
Once we stepped foot on their boundaries, the goat people caught up with our position and strength. They presented ten armed goat people to meet us.
I conversed with them in three-word sentences, gathering and giving information of the land outside. The tied-up humanoid beside me dispelled any confusion in language.
In simple terms, they asked us how we survived the beasts of the forest.
We explained that there were animals in the forest, but they weren’t dangerous enough to be called a beast.
They repeated, “You walked steps as numerous as the drops of rain, and yet you didn’t see a single threat?” Their wide eyes almost made me reconsider my facts.
“Yes, there were dangerous creatures outside the forest on the other side,” I replied.
They froze, turning to each other in marvel, and asked me, “Did you see any people like us?”
“Yes, and they killed a beast.”
They gave me food and a drink for the information, accepting us into the village as travelers.
Their village was big enough as a mountain village beside the sea, eating their fish and exploring the neighboring lands. Moreover, they had no desire to go back. For them, the land beyond the forest was an unknown one and if they were ever to go through there again, it would be their last option.
We spent the night beside the forest as we didn’t have anything to trade to rent shelter and buy food. Besides, everything was free and safer here, but integrating with a growing society of goatmen would keep us on par with the leaders of the world.
As our first source of income, we hunted food from the forest to sell in the village, surprising buyers with selection of meat they haven’t eaten before: moose, deer, cow, deer-cow hybrids, wild dogs, foxes, and wild cats.
Selling for around 8 weeks got us enough coins to make a name for ourselves, the villagers adored our trade and believed we had to fight beasts to get them. They asked one day to bring a beast, but I respectfully declined saying no beasts reside in the jungle.
They stared at me with curiousity for a few seconds and then laughed it off, saying I was good with jokes. They admitted my strength couldn’t be compared with the goatmen and threw rumours around my greatness. I watched it all happen in horror.
Whenever I finished, there would be one person who would ask: “Is bringing a beast possible?”
I declined, saying there was no beast in the forest. I even added they were too heavy to be brought through the forest by hand.
They marveled and told me if I knew how much they weighed, that would mean I killed them and tried to carry them myself.
I explained that the beasts were on the other side of the forest, and there was no way I could bring one beast through the forest without wagons or carts and a pathway to travel through.
They brightened up when I said “pathway to travel through” and explained that they could find a way to make just that.
They left me without answers, and I returned to my dwelling without expectation.
I woke early the next day to hunt in the densely-populated forest, grabbing a white-tailed deer on the way out. I cut a share for the dark mysty fellow and me, cooking it over a fire.
Once we had our fill, I brought the rest of the deer to the village. The person who talked me yesterday came by with a group of large men with axes. I informed them of the forest’s creatures, and they went on to cut the first trees that blocked the path they were creating.
I arrived at my and the dark mysty figure’s abode. The tied-up dark mysty figure blankly stared at me. I stared back at him. We had a staring bout: I was in the moment, and so was he. We watched the axe-wielding brutes cut the trees with precise swings.
I sat down for a while and viewed the coins within a bag I held. I counted from one and gave up at nine.
I got up and hunted more, selling the loot at the village. I returned to the forest and looked for the waymakers. Finding them farther than I expected, I ran back and brought the dark mysty humanoid in preparation.
“Do you want to help?” asked the person who organized this mission, holding out a handaxe.
I took it and gave one to the dark mysty humanoid beside me. I had untied him before this trip and I knew he couldn’t just attack me with twenty-one other people beside me.
We cut trees and two weeks passed, clearing the path that stretched 19 miles onward.
Before we reached the other side of the forest however, the seven-foot tall figures of armoured ram people put us on alert. The hunter goat people stood alongside them as well.
Physique-wise, the ram people had two tiny horns on their head, and excellent legs and a large torso to compensated for the loss.
They offered plants to the beasts from a safe position, but the beasts declined. They offered meat from small creatures, and the beasts ate it.
We watched this over the course of the night but left to find a safe place in the forest to sleep. Most of us slept with a few volunteering to spend the night watching for danger.
12 hours later, we returned back to the spot we had watched them from and saw them feeding the beasts still.
We watched them until they tamed them and rode them. They left the area but set up some hunter goat people to watch the area.
We talked about the event on our way back. The female and leader of the group commented: “They’re a threat to the village. Furthermore, the path to the village is an opportunity to strike.”
She informed the elders of the village to form a stand on the matter. They quieted down about it for several days, bringing everyone great worry and indecision.
I sat at my meat stand with the dark mysty humanoid beside me. I figured she’s been on and off about the benefits of a road through the forest, but she mentioned, “Their extreme conservatism kills off new ideas. We won’t get anywhere when they don’t test their eyes and feel the moment.”
I sighed. “Not everything that works is the best option, but I have an idea why they’d feel that way.”
The dark mysty humanoid stared at me. He told me I got better speaking their language. I nodded.
A scurrying figure tapped me in the back before I left. It was the leader of the waymaker project. She told me that they should check the other side of the forest just in case they’re there. We left the village and approached the forest, but a messenger from the village called out to us. He approached us, telling us that the village was on alert and ready to use the forest as strategic grounds.
She smiled, relieved and crying, I nodded, and the dark misty humanoid stared. We left the village and waited beside the forest.
The village explored the forest with a hundred clad with armour and weapons and two hundred lightly armed. They met dogs that they quickly took down in response to aggression.
The path led them to the other side, but ram people were already there prepared to explore the forest. Once we realized each other’s presence, we quickly ran back or forward to find a better position to fight.
When the goat people with us had organized to advance, they cheered and shouted, yelling war cries to battle the enemy’s mind.
We counted three hundred ram people and more than 200 goat people on their side, but since we came from the forest, they struggled to determine our strength. They stayed out of the forest and defended against us. We took this as an opportunity to retreat and get reinforcements.
The village assembled all willing soldiers to defend the land, taking light armour, bolas, and steel daggers with them. A few took nets to disarm unsuspecting ram people.
The winds of fervor accompanied the ram people and the village was on their side. They ran into the forest with fortitude. They took the areas that would easily become their disadvantage if the ram people ever overrun them. They assembled hiding spots behind branches, bushes, behind trees, and in plain sight covered with camouflaging body paint.
However, the ram people had taken control of most of the forest, leaving behind areas deemed too far out. They also filled the road up with guards.
We couldn’t wage a one to one ratio war. We had to defeat them in detail. We made a pact to each other to get away immediately when sighted to bring them away from each other while they think we’re coming onto them like a scattered wave.
The battle ended with them receiving the toll of waging a war in a forest we already half-memorized.
We returned with hundreds of new equipment from 7-foot tall ram people. 70 of us died, but even so, the war succeeded.
The dark mysty shadow disappeared during the war; he didn’t return. I foresaw this scenario since untying him.
I had expected him to want to kill me, so I had taken heed of wherever I was with him.
Since he couldn’t, he probably left to relieve himself which is understandable.
With the money I received, I spent a day there and visited the leader of the waymaker project. Noting, I stopped calling her “Miss” and used her name to call her instead.
In the village, a public duel occured at least once every week. She invited me to watch with her, comfortable because I gently listened to her life story. The public duel had three people in there, all aiming to keep them out of the circle. It was the King of the Hill but with the hill as a circle.
These three duelists had names all rhyming with “jostle”. The first used reserved but swift movements to strike as soon as their opponent makes a mistake. The second was a heavy-weight who confidently charged at enemies off the circle. The third kicked three times more often and better than the other two.
In the end, two of them teamed up against the first duelist and pushed him out of the arena. This would normally be considered cheating, but since duelists were picked at random, this was an excellent strategy.
We watched them finish off each other in a natural fair fight. One mistake led the third duelist to lose her balance and fall with her hands on the ground. Once the referee had enough of the shoving and jerking, he counted down from ten, leaving the third duelist to scurrying toward the hill and third second duelist looking at him. He held his ground and used a second strategy to keep him disarmed.
The second duelist finished the weekly public duel, and everyone went home. This was how they learned to fight by hand.
If they wanted to learn how to fight with tools and weapons, a competition where they use unsharpened wooden weapons instead of fists and kicks occured bimonthly.
The village was adept at creating simulations people play that benefit them in real life scenarios. This also contributed to the war.
I watched another public duel without the named woman. I had no other simulation, and I watched it until late at midnight. The fight ended quietly, but one of the duelists smashed the head of the winner with a rock and knocked him unconscious.
I froze where I stood and heard it. The darkness covered most of me but I was immediately pointed out and blamed for the crime. I denied doing that, but since it was late at night, nobody could prove I didn’t do it.
I was brought to prison and left there. I lasted two years until they threw me out into the open. Two years passed, and it didn’t feel like anything changed.
I walked out into the open and sat down, understanding that the village partially cleared out the forest and gave it a new name. I stared.
I accumulated what I remembered from this place. They took my money, I was in prison for two years, and no one helped me.
My first objective was to get out of this village and through the named forest to look for better land and opportunities.
In the land beyond the temperate coniferous forest, a boreal forest lay.
I sighted six outposts connected by a 5 meter tall fence. When I went within shooting range, they shot a warning arrow. I stood and waited.
A few of them went down and approached me, aiming their bows at me. I raised my hands and they checked me, holding knives against my throat. I gulped and the tip of the knife pierced and made me bleed a little.
They put me on a wagon into the city. Spruce, hemlock and aspen and a camp of soldiers guarded the path.
The snow-covered grass path led me to step down from the wagon and brace myself for the world outside.
Clothed and adorned people strolled inside, but they all had the same attire. Moreover, they didn’t hold any weapons, but guards standing at the corners had.
I had entered through one of the quiet gates where a trading center structurally shaped as a square is located. Many shops had decorated these kinds of areas beside walls as this place is practically cooped up like a efficient trading community.
Specific areas, walled up, catered to anything from shelter, food and supplies, recruits, and offices wherein everyone was given fair share to use. Moreover, they rewarded feats of honor, namely technological advances, excellent management, and war tactics.
To maintain honesty, the leader of this nation assigned a select few to fact-check everything within the realms of their power. There were hundreds of them. They probably had meetings to theorize which areas would be worth supporting, but only the ones that opted in for successful decisions over a given time were payed hamdsomely.
This is everything I gathered from one fact-checker who had supported me for the last two weeks supporting artists.
Two weeks ago, when I lost seven-eighth of the artists in a debate, he had suggested I ensure them about the need to share their artworks. I had argued that artists need space and time alone and let them leave. I hadn’t let things pass however, pushing the importance of art in a monotone society.
This lasted two weeks of contacting fact-checkers until one day they too wanted art everywhere in society and invested in it. After the leader’s given time for determining a decision’s success which was two years, we didn’t impact enough to reach the status he looked for. However, the growth of impact of the creative arts increased day by day, making it around eighteen times more than what it was before the investments. He considered it again and gave us three months. After the three months of supporting communties devoted to the artists, the wait was over and the leader heard enough. He accepted our decision as a definite success. The artists moved from their dull job and part-time creative hobby to earn the respect of a functioning citizen through creative art forms.
I cheered, but I noted that two years and three months living for others tired me. What I hoped for was a reward, instead I was nominated to become a fact-checker. They voted for me and I became a fact-checker for two and a half months before telling them I was leaving for good with the money I earned.
I needed control.
Gently, I placed one hand on the bag I brought and another on my head, shielding them against the rain. I wore light armour, bringing a bow and arrow and steel sword as weapons. I had a shield on my back to protect against unwanted backstabs or to use in case of a hard fight. This was all I needed for a planned journey.
Stepping into the tundra biome, I journeyed through a village to a city the last city was affiliated with.
I entered the city with a grin. There’s no other place that reminded me of the first war I participated in than this place: a place mostly populated by ram people, goat people, human people, and horse people.
Human people were guards with weapons. Ram people were gate keepers and protectors. Goat people lived as traders and merchants. Horse people kept invaders at bay with their powerful stamina, running for an average of eleven hours without slowing down. They made up the army.
Two other cities with the same peoples stood along the path to the north. They had friendly ties with this city but couldn’t come into terms with the union. They were a threat to the last city.
Despite the last city’s avoidance of these three cities, they developed a trade among the eastern people, receiving people rare to them. One of these people from the east was the rat people.
I bought a paper farm with the last city’s intel that the three cities lacked paper. Their great collective strengths had a growing hole that needed filling: the inefficiency of their communication. I fixed that hole up when I created one more smaller farm beside the bigger paper farm to accumulate enough paper to rank up on the traders’ list. Workers requested to be hired from the frustration of a lack of various jobs.
When I received allowance to do so, I advertized the paper like I advertized the meat stand back on my first village. I put pieces of paper on a wall and asked people to write and draw something. They did, and this proactive gesture invited people to see what they could create: a communal bait perfected by capitalists.
Two weeks later, I accumulated around two and a half times the money I earned at my last city. This progressed me further with body guards willing to get hired and people promising a sixteen-hour shift to work at my business. I declined respectfully. Too much workers might place gaps in management that might ruin my business.
I looked for a king or leader of power, asking to meet the leader of this city. Between deciding on all the business’ updates and bolstering the foundation of the business’ security, I entered the king’s court as a pursuer of equality. The leader accepted how I handled my tongue when I spoke about him; he saw the respect from my mouth. I told him the paper should be kept in this city for half a year before sending it outside to keep a desired income.
The city’s king frowned at this and asked me, “What do you want to achieve, Wolfgang?”
“I want to ensure our hold of the papers until we get an income at which this both becomes an exclusive and a primary asset of the kingdom’s trade.”
“Thank you, Wolfgang. I uphold this suggestion and make it so.” He held his staff and tapped the ground.
After my talk with the king, with my bodyguards beside me, I stared at adults drawing on papers I sold them. I balled my fists and scampered along.
Relating to my talk to the king, the king finally announced that the trading of paper was banned and would only come back for trading half a year later.
The merchants and traders from the two other cities gasped and hung their head. They went along to finish up their business and left. Those who arrived without hearing the news had the guards tell them instead. However, none of them knew about the surged paper trade.
He left the town and journeyed north through the two other cities. He stayed at each of them for half a day and left their grounds, advanding further north. He found for a small village by the sea and stayed there for a while. He rested there for the next twenty-eight years and died.
Inside a shelter house, he sat up without difficulty and looked outside the window.  Outside the window, there were hundreds.
Colorless Gooey Pool June 7, 2020
When both my parents walked a little closer than usual, I dipped myself in a colorless goey pool, suffocating every few seconds. The bottom side of my face twinged, pulling my neck nerves and constricting them. I gripped my eyes open, taking the straining of the other parts of my body, and from the bottom of my feet to my head, I sat motionless saving my hands that typed and clicked. My grip hardened, listening to this killing intent I came across. The dopamine from a fight-or-flight responce dragged me close to the limit. I shuddered at the obsession for control: the notion of taking out someone you fear to feel better. I blinked, returning to normal. Wearing a mask, drinking some water, and seeing one of them go upstairs stopped the anxiety.
I sat down and watched the japanese video lessons my parents enrolled me into. During the lesson, I put each finger around two fingers from my other hand and pressed. I puckered my nose. I drank water. I tickled myself with a pillow’s end. I adjusted my teeth to the midpoint. I raised my eyebrows to calm some nerves. I braced myself for Eminem’s album Kamikaze.
Later, I deleted another fantasy story after realizing it had a boring plot. “What’s actually a good idea?” I mused.
Pelagic Evening June 12, 2020
Direction 1
In the pelagic evening in the free streets, a melodic refulgence rounded up the distant affinity of unfettered lives, separating the tainted hollowing accolades from them.
Spiraling from the atmosphere into a fair world, their torn clothes and damaged faces encompassed their exiguous caprice.
Two people had met each other when the rest of the fellows woke up.
A woman in her thirties and panting between several hiccups, Riven said, “Did you black out before you came here?”
A man in his sixties and observing the room, Jarry tilted his head to the side and replied, “Yes, I did.”
She paced and mumbled a few words then covered her mouth, widened her eyes, and said, “What date is it today?”
“I do not know, Miss,” the sixty-nine years old man replied. He stood six-one, tapping on the wall for answers.
“It was the seventh of September before this,” She glanced at the ground and looked right at him.
“Are you sure about that, Miss?” the old man tilted his body to face her. “I want answers too, and I appreciate your sound statements.”
“Hmm?” she said, thinking hard about the way things went before this. “Ugh, I can’t remember!”
“Unfortunate,” said Mayfarry, a seventeen year old homeschooler.
“Good to see you, Mayfarry,” said the old man.
“Good to see you too, Sir,” said the adolescent and saluted.
Riven pondered about this interaction, but to her, putting everyone on the same level would benefit. “Do you know how to open locked doors?” she asked the old man.
The old man cocked his head and raised his hand. He put his hand in his pocket and grabbed a multi-purpose tool. He unlocked the door, and Riven smiled. “Thanks. Let me just open this door before anyone gets hurt.”
Riven held the door knob and turned it.
“Should we get a weapon first? Kidnappers?” said Mayfarry.
A girl in her in her fourth year of highschool and sitting beside him, Alles nodded.
Riven quietly turned the door knob back and tiptoed over to grab a chair. Everyone did the same but grabbed tools and objects to their own taste.
When everyone posed facing the door, Riven nodded and pushed the door open.
They picked up voices once they entered, but these voices weren’t in the same room. They came from three different rooms.
“What other rooms could be in this chamber?” said Riven in an undertone.
They scurried over to the doors in this large room and opened each one of them to find a bathroom except one door that didn’t have a knob nor a hole.
“Does my old man know how to open a knobless door?” she asked.
The old man frowned. “Have you tried pushing it open?”
She lit up and placed a hand on the door and stepped forward; the door opened, and she raised her eyebrows.
When everyone had stepped into the room, the husky voices alarmed them. They didn’t have weapons besides two chairs, two pens, a book, two heavy shoes, and fists.
Before opening the double door in the room and signalling for everyone to rush in, she asked everyone to listen to the conversation inside.
A male voice around twenty-five years old said, “You may eat with the utensils, Alliya.”
A female voice in her adolescent years, Alliya replied, “I eat with my hands. Any problem, Illious?”
Illious cringed. “You don’t understand proper eating, do you?”
Alliya looked him straight in the face and then went back to eating.
Riven caught all that and said, “Let’s g—”
A man in his forties and black, bald, and toned, William Peterson interrupted, “Why don’t we wait more? There might be more than we’ve heard.”
Riven gasped and slowly put her hands off the door. “You’re right,” she said. “My confidence isn’t that useful sometimes.”
William Peterson replied, “We appreciate your confidence, Riven, but the fear of the unknown is useful sometimes.”
Riven stared at the door and nodded.
“Open the door,” said a voice from within the room Alliya and Illious were. “You’re not unwelcome here.”
Alliya added, “There’s eight of you, and there’s thirteen of us. Let go of your weapons and open the door.”
Illious stepped toward the door
“You’re not saying everyone turned out here because of the date?” He brought a hand to his chin and stared around.
“Uggh. My knees. My knees. Why is my knees cramping at an involuted time?” Michael, a network agent, carried his body off the ground. He quieted as his eyes meet with the person on the chair.
“Why are you here, Michael?” said the person who knew him. He shined a slight grin, permeating the room with his confrontation.
“Why are we here?” said Michael. His sheepish smile made known his taciturn disposition toward his boss, named Simeon.
“Well, we’re here for a reason, aren’t we? But there are no call-ups, back-ups, or godlike creatures that’ll tell us why.”
“You’ve got a nerve, William Peterson, for saying I don’t exist to enlighten,” spoke a catty, seething voice as the room engulfed in smoke.
“William Peterson? God damn, I haven’t heard that name in years!” replied Simeon, pinching his nose and moving away from the blast as did everyone else. Everyone took caution of the new figure.
“You sure haven’t, Simeon.” The voice grinned in shallow gestures. “You’re not going to be okay, Simeon. You’ve got a plan to do, Simeon.” He lifted his hand forward and shaked it a little. Magical particles drifted down from his pale hands, as if his grit consumed itself to make it.
Everyone awaited to see Simeon falling to the ground, gripping his spirit, and fruitlessly failing in the end. They were anxious, mostly, of the comfortable tall man who handled this act.
Michael imagined that the voice laughed with his finger up his nose and pulled out his tongue to rip it off. He thought everyone wavered and screamed when they witnessed the voice making this grosteque act. He believed everyone was surprised that he waited so long for the tension to reach its peak when he cut his tongue with a knife. He wailed and ran to the corners of the room, screaming at the darkness to comfort him. Since he heard the thunderous voice, this undeniable delusion had plagued his mind.
The corners of the room extended to reveal a hallway overrun by slick and sharp creatures from a weird fiction illustrator’s portfolio. They looked with volatile anguish and slobbered onto the floor. William Peterson, Riven, Michael, and four other people on the floor stared.
The voice who called himself a god, said he had a mission to do—find the recruits. He stood eight-eight; the room was ten. He wore a white robe and hood and wore spectacles. He looked to be around thirty years old. He stood beside the entry point where the narrow hallway stretched. His sly smile urged us to battle.
William Peterson stood up and told everyone to grab a chair or sharp object. Everyone gathered together under one shield to deflect the upcoming attack, but the creatures stood still. “Uh. Don’t they know we’re here?” Michael asked after one minute of mental preparation.
William lowered his chair a little and moved forward. “Hey!” he said. The creatures turned to him for a second then turned away. They whiled away their time, staring at portraits.
“Aren’t they unusually perceptive? They’re glossing over the artworks as if they’re determined to understand them?” said Riven, the woman who spoke with William, after a length period of boredom.
“According to how much fickery we’ve seen so far, they probably are,” said Adamdaughter, a man in his twenties, wearing a baseball cap on his head and spectacles over his eyes and tapping on his left leg. He lifted a smirk, upholding in his head the caricature of evolution.
Direction 2
In the pelagic evening, in the free streets, a melodic refulgence rounded up the distant affinity of unfettered lives, separating the tainted hollowing accolades from them.
Spiraling from the atmosphere into a fair world, their torn clothes and damaged faces encompassed their exiguous caprice.
Two people had met each other when the rest woke up.
A woman in her thirties, holding breath between several hiccups, Riven said, “Did you black out before you came here?”
A man in his sixties, observing the room, Jarry tilted his head to the side and replied, “Yes, I did.”
She paced and mumbled a few words and then covered her mouth, widening her eyes, saying, “What date is it today?”
“I don’t know, Miss,” the man replied. He stood six-one, tapping on the walls.
“It was the seventh of September before this,” she Riven, glancing at the ground and then at the man.
“Are you sure about that, Miss?” he tilted his body to face her. “I want answers too, but I know it was March before this.”
“Hmm?” she said, processing his answer. “Ugh, I can’t remember!”
“Unfortunate,” said a seventeen year old homeschooler who sat down facing them. “I’m Mayfarry by the way.”
“Glad to see you, Marry,” said the old man. “I’m Jarry.”
“Good to see you too, Sir,” said the adolescent and saluted. “I’m Mayfarry—not Marry—by the way, Sir.”
Riven pondered about this interaction, but to her, bringing everyone on the same level would benefit her. “Do you know how to open locked doors?” she asked the old man.
The old man turned his head and raised his hand. Riven smiled and said “thanks”, watching him unlock the door.
When Jarry finished, Riven held the door knob and turned it.
“Should we get a weapon first? Kidnappers?” said Mayfarry.
A sixteen year old highschooler girl, watching from the back, Alles gave a thumbs up. The others beside her nodded.
Riven turned the door knob back and tiptoed over to grab a chair. Everyone else grabbed a chair or a heavy or sharp object.
When everyone took a position, Riven gestured and barged through.
Picking up voices as soon as they entered the room, nobody gasped. The voices came from three different rooms. “What other rooms could be in this chamber?” mused Riven in an undertone.
They scurried over to the doors in this large room and opened each one of them to find a bathroom except for one knobless door.
Riven faced Jarry. “Do you know how to open a knobless door?” she asked him.
He frowned. “Have you tried pushing it open?”
She lit up and placed a hand on the door and stepped forward. The door opened; she raised her eyebrows.
When everyone had stepped into the room, the voices alarmed them. They were one door short of sight.
A man around twenty-five years old, one of the voices, Illious said, “You may eat with the utensils, Alliya.”
A girl, seventeen years old, one of the voices, Alliya replied, “I eat with my hands. Any problem, Illious?”
He cringed. “You don’t understand proper eating, do you?”
Alliya looked him straight in the face and then went back to eating.
Riven caught all that and said, “Let’s g—”
A man in his forties, black, bald, and toned, William Peterson interrupted, “Why don’t we wait more? There might be more than we’ve heard.”
Riven gasped and removed her hands from the knob. “You’re right,” she replied. “I get a little crunchy at times.”
William Peterson nodded. “We appreciate your confidence, Riven, but the fear of the unknown is useful sometimes,” he told her.
She stepped to the side to let William lead.
Staring at the door and pausing their actions, Forest Amsterdam, one of the voices, said. “You shouldn’t have come.”
Alliya added, “You have ten minutes left until you collapse.”
Illious stepped toward the door and opened it to see William Peterson at the front, Riven behind him, Jarry beside her, two men and women behind them, and Mayfarry at the back. When he had opened the door, they collapsed to the ground.
He dragged them to the couches in the dining room they ate at and sat down beside them. “I’m bringing them back right?”
“No,” said Forest Ramsterdam, “You can bring them to the guest room.”
Later, when they had woken up, William asked, “Did you see how they looked like?”
Mayfarry was about to answer but someone knocked from behind the door. “A cup of tea?” asked a voice.
Everyone in the room looked over to the door and instinctively got launched into alert. 
After a second of silence, the voice from behind the door repeated, “Does anyone want a cup of tea?”
Mayfarry stood up. “What do you guys want?” he said. “He’s offering a cup of tea.”
“What do you want?” William asked the voice. “Why are we here?” 
The voice, Alliya said, “It is said you’re all from different worlds. That every one of you died. That when we cast the summoning circle, the caretaker of universes grabbed you and plopped you here in the summoning circle.”
William extended his first question, “Wh—”
“The summoning circle? We were at the room when we arrived,” interrupted Mayfarry. “There’s no way you wiped our memories, right?”
“We didn’t wipe your memories. However, your amygdala is back to its original sizes, and your personality is reset.”
“What do you mean?” asked William. “Amgdala? Personality?”
“You’re a newborn baby that reminisces an alien life but has no emotional attachment to it!” exclaimed Alliya from behind the door. “Isn’t that bamboozling?”
“No, not at all,” said William, concluding the open talk.
Allious June 17, 2020
Allious makes them take drugs that make their spirit break and sent them out into the world. “This will help you get used to the world’s magic and learn it even.”
She sends them to a class that teaches them about how to control their magic, but the class is disrupted when the three gain their powers Yesami, Junjirou, Malkov. They wreck havoc on the building after others tried to detain the powerful new weapon they received. They left the class and looked for ways to control their powers.
Other characters are realized to be weaker.
Alliya stops them and hurts them because they shouldn’t have gotten these powers and need to be controlled.
They search for another land while the three start a revolution by gathering imprisoned forces and taking down Alliya. Alliya is actually a strong bad guy, and Illious and Forest Ramsterdam are weak.
[They join the revolution after realizing there's no other way to survive since they can't leave the island.]
Dancing Feathers Jul 14, 2020
Setting on a new road won’t be without heartaches, yet my heart knows there will be glorious moments too, I thought.
“Excuse me, I thought we made a commitment to attend practice every week or so?” said a friendly swordmaker.
“Civ, I’m attending the date my family set me up on!” I exclaimed as my feet leaped further away from him. 
I journeyed a mile south to a village called Desameriv; it reeks of flowers, dandelions, and plain old fetishes. I had a friend here who was disgusted by the constant bickering of the wives and husbandmen about topics I am too ashamed to mention here. However, my father called me to this town; he told me two days ago, “Son, take your bags on Monday. We’re going to meet a girl you’ve met before when you were younger.”
I took two steps into a household after knocking twice and being let in by the maids. “Showerskin, are you there?”
“She is taking a shower, Jack,” said one of the maids who stayed to accompany me. “You’re no stranger to this household, but please wait here while she prepares herself.”
Two minutes later, when she finished, I sat quietly, staring at the window she used to stare so often through at the landscape. “Mr. Showerskin, welcome to my abode. How did the party go last night?”
“Party? Parties are boring! Sure, there were nice people, but whenever I would say something,” she said, “they would leave right in the middle of what I was saying and act like nothing was there!” She held her arms over the other and she exhaled over ten seconds while frantically staring at the window and at me repeatedly.
I stood up and wandered onto a another furniture to lay on. “Feel free to breath… at my abode.”
Her inflated cheeks went back to normal, and a sign followed thereafter. She sat beside me on another furniture and told me to ask her something.
“What?” I asked.
“Ask me something you would say. Don’t shut it.”
“Okay. Well… you’re amazing. That’s all I have to say.”
She sighed again.
“And you should do what you want.”
“Yes?”
“You do you. Don’t worry about them making shiz difficult for you.”
“Okay, fine.”
I don’t what to tell her, honestly, I thought. I hope what I said is enough.
I left her house and told her about the date.
“What? My parents didn’t say anything about that!” she exclaimed.
“We did,” said her parents, who were in their rooms.
“Okay. So what. Let’s just go—oh shoot. It’s night, isn’t it.”
“Welcome to my abode, Miss,” I said.
She stared at me, squinting her eyes, and said “bye”.
“Bye” was my last word to her as well. I returned home before 6 PM.
Entering the ancestral home and appearing at my brother’s open door, I asked him, “Hey Grudge, rem—”
“Shut up,” he interrupted.
“O-kay.”
I strolled to my room, left to grab water, and returned to my room, falling face flat onto the bed. “There’s no other bed like home,” I muttered over my pillow. I fell asleep within the months when days were quiet.
“It’s weird how often I forget to brush my teeth,” I said when I woke up at 3 AM. I took a toothbrush and began brushing. “The days are quiet, but are they too quiet? Dun dun dun.”
I heard a high-pitched ringing in my ear. “Ah, ah, ah.” I looked at the mirror and a face met mine. “Oh hey, it’s Parker!” I said. “Welcome to my abode.”
The face stared at me as I quickly made up a story to entertain it. It had two or three eyes if I include the circular mouth. It came to kill me it said.
I looked at its eyes, waiting for it to say something. “Are you going to kill me yet?” I asked. “I don’t want to die though, so please not yet.”
It didn’t react and disappeared, returning my face in the mirror. I walked out of the bathroom and jumped to bed. I shivered when it disappeared without warning.
In the next morning, nobody was home. My family attended the religious festival where I used to go to every year. Showerskin also went there and attended. I had no one today.
“But it’s okay,” I said. “You don’t need people to be happy.” I left to get another glass of water and brought it outside. I finished my last chore for the day and drank my cup, gazing at the horizon. “This is pretty lit.
“I wish I could tell everyone… or come back.” My hands became itchy when I said that. “Oh no, rashes. Shoot.”
I lived with rashes for years, but they didn’t kill me; they made me tolerant somehow. “I don’t know what tolerance means. How do you live life anyways?”
In my old world, people told me to just do it and become better if I must. They said change is something you must do yourself. There was only one thing I could think of, however. 
Jumping off a building wasn’t very wise of me, but I had to make something different.
I reincarnated, have my memories from the old world, and grew up here.
I came here for a reason. There should be a good reason as to why I’m here. 
If not, I’m giving up. “I mean, I walked all the way here. I should definitely make the best out of it.” I stood at the edge of a cliff and took this opportunity and jumped.
I’m Showerskin. My friend, who I had known for thirteen years, died for an unknown reason. If there was a way I can make up for it, I would. I’m not asking the questions: I’m looking for a way to spend my life in peace.
I’m Denmark. My friend, who gave his life to art, died for an unknown reason. Should I ask why he did it? Should I make excuses and say there’s nothing to be said about it? I don’t know why people do this. They made me feel hope.
I’m Samuel. My friend, who never spoke to me with an angry voice, died for an unknown reason.
I’m Jezst. He isn’t my fault. He can’t be something I hate. There isn’t much to know about him.
“I’m sorry, everyone. Please be understanding of my situation. You guys don’t need to know why I did it because there isn’t a reason I can give that’ll satisfy you.” read the note I memorized and wrote to all of the friends I made in different worlds.
I persevered because none of the worlds I’ve been to have been different from the others. I’ve spent less and less days in any given world. Too much waiting is killing me more than I can depart life.
“Mark Robinson, did you miss her during your time in London?” said the fellow wearing a cap. Her eyes shined silver-gray in the moonlight.
“Ms. Georgia,” I said. “No comment here.” My out-of-place fedora made me feel safe despite her belligerent rumor-spreading.
“Admiring the sights, aren’t we?” said a new voice from my left side. I stared from a bridge’s edge while he calmly handed me some papers. “This is the news I told you about.”
I opened the folded newspapers and read intently. His immediate exit put Ms. Georgia’s eyes on edge.
As if losing my purpose at the moment, I stood by, allowing Ms. Georgia to follow the man. I kept staring until she left my sights. She does give off that feeling that she knows something, I thought.
I left the place. Noticeably, the place darkened: the street light operators were late again. I scampered away from the bridge, turning left and right to reach the secret bunker underneath my house.
The night began, and the flickering of the light at my bedside comforted my head.
One thing my father told me was to never let people ruin your day. He said, “Let them know that what they’re doing bothers you. If you must plead, take your chance and beg.” My parent’s knowledge about the world inspired me, but this one idea he shared with many others accumulated into a common arrogance that would kill him and many others.
I went downstairs further down to the “basement” of my bunker. I couldn’t leave the bodies there without further care; the people downstairs were my friends who I met in London. They were experiments, and so, I waited and waited. The gods didn’t come to save them. Their distorted faces bothered me, but I stood still and showed my seriousness by pleading. “They aren’t listening, are they?” said the voice behind my back.
“Why aren’t they going down?” I asked the voice. I had no one else to ask, but he was there. “Have you been a messenger of the gods this whole time?” I repeated my question. 
Smug but clearly bothered, he rolled his eyes and offered me a hand. A micro smile came on his face, and thus I asked him, “What are your thoughts on this?”
“You’ve made a big mistake,” he said. “You don’t need gods to help you; you don’t want those monsters to ‘save’ you… or them.” He pointed at the disfigured faces I knitted together the other day.
With my head facing him, I quickly grabbed the knife behind my back and jumped at him. He jumped to the side, grabbed my arm, and threw me at the ground. 
“There’s just no way you’re killing me like that,” he said, snickering.
I looked at him and then at my pose. “Oh?” His eyes reminded me of a friend who died a long time ago.
When my undisturbed face caught him off guard, he wiped his smile off and run at me in a crescent shape. The cabinet blocking me from avoiding him and staying in the room led me to leave the basement. His persistent gaze delighted me until I had to leave the bunker as well. I blocked the bunker entrance with a couple of rocks I prepared.
“I hope he’s stuck there forever,” I said as I clumsily wandered off into the block beside mine. There was a coffee shop nearby, so I went in and sat there for a while. 
As I sipped the coffee, burning my tongue, a gentleman came and asked if he could sit. His stare provided me the relief that he had good intentions. “Hello, I’m Barter Brothman. It’s been a while since you came here.”
“Excuse me? A while?” I put down my drink and glanced at the street outside and back at him. “Do you have keen memory, or am I just forgetful?”
“No, no. I met you before back at the other world.”
I replied, “Excuse me? Other world? Am I mishearing things?”
“Oh.” His mouth opened a bit and was bitten by his good teeth. It kept like that until I ignored him and looked outside the window. “You’re not familiar, are you? With reincarnation and people that do that?”
I took my drink and sipped it slowly, ignoring him until he gave me an answer.
He frowned. “Okay,” he said, leaving me, his coffee, and the shop.
He explained further: “We trapped all the blind, aggressive immortals in there for a reason, but you discovered you weren’t aggressive. That’s why we came and dragged you all the way here. The end!”
I didn’t reply. I waited and waited. I was given a house to stay in. 
This is more than enough.
“If I’m blind, what am I seeing right now?”
Do the Do Jul 26, 2020
He walked across to the table in front of me. “Are you sure you’re fine?”
I shrugged. “I am fine. What’s up?”
“Nothing much, I should be going around this time actually.” He rubbed his eyebrows.
I tapped the table. “Are you sure everything’s okay with you though?”
He sighed. “My mom told me we’re going to the beach.”
I stared at him and looked down. “Your shoes. I remember the last time when you forgot your slippers.”
“Yeah, my girlfriend wasn’t happy about that, since she really wanted to swim with me.”
“You didn’t swim that time? I wasn’t there, but I was sure you’d still go swimming.”
“I didn’t want to go swimming; that’s the thing.”
“Okay.” I put one leg over the other, sitting. “You really don’t want to swim? For your family at least?”
“Well, that’s why I’m going today.”
He left me at the canteen. School was over, and so was I with my business here. I carried my things and left the school gate.
A few faces came into view that I recognized: Alice’s, Heffy’s, Brock’s, and Iggity’s faces.
They all came form January Club, a club hidden at the uppermost, farthest side of the school from the gate. They all had a scarf on, which generally put me at ease, because getting people to collaborate is difficult when they have beef with each other.
I said “hi” and went on my way, going the same route as them. They were my friends, but we hadn’t known each other for a long time. That’s why I’m wary.
“Hey Alice,” I slid my way through Heffy, Brock, and Iggity to tap Alice on the shoulder and walk alongside her. “You’re going to the party, are you?”
She waved her head, slightly glancing down and then making a quick peek at me.
I shrugged in my head, moving with a less obvious gait.
Toward the end of the street, Charlie, a friend of the four, greeted us outside a restaurant he works at. “Hi everyone. What are you doing today?” He gazed at me for a second and then returned his carefree smiles to the four. 
Charlie had beef with me. It all began with a slight push from the bridge into a lake known for its disgusting smell. I pushed him and it wasn’t planned to be that harsh. I was punished several times over the course of a month, but he didn’t say a thing about it. He only gave me that one-second glance that everyone noticed and ignored.
We sat down at the chairs with tables outside his restaurant. He was tall—6’1 tall—and he was smart too, almost as smart as me, and today, he held off his comments about my “average” appearance.
Before sitting down long enough to want to buy, Heffy and Brock left the group and went home; “We want to finish up school.” was what they said.
I was left with Alice and Iggity, who were known for being childhood crushes of each other. 
Surprisingly, Iggity and I don’t have beef with each other, but we’re about to eat beef. Give me a sec—
“Hey Gon. What do you think about my new shirt?” was Iggity’s first question to me. It was a rare for him to do such a thing. Even Alice was shocked by how fast he opened his arms and showed off his tastes. “He was onto something.” was what I suspected both me and Alice thought.
“Mother bought you that? It’s lovely.” I tried to stay composed to Iggity and hint something to Alice at the same time. 
He took the bait. “How about you?” he said.
“Are you really asking me that?” I said, glancing at Charlie’s feet, who had just arrived.
Iggity flailed his left arm around, stretching away the after-exercise ache from his shoulder and back. “Don’t take it the wrong way. I just thought it’d be fun hearing things from your side.”
“I like programming; that’s it.” I changed position to the left chair, so I wouldn’t have to look at Charlie every time I stretched my neck to the left.
Charlie, who had brought all the food we ordered, stood up away from us at a table two meters away from us. He looked like he wanted to sit down. He sat down at the table beside him.
Alice was on her phone the whole time, and her large headphones didn’t help stop bystanders from recognizing what kind of person she is either. She glanced at us from time to time and moved her body close to assert herself as someone who wasn’t afraid to speak up. I nodded at her reserved disposition. She took notice and nodded back.
Iggity had munched on the food before him, and his eyes had stared to the left; he had been thinking hard about something separate from us, most likely possible scenarios.
We went home and occupied ourselves with our thoughts and hobbies, but for me, It was there again. The computer was beeping again. Mom set an alarm again. She set an alarm for me again. She set an alarm for me to paint again. She wasn’t happy about me leaving the painting classes again. Why do I always find her doing this again? Why can’t she just leave me alone again?
It was before I realized I had superpowers or DNA powers. I could see 99 million more colors than what humans normally see. Who gives a shot though? All I want is a peaceful life. I don’t want to be some icon for everyone to see. Who gives a shot about what anyone thinks? I just want to escape into a hole and be normal.
I was normal before, or at least, nobody knew. I didn’t know. I was still fourteen when I realized that no one saw what I saw. I was paranoid about it all. Who knew that I would be that one kid who was special? I never told anyone but Mom, who ruined everything for me.
She brought me classes where I could exercise my “abilities” more. She said she wanted me to paint like my father, who passed away before I was born. She said Father passed it down to me as a gift, which she said meant that he cared for us even in the afterlife. I was like “I’m tired of this bullcrap. Let me sleep.”
I stopped the alarm Mom set on my computer. Who knew Mom would keep doing this for six months? I wanted to sleep.
People in school put a bag of pressure on me, mistakes I did put a bag of pressure on me, and Mom, with the painting, put all this pressure on me. Where should I spend all this time relieving my stress?
If painting didn’t have such a heavy society family pressure on me, I might have relieved my stress doing just that, but now, I’ll go for a walk in the park. 
Dogs barked at me and people gazed at me. However, there was always someone I could talk to at the park. His name was Allen Hermosa; he wore a black suit, sunglasses, and always sat with one leg over the other. I talked to him normally, but he didn’t say “yeah”, “I hear you”, and “uhuh” while I was talking. His position was fixed, as if he didn’t hear me and was resting.
I stood up and stared at him. He didn’t move or react. I leaned closer. I took out my hand and touched his sunglasses. He reacted, shoving my hand away, kicking me in the stomach, and bringing out a pistol to hold at me.
I puked. My puke might look only green to others, but it was also “hehesen”, a color that I named myself. The man who shoved me, kicked me, and aimed a pistol at me quickly put the gun back where he got it.
He stared at me and recognized the puke. He paused for a few seconds, and then ran straight to me, carrying me. He brought me to a car he had parked and threw me inside. He ran to the other side while I scrambled for the door knob. He got in, locked the doors, and drove away, turning away from the park.
I noticed the barricade separating the front seat and the back seat and wondered, “Why have I been talking to this guy the whole time?”
He didn’t say a word and turned left and right to a place away from town. He went through a checkpoint, a gate, and a large garage door. 
I was here, lying down and in shock. My hand was bleeding.
He stared at me when we stopped and got out the car to bring me out. He carried me the whole time into a place I haven’t seen before. It was a scientist facility. Everyone was looking at us in amazement when we entered through the door. I coughed and coughed from how desperate the man who carried me walked.
The scientists looked me up and locked me in place. I cried, keeping my thoughts in place and my mouth shut. I closed my eyes while they forced it open.
I had wondered about getting my eyes checked for a long time. 
I asked Mom if I could be used to help everyone get better eyesight. Mom said it didn’t work that way: “It’s not about getting better eyesight, honey. It’s about curing your disease.” I was surprised back then and wistful for a fantasy world where I was fine.
I brought my hand up and looked at a far-away land. I was on a boat and everything was fine. Everyone was watching, but they weren’t here. They were like ghosts waiting to appear, but I didn’t allow them. I told them it wasn’t time. I told them they needed to wait.
“Wait for what?” they asked. They had no idea about what I felt.
“Wait for me to be fine.” I waved my hand and they shut up.
The world cannot be this fragile because the world isn’t me. The world is beautiful, glorious, and everlasting. It cannot be this easy to break a world. I snapped my finger, and I woke up.
There weren’t scientists around me but a figure who I hadn’t seen before. He was like a shadow, but he had a sando and pants and sunglasses on. I asked him “why”.
He said “no” and left the room, waving for me to come. I got up and followed him, sneaking as I walked. He said “faster” and disappeared from sight. I walked faster, but I almost tripped at the door. I saw him walking through the hallway and followed. He turned to me once we reached a door. He had a finger over his mouth and said “quiet”. I nodded, standing beside him.
He opened the door and ran in, gesturing at me to come. Before I came, though, someone tapped me in the back. I looked around and a man with a labcoat on whispered, “He’s one of the patients. Don’t follow him because he’s becoming blind and aggresive.”
I nodded and followed the scientist across the hallway. I heard crashing and screaming in the room where the sando man went into. I gulped.
The scientist brought me to a room where other scientists sat on the ground. “Is this a hospital?” I asked.
He said “yes” and “no”, leading me to sit down on a chair. “This area is where we left everyone we suspected to be blind are. We couldn’t kill them because by then it wouldn’t be ethical anymore.”
“Are we blind?”
“I’m not. You’re not. The people here aren’t.” The people with him stared at me. “We’re here because you weren’t aggressive.”
“I don’t get it.”
He looked at one of his co-workers. “They can’t escape this place, but we drilled a hole so we c—.”
“Wait, what do you mean? You’re not explaining things.”
“Wait, wait. Let’s leave this place first.” We left through the hole they drilled.
Once we got out, he put down the machine he carried. “You’re not getting older. That’s what I’m saying.”
“How does that even happen?” I asked.
He brought his hair back and tied it. “Well—” 
“Danny, the wall is done. We can leave.”
“Okay, let’s go.” We got in a car. It was tight, but we drove off in peace.
I stayed silent throughout the ride.
When we got out, he said, “You were in a coma. You have a disease that made you see all wavelengths, which makes people blind. Supposedly, you were aggressive, and you slept in that prison for sixteen years.”
“What do you mean? I had a life. Where is this place?”
“You’re back in the real world I suppose. Your dreams were the only thing you had, darling. That’s why you thought it was real.”
Flowers Are Delicate Jul 20, 2020
In the night, I stood at my balcony, looking at the forest across the bridge in front of my house. The forests were quiet, but the wind that made the trees sway was what I looked out for. You’ll never know when they’ll come, I thought to myself.
“You’re not coming in?” asked Melvida. “You pick up the Barbarian this time, alright?”
“Have you seen the people; they’re definitely wavering,” I said. “They’re not alright. Are they? They seem to be looking for something above the clouds.”
“What are you talking about?” She grabbed my shoulder and walked out to the balcony, viewing the people jumping up and down and pointing at the sky. She counted the people. “One, two, t—uncountable!”
From my eyes, I could feel a great presence hovering partially above me but mostly above the people on the bridge. A thunderbolt struck the river, that ran under the bridge, in the middle of the bridge and my friend Tero’s house. We shrieked together, staring at where the lightning struck.
“That person rose from the river like a Terry Clauser that couldn’t pick up the ball,” said Segdraft, a heavyweight boxer and a new D&D dungeon master. He stepped up to the right of Melvida who was beside me.
“She couldn’t pick up the ball? She couldn’t even die!” said Tero who came from his room after spending drinks with bartenders three days ago.
I looked at the moss-covered person who rose from the river; the people at the bridge stared too, but two traffic police shooed them off long before a pile of cars came up. The river person climbed up. Some of the bridge people came and helped him get up the ladder.
We sat down in one of the two living rooms in Tero’s house after watching the anomaly. “Are you guys ready to sleep? Nobody up for more ‘dungeon mastering’?”
“Nah? Me.”
“Not me.”
“Nowhere and Somewhere.”
Everyone went back to sleep despite already bringing the salad from Tero’s kitchen.
We got up and three people were sitting beside me. “What the f—”
They stared at me and held up a phone to my face, showing me the alarm clock Tero set. “You’re seriously trying to delay the inevitable?” said Tero, leaving a unfinished pack of chewing gum at the edge of my bed beside my arm.
I picked it up with two fingers and opened it. When I ate it, I said, “You’re not going home yet, Tero?”
“No way.” Fixing his things, he turned to me. “I have to do this for my family too!” He went outside where the others were waiting.
I huffed. “We’re okay until it’s harder than we hope.” I got up and put on my clothes, pajamas on the floor.
I went outside, fixing my bag. “Hey everybody. Do you want some chicken and egg for breakfast?”
Everybody was standing still, holding onto their backpack, quiet and deadpan. Meanwhile, Segdraft noticed me and said, “H—”
“We’re going to drown ourselves,” said Melvida. “I can’t get used to that feeling.”
“Don’t worry,” said Segdraft. “Everyone is doing it together. We’re going to be alright.”
Melvida looked at Segdraft and bit her lip. “Okay.”
I exhaled through my nose, looking at the east side of the island. “Where are we doing it?”
“At the east side of this island,” said Tero. “Nothing too special, just a light dip and goodbye wasteland!”
Later, at the beach, we removed our clothes and left it at a chair, showing off our beach clothes. One by one, we dipped in the ocean and swam downwards, let the rip current take us further into the ocean, and sunk and drowned.
Another world greeted us when we woke up.
Friends Shouldn’t Be This Close Apr 8, 2020
I woke up from an alarm noted, “For a light snack.” I thought, Can I make things any better?
I stared at the orange display-screen floating in front of me. I didn’t notice her but Samantha, the ponytail-person, entered the room. She stood there, silently looking at me. Once I realized her presence, she said “hi” and asked, “Do you like tea?”
I don’t smile at girls. It’s hard to, but this time, at least, I can fake a smile for her. She deserves it.
Before she entered the room, which is a minute ago I suppose, I thought about another universe similar to this one that had me in it. It made a little self-aware of my repressive actions; that’s why I smiled.
“Yes, of course,” I said. I grabbed the cup from her hand. “Thank you, but how about you?”
“I don’t drink tea, but mostly everyone I know drinks tea. I had supposed that included you as well, so I offered you one.”
Were girls ever this talkative? I don’t really know anyone else who talks this much. She makes me feel less uncomfortable that way.
We met up at a acting workshop, and now, we’re joining a project both of us expected to be a year from now. We’ve been friends since then.
The rain is drizzling. There’s not enough time to think because of running. We arrived near the location of the project, but the rain discounted our early departure and knowledge of the road.
We removed our umbrellas from over our heads once we got inside the location. The staff met us and introduced us to a few people we’d be willing to appreciate. 
We showered and changed clothes from the long travel. This was our first project, so rocky moments like these do come by.
I met Samantha again on set. We were made ready with a sip and 30 minutes of memorization. The work shift took an hour and 30 minutes, and that was enough for me and Samantha to get ready for homework.
We met again back at her house. We forgot to tell her parents that we were there. Her parents are especially quiet as a lifestyle.
We lay down, taking a few thoughts to realize people are different from each other especially when you’re raised secluded from common society. I knew she thought the same when she said, out of the blue, “I hate predictability. I want different… and random.”
I nodded. “Two things are needed for me: novelty and reality,” I mentioned.
She nodded.
Samantha loves where she is right now. She loves the present, the modern day, and the artists of present day. She likes stories but she doesn’t want to live there and escape reality. She adores this reality where she can learn about different lives and different worlds.
My mission is to learn how to care for people’s needs while staying sane for my needs.
“Sam. Want to write something together?” Samantha asked me.
I replied, “What genre, Miss Lady?”
“Oh, let’s try sci-fi.”
“Ok. Let me get my phone.” I rolled out of bed and struggled to grab the phone on top of Samantha’s desk where a mirror is faced.
I opened a writing application and noticed my previous notes-gibberish.
The writer-actor woman quietly pushed her glasses with an imagined heavenly chour singing a chord, and typing down a few notes on her laptop.
I went over to check and read, “Fun Fact: Samantha is hot.”
“Wowzers! Is this what I think it is? The self-proclaimed goddess of Nashville? What a wonderful sight!”
She laughed. She fake-laughed. She cried. She fake-cried.
We wrote a premise of the stories we’d write and hurled the plots into the same universe so people could point that out. We post every 3-4 days on a writing website.
Writing found me first before her, because she’s more outgoing than most people and had no time for at-home activities. I’m introverted, and that’s a fact. Sometimes, too introverted for my tastes.
“Samuel, do you want to date?” she asked me, lying down on the bed, without her glasses.
I fixed my hair after crawling to get my phone and standing up. I replied, “Are you sure you’re okay with that?” I gulped.
She smiled and got up. “Really. I really believe I am.”
I said: “I told you this before, but I’m never getting into a relationship for me. It’s not in my tastes.” 
She frowned. “Yeah. I get it. I wanted to try again. That’s why I asked you.”
I looked around for her parents’ voices and continued, “You’re good at being a person, Samantha. Sugarcoating this friendship is stupid.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, sitting down.
“I mean, if I ever liked you and I do, I’d never get into a relationship with you. I hate relationships. I… love… you… in a way that I want to be friends with you.” 
I gave her a half-smiled and asked, “Is it okay if I sit near you?”
She watched me sit down after saying “yes”. She cried a little about it. She knew friends shouldn’t be this close after a year, but here we were.
I dragged her with me after she muttered, “I shouldn’t see you ever again.” We went to the convenience store and met a male friend we knew. 
He likes apples. He’s also a writer like us, but he’s top-end.
We closed our eyes for a while and walked under an umbrella under the rain. It’s hard being this close if you want to explore the world.
She suggested let’s stay inside and take a break from socializing. She planned a few ways to spend at-home time.
I stared at her typing down a list of ideas for at-home time.
I read, watched, listened, learned, played, sang, danced, jogged, ate, sipped, and laughed.
She did the same after watching me do things for a bit. I suppose this comes naturally to me.