Thank you for @ForeverAnAuthor for the suggestion to post my short stories in a discussion! Here they are:

From Dust to Flame

Magic. The purest word that could exist, the most unpredictable one as well. Something that we all long for, whether it’s the power to make everything right and remove all wrongs, or the power to make yourself richer than imaginable. “Just like magic.” We would all say, back in our naive little state of “peace”.
We all knew that the world would end someday. We just thought that it wouldn’t be now. Here, in the remains of a once-great city, I stand, and look at all the destruction that has occurred here. The big apple. That’s what they called it.
This gargantuan pile of ashes doesn’t resemble an apple at all. Why did they call it that? That makes no sense. Scanning the terrain, I hear a gunshot; I instinctively duck, and ready my defenses.
“It’s just me! No- wait, it’s just me!” someone in the distance yells, and I turn around for a split second, recognizing the voice.
That was a big mistake.
“Don’t you know that we’re alone here, little girl? Every man for himself? Nobody, nobody is a friend here. This is pure chaos.” The man spits on the ground, his disheveled hair glinting in the last remaining slivers of daylight. His scarred face peers at me.
“And I love it.”
I start to sprint, ready to run as far as I can for my life, when I get stopped. I stop moving in mid-air, and I muse on how this can be possible. I grunt, trying to pull myself free of the wrath of whatever this is, when I hear the man behind me laughing.
“You’re too much of a threat to stay here, little girl. I am sending you away, to a wasted world where you will die like the piece of trash that you are.” I scream out in fury, heat rushing to my face. My blonde hair rustles in the wind behind me, which is the first bit of movement that I have felt in over a minute.
Hopeful, I start retaliating even more. My toes start to move, my fingers clenching into a fist.
I roar at the man, and run over to him to inflict as much harm on him as possible.
That doesn’t happen.
I get pulled back, into a swirling- thing that I can’t escape, and the last thing I see before I am gone is the man’s yellow- toothed grin.


I come to in a forest, wildlife that I have never seen before surrounding me. Somehow, I point out the flying mesh of feathers, and identify it as a bird- I have never seen or heard of such a creature. Wood with green mush over it is called a tree, and a forest is a gathering of trees. A wave of heat and anger washes over me, and I remember what had happened before.
I scream in fury, fury at the yellow-toothed man for sending me to this isolated forest, anger at the world for making this be my fate. The tree in front of me bursts into flames, and I will it to burn on. Fire- yes, that is a word that makes sense to me. The flames spread, wreaking havoc on the entire neighborhood of trees. The heat in my face dissipates, revealing a searing headache that I never knew I had.
A woman clad in blue appears out of nowhere, gasping, and puts out my wonderful flames. I snarl at her, feeling one with the fire. It’s a part of me, and she dares to blantly put it out like that? The woman looks at me, and laughs.
“Feisty, aren’t you? I’m Huelnira. What’s your name?” she questions, and I feel my civility returning. I nervously cough, and look at her blankly.
“I don’t have one.”
Huelnira looks startled for a moment, then regains her composure and thinks for a moment.
“Would you like a name?”
Now it’s my turn to be startled, as I haven’t ever felt the need to have a name. I’ve survived… since… without one. I don’t have a birth date, neither do I have a name. Do I need a name? The word name feels startlingly familiar to me, as if I had one before… But the only thing I remember is this place. There was nothing before.
“My name is.”

Huelnira patiently waits for me to complete my sentence, and I rush to find an answer.
“My name is Ignisha.”
“Beautiful. Come now, I must-”
At the word Ignisha, my hands become ablaze with flame. I grin, feeling the warmth of this power at my fingertips. I know that I can destroy anything with flame. The world is at my fingertips.
All I have to do is say one word.
And the world will become dust.
Huelnira glances at my burning palms, and shrugs, as if this is typical. She gestures for me to follow her, and my fire leaves, for now. I trudge along after her, wishing that my flame could come back. Huelnira seems to recognize that I feel this way, and she stops, suddenly alert.
“Ignisha, your flame is a beautiful and amazing gift given to you. But, it is addictive. The more you use it, the more you want it. The more of you is being stripped away into dust. Gone, forever. Your arm may disappear in a few moments if you continue this way.”
I gape at her, and reflexly look at my arm, to make sure that it’s still there. Huelnira smiles, as she knew that this would happen. Of course she did, she probably pulled this multiple times before.
Questions spring up in my brain. Where am I? What am I doing here? What is my purpose? Instead of asking Huelnira, I let my inquiries float away into nothingness, and put them away to save for later. We walk through bushes and brambles, my arm getting caught onto a few thorns.
Huelnira shows me a clearing in the forest. I look above a branch in my way, and see that it’s covered in some type of sticky goo. The clearing is green, the majestic almost-extinct grass a wonder to my eyes. Everybody cared so much about saving the trees that they didn’t realize that they were killing another plant in the process.
Nobody noticed as grass began to become more and more scarce. There’s so much of it, it will never become extinct. That’s what everyone thought of all the birds, the animals, trees. Now… now- I struggle to retain my memory, the fuzzy picture of the world before this, my life before this.
“The world is in shambles, isn’t it?” I ask her, and Huelnira sighs, her expression something resembling annoyance. She flips her short black hair behind her ears, and replies.
“Yes it is. This is a special place, Ignisha. Be careful around here.” I sense that her warmth was only a charade, and that she despises me. But for what reason? Huelnira summons water, and spreads it around the ground. I feel tempted to burn it down, but resist the urge.
Unfortunately, it only gets stronger. It’s as if my life’s purpose was to set her work in flames at this particular moment. I grit my teeth together, the fire inside of my veins threatening to pour out. Huelnira continues with her pattern, oblivious that I’m trying hard not to ruin whatever it is that she’s working on.
Finally, with a little grunt, a small lick of flame escapes and twirls around my fingertips. The fire is addicting, though, and soon I can’t help but let more escape and traverse around the air around my hands.
Before I know it, after one blink, the grass in front of me is in flames. The next time I blink, Huelnira is in my face, screeching, her facial expression one of extreme fury.
“Do you know. What you just.-”
“Did? Yes, thank you, Arinlumi. Destroying isn’t the only way of fixing.” The words come out of my mouth, through a different voice. The voice is unmistakably male, and I realize that I haven't opened my mouth. It must have been something else then.
“I. Am not. Arinlumi.” Huelnira spits. Her orange eyes radiate fury.
“Of course not. I wasn't talking to you.” The voice replies. Huelnira takes a step back, shocked that this anonymous person dared to say such a thing.
The scenery slowly shifts, everything becoming minutely more grey the more I squint at it. The voice seems to be moving, as it says something right next to my left ear.
“Ignisha- we must flee. Arinlumi is a dangerous monster,” the voice spits out, his disgust showing. “It will stop at nothing to steal the gifts you've been given.”
I squint more, as the scenery becomes more and more grey. The silhouette of a boy slowly becomes visible, and it steps forward.
“Miron. I forbid you to go any further.” Huelnira yells, with more calm than I thought possible. She leashes out at him, pushing him back with some invisible force.
“Sons of the aether!” he mutters, fury enveloping his facial features.
Miron stands up, his silhouette much easier to follow. Huelnira steps forward, forgetting that I'm here. I glower at her, and let my flame out to destroy her. It flows out of me like it was made to do so.
But it's not my flame.

Something resembling blackness found only in nightmares replaces my soothing orange. I scream, taken aback by this nightmarish liquid that I created.
“What did I do?” I whisper, terrified of what I am capable of doing.
Miron stares at me in awe, then snaps out of it. He sprints out of the clearing, and I follow him, running as fast as I can from this accursed place. Trees fly by me, and I notice that they're slowly dieing.
This world is falling apart as I know it.
Memories fling themselves at me; suddenly I remember everything that is part of my past before this. The yellow toothed man. The Earth that fell apart before my innocent one year old eyes. This Earth that is bound to the same fate.
I won't let that happen.
Miron and I flee, however I have absolutely no idea where we are going. Miron seems to be more visible, and I can make out his brown, borderline black, hair. He looks behind him, and his blue eyes stick out to me like an island in a sea. But seas don't exist anymore. Nor do islands.
Just ashes. A shadow of the greatness that this Earth once was.
Miron finally stops running, and I accidentally slam into him, paying more attention to my thoughts and the scenery rather than paying attention to where I am.
I apologize, embarrassed. Miron accepts it, not caring. He scans the area, alert for anything that might not be in place. Letting out a deep exhale, he faces me, and I brace myself for whatever he might say.
“You're-” he breathes. Miron holds his head in his hands.
I wait patiently, studying his form, becoming more visible by the second. He’s half a head taller than I am. His blue eyes wash over me like waves on a beach. I tuck my long locks behind my shoulder, and watch him contemplate on what to say.
“Nothing here is what it seems. You’re a visi, more commonly known as a wizard.”
“I’m-”
“You’re descended from one of the greatest wizards of all time. His name was Merlyn.” Miron cuts me off, not alarmed at all by my reaction.
“Your world is in shambles, almost dead. But you, only you, can save it. Harness your magic, use it to your planet’s benefit.
“Only you are the difference between it’s life and death.”
I take a step back, startled. This world is- dead? No, it can’t be, look at all the trees and beauty around us. The world is alive, but barely so. I have to keep it alive, let it thrive.
I nod, determined to do what I have to to let the Earth survive. Miron notes my hardened look, and gestures for me to continue following him.
However, something stops me in my tracks.
Screaming, I whirl around, and glare at my attacker. Huelnira smiles back, an evil smile with many centuries of malice behind it. Suddenly, I notice things about her that I haven’t before, such as the way she carries herself around. Before now, it would be more cowardly and afraid. Confidence radiates off of her like light radiates off of the sun.
“The aether isn't so bad, when you think about it” she whispers in my ear. I shut my mouth tight, not letting anything slip out.
The black void swirls around her, and a lick of it comes near me. I swat at the thing, and it flies back to Huelnira, hurt. Wait- it can't feel, it can't- I know it can't.
Then why did I think it was hurt?
Miron punches Huelnira in the face, and I grin, knowing that it must have hurt. Huelnira just absorbs the attack, and then somehow uses it against Miron, the pain from the punch mirroring onto his face.
“It's not real.” he mutters, but all of us know that he's lying.
Huelnira glances at him, then focuses her attention on me. The flame inside of me isn't begging to be let out, and I don't go against it's wishes, afraid of the swirling black that might be emitted instead.
She fires her own nightmarish night at me, curious to see what I'll do.
But I don't do anything.
The black, not solid, not liquid, not a gas, seems surprised that I'm not retaliating, and takes its chance.
I become it.

I don't scream. I don't punch the air. I don't try to go against it.
I don't exist.
The black swallows me up, covering every inch of my body. I hear vague screaming in the background. Nothing registers in my brain, other than a constant thought.
I don't exist. I don't exist.
Not anymore.

I don't think I ever did.

I am here.
I do exist.
I am Ignisha.
And I. Am. Alive.

The forest dances in my eyelids. The green blends with the grey that surrounds me, smiling, taunting me. Leaves surround me, and as I slowly regain consciousness I realize how much more green there is rather than grey.
The world might not die after all.
I get up, suddenly alert. Nobody is around me, all I see are trees.Blinking trees, shifting from green to grey, but still trees. Surprisingly



A bright light explodes from my fingertips. I stand up, furious at this darkness causing all of this. Black- pure black- cannot rule over this world. This cannot happen. White crests at the top of my palms, and I know that I am not darkness anymore.
I am light.
The aether jumps back, realizing that I can retaliate. I will win. This is what I was meant to do.

Quicksand
Purpose.
That's all that I have to remember as I drown in a sea of self-doubt. Even if I do not deserve to be here any longer, even if I do not deserve to be in this Earth with this loving family, I still have a purpose.
But my purpose is in the quicksand, back where I left all of my happier thoughts.
In my little bubble of shadow, I robotically go through my day. A ghost of what I had used to be. Trapped in an invisible cage of despair, nobody notices me. Nobody notices what I am feeling.
I do not deserve to be noticed.
Tears flow like a stream whenever I hear a familiar voice, a voice reminding me of my life before. Before… before I lost all hope. The constant light that would always remind me that I could swim to the surface. I could escape from this ocean of self-hatred, this sea of depression. One day, it just disappeared. Gone. Forever.
And now I can’t get out.
But… I don’t want to.
It’s sort of peaceful here… just floating in this lake of all my broken hearts. I don’t need to take a breath of the outside world- I don’t deserve to, anyways.
I wasn’t always like this. Before, I loved dwelling around the surface with other people, other people who were happy and normal and so unlike me.
One day, I changed.
One day I saw myself for who I really was- and still am.
A monster. A demon. A person unworthy of this Earth.
Yet I still stay here.
I remember. I remember, as a child I would stare down the edge of the cliff overlooking the bright sea near our home. I would imagine myself running off of it, and jumping into an ocean of warmth and adventure.
My older brother decided to do that one day. Walking backwards, he stepped into thin air. Our eyes met, mine full of terror and a hint of awe, his filled to the brim with grins and daring. Right before he took the last step, I noticed something.
I saw past his cloak of laughter and bravery, and saw something deep inside. A thing that troubled me forever.
I saw that he was scared- not only that, he was sad. Depressed. Something that my wide, innocent little eyes couldn’t pick up on- only that he wasn’t okay.
Screaming, I held out my hand.
I couldn’t let him step off- he would die.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he continued roaming the world with a mask over him. A mask to pretend that he was happy, that he was normal, that he wasn’t depressed. At first I would go over to him, comfort him as often as possible, promising that we could get over this together.
But then I got sick, too.
And now we’re both floating in our oceans together.
Bolting doors behind us, closing the curtains, screaming, crying. Accepting the darkness within us, allowing it to criticize us- and take us away. Away from humanity, into the dark room. Locking out all the light, locking us inside.
I’ve never managed to escape it.
Neither has he.
There are days when we try to, days when we don’t. Days when I pretend that he doesn’t exist, and days where he does the same. Days where the light never comes and I stay locked inside the room, the darkness inside and around me licking its lips.
There are days when I am floating in my ocean. I am a small dot, on a small planet, in a small dot. What meaning does my life have, when looking at the grand scheme of things?
None.
Nothing at all.
But… I want to have meaning. Prove that I do matter, to myself, and others. Every day, the small ray of sunlight grows warmer, brighter, by such a minute amount that I would only notice it if I were looking. But I am looking, and every day I begin to smile a little bit more.
Every day, I begin to notice all the joys of life around me. Every day, my bubble of shadow shrinks a little bit, becoming a shade lighter. Every day, the light around me overpowers the darkness, and every day, I am eternally grateful that I am given a chance to swim to the surface of my sea of depression.
One day, I make it.
I look back at the sea I’ve left behind me. Its waters seem to be welcoming me to take a step back, walk from the cliff, do what my brother has done.
But I’m not my brother.
So I leave it behind, never to set my eyes upon it again.
I am cured.

Gone Forever
Our names and faces appear in the headlines everywhere- on trees, signs, cars, claiming us as ‘missing’. But we’re not.
I woke up one day to see my bedroom emptied out. Gone. Disappeared- like I didn’t exist.
I’m still not sure if I do exist.
Even if I don’t exist, I can still think and learn. That’s what separates me from him. Every morning he sits by the same tree, screaming to people next to him to notice him. Every day his large pleading eyes frantically look for a sign to show that he is real, and every day he finds nothing.
There were days when I would look, too- days when I would look for my loved ones, days where I would go someplace and scream and beg for people to notice me. I'd always wake up in the same spot, under the same tree in the same glass case. I wanted to go home, to go back to the life I had once had.
That can't happen.
I walk through the glass box for the first time in a week, and notice that it's raining. A sense of nostalgia washes over me, and I close my eyes to feel the rain on my face more, except… I can't feel it. Not existing makes you lose your sense of touch, something else you never really appreciated until you lost it.
I continue walking forward, knowing well that I have only twenty four hours until I wake up in this exact spot. I proceed anyway. The buildings surrounding me have a glossy look to them, reflecting the world beneath.
At first it was weird not being able to feel. I had thought that I was going to lose my sense of emotion as well, and it was like that, at first. I was crying alongside him, crying for everything that I've lost, that he's lost, crying for everything that I wanted to achieve but cannot; crying for peace and for justice to be brought down. But I wasn't feeling anything.
I couldn't. I couldn't bring myself to feel sadness, despair, devastation. I couldn't bring myself to feel anything. I was just hollow- empty. Now I'm starting to gain back some emotion- but not my sense of touch. I can see, hear, taste, smell- but not feel. The most important one of all.
I can't feel the clothes on my body. The rain. The tears constantly streaming down my face.
I can't feel anything.
But I want to- so badly I want to.
I have my hands in my pockets, and I walk the street while people check their AirPhones, while the cars wait for the traffic lights to become green. I stay behind, as always. The light becomes green in the middle of my trek to the other side, and I pay no attention to it.
For the first time in a year, I feel something.
For the first time in a year, I feel the pavement beneath my feet.
Smiling at the chance to feel again, I get run over by a car.

I watch her go. I never learned her name, but I feel as if names aren't as important anymore. When you're in a different plane of existence, things that mattered before don't mean as much.
I sit under the tree musing over how I can set my plan into motion. She thinks I'm dumb. She thinks that I'm still recovering.
She's wrong.
The tears are all a façade. I never let myself feel emotion until I am finished with what I am planning. I know I can do this- without her. She is a useless entity, whereas I, I, can accomplish the impossible.
I do exist.
There must be some reason why I am like this- some reason that I went from normal to gone. When she leaves my view, I get up and walk in the opposite direction. I don't need her- what I do need is to bring back a simple way to write on something.
I go into a mall, certain there will be something for me there- of course there will be. Barely anybody is there; nobody goes outside to shop anymore. Online shopping is much more convenient, what with the invention of holograms and all.
Inside of a store, I grab a tablet and book it out of there. They won't catch me- I've slowly been stealing more and more from different shops, and they never see me. That's because the human eye can't see anything in this plane of existence.
I have a theory- a theory in which I am in a entirely different dimension, or plane. I am still in this Earth, just in the shadows rather than the spotlight. The human eye can only see the outline of the shadow, so to them, I blend into any surrounding shadows around me.
I just need to get out of this torture, and back into reality. Imagine what scientists can achieve with my findings!
Excited, I step outside and smell the fresh, but still very polluted, air. Loud noises attract my attention to my left, and I glance just in time to see a man with a gun.
I run towards the scene, hoping to somehow do something and stop it. Maybe I can distract the criminal, maybe I can push the victim out of the way.
The man takes one look at me and fires.

I am not at the tree again.
I feel a faint, yet familiar sensation. Horrified, I realize my brain registers this as ‘pain’. Blood is everywhere, I can see it. I can see my eyes rolling back into my head, my last breath gone in the cold air.
“She's dead! That monster killed her!” someone shouts.
“What! No- wait-” I croak, not having used my voice in over a year.
But nobody listens.
The car that run me over leaves a trail of blood behind it as it tries to get away. Others follow it, some on air, some on land.
What just happened?
Out of the corner of my eye I see the boy that is supposedly gone run towards the same direction as the car. One gunshot, and he's dead- or not.
He stands over his body, terrified, just like I did. Something seems off about him though. As if… no- that couldn’t be possible.
“Can you see me?” I scream, hoping someone, anyone would say anything. I look at the boy with pleading eyes- and he finally notices me. We run to each other, not saying anything out loud, letting our actions speak for us.
The boy scans the area, his eyes lingering on a grey building a bit more than all the others. A chill rushes down my spine, and I begin to wonder what this boy knows. Does he know why we’re like this?
Is there a way out?


The girl screams, a shrill sound that makes me want to plug my ears. She whimpers and swirls around, looking at all her surroundings. She starts crying, holding her hands to her head. She hasn’t made eye contact with me at all through this- is she going insane?
No, of course not, something must be happening to make her feel this way.
I look at her, debating whether or not I should do anything.
I don’t get the chance.
The environment around me plainly… switches, like someone turning a light switch off and on. The blue sky, the city, the trees, the pedestrians. All gone. In replacement there’s a desert wasteland, and a sad red sky. Dust blows everywhere, and the unnerving thing about this dessert is that there aren’t any cacti like there would on a desert on Earth.
The girl whimpers, her big blue eyes looking at mine, hers full of tears, mine full of curiosity and determination. Why are we here- were we teleported somewhere against our will?
Or maybe, the city in front of us was just an illusion, and we were in this desert the entire time.
That isn’t true- it can’t be. It doesn’t check all my research, it doesn’t check everything that I was doing for the past year.
This variable couldn’t have gotten in here; there’s only an x and y, no z. This is impossible- all my research to get me back into existence, a waste.
What do I do now?
I scan the premises, the orange sand below me, the bright blue sky above me, and the cacti and tumbleweeds surrounding me. The redhead girl to my left staring at me the entire time. Her blue eyes pierce my hazel ones, and only now I get a good look at her.
She has a sharp nose, and an even sharper chin. She’s shorter than average, and… looks beautiful.
I shake my head, snapping out of my trance, and try to figure out what I can do in this scenario. The sun is blindingly hot; a bead of sweat drips down from my forehead.
I start to panic inside, all my plans for my entire life falling away in just five minutes. So much can happen to change you- to change everything, in just five minutes.
What can happen in ten minutes?

We’re both panicking. The world has disappeared before our eyes, everything, everything, is a lie. And I can’t change it to be a truth- no matter how hard I try. The desert sun is scalding, it’s orange rays burning through my pale skin. Where are we?
I instinctively reach for my pocket, so my HoloTek would answer for me, but it’s gone- did I even have it in the first place?
I put my hands to my head, sitting on my knees. The world seems to swirl around me, blurring, becoming fuzzier and fuzzier the more I think about it.
What is real?
The desert freezes, ice appearing in every crack and crevice. The sun bleeds into a moon- the sand plummets in a tornado in the ground. Ice replaces everything- and suddenly all that I can feel is a burning cold. A cold that is so freezing that I become numb in a mere five seconds, and in another five, my toes and fingers start to fall off.
I can’t even scream- I don’t have enough energy for it. Instead, I huddle up, trying to conserve what little warmth I have left- but instead my leg melts into ice.
The cold and the pain combine into one feeling- one horror.
I can’t go on like this anymore.
All of a sudden the cold stops- replaced with a darkness so void and vast that I can’t focus on anything but it. There aren’t any stars- there never have been, not after the light pollution grew to be so huge that it eradicated any light in the night sky- creating a black canvas, ready for painting that will never happen.
I am not in the universe anymore.
I am the universe.

I’m not on Earth anymore.
I can tell; the colors are too vibrant for it to be Earth. Our planet’s dying, but nobody cares enough to notice. The greens are too bright, the blues too overpowering for Earth to ever achieve again.
It’s beautiful, yet it seems to have some sort of artificial flourish that I can’t quite place my finger on.
I run my hand over a large leaf, hairs sticking on end from the prickles on the outer coating of it. After a moment, the leaf turns grey, and disintegrates into a void nothingness.
I reach out to touch more of them, wanting, wishing that I could enjoy its feel one more time.
But they all die.
“Stop,” a female voice instructs. I look behind me to see a large, tall woman with dark skin narrow her eyes at me. She folds her arms over her chest and glares, amber eyes sparkling.
She sighs and says, “We're already low on our supply of matter, and you’re ruining it- stop standing!” Slapping my cheek, she hands me a pair of shoes that are blacker than anything mankind has ever seen before. When I step on them, I immediately stop feeling the ground beneath me.
“Where- what is this? This doesn’t check in with any of my research!” I ask, heat rising in my face.
“Of course it doesn’t. You forgot to factor in that there may be another variable in play.” With that blunt answer, she quickly changes the topic.
“I’m going to go send you back to the dimension in where you came from. You can’t stay here for lon-”
“What even is here?” I interrupt, not caring about being polite.
“The ¼ dimension. Only ¼ of reality remains here, which is why we savor every bit of matter that we get, and why you should stop touching those leaves!”
I take my hand off of the one I had been feeling and turn to face her.
“You realized that there were two dimensions: yours and reality. But there are more factors than you originally thought. There are multiple dimensions: this one, the void dimension, the ½ dimension, your dimension, more commonly known as the ¾ dimension, and reality. The more of reality you lose, the more of yourself you lose.”
“Like what?”
“Your senses. You’ve seem to lost yours of smell, and you’re starting to lose some of your sense of taste, and if you stay here any longer, you’ll lose your sight as well. Not everybody loses the same senses, your friend had lost her sense of touch whereas you lost your sense of smell.”
“Wait, where was I? Before here- everything just seemed to… to blend together into pain.”
“You were in the ½ dimension. You’d think it would be beautiful, a perfect mix of reality and fantasy, but it’s not. Stay out of there in all costs- but the void dimension is even worse.”
“What is-”
Before I can finish my sentence, I’m sent away, back into the ¾ dimension where I came from.

Mutterseelenallein.

Shaken, I touch a pole next to the bike rack as I rematerialize. I’m still not in reality, but at least I’m not in any other dimension. I wonder where she might be.
A jarring thought hits me, and I almost stumble back into the rack.
I still don’t even know her name.
Do I still know mine?
I slump on the pavement, and start thinking. It’s been a while since I’ve ever felt the need to have a name. Do I even need to use my old one?
Why do I need a name in the first place?
I scan the area as soon as I become whole again. Nothing looks out of the ordinary, except for one thing.
Nothing’s moving.
Why? Has time stopped moving forward? Is it because of me? No, it couldn't, right?
Shaking, I hold up my hand, part of me screaming at myself, the other part as collected as I look on the outside. I swipe my hand to the left, not really knowing what I'm doing.
People start walking backwards, talking backwards, and things begin to move backwards. I accelerate the process, until I reach the spot in time that I've been looking for,
A bullet flies back into a man's gun, and his eyes glaze over until something shocking happens.
He looks straight at me.
I stop time there, and I walk over to him to inspect him and what role he may have. I make a mental note of his looks- his brown unwashed coat, his uncombed, messy dreadlocks. His unshaven chin, wild black eyes.
His sharp nose.
I take a step back, not wanting to see the resemblance. I recollect myself, and stuff my hand in his pocket to pull out a Holo-ID. His name and birthdate shine in sparkling yellow text, but I know this is just a fake.
Sweat pours down my forehead. I bite my tongue, and a trail of blood drips from my lips. Too focused on keeping time in place, I don’t realize that I can’t taste it. I steal his coat, and check for any pockets in his shirt, shaking as violently as if it were below freezing outside.
Perhaps it is below freezing; I can’t tell. My vision blurs, and all I can see are the floating raindrops in front of me.
Just… one more minute.
That’s all I need.
I take the man’s watch, stuff it in my pocket, and throw the coat in the general direction of the man with great excruciation. Walking backwards as fast as I can, each step more pain for me to burden, my vision darkens. I scream out in pain- and finally let time take its toll.
People continue walking as if nothing happened.
But everything happened.
I look down at my hands in terror and awe at what I can do. Since when did I have the ability to bend time? Tears roll down my face as I look up to see the man murder myself, and bolt out of here.
My past self catches my eye, and doesn’t reveal anything except for the fact that his gaze lingers on mine. Perhaps I’m only visible to my past selves.
Gasping, I try to focus more in the situation as my vision gets worse. The girl and I disappear into the ½ dimension. I squint, and see the man with dreadlocks running away from behind us. Was he the one who banished us?
He was- the evidence is right there.
Then why am I having such a hard time believing it?
Suddenly, I heave a final breath before finally giving up, fainting on the ground.
The last thing I see before I black out is nothing.

I open my eyes expecting to see the city in front of me. To my great dismay, I can’t see anything.
I can’t see anything.
Panicking, I put my hands to my face, cheeks, waist. I want to make sure I’m still in one piece, even though that makes no sense as I only lost my sight.
I’m blind.
I’m blind.
No- how did this, I can’t, no, this isn’t happ- I can’t- I can see, I can see, I can see.
I open my eyes wider, resolving sight to return to me because of pure will.
Just darkness.
Mind-bending darkness.
I fall to my knees.

“Syzygy Jauda- one of the last remaining Time Wielders- is now in custody of Them, and will be used against us.” Her hand slams down on the table, taking away some matter in the middle of it. The people surrounding her each have a cold, hard look on their faces, all thinking the same thing.
The world’s going to end.
“How are They going to do so?” asks a newer member, young and naive to what They could do with such power. She sighs, not bothering to hide her annoyance from the young man.
In reply, she smacks him. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
“We must do something.” another states, and all heads whirl towards his direction.
“What do you propose?”

Woozy, I feel a new surface below my feet. Cold, hard… concrete? I close my eyes, and try to listen to anything that might tell me where I am. Nothing. I tap a pole next to me, which is considerably harder to do than I originally thought, as I have handcuffs around my hands.
An echo bounces off the walls of the building.
Am I in a warehouse?
Footsteps come closer and closer to where I am as I muse on what I need to do to get out of here, or why I am here in the first place.
“Who are you?” I ask, little emotion showing in my voice.
“Who are you?” it echoes.
“I don-” I start to say, but then realize I do know who I am. “Why should I give this information to you?”
“You don’t need to. I already know more about you than you will ever know about yourself, Syzygy.
“You will assist me in finding your friend, and you will do everything I say.”
“Perhaps I don’t want to do everything you say?” This bravado is only an act; deep inside, I’m terrified, and he knows it.
“Perhaps you wouldn’t want to lose your hearing as well?”
I stiffen when I hear that sentence. He couldn’t take away my hearing- I’d be trapped, trapped in a box, that I could never get out of because I’m stuck in this infuriating dimension, and I wouldn’t be useful anymore, right?
If I were in reality, I could get surgery to repair my vision. People could actually see me.
But why can he notice me if I'm still in this dimension?
Of course, in the real world, I could get surgery and be fine in less than an hour. But here, nobody can see me.
Nobody’s supposed to see me.
Why can he see me?
I close my eyes and listen attentively to everything that is happening. With two senses gone, I am extremely limited in my options.
Could I somehow rewind time to the place where I lost my vision?
The man’s malicious cackle reverberates through my ears in response.
“You’re stuck here with me.” he informs, in the midst of his chortles. “Ah, the naiveness of youth.”
My brow furrows, as sweat beads on my forehead. I know that I can do it. I know that I can rewind time and choose a different outcome.
I hold my handcuffed hands out in front of me, and I scream.

I’ve never paid attention to the sounds of time. It sounds like grass blowing in the wind, and like a thunderstorm at sea. Everything that happened, all at once, reverses. Backwards, but forwards at the same time. I would think that it would stop time completely, as this is an anomaly that cannot be, but time lets me take the reins- for now.
I swim in a flood of everything. The feeling of defying the laws of the universe is ineffable. Nothing, nothing could replicate this feeling right now; all my senses are experiencing too much.
But, finally, I hit a bump that sends me spiraling out of the currents of time. I swim back, desperate to gain my sight again; instead I get pulled away from time itself.
In the warehouse again, I gasp and cough out blood, the taste lingering on my lips.
“Did you think you could get away, time wielder?” The man spits out the last words as if they’re poison. Backing up against the wall, pain biting into my wrists, I shake my head, frantic.
“Stand up.”
I blink, unsure of what to do.
“I said stand up,” he says again, and his voice is soft but cold and sharp. It scares me much more than if he had yelled at me. I haven’t known my kidnapper for long, but I am cognizant that there is no way that he is that type of person. There is no way that this is normal, and the thought sparks fear in my veins.
I get up, shaking uncontrollably. He steps so close to me that I can feel his breath. Part of me is glad that I can’t smell his warm breath.
“This is going to be fun.”
I don’t give him the satisfaction of hearing my screams.

I step into the room where I am positive that he is there. My equal.
Yet I used to think of him as inferior.
A dreadlocked man stands over his unconscious body, cackling like the sadist that he is.
“You,” he spits, not bothering to hide his disgust of me.
I put my hands on my hips. “Me,” I reply, knowing that there is no way in Earth that this man could best me.
I have something that he doesn’t.
Perhaps he knows that, maybe he doesn’t. Either way, he cannot beat me, and he knows it.
But he fights anyway, not wishing to die a coward.
Taking out a pistol, he pulls the trigger in the time span it takes me to blink. Grinning, he thinks that I will be dead in a few seconds.
Instead, the bullet bounces right off of my neck.
And rebounds towards him, gaining more speed than it had on the way there.
I don't do anything to stop it. I could- I could.
But I don't.
And the man's last words are, “I'm expendable anyway.”
Standing over him, I care nothing for his death. I only have eyes for Syzygy. His eyes are closed shut, and even in his unconscious state he pulsates- from what, electricity? I pick up a small device laying next to him, and realize that it’s a taser. But this isn’t any ordinary taser.
It’s highest setting is something that no man could ever survive.
I sit down, and stare at him. There’s no way that he’s dead. No way. I couldn’t have survived in that… place without the thought of him being alive. He is not dead.
I will it.
I inch towards a corner, putting my back against the hard concrete wall, and think. Is there any hope of me to somehow… ‘partner’ with him? Perhaps he can be my ticket back home, if only I play my hand correctly.
Well, it’s good that I have some aces then.

Blinking in and out of unconsciousness doesn’t feel good at all. There were times when I had heard a voice, and I couldn’t tell if it were fantasized or not. Perhaps it was, perhaps it wasn’t. It doesn’t matter anyways.
What matters is that I can’t tell who is in the room with me.
I know that I’m still on the same concrete floor; it feels exactly the same. But I have no idea if the dreadlocked man is still in here, waiting for my second round of torture by electricity, or if it’s somebody new- a new variable.
Sitting up, slowly, I try to listen for anything that might be a giveaway. Any footsteps, any tapping, anything.
But I don’t hear anything.
Panicked that I may have somehow lost my hearing as well, I tap on the floor multiple times, relieved when I hear a small echo back indicating that the floor is still there. My only problem now is that whoever may be with me in the room knows for sure that I am awake and thinking- even if they’ve lost their sight.
Nobody moves.
I can sense it- feel it that there is another living, breathing human with me. Perhaps they didn’t see me, as I am still in the ¾ dimension. Maybe I’m just overthinking it. I should be fine; there isn’t another foe in the room. The dreadlocked man probably left me to my own unconscious thoughts.
My hands are still handcuffed, and the metal bites into my skin so hard that I feel blood. The problem with these handcuffs is that the more you move them, the more that they tighten. Due to my… fits previously because of the taser, the handcuffs had tightened so much that I cannot focus on anything but the pain in my hands.
I can’t get out if I don’t learn how to block it.
Closing my eyes helps, even if there is no real reason to it. Even with my eyes closed, I’m still blind. I try to drift away for a moment, into an island where everything is perfect. I’m not in any dimension other than reality, my life is normal, and I am still living a happy life with my family.
So when I get back to… this life, I realize that I don’t need to focus on the pain. I am in control of my own body. I get to choose what to focus on. And right now I don’t want to focus on anything but the thought of getting out of this accursed place.
I’m tied by the rope to a metal pole behind me, and I wonder if time could somehow help me out of this situation. Perhaps if I stop its flow for a moment, I could get out.
I jump into the dimension of time and swim backwards against the current. It seems harder than it actually is, which proves just how much time wants me to get out of here. This is not my fate.
I jump back to a time about an hour ago, where my cuffs weren’t so tight. I have no idea what may be happening in the background, but it doesn’t matter.
All I need to do is to get these handcuffs off of me.
I decide to try one of the oldest tricks in the book: a thin piece of metal. However, in the middle of searching the ground, I realize that these aren’t old-school handcuffs. Of course not- we’re way past that in terms of technology. But how do you unlock these?
A fingerprint.
How am I going to save myself now?
Perhaps I can somehow get the man to touch the handcuff? But I’m tied up in these ropes, so I can’t do anything. And I don’t think I can stay in this point in time for long; time is doing what it can to help me, but it can’t defy its laws for much.
Panicking, I start to wriggle around in my bounds more. I wish this were a hundred or two years ago, when technology was so much worse! Then I would have gotten out of here a long time ago.
I realize something- the rope is just that; pure rope. It isn’t new rope, stronger rope, it’s older rope that people could hack through. Using what, though?
My teeth.
Getting to work, I start biting on the rope as much as I can, not paying attention to the foul taste that starts to form in my mouth. Human teeth were not made for biting through three inch thick ropes, though, so it’s a bit harder than originally expected.
But it works.
And I stand up, my knees sore and probably red from the rope, and I start to hobble over somewhere in the room. Anywhere, perhaps I can bump into my kidnapper.
I don’t bump into him though, I slam head-on in his face. Feeling his body for his arms, hands, fingers, I take one of them and smash it onto the fingerprint recognition board. I feel a vibrate in response, and exhaustingly trudge back to the pole.
Finally, I am free.

I blink, and everything changes.
In one blink Syzygy awakens, and in one blink he is free of his binds.
He opens his eyes.
And I gasp when I see that their exquisite hazel is glazed over. His eyes were a mesmerizing blend of a tree green and wood brown. They worked together to form the most gorgeous natural painting ever, forever blending, but never mixing. And now they’re destroyed.
Never to see again.
Why- how did he lose his sight? I sigh, slightly annoyed by his loss of vision, as it will make it harder for him to trust me, unless he’s as gullible as I thought he is.
“Hello?” I call. “Can you hear me?”
Syzygy whirls his head around at the sound of my voice, and closes his eyes as he tries to picture who it may be. A relieved smile flashes on his face, and his shoulders instinctively drop from their higher position. After all this time, after everything that has changed both of us, he recognizes me.
He recognizes me.
I don’t even recognize myself.
I put my hands to my face in awe. I see Syzygy open his mouth and utter a response, but I don't hear it until a few moments later.
“Y-you?” he stutters, still surprised by the fact that I'm still alive.
“Where were you, all this time?” he mutters. My brow furrows, as I don’t particularly know where I was either, but of course I don't tell him that.
“I was floating in a sea of power. Balancing on clouds of ambition. Sleeping in a sky of death and horrors.
“I was part of a greater power.” I whisper, suddenly feeling an intense longing for the place I used to be in. I want to be a part of that something larger again.
But in order to do that I need to get through him first.
I lure him into a false sense of security. Make him believe that I am helping him by directing to where the outside of the building is. I stay with him for days, a week even. I watch as he begins to get used to living without sight.
There are still some mysteries surrounding him that I can't decipher, such as how he…
I fall asleep, dreaming of times where I'd be trapped inside the glass box I'm laying on. When I open my eyes the next morning, I'm tied to the tree inside the box.
Screaming, I curse Syzygy and begin to hack away at the metal-like material, severely annoyed at this setback.
My mind flickers back to the sacred words that I was told.
Only the by capture of your equal can you return to me.
I will find him.
No matter what.

I walk.
I have time; I have all the time in the world.
In my sleep time whispered in my ears that she will betray me. It murmured that she would do anything to capture me.
So I flee.
Tying her up to the tree inside of the old box, I beg it to stop her from escaping. The glass doesn't respond, its old mouth closed for centuries, never saying a word.
Swimming through the reaches of time, I close my eyes and trek away from her. Time has helped me in so many ways.
It's starting to even help me sense more.
Relaxed, I sleep by a building. When I wake up, I don't know when I am, or where I am.
Am I kidnapped again?
Shaking my head, I stand up, my heart beating in my ears. I'm not in the same place I just was, however, I'm not in custody of the dreadlocked man again.
Then where am I?
Doubting the fact that I am safe, I listen for any giveaways to where I may be.
I don't hear anything.
Panicked, I frantically search the river of time for any information that might help me.
I'm trapped.
Trapped where, or when, I don't know, and I can't know, just because I lost my sight.
Why did I become blind in the first place? Is it just my price to pay for having time as my companion, or is there some darker reason?
Whatever it is, I'm still trapped. My heart rate begins to slow down, as there is no signs of immediate danger.
But then I realize something.
I'm not in the same dimension.
I'm in a new court, with new rules, and a new sport. What am I doing here?
Nothing.
I can't do anything.
I'm completely and utterly trapped.
Defenseless.
I sink to my knees.

I scan the premises for anything that might stick out to me as unusual. Anything that might scream ‘Syzygy’, and my ticket back home.
But I don't see anything.
The city seems… oddly quiet. There's usually at least someone outside, but there is no one. Chills rush down my spine as I realize how peculiar this is.
Something is going to happen.
An explosion, ringing, and then it's all gone.

My ears.
Blood gushing out of my ears.
No sound coming into my ears.
I can't think properly.
I can't hear properly.
What-
I close my eyes, and focus. What happened? There was an explosion, I remember that, but how did it happen? Why did it happen? How? And who did it?
However, the pain is too overwhelming, and I clutch my hands to my head, but the overpowering pain always hovering no matter what I do.
Standing behind me is a man holding a shotgun, and he smirks over my pain.
“You will never heal this injury, Himera.”
As soon as he says that, all my logical thoughts rush back into my head. I have power. I can heal myself, and take revenge on him.
I am powerful.
And he is not.
My skin mends itself back together, and all the blood flows back into my head. I stand up, no longer weak, and I face the man. His face doesn't morph into terror as I expected it to. Instead he holds the same infuriatingly smug expression, as if he knows that he is still right.
How could he?
I decapitate him at that thought.
His grin still remains.
I scream in fury, and pound my fist on the wall. The wall vibrates in response, my punch creating a ripple in the hard brick. I sigh, and wonder how this didn’t work out in my favor. I did everything that I was told to do…
There’s still one thing you’re missing.
I put my hands to my head, close my eyes, and muse. What could I have done better?
While I think, a woman creeps up behind me. Her bald head gleams in the sunset, and her dark green eyes pierce her target: me.
She fires, and I whirl around, a millisecond too late.
She is just as powerful as I am.
She is my equal.
And she is going to murder me.

Everything is going just how I planned it to.

Panic rushes through my mind- what happens if two space-benders are in the same room? Would the entire world… die, or would it cancel out? Either way, the woman still looks just as murderous as she did a moment before, and I ready my defenses, preparing to fight for my life.
But I’m exhausted.
I cannot continue any more.
The woman finally notices me, and her jaw drops. She puts her hands down to her side in shock; her dark green eyes widen. She trembles, opening and closing her mouth multiple times over.
“Hi-Himera?” she finally musters out. I open my eyes more, as I have no idea how she might know my name.
“It’s me.
“Miris.”
I fall to my knees and sob.

I’m… here.
But there.
Perhaps I’m everywhere.
I know I’m nowhere.
I cannot…
I shake my head. I can’t do this the same way I did last time. I know more now, and I can bend time to my will.
A breeze blows my bangs in my face, and I cower at how much it made me feel.
It was as if my entire life flashed before my eyes.
But I don’t have eyes anymore.
I breathe in and out. I can survive this. I can now stir the colors back to their original form. The ½ dimension has no way of taking that from me.
It continues to try its hardest, though. Water is dry. Ground is wet. Black is white, one equals two, and so on. I don’t pay them enough attention for them to affect me. I am still alive, there is no way the ½ dimension can take that from me.
But is it the ½ dimension?
Perhaps it isn’t.
Perhaps all of this was just a dream.
You will wake up soon. it murmurs. This was all just a bad dream.
Your mother will shake you awake, as you have slept through your AirPhone's alarm once again. She will scold you for that.
There is no such thing as a dimension.
There is only reality.
And you are in it.
I am in reality.
There is no such thing as a dimension.
I almost believe it.

I wipe away my tears, and try to look strong. I need to prove to her that I’m not the same child I was a year ago.
I completely forgot about Miris.
She was… she was my entire life. The only reason why I woke up every day, and the only reason why I fell asleep every day.
Yet I thoroughly forgot about her during the year I was trapped in the ¾ dimension.
How much has she changed this past year?
How much have I?
Since when is Miris this tall? Since when did she mature? Since when did she gain this power?
She’s probably asking herself the same questions about me right this moment.
“H-How,” she says, stumbling on her words, “did you end up here?”
I gulp down my tears and respond. “I honestly have no idea.”
Miris sighs, of course always trying to get straight to the point. She squeezes my hand, and extracts information from me, a slow process. I end up telling her my entire life up until this point, and when I finish, I narrow my blue eyes, expecting her to give up at least some information in return.
But she doesn’t, which is unlike her.
We used to spend entire days telling each other stories, and I’d almost always be the audience, she the speaker. As I got older, I found my voice, but it seems as if she lost hers.
During my spiels, she’d usually interrupt me with one of her own stories, which is why it took forever. But she only said minimal things this time, which makes me wonder really how much has happened to her while we were separated.
We aren’t anymore though, and I am eternally grateful for that. Miris looks down on the sidewalk beneath us, exhales, and prepares herself.
“I realized things were happening that shouldn’t have. One morning, after your disappearance, I noticed that things looked slightly different in my room. However, I couldn’t really place my finger on what was off, so I forgot and went to school.
“Afterwards, when I came back home, I found out that my house has turned from brick to steel. I gasped, uneasy about what might have sparked this change. When I asked Mother about it, she thought I was going insane. I knew I wasn’t- I knew this was real.
“But then what caused it?”
Like at all of her previous stories, I looked at her with my complete attention. It seems as if she hasn’t lost her spark after all.
“I, of course, longed for you to be there so that I could show you this, for I had always dreamed of some sort of adventure to happen. I had hoped that maybe this would be my call to action, and my call to save you, one of the only people I care about.
“Every day more new things would occur. One day I woke up and I had grown a significant amount of height. Another day I saw you.
“I ran over to you, all smiles and love and tears, but you took one look at me and vanished.” she whispers, her voice breaking.
“The day afterwards a man approached me. The only significant thing about him that I remember are his dreadlocks- oh and his eyes. The color of night itself. He was whispering some sort of chant, but I heard him.
“Because I heard him,” she breathes, her viridescent eyes filling up with tears. “I murdered him in cold blood.”
Her voice breaks, and her chest heaves with despairing sobs. I hug her, trying to provide as much comfort as I can. My sister, murdering someone?
“How did you do it?” I whisper.
“I didn’t.” she murmurs.
“It did.”

Back in the ¾ dimension, I breathe in and out heavily. I bested it. I beat it. I won.
But how was I sent there in the first place? It could have been the man with dreadlocks, but I haven’t seen him for a while. Then who was it?
I have too many enemies here, and not a single ally. I can’t trust the girl anymore; perhaps I can trust the dark skinned woman who informed me on all this before? She would still be in the ¼ dimension, but I have no way of getting there.
No way that I know of.
Determined, I listen to the waves of time to gesture me where to go. They even push me, obviously wanting for me to find out how.
From what time tells me, I have arrived at a library. I don’t understand what use it would give me, but I step inside anyway.
It’s eerily quiet, not a single sound is heard. I put my hands on everything, trying to feel whatever I can to get a sense of where everything is.
Wooden cubicles, with computers inside them. About ten per table. Bookshelves, laden with books from head to toe. I run my hand over one, and feel dust.
I take a book out at random, but when I do that, something happens.
“Syzygy- help!” a voice pleads.
The voice of my mother.
I run, knocking down many shelves in front of me. I sprint out of the library, into the street, not caring about incoming cars. They won’t affect me in the ¾ dimension anyways.
“Mother!” I shout, wanting to help her more than anything else I’ve wanted in my life.
Her screams grow louder, and I sprint faster.
“Syzygy! He’s going to-”
I arrive, time on my side. I prepare to battle, to defend my mother under any means possible but I can’t.
I listen to my mother die.
My mother wasn’t in reality.
But I was.

Miris continues, and sobs the entire time, explaining how she then got blackmailed by a woman to go find a blonde haired girl.
Me.
We hug afterwards, our love and affection for each other ineffable.
We stand up, ready to face the world together.
She smiles, suddenly energetic again. Her smile is so full of innocence and happiness that my heart bounces, and determination fills me.
I feel like I can take on the world.
Perhaps Miris is my equal. Perhaps she is the one that I was supposed to get, but there is no way I am letting her even think about not being anywhere where she isn’t safe.
I debate whether I should embark on my quest to find Syzygy or not, but for now, I decide to appreciate what I have.
But I don’t have anything anymore.
My sister’s mouth forms a large O in terror.
Blood spurts from her chest.
In one second, she is gone.
In one second, she is dead.
And I saw it all happen.
But what unnerves me the most is this:
I never heard the gunshot.

Apotheosis


Every day, he murders at least one hundred infants.
The worst part is that he has turned a cold shoulder towards it all. He has lost his conscience a long time ago and never plans to regain it. What good would a little voice in his head do, anyways?
Sitting in his swivel chair, he takes a sip of his cup of coffee. Black- just the way he likes it. He squints off into the distance, barely making out the silhouettes of scientists arriving to the staircase. He turns his attention back to the work going on around him; he has an amazing view of everybody working together to protect the population.
He scratches the back of his neck as the next one arrives. Her green eyes are captivating, all the different shades coming together into one pristine iris. She blinks, one of the only ones that hasn’t started bawling until now.
The record holds at sixty seconds.
He doubts that this girl could beat it.
One of his favorite ways of ‘protecting the population’, as they call it, is simply slitting their throats. It’s clean, efficient, and merciful. Just one flick of the hand, and he’s earned himself another 500 credits.
All that can stop him is his conscience.
Thankfully, he doesn’t have one.
Or so he believes.
The girl’s giggling eyes lock onto his own as she strokes her hands along his thick moustache. He recoils, obviously unsure of what to do. No other has acted like this one- no other has acted so fearless, so naive…
He pulls out the knife, which usually is the breaking point for them.
But this girl’s eyes just smile more.
This unnerves him, and an unsure look flashes upon his face before he sets in stone what needs to be done. She needs to be killed; she isn’t perfect enough. She has landed far below the mark- a fifty percent! Society wouldn’t accept her; it would be a mercy to kill her right now and end her suffering before it even begins.
He raises the knife to her neck, and gazes in her eyes one last time. The green overpowers him; he begins to muse over how such eyes could exist in this world. She blinks, still oblivious to her impending doom.
The infant raises her hands and makes an unnatural gesture, startling the man so much that he just about loses control of the knife, and it slits a small cut across her shoulder. Blood begins to form, staining the white cloth that covers the child.
She still hasn’t cried once.
He must save her.
She is too extraordinary not to. For her eyes are the breaking point for him.
They’re his daughter’s eyes.
Shining emeralds, just like his daughter’s used to be. He won’t let the infant die like he let her die.
He smuggles her into a plastic bag, hoping, praying that she doesn’t make a sound. Glancing at the clock, he puts the bag into another, larger one, one that he takes everywhere he goes. It’s just about time for his lunch break, and he gains some hope. Perhaps he could save her without being found out.
With one step out of his small glass-enclosed office, an alarm blares, and he almost jumps out of his shoes.
It’s so frustratingly loud, and draws attention to everybody around him. Panicking, he tries with all his might to create a cover. Something believable, something that could save him and this baby with his daughter’s eyes. Both of their lives are at hand, and it is his choice to save them, or to murder them.
“My bad, we haven’t told you about the new security system yet.” his coworker jumps in. He hasn’t had a particularly good relationship with the man, but he still stays by his side, for some unknown reason.
He fakes a dumbfounded look. “Wha- a new security system? I was just going to get lunch! Come on, Bef!”
“Go on ahead, I’ll take care of this. I’ll catch up with you later with the details.” He seems in a hurry to end the conversation. He scratches his red hair, which is a telltale sign that something is off about him. He never scratches his head. But he is too focused on saving the girl to notice it. Perhaps Bef had also noticed how he had said ‘come on’, which is unlike him.
He suppresses the urge to sprint out the building as fast as he can, but instead walks at a slightly quicker pace then normal, hoping not to draw too much attention. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work out for him, as being the Hangman of the state there are always people following him.
Bursting into the elevator, he slumps his shoulders, relishing the fact that he is alone. Jabbing at the button to take him up over one hundred levels to the surface, he wishes elevators could move slower, so that he could have more time to gain some of his composure. He could have just teleported to the top, but that wouldn’t give him enough time either.
Stepping out of the sliding doors, he keeps his head low, a hood covering his face. The girl hasn’t emitted a sound, which he considers as an omen that he is doing the right thing. In the lobby of the building, people stare at him, not bothering to hide their awe, fear, or disgust from him.
The sun’s beams warm his hands, and a grin breaks out on his face. He’s done it. Instead of taking a life, he’s saved one.
Or so he supposed.
A laser gun points at him, and he shoots his hands up in the air as fast as he can, dropping the bag in the meantime.
“.0497 seconds. You’ve barely made the mark.” the officer notes, gaining a bad first impression of him already. He studies her, noting her dark skin, brown ponytail
“You are being persecuted because you have smuggled a live child out of the building- a serious offense,” the woman drones, not feeling the passion that she should. Her mind is probably already drifting back to her kids at home. “Hand me your identity holo, and-”
Only then does she notice who she is talking to. Taking a step behind, she gasps when he finally looks her in the eye.
“So it is true. You really do have the eyes of the devil.”
He punches her in the face, not caring about whatever charges would be pressed against him. How dare she? Insulting him like that? He has earned these eyes, spent months, years training for this job, expecting to be respected among society, and instead earns this?
Blood spurts from her nose, dripping like a water faucet. Her eye swollen, she holds her gun, hands shaking.
“I w-will shoot you.” Her voice stumbles, a telltale sign of her fear. He cackles, a maniac grin spilling onto his face. Any conscience that he had has been long gone. A glint of terror appears in her blue eyes, a single tear rolling down her face. She has frozen in horror of what she is facing.
This is the perfect time for his revenge.
He is positive that her reflexes aren’t good enough to save her life. He wrestles the gun from her hands and points it at her head. Smiling, he whispers in her ear,
“Good night, sweetheart.”
Twenty four hours later, he wishes good-night to himself as well.

These are simply amazing. I love them!! <33 Write on, Ender!

Ender, these are amazing! I love Apotheosis. <3

Lucy_Lu wrote:

Ender, these are amazing! I love Apotheosis. <3

Ahh thanks!

Amazing!

An Excerpt From Apotheosis, Chapter Six
Okay so first, some backstory. This is set in a world in which everybody is some percent ‘perfect’ (good looks, metabolism, immune system, etc.). There is a limit on perfection- if you born as are under 62.5% perfect, you are killed. As simple as that. Kalarime (my mc) is a fifty (fifty percent perfect), and the only reason that she is alive is because she was rescued at birth by the man supposed to kill her.

"Kalarime, you are special,” the Imperator said as I tentatively stepped into the meeting room. I, at the mere age of eight years old, was meeting with the most powerful man of my generation. The man who controlled everything in , the one who is supreme.
Imperator the 19th- Imperator Criksu.
I was flattered that me, a simple child living with a foster ‘family' was being summoned to meet with someone in such a high position of power.
Deqir gasped when the letter came in through the apartment hologram. It was clearly meant for me, as my name was printed on it in large letters, but he still thought it was not.
“Perhaps the Imperator’s Office members simply made a mistake,” he muttered to himself, pacing around the apartment in a panic. I had never seen him so frantic before.
I followed him around in a natural state of calm. “But Deqir, the Imperator and his Office never make mistakes.”
“For the last time, you stupid child, I am Father to you. You should not be alive, yet you are, and I am the difference between your life and death, you pathetic fifty,” he snarls. The insults didn’t faze me, for I had endured much worse with children at Primary school. Over time, I got numb over all of it.
I never called him Father, no matter how many times he yelled and threatened to beat me.
Deqir opened the holographic image, expecting to pass through the face scan. The automated voice stated in its monotone, “This message is intended for Kalarime Anarmi only. Give the hologram to Kalarime Anarmi, Citizen Deqir Hakinm.”
Deqir, startled, slowly gave the hologram back to me, his hand shaking the entire time. He eyed my steady hand, and shook his head.
“The Office never makes mistakes,” I repeat, awestruck. Why would I ever be contacted by such a high power?
“Special in a bad way.”
I started, confused. How can I be special in a bad way? Is he talking about my Perfection? I thought… I hoped…
“You should not be alive.”
His meeting room was furnished plainly with just a desk and two chairs. The walls were made out of glass, allowing me to see the city outside.
But the City morphed into another. Holograms, then?
“And yet you are.”
Imperator the 19th was a fairly average man in height, weight, and almost everything else. But he was 87.5% perfect- just as all the other Imperators before him.
His salt-and-pepper hair reminded me of Deqir's: neat, perfectly arranged. His facial hair looked the same, perfect, as everyone expected his to. His voice was raspy, more raspy than I thought such an important man should have.
“This comes with consequences.”
Flora and fauna in the City was scarce. However, skyscrapers were plentiful, as they held room for large apartments without taking up much space on the ground.
I remembered how I had once visited another City. Far away, up North, where the climate wasn't monitored.
“Deqir, why is it so cold?” I questioned, finally snatching his attention away from his hologram. His expression seemed quizzical, so I elaborated. “My Teacher said that the most preferred temperature for this time of year is 41.9 degrees, and this is definitely colder.”
Deqir forced himself to respond in a tight smile. “Haven’t you already learnt that the farther North you are, the colder it is?”
“‘Consequences.’ Such a gorgeous word.”
“Yes, Deqir, but-”
He put a finger to his lips, and my mouth slammed shut. “Kalarime, the people here have not mastered the art of climate control. The snow and wind are too powerful for them to do so.”
“You are not allowed to go to Primary school.”
“We cannot even completely control ours, although we have mastered setting an ideal temperature for each season. It isn’t much, but it is a reminder.”
“You may not speak to anybody except Citizen Deqir Hakinm”
“A reminder that Criksu rules all, for it was him who set the ideal temperatures, and not the people.”
“You are to only go outside during school hours.”
“A reminder that even though we do have the power of choice, it could be taken away as fast as Criksu snaps his fingers.”
“If you break any of these rules, you will be killed.”
“Most citizens do not realize this. They prance around like the obedient sheep that they are and accept anything decreed by him.”
“‘Killed’, what a painful term! Executed suits it more.”
“Kalarime, you could be a symbol. Somebody living an entire 12.5 percent under the perfection limit could spark something huge.”
“A slow death, as what is accustomed here. You would be a symbol. Somebody dying at 12.5 percent under the perfection limit could remind people that they must obey.”
“You could change the world.”
“You must stay hidden.”
“You can turn the tables of this entire society. All it requires is…”
“Leave, before you die.”
A gunshot echoes across the hallway.

Awesome! It definitely has potential, but there are a couple of things you should look at:
-you changed tense several times; either write entirely in past or present.
-especially at the beginning, try to avoid passive voice (passive is action being done to the subject, active is action being done by the subject)
-the switching between the scene with Deriq and the one with the Imperator is kind of confusing; I think they would be better as separate scenes
-which scene is the gunshot in? I have no idea, it’s kind of out of nowhere.

However, the dialogue is pretty good and I like the idea behind your story! Keep it up!

The reason I changed tense was because this is a flashback, and I wanted to include both of these at once for I already have another flashback earlier, plus these concepts that are being presented to Kalarime contradict each other well, but I dont think I did well on creating the scene without making it seem confusing. Thanmd for the feedback!

Oh wait, I get what you mean. I'm so used to writing in present that when I do in past, I usually forget xD.

Ooh, I like! The idea is really neat! I'm a big grammar Nazi, so there are a couple places where I would change up small things (commas, a word that doesn't fit too well) but I don't know if that's the feedback you're looking for, as it's easily fixable.
Another thing is that I didn't understand where Kalarime and Deqir were. You said in the beginning that she stepped into a meeting room, but then you said “Deqir gasped when the letter came in through the apartment hologram.” So, are they in the meeting room or in the apartment? It kinda confused me
Also, this: “But the City morphed into another. Holograms, then?” You didn't further elaborate on that, so it made very little sense.

Overall, this is great! Good job, Ender! <3

The girl stares down into the vast rip in sheer spacetime. She knows she can completely eradicate it with a simple thought, but she doesn’t. It is mesmerizing to scrutinize such a majestic, pristine thing. She feels a strong temptation to step into the rip pulling at her, begging her to become one with it. She takes a cautious step backwards, alarmed at the sight in front of her. She always believed it is an inanimate object, but perhaps… it isn’t?
Her hand hovers over it, shaking as she lets her breath out. This can easily be obliterated, she reminds herself, and you have no right to be scared of it. She tears her eyes away from the grand rip, and studies her surroundings. She’s in front of a lone tree, in a completely black and white universe. The only thing that was colored is the rip. When she gives it the attention it deserved, she faints.



Perhaps Mother was simply taking a break from all of this, she muttered. The girl, much younger, kicked a rock beneath her foot, annoyed. She sighed, yearning for her mother to return from… wherever she was. The petite child tilted her head upwards, trying to get a sense of time.
It had been less than five minutes.
She plopped down onto the grass, and stubbornly crossed her arms. Time inched by, slowly, but surely. The sun crawled across the sky, but never seemed to reach the hills to the west of her, like a baby trying to reach something on a countertop. Grass swayed in the calm wind, making her dress billow. The girl, although annoyed, giggled.
And all of a sudden, it stopped.
The grass remained tipped by the wind that had somehow disappeared. The clouds halted, and all that was left moving was the girl. She briskly came to her feet, and gaped at it all around her. It seemed so unnatural, yet so right.
She spun around, lips stretched thin in a fearful smile. She was uncomfortable; she was at peace. She was calm; she was panicked. A sense of righteousness rose up inside her, and she gave in.
“What are you doing here?” a voice chastised. Startled, the girl jumped. She grinned, and rushed to give her mother a hug. Mother gave a warm smile in return, assurance flooding her expression.
“You left me here,” the girl replied. She peered into her mother’s dark eyes, looking for a shred of warmth in them. “Remember?” her voice trailed off when she realized her mother really didn't recall anything. Doubt creeped in, and the child’s demeanor became more and more uncomfortable as she began running thoughts through her head.
Perhaps she made this all up- maybe she was in a dream. Maybe the mother actually didn’t remember something, and-
Relief brightened Mother’s face after a moment, and she pulled the child up into a tight hug. “It’s nice here, isn’t it?” Mother asked with a warm smile. I studied the valley that we were in as a sense of peace and tranquil creeped in my demeanor. I lay my head on her shoulder, feeling completely safe.
I beamed in return. “The breeze is calming,” I noted. Mother has always been there for me, and that day I especially needed her. She was my backwall- the difference between life and death. She held me close, and at that moment, staring into her chocolate brown eyes, I felt nothing but love.
My mother’s face morphed into one of seriousness, for a moment. She fiddled with her long blonde locks as she contemplated something. After a moment, her expression turned into one of determination, and she began.
“This is a special place, my daughter.
“Time is but an illusion, created by the human race. Implemented in our minds from a young age, time is a fraud, my child. We are the ones who created this entity.
“We are the ones who can control it.”
At those words, time sped up. The sun flew across the sky, clouds rushing by the much faster wind. The child fell, landing painfully on the ground.
“Mother!” she cried.
“Most have not recalled this. But I have- and I'm passing it onto you. We are special, my
daughter. We are meant for greater things,” she stopped time, and put her hand on the child’s shoulder.
“If only we could try.”



Startled, the girl wakes from her syncope. Time is but our perception of it, she reminds herself as the wind softly bats the back of her neck. Her subconscious made her black out for this long- but why?
A twig snaps a ways behind the girl. She whirls, prepared to face the attacker, or whomever it may be. But her eyes well up with tears as the girl notices who it is.
“Mother,” she whispers, her voice as audible as the grass blowing in the ever-present breeze. “How are you here?” Mother’s smile melts into one of sadness, as she approaches the girl and holds her tight.
“Never mind that. I’m just… glad we’re here together.” Mother and daughter embrace, each feeling nothing but love for the other. “I remember when you were a child…” she reminiscences.
The mother mumbles to herself; time sucks the daughter into a flashback. As a young child, she was adventurous. Her dark blonde hair fluttered in the winds of time as she frolocked in the same exact meadow. She smiles at her younger self, and glances across the plain to see if the mother was there.
Those days were filled with only joy. No complications of time separated them- simply mother and daughter.
But now they’re over, as her mother had left her to grow up by herself.
“We have to go back into reality now.” the mother says, smiling, as they simultaneously accelerate time into the present. They’re together, and that’s all that matters.
The daughter’s eyes glaze over as they fall upon the rip in spacetime again. Perhaps she could fix it. But why would she want to fix something of such magnificence? She turns towards her mother, about to say something, but is stopped by the look of sheer hatred on her face.
“Good bye.”
And she pushes her own daughter into sheer spacetime.

Your voice is so distinctive and dream-like, I can't think of any words to describe your writing. You truly have a gift <3

LeiIani wrote:

Your voice is so distinctive and dream-like, I can't think of any words to describe your writing. You truly have a gift <3

Ahh thank you so much! I really appreciate this; I was having a bad day earlier today and you lifted my spirits

guess who's back
back again
*ahem* if anybody cares about this thread/my writing after like,, a year, some new stuff has happened!
1) i joined a writing seminar at my school and wrote a ton of short stories/ poems! don't expect those to come out in project form unless i somehow find the motivation to lol
2) uh that's basically it. i would say i've improved since last year but i have really bad self esteem so idk man

if you want me to share some new stuff, hmu! i'd gladly ctrl c ctrl v some of my works here

wow just… WOW

I really like your stories, it is awesome!