Just like, a bunch of writing or something.

A Titanium Maiden

My eyes adjust to the waning light of the monitor above me. I’ve just spent three hours staring out of the porthole, into the endless white-speckled black of space. In bright florescent green – god knows I’ve wondered countless times why they chose green – it tells me that exactly one year has passed. To the month, to the day, to the hour, to the minute, to the second. Hell, it would probably tell me to the microsecond if I really wanted to know. June 25th, 2061. Saturday apparently. 

 I feel like talking to my Sis. 

>RUN PROGRAM: System1

>Good morning, Danielle. :)

>And what makes it such a good morning, Sis? 

>You are still alive, Danielle. :)

>

My sis has a knack for stating the bleeding obvious, but she still knows how to cut me deep. 

>For the thousandth time, PLEASE stop using that name.

>I am programmed to address you by this name, Danielle. I cannot change my programming.

>Oh…Get lost.

>

My fists clench, claw-like nails digging into my palms. I grit my teeth. I’m reminded of her every day. Wherever I look, she’s there. I turn my head to the left and rub my neck against the leather headrest, eyes closed like a cat scratching against settee. She’s there when I open my eyes. Long dark hair, green eyes and the faintest smile, the perfect passport photo.

I watch the seconds on the digital readout increase to sixty, then drop back down to zero. The minutes do the same thing. Another hour has passed. I can’t help but wonder why time is divided like this. Don’t you think it’s funny how months and days each have names, but hours don’t? I started naming the hours after people I’ll never see again. It’ll be Danielle in a few hours.

I rotate my shoulders and scoot my knees up and down to stave off muscle atrophy a little longer This is no escape pod, it’s a coffin, an iron maiden - a titanium maiden even - there is no escape. I’ve given the pod a name, Oubliette – a forgotten place. This is where I can be as good as dead to those I left behind but linger on as punishment for what I did. I got my Sis to turn off the SOS and the communication systems a long time ago. The memory of that day ebbs and flows in my mind. I glance out of the porthole at my reflection and add more wrinkles to my forehead. My beard has become a lion’s mane. 

>Sis?

>Yes, Danielle?

>I’m sorry…I can’t stay mad at you.

>Is there anything I can do for you, Danielle? :)

>

Stop calling me Danielle. I ask for this a lot, but it never hurts to try.

>Turn off the IV.

>I am programmed to keep you alive for as long as possible, Danielle, deactivating your intravenous therapy is against my programming.

>

A shrill alarm is echoing inside Oubliette and I watch as a silver liquid flows through transparent wires that are sunk deep inside my body. I managed to pull a few out a couple of months into my time in Oubliette, but the rest are inside my back, where I’m securely fastened in. The disconnected wires still secrete fluids, full of life-giving nutrients and medicine to fight deep vein thrombosis and whatever other ailments I might have. It’s pooled around my feet and my elbows, and has the most god awful stench, like sulphur mixed with cod liver oil. 

>You know what, Sis?

>Syntax error, please restate the question.

>I was an only child before I met you.

>

I may as well be in a coma. I’m as good as a vegetable.

>Anything interesting outside? 

>I am afraid not, Danielle. :(

>You WILL tell me if anything comes up, right?

>I am here to serve you, Danielle. :)

>

Then stop calling me Danielle. 

>Hah, that’s an absolute joke. You know what Sis, I love you, but I think you’re fucking insane. I mean, for starters you think I’m a woman, and secondly if you really were here to serve me, you’d pull the god damned plug.

>Directive 1.02, section 8, sub-paragraph 2: The longevity and safety of passengers takes precedence over all other commands. 

>Well I’m the captain. I hereby veto directive 1.02!

>I am sorry Danielle, but you are not the captain. You are Danielle Rosewarne, 19, female, former passenger of the cruise vessel Nirvana II

>

I tense up and shout something unintelligible. My throat feels like it’s been torn apart by the end of it. Danielle, Danielle, Danielle, that’s all I ever hear.

One day I imagined marrying her in an olive grove. We rode away on a dapple grey horse. Then I imagined throwing her into a volcano to appease the gods. I always end up wondering what she was like. I turn my head to gaze at the photograph of her for the millionth time, and not for the last. It’s kept inside a sleeve attached to the wall, along with various travel papers that I could probably recite from memory.

She’s definitely single, nobody that pretty would settle down so young. She looks kind, gentle, but with a wicked streak perhaps, not afraid to speak her mind and tell you exactly what she thinks about you. I like that. Sycophantic people piss me off. I can’t imagine her being like Sis and giving hollow “I’m here to serve” promises. She’s artistic, but doesn’t paint portraits or anything so humdrum as that. Sculpture is her forté, good with her hands, not afraid to get dirt under her fingernails, like other girls. Despite that, she likes to keep things neat and tidy, everything has its place. She likes men in uniform, beards, and year-long romantic cruises.

I want to see her. I want to die. 

>Sis, how much do you know about ethics, crime and punishment? Justice?

>My database is limited, Danielle, but I am here to serve. :)

>Right…Let’s start with a hypothetical. If capitol punishment is applied to a murderer, but the murderer WANTS to die, and in fact WELCOMES it, should they get what they want?

>

No response. There isn’t even a green blinking light to show the question is processing. Just blank, empty space. She understood the question – there’s no syntax error…

>Sis?

>My database has found an answer, Danielle. :)

>Oh, good. Let’s hear it!

>

No green blinking light. I guess it’s probably just malfunctioning. I doubt Oubliette was designed to last this long.

>My database has discovered an old article, Danielle. Manchester Evening News – The Restorative Justice Programme. To summarise, it states that Greater Manchester police have started allowing victims of crime to choose the appropriate punishment.

>But surely that’s just for low level crime, right?

>Yes, Danielle. Shall I make a new search?

>No, no, I guess your database is just limited to the tabloids, right?

>Yes, Danielle. :) Would you like to read the latest news?

>

From a year ago? Sure, why not, I wonder how United are doing this season? Thanks, Sis, big help there.

Yeah, she probably should choose my punishment. But she can’t. She’s dead. She’s in my dreams, the fire reaching up her arms, licking at her face. Her perfect skin starts to melt away like wax, and she screams. She continues to scream well after her lungs, and the rest of her, have burned into ash. Her ghost screams, like the painting – The Scream. She still doesn’t like doing portraits, but this is likely her finest work. The ultimate work in expressionism. Danielle…

And then I too wake up screaming. The sound reverberates inside Oubliette, and rings in my ears. The digital readout says I was asleep for only 4 hours.

>Hey, Sis.

No response. I hit the monitor with the palm of my hand several times.

>Sis?

I hit the monitor again. It flickers off, and for a second I think it isn’t going to turn on again.

>Hello, Danielle. :)

>There you are. Right. I’ve been thinking. You know how you said my safety takes precedence over all other commands?

>Yes, Danielle.

>Do you also remember that I told you to turn the SOS signal off? And disable the long distance relay system? You know I don’t want them to find me, right?

>Yes, Danielle.

>So…Don’t you see the contradiction there. I mean, have you actually done as I asked…? 

Without warning, right in between a blink, everything goes dark and silent. No quiet hum from the monitor, no green florescent lights, nothing. Nada.

Gone. 

My breath is shaky, coming out in short bursts. My body begins to convulse. My fingers tremble.

“No…” My voice is ice.

I grope around in front of me. Press buttons, switch switches. No response.

“No!” My voice is piercing. “No! No! No!” 

I smash my fists against the control panels, again and again and again. My knuckles strike the monitor. Glass rips into my flesh and falls over my face. I punch Oubliette until my fists bleed and my fingers are raw. I might have reached the bone. “Sis! Come back!”

My eyes are flooded with glass, blood and tears.

I turn my head to the left. Danielle has gone. Gone forever. I grasp at the picture of her and pull it close to me. Right up to my eyes. I trace my fingers over where I knew her cheeks were, and stroke her hair. I wrap my arms around her and the paper becomes tear-soaked. 

I turn my head to the right. I’m not there any more. There’s nothing there, only faint white dots where the porthole is. But those stars aren’t shining on me, they’re not there to help me.

I’m alone.

It’s the first time I’ve accepted it. Sis was always there to keep me company, the big sister I never had. But she’s gone. Dead. Like everyone else I ever cared about.

Like me.

I almost wonder if someone else has crept into Oubliette with me. Laughter. I’m laughing. I haven’t laughed out loud in an entire year. The glass slips into my mouth and I feel it tearing at my tongue, but I don’t care. I’m laughing. And I can’t stop it. The sound just tumbles out, and I’m at the point where I can’t tell if I’m crying out of sorrow or joy.

I’m finally going to die.

I smile. Peace at long last. It’s cold, god it’s cold, but I don’t care. Without the IV, I can already feel myself fading away. It’s a good feeling. Whenever I shiver I burst out laughing again.

I close my eyes, open them again, close them once more. There’s no difference, everything is black. Am I already dead? I hope so. If this is death, it’s not quite so bad. I’m happy, and that’s all that matters.

But then there’s a light. Bright and blinding. Is this heaven? Or a dream? They always tell you not to go into the light. Fuck that. If I could stretch my arms I’d embrace it.

But then the light subsides, and I see the white and grey cylindrical hull of Nirvana II.

When my eyes finally open, I find myself in the medical centre of Nirvana II. That sterile stench hits me straight away and brings me right back to Oubliette, and the smell of that leaking IV drip. Everything is white and grey. There’s a doctor at the far side of the room and she’s talking to the pilot – the same one I hired over a year ago. The same doctor too.

“Severe trauma, probably lasting brain damage. The IV kept him as healthy as it could, the muscles in his legs and arms are still strong, but a year in isolation isn’t going to to be good for you no matter how effective your treatment.”

“I can’t believe he’s still alive.”

The doctor nods. “I still think you made the right decision.”

“The show must go on.”

“We should monitor his condition for a few days yet.” The doctor glances over at me, so I shut my eyes.

“That’s fine,” the pilot sounds weary. “Soon this whole sorry state of affairs will no longer be my problem.”

I hear the pilot leave. Then I hear the doctor walk away. I wait a moment until I’m sure nobody is in the room and carefully open one eye, then the other. I soak in the room, hospital beds, heartbeat monitors, white tables full of tools. I’m really here, no dream is this detailed.

I sit up and spot the doctor in a partitioned office. She’s facing away from me, feet up on the desk. I swing my legs over and plant them on the floor. I have to be careful, I haven’t used them in over a year.

I slowly put weight onto my right leg. It starts to give way, but after a few moments I feel the strength returning. I put some weight onto my left leg, and now I’m much more confident. It’s like I’m walking on a trampoline, but at least I’m walking. I have to steady myself against a table, then I’m off again. I reach a computer terminal and check the log. I look over at the office. Good, she’s still reading whatever it is she’s reading.

Incident Report: June 25th, 2060. 9:06PM.

Tertiary systems caught fire and threatened to compromise hull integrity. Before passengers could be evacuated, fire was brought under control. Minor damage to tertiary and secondary systems. It was not deemed necessary to return to port, cruise 906E continued as planned.

Captain Laurence Scott abandoned ship during this time. Reports from pilot Richard Bowers’ log indicate that Scott panicked and fled the bridge of Nirvana II. Escape pod bank A (bridge crew) was offline during this time due to the ongoing fires. Records show that Scott took passenger Danielle Rosewarne’s designated escape pod. Severe action to be taken upon retrieval of pod.

I stare at the words for far too long. I need to go. I leave the medical centre as fast as I can. I’ve fucked up real bad, but before they confine me to the medical centre, or worse – the brig, I need to get to the living quarters.

I stumble down the corridors with the thought of her driving my every step. She’s alive, she’s still here. People stop and stare as I trudge past. They probably don’t recognise me, and if they do, they probably think I’m a ghost. But still, someone’s bound to sound the alarm. I have to go faster. I need to see her before they lock me away.

Before I know it I’m at her door. Passenger C61. I know her designation off by heart. But that same heart skips a beat. I reach out to ring the bell but draw my hand back. I can’t. This is crazy! What would I say to her? What the hell am I thinking? 

I notice the door is slightly ajar, so I knock as I open it, as carefully as I can. 

“Hello? Danielle?”

No answer. She’s probably at the swimming pools. Or maybe in the arts and crafts centre, sculpting with clay. I should turn back, but I’m already inside.

There’s a punching bag, gym-wear, protein shakes. No easel or anything remotely arty. There’s a kickboxing trophy on her bedside table – a female figurine kicking the air. I frown at it. They make them out of titanium nowadays No. You’re not a kickboxer. Are you?

I clutch at my forehead. There’s clothes strewn across the floor. No skirts or frilly dresses, they’re all so…boyish. This isn’t Danielle’s room, it can’t be.

There’s a portable computer on the unmade bed, next to a picture of her and a man, clean shaven. It looks like they’re at a fancy dress party – bride and groom theme.

I swivel the computer around and run my finger across the screen, bringing it to life. Several windows are open, mostly social networking sites and fitness forums. But there’s one application that strikes my attention. It’s blinking florescent green, demanding me to click on it.

So I click on it.

 Logged out of Long Distance Relay Chat.

Username: System1.

>

A Broken Social Scene

The boy has tucked in laces, etnies or vans, 

jeans falling down to his ankles,

and a backwards ben sherman baseball cap, 

and a fall out boy shirt covered in dirt.

He can argue quite well that graffiti is art, 

he has me convinced that the walls are a canvas.

There’s a skull on his board, drawn by a friend.

An older lad, who did community service when

he pretended to have kids so he could cheat the benefits

But who can blame him, like father, like son.

The boy is shambling home with a simian stroll

lost in the sounds of distorted guitars.

He passes by kids in tracksuits walking on walls

and begging for cigs outside corner shops.

One calls him out, itching for war,

an old lady stops in her tracks, handbag shaking.

She’s caught in a world where politicians fear to tread,

and the boy feels dread and keeps his eyes on the tarmac.

The kids take to throwing stones, one hits the boy’s face,

and the old lady quietly rants that her husband died

so kids like these could have better lives.

The boy hurries home, blood dripping from his brow

ignoring the arguments of both mother and father.

His sister finds him in his room, sits on the bed,

and she asks him what happened to his head.

The boy leans back at his desk and sighs.

The Rewind - Part 1

 Extract: Telephone conversation connected with the Hudson Hotel, New York. June 14th, 2010. 1:33AM local time.

Gary: [mumbles, sound of phone fumbling] Hello? [static] Hello? Who is this? Hello?

Daniel: Hi, sorry, I’m on my BlackBerry. It’s Dan. Are you watching this?

Gary: Daniel! Long time no speak. How are things?

Daniel: Gary, just turn on the TV, there’s some crazy shit happening.

Gary: Huh?

Daniel: Television. Turn it on, right now.

Gary: Uhh, what channel? [sound of fumbling]

Daniel: Any.

Gary: What’s so important that you’d call me at…Now what the hell is going on there.

Daniel: I don’t know. Strange, huh? Everyone at the station is talking about it. Nobody knows how he isn’t dead yet.

Gary: Oh my god…How are they getting this footage? Is this live?

Daniel: Yeah, direct feed from a Blackhawk apparently.

Gary: He’s just…walking. Terrorists can’t shoot for shit, eh?

Daniel: The US forces can’t get at him either.

Gary: What the hell is he doing there? I can’t believe I’m seeing this. [mumbles] Sorry, babe, didn’t mean to wake you.

Daniel: Huh? Who’s that? Isn’t your wife in Vancouver?

Gary: Uhh, nevermind that.

Daniel: Gary.

Gary: There’s more important things happening on the TV right now. Oh my god! Aren’t they flying a bit close?

Daniel: I don’t think they’re worried about getting shot down, the Taliban is far too busy with that guy. Have you got someone there with you?

Gary: No. Oh my god, this is big. Real big. I have to call the editor right away.

Daniel: He probably already knows. You’re a bit late if you want to pull a story out of your ass you know, they’re already churning out news on this.

Gary: I don’t care, we have to get something out at least. God, the biggest story of the fucking century and I’m sleeping.

Daniel: Were you really now?

Gary: Yes. Yes I was Daniel. [mumbles]

Daniel: I do have your wife’s number you know.

Gary: God damn it all to hell, will you give it a fucking rest? [mumbles] Yeah, yeah. Just… [mumbles]

Daniel: Gary, I can hear her.

Gary: Oh my… [sound of an explosion] Oh my god! They took the chopper out. What the hell was that?

Daniel: An RPG or something.

Gary: What the hell do you think he was doing, wandering into a warzone like that?

Daniel: Beats me. Some guy at the station said he was supposed to be liberating Iraq from the Taliban, and from America.

Gary: What, all by himself?

Daniel: I don’t know, didn’t see anybody watching his back. Doesn’t look like he needed anybody anyway.

Gary: How the hell was he doing that? Did he have a gun? I couldn’t see properly…

Daniel: Yeah, apparently he was using sniper rifle.

Gary: My god.

Daniel: Look, Gary, I have to go. I have other people I need to call about this.

Gary: Yeah, yeah, sure. Thanks for giving me the heads up anyway.

Daniel: Don’t do anything stupid now. Bye. [click]

Survival System

If you have a good system for survival, then you have a good chance of not dying. A perfect system for survival does wonders for those odds. I’ve remained alive up until now thanks to my perfect system, and I intend on keeping things that way. No thanks to the wolf-man I’ve just shot in the face with my double-barrel, of course.

He had gotten a bit too close for my liking, and looked rabid. He wasn’t a real wolf-man, that was just a metaphor. It was his grey matted hair and beard - very, how should I put this? Wolfy. Although his face much more closely resembled plasticine that has been ravaged by a pit bull at this point.

To my abject surprise, he was still alive.

“You bastard!” he spluttered. Well, I kind of assume that’s what he said – it was hard to tell, what with part of his upper lip now positioned somewhere above his right eyebrow.

“Why the hell aren’t you dead?” I wondered out loud, reloading the shotgun with new shells. “And watch your mouth, Wolfy. I really hate people who swear all the fucking time.”

“Who says I’m not dead already?” He laughed blood onto the crazy paving of my patio and writhed around like a snake, holding his hands out in front of him like a retard. I rested the barrels against his temple and pulled the trigger, absently wishing that the laws of cause and effect did not mean that I’d have to do the laundry – again. I slammed the door shut and bolted it all the way down to the bottom.

“Who was that, dear?” my wife called out from the living room.

“Girl scouts,” I said. “I told them to run along.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her what was really out there. It’s not all undead though, don’t get me wrong, this is no zombie apocalypse. Actually, the undead are kind of really fucking pathetic. No, there’s shit out there that would tear you a new one, then divide by zero and make the rest of you into a blackhole. Magic and shit. Demons. Pretty scary.

“Were they selling cookies? But darling, you should have bought some! You haven’t bought any girl scout cookies in such a long time.”

She was right, it had been years. A decade perhaps. “Coffee?”

“Only if you’re having one, love.”

I hung the shotgun on the coat rack and quickly checked my reflection before I passed into the kitchen. There was blood in my stubble. God damn it, Wolfy, why couldn’t you just keep it to yourself? There was blood on my leather jacket too, and one or two spots on my mirrored shades. Yeah, it was a cliché look, but it’s a classic for good reason.

I entered the kitchen, opened the cupboard above the oven, and took out a cookie jar full of colourful little squares. They always looked like parts of a really easy jigsaw to me. Once I had made the coffee, I dropped one into a red cup, making sure I took the blue one. Sure, the heat would degrade the blotter, but it would still have the right amount of kick to do its job.

This was part of my system for survival, making sure my other half didn’t have a fucking clue what was really going on. It’s a beautiful drug, really. It changes your entire perspective. To her, the outside world is full of carpooling soccer mums and skipping ropes, when I, and I supposed you now know that it’s full of fucked up shit.

“Oh gosh, you do make such wonderful coffee,” my (exceptionally) beautiful wife said after taking a sip, smiling with spoiled cat-like content. I know I’m biased, but any man in his right mind would think she’s beautiful. Hell, any woman would too. My mates, when they were still alive, all used to tell me she looked like Liv Tyler. About ten or twenty years on, perhaps, we were both in our late forties now, but I knew what they meant. She was putting on a high class British accent, a remarkable feat given she’s from the deep south. It was the acid, I think it made her feel posh. She even held her pinky out as she drank the coffee, and she was always pretty concerned with her posture.

“It’s very pretty out today,” she smiled.

It was night time, in the middle of winter, during a pretty bad lightning storm. Lightning always tended to attract the demonic, which would turn out to be a problem tonight. But I have a system for survival. A perfect system. I knew what I needed to do. The first part of my system is concerned with defence. Our home was a fortress. The windows were bulletproof, the walls were made with reinforced steel and the sprinkler system had been rigged to vomit up acid. Not the drug kind mind you, no way, that would be a waste of good LSD. Some might argue that the acid should be considered part of the offensive section of my system, but they would be wrong, acid waits, it does not seek. The porch, you see, is armed with vulcan cannons and M230 Chain Guns that tear anybody apart who walks too close. From the comfort of my living room I can unleash napalm upon my back garden, shell the entire block with mortars, and I even have a rail gun that pops out of the chimney, just in case. In the cupboard at the back of the living room I have a rather fine selection of lugers, magnums, elephant guns, one or two uzis, far too many AK-47’s, M16’s and my pride and joy, an L96A1 sniper rifle, which my British cousin gave me one Christmas about fifteen years ago.

And of course, I’ve already told you about the part of my system that involves making sure my wife doesn’t break down into tears at the horrors of the world around her. So long as she’s happy, I guess it sort of gives me a little hope. It makes me feel like we can pull through this. In a way, the world turning to shit saved our marriage. There had been a lot of tension between us, but this gave me something to fight for. A reason to fight for her.

I drank my coffee and thought back to the incident with Wolfy. “What the fuck?” My mouth hung wide open. Why hadn’t I thought of this before?

“What’s wrong, darling? Is your coffee a little too hot?”

“What the fuck?” I repeated. Wolfy had reached my front door. Neither the vulcan cannons or the chain guns had fired at him. I stood up and glanced around the room, checking that everything was in its correct place. I then began to pace the room. “No, no, no, no, this isn’t good at all.”

“You seem a trifle agitated, my love.”

I stormed out of the room, grabbed the shotgun and unbolted the door. It was supposed to be a perfect system. Heartbeat and heat sensors, motion detectors, the works. What happened? When I opened the door, I was quite taken aback by the vast amount of demonic creatures in the air and the undulating legions of undead on the ground. There were creatures out there on my freshly mown lawn that looked like walking volcanoes.

“You bastard…” Wolfy grunted, before I shot him in the face again and slowly stepped back inside.

Like I said, the lightning attracting the demonic would prove to be a problem. I paused for a moment to reflect on my current situation, then raced into the living room to the back cupboard. I swung the doors open and grabbed an M16, after deciding that the .600 nitro express magnum would probably snap my wrist in half. As I casually attached a magazine, I looked back to see my wife frozen over the control panel next to the lounger. Her finger was slowly drawing away from one of the red ‘disengage’ buttons.

I frowned, opened my mouth to say something, closed my mouth, raised my eyebrows, then frowned again. “Oh Christ, what have you done?” I wanted to be more angry than that, but I couldn’t bring myself to truly let go. Why in the name of all things holy and unholy would she be disengaging parts of my defence system? Should I slap her? No, get out of my head. I felt betrayed, and confused. “What have you done?” I persisted.

“I…” my wife stammered. She brought her hands into a prayer in front of her (undeniably) luscious lips. “Darling, I just couldn’t keep doing this any longer.”

I swung the M16 over my shoulder and strode towards her. As I drew close I felt my hands turn into fists. I wasn’t going to hit her, hell no, I just needed to show that I meant business. “What…the fuck…have…you done?” I hoped this would be the last time I’d have to ask that question.

A man-sized locust burst through the window, and screeched like a little girl through a megaphone. I swung the M16 back into my hands and turned its sickly-green face into something that resembled torn apart cabbage.

“We can’t keep living like this,” my wife whispered. She seemed to be doing a very good job at ignoring the locust. Still drugged up I guess. “You…Ever since that big argument. You…”

A twisted, winged demon was next to enter the living room, but before the thing could even hiss at us, I had written the worst swear word I could think of across his brow with bullets.

“What are you jabbering about?” I took a moment to reflect as I reloaded the M16. The argument? The big argument? As far as I was concerned our entire married life was one long continuous argument. As the next demonic creature entered the room, and I took to showering the fucker with 5.56mm NATO cartridges, I recalled one argument in particular. I suppose you could call it big. I’d started mixing with undesirables, she’d said. So sue me, I quite like relaxing with a bit of green. Well, of course she found out I’d started passing it on for a bit of cash on the side, which was when she started raving on about not being able to deal with things if I went to prison.

I frowned. Right after that big argument, all this crazy shit had started happening. “Well?” I said, knocking over a lamp with the assault rifle as my hands involuntary went into an exasperated shrug. I could hear the demons salivating and hissing, and the undead were moaning, in that bizarre way which out of context would make it sound like some sort of messed up porno.

My wife was getting a little teary now. “You changed. You became this person!”

I shot another demon, turning his chest into a dot to dot puzzle. “I had to become this person. To survive.” God that LSD was strong, here I was tearing apart demons and locusts right under her nose and she thought were were just having a domestic.

“Sit down,” she said, “we need to talk.”

“Now is really not a good time for this.”

My wife glared at me. Her shirt had blotches all over it. Oh god, she was crashing wasn’t she? Her shoulders were visibly jumping up and down as she passed right in front of me into the hall, the beginnings of an uncontrollable sob. God, what the fuck did I do? I sprayed bullets all over the window as three zombies tried to clamber in at once, then quickly grabbed another mag and reloaded.

My wife turned and pointed at the red cup. “Your coffee is getting cold.”

Alda’s Journey

Alda cacooned her newborn daughter in her arms, but even as close as that, she still could not hear her screams. The infant’s tiny mouth contorted into a pained grimace, and her eyes only ocassionally opened up to reveal cyan marbles. Alda hadn’t yet had time to wipe away the bloodied membrane that clung to her child’s skin, instead she clung to this brief moment of respite. All sound in the cave was lost to the wind and the rain. The skies were furious, unleashing nature’s rage against the mountain. Debris fell like hail from the jagged ceilings, and Alda turned away to protect her child.

N’suku loomed over her with firmly folded arms, patiently ignoring the the turmoil. “We have to move, find the source of the river that leads into the west. This cave wont be safe for long,” he grunted. “Get up.”

He had a naturally loud, deep, throaty voice, but his words did not carry above the clamour of the storm through his voice alone. Bright wispy light spiralled out from his lips, carrying the sound to Alda’s ears. Alda’s glare sent a shiver down the mystic’s spine, who glared right back at her and slammed his scythe into the rocky ground in an effort to assert his authority. “Get up.”

With curious urgency, the sounds of the storm ceased, and Alda whispered meaningless words of comfort into her child’s ear. Both N’suku and Alda knew this was merely the eye.

N’suku began to growl. “What did I…”

“I’ll get up when I’m ready!” Alda shouted back at him. “Don’t wait around, go outside and see if the paths are clear.”

“I do not take orders from the Custodians,” N’suku said, twisting the head of the scythe around in the dirt. “I was tasked with making sure your child reaches the west. I’m not your servant.”

“I know. But you should know that I am not yours, and I will not take orders from you.” Alda wrapped her baby in a torn up shawl, and slowly rose up onto her feet. She wavered, and blood hurried up into her head, making the stalagmites spin.

“This way,” N’suku said, before walking away. “Do not drop the child.”

Alda tensed up and breathed unsteadily in and out through her teeth. She kissed her newborn’s cheek and began to follow N’suku to a tunnelled out corridor further inside the cave. They would never be able to get out how they got in, the ropes they had used to climb into the cave were long gone.

Alda had a lot of respect for mystics and the powers they possessed, but not this one. She even had distaste for his appearance. A malnourished, skeletal body, and a face that hinted that his skull wasn’t far underneath his skin. He was bald, but he covered most of his head and body with a velvet hooded cloak.

The corridor was thin, and led upwards through the mountain. They trudged through in silence, except for the occasional whimpering and squawking from the baby.

Once they had reached the end, N’suku glanced back at Alda, a furrowed brow framing his socketed eyes. “Stay here.”

“Why?”

“I’m going outside to see if the paths…” He paused and gritted his teeth, then muttered bitterly to himself as he left the darkness of the tunnel.

Alda allowed the edge of her lip to curl into a grin, and nuzzled her daughter. “What shall I call you?” she whispered. “What name would you like?” The newborn broke into a smile for the first time, and reached upwards, letting Alda’s auburn locks tickle her fingers. Alda’s milky blue eyes darted up from her baby to the outside world. The clouds looked like burning cliff edges in the sky, and rolled out with unusual speed. Her slender cheeks quivered as she set her jaw firm and left the safety of the tunnel.

There was a soft hiss, and the sound of a branch snapping. With a guttural wail, a lizard-like woman, wearing an aquamarine robe, pounced from a nearby oak. It was a quent, with claws outstretched and crocodile eyes wide and bloodshot. Alda made every effort to lessen the impact on her child as the square of her back hit the rocky ground. She lost her breath for a moment, and held her baby close, tucked against her chest with her right arm. With her left hand she grabbed hold of the quent’s arm before she could tear at her eyes with her claws. The quent’s scaly tail swished from side to side in staccato throes. Following a deep grunt, the quent’s head broke free from her neck and tumbled away into the brush. N’suku was poised over the dead body, slowly dragging his scythe through the air in a horizontal arc. Alda threw the body away and used the edge of the tunnel’s opening to lift herself back upright, immediately making sure her child was unharmed.

“I told you to stay,” N’suku said, squinting up at the tree the quent had come from. “You two are all that remains of the Custodians. Must I remind you how important that child is?”

Alda clenched her jaw and lifted her head high. “Don’t patronise me. I could have dealt with that lizard myself.”

“If that is how your kind deals with the Quenticoplus, then this world has no hope!”

There was another hiss, but this time two quents pounced down from the mountainside, a male and a female, each wearing aquamarine robes. N’suku opened his palm and pushed forwards against the air. Shockwave circles emerged from his hand, and a blast of air forced one of the quents to tumble down off the edge of the cliff, before he had even touched the ground. The other quent had landed next to Alda, and N’suku stepped in to assist. Alda shot him an icy glance and unsheathed her scimitar. Before N’suku could do anything to help she had pierced the heart of her assailant with the curved blade. She kicked the quent away into the dirt and sheathed the sword.

N’suku lifted his eyes from the lifeless body to meet Alda’s, and regarded her very carefully. He began to nod several times as he considered what had just happened. “I should take the child.”

Alda backed away and her back pressed against the mountainside. “No,” she whispered.

“It will be safe with me,” N’suku said, moving closer.

“She is my daughter,” Alda said. “I am her protector”

“I don’t doubt that you’ll try to be,” N’suku said, reaching forwards with his black-leather gloved hand. “I simply doubt that you’ll succeed.”

“No!” Alda cried, pushing N’suku’s hand away from her. She broke away from being trapped against the rock and ran out across the clearing. She glanced over the edge of the cliff, into the violent waters below. They were threatening to rise up against the mountain, but their watery talons failed to find a way to the top.

“It’s the only way the child will reach the safety of the west,” N’suku said, turning round to face her. “I must be blunt. I cannot allow you to risk the life of the child.”

Alda’s eyes reflected the burning embers in the sky. “Then you will have to take her from me.”

“You Custodians always were an obstinate lot. Even when your race faces its demise you refuse to seek help in preserving it.” N’suku gestured out toward the storm, and kicked the body the dead quent. The lizard-man’s mouth was permanently open like the height of a volcano. “The gods rain their fury down upon the land, and the Quenticoplus here seek to preserve this chaos, but within the blood of your child is the secret to peace. It is my duty to make sure it survives into the western havens. She is no longer your child.”

Alda clenched her left fist as she stared intently at the dirt. “To you, my daughter is a mere object that needs preserving,” she locked eyes with N’suku. “But she is much more than that to me. I will never hand her over to another. Never.”

“You’re a fool,” N’suku spat. “Give it to me.”

The baby cried as Alda unsheathed her scimitar. “Stay right where you are. Don’t try and follow me.”

A tenebrous laugh rolled out from within N’suku’s throat. He swung his scythe around and the blade-end ripped through the air in front of Alda. “I’d hoped that you wouldn’t force me to kill you. But I suppose there’s no other way if you refuse to see sense.”

“Isn’t that breaking your duty?” Alda’s grip on her sword wavered for a moment.

“I was tasked with protecting you only up until the time when you gave birth. Now it is my duty to protect the child from you.”

Alda kissed her daughter on the forehead and whispered an apology into her ear. When her eyes met N’suku’s, she found herself locked in combat with the twisted mystic. N’suku struck first, piercing Alda’s side with the blade of his scythe, but Alda ignored it. She defended against three strikes from N’suku’s scythe, then ducked low and weaved away from the the fourth. Alda saw a flat rock at one side of the clearing and considered leaving her daughter there, but then she remembered it was likely the Quenticoplus were still close by, and she worried that N’suku would steal her and flee. N’suku pushed against the air in front of Alda, and as before, shockwaves emerged from his palm, but it did not bring Alda to her knees. Instead Alda dropped her sword and raised her hand too. The air between them shimmered and shook, and the ground began to tear open in a crooked line.

“I see…” N’suku growled, his face tensed up into a grimace. “The Custodians are more powerful than I expected.”

“It’s not merely my race you underestimate,” Alda returned. “It is my duty as a mother.” She cried out with anger and her hand turned into a burning torch that send embers through the air. They burned into N’suku’s arm, leaving him nursing the wound. Alda darted forward and kicked her scimitar up from the ground into her hand, and before the mystic could react she had embedded the blade through his face. She made certain her daughter had seen nothing, and continued to shield her eyes as she sheathed her crimson-stained sword and calmly walked away toward a path through the mountains.

Alda only met one quent along the way, and dealt with him with the same magic N’suku had used, blowing the lizard-man off the edge of the cliff. Many lonely hours passed, with only her own nonsensical conversation with her baby daughter as sound. She climbed steep precarious routes through the mountains, clinging on to her child as tightly as she could without hurting her. In her hurry to get her daughter to the west, she had neglected her own wound. She dropped to her knees near the headwaters of a river and reached down to her stomach. Her fingers emerged covered in blood.

“Nadia,” she whispered before breathing in sharply. “I shall call you Nadia.” She slumped down to the ground, resting her daughter’s head on her own shoulder. Parts of the dirt in front of her face turned darker. Through her tears, she looked up to the sky. The storm was moving, they would not be under the safety of the eye for much longer. Her mind cast back to N’suku. Had she made the right decision to oppose him? Of course, he was going to take Nadia. There was no other way.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Both blood and tears stained the ground now, and Alda could feel her life fading. But before her eyes closed in resignation she caught a glimpse of a clump of reeds. She gathered up her daughter and forced herself to clamber onto her knees and crawl towards them. There was just enough. She refused to let go of her daughter, even though it made weaving the reeds difficult. It took another painful hour to make, but eventually she formed the reeds into a basket, just big enough for Nadia to lie within. She placed her daughter within it, then crawled to the riverbanks. She screamed out in pain and dropped the basket into the water to clutch her wound.

“No!” she cried out, and tried to reach out to grab hold of the basket, but it was already sailing away down the river. Alda watched the basket for as long as she could, then smiled to herself as she rolled over and closed her eyes. The black clouds rolled in, but before the storms could trouble her, Alda’s life ended there on the riverbanks.

Burning the Calories

 “So, how are we supposed to get out of this mess?” I shouted, as an uncomfortably close flurry of fireballs burned into the ground around us, summoned forth from the crooked wand of an impossibly old, battle-raged wizard, who seemed to have no real concern for collateral damage. The woodland encasing the clearing we were in was starting to burn, and the rain was having a hard time keeping up.

“Don’t worry, I’ll think of something!” returned my ever faithful comrade and colleague, Sabre Ravenclaw as she brandished her gold-hilted rapier, inscribed with both her name and address. “I always do, right?”

I smiled in a curiously content manner, given our rather dire circumstances, pleasantly assured by the confidence of my good friend, then glanced over at her as we sprinted across the darkened field. She did a twirl, which at first I suspected was some sort of war-dance intended on frightening the warlock, but then I remembered Sabre had two left feet. The first problematic thing I saw was her singed auburn hair, the second was the smouldering hole in the back of her head as she tumbled into my arms. The third was a fluttering sheet of brown paper that had broken free from her cloak, the bill for two horses that now lay dead near the edge of the clearing.

“Shit,” I muttered under my breath, and grabbed hold of Sabre’s waist. I used her torso to defend myself from a stray fireball, and for the first time in a very, very long time I knelt down to pray to the gods. A bit rich coming from a thief I suppose, but I figured if righteousness is judged on a gradient scale, then the wizard throwing fireballs into the corpse of my friend is probably ever so slightly more in the wrong than I. And besides, we hadn’t even stolen all that much from the guy, and it’s not as if wizards are ever lacking. They’re all selfish old twats if you ask me. I mean, I do understand that there’s a tiny bit of risk involved with summoning gold, especially since the place it usually comes from is also home to various unpleasant twisted demonic creatures that I hear have learned how to mass produce ‘do not disturb’ signs on their doors, but it’s not as if there’s any actual strenuous effort involved. Stealing expensive old books from insane wizards on the other hand is a profession wrought with fear and danger.

I felt an intense heat on my shoulders and my eyes darted up past the blackened body of Sabre to meet those of the grey wrinkled-up wizard. His wand was aglow, sparks dancing from the tip.

“Sorry there old chap, I got a bit trigger-happy there,” he beamed. “Will your friend be alright? I underestimate my own strength sometimes.”

“I think she’s kind of dead actually,” I said, carefully dropping Sabre’s body down into the dewy grass, a sickened grimace fixed onto my face.

“Oh dear, I am sorry,” the wizard sighed, shaking his head with his palm planted against his brow, “but you were running away with one or two things that belong to me. I’d like them back now if that’s alright with you.”

I nodded and frowned at the ground. “They were kind of in her satchel.”

“Oh,” the wizard said, pursing his lips, “and where might that be?”

“Well, she did kind of have the satchel on her person when you burned her, sir.”

“Oh,” the wizard repeated. He took one step back, then glanced down at Sabre’s body. “Oh.”

“She did try and warn you.”

“Yes, yes. My hearing isn’t quite what it used to be you know.”

At this point there was a rather uncomfortable silence between the two of us. I was very much aware that his wand was still very much aglow, and it had also come to my attention that the trees that had caught fire were multiplying. Sabre, being the mathematical genius that she was, would probably have made a joke about square roots here.

“Oh dear,” the wizard sighed again. “I suppose this means I’ll have to kill you now, too.”

I coughed and spluttered and scrambled up onto my feet. “But…but…”

“I am sorry,” the wizard said. “I’ll try and make it quick and painless. Of course, that’s rather difficult to do when the only offensive spell I really know is fire, but I will give it a shot nonetheless.”

“Please don’t”

“Can’t be helped I’m afraid.” He sniffed the air and his already wrinkled brow found yet more worried lines. “My goodness, it’s rather hot today, isn’t it?”

“Do you have to kill me right now?” I asked, genuinely curious about the current state of affairs. “I mean, we’re both even now right? We stole your books, and you turned my friend here into a charred corpse.”

“I’m afraid it doesn’t really work like that,” the wizard said, adjusting the brim of his patchy, weathered, typically pointy-ended cap. He smiled at me as if this was all just run of the mill. “You see, those books were irreplaceable. They will never be written ever again. Your friend on the other hand was a typical street urchin, the kind that people seem to really enjoy giving birth to around these parts. If we were to take a stroll into the city, we’d find hundreds of them!”

I noticed that he was squinting, and remembered that there had been a pair of glasses resting on his workbench in his cottage. I guess he rushed after us in such a mad hurry that he’d forgotten them. That’s probably one of the reasons why he didn’t notice the blazing furnace that was beginning to crawl along the grassy clearing.

“There’s no rush, of course,” the wizard added. “I mean if there was, I would have given you the old fireballs by now.” He daintily waved his wand in front of my face, and the tip began to glow bright and orange. I felt the searing heat again.

“So you’re perfectly willing to delay my death?”

“Oh, of course. I do enjoy playing with my food!”

“What!? You’re going to eat me?”

“Oh, heaven’s no, that was just a metaphor!” he said, licking his cracked-up lips. “Anyway, I don’t have anything scheduled for today, so I’m happy to stay and chat for a while.”

I wasn’t entirely sure how to respond at first, but quickly came to the conclusion that dying later was ever so slightly more preferable to dying instantly. “Well, I’m Dervious Riddle,” I said, extending my hand towards his, a gesture of hope more than anything else.

“Dervious, eh?” the wizard said as he shook my hand. “That’s an unusual name.”

“It’s a constant reminder that I was a mistake,” I said, absently wondering if it would garner a little sympathy. “My mother added an ‘r’ by accident when writing my name on the birth certificate.”

“Ahh,” the wizard said knowingly, “these things happen unfortunately.”

“She wasn’t even my real mother.”

“Illiterate and illegitimate. Goodness gracious, child, that’s positively awful.” He put his wand away, much to my relief, and took two steps back and struck a pose. He had his head held high and jaw clenched tight, and folded his arms in front of his enormous belly “I belong to the Rexia clan. In the old tongues it means kings, you know.”

“Very regal. And your first name?”

“Ah, that’s not something I really share with many people.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s just something I like to keep a secret.”

“You’re going to kill me shortly, what difference will it make?”

“True, true.” His face scrunched up and he waved his head from side to side, visibly weighing up the pros and cons in his mind. “In the old tongues, it means epoch!”

“But what is it?”

“It’s, uh, Anno.”

“So your full name is…”

“Don’t say it!” He retrieved the wand and stuck it right under my nose, and in an instant I was no longer in dire need to pluck my nostril hairs. “Don’t even mumble it inconspicuously under your breath! And I can lip read you know.”

Under more amicable circumstances I would have happily joked about the irony in his name over a beer or three, but I thought it best to hold my tongue. Of course, it’s very difficult to safely move your lips with a burning wand in very close proximity to them. I tried to apologise, but with my mouth shut it came out in a series of mumbles. Thankfully the wizard seemed to understand and promptly withdrew the wand.

“Apology accepted,” he said. “Now, I am quite intrigued as to why you wanted to steal those books so badly.”

“Sabre wanted to fence them in the wizards market,” I said, gesturing towards her body, which could definitely now be safely described as carrion. “In fact, this whole thing was her idea in the first place.”

“Well, it looks like I killed the right person then,” he winked. “Say, you don’t happen to have any last requests or anything like that? A last meal perhaps? I’m always rather interested in what a man who faces certain doom would actually want to do with his final moments.”

I pondered that. “I wild stab in the dark here, but you wouldn’t happen to have studied any necromancy at all, would you?”

Anno tapped his chin and gazed thoughtfully at the sky. “As it happens I was reading a fascinating book on the subject this morning!”

“Oh, what was it called?”

“How to Do Necrophilia Without Breaking Any Laws.”

“Oh…”

“Am I to assume by your tone of voice, that that is one of the tomes you stole?”

“Well, it is highly sought after.”

“Not to worry, my eyes may be failing me, my ears may have potatoes growing out of them, and my stomach may not be able to hold down a meal for longer than sixty seconds, but I still have a very good memory! What did you want me to do exactly?”

I bit my lip and squinted at Sabre. “Well, we never got a chance to say goodbye.”

“I see.” Anno frowned, then shrugged. “I suppose It wont do any harm.” He spent a moment muttering something under his breath, then his eyes began to glow like red-hot charcoal. A misty light swirled out from his fingertips and danced across Sabre’s body, scaring away the vultures. She rose off the ground and the ash slivered away. Soon, it was almost as if nothing had ever happened to her and like she was simply making a ‘black is back’ fashion statement. “Well, I’ll leave you two to it for now,” Anno said as Sabre’s feet touched the ground and her eyes shot open. “I’ll just busy myself with a little portal spell to get back home before I burn you both.” He hobbled away and started waving his arms in mad circles toward the grass.

“Hi,” I offered between Sabre’s uncontrollable screaming. I suppose anybody would be a tiny bit traumatised by being burned alive and resurrected again.

She stopped. “What the hell just happened…”

“Well…”

Sabre breathed in sharply and pointed frantically towards Anno. “It’s that bloody wizard! Get him!” She leapt forwards, and used her momentum to swing her leg up and boot the wizard up the arse. Before Anno could react, she had withdrawn her rapier, thankfully unscathed by the fire, grabbed his wand, knocked him down onto the ground and pinned him there with a well aimed stab through the edge of his earth-tone robes.

“Now see here, young lady,” Anno began to protest, “I had only just quite kindly temporarily resurrected you, you can’t just…”

“I told you I’d think of something!” Sabre grinned, and took my hand. “Look, there’s a portal here.” She paused before leading us inside and looked around. “There’s an awful lot of fire about today.” It was more or less at our feet at this point. In fact, I do believe my trouser legs and begun to catch fire.

I nodded. “Let’s just go!” I said, taking the lead. But before we leapt inside the rainbow swirls of the portal, just as the the flames that had consumed the grass threatened to consume us too, I waved to the wizard. “Goodbye Anno Rexia!”