You didn’t even get the whole story. You just sat there and yelled at me over a rumoured accusation.

Timeline/World: School Mates
Characters: Kaden Tine-Forte
Race: Demon – Psychic
Age: 26, physically about 23
Final Word Count: 611 words

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I remember back when I was still in school, before the whole world dropped out, near literally, from under my feet.

I’m sure I would have been better off being homeschooled but my carrying father thought it would be best that I go to school with the rest of the populace and while it sat poorly with my grandfather, he had no say and I ended up going to school with, as he would have put it, the lesser kind.

I liked it at first, I could make a few friends though it never lasted long and I never really could figure out why. I would always get in trouble for little things here and there but the vast majority of the time, these were false accusations.

So, more often than anyone would like, me and my parents included, I was stuck in the principal’s office, waiting to hear all about my punishment for this round. I don’t know why things were that way, I don’t know why kids picked on me, other than I was different. My white hair made me stand out like a sore thumb but most of their teasing rolled off my back like that whole duck and water droplet thing. I guess that since I wasn’t reacting to the teasing, they turned to bigger, better things and made sure I got in trouble as often as I could.

They were good about spreading rumours.

So that I just about literally fell into a portal that took me to a place where my father had spent his time, with demons who had adored him? It was a good thing for me. I was in my teens at this point and slowly getting to the point where all those visits to the office to get yelled at for rumours that didn’t even have an ounce of truth—at least where I was concerned—to them, was getting exhausting and I’d considered dropping out a few times.

It wasn’t easy being down there at first, I did miss my parents something bad—they’d always been there for me—but the triplets made it more than bearable. I didn’t see time fly on by until I did and by then it had been at least a few years. What were my parents thinking? Had they thought I’d run off? Did they believe I was dead in a ditch somewhere? It made my heart constrict to know that I had been away for so long but there were no easy ways for me to get back to them.

I was sure, at least, that if I’d managed to get back to them they would have welcomed me back into their arms—they did—and it was that one thought that kept me going. I kept up with the promise I had made the triplets, I made my time, stayed with them and when my time was up, I left, I went back. It hurt to leave them behind but they were not meant to leave, not like I was.

Making it home was difficult, explaining where I’d been all these years even more so but my father was understanding when he realized where I’d been. He had plenty of questions to ask.

Of course, that was years ago at this point, it feels like so much younger and I still miss the triplets but I haven’t found a way to get back to them or to get them out from where they’re at, that’s not to say that I haven’t tried, it’s what I do in my free time, I try to find ways to help them, if they’re still there.

Is this official?

Timeline/World: New York City – Iathea
Characters: Vanna Chhitmahal
Race: Human
Age: 28
Final Word Count: 558 words

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I was really young when it happened but I can still remember bits and pieces of it, I remember just watching the snow, I remember mom huddling under her blanket, feverish. I remember warming up hot water on the fire stove we had and making tea for her because she was sick. I remember listening to the radio until it no longer played.

Just the same, I remember the sound of the distorted voice on the speakers outside, several days after the snow had fallen, calling all survivors to a meeting point. Most of that information was lost on me back then, I didn’t understand it but mom knew. She was sick but she knew and understood.

She didn’t want to go, not at first. She still held hope that dad would come back, but he had been overseas for months at that point and my little mind at least could put two and two together, that much snow everywhere, he wasn’t coming back. So I convinced her that we should go, I helped her bundle up as much as she could handle of the weight, I bundled up in what little I had and we set out. It was hard and slow going, mom kept on stumbling and falling, mumbling in her fevered state. I knew she was sick but I just didn’t know the extent of her sickness.

It felt safe and warm in that underground place, I helped mom to the bed in the room we’d been given and I just brought her soup and teas as I could find it. Back then, I couldn’t really understand why she ate less and less, why she ‘slept’ more and more, not even waking anymore, why she was cold.

If it wasn’t for Dyllon talking to me on that particular day, I think I would have only realized what was wrong with my mother when she would have started to decompose. While I never really asked because I didn’t want to know, I assume that the official paperwork for her death state she’d probably died a week or so before she’d been found, cause of death being whatever sickness she’d had since before the snow had started. I missed her in a bad way but Dyllon was a good distraction and I slowly learned to look forward instead of back.

Dyllon’s mom—adopted in a way, I learned later on—used to look at me with these sad eyes and it made me want to just cling to her forever but eventually, the sad eyes faded with everything else. There was sun outside, a new jungle world to discover that I hadn’t really been able to bring myself to really pay attention to, too worried about my mother and giving her all the peace and quiet I thought she needed to get better. My new family made everything feel easy and I’d like to believe I grew up into a good man.

It doesn’t feel like forever ago that we were all on the very brink of extinction on this old planet we’ve left behind but it does seem like it has been, more or less. There’s just so much to discover here, there’s never a dull day that goes by and it feels good to have essentially started my life over in this place, it feels right.