Sometimes the things you say make me want to lay on the ground and scream.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Adrian Lee
Race: Human
Age: 37
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
Final Word Count: 767 words
 

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We’re not the big bosses and we never asked to be. We were our own bosses when the world still was the way it had been before the snow but when said snow came and everything came down to survival, it didn’t really matter.

It was clear that the military held the reins for the most part and it suited all of us fine. It wasn’t as though we had to work while we were in the bunker. Everyone was just trying to keep themselves sane while in there and I don’t know that we could ask for much of anything else.

Eventually, when the snow melted and a semblance of life returned, things just sort of happened. Especially once the hub started to take form again. What was left of the military that didn’t really act like they were their own separate people doing all they could to keep others around started to recruit others to help. Though I don’t know that recruit is the right word but it still is technically what happened. They were doing rounds around the perimeter of the hub and at the heart of it and once more people started coming back, they needed others.

In a way, it’s in our blood to do a job that was similar to this, so it made sense that all four of us went and offered to join in. We don’t do the job day in and day out but I think I speak for all of us in our apartment building who have joined in to say that I think we work two days a week, maybe three when the need is there.

Now, not everyone who applies for a spot on the security team gets the spot. A lot of people are immature while some others just show traits that they wouldn’t do well if placed somewhere that had power attached to it.

I remember being around when they were putting a young woman who had tried to join through the paces and she failed somewhat miserably. Not even somehow on the physical scale of things—as we do have to walk a lot and not always on flat terrain—but it was in the nonsensical things she kept on spouting. Every few moments she’d find something else to complain about and the way she would complain just make no sense.

Oh, climbing up a high-angled bit of a street to get to another area? Oh but her back, her knees, her fingers. Everything hurt, this was so hard, this wasn’t right, it wasn’t fair, nature was doing everything to keep her from doing things right and, well really. Who the hell blames nature for what nature is? I mean, sure, you can complain that a trail is hard to deal with, but it is in no way, shape or form, nature’s fault. You can’t claim that nature is doing everything in its power to get in the way of reaching your goal.

I recall the instructor who was only a few paces away from me—a nice guy who has more patience than I feel she deserved—muttering under his breath that the shit she said made him want to just flop on the ground and scream. I could sympathize with him, I wasn’t the one directly dealing with her but I was still part of the same general team and I was tired of her constant, pointless complaining. I don’t get complainers, I really don’t.

To no one’s surprise, she didn’t last. At the end of that particular day, they told her that while she had shown some potential, there were too many things that wouldn’t work out if she was to join the teams. To no one’s true surprise, she huffed, muttered a ‘thank god’ and just walked away without even looking back once. You would think that by her reaction, she hadn’t even wanted to do any of it and yet, here she’d been.

Had someone forced her to apply? That seemed sort of moot. I’ve seen it before, people daring one another to join this one team or that one and then jeering as they struggled while being put through the paces. I really don’t get that kind of behaviour. Maybe it’s because I’m old—compared to some of the younger kids who probably don’t remember much from the time before the snow—or maybe it’s just because I didn’t grow up with that kind of behaviour around, but it just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to try for things you don’t even want to.

Sneaky? Not something I’m capable of, but I know someone who is.

 
Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Shifting Sands
Characters: Cylean Silber
Race: Human – Genetically Modified
Age: 33
Current residence: Outside Atheria, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 798 words
 

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Almost a decade ago, there was the incident. I don’t even really remember it. All I know is that I was hurt, something hit me on the head and poof, the vast majority of my memories from the life I’d led before were gone. I slept for a long time, or so Xav tells me. Even that, I have no memories of. What I know of my previous life comes from things he’s told me. Things that helped me better understand myself, in a way. Things that helped me learn a bit more of who—or what—I might have been so I can at least understand the way my body works.

The book of commands is still in the gun safe. That’s where it will remain until the end of everything. I want nothing to do with that book if I can help it, though, on that same note, I don’t react to these words anymore and Xav has no fears of setting something off in me that he shouldn’t. A lot of the words were in foreign languages, languages I find myself being able to decipher when I look at them but it was only once, years upon years ago.

Words are still somewhat difficult. They are easier when he’s with me and when we’re alone but when we’re out and about, I just can’t make myself open up. I can’t even really talk. Even when his friends come to visit—Tebryn is nice but quiet too, Maroon is interesting—I am sort of present but usually silent. A decade down the road and that part hasn’t changed about me, I suppose it might be best that way. My being quiet isn’t such a bad thing. At least, it doesn’t feel like such a bad thing.

I used to get nightmares. I haven’t had them in years at this point, but I used to get nightmares. I kept them to myself, at first. I didn’t know what to make of them and I didn’t know what they were; it didn’t occur to me that talking to Xav about them would help me understand them to a point. Despite the fact that all of my memories from my past life had been rather conveniently, it feels like, locked away after that knock to the head, the nightmares I would get, were very possibly flashes of that old life.

A presence in a small cage, bared. Hunched over at all times, eating with hands, mating with females on command, even if they fought against it. Experiments, being strapped down to a table while they did whatever it is they did. There just were so many things.

A year or so ago, when his friends came to visit, I somehow managed to overcome this mental block that still sits strongly with me and I spoke to Tebryn one-on-one while we were in another room. I had been wanting to try and prepare something for Xav, a sort of surprise that, well, would surprise him. One of the things I have long since realized about our relationship is that I have no secrets for him. There is nothing I can hide from him, it eats me up inside whenever I try to keep things secret.

I might have been able to sneak around and keep things hidden away in my previous life—it’s not something either one of us truly knows though I was always light on my feet, he says—but I cannot do any of these things now and I knew I wouldn’t manage, even if I were to try, so I turned to Tebryn for some help. He seemed more than willing to help me with this small surprise. I managed to tell him the sort of general sense of things I wanted to get for Xavier and, seeing as he and Maroon have been friends for so many years, I thought that maybe, by putting their heads together, they could figure something out that he would like, but still could seem as though I’d gotten for him.

It felt very confusing at first. My asking him, for them to look for something I hadn’t fully defined other than with a few basic words so that they would then be able to bring it back so I could give it to him. I never went anywhere without him; I still didn’t really handle anything that had to do with money though I went shopping with him, but I had wanted for him to have a sort of surprise gift and, you know, in the long run, it actually worked out well.

The gift was simple but fitting and Xavier truly seemed to appreciate it. So I consider that a win in my non-existent win-book.