I can see why you think I’m a vampire, but honestly I’m just allergic to garlic and have a totally normal hatred for the sun.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Peculiar
Characters: Alessio Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 42
Current residence: Peculiar, Erisia
Final Word Count: 796 words
 

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Managing to make our way into Peculiar was no easy feat. I’m sure that some of the others had it just as hard—Erland and Agathe come to mind—and while trying to find someone to replace me had been my first idea, managing that without telling my superiors the reason why I wanted to back out of the job that I’d had for close to two decades wasn’t going to work out.

So, we had to figure something out and trying to figure that out while juggling no less than three new additions to the team was difficult until I came home so exhausted one night that Gina’s concerns about the dark rings under my eyes made an idea take root and eventually, it was how we managed to get me here.

The presence of these three new additions to the team eventually facilitated my slipping away near unseen if you would. Especially the one young woman who had tried to request to work nights but the whole building was empty at night, and we weren’t about to let someone so new work on her own at night in a building that had such high-security standards. Not when we didn’t know what she could or couldn’t do and if she could follow what she was asked to do.

I’m fairly certain that it’s her presence, in the long run, that exhausted me mentally and even somewhat physically. She always came in covered head to toe, stated that she hated the sun, and it was why she’d been hoping to work at night and, whenever someone talked about anything that had to do with garlic, she’d just excuse herself as though the word on its own was so vile she couldn’t handle it. Supposedly, she was allergic to it—I’m not saying she wasn’t, but she went to extremes about it as though just talking about it would trigger some sort of allergic reaction in her.

It was one of the reasons why I struggled some with her, in the long run. There are a lot of chemicals being handled in that lab, a lot of unknown, and if you have an allergy to certain things, even though you’re wearing all the protection necessary, you might just never know what you could come into contact with. It’s one of those things, in a way.

But really, she’s the reason we made it here. A few weeks before the expected departure, I had Gina send in a notice saying I had come down with a heavy-hitting bug and I was bedridden. That I didn’t know when I’d be back on my feet, but I would keep them updated. Within a week’s time—and a few faked test results—I’d gotten so bad that it looked as though I wouldn’t be able to make it back into work in any timely manner. A few days after most had made it into Peculiar, I tragically passed away—or so we made it seem.

We had managed to get in touch with people who worked with situations a bit like ours—so to speak, they were good about helping people move unseen—and my so-called corpse and my very distraught wife were taken away. We were moved into a little room in a little morgue-like building and after a little while, so we could make sure that the coast was clear, covered head to toe, glasses and the rest, we were on the transport to the underground and on our way to Peculiar where most of our things already had been sent.

It’s been such a big change of pace, I don’t know that I can complain. It feels good to not be cooped up in a lab day in and day out. Don’t get me wrong, I loved my job and I do miss it, but this is good for the soul, and I do just want to be with my kids and Gina. If this is where our lives are going to be now, I’ll adapt. The fresh air is crisper, it almost tastes sweet. I know that might seem like a strange thing to mention but that is what it feels like.

The air under the dome was recycled and circulated over and over again, it was clean air, it was odourless but the air out here, it’s just different. It reminds me a little of the air that was in the drop dome. I know how different that air was, even if it was from a similar source. The trees, the plants, everything in the drop zone helped with the recycling of the air if you would, and it was different from the air in the main dome.

I think we’ll do fine out here.

I don’t know if it’s escaped your notice or not, but I’ve been up for so long colours are starting to blend together.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Santos Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 19
Current residence: Klahanie, Washington
Final Word Count: 805 words
 

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The job isn’t so bad. It keeps my attention on something, and the place is fairly small that the people who come in are honestly nice. The owners know how much I struggle with interacting with others, so I mostly stock the shelves, I straighten things out, I do a little bit of everything, and they have someone else at the register. That’s not to say I’m going to turn my back on someone if they ask me for help.

There are times when it’s so quiet in the store that I have to wonder how they manage to hire two people to work full time. I struggle with interactions with other people and my self-worth is way down at the deeper end but I’m not stupid. I know how businesses are supposed to work, I know that if you don’t make any profit, you can’t really pay anything and just, it’s a circle, okay?

All right.

On those days when I worry somewhat about them not keeping me because they can’t afford to, I remember that the girl at the register is their granddaughter and I remember hearing her talking to someone over her phone while it was quiet in the store that it was a family thing and she was only doing it to appease her parents and whatever else that means. Her being their granddaughter doesn’t mean much in the long run, I don’t think it affects pay or anything and I guess it doesn’t matter in the long run.

When it’s quiet, she texts often—I’ve seen her with her thumbs flying over her phone while I’ll walk on by to get something from the back—or she’ll even call. Usually, that’ll be in the early mornings or the breaks which, you know, she’s allowed, that’s fine. The issue is that when she’s on those calls, most of the time she’ll be using the speakerphone thing. I don’t get people who do that in public. I don’t want people listening in to my conversations.

Yesterday, she was talking to this boy I know she’s been talking to endlessly for months at this point, I think they’re possibly dating but I don’t know and I’m not honestly about to ask because it’s none of my business in the long run. I don’t even want to know, I just know that he’s the one she’s constantly talking to when she’s calling someone.

Coming from his end of the discussion, he was going on about how he wasn’t sure she’d noticed when they’d parted ways that morning, but he’d been up so long that the colours were starting to blend together. It made me sort of pause for a moment so I could try to process whatever that meant but I let it go when I couldn’t put two and two together.

I just finished bringing back my little cart of things to the back and I put everything away. The store really does have its quiet times, but I’ve realized that a lot of the things are expensive, but people still do come in to buy and when they do, they don’t just take one item, usually, they’ll buy the whole uniform, or the shoes and protective gear. So maybe things are quiet but the price of everything balances things out, I don’t know.

I still sort of wonder what he meant by saying that colours were starting to blend together. How long do you even have to be awake, for that to happen? Not that I want to find out. I used to have such a hard time falling asleep when I was younger that I couldn’t function properly the following morning and I already was little more than a shell of myself so other than my siblings noticing, I don’t know that anyone really realized.

It did make my grades drop something fierce, but it wasn’t all that long after that, that Royale came into my life and slowly fixed me. Not that his main goal was to fix me, I don’t think. His presence just sort of worked for me. A rope for me to hang onto, a light at the end of a very dark tunnel that I couldn’t find my way out of.

He’s been my beacon ever since and I don’t think I’d be able to function at all if he wasn’t in my life and I don’t want to think about that possibility. He makes everything worthwhile and when I wake up in the mornings, he’s the first thing I see, and it just makes everything so much better. I can’t put it into words—to no one’s surprise, words are just so hard. He makes everything just right and perfect, and I want that until we’re both old and grey and still in love.