Meeting me was either the best thing that ever happened to you or the worst. You decide.

 
Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Shifting Sands
Characters: Hebony Calae
Race: Halfling – Demon
Age: 27, physically about 21
Current residence: Kiire-cho, Japan
Final Word Count: 757 words
 

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The temple still does not get many visitors. They are fewer in the winter due to the snow—it was bad some years back for the amount we had, and others went to the main temple and not this lost, near-forbidden one—but in the summer, it is not all that unexpected that there might be visitors who will come by every few weeks. Mother must be sending them my way for some reason. Perhaps the knowledge that I have begun to show myself a little more to the visitors has something to do with it.

Hard to know, really.

Most of the visitors are quiet souls, curious to know more about this lost temple that does seem as though it might be falling to pieces. Most of the small place is still in good enough condition, but certain areas have clearly had better days and the temple’s age shows.

A few weeks back, closer to the beginning of the new season, a pair of young adults—though they looked like teenagers to me—came to explore. They even tried to apply a sticker of sorts to the temple, as though to prove to others that they had explored this abandoned structure. I showed myself to them as they were about to place the sticker and the sudden startled look on their face was rather amusing.

I might have sneered at them. Told them that meeting me was possibly the best or the worst thing that might ever happen to them. That they were trying to deface my temple would sway that most likely. I think that spooked them enough that they took off running without any other word, it made me smile somewhat.

I don’t like those that might come to defile a place. Even if the place is abandoned, it should not be allowed to be messed with, not in the way that these young souls were going to do. While I have not seen it, I have heard of plenty of places where others have spray-painted ugly things into the walls, they have broken windows and ruined the still present beauty of an area. It is something I can hardly wrap my mind around.

I suppose it hardly helps that, yes, I am stuck here, and I have never been anywhere but this temple. I know little of the world out there other than what I have seen of it and what my father has shown me in my dreams—though I have not seen him in quite some time now. I know that what little of the world I am aware of also comes from my companion whose presence is a balm on certain days.

The invisible chains that keep me stuck in the temple do lengthen with passing years but that lengthening still is very slight. I can hardly check on how far, or not, I have been able to move since the beginning. It is difficult to know how far or not I could go at the very start. This is perhaps the strange thing about my younger years is that I have no memories of them. I recall being here when I was possibly six or seven, already aware that this was going to be the place where I would be stuck until the end of it all.

Anything before those years is a blank. Was I within the temple, living in its bubble, growing little by little and it was waiting to release me until it knew that I could handle this life? Whatever life this is, really. I have no need for food though water is refreshing when it is drunk.

I used to ensure that my duties as the temple keeper were done and taken care of while I was younger but now, it is a little more difficult to will myself to even bother. Yes, the ground is kept clean of debris as much as I can. Yes, the area, in general, is kept proper and right but, on most days, the desire to do any of these things refuses to come. It is a place that has been left behind, a small building that I wonder whether or not it deserves to be called a temple though I know that not all temples are big. It is a place that is not meant for worship. It is my prison and that is all there is to it.

A prison because of my bloodline.

A prison because of who my father is.

A prison because.

Apparently, someone thought I cared, which is the reason I’m here.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Peculiar
Characters: Sebastian Quinn-Speziale
Race: Human
Age: 21
Current residence: Peculiar, Erisia
Final Word Count: 927 words
 

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You would have thought that my disappearing from the dome to head into Peculiar would have been easy. It should have been easy. I was a nobody. I was one of those people who were meant to be tagged as defective. One of those people who, had it not been for my father I’m sure, would have ended up wherever it is that defective people end up. In the barracks, I’m sure. Though even once those had been updated, they’d been fairly nice.

It was fairly easy but, in a way, it nearly failed.

All of my things but the small bag on my back were over there. It was the case for the majority of us, little by little in the months before it was time for us to head over, we had packed up things and had dropped them off on our own private transport so they could be dropped at the edge of things and the ones already did move them into whichever spot had been set as our own.

I know that the room was half-limited out there when things really started moving, we were placed into a random spot, with our partner, and if, once we were all there, we wanted to switch, I think that talking it out with the person we might have wanted to switch with. All of us pretty much got along, so I didn’t think it really would be at the source of any big issues, in the end.

On the day itself that we were scheduled for the final transport—just four of us on this particular morning and I still remember that there were eight or so others still waiting their turn—I’d made it early. I’d already let Kay know that I only had a small bag of things left and I had things to pick up underground before we headed into Peculiar. I’d promised to meet him up at our usual meeting spot.

You have to understand that, most of the time, I’ve been with him while underground. It just made the most sense, especially once we grew closer and, once I realized how much I wanted him in my life. I can roam on my own, I’ve roamed on my own plenty but since he came into my life, things just changed, and this had been the first time in quite a long time that I’d been underground without him near me.

Now, my roaming itself didn’t turn out to be much of an issue. At least, it wasn’t an issue until I made it back to my near destination. I was all of a street away, one street and one corner because, yes, things underground do have streets and corners and turns and everything. It really does look like an underground city, it just so happens to not be open to the sky and it requires a good bit of lighting.

I was preparing to turn the corner when I ran right into someone I hadn’t seen in a couple of years. Not since he’d been moved into another zone. One moment he’s not there, the next, he is, and I run right into his chest. Now, mind you, I pay good attention to my surroundings, I have to. I need to know what’s going on around me and since I can’t hear worth anything, this is it, if you would.

I didn’t like the look on his face when I straightened and apologized. He looked like he’d gotten into some unsavoury things that are honestly impossible to get up top, but you can still get down here. He sneered at me and even from just a step back, I could tell that he meant business in a bad way. I tried to duck next to him because, you know, I’m that short, skinny guy that usually manages at least that much but he had grabbed a handful of my hair. Let me tell you, that hurts. I don’t have the curls Scott does, but my hair still makes for an easy grab, I guess.

I must have yelled, because one moment I’m being held by my hair and I feel like he’s doing to rip it all out, the next I’m sort of stumbling away because he’s released me and there’s Kay. Forever my knight in shining armour, this loving mountain of mine.

The following few hours are a bit of a blur in my memory, I might have been in a very mild state of shock because when I finally focused again, we were stepping out into Peculiar. It was my first time out there and that first breath made me cough fairly hard. My health isn’t great but there was a sharp difference in the feel of the air, and I think it took me a bit of time to adapt to that but breathing now just feels, I don’t know, clear.

Later on, when I asked Kay to tell me how he’d managed to come to my rescue as far as he did, he told me that, for one, there was a fairly big commotion going on even around us, so it wasn’t just me, and two, guess I must have screamed but it was the guy yelling that attracted most of the attention. He was going on about how someone had dragged him down there because they thought he’d cared and he wanted out and he blamed everyone and, it was a whole rightful mess but, hopefully, I never have to deal with him ever again.