I know I can’t stop you from making bad life choices, but I can at least try.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Current Date: August 31, 2022

Character: Gabriel Thompson
Race: Human
Age: 34
Current residence: Ithaca, New York
 

---

Helping people still comes naturally. At least, helping them behind the scenes, online, where they might try all they want, they’ll never find me.

He used to call me a modern-day Robin Hood. I never really saw it that way, I wasn’t so much taking from the rich to give to the poor. I was just helping the unfortunate be a little less so because they deserve to have a good life too. It hardly is their fault—most of the time—that they are dealing with the issues they are. I considered myself well above helping crooks who had dug themselves in too deep when it came to gambling or debt but helping someone whose whole family had turned their backs and who had nothing to their name, well, they deserved a little help.

That’s the way I saw things. That’s the way I still see things if you ask me.

I do have a real job, but it’s the kind of job that I can’t talk about. Even Bray is only aware of some barebone information about what I really do for a living. At least, the stuff that I can somewhat talk about. The calls from certain clients asking for help with their setup and the rest. The other part of the job that I can’t talk about, has to do with bigger agencies that don’t want people to know they hire folks like me.

Not that there are a lot of us. I’m pretty sure that I’m the only one in the country and that’s not even because I want to boast about it. I know what I can and cannot do. Just as I know that the movies make it seems like something completely different from what it really is and that suits me fine.

There are certain people that I reach out to, before I help them. I feel as though they deserve to know that there is possibly someone out there looking out for them. Ron is one such person I’ve helped now and again but in a way that I thought would get him to make some efforts on trying to get off of the streets. I was wrong the first time around, but I still gave him a second chance.

I shouldn’t have.

There’s a saying that goes with that, I think. Something about fooling you once, shame on the person fooling you, but if you end up being fooled twice—is that even the way to look at it, I wonder—it’s on your shoulders and not theirs anymore. So yeah, it was wholly my fault that I allowed myself to think that he would make some effort on that second chance I gave him.

The second time he got in trouble—for exactly the same thing as the first time—I told him that I couldn’t stop him from making bad life choices, but at the very least, I could try. I had tried the first time I’d helped him; I had reminded him of those exact same words that second time and, well, shame on me. I’m done helping him. I don’t care if he reaches out to me—as he’s done a few times since that day. I’ve tried to help him, but he threw it all away.

So yes, I do help people.

Yes, I’ve been known to be swayed into helping them a second time if they’re not careful with that first instance of help. It hasn’t happened often and I’m learning to know better than to give these particular people second chances. Some need a different sort of help, and I haven’t been above setting trails on people if you would, so the authorities that might have been looking for them do find them.

At times, the help you offer certain people isn’t the help they might wish to have but it’s the one that they do need, in the long run. There are no two ways of looking at it like that, in the end. I can’t fix the whole world. I don’t want to fix the whole world. I just want to be able to reach out to certain souls who need help in some way and offer them the help that I can.

There are certain occasions where that help isn’t a whole lot but it’s just enough of a push to get these people back on their feet and that’s what I’m trying to achieve, in the end. I’m no modern-day Robin Hood. I don’t want to be seen as that either. I help others that might need it because I feel like people might have a better chance at life if they get a little push. Maybe I’m just giving to others what I didn’t have, while I was growing up.

I don’t think I’ll ever really know at this point. I just am how I am.

Final Word Count: 817

This, sadly, is not the first time I’ve been locked out of my own house.

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Current Date: August 30, 2057

Character: Matthias Stamp
Race: Halfling – Elf (tinker) / Human
Age: 42, physically about 20
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

---

Staring at the door won’t make the system work; I know this well enough and yet, still, this is what I find myself doing. I stare at the door and then, with a frustrated sigh, I turn my gaze to the hand pad to the side of it. I glower for a moment before I give up, flop down against the door and just wait.

It had to be one of the rare days when I stepped out with Silver but we both went in separate directions. Not that I went very far, I walked to the edge of our property and then back. The doors lock automatically—at least on our setup. I don’t know how others have their doors set up but ours—front and back both—lock automatically once they close.

Now, I can understand that certain people might come back home, arms full, with no way to put their hands on the pad. Yeah, I get it. That’s why the pads—again, ours is set that way—respond to the hand print, yes, but they also work with vocal recognition.

I’ve tried both. On both doors.

Neither one of them is opening and all of our windows are closed because we’re expecting rain and, yeah, looking at the darkening sky and the low cloud cover, I’m pretty sure that it is going to rain, and we didn’t want rain in the house. Don’t get me started on anyone who might like rain in their homes, that’s just weird. They’re allowed their weird ways, but it’s still weird.

I can’t even say I’m really mad at the system or that I’m surprised. It’s not even the first time that the system has locked me out. Usually, we can’t even figure out why it does what it does. For a few hours, it’ll just refuse to let me in—as it is doing now—and after a break, it just starts working again as though there never were any issues, to begin with.

I look up to the sky again and ponder checking the windows again. The bedroom one is large, and it usually only takes a bit of fussing with the screen to get it off and it’s a window with the pane that opens upwards, we’ve left it open before during rains. It draws the sound into the house and keeps the rain out, it’s honestly really soothing.

The sky is an ugly sort of dark grey and I don’t think that Silver took an umbrella on his trip to the store. Not that he can’t borrow one as needed and drop it back into the system before he steps back outside and on the way home. The clouds look like they’re more meant for a storm than for simple rain. I suppose it wouldn’t be such a bad thing. Everything has been so humid in recent days that spending any amount of time outside is unpleasant and I would have stayed in, had I not needed to get something from the nearly unseen shed at the far back of our property.

That something is sitting with me on the back porch. Thankfully, we’re protected from the potential rain, at least, depending on the angle it falls but it would have to fall in a very steep manner to be able to get to me, so I’ll take that. Now, if the wind flings itself in with the rain, that might very well be different. If it starts to storm, I’ll end up worrying more about Silver than myself. I can keep myself safe here on the porch. I might not like being outside during a storm, but it is what it is.

The idea of Silver being out in that storm bothers me so I’m going to keep on hoping it’s nothing more than rain. It can be fairly heavy rain, at worse he’ll be wet and possibly a little grumpy, but all of our bags seal shut and are waterproof so I’m not even worried on that front. Maybe, if it turns into a storm, they’ll open up a doorway for him. They’ve certainly done it before when it came to pretty ugly snow storms in the end.

All I can do at this point is just stay where I’m at and wait for him to come home. I’ll know when he does, and I’ll make sure he lets me back inside once that happens. I mean, it’s all there is for us to do. I can’t force the system and even if I do, it might set something off. I’m not in the mood to have to deal with any of that so I’ll sit and wait. I’m pretty good at that.

Final Word Count: 789

All this time I’ve wasted trying to get you to change your mind. I’ll never get that back.

Timeline/World: Edge of Forever – Gifted Ones
Current Date: August 29, 2022

Character: Yin Dimm
Race: Sprite – Water
Age: 32, physically about 24
Current residence: Rochester, New York
 

---

If you ask Yang about it, he’ll pause whatever he’s doing, give me a long, quiet look as though somehow, he needs time to figure out the proper answer to the question, and then he’ll tell you that yeah, I’m a wallflower. Yeah, he was as surprised as could be when we both agreed to step into the teaching world because I do prefer to remain unseen, but I am artistic, and it was a good outlet.

What do I do when I end up having to deal with an arguer? Because there are plenty in the classes I teach. Adults, young and older ones alike, who think that somehow, they know more than their teacher and when I stop to think about it, I can only shake my head. If you think you know so much more than me, why are you in this class at all? Why are you here, disrupting the others, not even with the right answers?

But to get back to the mock-question at hand, when I’m faced with these people who seem to thrive on arguing or think that they know all and in turn must somehow know better than everyone else, including the one teaching the class, I usually manage to get them back on track with a few perhaps somewhat underhanded tricks. I distract them by changing the subject somewhat.

It doesn’t work with everyone, and I’ve had a few wait until the class was over to get on my case and try to argue with me some more and they just end up wasting mine and their time. One-on-one is easier to deal with. I don’t have to deal with the expectation from the whole class who, at that current point, look up to me. I am the one doing the teaching; therefore, I have the knowledge, yes? Right.

To most students, it doesn’t even make any sense to argue, especially when the things I’m teaching are nearly textbook. I do try to give it a bit of a twist when I do because it just makes it more interesting, but I rarely deviate from the basic textbook information. These people are around to learn the stuff of beginners, I won’t go into details about more advanced things until I know the beginner stuff has been mastered and I’d like to think that I’ve been teaching long enough—even if it was at a much younger level up until recently—that I know what I’m talking about.

A few days ago, one particular student I’d had near the beginning but who’d only stayed for a week at the very most—she tried to argue every little point I was trying to explain and I did end up having to ask her to step outside if she couldn’t just be quiet and pay attention—came back. She registered for the very same class and came in early on that first class.

I did remember her, I was wary of seeing her step into the classroom and rightfully so. The moment she saw me at the front, she made a beeline might way and started right on in trying to argue one of the things I’d taught on that first day. No hello, no how-are-yous, just straight into arguing about complementary colours as though I didn’t have a colour wheel right there on the board. It was even an interactive one.

I let her blow off some steam, arguing one-sidedly until she seemed to realize that I wasn’t going to argue back. I had no desire to argue with her and I wasn’t going to argue about something as simple as what that particular subject, to me, was. She eventually deflated with a mutter. Going on about how she’d wasted so much time trying to get me to see that I was wrong and that I had to change my mind and that she was never going to get that time back.

Somehow, I still kept myself from engaging her. I only gave her a long, quiet look, and just as quietly reminded her that if she couldn’t just follow along with the others while I taught and constantly kept trying to argue everything I was going to be teaching, then I wasn’t going to be able to keep her in the class. It really was that simple.

She huffed again, turned right around and marched herself out of the classroom. That was it. I haven’t seen her since and you know, I’m fine with that. Thinking back, looking at her art—the few pieces I ever got out of her before I had to get her out—I wonder if there’s not some colour blindness to her. There always were a few things that weren’t quite right with her choice of colours. I don’t know much about the whole thing, but it could have some potential, I think.

Not that it matters at this point.

Final Word Count: 824

I know I shouldn’t listen to you, but you’re actually making sense this time.

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Current Date: August 28, 2057

Character: Arthur McBride
Race: Human
Age: 41, physically about 26
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

---

Meditation is hard.

I try, I really do. I do what I can to focus on just the whole breathing thing and trying to think about nothing thing, but my brain just doesn’t understand it, not really. I know that’s also the point. If your mind wanders, you bring it back to the moment and just clear your thoughts, but I can’t do it. I’ve tried, I have. I’ve tried for months—to not say years because that would be a lie.

The most I can manage is about a minute or so of sitting still before my mind starts to wander. Then I start to think about what I need to do around the house, or I think back on things I’ve done, or I go even further back because my
mind is just looking for something to latch onto and I go back years upon years and think about all the shitty and maybe not so shitty things I’ve done.

I’m sure that if someone were to look in on my life and only caught certain glimpses of things, they’d think that I live a stupidly miserable life. Thinking about all those ugly things I’ve done, maybe even only ever being focused on those things while I try to not fall back into that pit and all of the rest, but they’d be wrong. Yes, I do think plenty about what my life used to be like and what kind of jerk I was. I’m not going to lie about that.

The thing is that I don’t think about these things every day. I don’t focus just on the bad. I do have set visits to the head doc and that’s when most of my focusing on the bad happens. Though, I suppose that in a way that’s a bit of a lie. The bad was something I focused on a lot at the start but now that I’ve gotten better, we do talk about it a little—especially if I bring it up—but otherwise, we focus on all those positive things I do.

So anyway, long story short, yes, I do think back on all those stupid things but they’re not my main focus in life and trying to meditate is really hard. I’ve tried.

At one point, I think I was just trying too hard, visualizing myself having a discussion with, well, myself. Arguing about things every time my mind would wander to bring it back to the discussion that I was trying to have and just, all in all, it’s a mess.

I’m not judging anyone out there who manages to meditate, I actually tip my hat to them. Even if I don’t wear a hat.

At most, I’m pretty sure that if I somehow managed this whole meditation thing, I’d end up feeling as though I shouldn’t be listening to that little voice inside because I really shouldn’t. It was through listening to that little voice that I did all of those stupid things and, back then, those stupid things made sense. I know better now and I’m not about to fall back into that pattern.

When I was first told about it, the doc said that for some, it was really easy, but for others, it just wasn’t. There was no way of knowing. It all depended on the person trying and all. So yeah, I tried. I still try but I still fail and at times it makes me think that my brain is wired into that attention deficit thing, but I know it’s not. They’ve run the tests before when I mentioned that there were days when my attention was prone to being all over the place, but I don’t have any of these issues. My brain is just doing what it wants.

Which, you know, I’m aware it could be worse. I could have all sorts of bad things going on with me and I don’t think that my life would be what it is so I can’t complain. Yeah, I was an idiot growing up. Yeah, I’ve made great progress when it comes to that. Yeah, some things will never be the way they were before but so what? If I dwell on that, I’ll never be satisfied with my life, and I do love my life. It’s not perfect, it will never be perfect, but I make it as close to perfect as I can and that’s all there really is to it, in the end.

I wake up in the mornings, I get through my day, I enjoy the little moments because those are what make it all worth it; at times, I’ll think a bit about that whole thing about the stupid things I’ve done in the past. At other times, I’ll try to meditate. It all really is just what it is, in the end.

Final Word Count: 810

This looks like the kind of place that I’d expect to get stabbed in. We shouldn’t be here.

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Into the Dark
Current Date: August 27, 2022

Character: Audric Forte
Race: Halfling – Demon/ Incubus – Psychic
Age: 30, physically about 22
Current residence: Liège, Belgium
 

---

My small build seems to lead others to think that they might be able to get away with a lot of things, as far as I’m concerned. I know I’m slight. I know I’m actually a little on the skinny side of things but my metabolism is weird and I can’t force myself to eat more than I already do, so yeah, I’m skinny but I still have enough energy to do what I need to do, so I don’t see why I’d have to really worry about things.

My nature works for me when my build might not.

Now that doesn’t mean that I do go out of my way to go places where I might not be safe. That’s counterproductive. I spent months of my life in a wheelchair and months more having to learn how to walk and do really simple things all over again, I’m not interested in going through that again. Then again, the beating I got back then was bad and they’d meant for me to not survive it.

I don’t think about that time much if I can help it.

Last spring, there was this sort of travelling show—to not call it a travelling circus as I’m not sure that this was what it was—that, well, yeah, drove on by. It settled on the outskirts of town, and it stayed up for a couple of weeks if I think about it. I’m not sure how long exactly they did stay, but they did. They even made the news and that’s possibly the only reason why I know about it at all. I’m not one to spend all that much time out there, mingling with others—and I’m sure both Kaden and Mom sigh in worry over the fact that I don’t really have friends because of that, that’s fine.

There were several interviews going on, news people just talking to passersby with the whole thing a short distance off behind them. There were lights and plenty of music and all. Treats, games, fun for all so they’d claim.

A lot of the people interviewed claimed that it was all in good fun, that yeah, some of the games were rigged but it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. A few of the others, however, seemed to be worried about how it looked like the kind of place where someone might come out from behind a dark corner and stab you. That they wouldn’t be caught dead going there. I don’t know if they realized their puns when they said it. I don’t think they did.

For those who went during the afternoon, it seemed like a pretty fun place but yeah, the spot they’d chosen was clear of buildings and had few lights so it did get pretty dark after hours and while they had a chunk of light set up everywhere themselves, it looked as though there were plenty of dark corners to be had.

As far as I’m concerned with the little bit of news that I did keep up with, I don’t think there were any issues with violence or anything dark or sinister with the show. The people who went enjoyed it, and those who didn’t, well they missed out. I missed out and I’m fine with that, thank you. They did do a final news bit on the whole thing as they were packing up and supposedly that they were pretty clean about things. They left nothing behind except a few dents in the earth where the heavier equipment had been set up and all.

I don’t know that there are a lot of people out there anymore who might pick up this cleanly after themselves once they leave a place. I’m sure I’m biased with that mindset, but I’ve been around plenty of people in my age group and when they come in groups and then leave a place, it is rarely picked up and there’s crap left everywhere. I’ve even seen near literal crap be a thing at one point so that’s not even any better if you ask me. It’s worse, even.

I’m just glad that my workplace has minimal seating so that the mess can be contained. That doesn’t stop the hordes from coming in at certain hours, but it is what it is and it’s good money. They’re respectful most of the time, too, so we just gotta get through the rush hours and be done with that. There’s never really a dull moment but that’s okay too.

I like this job and the hours are all right, so I’ll take it.

Final Word Count: 770

Nothing I like coming home to more than, um, whatever that is on my rug. Does… does it have six eyes?

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 2nd Generation
Current Date: August 26, 2057

Character: Raefiel Thomas
Race: Halfling – Elf (sand) / Human
Age: 72, physically about 25
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

---

Strange are the things that you might find when you’re not looking for them, especially when you’re certain that you’ve gone through all the boxes of old things you ever had and put up everything from the life that you consider your old one. There still remain a few boxes in the house, they are of things that we don’t really have room for display but still are important to us.

I’ve gone through these boxes so often that I’m always surprised when I find something new. Something I hadn’t really expected, or thought wasn’t in there anymore. I’m not going to lie, while I think that I’d like to claim I can remember every little thing in my life, there always will be these memories that slip on by but that you do eventually remember because of little things like these.

Those little things like these, in the case of today’s roaming through old boxes, turned out to be a small pile of letters my parents had written to one another. These are special, I don’t think my parents even really remembered them but, when I lost them, I found them in a box of their own old things and, well, I took them because they were a little something extra that I could claim I knew about my parents.

It took me years before I even opened these letters. I kept them in the little box I’d found them in, sitting in a safe spot, because I knew I had them. I don’t know how to explain that I wasn’t so much wanting to read them to know more about my parents, I just wanted them in my possession as a memory of them. I could only figure that what was in those letters was private enough, in the end. It wasn’t mine to read except maybe some decades down the road.

Those decades down the road so happened to be about three ago when Dustin left the nest, and the house was ours once more. Now, I didn’t wait that long because I didn’t want the kids to know about their grandparents on my side of the family. They were long-passed, and I told them about my parents in a way that feels as though I had offered enough information to make them seem like good people.

If I didn’t feel ready to read those letters yet, why would I open them with the kids around and chance them being found? I suppose it could be considered strange that I kept those very letters in their very box in a safe. Only a handful of things were in that safe and while I know that safes aren’t necessary things in this day and age, I’m still pretty sure that every house has one, nonetheless. It might be small, but it’s there, very likely integrated into the house itself and safe from all elements.

We live in a world where technology and information mingle near perfectly and everything is in the ether but there still are physical things that need to be kept safe and those letters were it for me.

When I finally did read them, slowly, carefully, as though handling them too much would tear the paper—they were in really good condition, honestly, and I even found a couple that had never been sent—I found more updates about their day-to-day lives than I did love letters. I’m not sure why I had expected the vast majority of these letters to be about their love for one another. A few of them were even letters that they’d written their parents but had either gotten back upon their death or they’d never been delivered. I couldn’t tell from the envelopes.

One letter in particular still stays with me now and it makes me shake my head a little in curiosity. It’s fairly short, a letter from my mum to my dad about how, after a hard day under the spotlights and the rest, she’d come back home—this had been near the beginning of what was a friendship more than their relationship—to something on the rug that she hadn’t known anything about. It had been unsettling and she even pondered, in the letter, if it didn’t have six eyes.

Of what little my parents told me from my own grandparents, this didn’t seem all that far-fetched but there wasn’t much more to that letter. Still, the idea of coming home when you’re tired, to something truly strange and unusual in your house, let alone on your rug, it seems unsettling. It made me wonder for a while as to what it could have been. I knew where my parents had grown up—not that I’d ever seen either place—and I tried to look through the databases, but I couldn’t really find anything. At least, nothing conclusive.

Not that I think I would truly want to know whatever that thing was, but it’s just another little bit of insight into the life my parents lived, in the end.

Final Word Count: 846

You know what? I’m feeling rather forgiving today, despite all the trouble you’ve given me.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Current Date: August 25, 2022

Character: Phobos Demetriou
Race: Human
Age: 35
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
 

---

I don’t know why the sight of him left me shaky. It isn’t as though the man he reminded me of had ever caused us any issues. He was the one who allowed us to have the job. The man who was too blind to realize there were two of us even though there were. We’re identical, down to the way we used to braid our pale hair. Since the snow melted and all, we’ve found natural means of adding different colours streaks to our hair though we still don’t go out of our ways to tell people that there are two of us.

Orion can tell us apart one way or another, but his brothers can’t. Not always. I think I find some amusement in watching them fumble a bit. The royals seem to have an easier time telling us apart and I still remember when Moon first called them that when they were around, it amused them and I think that this is a good thing because I don’t know that it would have done either one of us good to feel uncomfortable around them, considering the time we do spend near one another.

The man, though, I still don’t know what to make of him. He didn’t even really see me, he was talking to someone else, but this Fox doesn’t like to feel exposed, especially around people who remind him of people he never fully felt comfortable around. I mean, he was our boss, but he didn’t even really know there were two of us; by all means, I’m sure there’s a law somewhere that’s written down about people working seven days a week, nonstop but anyway. It’s all in the past, isn’t it? It wasn’t a grand job, but it was a job.

He looked just like our old boss. Same demeanour, same way of holding himself. Same curl of the lip when he’s unhappy about something but thinks he’s being extra nice to you by letting the ‘issue’ that you’ve caused slide. I mean, if I think about it, the man could be our boss’s son, possibly. The age would make sense but even that’s not really all that important.

They were standing a little below me, there are levels to the vines, and I like wandering further up whenever I can. The idea of people walking above my head is weird to me. He was talking to some woman that I think I faintly recall seeing around but she’s sort of new and so must he because I really don’t remember seeing him before, I would have told Moon about it.

I didn’t catch most of their conversations because, one, I was on my way elsewhere, and two, I don’t eavesdrop, but his tone made me pause a moment for the fact that yes, he reminded me of our old boss. But he was telling her something about how he was feeling rather forgiving today, despite all the trouble she’d given him and those words, man, they reminded me of the old boss even more. It was uncanny and I didn’t like it.

I’m honestly surprised I managed to walk away without falling on my face. It was so startling that I ended up stumbling a bit before I kept on walking. I don’t know if he spotted me or not; I didn’t bother staying long enough to figure that out either. I didn’t want to be anywhere near him. I didn’t know him, but I also didn’t want to know him.

It took me longer to get back home to our apartment than it should have, and Moon only had to spare me a glance to know that something was wrong. I think he more or less just dropped what he’d been doing, and he walked me right up into that bedroom and the rest is sort of fuzzy history. He probably didn’t need to nudge me a whole lot to get the whole story out of me, what little there was of it to tell but it was there. He looked so surprised when I told him why the words of a man that I didn’t know had that effect on me, especially considering that those words hadn’t even been directed at me.

I know that I’m a strange one, at times. I think back to the life we used to live and how we kept really to ourselves unless we were dancing at work and when I look at the way we live our lives now, we’ve changed. I know that we had to adapt, one way or another, but we’ve changed, and I’d like to think that we’ve changed for the better.

Final Word Count: 779

I don’t know about you, but I have time to waste.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Current Date: August 24, 2022

Character: Evan Morgan
Race: Human
Age: 31
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
 

---

Looking around at the hub and at the people who roam around, chatting together, carrying baskets either on their hips or their backs—I’ve seen some carrying them on their heads—or just looking like they’re heading off one place or another, I feel as though we’ve reached a point where life is honestly comfortable. Are we thriving? I don’t know. Not everyone has the same definition of that particular word.

Personally, I’d like to think that we’re doing fairly well, even if we’re maybe not thriving. We have enough food to go around, people have found themselves new passions or rediscovered old ones that actually do help us keep on moving forward and all in all, we’re doing well. We’re not in a place where half the population can sit on their rump and not do a single thing to help but people don’t need to work hard every single day of the week to manage to make it through the day.

So yeah, I think that we’re in a fairly good place, even though, sure, we don’t have a lot of the things we used to anymore. No telly, no radios though someone has managed to rig something along with the bunker’s system and there can be some music played in the heart of the hub, but I think that’s mostly used when there are gatherings or celebrations. While I think that a few people have managed to put together means of making more materials for clothing, that’s not something that resembles anything of what we had before, so new clothing items are rare, and we live with the old stuff that is found by the search teams.

I could go on with the list but, on the other side of that list, there are all the things that I know people possibly didn’t even realize existed and while it doesn’t fully balance things out, and while I do miss a few of the things we had before this whole world changed, I’m comfortable with the life we have now. We have ups and downs but nothing that is truly life-changing. Not anymore.

With all that in mind, I tend to mind my own business when some of the people I do tend to work with do little, other than laze about, especially when they’re supposed to be working. It’s not my job to get on their case to make sure they do their part. There’s a reason why I’ve refused the job the few times it was offered to me. Cop I might have been studying to be but playing cop with lazy people wasn’t in the job description and I haven’t really gone back into that mindset as is.

I keep myself occupied during my free time and I help around wherever there might be some need when I do have to. It’s that simple. So, someone that might look at me and ask me if I have any time to waste because they certainly do, just irks me. I won’t do anything about it other than tell them I have plenty to keep occupied with, but it still bothers me that some people already take for granted that, yes, we’re living a fairly comfortable life, all things considered. Yes, a lot of people work hard and that nearly makes it so that others don’t and that’s just unfair.

Everyone needs to pull their weight. Everyone needs to at least help a little and do their part as that’s the only way we’ll keep our reborn society going. It’s how we’re going to be able to keep our heads above the water and make sure that people are still doing okay. I know that there are people still out there, living in those communities from when we all started to leave the bunker.

People split up back then, and I’m not sure I can blame any of them. It made sense. After spending a few months cooped up together—the bunker was spacious, but everything did end up being fairly repetitive after a while—wanting to have space to roam made sense. I don’t know who decided how many extra communities there were going to be, or which way people were heading but I suppose that it doesn’t really matter, does it? What I do know is that the hub has seen an influx of people over the recent few years and that’s not such a bad thing.

This place has grown from what it had been when we all first came out of the bunker and despite all the greenery and the fact that we’ve lost the ground floor to nature, it’s looking like a good place.

Final Word Count: 781

If only you keep your promises like you say you do.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Current Date: August 23, 2027

Character: Angeline Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 22
Current residence: Klahanie, Washington
 

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Even from a young age, I’ve had a hard time believing others. I can only imagine it comes from the way we were raised with Dad who promised us the world when we were all together, as though those words of his meant anything at all. If you ever had the bad luck of being alone with him, his words were just so much more different. They were filled with the truth of how we were only like money cattle for him and how he would marry each and every one of us off once we weren’t bringing in any money to him anymore.

The man was cruel. There are no two ways around it. He took lives and clearly felt no guilt about it, and, in a way, I feel as though he would have not hesitated to take our own lives the way he did the lives of our mothers had it been possible to do so without raising any flags. Our mothers disappearing seemed to not be an issue to anyone, at least, not until Archer started poking around. Just young women, all within the same age group, disappearing without a trace like young women might be prone to do and all.

Though I think his reasoning on that particular one was possibly closer along the lines of them not surviving childbirth. I just don’t know. Once he was taken away and our lives changed, I think that I tried to not think about any of it too much unless I had to. It was hard enough living in that sardine house, it was worse living with him and so getting a chance at something so brand new is something I reached for with all of my might.

I’m sure I wasn’t the only one.

Trusting Agathe came a little easier. She’d never lied to us, none of the mothers we’d had for the brief time we’d had them with us had lied to us. At least, that I know, they’d never lied to us. Agathe often went out of her way to make sure we were as safe as we could be while having a smidge more freedom than we were allowed with Dad in the house—or out of the house, as the case was very often.

While we were at the summer camp, I think I allowed myself to trust near-blindly. At least for the duration of that summer camp. There were a handful of people I had, however, learned not to trust. I think everyone knew who these people were, and they banded together in a clique, making it easier to avoid them.

Summer camp was that one blip of time in the year where we could be ourselves without much fear of retaliation from Dad. He couldn’t keep an eye on us while we were here. We were a couple of hours away from home, we spent ten or so days there, just enjoying the freedom and then it was time to head back home.

I think it was in my last year at camp that I realized how lucky I’d been so far with this trusting thing I’d been doing. Wanting to believe that almost everyone who was near my age group was someone I could believe in or trust. Well, near almost everyone but the few in that clique. In a way, I suppose I consider myself lucky because the issue itself didn’t happen to me, but it happened to a girl I’d been spending a bit of time with. She was new, a transfer in the last few months before the end of the school year and I was just trying to be friendly.

I caught her arguing with a boy I remembered seeing in a few of my classes. I didn’t catch most of it but what I did catch was about how he’d betrayed her, how she’d trusted him because he’d promised all of these things, but he couldn’t keep any of his promises to save his life. She looked completely distraught, and he honestly looked at a loss. I had—still don’t—near to no experience with this kind of thing, so, you know, I took the coward’s way out and I didn’t intervene. In a way, I felt like it wasn’t my place.

Looking back at that whole thing, I suppose you could call me naive, and I wouldn’t hold it against you. It was a fairly naive way of looking at things. This idea that I could somehow trust these other people because they were kids my age and because I went to school with them. I barely offered them trust while I was at school, why had I allowed myself this freedom while at camp? I still don’t know but I guess that, at this point, it doesn’t really matter.

Final Word Count: 807

Whoever put a doll’s head on my doorknob, I have some questions for you.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Current Date: August 22, 2022

Character: Elario de Felice
Race: Human
Age: 31
Current residence: New York City, New York
 

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Last Sunday turned out to be one of our bigger days of the year. I don’t know that there was anything special about that day in itself, but we had so many walk-ins that I feel like we went through more of our stock on that particular than any other of the year so far. Possibly not quite as much as on Valentine’s but that day is usually always quite the sales day, and we stock up for it.

That Sunday, I really don’t know what it was. There were more walk-ins than I thought we possibly could have and more than one of them asked for multiple bouquets. By the time mid-late afternoon came around, we were so light on stock that the store almost looked like we’d been robbed. I’d never seen our stock so low but thankfully the greenhouse was ready for some gathering and we were expecting our delivery early on Monday morning.

We had several requests for bigger arrangements, too, but most of them weren’t due for a few more days so we’d have time to get them done without much of an issue and hopefully with all of the flowers that had been requested.

When we closed up shop, the place really looked almost alien, and we’d had to turn down a handful of potential customers. I don’t think we’d ever had to do that before but that’s a thing and it’s just so weird; I didn’t like telling people that we were out of the flowers they were hoping for. Most understood but some seemed to really be unhappy about it all as though somehow it was our fault—it wasn’t, not really. We’d been stocked as we usually were, there just had been a huge inflow of customers.

On Monday, when I went in to unlock the door, I found a doll’s head jammed onto the doorknob. As per my possibly slightly stressed-out nature, I almost called Robyn, but I managed to keep calm. A doll’s head on the store’s door knob is minimal compared to a lot of the other things I’ve had to deal with before in my life. Still, I took a photo, and I sent it to Cam to let him know about it because I didn’t feel as though this was something to hide from him. He was due to come in a little later since he’d stayed later the night before just to finish checking up what had been left of our inventory.

We did end up calling the police, mostly so it was in the files because, yeah, we’d have a few issues before, nothing too outrageous but I guess that this is a case of better safe than sorry.

We were late opening up the store but it’s one of those things and Mondays are usually some of our quieter days. We have our deliveries, we have a few walk-ins, but most of the time, Mondays, unless there’s a holiday, are quiet days and we have time to prepare arrangements and bouquets either for orders or for the following day. We started almost two hours later than our usual time, by which time our delivery had come around and we apologized for the delays, but he was pretty understanding, and he certainly seemed to appreciate the cup of coffee we offered him.

There hasn’t really been anything else tacked on to the doll head issue. The rest of the week went by without a hitch, our customer inflow was about the same as it usually was and we haven’t heard anything from any of them about what could possibly have been rumours about, well, anything.

While I don’t really want to know why someone thought it would be funny to put that doll head on the knob, at the same time, I’m a bit curious to know just what it was that might have been going through that person’s head. What it is that makes people do these things? Was it someone we offended? We’ve had to deal with graffiti before and broken windows once or twice, but we weren’t the only shop that had to deal with those as they happened.

I didn’t think to ask around the other shops if they’d had issues like the one, we’d had on that money, but I suppose that it’s one of those things. I mean, at this point, so long as nothing else comes from it, I don’t think we really have to worry about it much and I’ve let it be, but I’m still a little disturbed by the fact that someone tore a doll apart to shove its head on a shop’s doorknob. It just makes so little sense.

Final Word Count: 787