Sometimes the best thing to do is run, even when it doesn’t feel right.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Current Date: September 20, 2028

Character: Anaïs Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 24
Current residence: Klahanie, Washington
 

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My boss is unhappy with me, and I can’t say I blame them. I can understand the reasoning behind the fact that they’re angry, but I still stand by the fact that I think that my decision was the better one. Yeah, I’ve got a few healing burns, yeah, I had to stay at the hospital for a day or so while they made sure I was breathing just fine because smoke inhalation sucks but in the long run? It doesn’t change the fact that I would still do things the exact same way I did before.

About a week ago, we had a sudden storm. Heavy downpour, out-of-nowhere thunderstorm that the weather station hadn’t even seen coming. There even was some hail and we got everyone back inside just in time for that but just as the hail was coming down, lightning struck. If it had struck one of the training rings or anything else, I don’t think anyone would have cared, we’d have fixed that fence but as it so happened, that lightning—a double strike, too—hit the main stables, right near the heart of it and, as one would have it more often than not in these cases, fire took hold and started spreading.

Said fire didn’t have a care in the world about the fact that it was still pouring outside; it was spreading like nobody’s business.

Most people took off. I get it. At times, the best thing to do is run, but it didn’t feel right to run, not when I knew that there were more than a dozen horses in that building. So, what did I do? I ran too but I ran in the opposite direction to everyone else. Leave it to me to play hero but I wasn’t about to let these horses burn.

I’d managed to open a few of the nearer pens and direct the horses towards the wide-open doors when I was joined by two other people. I don’t know if they’d had the same idea I had or they’d seen me run in, but we just worked on getting all the horses out as best as we could. At the worst, they’d be at the end of the property, everything is fenced in. I wasn’t worried about that. I was worried about them dying.

To most, I’m sure that they’d say it took us way too long to get the horses out but that’s just one of those things. We double-checked every enclosure and when we were certain that none had been left behind—including the stable cats—we were outside where firefighters had finally come to the scene and had begun trying to gather everyone together and get the fire out.

I’m missing a few hours of my time because I’m pretty sure that once the adrenaline decided to take a break, I dropped. I remember waking up at the hospital, on a mask with Aryanna nearby. She looked so stressed out, but her eyes lit up like nobody’s business when I managed to focus on her.

We talked a little more, and I got confirmation that the horses had all made it out safe and sound with only a few small burns on some of the later ones we got to, but they’d be fine. The building wasn’t as damaged as it could have been, but it’ll still require some fixing up and some of the horses might have to be boarded elsewhere during that time.

My boss came to see me the following morning, as I was getting ready to be released. Got on my case about how foolish it was that I’d risked my life for the horses even though they were glad that everyone was okay. They pretty much forced my hand to take time off, but I think it’s needed; it gives them time to cool down about the whole thing and it’ll give me time to get back on my feet.

I still believe that I’ve done the right thing. I don’t understand the people who seem to think that it’s okay to leave an animal in a fire. If I think I can get that animal out with minimal harm to myself, I will do it. I don’t care if running from the fire is the best thing to do. It didn’t feel right. I don’t blame any of the others who did just run and left everyone else behind. I’m not holding it against anyone. They just did what they thought was best, and that’s all there is to it.

I just hope that I am going to still have a job waiting for me when I get back from this month-long break.

Final Word Count: 786

I thought it was a joke and can you blame me for that? You’re almost never serious!

Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Peculiar
Current Date: February 8, 1401

Character: Anaïs Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 23
Current residence: Peculiar, Erisia
 

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There’s one person I found myself saying goodbye to when we prepared to fully step into Peculiar. Not that I told said person where I was going; only that I wasn’t going to be coming around for a while and she stared at me for a full minute, as though expecting me to tell her that I was lying or something. She told me that she thought I was joking because I was never really serious.

I might have had to do a double-take. I’m not much one to clown around. There are times when I feel as though I don’t even really have that much of a sense of humour. Was she mistaking me for someone else? I didn’t think that I could look like much of anyone else other than my own sisters—our only distinguishing feature being the colour of our hair and the style we kept it in—and neither of them had ever really come to this part of the underground, at least, not that I knew of and, honestly, I don’t know that either of them would have been seen as being anything other than serious the vast majority of the time.

So, as I walked away from her tall, all those months ago, I found myself wondering if I hadn’t mistaken something along the way for the friendship I thought we had. I even ended up asking Litri about what he thought of my general behaviour and if, perhaps, I could have been seen as someone who was almost never serious.

In a way, I suppose it wouldn’t have been the first time that I mistook someone’s pleased—and repeated, with name and all—greeting for something more. Maybe I just want to see something in others that isn’t really there. So yeah, to say the least, I ended up being rather introspective about my behaviour around others for a few days following that particular goodbye.

I know that most of us never really managed to make many friends beyond the people we took with us to Peculiar. At least, speaking for myself, making friends remained stupidly difficult—possibly on par with being a woman in a world where we still were mostly seen as inferior—and I thought that there were one or two in the underground where I went almost regularly who perhaps saw me as a little more than an acquaintance but I was possibly wrong.

In the long run, it’s all right. I don’t mind that people don’t—or didn’t as is the case—see me as more than an acquaintance but I’d like to believe that, as things stand here, in Peculiar, there are so few of us that we’re all more than just that, acquaintances. We might not all be close, personal friends, but I know everyone by name, I’m friendly with everyone and just the same on that note, everyone seems fond of Storm within certain limits.

There is never going to be any way, shape or form during which I’ll force anyone to interact with Storm if they don’t want to and I know that he can be a little intimidating if he’s given a chance to be; I hardly mind. He was trained to be a working dog and now, while most of the work type has changed, he’s still a working dog. Just… not in the way he used to be.

I’m not going to lie, I was worried about how well he’d adapt to the whole thing and how he’d manage with nature all around that wasn’t what he’d grown up with. He’d been with me on drops for training but even then, the scents must have been just so different here for him that, at first, I was worried about him running off and I kept him on a long lead. Nowadays, he doesn’t stray far—not when he’s in work mode—and the rare time he does, he comes back to the call of his name.

There’s so much for us out here to discover; flora and fauna both. I don’t want him to wander too far in case he stumbles upon something none of us are aware of. I don’t know that I’d forgive myself if something were to happen to him. I know that he’d get the best care possible for what we have on hand out here but still. One way or another, this loving idiot is my baby and I think I’ve always seen him as more than just my work partner. It was inevitable and I dare anyone to claim that it’s because I’m a woman and I’m more emotional. I’ll show you emotional.

Final Word Count: 779

Risky? Reckless? Please. Of course it is, I came up with the plan.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Anaïs Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 23
Current residence: Klahanie, Washington
Final Word Count: 776 words
 

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The fact that I’ve opted to work with horses came as no surprise to anyone that might have known me. I mean, it wasn’t an option for me while I was growing up. Not under Andrea’s tyrannical reign, but once he was gone, I allowed myself a small chance to dream. I think that this chance I allowed myself to have that dream was kept small as there were only a couple of places where that dream could come true in the nearby area of home.

In a way, I hadn’t really wanted to stray too far from home if I could help it and I found my passion only a couple of miles away from home. It meant that I could stay close to the rest of my family—at least those who didn’t move too far away, themselves—and I could give my passion a go. It was hard learning at first, I had no experience whatsoever with horses in any way, shape or form, but you can bet your buttocks that I was more than ready to learn.

And learn I did. I slowly worked my way up from the very bottom of the ladder though I have no issues with cleaning up after the horses as necessary. It’s part of life, after all. My biggest dream, I think, is to eventually have a horse of my own but, for now, I’ve been living vicariously through others. That and our beautiful and strong dog. I never thought she’d blossom the way she did after I found her near-dead on the side of the road but here we are.

I get along with most of the others on the team at work. I mean, when you’re surrounded by other people who love the same things you do, it’s a little hard to not get along with them, right? Wrong.

Okay, hear me out. I get along with the vast majority of the people I work with; it’s not so much the workers as some of the people that come and go that I have issues with. One person, in particular, is at the source of these frustrating issues I have with her and I’m not truly sure of how to deal with it. It’s not as though I can really do anything about it. She’s here for the training courses and all but she also houses her horse here. She’s not the one who cleans up after that horse. She’s not the one who brushes that horse, feeds that horse. Name it. She isn’t even the one putting the saddle on and taking it off when it’s time. That’s all done by someone else.

In a way, I think it’s possibly her entitlement that bothers me the most. Her brother works here too, and she bosses him around like it’s nobody’s business. I’ve heard the stories he tells about how she used to act before their parents got her that horse. I don’t know how embellished or not they are but considering her general behaviour, I feel like these stories might be very spot on. Several of them being about how she’s a completely reckless diva who thinks all of her plans are genius but knows they’re risky. She’ll still go through with them, though.

According to her brother, she seems to think she’s all that—and she certainly acts this way too—and believes that all of her plans are delightfully risky because that’s how she likes it. The only positive thing I have to say about her is the fact that she treats her horse well. I’ve never seen her act in any other way than sweet and gentle with him, even when he needs extra persuasion to do something.

The only time I remember her raising her voice was when he refused a jump at one point, and she’d been leaning way too forward. He refused the jump, she got thrown, rolled and landed in one of the water pits. She wasn’t hurt in any way, shape or form but she was pissed when she came out of it. She was stalking towards him screaming bloody murder but eventually, her tiny little brain must have realized what she was doing because he was backing away the closer that she got to him and that got her quiet.

So yeah, I guess she has at least some respect for the big boy, if nothing else, she does love him but otherwise, I have little care for her. She’s a spoiled princess and I doubt she’ll ever work a single day in her life. That’s just one of those things, though, isn’t it?

You wouldn’t understand. You wouldn’t even try to understand.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Rockbourne Dome
Characters: Anaïs Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 22
Current residence: Rockbourne Dome, Erisia
Final Word Count: 802 words
 

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Some people really and truly have a flair for the dramatic. I can understand being high-strung. I can understand being stressed out because you have people searching your apartment, but you have to understand that this last part? This searching your apartment part? It wouldn’t be happening if someone hadn’t tipped us off that there was something going on that needed checked out.

Smaller claims of misdemeanour don’t lead to housing checks like this. I should know, this isn’t the first time I’ve been part of one. Though, for the most part, I’ve always been kept outside. It’s only when they need Storm that they bother letting me in. I’ve accepted this a long time ago. The laws might have changed, but in their eyes, I’m still just a woman and as a woman, I’ll never get the respect from them that I might feel I deserve. Which, mind you, they totally would scoff at hearing this.

That’s fine. In a few more months, I’m pretty sure I’ll be out of this place. No, I’m not pretty sure, I know I’ll be out of this place. So I deal, for now.

Okay, back to people who have a flair for the dramatic.

For a few weeks now, I’ve been posted to this one team that answers calls like these. At times, it leads to nothing, people are just brought in, talked to, so things can be figured out. At other times, a bit like now, a small team—two, three folks—are sent in to investigate things. I get to tag along because Storm is one of the better—not to state he’s the best, though in my eyes, he is—trained dogs for things like this.

With the underground being more popular—and the location of the hidden doorway to get to Peculiar perfectly well hidden, thank you quite much—more and more people are discovering what it’s like down there. They’re discovering things that aren’t looked so highly upon while above ground and some are stupid enough to bring these things back with them when they get out of the underground.

That people are given as much freedom to discover things that were, up until now, more or less forbidden everywhere, but they still somehow feel as though they have to go much further and break the few simple laws in place as far as these things are concerned, confuse me. One of the simpler laws states that whatever happens underground has to remain underground. If you want to try something that’s clearly off-limits, you might be able to find means to, but keep it down there.

What I’m trying to say is that yes, some people have somehow managed to bring drugs and alcohol to the general populace. I don’t judge people who drink, so long as they do so in moderation. I do sort of judge people who do drugs, and I still don’t know who brought that knowledge up or where they found any of it. The underground is fairly huge and there always are new things being discovered.

With all that being said, some idiots have also tried to smuggle some of the underground drugs up and that’s why we’re at this woman’s house, this morning. I usually have no issue with being up early in the mornings but it’s too early right now for the whole dramatic show this woman is putting on. From the moment we stepped up to her place, she was outside, pacing and crying out that none of us wouldn’t understand. That we were all bullies and wouldn’t even try to understand.

I mean unless someone told her that they’d call us in, she shouldn’t even have been outside in the first place. What sense does it make that she was outside before we even crept up if she didn’t have something to hide?

Storm did find a whole chunk of drugs hidden in a corner of her bedroom. It was more than I thought a single person would ever even want to try in a lifetime. No amount of trying to get her to tell us why she had the stuff would get us anywhere. I know that certain people try to bring drugs up from the underground because they claim that the medication given by the doctors doesn’t help. I can’t imagine that the underground drugs would be any better.

After Storm had done his job, I was more or less relegated back outside. You know, that whole thing about how I’m still just a woman, even if I’m one of their better—not the best, that is a claim I know I can’t make—canine trainers. I don’t mind. I only have to deal with this for a few more months and then I’ll be free of this.

Haven’t we come to the same conclusion? None of this is going to work. We’re wasting our time.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Anaïs Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 24
Current residence: Warwick, New York
Final Word Count: 720 words
 

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I couldn’t really believe it when Beverly’s owners got in touch with me again just a few weeks ago. They somehow wanted me to house the bratty gal while they went on a month-long holiday. I had to have a long talk with them about how I couldn’t do it. For one thing, it was in the dead of summer when I’m home less than usual and, two, well.

I told them, when I dropped her back off to them last year, that I couldn’t take her in anymore. I told them that about the property damage; I told them about the no less than twice-a-day escape attempts; I even told them about how I had to set her up in a completely separated enclosure from all of the other horses because she just couldn’t behave.

All that, after they’d promised that she was an absolute sweetheart who loved other horses and especially other humans.

They, of course, came clean once I’d dropped her off that they’d never had her around other horses before dropping her off with me and that she’d always had her own private area to roam.

The one thing I didn’t try with her was to saddle her up. I had been tempted at first, to see if I couldn’t break some of her bad habits but I’m glad I didn’t. After they had profusely apologized when I brought her back to them last year, they asked me if I would be willing to possibly train her, she’d never been saddled before and they were hoping to ride her.

I might have given them a pretty deadpan look as I told them that they would have to turn to someone else for that. They were wasting their time trying to ask me to do that kind of work with her. Mind you, I’ve worked with a lot of horses but that one took the cake and I refused to be anywhere near her at all ever again.

That they somehow thought that half a year or so would change my mind on being anywhere near her shows that they don’t know me very well.

I don’t care that they told me that no one else would take her. With a horse with behaviour like hers, it’s no wonder no one wants to take her in, nor does anyone want to try training her. I’ve got plenty on my plate at this point in my life that I don’t need Beverly-the-crazy to be out and about and nearby. I have two foals and one yearling to take care of this summer and between that and the shows, my days are going to be booked.

I don’t know how much it would take to get it through their heads that it’s just not going to work. I wish they could see that no one is going to want to take that menace in and their best bet would be to pay someone to go over there at least once a day to feed the beast and muck the stall. That or, you know, just let her roam free in the area she has as her own and have someone drop in daily to make sure she has enough food.

Oh no, no, don’t look at me like that, I want nothing to do with her and that includes being roped into that kind of stuff. It’s not that I’m too good for that but there are plenty of kids out there who would love to be paid to look after a horse once, or even twice, every day for a while.

I argued with them for close to an hour when they got in touch with me and, if that wasn’t bad enough, the wife actually dropped by the house later that day to somehow try to convince me. I swear, if they try this again, they’re going to learn that I’m not someone you bother to that point. I’m not going to let it happen and that’s just going to be the end of that.

I might be pretty sweet and even-tempered most of the time, but if I have to sic Jupiter on these two, I will and, let me tell you, he’ll have a field day about it all.

Is it too much to ask for normal pranks? They’re getting more elaborate.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Anaïs Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 23
Final Word Count: 704 words
 

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I still love going to the horse shows. I usually always go home with several prizes and Jupiter never fails to amaze the crowds. He’s still a nipper to everyone else but me, and his gentleman methods to help me get up on the saddle make me smile every time. In a way, though, the one thing I don’t really miss is when I have to deal with a grumpy horse. I still remember Beverly.

I’d been housing her for a few weeks while her owners got settled into a new place and I had to take her with, to the show where I met Litri to get her back to her people. She was a frustrating horse to the very end, kicking and fighting even as I was walking her back where she belonged. That’s one part of the whole business of horse shows I don’t care much for. There have been others and none of them were as much a problem as Beverly.

Earlier this year, we had a problem with younger kids who seemed to have in mind to not be the perfect little angels I’m sure their parents expected them to be when they came to the show. It was just on the city’s edge, the very same place and show where I did meet Lit. I’d come with just Jupiter this year and we had something big planned for the dressage but when did I not have something big planned?

As with most of my summers, I spend more time in the trailer and on the road than not, though recently I’ve tried to not be on the road quite as much unless I know he can be with me. I don’t like being away from Lit very much unless I have to but I’m still not going to stop going on shows because of that. It’s my thing, in life. Horses. I house them, I train them, I raise them, I show them off. Horses are—were—the one most important point in my life up until Lit came into it. He changed things around in a way I never expected anyone to.

Now, these kids—I think they couldn’t have been much older than ten to thirteen—they were clearly bored with the show. They’d been taken along by parents who either participated or simply enjoyed being able to watch these shows. The kids, though, I could hear them in between shows, they’d be roaming and one of them—the youngest, by the voice—would complain how could they just maybe please have some normal pranks, now? The pranks were getting more and more elaborate and they were bored with them as much as they were bored with the shows.

I almost missed out on the next part as I figured that whatever ‘pranks’ they were talking about, they couldn’t have been very harmful, I mean, they’re just kids, right? Except, another voice in their little group piped up with a laugh about how that one ugly guy in the purple suit with the ugly horse with the purple bows wouldn’t know what hit them when the firecrackers would go off.

That sort of… well that set off so many alarm bells but I know better than to get involved directly. So I found the nearest security officers, told them what I’d heard and just, holy crap. The kids had somehow managed to put firecrackers somewhere along the saddle of the horse in question and they’d found means to get them going off at some point and just, it was hard to believe that kids would go to such lengths for ‘pranks’ when these particular pranks weren’t going to be harmless, not in the long run.

I don’t know what happened to the kids or parents after that. The rider and his horse were both fine but both also opted out of doing any of the rest of the competition; I can’t say I blame him. I don’t know what I would have done if some random kid had decided to mess with my equipment, though just the same, I knew Jupiter would have likely tried to take a bite out of whoever, so I know I’m safe.

You can’t see it, but I’m doing some serious eye-rolling and I’m judging you.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Rockbourne Dome
Characters: Anaïs Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 21
Final Word Count: 668 words
 

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If Storm could talk, I bet he’d be full of sass. Even now, just as a dog, as a well-trained dog I can walk without his leash though I still keep it on my belt at all times because people panic when they see a dog, they’re so rare, Storm is full of sass. Not towards me, never towards me. Towards Litri now and again and it just amuses me as he keeps it for when we’re off work, but no one else is free from this pooch’s sass when the working day is over.

I swear, just a few days ago, I was doing a package check with him—it has had to become a thing because people were taking weird things back from the underground and even from the drop-dome and packing those up for someone else to have—and this one guy was fidgeting with his package and it’s clear he’s uncomfortable but Storm is just sitting right next to me and then he gives this little snort. Had it come from anyone else, I would have dismissed it but coming from him, in this situation, I knew what it was, really.

Had he had words, I’m pretty sure he’d have said something like, ‘you can’t see it’, clearly, ‘but I’m doing some serious eye-rolling and I’m judging you’, he’s that kind of dog with fidgeting people. Thing is, they tend to calm down when they realize he’s not going to eat them whole but this guy, he just wouldn’t calm down. Not even when his package had passed inspection.

I know a fair few people are afraid of dogs—most have never seen them and we’re just now getting them out and about a bit more—but they’re so well trained that they’re harmless. A few rare families have cats but dogs are kept for service people. I’m aware that, in a way, we’re all service people but only those of us who have trained with them. They’re not meant to be house pets, they’re working dogs.

Can dogs roll their eyes? I don’t think so, not in the way we do. Storm shows his sass in other ways but if he could, I’m sure he’d do it often. If he were a two-legged type—say, a guy like everyone else out there, I don’t think I’d ever be able to keep a straight face around him, really not.

The fidgety guy is there almost every day, dropping little packages off. You wouldn’t think that, as we all live in the same dome, you wouldn’t have a postal system but we do. Packages roam between all three levels, it doesn’t cost much to send anything and I suppose it might just be quicker to send stuff this way than have to lug it from your starting point to your destination.

It’s also useful for results that need to be sent out to patients, for acceptance or rejection letters for specialization, there’s just a whole world out there that makes it make sense that there’s a small postal system set up. Now that more people are aware of the underground—it has become less taboo—items are trinkets are also being sent. I’m looking forward to being done with my ‘time’ at this particular postal office, though. We take turns, it’s usually a couple months’ worth spent here, then we’re stationed elsewhere and eventually, we end up back in this place again.

As someone who graduated a year ago, it’s been liberating but frustrating at the same time. I don’t like being stuck on postal duty but I keep myself entertained with Storm’s reaction to people, minimal as it might be because he’s just that good of a well-trained dog. I couldn’t have picked a better partner. Or, well, a better canine partner. Though I can’t complain about my human partner either, he’s the best.

Never mind the huffy ladies who would like to have his attention. Too bad for you.

I promised that I’d be here for you, didn’t I?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Anaïs Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 21
Final Word Count: 678 words
 

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I found her on the side of the road. When I stopped to at least pick her up to remove her from there so she wouldn’t be run over, she gave me this pathetic little whimper that made me realize she was alive. She wasn’t strong but she was alive. My plan changed at that moment and I know I spent almost ten minutes at the side of that road, trying to figure out what to do.

I mean, moving a dead animal is one thing and I’m not squeamish, but moving a live animal that could otherwise have broken bones? That’s something else and that was exactly the problem. If it had broken bones, I didn’t want to aggravate them though I knew I had to. It was only when she lifted her little head and gave my hand a lick that it moved me into action.

Back at the car, I found one of my emergency blankets and I set it out next to her. With as much care as I could manage, I got her onto it and into the car. She hadn’t made much noise during the moving process and I hadn’t really felt any weird lumps or bumps in her. She also didn’t really look hurt, she mostly looked starved, which, I know, could have been the point of it all.

All the while I was taking her to the nearest vet, I kept on repeating to myself, and perhaps a little to her so she’d have a voice to listen to, that I’d be there for her. I don’t usually pick up strays but she spoke to me in a way. I hadn’t planned on any of this, only wanting to at least move her elsewhere so she wouldn’t end up as a splattered animal on the side of the road but as she was alive, well I wasn’t going to just sit back and let her die.

The vet did confirm my second thought, the little thing was starved. There seemed to be no broken bones, no bleeding wounds. She’d keep her for a few days on IVs and the rest to see if she perked up and then she’d do a full exam. She asked if she was going to end up at the shelter or not and it only took me a heartbeat to decide that I’d bring her home with us.

Was I aware that it could potentially not work at the house? Yes, I was. Was I ready to deal with that as it happened? I was. She just was too precious and too sweet to just leave there for someone else to pick her up and abandon her again because she clearly had been someone’s pet before.

After a few days, I was back in at the vet, she still looked tired but she looked better. She reacted more readily to our presence and I felt like her eyes just lit right up when she spotted me coming into the back to check in on her after the vet had told me the results of her exams.

So, in a little while, I’ll be picking up extras and a few scripted things for her since she does need antibiotics and I guess I’ll be making my way home with an extra surprise with Lit. If it doesn’t work out at home, I’ll ask around my siblings to check and see if any one of them might want her, and if not one of them, maybe one of their friends. I suppose that’s the upside of such a big family at this point, there’s likely going to be someone we know who would be willing to take her in if I can’t keep her but, somehow, I feel like things will work out well for her at home.

It’s a feeling, you could say. I’m not sure how to explain it but I’m going to go with a gut feeling about how everyone will get along and that’s going to be that. Just you wait and see.

You’re always on your phone when I see you.

 
Timeline/World: Alternate Earth – Birds of a Feather
Characters: Anaïs Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 23
Final Word Count: 657 words
 

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I don’t understand how some people seem to be completely unable to put their phones down. I mean, I have a phone, that’s not the point. I use it when I absolutely need to but I don’t have any games installed on there, nor do I have any of these social networking sites, I feel as though they’re pointless. I don’t even have an account on these things. All I really have online is an email address and that’s it.

I feel like so many people are letting their lives slip on by because they’re too focused on what’s going on online. They’re so focused on following the lives of everyone else—or playing game upon game upon game—that they don’t even truly get to live their lives. What’s the point of that, I ask you? Life should be lived to the fullest and this is something that none of us could have ever had before our father’s body was brought back to us so we could finally have closure.

I suppose that, in a way, it doesn’t really bother me much that these people are doing what they want with their lives but it’s a bother when I’m trying to pay for what I’ve just brought to the counter but you’re so busy doing whatever it is you’re doing on your phone that I can’t even do that. When you’re at work, I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to be on your phone, no matter how quiet it might be in the store. It’s your job to pay attention to the client, I don’t care what you do, just keep yourself busy with work-related things and don’t just type away at your phone.

I let it go the first two or three times but it’s been a repeated event almost every time I’ve been there to get things and it’s always the same girl.

So I did the only thing I could do; since it’s a bit of a mom and pop store—that being, I know the owners and it’s a small store, I don’t know if the girl is a relation of theirs or just a temp they’ve hired for the slightly busier holiday times—but I spoke to the owners, I told them about what was happening, I let them know that even though I’d tried to get her attention, she still failed to see to me, her customer, and twice now I’ve been tempted to just walk back out because it shouldn’t take her five minutes to tear her eyes away from her phone to ring up my purchases.

I haven’t had to go back since that particular time so I don’t know if they’ve done anything about it but I hope they did. They’re going to lose a lot of customers with their cashier actively avoiding the clients and her job. I should know about the actively avoiding the client thing. The one before last time I went, I stepped inside, the little bell ringing; I saw her look up from her phone for half a second… before she was scurrying away, literally. I’d been standing outside for about a couple of minutes, debating whether I wanted to bother stepping in or not and I’d seen her just typing away, so scurrying away the moment I stepped inside was really bad manners on her part.

If I ever have kids, you can bet that I’m likely not going to be getting them a phone or a tablet until they’re a certain age and only because they might need it to stay in touch, not because everyone else has all the latest toys. Of course, that might also depend on the potential darlings’ precious father but I think we probably could come to a compromise.

It’s not as though I’m there yet, though I’ve given it maybe a little bit of thought. I’ll get there when I’m ready, I know.

I honestly don’t want to imagine eight copies of you running around.

 
Timeline/World: Urbana LaCrosse University – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Anaïs Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 21
Final Word Count: 648 words
 

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I never expected to cross Roxanne Martinez after we’d all graduated from high school. As far as I was aware, she hadn’t even graduated herself, she’d dropped out because her boyfriend at the time had been some ten years older than her and he’d wanted her ‘at home’ or something. I don’t know. Those are just the rumours I heard though I’d seen her boyfriend drop her off at school several times before she stopped coming altogether.

I might have seen her once or twice in passing over the last two years and it was nothing to write home about but I admit that when I saw her just two weeks ago, I was more than a little surprised at the size of the baby bump she was sporting. Now, again, I don’t like to judge people but the little twat made mine and my sisters’ lives miserable while we were still at school and she only made it worse during the ten days we spent at that summer camp.

Now, I don’t know whether or not she’s changed since the last time I saw her. I had no desire to find out so I didn’t try to talk to her, I didn’t really look her way beyond the first few moments when I saw her and that was it.

That didn’t stop my mind from wondering about things though and let me tell you, the mental image my very brain drew up at the idea of her being a mother was not pleasant ones and for some reason, my brain kept on going for octuplets. I can’t even imagine how rare those might be and eight copies of her running around likely would be unpleasant. Am I judging her? You suppose I could say that. She was bad enough while at school and she had no reason to act the way she did, not really.

I knew some of her friends, girls who’d spent time with her and had gone to her house. It was in a good neighbourhood, both her parents were nice, she had one older sibling and just, all in all, as far as I can tell, she’d grown up in a good environment that shouldn’t have led her to being such an angry teenager who was constantly picking on everybody else and being such a bully.

Though I guess it doesn’t really matter, does it? She still was an absolute bully and I’m surprised she had any friends at all but there will be sheep for every wolf alive and she was a wolf. There weren’t many sheep, not for how she treated the girls who called themselves her friends and that might have been for the best.

So do I want to imagine what it might be like for a child to grow up with that kind of mother? Not really. I don’t even know whether she’s still with the same man or not. I don’t know anything about her beyond the fact that she was a terrible girl and is probably a terrible woman still. The fact that she was smoking while carrying around that baby bump that had to at least be twins gives me that much information about her and makes me want to not know more.

Yes, I’m going to judge this book by its cover and by the summary of it. It’s enough for me.

If I’m ever to cross her path again, I’m still just going to ignore her. It might not make me the better person but it makes me a sane person. I don’t want her in my life in any way and if it means turning away and not looking her way at all when she’s around, it’s what I’ll do. I wasted too many years dealing with her bullying to want to bother with anything that might have to do with her.