Whether you choose to listen to me or not, I’ve done all I could.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Anka Williams
Race: Halfling – Phoenix
Age: 91, physically about 27
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 860 words
 

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When I get to the point of saying that I know he’s due for a rebirth, you know it’s gotten pretty bad. Most of the time, it wouldn’t really be that much of an issue. Prometheus has been known to sulk me every now and again, but it’s rarely for more than a single day or two. Since our visit to the island, things had gotten a little better, it was clear that he’d liked his time spent out there and he was a little more active in his room—which, you know, is much bigger than it seems.

Over the last couple of months, however, he’s turned into a grumpy old man that refuses to do anything other than perch on a branch and stay there all day. He comes around when it’s time for feeding but that’s about it. When the food I give him isn’t up to his standards, he’ll turn his back and refuse to even eat. At this point, I’ve done all I could, but I know he needs to get over himself and get on with it.

I mean, not long after our trip to the island, he’d even started to hunt the food we left for him in the room. There’s a fairly complex system set up that used to be active years ago but once he got lazy and refused to hunt or forage for his own food, the system was set into a dormant state. I’d reactivated it after our trip to the island but, clearly, it wasn’t enough to keep him going.

The short version of the setup itself was that we had mice and other small rodents in the system—they came from the market through a special setup and were well cared for until that point, raised solely for those of us who need these rodents to feed our companions—and at certain hours, it would release the rodent in question into the room and, since the room was set up in ways to mimic the look of certain areas on the island I grew up in, the rodent had plenty of room to go and hide and ‘theus had to find it.

In a way, it made him exercise some and it kept his mind somewhat sharp. Except, the lazy old bum has been refusing to hunt for a while now. We’d had to turn to feeding him by hand before my trip, and his desire to hunt only lasted a few months. After that, he went right back to refusing to eat anything that we didn’t give him that was already dead and prepared.

The last two or so months have been harder, though. He’s really gotten to the point where he’ll turn away from food unless it’s exactly how he wants it at exactly that moment. I’ve had Faith look at him and other than his being a lazy moron, there’s nothing wrong with him. He’s just being a butt. I’ve done all I could to help him, and I’ve reminded his bird brain of that a few times, already.

At this point, I know that all I have left to do is keep an eye on him and wait it out. He’s usually not that much of a butt before his rebirth, he just gets listless, but he still used to eat. So, I’m doing what I can, we both know it’s going to happen before long, there’s just no knowing when it happens.

The only thing I really do worry about, as far as all of this is concerned, is that I do need to be near him when it happens. I just want to make sure he’s safe as can be when he comes back and at times, being out there in that room, it’s not exactly the safest thing around, but we’ll see.

I’ve talked to Einn about things, discussed about pushing the inner boundaries of the room. I know how the market works, I know that the doorways lead to inner dimensional pockets that do still have edges but they’re so far that they’re hard to reach. I’ve been thinking about doing that with ‘theus. He liked his trip to the island enough that it did put that particular idea in my mind, I just hadn’t figured out all of the potential details of it and he’d been doing so well after the trip that I hadn’t thought it necessary.

So, after his rebirth, as I don’t want to chance it before, trying to find him and his ashes throughout the whole island would be near impossible, I’ll take into consideration the idea of asking Vivianus for a pocket dimension for a copy of the island. I know it shouldn’t take too much out of him though I figure I’d have to ask a little bit more than just on the day he goes. So, I’ll be checking in with him about this soon. Once that’s ready, it’ll really just be a matter of connecting that dimensional pocket to a doorway and that doorway to our own door in a permanent fashion.

The things I do for this bird, I swear.

Stop, I’m allergic to compliments. Seriously. Deathly allergic.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Anka Williams
Race: Human
Age: 35
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
Final Word Count: 759 words
 

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Maybe I’m just old. Maybe it’s just this new generation’s way of living with the world as it is now, or maybe I’m just out of touch with the cutesy side of things that I don’t get the way these kids—I’m sure they’re young adults, really—behave.

Though, in a way, I suppose it comes as no surprise that I’ve never really had a good female role model. That’s not to say that my male role model was much better. I don’t talk about my parents much and I talk about my kid brother even less. I think he would have liked this new world we now live in but that’s one of those things and I did set up a small memorial for him not long after we’d settled into a place of our own.

No, he didn’t die in the snow. He’d passed long before, but I still felt the need to have him with me in this way and I feel like it’s just right. Darius has done the same for Tomas. Both small memorials are actually side by side. I think it’s fitting.

Now, these kids, I just don’t get the behaviour but who knows, maybe I’m just too grumpy to get it. Maybe I’m just not in tune with things, maybe, who knows why. I just think it’s annoying but maybe it’s because her voice is annoying. Yeah, that has to be that. Has to.

I mean, okay, sure. Cue boy complimenting girl’s hair, or eyes, or whatever you have it. Cue girl blushing, squealing—I kid you not—and half flailing, telling the boy to stop because she is allergic to compliment. All the while, she’s using this way high-pitched voice that I know to not be her normal speaking voice and it makes me want to boot her over to the other side of the settlement.

She tries to put some ‘force’ behind it by telling him that, no, seriously, she’s deathly allergic to compliments and he should totally stop but she’s still talking in that high-pitched baby-talk voice and no one’s buying your story, kiddo. Please stop before I do decide that I’ve had enough, and I do need to punt you across the way.

Now, mind you, I wouldn’t do that. It’s not part of my make, I don’t go out of my way to hurt people, especially not the younger ones that can’t really defend themselves. I do go after the people that go out of their way to hurt others and break our new laws but that’s also part of my job description so I’m not about to just let these people do what they want.

I’ve never heard of someone being allergic to compliments and I’m pretty sure that besides the potential of glitter, unicorn poop and whatever else it is that girls are made of—ask Stormii though she might deny it but I’m sure that she’s filled to the brim with unicorn blood not to be confused with unicorn poop, the former is so much deadlier—this girl is full of crap.

I get being shy. I get being uncomfortable with the idea of compliments and all but going so far as to use something that has taken people’s lives before as a way to claim that you don’t want these compliments isn’t the way to go. It’s the furthest way to go. That’s like joking about people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. I honestly think that most of us here and now have some form of PTSD to deal with, but it’s been so many years, most of us possibly have settled.

Anyway. I’m just grumpy, I’m tired, it’s hot, this girl is annoying, the boy can’t get the hint and I wish they’d go flirt elsewhere because I just can’t take that amount of sugar and unicorn poop. It’s gross, it’s annoying, I’m annoying—no wait.

Man, I’m sure I just need sleep at this point, too. The last few nights have been short because I just can’t fall asleep but that’s about the worst of it. I can’t complain, my nights are usually pretty peaceful, so long as I have my ever-deadly-unicorn-blood-gal next to me and all. I’m just not sure why I’m struggling with sleep recently. I’m sure that I can figure it out, I just hope I do so before my brain decides that it has had enough and that it does need to punt a teen or two into the elsewhere. I don’t think that’d go very well.

This? Needs to stop. No more dragons, no more griffins. We can’t keep any more.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Anka Williams
Race: Halfling – Phoenix
Age: 90, physically about 27
Final Word Count: 743 words
 

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I’ve never had to worry about ‘other’ pets, not while I was growing up, not while I made my way here, not with Stormii around, or when Glenn was young or even during the Dark Years. With ‘theus around, I know that he’s so grumpy around the presence of other non-humans—so to speak—that they wouldn’t last very long. Glenn’s own firebird was the exception to that rule.

Not that they were in the same apartment-slash-house for very long. I gave Glenn his firebird when he was old enough to live on his own. I know I should have let him bond with his own bird much earlier but I couldn’t afford to. I don’t have the full-fledged bond with ‘theus that would have allowed me to do that so I had to wait. Thankfully, he allowed Morgen to bond much sooner with his own.

This place has four firebirds within its limits and I think that’s plenty. Not that I take ‘theus outside with me much, he prefers his room. Though that room is set up to replicate an area on the island where we grew up, so he’s technically outside while being inside. I did go to the island with him just a few months back; it was surprisingly nearly untouched by the war. We roamed a bit and I think that this particular trip did him good. He stretched his wings; he did what he wanted for almost a full day before we went back. He’s been doing much better, mood-wise, since.

That being said, I’m aware that Hououji’s own bird hasn’t been so… tame. I’ve heard the stories and they still make me smile to this day. His bird isn’t so much untamed as it has a habit that one could consider almost catlike. This thing about bringing back things and dropping them somewhere for their owner to find. In his case, we’re talking about lizards—a couple of baby dragons—a good few birds—all alive—and even several rabbits. I’m pretty sure I’ve heard that the dork dropped a skunk on that doorstep once and it wasn’t all that long ago. A couple of years, at most.

Back on the island, the stories were different, but we’re not talking about birds bringing small rodents and whatnot back to their owner, in this case, it was kids finding the oddest of things and bringing them back. Now, the island I grew up on was lost a little in the middle of nowhere. There were fantastical beasts here and there; we seemed to be a bit of a haven for them so I was never surprised when I’d hear a parent huffing about their kids bringing home griffins. Tiny little babies but still griffins. That seemed to be the most common and it usually was one kid more than any others.

I never learned what happened to that kid. I left the island before they could really enter their teens and I know that a lot of the kids in the tribe were usually sent off on some sort of adventure of sorts when they got into their teens. A rite of passage or something. I wasn’t really part of the tribe, so I was kept apart from these things but that’s honestly just fine by me.

But really, the stories about his bird bringing home little—living—things here and there just amused me. I think that ‘theus would be just too lazy to bother and he’s too much of a grump to share his air space. That and, well, I suppose that Stormii would likely just give me this look and remind me that ‘theus is a lot like me and yeah, sure, why not, I’m a grumpy ass and I’ll always be that way but that won’t stop me from loving that woman with all of my heart and then some.

At least I don’t have to worry about ‘theus trying on some mating dance move or something, if he were to try now, I think I’d have to pluck him or laugh my ass off because it would be hilarious. He’s so out of shape. My own fault that. I’ve tried to get him to move around a lot more than he does but, well, he’ll do what he wants and I’m not about to fight him about a potential diet. He’d do more than just sulk me.

Stop supplying me with random trivia. It’s always disturbing for some reason. If anything, I’d much rather hear about baby echidnas or something.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Anka Williams
Race: Human
Age: 34
Final Word Count: 728 words
 

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I like pissing off the guy, at this point. He’s still on the team I tend to spend time with and he still gives women these creepy looks and, at times, I wish the guy would just fall off of a tall building and we’d be done with it all. We’ve been keeping an eye on him for years and it’s gotten to be frustrating in its own way. I know I’m not the only one keeping track of him and I’m grateful for that much but it’s still exhausting. I still wish there wouldn’t be any need anymore.

I mean, in the long run, it almost feels like we’re keeping track of a naughty kid trying to sneak into an adult movie theatre and just, I’m tired of it.

So I’ve turned to pissing him off, it keeps him even more wary of my presence and that serves a double purpose. He keeps himself way in line when I’m nearby and he stays out of my way at the same time.

The pissing-off thing? I’ve been randomly offering him pointless and, well, random bits of trivia every time he’s around. He hates it and he seems to find it weirdly disturbing for some reason. I heard him muttering under his breath about how he’d much rather hear about baby echidnas and that one had made me pause a moment because I hadn’t expected him to even know that word. He’s not well-spoken, not at all. At times, I wonder if he ever really went to school but I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

Random facts about the old world and the new though, you wouldn’t have thought it would have been enough to keep someone in line and yet, it works. I’ve told the guys about it too, not that they’ve done it, since he’d likely—finally—realize that there’s more than just me out to frustrate him.

One of the few things I’m grateful for is that he still seems to not understand that we’re keeping an eye on him. He hasn’t latched on that he’s placed with particular people when it’s time to do some work because these people are not afraid to keep him in line and they’re always keeping an eye on him.

A year or so ago, he moved out to the outskirts, where the recluses tend to live. The buildings aren’t in as good conditions but they’re still fairly sturdy and it keeps them away from most of the population. I think most of us appreciated that move away from the building, it means he had decided that being surrounded by so many people wasn’t something he cared for and, in a way, it puts him further away from other buildings. Now that he’s not in the centre, people can doubly so lock their doors without worrying about locking someone out.

With our society as it is now, I don’t think it’s quite fair that we still have to worry about these things. People don’t seem to understand that the world has changed. It no longer is what it was and old behaviour isn’t exactly behaviour that’s good for anyone anymore. Why do people still act like morons and idiots? I suppose you’ll tell me that’s because they’re just that way but still.

Man, I don’t need you coveting my girl or my garden. You can work hard to get your own garden and I can’t help you with getting a girl. Population’s down way low and people will do what people want. That shouldn’t include creeping around on women and trying to force them—or men, really—into acts that they have no desire to participate in. The world is not your oyster. You cannot have it all. You’re going to have to decide if you’d rather be an idiot that has nothing at all to their names or a more mature individual that can make proper decisions about things.

Don’t go telling me that being an idiot has nothing to do with maturity; you won’t be able to change my mind. I see the behaviour of plenty of people out there as absolutely childish and if they were to grow up a bit, they realize that yeah, they’re being idiots. The moron that moved out there is in these numbers but I can’t imagine he’ll ever change.

You need to make up your mind.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 1st Generation
Characters: Anka Williams
Race: Halfling – Phoenix
Age: 88, physically about 27
Final Word Count: 615 words
 

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Pet birds aren’t to be taken lightly. Especially pet birds that are on a preferred raw-meat diet and are too lazy to go hunt so you have to feed them yourself. That’s the thing that happened with ‘theus. He got lazy, he got greedy and eventually he couldn’t even make up his mind and I had in mind to roast him up just so he could renew himself but I know that’s not how it works and I would never do that to him.

It wasn’t bad at first, our link wasn’t really strong and I suppose that’s because he wasn’t given to me by my parents, he eventually found me and ‘adopted’ me. The thing is, that link not being very strong meant that he was constantly roaming as he wanted and he was at my side when he felt like it. When I gave Glenn his own bird, the sign of what blood coursed through his veins, they connected in a much deeper way.

Now, that doesn’t mean that they have to be near one another constantly, not even, but they’re closer than I ever was with ‘theus up until Glennis came around.

I think, though, that Prometheus mostly just got lazy with time. He’s had a couple of rebirths and it’s done him some good when it happened but after a few years, he gets lazier and lazier.

All of this because last week, it was time to change his room around. He’s never had a cage to live in and he’s so big that I wouldn’t do that to him. He’s about the size of a macaw, I’d say, probably even a little bigger. I’m aware that people used to keep macaws in cages but I just can’t. So one of the rooms in the house is set up to be similar to how things were back home, back where we first connected.

Every few months, I change the scenery up a bit, I essentially move him from one spot on the island to another but I let him decide what he wants because he’s a smart bird. He knows the routine by now.

Thing is, last week he’d decided that he just wanted everything. He wanted the area that had been right behind the house I grew up, he wanted the area near the lagoon, he wanted the area where he used to kill and eat all of his food but that would have been too much of everything within a limited space but he was refusing to make up his mind on a single area. I gave him twenty-four hours, asked him again and he’s now decided to sulk me.

So Stormii gets to feed the sulky boy for a week or two, I’m grateful she doesn’t mind. I know that in that week or two’s time, he’ll start complaining about the scenery and I’m hoping that by then he’ll have made up his mind as to the one area he wants and not stay fixated on a mishmash of everything.

One of these days, I’ll take him on a trip. See what remains of the island where we grew up after the world blew itself up. I’m not holding my breath for much but it’s also possible that it was mostly untouched, I’ll only know once I’ll go and it might just do him some good. I mean, it can’t hurt to go back and revisit old places that meant a lot to you, after all. I’d try VR but I think he’d know the difference, even though I rarely can tell the difference myself when I’m in there.

So you know, I might just start there.

Don’t misunderstand my words—they are not supposed to be compliments.

 
Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Anka Williams
Race: Human
Age: 32
Final Word Count: 565 words
 

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I’m not sure if he was trying to make me feel bad—news flash, he failed—or if he just thought I would for even just one moment, take his words for compliments. I hate the guy’s guts but I still stay around because he still does work hard but he smells and he’s loud and frustrating and, well you get the point.

I know I stared at him for a while after he’d said that. I don’t know if he’d practise or something because he’s not usually well-spoken but each of his words had been uttered smoothly as though part of a repeated speech and it might be the only reason why I didn’t start laughing in his face when he said it though I nearly did. It really did sound rehearsed or maybe from a movie I might never have seen and that wouldn’t surprise me, I was never very much into watching movies.

Still, he held his head high, as though daring me to contradict him and it was only when I huffed out a low chuckle that he muttered something under his breath—something I’m sure was unsavoury as he’s done so often times before and is more his style—and he went back to what he was doing.

The other reason why I stick around him is to keep her safe. Not that she needs me to keep her safe, she’s perfectly capable of handling herself but he’s got a history of just that, being unsavoury towards women. He’s stalked a few since we’ve come into the shelter and then back out of it. Not so much since we’ve moved out of the underground lifestyle but I still don’t trust him and I see the way he looks at most women. It makes me sick.

They didn’t do anything about him while we were underground because they couldn’t catch him in the act of doing anything bad. Because following women to know where they live and then just stalking them around without ever touching them isn’t an issue. I get that it might essentially not be considered illegal but it still left so many women feeling uncomfortable and scared and a whole world of other things. It wasn’t right. I spotted him a few weeks after we’d first come into the bunker and I’d kept an eye on him since.

It’s been years. He still looks at women the same way and he still gives men the most distrustful looks he can manage. For the most part, he’s always paired up on the heavy-lifting crew and it keeps him too occupied to do much harm and too worn out to do anything else either. It’s a good trade-off at this point. I’ll take it.

I’m not the only one keeping up with him. Not that we’ve told it to his face. I can only imagine the angry fit he’d have if he knew we’re more or less all keeping track of him. There’s that old saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, I think that’s pretty fitting as far as this situation is concerned and it’s going to remain fitting until something happens… because we all know it’s just a matter of time.

Mind you, none of us are planning anything bad but we’re not near him twenty-four-seven and accidents still happen.

Who’s responsible for this?

Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Anka Williams
Race: Human
Age: 31
Final Word Count: 540 words

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The construction of the building he was looking at was shoddy, most teams who’d taken care of construction had gotten good team leads who knew what they were doing and while it had been a little on the shoddy side when they’d all started, it had gotten better, experience had settled in and those who really had liked the work had kept to it, like him. This fix-up, however, it’d been done by someone who had likely never held a hammer in their life and he knew it would fall apart at the first chance it would get.

He’d stumbled upon the building out of the blue. He hadn’t planned on doing some building hunt while he’d been on his days off but his wandering had taken him off the beaten path and he’d found things he wasn’t sure had been found by others yet. They tended to keep closer to the centre of their restored town and the outskirts were left alone. He’d seen a handful of very odd things on the outskirts but it made sense. It was where the recluses tended to settle to, just far enough to have all the peace they wanted but still close to be able to be within reach of anything they might need. It made sense.

This particular building, however, he just didn’t know what to make of it. It was obviously teetering on the edge of completely falling apart but it didn’t look abandoned, it was that one thing that bothered him. If it had looked empty, it wouldn’t have held his attention the way it did now but old habits were hard to ignore and when you were used to keeping others safe, it was almost second nature.

He’d carefully rounded the building, just trying to find a way in—not to step inside, he didn’t trust the whole thing, but to see if someone was home. He couldn’t find a thing. Not a single door, not a single window. It was as though the entryway was hidden and he figured it was. Perhaps it was for the best, it kept probable intruders away and the homeowner safe, at least to a small, tiny little point.

Aware that there was nothing he could do, he’d turned back around and had started on his way back, trying to put the whole thing out of his mind. It wouldn’t let go, of course, he didn’t expect it to but still.

Even once back to the building he’d fixed up with his crew and lived in, the thought of the house on the outskirt remained with him and no amount of trying to shake it off did him any good. He knew he’d be back out there, if nothing else to try and find out who lived there and if perhaps, just perhaps, they’d be willing to accept a little help.

How much harm could it do? Though he was more than aware that not everyone welcomed help easily, so he wouldn’t push at all, he couldn’t that went against his own personal code. He’d spent so long refusing outside help that he knew what it was like to be pushed too hard, so he’d keep it subtle and short-lived.

They think they’re being subtle about it, but I’m pretty attached to my hand. I can definitely tell when they’re attempting to hold it.

Timeline/World: Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Anka Williams
Race: Halfling – Phoenix
Age: 86, physically about 27
Final Word Count: 533 words

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I don’t remember much from my childhood.

I get a few flashes now and again, mostly when I dream but for the most part, it’s all a pretty big blur. Not that I’m interested in digging back to my past. I am who I am and trying to find out who I might have been before won’t change that. I’m an old dog and this old dog has no desire to learn any new tricks unless they’re bedroom tricks and in that particular situation I might be swayed.

There are a few memories that remain, however, I can’t really place how old I might have been or not. It was long before I ever came to be here with all of the others, when I was a younger teenager, maybe even a pre-teen? I did look pretty young but it’s hard to tell. I know I was always tall for my age; it’s the one thing about my younger years that is absolutely clear. I don’t know if it’s my genes or something else but it doesn’t really matter.

I remember standing in front of one of those old-fashioned haunted houses, the type where kids dared other kids to go in or spend the night or who knows what else.

I was standing in front of the door, someone else behind me. They were clinging to my shirt while we stood there and I get the feeling that this wasn’t even really a dare, it was just me being the idiot I’ll always be and being curious about what was inside.

I remember stepping inside and the hand that had been clutching at my shirt moved to my hand. I shook it off several times before it was back to my shirt as I—we, I guess—explored the supposedly haunted place. It was a little old; it looked like it had seen better days. A few floor boards were rotted almost all the way through, the wallpaper was peeling, there were some holes in the walls, and the stairs creaked. It was just an interesting sort of discovery of the old place to me but certainly not for the one clinging to my shirt.

It’s easy to still recall how often they were trying to reach for my hand and how often I shook them off. The only time I did let them hang on was when we made our way up the stairs because I could just tell that some of the steps wouldn’t hold our weight so this was a step-where-I-step sort of thing and I didn’t want my follower to get hurt. I can’t even remember if this follower was a boy or a girl. I remember the fine details of the walls, the amount of dust sitting on the shelves but I can’t remember if the little slip of a thing trying so hard to hang onto my hand was a boy or a girl, how weird is my memory, really?

It doesn’t really matter in the end. I’ve always had more of a defined memory for inanimate objects than the living, unless, of course, I was utterly and absolutely invested in the living in question. So some people I pay more attention to, others not so much.

It’s just how I am.