I don’t remember when I asked for your approval. I have a feeling it never happened.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Current Date: April 15, 2024

Character: Aria Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 23
Current residence: Warwick, New York
 

---

Unlike Anatoly, I don’t think I ever dreamed big enough to want to make it to the Olympic teams. Not that it was part of his original plan, I don’t think. I would have to ask him. All I really know is that he just wanted to swim and nothing else really mattered once he was in the water. When it was made clear to him that he had the potential to make it far, he just worked harder and harder. He’s part fish, I swear, and the only time he’s happier than in the water, is when he’s with Neo and it’s just the sweetest thing.

I was happy to have my gymnastic classes and I was just as content to learn all I could. I felt at home doing nearly acrobatic moves, and it just was who I was. Sure, I listened to the coaches, I practised hard, I did what I had to but once I was left a little to my own? You can bet that I was trying new things, I was pushing my limits, and I didn’t really listen to anyone who was trying to stop me.

Unless it was our coach telling me that what I was trying would just end up in tears. I trusted our coach more than I trusted a lot of the others on the team. I suppose that this is inevitable in its own way, after all.

There was one incident that nearly made me quit gymnastics as a whole, but with Alisha at my side and the coach telling me to keep on pushing, I did.

It was a group routine and, for one of those rare times, I wasn’t in a leading spot. It suited me fine; I didn’t care much for the song that had been picked for the routine and that very routine felt pretty ordinary for me. So, I was fine with being in a spot closer to the back. When the girl who had the front leading spot struggled, I usually let our coach help her, that was the point of the whole thing, after all. On one particular practice, though, our coach was already busy with another girl and Laurie—the current front spot girl—just wasn’t managing the moves she was supposed to. She always fell short, it was all a bit too mechanical so I did what I figured made sense.

I tried to help her.

The moment I stepped up to even just offer her my help, she turned her nose at me, she started accusing me of trying to take her place and just… all of it was ugly. I hadn’t even opened my mouth to ask her if I could show her a different way to manage the move she was struggling with. I hadn’t made a peep. I’d just stepped up to her and she was in my face. More or less telling me to go fuck myself—pardon my French—without using those very words.

So, I turned away, I held my head high, I walked back to my spot, and I spent the rest of that particular class trying not to cry. I’d known from the start that there was no lost love between the two of us. Any time I tried to offer her any sort of help for any reason whatsoever, she’d sneer at me and tell me she didn’t care, that she didn’t need my approval, that she never asked for it. It was never about approval. I don’t even know where she got that from. I was just trying to be helpful.

On that day, though, she just pushed too far, and I’d had enough. I’d been feeling low about a lot of things on the gymnastics front—I’d also come back from a mild wrist sprain that had kept me from a lot of things for several weeks—and her words were just that one drop that ensured the whole glass was overflowing. So yeah, I did nearly quit after that one, I told our coach that I couldn’t do it anymore and the rest is somewhat history.

Or, well, it was history until I came across that very girl—woman at this point, I suppose—earlier today. I hadn’t seen her in at least five years. Six even, I’d say. She and her family had moved during our last year of high school, and she’d left without even so much as a goodbye to anyone. As far as I was concerned, it was good riddance but she clearly remembered who I was but didn’t seem to remember how our relationship had turned out because she came right up to me, hugged me as though I was a good friend who she’d missed dearly and she started talking my ear off.

I played nice, I gave her brief answers to some of her questions but the rest I didn’t offer any extra details. She didn’t even notice that I didn’t ask her any questions in return before she was right back to being latched onto the arm of the man she had been with, and they were gone. I could have done without seeing her but, you know, that’s all right. I’m fine.

Final Word Count: 875

When you’re ready to run, let me know. I have the perfect distraction planned.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Current Date: November 23, 2028

Character: Aria Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 23
Current residence: Klahanie, Washington
 

---

I’m pretty sure that a good few of the girls taking some of the beginner’s classes have no real desire to be there. It’s so ridiculously clear when you give them even just a single glance. They’re fidgety, they don’t pay attention, you have to repeat yourself over and over again and, all in all, it’s just a mess. I don’t know how the woman teaching that class has that much patience, I certainly don’t. Which, I suppose, it’s a good reason as to why I’m not the one teaching said class.

I’m not built for teaching anyway, I don’t think so. I don’t really have what it takes and it’s probably for the best that I don’t try. I’d probably be miserable. Put me on that mat, let me do my routines, let me get through all that excess energy I have, and we’ll be gold. I’ve loved gymnastics from a young age, though it really was only once Dad was out of the picture that I could get started. I struggled at first, but I worked so hard to get to where I am that I’d still do it all over again from the beginning if I had to.

Two of the girls are whispering away, not paying attention to their coach. I don’t even know their names and I don’t want to know their names. Knowing their names would mean getting involved and it’s the last thing I honestly want to do at this point. The very, very last thing. I’m only paying half-hearted attention to them right now because I’m on my break and I don’t want to go outside. It’s chilly outside and I’d rather just sit here and sip from my bottle of water. I don’t get the others that bundle back up to go outside for fifteen minutes only to come back inside, chilled as can be. Maybe that’s just me. You’d think that I’d be for all that wide open space after my childhood but I’m not.

I’m pretty sure the coach is aware of their behaviour and has tuned them out at this point; it’s probably the only way to go about things. I’m trying to do the same, but one of them keeps on telling the other—friends, I believe, they might be sisters too, but friends seem more likely—that whenever she—the first girl—is ready to run, she needs to let her know. That second her, of course, being the chatty one who thinks she’s whispering but her whispering voice isn’t all that low.

Because, of course, the chatty one has the perfect distraction planned and, I’ll be honest, I’m almost curious to know what that distraction is, just for the sake that I fully expect her to make a complete fool of herself, and for what reason, for her friend to potentially make a run for it and then… what? The kiddo would still have to go back to the changing room, change into her regular clothes—unless somehow, she’s dumb enough to go out into that chill wearing what she is, and I suppose I wouldn’t put it past her—then escape outside.

Except, as far as I know, these two girls are dropped here by parents and while I suppose they could manage the bus—I certainly had learned to by that age—only one of them would get to so-called escape and the other would still be here with us, so what’s the point, really?

Maybe I’m just overanalyzing everything. I wouldn’t really be surprised if that was the case. I didn’t have the kind of freedom they had and while I was their age, and I’ve always wanted to be here, in this gymnasium. So, I don’t know what goes through their minds and while I can imagine they hate it all, I just can’t wrap my mind around any of it. Maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m the problem.

There’s plenty of maybe to be had and plenty of questions but, on that same note, Alisha certainly seems to love me just the way I am, quirks and all, so I can’t be that bad of a person, even if I think that these kids take things for granted and are a little on the side of being entitled. I can’t compare their childhood to mine; I can’t compare anything of theirs to mine and I really should just tune them out. I should move to another spot, but I can’t be bothered; this is my usual spot, and I can do a few stretches while I wait for the break to be over. I know we need breaks, but if it was just up to me, I wouldn’t bother with them.

Final Word Count: 790

I know way too much to get involved in your schemes. Go ask someone else.

Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Peculiar
Current Date: May 6, 1401

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

---

I don’t know that I expected to actually sort of miss teaching. Though when I stop to think about it, in a way, I think it’s more about how I miss some of the kids I was teaching, more than I miss the teaching aspect of things itself. I don’t know that I was that great of a teacher though I certainly gave it my all and I think that this is all that could have been expected of me.

I’d picked that specialty out of mild desperation because I hadn’t wanted to land in one of the general jobs. The idea of working at a factory, just doing the exact same thing day in and day out, it would have broken me, I’m fairly certain.

Some of the kids were stubborn, others were sweethearts. I still remember how a lot of the girls were usually wide-eyed when they first saw me and, with some, they held that same wide-eyed wonder every single day I saw them. As though they were surprised that I, a woman, was still there, teaching them. Those particular little girls made me wonder if they weren’t from families with old-fashioned parents. As far as my place in that spot was concerned, it was a very recent sort of change that they allowed women to teach.

As far as a lot of the older-fashioned families were concerned, women were meant to be baby-factories, meal-cookers and bed-warmers. Little else. I’ve never been able to wrap my mind around that but with Agathe’s semi-secret teachings, I suppose it’s no wonder. No matter that our father was the man at the very head of the dome and he supported all those very, very old-fashioned ideas.

Through the younger kids, I did get to meet a few of their older siblings as they were the ones coming by to pick up the kids once the schooling was done. It was one of those things that was pretty strange to me when I first started. From the moment we were old enough to head into these classes, Father expected us, even the girls, to walk there and back by ourselves. Of course, as we all were within quite the short age range, we rarely were ever on our own as we had others with us.

Clearly, most of the kids that I’d had in my classes lived in the same—or close—neighbourhood. When the older siblings came to pick them up, they’d do so together, talking as though they’d been friends forever. At times, even one particular sibling would be coming by to pick up a group of kids who all lived nearby. It was interesting to watch it all happen, really.

Of course, being the adult around when those pick-ups happened, I got to hear random bits and pieces of conversation that were probably not meant for my ears but they also were possibly not so private that the older teens didn’t bother keeping their voices down. I feel as though I’ve heard bits of everything, in a way. From some of them talking about knowing too much to get involved in schemes, to some planning out how they’d work together on the grinder of the drops, to others even talking about how dreamy this or that person was and, I’ll be honest, I was surprised on that last front because it was the one subject that seemed to come up far more often than any of the others.

Maybe it’s because it wasn’t something that could happen while we still were in school. It was the old laws; if anyone dated, it was a short-term thing and it wasn’t really meant to last unless somehow the guy managed to get the winning bid for the girl but, really, dating wasn’t really a thing even just those few years back.

The more surprising part—but the one that made me smile the most—was when it was boys discussing other boys being cute, or girls doing the same with other girls. I felt as though it meant that, as a world in general, kids didn’t feel as worried about being judged for wanting to love—or like, as it might have been—the people they did. I’m fairly certain that even just one generation down from mine—my parents—the idea of talking about liking the same sex would have landed you out there in the psych ward and it’s just… that’s not something that makes sense to me.

It possibly made sense back then and people thought it was an abomination, but it wasn’t and I guess that it’s one of the things I’m glad for, as far as the changes that were happening before we left. Have those changes kept going forward after we left? It’s hard to tell but it’s really none of our problems anymore. We’re in a different world at this point, cut off from them unless there are certain medical things we desperately need but those we get from the underground as need possibly be.

So I think we’re going to be okay.

Final Word Count: 852

There are a lot of bad ideas and thirty percent of them come from you.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Rockbourne Dome
Characters: Aria Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 22
Current residence: Rockbourne Dome, Erisia
Final Word Count: 766 words
 

---

When I finally agreed on a specialization, I didn’t find the relief I thought I would. I expected something more than whatever it was that had sunk its claws into me back then. Maybe it was just because I took that specialization a little out of desperation since I didn’t know where else to turn to and I just didn’t want to go into general jobs. Not that there’s anything bad about general jobs but I know that most women still somehow end up at either the factories, few of those are there are, or somewhere else that gets so repetitive you’d want to cry your heart out about it even just a few days in.

So yeah, I opted for physical education training for kids in their first to their years. Thankfully, that was a thing. I’m aware that I very well could have had to teach all age groups, but I guess they understand well enough that kids who are first starting up school have different learning needs than older ones.

It’s been a learning experience. I hadn’t been around kids as young as six in a really long time and I think I’d actually sort of forgotten what it was like to have that kind of buzzing energy. Most of them are aware of the old ways but, in a way, they’ve only started school with the new laws in place, so some of the teachings have changed.

All in all, though, it’s been somewhat fun. It’s not something I see myself doing until the end of my days but, considering that I’m hoping we’ll be ready to move to Peculiar before the end of this year, I don’t figure it would be much of a problem. The kids are fun to spend time with, though a lot of them are headstrong and I’m supposed to somehow ‘break’ them out of their bad habits and I can’t do that. I don’t do punishment when they do something they essentially shouldn’t have.

I work through what I figure is positive reinforcement when they do something good and, sure, when they do something bad, they do get some time out but I’m not about to beat them for these things, not that they did that when we were younger, but things were much stricter back then.

In my second graders’ group, I have three little boys that are inseparable. I’m tempted to say they’re triplets, they all have the same last name, they all look to be the same age and they’re always coming and going together. It reminds me of my own younger years with my sisters, so I might not be all that off track.

They’re a handful, these boys. They’re good kids, but they have so much energy to spare that there are days when I’m not sure they get it all from. Just yesterday, as I was walking them through the general purpose of the exercises they’d be doing for the class, I came across the three of them huddled together, whispering away. I let it go the first time I walked past them, they went quiet as I did but, when I walked by a second time, this time to help kids with the first series of exercises they were at it again.

Now, I’m not going to stop kids from talking between themselves, but they were just talking away, not doing the exercises at all and when I was walking by them that second time, the tallest of the three—though he’s not that much taller than the other two—was telling another about how there were a lot of bad ideas in their little group but that about thirty percent of them came from that other boy.

I have no idea where he got these numbers from, but it made me smile more than anything else. I don’t figure that the numbers were random, though they very well could have been, or the boy could have been aware and did it on purpose, but really, thirty percent of anything is nearly a third and, well, there are three of them.

There are little things here and there that happen with the kids that make this job worthwhile. I still don’t want to spend my life here. I spend more of my time telling myself to just get on with it and get going than I do much of anything else. I like teaching them as I do but it’s exhausting, in a mental way far more than a physical way. I just can’t keep at it forever.

In all the ways possible, you see me for who I really am.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Aria Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 21
Current residence: Klahanie, Washington
Final Word Count: 736 words
 

---

Growing up was… something.

I think we all knew this, but we avoided thinking about it if we could. Dad wasn’t quite right and I’m sure that if he still were around, he’d have smacked me good for thinking of him as ‘dad’, it was always ‘father’, as though he required respect in ways he didn’t deserve. He ran the house like one would an army and it was just so hard.

We were all piled on top of one another like sardines and it felt strange to try and be yourself. When you live in such close quarters as the way did, it’s almost impossible to think for yourself. You can’t decorate anything—it isn’t as though we had anything to decorate with—you can’t really make the space yours though I consider myself lucky. I only had to share with Angel, some of the others weren’t as lucky.

It’s hard to put into words; I think that dad expected us to act in such a way that there just wasn’t any room for freedom of thought if that makes any sense. I don’t know how else to put it. We weren’t individuals. We were just this group of kids that he’d had with different mothers and the income from the sheer number of us just was a huge plus for him. He was already planning on marrying most of us off and just, it was no way to live.

That I’ve come as far as I have, that I have Alisha at my side, that I actually have a job that isn’t the greatest but still works well for me; it’s all still filled with amazement.

The most important part of all of that, however, really is Alisha. She sees me for who I really am. She sees beyond the weird childhood and the fact that our only escape was that yearly summer camp outing that gave us ten days of freedom. A camp during which I know most of us weren’t sure how to behave or act.

It was freeing to go there, we just had to learn how to be free.

It was a lot harder than people might imagine it to be. When you go from living your daily life with what feels like a tyrant, to having ten days just to yourself, there’s so much to choose from, it wasn’t always easy—it actually was pretty hard.

But really, there’s Alisha, this beautiful, perfect woman. I hide nothing from her. I can’t. She knows me inside and out and I think she’s the only one I’ve been as open to as I have. I love my brothers and sisters, I do, there just are things that even they are not privy to, and it warms me that despite it all, she’s still here with me.

Through better and worse, I think, is how they talk about it? I’ve been thinking about it, too. For better or for worse, until death do us part and all. I know I’m young but there’s just this connection between us and I don’t know that I could manage if she just wasn’t in my life anymore. I’d make do if it were to happen, but I know she feels that connection too.

So, I’ve looked for a while, I tried to find something but then I realized that I couldn’t just start looking for rings on my own. That thing about not hiding anything from her? Yeah, that includes this, so a little later today, I think I’m going to sit us down, talk about things being even more permanent than they are now. I wanted to do it over the weekend but every time I tried to bring it up, things just started to get out of hand and there was no time. That and I was working this weekend anyway.

So yeah, this afternoon is going to be it. We don’t have to go looking for rings right that moment; that’s not the point. I just want to bring up the fact that it’s been on my mind, that I’d like it if we spent the rest of our lives together and while I know that rings and paperwork don’t really change all that much—well they do, but that’s something else entirely—I do want the world to know she’s mine and that I will fight for her, no matter what.

Haven’t I told you already? We’re taking over the world.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Aria Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 21
Current residence: Warwick, New York
Final Word Count: 735 words
 

---

I had big plans when I was a little girl but I’m not sure how any of these plans were actually any smart. Well, at least I know that my biggest plan was pretty smart—I wanted to be a gymnast—but my other plans, not so much and to be honest, I don’t even really know where those ideas came from.

Even back in Greece, we didn’t mingle a whole lot with others. I figure that it’s possibly because there just were so many of us that we didn’t see a need to, I don’t know. But that silly, take-over-the-world plan followed me when we moved and I think it grew even bigger there because it was a whole new world, a whole new place, something fresh to discover.

I would, of course, be spending most of my playing time with Angeline. She was my twin; we were the girly ones between two sets of boys, and we were just thick as thieves. I recall how she would often ask me what we were going to do, and I’d playfully roll my eyes at her and remind her that we were taking over the world.

Thinking back now, my actions felt faintly similar to that of a pair of cartoon mice I much later on in life learned about so I can’t actually claim that I got my game ideas from there. We didn’t really watch television back home. It was on mostly for the news when Father wanted to keep updated on things.

Just the same, thinking back, I don’t know that I can call those big plans so much. I really just only ever thought about ‘taking over the world’ while I was playing with Angeline. It was a big game more than anything else and she always played the part more than willingly. Still, I have no idea where it came from and looking back now, it seems like a really silly game, but aren’t most children’s games fairly silly?

I hadn’t even thought about that in years. It’s Angeline who brought it up as she found old photos—those are so rare for us—of the two of us just playing out back at the house in Greece. You would think that two pretty princess-dressed girls like us, we’d have been having plenty of tea parties but no, we were poring over blank sheets of papers that served as maps, and we were making all those big, big plans.

It was a sweet, innocent time in my life.

Not that I no longer know how to act in similar ways, but I feel so far removed from the little girl I’d been back then. My priorities have changed but I think that it would have been worrisome if they hadn’t. I still do gymnastics; I think I’ll be doing gymnastics until I no longer can. I still help quite a fair bit at the soup kitchen because those with less in their lives always need a little pick-me-up and I love their smiles and the gratitude in their eyes when I hand them over their meals.

I’ve realized that I can’t help the whole world. I still want to, but it’s beyond my ability so I focus on what I can do to help and while it doesn’t always feel like enough, I know it’s enough. I can’t just burn the candle by both ends while I try to help too many. I do have to think about my health and that of the sweetest person around who has managed to somehow steal my heart away and keep it all to herself.

All in all, I’d like to think that I’ve managed to find a fairly well-balanced way to live my life. It isn’t out there; it isn’t overly low-key, but it feels like it is just right in the middle for who I am, and I wouldn’t really change a thing about it. Well, I’d change the world all around and make sure no one had to sleep on the streets ever again but that’s something that feels quite a bit much like wanting to take over the world—but to make it a better place.

That’s not the kind of thing I know I really want to do but it still crosses my mind now and again and I have to shake my head at myself.

I wanted to help other people, but not you. Ugh. You’re the last person I would have thought about.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Aria Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 20
Final Word Count: 702 words
 

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I was eighteen when I first helped in a soup kitchen.

As someone who grew up in as big a family as I did, large meal preparation wasn’t something new. I had never helped much in the kitchen—we always did have help and Alisa didn’t care for too many in the kitchen whenever she was already helping—but I still knew how much preparation was required for feeding a lot of people. I still was ridiculously surprised when I learned how much preparation went into the meals at a soup kitchen. There were a lot more than just twenty-five people coming in after all.

I don’t regret ever asking to be able to help in that soup kitchen, though. It was hard work and between my studies and the still present gymnastics I still was doing, it ate up a lot of time and I went back home absolutely exhausted but feeling so good about myself. I had been able to help people.

When I was nineteen and mock-celebrating that I had first helped a year back, a few more new faces came to join the team. Most, of course, were people I had never met but who were eager to help those in need but one was a girl I had had in my classes a few times while in high school. She was the slightly snobby middle-class type who went on and on about how much money her parents had—it wasn’t that much money—and how she would help everyone who would ever need it.

So I suppose that, in a way, I was actually pleasantly surprised when I saw her joining our team.

That pleasant surprise turned to something so very sour an hour into the opening of the doors because someone she possibly had known before came into the line. The little idiot—the ex-classmate, not the poor soul in the line—exclaimed that she had always wanted to help other people but not him, not that man. She huffed about how he was the last person she would have thought about ever helping. I never saw anyone turn away so quickly.

Thankfully, someone was near the door and spoke to him before he left, most likely hungry as I was sure this was his first meal today, and someone else pulled the twit aside to tell her that this was no way to act around anyone that came in for a meal. Everyone was welcome.

Said idiot stormed out, came back five minutes later to get her coat, stormed back out and she never came back. I’ve seen the man a handful more times since but not much more often. I’m hoping that he was able to possibly find a permanent roof over his house and a job to keep things steady for him.

No one deserves to live out on the street. No one deserves to go hungry. No one deserves to be cold on the coldest of winter’s days and I help in whatever way I can. I donate a bit where I can; I help at the soup shelter. I try to do my part. At times, it doesn’t feel like very much but just seeing all these people’s eyes brightening up a little when you give them their portion and tell them to enjoy.

It’s not much, I know that for them, it’s not about enjoying but about having warm food in their bellies and it’s doubly so important in the winter because they need to keep warm and it’s not so easy when you don’t have any energy to do so. I know that a good number of those who come to the soup kitchen do at least have a spot at one of the few shelters in the area. So most don’t sleep outside though I know it’s not the case for everyone.

Mother often gives me this soft look when I tell her about how I wish I could help these people more. She just reminds me ever calmly that we can help plenty, but we can’t help all and most of all, we can’t save everyone from everything. I wish I was that wise.

I haven’t been awake for more than eighteen minutes and I already want to go back to bed.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Aria Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 20
Final Word Count: 664 words
 

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You know you’re potentially under the weather when, the moment you get up, you just want to go back to bed.

I mean, I know a fair few people who like to just roll over when their alarm clock rings, hitting snooze and drifting right back off to sleep. I’ve never been able to do that. For the most part, I tend to wake up before my alarm clock and even when I turn it off on the weekends, I still wake up at a pretty set hour. My body has an internal clock that’s hard to dislodge from its usual patterns.

Yesterday morning was something else entirely, though. Just, sure, it was New Year’s Eve and I didn’t actually have to go anywhere or meet up with anyone but I still usually would have gotten up, done a few stretches, eaten something and yeah, settled down somewhere to relax but that didn’t exactly happen this way and even today, I’m not feeling great.

I missed out on being awake for the midnight kiss. It’s a tradition for us but I was feeling so much like crap that I spent most of my day in bed. I woke up that morning, managed to get up, go to the bathroom, and it was while I was actually preparing myself a cup of hot cocoa—a rare treat—that I told myself I hadn’t even been awake for eighteen minutes—why that number, I’m not sure, my brain is strange—and I already wanted to go back to bed.

So I actually did.

Normally, I wouldn’t have, but I was shivering and actually pretty cold, so I wasn’t exactly feeling good enough to even stay awake long enough to finish preparing my hot drink. I ended up crawling right back into bed and that was the end of that day for me. I remember sort of waking up for soup at lunch and possibly more soup at dinner but the memories are vague and it wasn’t even twenty-four hours ago.

I wish I’d felt up to being awake for the year change, not that it changes much, in the long run, I know. I just like being with her when it happens, it feels like we’re stepping into something new and we can make more plans.

My energy levels are still pretty low and I get the feeling I got my bug from someone at work. I can’t remember who exactly it was, but someone had been coughing on and off the day before yesterday and I must have been either around them or I must have handled something they’d handled as well and hadn’t possibly washed their hands properly or who knows what.

That particular thought grosses me out a little considering I work in a small coffee shop. You’d think that I would be able to tell which coworker was sick, it’s a small place, but there are a few new employees around, especially for the holidays, and I haven’t met most of them properly. I tend to be at the back more than the front, so I miss out on plenty but I’m fine with that, honestly. I like being at the back, it’s quieter.

All in all, I’m just hoping that I get over this sickness or bug or whatever it is and I do that soon because I don’t want to be sick for too long. I don’t get sick often and it usually hits me pretty hard. I’m sort of glad to actually be on my feet right now; I take that as a blessing as usually, I need more than twenty-four hours to be back on my feet and all.

At this point, it’s in the little things and I can keep my head up, I’m only a little stuffed up, food stays down and I’m not feverish, so I’ll take all of those little things and be happy about my lot in life, thank you quite much.

I found an old notebook in my new house. Everything’s in a different language, though.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Rockbourne Dome
Characters: Aria Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 20
Final Word Count: 676 words
 

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I can’t wait to get through this last drop and just be done with schooling.

At the same time, I’m worried about what I’m going to actually do once I finish up. Unlike most of my other siblings in this situation, I haven’t picked a specialization yet. I’ve tried, I really have, but nothing has come up that appealed to me. There was one thing but I don’t know that I’d have the patience for it. I know I need to look more into it at this point, too. I don’t want to not work. Weird as it sounds, I’m going to need something to keep myself occupied and if that something is, I don’t know, possibly teaching physical education to kids in their first and second year of schooling, it might not be terrible. I just don’t know.

Of the few people not in my family I could call friends, quite a few of them were done with the drops as of last year and I’ve seen them and heard of them moving out of their parents’ home and off into homes of their own. If not full-on houses, then quaint little apartments. I don’t want to live in the barracks, though I know they’re much better than they used to be.

I’m aware that most people without a specialization tend to end out there, though, mostly because homes require an income of sorts and income tends to come with specialization or, in the case of those without, income comes from finding a job somewhere. I know there are plenty of jobs to be had but I just… I don’t know. It feels like it’s so much to think about and I’m just trying to figure myself out.

One particular guy I was sort of friends with, he moved out into a little apartment on the bottom level now that they’ve cleared everything out and made plenty of new apartments. He said it was weird because he found an old notebook in the place but that everything in it was in a different language. I’ve only crossed him once since and he looked like death warmed over. I tried to talk to him but he had no time to spare.

It’s weird, though. Since the building was essentially brand new that he’d find an old notebook in there makes no sense. That the notebook was, in his words, in a different language is odd too but that could have been anything at all. He didn’t seem to be willing to show it to anyone, as far as I’ve been able to tell; the book could very well have been written in shorthand and I know that only a few people know what that is and it could very possibly look like a different language to everyone out there who doesn’t know about this.

I’m still confused over how the old notebook made it to his place. Could it have been one of the workers who had it in their things and accidentally dropped it? It seems unlikely. Every new place, as far as I’ve been aware, was swept from top to bottom, cleaned deeply and thoroughly, nothing would have been left behind from the building and construction crew.

No amount of trying to get in touch with him to know more about this supposed old notebook had really come to fruition. It’s like there’s always something keeping him busy and he’s gotten secretive. I don’t know what’s going on with him but at this point, I’m pretty close to just letting it all go. It doesn’t seem like it might be worth the effort.

I mean, all I really wanted was to maybe help him figure out what it was all about since he seemed so shaken by the whole thing when he first brought it up but I guess it hasn’t been that much of a problem if he hasn’t talked about it more than just that first time.

Guess I’ll just do the smart thing and let it go at this point.

Why would they come here?

 
Timeline/World: Alternate Earth – Birds of a Feather
Characters: Aria Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 19
Final Word Count: 626 words
 

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I was fifteen when I saw the vehicle coming up the drive and let me tell you, I was confused. The last time I had seen a vehicle like that anywhere near our drive, I had been five and I’d been a little sad but at the same time, I felt as though there was a heavy weight lifted off my shoulder. That weight left every time that very vehicle left and it returned every time that vehicle returned.

So seeing that vehicle, though it was different, was actually a little frightening. For a decade, we’d been told that he’d been killed in action. That they didn’t know where his body could be. Not a single one of us could move on without the knowledge that his reign of terror really was over and I think that most of us held our breath on that day.

No one knew why they’d come up to us, after all. We all wanted to know but at the same time, we didn’t. Not really.

That day changed all of our lives. It changed Alisa’s life even more than ours but I suppose that’s one of those things when the man you were technically betrothed to came back into your life after a decade away himself. They brought back with them Father’s remains. He was in surprisingly good shape if I can even use that term. He’d been so well preserved during those years that he almost looked as though he was merely sleeping and that thought was terrifying.

I know I breathed easier when he was cremated and we buried his ashes with the tree we planted. It might seem like a weird thing to admit but it’s true. Most people didn’t really know what Father was like and he was a monster, really. That’s all I can say. I might have just been five years old when he left but I was still old enough to be terrified by his need to control everything.

I know that this wasn’t the only issue but it was his main one. The second issue was also that one fact that he thought women to be lesser beings than men, as I recall Mother saying, he called it being old-fashioned but now that I can look back on things and look through photos and everything else, I’d actually have to say he was just a controlling arsehole who wanted to keep his wife and daughters on the tightest leash possible. Skirts all around, cleaning, cooking, sewing chores as soon as we could manage as well. There were other things but these were some of the main ones.

It feels like it’s just easier to go on with my life now that I don’t have to hide who I am. I don’t have to hide the fact that I don’t think about men in the way most—I’m assuming, I don’t know—do. I don’t want a man in my life. I have Alisha with me and she’s all I need. All I want.

Mother is remarried, there’s a new addition to our family, most every single one of my siblings is actually paired off and quite a few are with others of the same gender. This is something our father would have been so starkly against. Most of us never thought that we’d leave the house, always living everyone together and helping around. I think we’d have done it more than willingly if it meant staying with Mother but now that there are homes built not far off, we’re sort of creating our own little community. I think it’s interesting. I know it’s not for everyone but we’re such a tight-knit family that it seems to mostly just really make sense.