Of all people, why did I have to owe you?

Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Peculiar
Current Date: May 3, 1402

Character: Asarel Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 24
Current residence: Peculiar, Erisia
 

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We’re not completely cut off from the dome, but I think that while it had crossed our minds once or twice until now, it might become a more common thought and discussion. I know it sounds cruel, in a way, that we might be thinking of closing off the pathway that leads to the long underground road to Peculiar, but we’ve heard a rumour recently and most of us are of the same mind.

Yes, there are good people in Rockbourne, but the vast majority are still fairly old-fashioned, they’ve all lived their whole lives—and that for generations—in that dome and they don’t know anything else. That, in itself, isn’t an issue but I can’t imagine what it would be like having to teach people to live off of the land in the way only a fraction of Rockbourne’s residents—the farmers—know how to. For the most part, people know about the farms, but they’ve never visited them.

I call what we heard a rumour because that’s what it is. But if that rumour so happens to be true, it’s hard to imagine what they’ll do. Will they suit up some poor saps who will see themselves as brave explorers and send them out of the dome in search of another? Would they perhaps retreat underground and seal the doorway? That particular idea is why we’re considering the possibility of sealing our own door, even if it would cut us off. I suppose I should start at the beginning.

Just a day ago, August, Aiken and a couple of others made the now-and-again trip back underground. We keep the passage that leads to our tunnel stupidly well hidden but who knows if someone might not find it at some point. While they were underground, they exchanged a few things, never telling where those things came from and no one seemed in a hurry to ask, either. The underground is getting more visitors, but it still is not open knowledge to the dome.

Aiken told us that he heard a pair talking, as they were exchanging some goods. A pair—like a few others—who knew of us, knew we were still alive, but had no idea where we were. The underground has a world of nook and crannies and there is a lot yet undiscovered. It seems as though one of the two in that pair owed him something—and promptly complained about it to him—but following the ‘cashing in’ of said debt, he learned a little more about what they’d been talking about.

The rumour claims that there was an issue in the drop dome and that it was currently sealed until further notice. Something about a crack, or disease, or something. That’s the part that makes it a rumour for me; they claim that it’s sealed, but they don’t know why. I mean, that’s fair, knowing the leaders now in place, I wouldn’t be surprised that they wouldn’t want to share that type of information, either because they just don’t care in a general sense, or to not cause mass hysteria. Which leads back to the beginning of our discussions about properly sealing our doorway.

I think, in a way, the way I’m looking at it and I know that most of my siblings and the others are seeing it, is that we worry about a mass exodus. Okay, say the dome somehow begins to fail, people either riot because they’re despairing, or they head underground—and they could likely make it work while working underground, others have managed well so far.

But say that they start to think the underground is too crowded, or somehow, someone discovers the doorway—much the way we had—and walks the path—which takes a couple of days on foot but much less time with the vehicle—and discovers the blue sky and the rest. What if that knowledge gets back out there, people all want back out into the sunlight and while that, in itself, isn’t the problem, what worries me—and the others—is that they might not be willing to go much further than the first place they see.

And that, just there, is a problem.

Not because we wouldn’t be willing to try and welcome people. But there are a lot of people in the dome and while we’ve settled mostly comfortably where we are now, we can’t house that many more people. We’ve had drones flying in all directions, there’s a lot of forested areas but there are cleared-up areas a day or two away on foot. Would people who have never had to survive out in the wild for more than season drops even be willing to walk that far to have to build things up from the ground up? I just don’t know.

I think my worries are genuine and seeing as I’m not the only one who sees these things the way I do, we will have to discuss things further, even if it so happens that the rumours are unfounded. Not a single one of us is interested in heading back out beyond the underground to check things out.

We’re living a peaceful life now, and the idea of terrified people just trying to get somewhere safe and turning to possible violence because they’re not getting what they want doesn’t sit right with me.

The way I see it, it’s almost as though we’re this little island with many other islands further off, but people will only see that first island and just try to take over. I will defend what is ours if it comes to it, but I’d rather just not have to if I can help it.

Final Word Count: 953

Can we just agree that this road trip was a bad idea?

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Current Date: December 12, 2022

Character: Asarel Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 24
Current residence: Warwick, New York
 

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When you think you’ve left all of it behind, but then you find just one small thing here or another there. The thing, though, is that this particular memory isn’t really all that about him, but it could have been.

It was a weekend or two before graduation, it was our last year, the four of us. We’d always planned on a day trip somewhere on the weekend or so before we were done, just as a sort of celebration of things. I hadn’t really felt up to going because since he’d gone off to college, I rarely saw him, and weekends gave me some chances of being able to actually spend time with him. It wasn’t even every other weekend or anywhere close, but I felt like he still was trying his best.

Still, this had been a small road trip we’d four promised to, years ago, a hurrah to incoming freedom before we stepped into the big, big world, as it was. We hadn’t planned on heading very far, mind you. Just half a day spent together, possibly at the nearest beach. So long as I had my glasses with me, everything was going to be fine, in the end.

And in a way, the way they did manage to convince me to go with them was the fact that we could have stopped by the college on the way back if I wanted. It was a fairly big detour, it felt like, but I figured that, just maybe, it could have been worth it. My brothers were just so supportive of me, in the end. I love them to bits, and I know that it’s mutual.

So yeah, we went. We spent a few hours at the beach, and we managed a few photos. By the end of the day, the four of us had sunburns that ranged from light pink to slightly darker red. I was already peeling and with that in mind, we all just decided to head back home. The detour no longer truly interested me. I would have loved to spend a bit of time with him, just even to surprise him for half an hour or so but I was exhausted and most of us were feeling the sunburns. I think we all had varying levels of thinking that the road trip had been a bad idea, but mostly because we hadn’t been really prepared properly for it.

I just found one of the photos we took of that day and, in a way, you know, I don’t think so much that the road trip in itself was a bad idea and, now that I’ve had years to heal from the whole stupid thing he put me through, I’m honestly grateful that we forgot the sunscreen on that day. If we hadn’t, we’d have made that detour and I worry about what we would have found upon making it to the college campus.

I mean, just the following week, I had a text from him telling me it was all over and somehow, the complete arse had managed to sneak in while I wasn’t there to dump off everything I’d ever left with him. Everything. I still hurt from thinking about the way he just dumped me, but it was for the better. It was hard, working my mind around everything and even now I still don’t like to think about it, but it has helped me in life. I’ve met someone who has been so much better for me than he ever was.

Someone who respects me, who knows my limits and who works with me on those. Someone who seems to just want nothing but the best for me and it gives me strength. I can love him in ways I don’t think I could allow myself to, with Ferian. I don’t like saying his name or even really thinking of it. It still hurts and that’s never going to stop, I don’t think. It’s been years but he’s just done so much harm that there’s no forgetting it all as though it never happened.

I’m happier now, though, so that’s the one thing I focus on. A lot of the issues I had growing up have more or less slipped out of my life. This timid-to-the-point-of-fainting thing I had while growing up is nonexistent now. I don’t know why other than more patience out of Leo than anyone could possibly imagine, and I let him know every day that he’s changed my life for the better. Even if it’s just by telling him that I love him.

Those are words I had to work up to. I can’t… I can’t remember that I ever said them to the other one or that he ever even uttered them either. Now, now they’re easy and they come from deep in the heart. I need and want Leo in my life until the end of everything.

Final Word Count: 822

I hate how good you are at making something cheerful sound so creepy.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Peculiar
Characters: Asarel Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 22
Current residence: Peculiar, Erisia
Final Word Count: 770 words
 

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I wonder if it makes me strange that I don’t really miss any of the people I’ve interacted with before we slipped away to Peculiar. I suppose it helps that I didn’t really have that good of a relationship with any of them. I never really made the effort of trying to get to know anyone on a more than just bare minimum level.

I’m fairly sure that, to the lot of them, I was always that weird, creepy guy who wore his sunglasses even inside. It certainly wasn’t out of choice that I wore them, and they made my life much more manageable. I know that a certain, lovable idiot is worried as to what might happen to me if they were to break. For one thing, I have more than one pair and they’re sturdy. They’re always on unless I’m sleeping and they clip at the nose, so I always know where they’re at.

I’m not all that worried about the glasses and, should something happen to the no fewer than four pairs I have, I know that they still have material to make me a few more pairs and we’d work something out, in the end.

Now and again, I do spare a thought or three to the people that we’ve walked away from. I’m not about to claim that they’re people we’ve left behind because, in the way that I see things, we haven’t left anyone behind. Those who had to come did and we’re still weighing the pros and cons of opening up the area to others. For now, there are only so many houses that are still solid enough for all of us to use and we’re slowly settling into a sort of way of life. Growing things, making things from scratch, it’s really different from how it all was.

Still, now and again, I do think back to the other people we used to work with. Two of them in particular I guess I could state that I got along fairly well with. They were interesting and they made the days go by faster when they were around. It was strange, at first. I had mistakenly thought them to be husband and wife when I first started in, but they were siblings and, you know what, they were okay with my mistake. Supposedly that it’s a commonly made mistake and that I’m one of plenty who thought they were married.

I think it’s in the way they acted; they seemed just so stupidly close. Not that I would judge them and whatever. It wasn’t my place. They would always refer to one another with nicknames so I honestly don’t think I ever really knew their names, even if I worked alongside them for something like a year. She was Dandelion and he was Weed. Her hair was bright gold, almost yellow-tinged so I suppose that her nickname wasn’t all that far off, and he was tall and thin. I don’t know that this is the reason why they each had these nicknames but that was fine by me.

Weed had this odd way about him. During their lunch break, I’d be walking across the doorway to get to another room at the back of the building and they’d be talking, he’d talk about nothing and everything but almost everything cheerful he’d talk about—kids playing, memories as they were growing up, the brightness of the fake sky above us—he’d manage to make it sound so creepy that it was unsettling. Dandy didn’t have any issues with him, and she honestly seemed to be encouraging him to talk in that odd, creepy way he did, but it did no harm, so why stop him?

These two do cross my mind now and again. I know they wouldn’t last in Peculiar. They’re very clingy as far as the comfort of their own home is concerned. I know that Weed has this little motorized bicycle that he rides around. I’m not sure how it works, he pedals some and then something about the battery charges from that and he can go shorter or longer distances without pedalling. All in all, interesting but not a necessity for me and yet I’ve never seen him on foot. Dandy, on the other hand, refuses to eat anything that hasn’t been put through the microwave until it’s steaming hot. I’m sure she’d have adapted to the way we eat food here but, at the same time, I don’t think so.

It’s in all of these little things and, as is, I think they’re doing just fine under the dome still, so really.

I helped everyone and they turned their backs on me. Why should I help you?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Asarel Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 22
Current residence: Klahanie, Washington
Final Word Count: 811 words
 

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Homelessness isn’t exactly common around in this place, but it still does happen. We still see someone either on a street corner, or not far from an alley, or on a park bench. I mean, in the last year, I might have seen two, three people while on my way to and from work. I don’t feel as though that’s a lot. Sure, I don’t cover the whole city on that trip, so I don’t know what the rest is like, but on the route I take to get me to the clinic, I’ve only seen these, and I think it was the same person. I could be wrong, though.

What little television I watched shows homelessness as being so much more potent, but I suppose that it mostly comes from the fact that most of these shows are based around much bigger cities and this place is just one big community with not that many people compared to, you know, metropolises.

I remember catching one random interview a year or so ago. I don’t even know why I watched it, other than some sort of morbid fascination about something in life I really didn’t know much of anything about. I’m not going to lie and claim that my life has always been perfect and that I know everything about everything out there in the world. I don’t.

It took years before I even had the glasses I do now. It took years before I even felt any sort of potential comfort at the idea of being able to step outside without a migraine taking hold or, you know, just flat out going blind in the light. My eyes do what they do and I can only deal with it.

That interview, though, I guess it interested me because it was something different from anything I’d ever been familiar with and yet, it was meaningful. The idea of being homeless scares me. The thought of never knowing where I might be able to find my next meal, or how I might be able to keep warm in the winter, it’s pretty terrifying.

So, I guess that listening to the interview was one way, not unlike any other, to be able to have some sort of idea as to what it’s like out there.

The guy wasn’t very forthcoming, I don’t blame him. He looked rough, from the first few questions asked, it was clear that he’d been homeless for years. The only mercy I could find through it all is that he lived in a place that got no snow and where the temperatures didn’t drop below a certain level that I’d have considered comfortable in winter. Summer must have been something else entirely, though.

Still, one of the first things out of the man’s mouth made it clear that he possibly wasn’t all there. When the reporter approached him, he almost flailed, at first. Cried out that he had always helped everyone, and they turned their backs on him, so why should he even bother helping this one new person? Mind you, that was before the reporter had even said anything. It was really sad.

Once the reporter had said a few words, the man seemed to calm down a little. I suppose I can’t blame him, depending on what he went through. If anyone that approaches him is out to ask him for something, when it’s clear he has nothing to call his own but the clothes on his back, he has all the rights to be reacting the way he did.

I don’t remember the whole interview. I just remember those few details that made me sad for the man and made me want to reach out and help him. How hard is it to offer maybe a little food to these people when it’s so clear that they need it? Maybe even a new pair of shoes, a new coat, something. I’m aware that some people are bad people, but I still don’t think that anyone should be without a roof over their heads and without three meals a day, even if these meals are meagre.

The thing is, though, and I know that this is just one of those things, but there’s always going to be someone out there in the world who has it worse than the next person over. There’s always going to be homelessness, even if it might just be one, two, or a dozen people. We might be trying to help them all but, in the long run, I don’t know that there’s any way to remove homelessness altogether unless we all pull together as one, if you would.

In a way, that’s why I also don’t go out there, trying to help everyone. I don’t think I’d do very well. I’ll stick to dealing with animals, these, I know how to.

I can always count on you to make things awkward.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Asarel Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 23
Current residence: Warwick, New York
Final Word Count: 836 words
 

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I don’t know where that photo came from. I was so sure that there hadn’t been anything left. All four of us—my brothers and me—had gone through my things. We’d done so meticulously. I know that they’d done most of it because I hadn’t been in any emotional shape to handle the clean-up, but I’d still helped. They’d found everything that had ever linked me to him, and it had been put into the fire.

As far as photos were concerned, the collection was limited. He’d never liked being in pictures and well, I suppose that with my glasses, pictures made me look weird. You couldn’t properly take indoor photos, not with any flashes at least. That’d render me blind for a while with a migraine to follow suit as my glasses didn’t really have time to do their things with the flash since it was a sudden thing. Outside photos, well the lens on my glasses were pretty much always black and you couldn’t see my eyes. Not that I mind, I am as I am and that’s that.

There were a lot more trinkets than anything else and most of them were in the box that he’d brought back. It really is when you take a step back that you realize that things were far more one-sided than not. Thinking about it now doesn’t hurt half as much as it did back then. I was devastated back then. I mean, what kind of arsehole breaks up with you by text, but still somehow manages to drive down from university to drop your box of belongings in your room, while making sure you’re not there for it? He was avoiding me like the plague.

We’d been together for four years. He’d always been pretty pushy for things, but I was young, and I thought I was in love. I never saw any of the signs and they must have been subtle because none of my siblings saw them either.

There it is, though, a single photo that shows me all the signs I just didn’t see.

In a way, though, I think it also is the memories attached to this photo that are reminding me of all the signs I just didn’t see. Signs that were clear as day when you know where to look but I didn’t, and I guess that Mother trusted my happiness and we seemed happy.

It was the winter ball, our second, as I remember it. He’d never been much of a dancer, but he did tend to at least show up. I do remember that we never danced, we always were on the side lines but, back then, I didn’t mind. I still was so shy that mingling with others wasn’t easy. The photo shows us side by side, my arm is twined with his, but our sides aren’t touching. Thinking back now, I remember how he wasn’t overly affectionate, he’d touch me when it suited him, I think.

His suit must have been black, it’s so dark in the photo. I know that ours were a deep blue that was nearly black. At least, that’s what I’m told, and I believe my siblings. They wouldn’t lie. There is a smile tugging at his lips, but it is so far from reaching his eyes. The look is so fake on his face, I wish I could have seen it before. I was too much akin to a puppy in love to pay attention.

What I do remember from that ball, however, was that there was something odd about his breath. I didn’t think much of it at first because I wasn’t used to it but thinking back now, I wonder if he hadn’t had something to drink even before coming to the ball. Had he not wanted to come, he could have simply told me so and I would have understood it. I never argued with him on anything and let him have all of me in every way he wanted after all.

We’d walked outside to the balcony and in true little-old-me fashion, I’d actually tripped on something as we were stepping out and I still recall how he sighed, it was a heavy sound, as though he was resigned to things being exactly as they were. He told me that he could always count on me to make things awkward, and I just blinked up at him, eyes wide and confused. I remember feeling the heat in my cheeks rise and well yeah, I fainted for a few seconds, came back to, to him fanning my face a little and the rest is history.

I still have no idea where that photo might have come from. I found it in one of the books I’ve read time and again. You would think that it would have been found before now, but I guess that I hadn’t touched that book since. It’s all right, though. We can watch that last photo burn tonight.

After an entire year, you’re telling me that it was all a lie?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Asarel Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 21
Final Word Count: 780 words
 

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I’m glad to never have been a ‘victim’ of love-related drama. I don’t really think that any of my siblings ever have. We were all so tight-knit, we were all just so closed away from the world outside, trying to keep ourselves alive and safe and sane that none of us really experienced the whole thing that could be seen as, just that, love drama. I don’t know how else to put it.

Boys and girls—men and women and anyone else in-between—dating, breaking up, dating someone else, that whole thing. It might not be drama in the general sense of the word but I’ve seen a few fair examples of things that could only be described as drama.

I mean, I’m just minding my own business, helping these clients check-in their dog for the bit of time it will be spending with us at the clinic, but behind them, a pair is arguing. They’re arguing in hushed tones but they’re still arguing. If you’re going to argue with someone, even in hushed tones, please don’t do it in public.

I try my best to keep my focus on the couple in front of me, their dog whining in the crate sitting on the corner of the desk next to me. It was a tiny thing but it didn’t seem ready to eat me whole. I’ve had a lot of experience with smaller dogs just being out to bite everyone and everything, so I’m usually wary. Once I’m done registering the clients into our database, I manage to get Romeo—a sweet long-haired Chihuahua—from his carrier and onto the weighing station. As I try to keep him from wandering anywhere and read the display, the couple at the back explodes into louder arguing.

All I catch from it nonetheless as I still work to keep my focus on Romeo is something about how after an entire year, the whole thing had been a lie. I rolled my eyes behind my thankfully near-black glasses, finally managed to read Romeo’s weight—a little skinny, this boy at not quite three pounds—and I make note of it, allowing him back into his carrier.

With the other couple having gone back to heated arguing, I tell my current clients that he’ll be in good hands and that we’ll call them with news once he’s off of the operating table, they smile, bid their little one goodbye and are on their way. I envy them; they’re able to escape from whatever it is I’m currently stuck dealing with.

I murmur a few soothing words to Romeo and walk him to the back so he can be settled into his kennel for the next day or so. I tag his carrier—which we usually ask the clients to take back with but with the arguing couple, it slipped my mind—and leave it out of the way.

When I finally come back to the front, only the man is there, he looks stony-faced with the carrier still hanging from his arm. A pair of cats just huddling away in there. I feel bad for these two if they’re stuck living with the pair.

Once he approaches the desk, he actually apologizes and that takes me a bit by surprise. He tells me he certainly didn’t mean to cause a scene. He had an appointment with a vet for some shots for the pair and as he’s never had cats, he has plenty of questions. I just tell him that it’s fine, though it wasn’t, not really. We fill in the registration information as he tells me that they’d gone to look at cats together as a new-year, new-start sort of thing before he’d found out she’d been seeing someone else behind his back. I didn’t need that kind of information but if it helped him feel a bit better about himself, I suppose it was one of those things. There was no one else.

She’s told him that she’d had cats since she was a little girl and missed having them but that he’d never had a pet in his life up until now. What did calm me, since, in rare situations like these, the poor animals end up abandoned, was his telling me that he wanted to make sure he took care of them to the best of his meagre knowledge. I knew the vet would have been able to answer any and all questions he would have had, so I wasn’t exactly worried.

Cats, dogs, and any other house pet need love, not to just be randomly adopted and then abandoned.

You’re the only one I know brave enough to play in those waters. I can’t say it’s a good idea, though.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Asarel Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 21
Final Word Count: 696 words
 

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I can’t remember how old I was when we moved from Greece. My memories of that time are just so fuzzy. They’re fuzzy enough that now and again, I feel like I don’t really remember what it was like out there but that would be a lie. At times, I’ll catch a glimpse of something out here and it’ll bring back an image to mind that’s clear as day about our lives there.

Recently, though, it wasn’t so much an image as it was a full-out dream. I don’t think the dream was so much a memory as it was based on an area of the waters not very far from where we lived. I mean, the house overlooked a small cliff that led straight into the waters after all. I think that most of us didn’t swim there because we weren’t sure about what was in the waters.

My mind is often trying to tell me that there were sharks in there. Every time I think about the mostly clear blue waters of that spot, I think about sharks but I can’t recall ever hearing of an attack in the area but, again, it was long enough ago and my memories are oddly fuzzy that I don’t think about it much if I can help it.

The dream, though, it was strange. All four of us were there, on the small bit of rocky leading into the water. Above us, the house loomed. I couldn’t tell you how old or not we were, just that we probably shouldn’t have been out there, so close to the water, without adult supervision. I have no memories of us ever being there, mind you. Not on our own.

We were talking and discussing and just having fun in the way kids have fun when their overbearing father isn’t there to rein them in and suddenly, Augustin is in the water, splashing away merrily. He wasn’t very far in, only to his thighs really but the rest of us were silent, watching him wide-eyed and afraid for him because, well, sharks, right?

He kept on trying to entice us to join him in the water but the three of us knew better. I know I certainly thought he was brave to play in the water but I doubted it was a good idea. I only voiced the second half of that thought because I knew how he could be tempted to do things he shouldn’t if he believed it made him look brave. I know we all were the type to try and do stupid things if it made us look good to our father but somehow, this just wasn’t one of those things.

As I remember it, he didn’t even want us on that beach or near the water at all, so had he known we were there, we would have gotten in trouble.

As was, this still was little more than a dream, though. When I woke up, I was confused more than anything else and I didn’t really bother writing it down. It would have required putting on my glasses and turning the light on and well, I certainly didn’t want to wake Leo up. The last few days had been pretty hard between work and school and we both needed all the rest we needed.

A few hours later, with the dream still oddly enough clinging to me, I did open up a page of the journal I keep around to note down thoughts and ideas, and I wrote it down. I’m sure I missed out on a few details but it felt good to write it down. Maybe I’ll ask my brothers if they remember a time when we might have gone to the waters because it wouldn’t really make sense. We already all lived in fear of what our father thought and did, so doing anything that would have broken one of his countless laws—they weren’t just rules, not to us—seems like something we wouldn’t have done.

For now, I’m letting it go and focusing on the day, there’s plenty to do and not enough hours to do them.

Making sense is overrated. Have some fun, try it out.

 
Timeline/World: Newfound Worlds – Erisia – Rockbourne Dome
Characters: Asarel Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 20
Final Word Count: 660 words
 

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I don’t know that I ever will understand the need for alcohol. I can guess that when it is used for cooking, it can add something to the dish but when it is used by people to just drink away? I don’t get it. I know that this is also something that is only found in the underground. We found so many sealed things of these fermented things when we first discovered that one room. I’m sure that since then, it must have run dry or some of the older, dated things are kept for tremendously special occasions but otherwise, I would have thought we would have run out by now.

But, as with everything else, I’m sure that these things can be learned and recipes can be figured out and there likely is someone out there or several people making their own personal ‘booze’ for the underground visitors to enjoy.

I don’t get it, I don’t.

For one thing, I don’t like not being in control of my mind, and being inebriated clearly turns people into idiots. A few days ago, I was approached by a woman, not even a man, who was clearly drunk and not merely tipsy. I couldn’t make much sense of what she was going on beyond the basic idea that somehow, making sense was overrated and not making sense was fun and was worth trying out, I think.

She was wobbling back and forth, it was clear by the changing colour of her face that she was about to be sick but two of her friends—I assume—came to take her away. The trio of women wasn’t the steadiest one I’d ever seen and I hope to never actually have to meet with someone else who drank enough to be this far gone.

They should limit the amount that people intake but I suppose that would be counterproductive, wouldn’t it? The alcohol part of the underground is a little nook, it’s out of sight of the vast majority of people and only those who know about it know how to find it. So the knowledge of its location is through word of mouth. It’s more than enough, it means that only a limited number of people are aware and can abuse the liquid.

I wish I could understand why they do this to themselves. It seems like such a weakness to let this ‘booze’ take over your mind so that you forget about your surroundings and the rest. It seems the coward’s way out of any situation and that might be my problem. I was never allowed such a thing, not really. I could only fight my way through any and all situation that required it, escaping was never going to be an option.

Even now… even now with his death beginning to fade from all of our minds and our new life settling, I’m sure that most of us wouldn’t know how to back down from a situation that we know we have to handle in some way. Or maybe I’m just broken beyond repair. Only Leo seems to be able to see the good in me, at least, of those who are not related to me. I’m sure there are others but I don’t spend much time thinking about things like there. There’s still just so much to learn, so much to work on, so many dogs to handle.

My life didn’t start as a great thing; I don’t think it was meant to. It has taken a good turn, about half a year ago, however. A turn I didn’t think I ever would get to see. I still see myself as broken for the most part and the pieces are scattered so far and in all directions that I don’t know that all of them will ever be put back together again but that’s okay. I think it’s quite all right. I think that, in time, I’ll be all right.

The fact I’m able to get anything done with you around is a miracle.

 
Timeline/World: Urbana LaCrosse University – Hopeful Beginnings
Characters: Asarel Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 20
Final Word Count: 694 words
 

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At times, I wish there was a way for someone to completely forget one person and remember another who was only in their lives for a few moments. I know, however, that this is unlikely and it’s just never going to happen. Though I know someone would likely tut at me and tell me to never say never but in the world as it is now, unless we somehow discover great magic, it’s not going to happen, and even then, I don’t think it could. Memory alteration isn’t something to mess with.

I hate my father. I think we all do. He was a man to be feared, not a man we could turn to in need. He was a man who taught us that we had no control whatsoever over our lives and it was all in his hand. The fact that he was going to marry off his daughters for work relationships and more potential money income and do the same for the sons he deemed unworthy—hint, most of us, myself included I know.

There are no memories of my biological mother. One thing we’ve realized, this knowledge passed down from the older sets onto us, was that he seemed to get one woman pregnant, around the time his current pair would be giving birth and then, somehow, at the end of that cycle, he’d probably try to get the whole delivery process force-started and do it all over again.

How else do you explain the fact that we all have exactly nine months between each birth? Maybe not down to the hour but down to the day. We’re all born nine months apart, each on the fifteenth of that month. After that, the new mother somehow vanished—she’d run off, he would tell us—but almost instantly, this new mother would be around for us, she’d be raising us as her own.

So most of us have had multiple mothers, but none of them their own. Only Aaron has had his mother all along but that’s when Andrea stopped his ugly little game. I guess he thought he had enough kids. I love Agathe, she’s been as good a mother to all of us as she ever could be but I still wish I knew my own mother. All I have is a potential name and not even a photo. I don’t know who she is.

Andrea believed in the strong. Believed that so long as his children behaved exactly the way they should, everything would be fine. I would have fallen in line with the rest of my siblings if it hadn’t been for the issues with my day blindness. That was something that irked him from the very start, I’m sure. I was broken, as far as he was concerned and I’m surprised he didn’t find means to get rid of me somehow but, you know… more kids, more government income. So there was that.

I still remember the first time that he told me about how disappointed in me he was. How it was a miracle that he was able to get any work done while I was around because I was an abomination and I made him sick. That kind of talk, when you’re just barely old enough to understand it, is something that leaves a scar and, to be honest, I think that the only reason I didn’t let it sink into my very being was for the presence of my brothers with me.

Never once did they leave me alone after that ugly day, supporting me, keeping me strong until I could bear that ugly weight on my own. They were never very far, even after that but still, they gave me just enough space to develop on my own, if you would.

Now, well now I’ve got Leo in my life and there isn’t much I hide from him. I actually try to not hide anything from him but there still are a few events like this one from my past that still feel a little too raw to share, even though it’s been years. I know I’ll get there in time.

I hated the competition between us and how you were always seen as better.

 
Timeline/World: Erisia – Rockbourne Dome
Characters: Asarel Areleous
Race: Human
Age: 19
Final Word Count: 586 words
 

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When Father still was alive, we were nothing but his perfect little soldier. We were the ones who had to keep ourselves alive, we had to train harder and it was never enough for him and my disability, which he didn’t believe in, was one of the biggest hindrances for me to overcome. This day blindness I live with, it’s a nightmare on most days.

Or, well, it was, until they gave me the glasses I now wear. The lenses’ tint change with the amount of light that surrounds me, it’s a wonderful sort of thing. That’s not to say there aren’t other issues I have to deal with but they’re not quite as bad now that this is no longer something I struggle with.

I know that I lie to myself when I remind myself that I didn’t have any issues with having such a huge disability that was completely disregarded by the man who judged our every single move. Our father made sure to pit us one against the other and while we usually managed to get ourselves out of these situations by working together, there still was ‘the board’, which was where he would keep track of the scores he gave us and I was usually almost at the complete bottom, I hated it.

Each and every single one of my brothers was seen as my better and it did make me feel bitter inside. I used that bitterness as fuel to just keep on working harder and harder until he was no more. Until he was out of our lives forever and we all—slowly—learned that we were not perfect soldiers, learned that we were not robots, that there was something more to life.

None of this learning thing was easy. We all were just so used to being treated like soldiers whose emotions had no place; soldiers whose weaknesses were their downfall.

I think that the one thing that really did put the finishing touch was when we were handed our new tags with our new name. We went from being Floros soldiers, sons and daughters of the man everyone either adored or hated because of how he ran things, to being Areleous kids, young men and women who were given a second chance at life and we all took to it with gusto.

Some of us still are adapting, no matter that it’s been a while at this point since he’s died. Others only needed a heartbeat or three to adapt; I’m looking at you, Aaron. He always was just so different from the rest of us. He was no less a great soldier, but having Emmett at his side seemed to keep him a little more human than the rest of us. No matter that it got him beat up a few times but he refused to give up his friendship. I envy him his strength.

I don’t know what I’m doing with my life as far as this is concerned. I mean, there is someone I might… want to spend more time with? But I still feel like there’s this huge divide between us and it’s mostly my fault because I’m awkward and when I try to read between the lines, I get information that scares me and—well I could keep on rambling about all of this for hours but I’ll refrain. I know I’m expected in half an hour so I better finish getting ready. These dogs aren’t going to treat themselves, in the end.