Can’t believe you’re doubting that we can get away with this. Who do you think I am?

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Beyond Knowledge
Current Date: April 30, 2024

Character: Cornellius Stratford
Race: Halfling – Human / Vampire (Daywalker)
Age: 173, physically about 24
Current residence: Rotterdam, Netherlands
 

---

People are idiots. I suppose it should come as no surprise. I’ve seen more than enough at this point to be able to smell a bad idea from a pretty damn good distance. Though, I know this also comes from the fact that I know I’m surrounded by idiots. By people with more brawn than brain going on and, well, I’m not going to complain.

Especially not when I’m the one coming up with those bad ideas and they’re too stupid to realize it when I sweet-talk them into going through with it. All it takes is a little nudge and that nudge doesn’t even have to come from my dad’s side of my bloodline. I bat my lashes at these idiots, I promise them things they’ll never be able to get, and the rest is history.

Do I feel bad for leading these men on and not giving them what they believe they deserve? Not really. The vast majority of the young, but very adult men in my life have approached me thinking I was a woman. They stepped in close, thinking they were smooth while at a club, or while I was bored and roaming late at night, but their intentions were clear. A poor, helpless woman to be swept off her feet. It’s too easy to turn the table on them and before too long, they’re like eager puppies that just want to do everything you ask of them, even if what you ask of them is pretty damned stupid.

Is it fun to have all of these men ready to trip over their own two feet just to get me what I want, even if I know I can just reach out and pluck it from where it sits? It was, at first. There are days when it just becomes an absolute bore because none of them can really give me what I’m hoping for. So, at this point, it’s just easier to play the heartless little bitch and act as though all I’m after is pleasurable company and little more.

What’s a man to do when he finds himself craving just a little bit of a deeper connection? It seems almost impossible to find here; though I’ll be honest, I haven’t really looked. I wouldn’t know where to start. My mother has long since passed away—barely surviving childbirth, thank you father—and said father was mostly absent. He still ensured that I had someone to take care of me until I could take care of myself on my own, and until I was of a certain age, there was an allowance that was deposited into my account.

Once I reached that particular age, he cut me off, as though admitting to himself that he’d done what he had to and there was no need to stick around anymore. Thankfully, even back then, keeping money in the bank was hardly an issue and once the years ticked on by and placing that money in particular ways to get back more income became more common, I dove right in. I might not seem like it—I admit, I probably look more like a spoiled princess than not to most—but I know my way around technology and finances pretty well.

When you get to be my age, though I know I’m young compared to others, you just realize that you have a world of time to learn new things and learning new things just keeps me on the borderline edge of not-boredom. I pick up new classes on all things computers, phones and technology fairly often though there’s plenty I don’t care about. Anything that has to do with making things pretty bores me to tears, but I like digging my way through codes. And whenever there’s something new about the financial world, I try to keep myself up to date on that as well.

I’ve looked in on the man who was my father—he still is, I suppose, but I haven’t seen him in nearly a hundred and fifty years—and while he’s doing mostly well for himself, for a vampire of his age, I would have expected more. Maybe it’s asking for too much. I haven’t reached out to him, I don’t see the point. He walked out, why would I walk back in, especially when I know he would try really to get me to ensure he gets more money from what he has to his name.

So sure, I guess that in a way I’m something of a nerd. Or whatever derogatory term people want to use. At least, to the few who know this side of me. To all the young, still very adult men that chase after me for my ass and a little bit of fun? They think I’m just a sexy beast that can take them places. I’m the pretty one with the spot-on make-up and the just-right wardrobe that’ll give them a boner to eclipse all other boners they’ve ever had.

I’ll take what I can get at this point. Beggars can’t be choosers or whatever. I don’t mind so much, it could be worse. I could be dead, I could be on the streets, living like an animal, I could be stuck living in the darkness for all times and while I love being out in the dark, I can still appreciate the warmth of the sun on my skin. My life could be a lot worse than it is.

Final Word Count: 911

Do you often help masked people who are hurt in alleyways or am I just special?

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Current Date: April 14, 2024

Character: Cornellius Stratford
Race: Human
Age: 35
Current residence: Urbana, Iowa
 

---

How is it that he still finds ways to come to me in my dreams? By all means, I know I should hardly complain but as of the last few years, I feel as though I have made as much progress as I might manage on my own when it comes to finally moving forward and—even if to some it might seem as barely any progress—that my thoughts rarely stray to him anymore. By allowing myself to finally move on in some ways, I felt a veil begin to lift and I noticed differences in things. Small differences, but still differences that were present enough that I could leave my title somewhat behind.

Does it mean that I now mingle freely? Hardly so. I still do make myself take walks. I still manage the ghost of smiles towards others whose path I cross, no matter the strange looks they send my way as they likely have little to no idea as to who I am in the long run. My time at the store is usually very short-lived just the same and I engage very little in conversation, but I still manage nods and the hint of a smile for those around.

While it might not seem like much to an outsider, this progress is a huge thing for me. Even just five years ago, before the fog lifted, I would not have gone outside at all unless it was desperately needed. Even as the fog lifted, I would still not have gone outside, not at the very beginning.

All of this, for me, is possible because I have made myself, in ways that I cannot even properly explain how yet, move on from him. I have put away all of that which I still had that reminded me of him—it left the house bare but that was all right—I changed my habits, little by little, and I sought to think and focus on other things.

So, when he finds his way into my dreams, rare as it is nonetheless, I feel as though I stumble back several steps into this long-winded recovery road that I have tried to build for myself. I believe that there is still someone here in the community that I could speak to who would likely help me further along, and help me cement my steps in some way, but I find myself unable to reach out to them. Just as I can manage little more than the barest of nods and smiles to those strangers who should not be strangers, I find myself rooted in place in my own home when I think of reaching out to someone for help that I know I need.

The first step to a better recovery is to understand that there is a need for help, I believe.

Still, he was in my dreams last night. It had been close to a year, it feels like, that he had last done this to me. I refuse to speak or even think of his name; the only step I feel that I have managed to hang on to at all so far. In this dream, he still was his beautiful, pale self. The light that my life had always needed. He came to me in that dream in a way that he had not before. I know that our meeting was set up, that in a way, the love I grew to have for him should never have been, but it did and look at me now.

In that dream, our meeting was so starkly different from what any of our meetings had ever been; it was akin to that of the stories I knew he loved to dream about. Those almost fairy-tale-like stories that made our lives just so different from what they truly were.

He was in an alleyway that I do remember crossing through often just before he came to be part of my life, settled there, near the mouth but still far enough to be in the shadows. He was hurt and… wearing a mask. A mask could not hide who he truly was and the disarming smile since the mask only covered the upper half of his face. He asked me if I often made a habit of helping masked people who were hurt in alleyways or whether he was just special.

It made me want to sweep him right into my arms and walk him out of that alleyway and right back into our home. That very thought is what jarred me awake, however. This very home—the one I live in now—was never ours. I moved to this little city after he had been taken from me. After his departure from my life, after I had somehow managed to wash the blood from my skin, I took to the roads. Living in a place where the memories of his taking were so strong just was not an option.

I know that the dream will fade. I know that he will slip from my mind to a point, but will that point truly be enough for me to manage to make my way back up along that road to where I had been standing, I have no idea. It frustrates me; I feel weak when I stumble back into this painfully slow recovery but what more is there for me to do?

Final Word Count: 904

Are you aware that your child has a tail?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Characters: Cornellius Stratford
Race: Human
Age: 32
Current residence: Urbana, Iowa
Final Word Count: 740 words
 

---

Otters are oddly cute. I’ve never been overly familiar with them, though. Not until I moved here. There is a river not very far from the house. It is only a few minutes off though I’ve never really gone there, not often. There was no need, after all. Why would I go there at all? The house had all I need for my despairing self, after all.

Since the fog has lifted, I’ve made myself go on walks. I’ve made myself step outside. I’ve made myself try to humanize my life again if you would. I’ve spent just so much time alone that being anywhere around others is stupidly difficult.

This fact is not helped by the point that I have a hard time letting go of my past and, through that, I have a hard time connecting with anyone else. For so many years, I was Shadow. Challis was the only light in my life and when they were taken, I merely sank deeper and deeper into what I was.

Yes, I still do see myself as a completely foolish man, but I still do believe that I’ve made quite a bit of progress since the fog has lifted. I do more than barely survive though it’s not much more. It still is more than just barely that. I go out, I take walks. I even manage partial smiles to the people I cross. People who give me odd looks, I’m certain, because they have no idea as to who I am since I had worked overnight up until the fog.

In a way, I guess that’s all right.

It gives me a reason to mostly just slowly try to get used to the idea of humanity again. Yes, I’m well aware that it has been nearly twelve years since he was taken from me, but such is the way of things, and nothing will change that.

Now, otters.

Otters are not human, but they make for interesting companionship. As I’ve mentioned, I’ve made myself take walks. I have to at this point. I know I can’t just keep on wasting away at home. It certainly would serve a purpose but not exactly a right one. A few days ago, I wasn’t far from the bank of the little river that’s only some minutes away. I’m sure that, to some, they wouldn’t really call it a river. It’s not exactly big but it still is clearly big enough for otters and who knows what else.

I don’t tend to take food out to them when I go on walks. From what little I know, these adorable little—not so little, not with that tail—guys are carnivores, and I wouldn’t want them to start thinking that I come by to feed them. I’m sure they can be vicious if the need arises, and I don’t want to be subjected to that. On that same note, I could be completely wrong, and they’d probably just not bother with me at all.

The last time I was out there, it was getting fairly chilly but that didn’t stop them from playing in that water. I sat not very far, a cup of capped tea in my hands and I just watched them. At some point, what I assume is a mother otter almost came up to me, a slighter one following it along. I have to assume that it was one of its offspring. I read somewhere that otters will present their young to you when they feel threatened. I’m not sure how real that is.

There was no presenting, not on that day, just one mother otter—I assume—and its pup, not very far from me. I almost found myself smiling at the ridiculous thought that crossed my mind. I almost spoke to it, asking it if it knew that its child had a tail. It was such a ridiculous thought, I don’t know where it came from. It did make me smile, however, at least a little.

That has to count for something, right?

We watched one another for some time, I didn’t budge. I merely kept my hands wrapped around my slowly cooling cup, the two otters stayed where they were, possibly also watching me. After perhaps five or so minutes—I admit that I no longer wear a watch—they both turned and headed back to the water. It was a strange but not uncomfortable moment.

When we get lost, I ask them where we should go and then head in the other direction of their answer. We almost always find our way back.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Characters: Cornellius Stratford
Race: Human
Age: 31
Final Word Count: 839 words
 

---

I never thought the fog would lift. When it did, my heart started beating faster; first, in hopes that maybe the outside world would rejoin us again, but after, it kept to its beat perhaps thinking that I finally could find a place to escape and finally let myself waste away. I am more than a little aware of how pathetic I sound. I don’t need to be reminded of that.

Just before the fog lifted, it became so dense that we were all stuck inside, left wherever it was we had been at the time. Had I still been able to work the night shift, I know I would have been at the store still but as that had changed, I was home. I still have a hard time living by day-time, no matter that I spent nearly two years doing that. I still tended to wake up in the late afternoons, though usually closer to late evening to accommodate my new schedule. I would be awake all through the night, work my shift from the early morning to the early afternoon and I would go home, sleep, repeat.

As one who was awake at night, I still saw the things that roamed in the fog; I can confirm that they were real. As real as my mind might have wished to make them but as I was not the only one to see them, I trust that they were real and not a creation of my broken soul meant to torment me. I saw the way the fog thickened over the hours of that particular night and when morning came and it was nearly as dark outside as it had been all night for the thickness of the fog, I stayed put. I crawled back to bed. I told myself that no one would have been foolish enough to step out into this thing that made it impossible to even see the tip of your nose.

I saw the things roaming in that fog, though. I saw Challis in the fog but I know that this was but my imagination; was it? I haven’t heard of others speak of what they might have seen through that dense fog but people barely talk about it now that it’s gone. They mostly talk about the big fire that took two lives, as though, somehow, now that the fog was gone, it was as though it had never been. The world outside has changed, aged a hundred years but people—except those who left—act as though their lives haven’t changed.

On that first morning, though it very well could have been night just the same, when I was so certain I saw Challis—a shadow of his former self—in my windows, I swear I could hear echoes of his laughter. Laughter that brought me back into memories of our time together before everything else. One of the rare times when we could be ourselves and not have to worry about any of the consequences.

I dreamed that day. I dreamed of him and of our walks through the woods; I dreamed of his laughter as we would get lost. I remember how he would ask me which way we should go and, after some thinking, I would point a random direction and, with a grin on his lips, he would turn in the opposite way and kept walking.

The thing is, we never had walked through these woods. We never got lost. We never did any of these things. I feel as though the dream was trying to tell me something; I’m quite certain that the fog was trying to draw me into a final embrace but I refused its invitation.

I am a weak man. I know I am a weak man. A man whose heart and soul have been shattered into even such small pieces that they never could be put back together. I think about him a little less now. I take long walks in the forest, I force myself to let go. I have spent years trapped with the memories of him in this house and in this fog and I know that, for my sanity, I need to let go. I will let go. It will only take time and patience still.

Looking back, the first years of the decade were the hardest; I know I had been making progress in letting him slip from my mind and only keeping whatever positive memories I still had of him, but that fog, when it came, it changed everything. I don’t know what was in that fog, what I do know is that it showed me things that I had been trying to move on from and yet, sentience seems to not be something fog should have.

I’ll try to think about it as little as possible at this point; I really am trying to finish moving on. I have no desire to fully leave him behind but I cannot waste away any longer.

Your weakness is my strength.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Characters: Cornellius Stratford
Race: Human
Age: 30
Final Word Count: 605 words
 

---

Even with the fog, I think about Challis.

Even with this inability to escape, I think about him. It’s been ten years and he’s still on my mind and when the fog first came, I thought I’d found my escape route. I saw the figures drifting through the fog, I saw the eyes, I saw perhaps even teeth and for a few moments, the weak side of me—is there a side of me that isn’t weak?—thought that my hour had finally come but here I still am, stuck, alone, barely surviving but now I’m not alone in this predicament.

I’m the foolish one who went out into the dense fog at night, however. I’m the one who waited on the eyes to come, to converge, to make a feast of me but nothing happened. Perhaps they sense that I am weak, perhaps my weakness is what gives them strength. Perhaps they will keep me alive just to keep me suffering but that would be foolish of me to think that they are here only for the sake of seeing me suffer.

I am a broken man. I am not who I used to be, I don’t know what to make of everything. It’s been more than a decade and I still do not trust myself to open up to others; that’s why I’d moved here. It was a small town, people didn’t ask too many questions though many were curious and they let me down my own thing.

I would wake up in the late afternoon, usually even the early evening, eat a quick breakfast, get ready for work, work through the night and come home for meals and rest. That has been my life since I’ve moved here and worked the night shift that no one else seemed to want is perfect for me, it keeps me away from most everyone else but three other coworkers.

That has changed since the fog came, however. With the curfew in place, night workers no longer can work nights and instead, we work the earliest possible shift and while people complained about our presence in the store before, they have gotten used to us placing things on the shelves while they’re about.

The issue, however, is that the number of items in the warehouse is diminishing as people buy. There have been no deliveries since the fog has settled and I’m actually surprised that there’s anything left in the warehouse at all. At times, I’m sure some things seem to simply be appearing out of thin air. I don’t want to think about that too much and I haven’t mentioned it but I’m sure that there are things that I’ve placed on the shelves that we no longer had in the back and yet, the following night, we suddenly had a couple more that had come out of nowhere.

I cannot be the only one who has noticed these things but I refuse to be the one to bring it up. People hardly know a thing about me; I don’t need them to think that I don’t have all of my mind. I imagine that things don’t simply appear, they’re only found but that idea will only hang around so long before it no longer is viable and something does need to be done about it.

Not that it matters, not really. The end will come eventually, it has to. Once it does, that will be that and I will let it take me. Don’t assume to know me. I do not seek death but I will not fight it if it comes to me.

You should rescue him first.

Timeline/World: Mixed Races
Characters: Cornellius Stratford
Race: Human
Age: 28
Final Word Count: 529 words

---

Let there never be a time in your life where you have to make this decision. Being forced to decide on who lives or who dies first is something that will tear your heart out of your chest, rip it to itty-bitty pieces and then shove it back in there like it doesn’t matter that you need the thing to live. It is one of the most unpleasant things ever and let me tell you that I never want to be in this situation again. I was there once, it broke something in me and I’ve never really been the same since.

I’ve also been living on my own since, just completely unable to face sharing my life with someone else and chance being put in the same situation. I’ve never been able to understand if I was the cause of this situation or if this was just a case of bad luck, being at the wrong place at the wrong time. I guess, in a way, it doesn’t really matter. It happened, I told them to take my life because I didn’t want them to harm a single hair on Challis’s head, but I guess that to them, it was the wrong answer.

Why give someone a choice between their lives and that of the one they love, only to go against their decision to save their loved one? That is hardly a choice. I had lost so much when he’d been taken away from me the first time, the second time was a permanent removal of his presence from my life and I still have yet to find comfort from that. It has been ten years, ten. I still ache at the thought of him and no amount of thinking about the situation makes it any better. What could I have done to change things?

The markings are gone now. I don’t know how, since they’d been inked deeply into my skin but they’re gone. With Challis out of my life, I feel empty. I feel as though I’ve been completely left behind and forgotten and maybe it’s best that way. I just barely manage to keep myself alive on a daily basis; I don’t know that I would manage anything more if there were someone out there interested in being at my side. Not that I could let them, not after Challis, not after them. I would rather die than face that kind of loss again but I don’t get a choice, do I? That’s just how that’s supposed to happen, isn’t it? I just barely trust myself to have someone at my side and some higher power of sort decides that I don’t deserve them, that I’m a sinner and that they should die so I might suffer more?

I think being alone is the better option. It is not ideal but it is the best. Living as I do, barely making it day in and out, I don’t want anyone else to suffer for me, suffer because of me, suffer because I’m a foolish soul. I’ve learned my lesson, best I stay alone and barely surviving. It’s all there is to my life.