You’re not getting the point. You want to save people, but you don’t want to put in the effort.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Current Date: April 26, 2023

Character: Izaeah Engström
Race: Human
Age: 33
Current residence: Spirit Falls, Wisconsin
 

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I don’t know the people who are currently arguing on the edge of my lawn. I saw my lawn because they’re right by the edge of where the fence stops and that’s where we were told our yard ended when I bought the house with his help. It’s been years at this point and there are days when I still find myself baffled by the fact that he offered to help me pay for the house when we’d only just met not even days ago on the bus, and he’d gotten off at the same time I did. It’s surreal to me.

The two people arguing on the edge of the lawn, though, I truly have no idea who they might be. Now, plenty might like to point out that this is because I’m something of a hermit and I much prefer to keep to myself, and I don’t know the few souls who still remain within Spirit Falls, but I think that this is different. These are strangers; I might not have met everyone in Spirit Falls, but there is something about the clothes they’re wearing and the fact that they came from beyond our community that makes me believe they’re strangers.

Strangers who are currently arguing loudly enough that I know what they’re arguing about, even though it makes no sense to me. Something about wanting to save people but not being willing to put in the effort. Now, from having to listen to Sarah-Lee gossip—she tries hard to drag me into her little gossip world but it’s one of those things that I just don’t do—it seems as though the fog might have changed the way certain people saw the world.

Of those who left, some did so in hopes of being able to save others out there from something or other. Did they believe that the fog still had some souls trapped out there and somehow, being on the outside, they’d manage to sweep in and save the day? I just don’t know. Again, this is all based on the gossip I know that Sarah-Lee loves and thrives on. I don’t understand people who gossip. It makes no sense to me.

Maybe it’s all something she made up in her mind to keep herself entertained; I just don’t know. I don’t like spending time at the store, but I do go when we need to because I don’t want him to have to be the one to deal with her constantly. I know he can handle her just fine but it’s just who I am, I guess. I’m a huge softy who still feels like he needs to do his part as necessary so just, yeah. Anyway.

For a little while, I thought I was imagining the pair arguing at the end of the yard. I haven’t been feeling great over the last few days because I would have missed them entirely since we’d be at the store at this point; or well, that’s where he wandered off to, earlier. He should be back fairly soon and by that point, I guess I’ll just have to ask him to confirm that I’m not crazy and that there are strangers arguing out there.

If they’re still there by the time he comes back; I mean, by all means, they might very well be gone by then.

Will that change anything in my life? Not really. For all I know, they really are just a figment of my currently under-the-weather imagination; put there because I needed something else to focus on other than how cruddy I currently feel. I know that we don’t have a whole lot of medicine left on Sarah-Lee’s side of things. At this point, I’m not even sure if what she has left behind the counter shouldn’t just be set on the other side of the general store. I know that there’s someone not very far who does herbal teas of sorts and it’s been tempting to try and will myself to head over so I can ask about them.

Somehow, I don’t know that I’d manage even that much but unless I try, I won’t know, right? I know that if I ask my housemate, he might very well be willing to go ask about the teas. I can only imagine that they would help, in their own way. It’s how people took care of themselves before all the big pharmaceutical side of things took over, right? I know it’s not so much taking over but I’m sick and I’m allowed to currently not really have a good way with words. I know what I’m thinking about, and I know how to deal with it all and anyway, I’m rambling and they’re still arguing out there. It’s just so weird.

Final Word Count: 799

You want something. The flattery tells me everything I need to know.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Characters: Izaeah Engström
Race: Human
Age: 31
Current residence: Spirit Falls, Wisconsin
Final Word Count: 740 words
 

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I had to learn to grow a backbone of sorts when I came here. He offered to be the one to go out to the store and to deal with the people, but I couldn’t let him do that. For one thing, it didn’t seem quite fair to him and, just, I can’t hide behind someone else forever, tempting as it is. I don’t like being around others too much and I know I have trust issues, but I still forced myself to try and interact at least with certain people that I knew I couldn’t avoid forever.

Some of these people, of course, included the two cops—two men that, I’ve learned, are very nice though they terrified me at first—as well as the nice young man that takes care of the fixing up of most slighter and not so slighter issues as they come up, but the one I was most wary of and, even now, I don’t know what to make of her, is Sarah-Lee.

I’m not used to someone who is open and chatty and just flat-out flirty with everyone. She lives and thrives on gossip and the first time I went there on my own, she was so sweet to me that I felt like I was trapped in a cage, and I fully expected her to turn around and demand something of me because of what my brain perceived as flattery though it wasn’t. I know it wasn’t but it’s just one of those things and I’ve learned though it’s still hard.

I much prefer the quietness of the man who takes care of the store-side of the building though he was missing for a while near the time when the fog finally lifted. I never asked because it’s not mine to ask but I was pretty glad to see him back in the store. I figure he’s deaf, but it makes for a mostly soothing experience for me. I’m that much of a weird one.

I don’t know how I didn’t end up fleeing the store, the first time Sarah-Lee started talking to me and just generally chatting me up. She was looking for gossip—that much I know now—but that has never been part of my life and I just didn’t know how to answer any of her questions, they all felt so invasive. I can’t put into words just how much of a private person I am, I don’t know that anyone—not even Sarah-Lee—but my housemate knows much more about me than my name and the fact that, yes, I do live in that house on the partial outskirts of the community. I’m that kind of a private person.

I suppose that living in a place where nothing was your own and just… I try not to think back about that place; if I’m going to be honest, I don’t remember any of it much other than the terror I felt while out there and my clearest memories of whatever it was back there, is of the plane crash and, well, that wasn’t pleasant one bit but hey, here I am, right?

I’m alive and in one piece, I’ve survived whatever it was that happened back then; I’ve survived a plane crash; I’ve survived the fog and now, I don’t know that I’m thriving but I’m certainly beyond surviving this life, so I’m living my life as it is and I’m trying to make the best of it.

While the fog was at its worse, I thought the house would cave in. The fog was just so thick that I felt like it was pressing in on all sides and my brain kept on making up these cracking and creaking sounds and—well those turned out to just being the house settling as usual. Sounds I’d been hearing since moving in but that fog just terrified me so much that my brain pretty much turned to mush, I guess. There’s no other way to look at it.

I’m a mess, but I guess that’s just the way it is and I’m fine being as I am. If anyone has that kind of patience to become part of my life, then I’ll just have to let them, but they have their work cut out for me. I mean, I’m surprised that he’s still living with me at this point, but I can’t complain. It makes life easier.

This house and all its secrets now belong to you. Good luck, you will need it.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Characters: Izaeah Engström
Race: Human
Age: 30
Final Word Count: 712 words
 

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When I bought the little house on the edge of the community, I bought it directly from the previous owner. In a way, I thought it was a nice touch that there was this sort of personalized ‘service’ thing going on. I’d been wary of having to deal with a third-party someone who would likely gain a commission from the small sale price of the modest home.

I’m not going to lie, I was surprised at the really low price tag. Then again, I guess that places do sell for less, in much smaller communities like this one? I don’t know. I didn’t exactly look around before we found this one and bought it. It did cost me a good chunk of my savings but it’s one of those things. That he offered to help me pay for it, when it wasn’t even certain that he’d be staying with me for long, was baffling but somehow, for some reason, I let him.

Now, as we signed the paperwork for the house and all, we were made aware that there were a few things that needed to be fixed but I think we both were fine with that, it would give the both of us something to do; though in a way, it more aptly gave me something to do because, as he’d told me when he got off that bus with me, he found a job within a couple of days.

The strange thing that still stays with me even now, was that the old man told us, as he gave us the single set of keys that I had doubles made of. He told us that the house and all of its secrets now belonged to us. That, in itself, wasn’t so strange. It was as he followed that up with ‘good luck, you’ll need it’, that baffled both of us. That almost sounded like an omen and for a few moments, I know I briefly worried about what I’d gotten myself into.

Over the course of the first few weeks, every little noise the house would make as it settled woke me up. Being of a pretty nervous disposition, those noises, plus the old man’s cryptic words, didn’t make for very restful sleep. Eventually, I did get used to it all but I still wasn’t sure about how things would turn out.

When the fog first settled, my mind went into absolute overdrive. I was afraid that somehow, it was all about the house and that in some malevolent way, it was the source of the problem. For a while, I even fully expected the rest of the community to be at my door, telling me to shut it all off but I was talked out of these terrifying thoughts and I settled again.

Not that the fog didn’t frighten me but, in a way, it didn’t terrify me half as much as water does, or as the thought and memories of what happened back then. Back before the plane crash, back before everything.

Realizing that it had lifted, that one particular morning after I lost track of how many days it enshrouded us in tar-thick opaqueness, I was almost at a loss for thought. I couldn’t catch my breath. I had three panic attacks during a single day before he managed to calm me down. He kept me company almost nonstop for the following two days, mostly keeping track of how well I was doing and, seeing as the fog wasn’t drawing back, I managed to adapt to this new life, again.

My mind went to so many different places over the recent while. For a bit, I was sure I’d just died in the plane crash and that everything I’d survived through had been nothing but my after-death life. On other days, I thought that I had imagined the whole fog somehow in a terrifying dream and that no time at passed at all. I could go on listing all the weird things that my broken brain made up as an excuse to not understand the happenings outside but I’d rather not, it’s been exhausting enough to find a new balance of life, knowing that the world out there seems to have just completely vanished.

If I had said something else, would it have made a difference?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Characters: Izaeah Engström
Race: Human
Age: 30
Final Word Count: 904 words
 

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I would be lying if I’d said I didn’t know why I moved from the little community I’d lived in for almost a decade. It wasn’t so much that the pool had kept taunting me all along and I still couldn’t bring myself to put even so much as a single toe in it without feeling the need to panic; it was the earthquake that made me move. The thing is, I don’t know why the earthquake made me move and that’s the truth.

It didn’t destroy anything substantial though there were some property damages and that did include the pool. In a way, I’m glad it did but at the same time, there clearly was something that happened after that earthquake that set me off because I remember telling the landlord I was moving—I was within the time frame necessary for that as was and my lease was on a monthly repeat pattern instead of the year-long ones I knew most other places were working with. I remember packing up my meagre belongings and leaving.

I remember buying a ticket for the first city name I found that didn’t ring a bell but sounded quiet and there it was, Spirit Falls. I mean, the name sounds peaceful and it was surprisingly only a few hours away from where I’d been living, so why not? It was—still mostly is, fog aside—a quaint little place. I found a house not far from the edges, a small thing with just enough rooms to be comfortable. It feels more like a cottage and in all there only are five (and a half) rooms. I have the kitchen with a little dining room attached, there’s a little living room, three bedrooms—one I converted into a working room—and the bathroom. It’s more than enough and when I’m not working away at my laptop, I use the rest of that room as a bit of an escape-from-the-world room.

The bus ride to get there was mostly uneventful, except for one couple sitting just in the seat in front of me. At, I say couple but I figure I could be wrong but they seemed to be close. They were arguing but in a quiet, heated way. I think I only heard them because I was sitting right behind them. The boy was mostly tight-lipped, I heard her more than I heard him. She was confusing.

One moment she was apologizing for something, but the other she seemed to be blaming him for something else. I remember her, at one point, asking him if it would have been any different if she’d said something else but I didn’t catch his answer, I didn’t really have to. He got out of his seat at that one and actually stood in the little centre aisle for a few moments, his eyes probably roaming the place to find somewhere else to sit because moments later, he was sitting down next to me.

I mean, I guess it was effective because they’d been trying to keep it silent and arguing through two seats wasn’t very smart and it ended there.

He got out at the same stop I did. I don’t know whether he meant to or not because the girl certainly didn’t get off with him. His luggage wasn’t very big and I’ve wondered about it a lot but I didn’t ask him. I still don’t ask him. I know he’s aware that I’ve heard his argument with her but it doesn’t mean much now. I guess he’s mostly gotten off at that bus stop to get away from her, it was a brash decision and one I think he might have regretted for a bit when the fog rolled in but he hasn’t really said anything about it.

All he told me, as we walked our way into the little town, was that he’d known that girl all of his life and he’d just hoped that one day, she’d change her habits but it clearly wasn’t going to happen and he’d needed a break. That break is going to last forever now, there’s no getting out of that fog.

Do I feel bad that somehow, we’ve been living in that house since? Not really.

When we got to the centre of town, he finally seemed to snap out of whatever it had been that had made him step out of that bus and he gave me such a sheepish but honest smile. He told me that he had no idea what he was going to do in this little place but that he was used to moving around and finding work wasn’t very difficult. It was finding a place to live that a bit more complicated. He usually tended to rent a room somewhere.

I’m not usually one who feels comfortable around strangers, not after being stuck in that Place but there was something about him that put me at ease and as we both looked at the few places up for rent or sale, he’s the one that spotted the house and well, I felt drawn to invite him to the extra room I wouldn’t need. It would split the costs, not that they were very high.

He’s been a soothing presence at my side still and I can’t even begin to put into words just how good that makes me feel.

You have to stop being a coward some day.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Unspoken Promises
Characters: Izaeah Engström
Race: Human
Age: 27
Final Word Count: 556 words

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He looked at the pool a moment before slowly shaking his head and taking a single step away. He knew he would have to face his fears one of these days but today just wasn’t it, he couldn’t bring himself to. He wasn’t even sure why pools reminded him of his time out there, in that Place he had no real name for.

Perhaps because what faded memories he had of his time before that Place, he recalled a pool, he recalled the warm waters caressing him and enveloping him, holding him secure and afloat as he enjoyed the peaceful moment.

The memory made him shiver and Iza wasn’t sure if it was a shiver of delight or one of repulsion. He couldn’t remember how he had gotten to the Place. He didn’t want to remember either. He only remembered the physical pleasure he had no wishes for at the hands of the man—no the creature—that had taken him there. Him and so many others.

Just the same, he remembered escaping, he remembered the plane and how it crashed, how he’d hurt when he woke up and yet, the sound of lapping waves had mostly kept him from panicking.

Shuddering again, Izaeah moved to sit down on the edge of the pool, gazing into its clear water and down to the shallow end where he sat. It wouldn’t be very high on him, that water, but still, his heart began pumping uncomfortably every time he thought he would manage to get even just one foot in the water.

“You have to stop being a coward some day.” He murmured the words harshly, looking at his surroundings, at the buildings that surrounded him. It was a private pool, only those who lived in their little community had access to it and he was certain he was the only one who hadn’t used it yet.

He longed to be in that water, every warm day, he woke up, looked out his window to the pool and his heart ached to go back to the water that he knew had held him so close to its breast before, held him safe and afloat.

Shaking his head, he eased back to his feet and stepped away from the pool; out of its enclosure that he made sure was closed and locked. He walked back to his building, stepping inside the cool, somewhat dark interior. He was surprised by how quiet it still was in the building but as he looked at the clock on the wall he realised it barely was five thirty in the morning.

“You’d think I would manage to sleep in, on the days I don’t work.” He shook his head in amusement as he started up the stairs, taking them slowly. His limp was near gone after a decade out of the hell that had been the Place but still his ankle bothered him now and again. Once he was back in his apartment, he locked his door, stepped towards his bathroom and disrobed as he started his shower going.

If he couldn’t will his heart and mind to let him have a swim, he would at least soak for a long while under the steaming heat of his shower. It wasn’t the same but it would have to be enough for another day.