Did I say I didn’t want you to hold my hand? No? Alright then, just do it already.

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Current Date: December 29, 2058

Character: Kimiko Taylor
Race: Human
Age: 48, physically about 26
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

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The strange dream still lingers, and I wonder at it while I wash our few dishes from our morning meal. Yes, I know that morning meals are technically breakfasts, but I’m allowed to think of it, and call it, whatever I might want at this point. This is a morning meal, just as some hours down, we’ll have our mid-day meal and then our evening meal with snack breaks throughout. I’m quirky, blah, blah, blah, let me have my thoughts on the subject.

Anyway.

I know we all dream. Some of us probably remember them better than others and that’s all fine and dandy. I think I woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning, so to speak. My emotions feel all over the place and I’m having a hard time focusing on most things. I know Della’s going to be patient with me no matter what and I think that this is my anchor when I wake up feeling like this. I might have some doubts about it now and again, but I still know that she’s going to be there for me, and with me, in the long run.

There was nothing really bad about the dream, not in a way that would turn it into a nightmare. It’s closer to the opposite, in a way. I don’t know that it was a good dream, there was a whole while in there that was showcasing me feeling low about myself and Della just being ever so patient with me but by the end of the dream, before I just woke up, was super sweet in its own right.

So, I figure that seeing it as a strange dream is better than not understanding any of it, in the long run. Can’t really tell me how to classify my dreams, in the end. Everyone being different, dreaming different things and all that rot. I really am in a mood this morning, it’s going to be one of those days and I think I might try to work up the courage to ask Della if we can have a two-day outing somewhere warm and near water. I think that’d do me good.

Long story short, though, dream me was feeling low—an ironic thing, right this moment—and Della was just reminding me that it’s okay for me to want to reach out for her hand; she’s never told me that I couldn’t hold it and when I want to, or feel the need to, all I have to do is reach out and do it.

Which is what I did end up doing. It took some work and a lot of mental gymnastics, I do remember that from the dream, but just before I woke up, I had reached for her hand, she’d drawn me closer, and I sort of woke up about then.

At times, I feel like my dreams are like, precursors of what my days might be like. I think that’s the right word for it, I’m not completely sure but I do think that’s it. One way or another, it’s all right. I just mean that there are times when I feel like my dreams are showing me bits and pieces of what might just happen during the day. I don’t like it, not really.

I’ve never liked being told what to do. My parents could confirm this easily, and the idea that my dreams would be doing something like that doesn’t sit right with me. In a way, I know that this isn’t really what’s going on—at least, that’s what I’m telling myself. I think that my dreams might just be a reflection of whatever emotional imbalance is going on with me at the moment and that’s that, really.

There’s no routine to my emotional state. I can’t write out a calendar and go ‘hey, I’m gonna be feeling this or that way on that day, and on that other day, I’m going to be feeling this way too’. That’d be a bit too easy, I think, and I’d be fighting the so-called predictions because I’m a little bitch that way and you can’t tell me what to do. If emotions were on a schedule, there would probably be pills or whatever else to deal with that, I’m sure.

What I do know, for today, is that it’s not going to be a great day. I can rarely pull myself out of this space quickly when I’m there, it usually takes me about half a day before I start to overcome the feeling and during that time, well, yeah, I end up invading Della’s personal space when I can make myself do it. It’s always a bit of a guessing game on what the day will be like as a whole, but I guess that it’s okay, I can deal with it. I mean, I’ve been doing it for years so, yeah.

Final Word Count: 822

Sometimes I wonder why I still go ghost hunting with you.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Current Date: October 7, 2022

Character: Kimiko Taylor
Race: Human
Age: 29
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
 

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On quieter days when I don’t have anything lined up and I don’t have to go out there to help someone—it isn’t all that common anymore, not for me anyway though I still do my part—I like to just sit on the balcony and just sort of lounge. Is that weird? I guess it must be. It’s not that I even like people watching but, for some reason, sitting on the balcony, my face tipped up the dappled sky, it feels good. So, in a way, I’m not even really people-watching. I’m sun-soaking and whoever walks on by talking is just one of those things.

Well, at times, the things you hear leave you scratching your head a little.

Or maybe I just don’t have enough life experience yet, despite everything that has happened with the snow. I suppose it could be that, in the long run. Like the ice cream thing from something like a year ago—I think—people talking about things I have just no experience with whatsoever is strange to me. All the movies they watched, the video games they played, the urban exploration they’ve done, the ghosts they’ve chased. There are so many things.

It’s that last one that left me scratching my head a little. Not so much because I didn’t know what ghosts were—I’m not that much out of the loop as far as the world outside is concerned, even if that world has changed—but I don’t know that I ever gave it much thought. Ghosts were things that some of the girls at the school spoke of in hushed tones when they thought no one else was listening to them. The penguins would have had people’s heads, I think, if they’d heard them talking.

Never you mind that whole holy ghost thing they constantly spoke of every Sunday. Ugh, I still remember being forced to sit through all that, it was exhausting. Their holy ghost is one of a kind and ghosts, in general, are an abomination or something other. Were, I guess, much more than are since none of them made it.

Anyway.

I don’t know how many of them were walking by the building. It’s not as though we’re very high up. There’s the new ground floor just below us and we’re on the floor right above it. I guess we could have been higher up but this one is fine, and we have a sort of privacy setup around the balcony to keep prying eyes out, but the sun can still slide right on in, it’s so nice. It’s dappled and all but that’s good too.

All I really heard of that conversation that I was more than ready to ignore since I was in full lazing mode, was something about how the one doing the talking was wondering why they still went ghost hunting with whoever it was they were talking to. I didn’t even know that was a thing. I mean, I think I’ve already pointed out that while I’d been aware of things ghosts from some of the girls at the school, which was the extent of my knowledge, and I wasn’t all that interested in learning more.

So, to half-hear someone talking about hunting them was a little confusing. I found myself shifting my weight just barely, as though thinking to get up to try and have a look at whoever had been talking but, instead, I shook my head, nestled a little more in the lounging chair we’d found and dragged onto the balcony—big enough for two to nestle—and I closed my eyes again.

I must have drifted off; next I opened my eyes, it was to the sun starting to ease down and changing the colours in the sky to suit its mood for the day. I hadn’t planned on spending all of my afternoon there, but I guess that in a way, I might have just needed the rest. I know that I have a fairly easy life at this point, I can’t complain about any of it, and I wouldn’t really complain either. I don’t know that complaining would do me any good, anyway.

I enjoy my life here for the most part. The only thing that bugs me—no pun intended but it is what it is—is the bugs. There’s really nothing I can do about them, and I think that this is okay in its own way. They’re part of life and I’m part of life too and we just have to somehow manage to meet somewhere in the middle. I hate them, they don’t care about me, we live somewhere in the middle where we mostly cohabit and that’s that.

Everything else is pretty nice, end of the world or otherwise.

Final Word Count: 801

I didn’t know you had your own personal gargoyle.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Kimiko Taylor
Race: Human
Age: 46, physically about 26
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 762 words
 

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A year or two ago, through some reason or other that I’m honestly not sure I remember, I started looking up gargoyles. I don’t know where my desire to know more about these things came from. One moment, I’m looking at the spine of books in the library, the next, I spot one that has an odd but neatly designed gargoyle on it and I’m bringing it out with me to a table.

If I’d just looked at the images, I would have wondered just what use these things served. They looked like sad and at times flat-out weird-looking monsters that were perched on the corners of big, old buildings. Castles and cathedrals and other whatnots.

It’s through reading that I found out that they’re set where they are to keep the rainwater from running down the stone sides of these buildings and causing erosions, amongst other reasons.

Digging through the archives, I found several videos that showed these gargoyles in action and, you know what, they were interesting. I mean, they still looked strange, as far as I was concerned, but they were interesting.

A few years before that, I’d found myself fascinated with rain chains, but our installation wasn’t really all that great and that side of the house got enough wind that even while it was secured, it clanged some and, well, it wasn’t pleasant, especially not at night. On that first night when things got cold enough to drop into a below-freezing temperature, the whole setup sort of failed, so it got uninstalled.

Anyway.

Cue my looking at our house from all angles and through the system to try and find something that could be interesting, and I found gargoyle downspouts. They’re honestly stupidly cute, at least as far as I’m aware, so that’s a thing. My adorable, loving Della looked fairly confused when I first mentioned it but hey, it’s been installed for some time and it does the job just fine, so I don’t see why either one of us would complain.

When I first mentioned it to mom, she gave me this look at though she wasn’t sure whether she was supposed to believe me or not. She even checked if I had a fever at that point. I suppose I can’t blame her, it really was out of the blue, this new discovery, but it’s been a cute sort of addition to the house and I think that it gives the place a bit of a charm.

It’s certainly not a gargoyle at each corner of the house, keeping the water from running down the sides but it is my own personal gargoyle and there are times when I feel like I discovered that book for a reason.

It was a big decision, telling Della I wanted that downspout installed and I had to actually sort of half argue with myself on it. My self-esteem has its ups and downs and there are days when I feel uncertain as to whether or not the decision, I’ve made about this or that thing was the right one. Anything that goes on with the house is normally a decision we make together but this one was just, it was a little extra and I wanted it and if she wouldn’t have wanted it, it would have been fine.

I mean, we tried the rain chain and it didn’t work, she was patient with me as we looked through the models and everything else and she was willing to give it a try and it’s possibly why I felt like I could give this cute downspout a try and, well, look at it now, water in one way, spits it out the front and it looks weirdly cute while doing it.

I know I’m strange. I know I’m not like everyone else, though, I’m also aware that everyone is different in their own way but how many people can say that they have their own personal gargoyle, even if it’s just an adorable downspout one? Maybe if the house had been built a little differently, we could have opted for a proper gargoyle on the roof but that’s okay, really. The bigger ones all just looked sort of sad in their own way and I much prefer mine to look silly while it spits out the water over grotesque or something else so, you know, I’m good.

We’re good. It’s all good and everything is fine, and dandy and I know I don’t have to have any doubts as far as this decision is concerned.

Some of you have never experienced the pain of ice cream flinging itself off your spoon onto the floor and it shows.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Kimiko Taylor
Race: Human
Age: 28
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
Final Word Count: 749 words
 

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A few of the folks closer to my age group were talking about ice cream earlier today and it made me pause. Not because I had to really think about it, but because, the more I did give it some thought, the more I realized that I couldn’t remember ever actually eating ice cream. My parents weren’t big on anything sweet, and I don’t know that the penguins even knew what ice cream was. That’s funny, isn’t it? Penguins, not knowing what ice cream is? Thing is, I’m pretty sure the nuns that took care of us at the school knew what ice cream was, it just was one of those things that probably didn’t ‘deserve’ to exist, in their world.

It wasn’t one of those things that their almighty god looked well upon. Not that it mattered much to me back then. I hadn’t had any by the time I’d made it there, so not having any at that point either didn’t change my life in any way.

However, listening to these people talking about ice cream and how they missed it, and how this flavour and that one was their favourite, it made me wonder if I hadn’t missed out on something in my life, in a way. It’s hardly the end of the world but it’s been on my mind. It’s not like we can make ice cream anymore, I don’t think. I know we have electricity and it’s running well enough to warrant a few scattered lights at night, but I don’t know that any single one of us even has a running freezer anymore. Fridges yes, but I have no idea about any freezers. I know we don’t use ours.

In the group, there was this one guy who just looked so serious through all of their discussion. He hadn’t said a word during the time I’d been there, and it sort of made me wonder a bit about him. I might not like to talk to other people much, but I suppose that people-watching is a thing and he was weird enough to warrant it.

Almost.

I’d been getting ready to go back to what I’d been doing when he finally spoke. He started with a deep sigh that seemed to catch the attention of everyone else in their little group. He said that it was clear that some of them—the others in his group, I guess—had never experienced the pain of ice cream flinging itself off of the spoon and to the floor. It showed. That made me blink at him and the silence that fell onto the group made it clear that I wasn’t the only one confused as to what he was going on about. I mean, it was out of the blue.

How does ice cream even just fling itself off the spoon? That stuff is food, it isn’t sentient. I can imagine it probably like, melting a bit and possibly sliding off but I wouldn’t call that flinging itself off. For a kid, it’s probably the end of the world to lose that snack when you’ve been craving it for a while but as an adult, it didn’t make much sense for him to say any of these things.

As is, I think I’ve sort of heard someone talking about shaved ice, not that long back. I’m not even sure what that is, and I can’t help but think that this certainly would need a freezer for that to work, right? I mean, we’re talking about ice that’s, what, been shaved? Ice needs a freezer, so maybe someone has stuff figured out, I just don’t know. I don’t understand why anyone would want to eat ice, even if it’s been shaved. It’s just cold water, right?

Cold water certainly would be nice, that’s not really an easy thing at this point. You’d think it would be, but the water here is lukewarm at best most of the time. It can be heated up and all and the water near the heat sources is a lot hotter, sure, but otherwise, at least in our apartment, lukewarm is as cold as it gets, and I’ve gotten used to it. It still quenches your thirst when you need it, so that’s what matters in the long run, yeah? Yeah.

So whatever, you weird idiot who thinks it’s important to differentiate between the folks who’ve never ‘lost’ their ice cream versus the ones who have. What a weird thing, honestly.

The worst will come and you will still be there, holding on.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Kimiko Taylor
Race: Human
Age: 45, physically about 26
Final Word Count: 760 words
 

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My low self-esteem, when I was younger, was the stuff of nightmares. I can look back now and shake my head at how stupid it all seems now, how foolish and just, I know I can’t help it, I was born this way. I was terrified that Della would find better and it led us into so much heartache, even from a young age.

I remember the accident though only just vaguely and you could say that this is for the better. That thing changed me in a fundamental way. That’s not to say it was a very quick change because it wasn’t. It was a slow change, something that took place over the course of months that must have led into years. Even now, I know that this accident remains with me.

Looking back, I wish I had the confidence of being able to tell myself that hey, look at this, the worst hasn’t come yet and still Della is going to be there with you, at your side, staying with you through thick and thin. I doubted myself, I doubted her, I doubted so much of everything that surrounded me and it led us down a path that ended up with, well, my being hurt enough that I needed medical fix-ups, meds and, of course, a Della-addition to my dorm room at school.

A few weeks after that accident, I recall how Mom sat me down and we just, we talked. I think we talked for hours. She told me about growing up, she told me about her own thoughts, her own issues with self-esteem. She told me about her struggles and we just sort of talked everything through.

I’m not going to say that it fixed everything and magically made everything better but it did help me better understand myself and it did help me to wrap my mind around how I seemed to be working and what I could do to help myself along.

I trusted Della easier after the talk I had with Dad, I trusted her even more after the talk I had with Mom. I can’t take all the credits for being able to turn myself around so that we could have that sort of life that we deserved to have.

Are our lives as they are now all perfect and wonderful? Most of the time, I’d like to think that we’re doing pretty perfectly so. I just know that now and again, we come face to face with situations that we need to take a step back to evaluate but, in a way, I want to believe that it’s not just me or not just Della—because that’s part of loving her, being open and listening and understanding—and not even just ‘us’ but it’s something that everyone goes through.

All those fairy tales they try to tell you when you’re younger? Those are full of shit. In case you might be wondering, I do have issues with those because the ones they tell kids are the sweet and sugary versions. I do get that it’s the point, you’re just telling your child a sweet story and it’s only a few years back that my curiosity got the better of me and I actually looked them up.

It was out of spite, of course. I wanted to bring up the books just so I could skim the endings and scoff at them but I found the original stories, I found the Grimm stories and several others and those, now those made more sense to me.

My life, as it stands? I wouldn’t change a thing.

Is it perfect? No.

Is it as close to perfect as it will ever be? Yes.

That’s the one thing I strive for every day. Living a perfect life is something of a lie if I think about it and I don’t think that’s something I want. Nothing is meant to be perfect. Sweet and wonderful and just right with a little dip of ‘what the hell’ once in a blue moon but perfect? No thank you. I think I’d be bored out of my wits.

All of this, all of my issues and my troubles and the broken bones, it wasn’t fun, it wasn’t great. What it was, however, is the worst of it and look at that, we’re still here and together and holding on. It gets better and will only keep on getting better, so you just watch me. I’m making the best of everything and you can’t stop me.

Was it important? No. Am I going to do it anyway? Yes.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Kimiko Taylor
Race: Human
Age: 26
Final Word Count: 676 words
 

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There’s a freedom to be had with this end of the world thing. Do I miss my parents? I can’t say I do. They didn’t care much for me—because of my behaviour, I can admit to this easily enough—and I didn’t care much for them in return. Do I miss some of the girls I’d somewhat, just barely befriended before the snow? Not really. There is one and I think that most of us miss her. I don’t think it’s right that she didn’t make it and, like the not-even handful of us from the world of the penguins who survived, I know I struggled through the grief of her loss. I wasn’t particularly close to her but she still had been someone I called a friend.

There’s so much that I’ve left behind that I don’t miss. I’m not going to lie, my behaviour has changed a lot since the world ended and was then reborn but I think we’ve all had to change. Sure, I’m still the same person I was when I first landed with the penguins but, at the same time, I’m clearly not.

Living with the penguins—the nuns, but that’s what pretty much all of us called them—wasn’t easy. They were the old-fashioned ones who believed that their mighty god was the answer to everything and that if one of us got sick—Leann in this case—he would take care of her. They’d lock her in her room and pray for her. Ros is the one that got her out of that situation and, I’m not going to lie, I hated Leann for a little bit. Why did she survive and Roslyn didn’t?

I lost count of how many stupid things I did just to push the limits of how far the nuns would go to punish us but not lose face in the presence of their mighty ruler. Was any of what I did important? Not really. I was just a frustrated teen lashing out. Did I do it all anyway? You bet I did.

Did I start delightful rumours—that turned out to be true in the long run—just to see the penguins flustered? Sure, I did. Did I sneak into their offices to look through files at one point? Sure. Did it serve any purpose? Nope. I got nothing out of there.

Most of the time, I didn’t really get caught. It happened a few times and I landed in hall D but that’s all in the past at this point. I suppose I’m just feeling a bit weirdly fragile this morning. I woke up to a dream-memory of things that had happened not long after I landed at the school and it left me feeling all sorts of, well, out of sorts. I don’t really know how to put it into words. Those first few months of my transfer into that school are a little hazy, not so much because I was on drugs or anything—I’ve never tried drugs in my life—but because there was so much going on and my life was changing in such drastic ways.

I hated my parents for sending me there. I get that they were at their wits’ end and, in a way, it allowed me to survive this whole mess but, at the same time, it feels like they just took the easy way out. I mean, I don’t know for sure how much they tried to rein me in before they turned to drastic measure but I guess that it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it? It doesn’t.

I’ve got other things to deal with and worry about with the life we have now and that’s enough to keep me in line, I think. I don’t have to fret about the roof on my head or food but the little creepy crawlies and other things that’s something else entirely and I’m still doing what I can to manage my fear of them but I’m not managing very well.

I don’t remember volunteering for this.

 
Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Kimiko Taylor
Race: Human
Age: 25
Final Word Count: 593 words
 

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I might have mentioned that I don’t like creepy-crawlies. I think I’ve mentioned it often enough that Della knows when I’m heading for a freak-out before I do. It’s just one of those things.

Except, one of those things, this morning, has turned out into a nightmare and the ugly look sent my way by the guy who leads my team has been enough to shut me up about it. I’m aware that this is a new and unexpected thing out of me. Ask anyone who knows me in any particular way, they’ll tell you that I rarely handle authority well though with the world ending thing, I’ve mellowed out a little.

This, though, this might be a case of mellowed out too much.

We were just told that we were going to be accompanying another team into a clean-up effort and that clean-up effort is taking us underground, so to speak. When the snow melted, one of the first things everyone realized was that there was no going back to the way things were and the second thing was that the ground had gained an extra ‘floor’. Everything that had been first and ground floor on most buildings had been swallowed up by roots and lianas and vines, you name it. Most of it was gone. I’m sure that further down the way, that’s not an issue but around these parts, as far as anyone is aware, it’s that way. So most ground floors of buildings have been left on their own except when someone finds a way inside.

And that’s exactly where we’re going today. Underground into some sort of warehouse-sized place that someone found an entryway into.

Can I begin it all with a mention of ew, oh god, potential bugs, beasts and who knows what else? Who the fuck volunteered me for this shit? I don’t want to go underground, I don’t want to be anywhere near possible bats, I even less want to be anywhere near bugs of any sorts and they’ll give me nightmares for weeks if that happens and I don’t think I could take that, so could we just not?

I tried talking to the guy in charge of this expedition but he just gave me such an ugly look that I didn’t even get to say a single word. It’s rare that someone manages to shut me up this quickly, let alone with just a look but the guy seemed ready to murder me and while I don’t really love this new lifestyle, I do rather like being alive so I’m just going to shut my mouth and maybe just either skip out on the expedition or go beg Della to join me and the rest of this stupid crew. I know, at least, that if she’s with me, it might not be quite as bad, so that has to be something, right?

Last time I ended up in a place with bugs, I flailed, I cried, I looked like I was five years old and I’d just been told Santa wasn’t real and I had nightmares for a couple of weeks solid until I was given this tea of sorts that soothed my broken mind mostly back where it belonged. I’ve kept some of that tea mix on hand since, I haven’t had to use it and I’d actually hoped to never have to use it but I guess I’m just going to have to. I’m not looking forward to that, not really but what can I do?

Stop stealing my pens. It’s hard enough to find them.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 3rd Generation
Characters: Kimiko Taylor
Race: Human
Age: 43, physically about 26
Final Word Count: 553 words
 

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I will not lie, not about this. I used to have an imaginary friend and I blamed her very often and for quite a few things. Not that it got me out of trouble, it would actually get me in worse trouble than I would have been for telling the truth but it took me years to actually realize that part.

I’d lose pens a lot. I’d blame my imaginary friend. I also lost pencils, crayons, paper, a whole lot of everything, really. I can’t even blame it on the fact that my room might have been messy because it wasn’t. It was the one thing I had going that I was proud of. I kept my room pretty clean to the point where disappearing pens and other items frustrated me. I want to claim that this is why I used to blame Rosalie.

Eventually, I would find my missing items. At least, most of the time. A lot of the time, the pens were somewhere far under the depth of my bed and seeing as my bed was sitting against two walls, it tended to be dark down there. I didn’t like digging for anything under my bed unless I absolutely had to and when I ran out of pens—most of which my parents had gotten me quite recently—I had to get down under there and look for them.

I still don’t really know how they ever really made it that far. My bed was on the opposite side to my desk and I didn’t exactly fling my pens left and right, just waiting to see if they would end up rolling under the bed or not. I liked to place them right back into my little pen cup holder and I counted them every time before bed. I didn’t count them when I got back up the following morning but I did check on them when I started doing my homework and there usually was always one or two that was missing from my previous count.

There was no blaming Mica, he never stepped into my room and we had no pets so I couldn’t blame that either. I still really don’t know. Maybe Rosalie wasn’t even just an imaginary friend but a playful spirit. Not that I’m giving that much thought. I still lose items left and right but not half as often as I used to when I still lived at home. Not half as often as I used to before I started spending a lot more time with Della than most would likely have thought ‘safe’. Not that I cared what they thought.

None of that matters anymore, though. I own up to my mistakes as much as I can. It’s not always easy since I guess I still have a tendency for not wanting to be the ‘culprit’ when there needs to be one but what will you do? I’m an adult and it’s part of being an adult so I’ll do it.

I lost track of Rosalie a few months after I started going out with Della. I’m not sure if it’s a coincidence or not. I didn’t try to get her back. I’m surprised she lasted this long but it might just be for the best that we’ve parted ways, in the long run.

Can you pay attention?

Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Kimiko Taylor
Race: Human
Age: 24
Final Word Count: 535 words

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I’ve never liked school. I’ve liked it even less when my parents shipped me off to a private, all-girls school run by nuns. I couldn’t even truly begin to understand why they had sent me there. At least, I could pretend not to understand while I understood well enough why I was stuck with the stuck up penguins. I hated it.

After some settling in, I could pretend that none of it all really mattered. Of course, there was no really getting away from getting in trouble but after one time, just one time spent in solitary, I learned to tone down my habits. Solitary was a hellish place to be in and I’m sure that if most parents had been aware of the place, they never would have agreed to send their daughters, nieces and cousins there.

Now, that didn’t mean I paid attention during class time. Most of the time, I was daydreaming. I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t that I knew what was being taught, most of it was new to me and my grades on exams were borderline failure but I was just that way. The way the nuns explained everything just made it all seem dull and it was impossible to truly pay attention.

Man, when the snow started falling, I think a lot of us got to panicking. Well, not at first, not really. At first, this was just like any other snow fall that most of us had ever witnessed but when it failed to stop after the first couple of feet, I know I got worried. I know you’re thinking that a couple of feet of snow are nothing but a couple of feet of snow in this place, all at the same time, are worrisome. There’s something just wrong about so much snow all at once and I felt like a caged lion.

The nuns, of course, were all for us staying right where we were and praying to God that things would get better, that the snow would stop and that we’d pull through. I’m pretty sure that most of them believed this was some sort of rapture or some bullshit. I don’t think any of them survived.

I wish more of us had survived the snow though. We’ve lost important people and even me, the girl who has always had issues making friends, can admit that these losses hurt. I may not have been close to them but they still were part of this odd little sort of partial family thing we’d had going on here. We had to stick together back in that school and there were a few little cliques but I think that this is what made it bearable.

Now that we’re out, now that the sun is shining, the jungle is everywhere and we’re trying to live more than survive, I do my best to pay more attention to things. I do drift off into my own thoughts now and again but who hasn’t done that? It hasn’t gotten me into trouble yet and I know what sorts of trouble await anyone who isn’t paying proper attention. I’m not going to let that get to me, I’m just not.

We weren’t supposed to pass that building three times. We’re lost.

Timeline/World: Atheria 3rd Generation
Characters: Kimiko Taylor
Race: Human
Age: 42, physically about 26
Final Word Count: 531 words

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Now and again, I like setting up an ‘outing’ into the old world. We’ll set our virtual reality room to a random city and a random date and we’ll call it a discovery date. Most of the time, it’s actually really fun, the only rule we’ve set is that the place where we come into the scene is where we step out of it too unless we’re very seriously lost and it only ever happened once. I’m not sure which one of us has a better sense of direction but we’ve always managed to find our way back to our starting point, even if, in some cases, it took some time.

The one time we got lost though, I’m not even sure how we managed it at all. Well, no. That’s a bit of a lie, the whole thing turned out to be a bit of a mess and we’ve put it on the list of dates to come with a warning because it’s pretty chaotic. That list is short; we can handle a lot but that one day really was something.

We’d landed in the middle of something a bit like a gang war or something, I can’t remember. We can’t get hurt in the VR but it still did a good job of shaking me up, I had nightmares for a couple of weeks following that day and it just wasn’t pleasant. There were bodies everywhere and severed heads and just—I don’t want to think about it too much. We were backtracking so much, trying to get away from all of the horrors that we lost track of where we’d been and how we’d gotten to where we had.

We passed several buildings twice, some even three times and by that point, I knew we were more than a little hopelessly lost. We have an emergency code we can use in these situations, it is the only time we ever did use it and that, alone, set it on a list of places that weren’t really safe to wander through. At least not in the date range it had dropped us in.

I think the place would have been nice if it hadn’t been for that, though. What I do remember of it. We passed by a park that had a huge lake and I’m pretty sure I saw fishes swimming in there but we were running to get away from something and I only could look at it in passing. We must have been in spring because the air was sort of cool but warm and there were so many flowering trees. Maybe I’ll try to see about us going back there but a year or four prior, at a time when whatever was happening out there wasn’t happening and we could just really wander around and discover things the way we normally do instead of just trying to run away from the sight of carnage.

These are all big fat maybes. I don’t know if I want to go back, pretty park with flowering trees and a lake or not. What are the chances of picking another date but still landing in a time of hardship?