Can I take it back? No. Do I even want to? Not really. You kind of deserved it.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Current Date: February 15, 2024

Character: Liberty Reinhart
Race: Human
Age: 30
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
 

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Just a few days ago, I got another good proof that keeping to my own things, minding my own business and not being an arse to others was actually a dang good thing for me. When it’s quieter and the set out tasks are all done, I’m not going to lie, I’m not against settling on the little balcony that I know we’re lucky to have—not all buildings have them in the hub and some of those balconies weren’t viable, either—and just people-watch.

It’s not that I’m interested in hearing all of the gossip, it’s not even really about that. Most of the time, I end up tuning out what little I can hear, but even just watching people go by is weirdly soothing in a way that I can’t explain. I never was one to watch ants roaming but it feels a bit like that, even if I’m not so high up that the people do look like ants at all. We’re a few floors up but we’re still close enough that you can make out some of what people are saying, but only if they’re a little loud about it.

So, most of the time, I just watch them walk back and forth, I don’t know that I really pay attention to the people themselves, it’s mainly about the movement of the people. I’ve noticed that more than once, I tend to just go unfocused so it’s the blurry motion. I do that every so often, it’s just a thing.

Once in a blue moon, the people that will be walking by will be talking loudly enough that you can hear them from my spot, and it sort of distracts me from the whole staring-off thing that I’m trying to do. Not that I’m doing it on purpose, it’s just the thing that happens, anyway.

A couple—three, four, maybe—days ago, I was soaking up some sun, which you wouldn’t think I do for how pale I still am, but I do, and I’ve learned to use the cream we still have sparingly but enough to cover because I burn. I was minding my own business, staring off in the slight distance, the shapes of people roaming here and there blurry but present.

Then, out of nowhere, I hear a shrill voice calling out to someone that they needed to stop walking right this instant. That was jarring because it wasn’t just someone being loud, it was someone yelling. I did turn my attention to the scene, it was hard not to, and I did notice others who turned to look that way too. A pair of young women—teens, very likely—and both of them look relatively angry, one more than the other but I’m just assuming, here.

To make a long story short, all I really got from the yelling that was mainly one-sided as the other girl seemed to be trying to just leave, was about how something had been said that was really hurtful, but the yelling one knew she couldn’t take it but, but she also didn’t even really want to because she believed it was kind of deserved.

That, right there, I guess, is one of the reasons why I’m not a huge fan of surrounding myself with more people than is absolutely necessary. The people I surround myself with are people I trust with my life, and I can count these people on a single hand. I don’t want to get in any sort of fight with any of them that could result in whatever it was that was happening down there.

The girl on the receiving end of all that yelling certainly looked hurt for a few moments and I wondered if it would somehow end up turning violent. Both of them were shaking pretty hard from what I could only assume was rage of sorts—I could be wrong. I wouldn’t have been all that surprised if one of them had ended up swinging at the other but, turns out, the quiet one just ended up shaking her head and stalking away. I’m pretty sure the other one had more to say on the subject, she even started to rant at the first one’s retreating back but it was short-lived.

Maybe she just ran out of steam.

Seriously, though, I’ve seen things like these happen so often while I was younger and at school. You start to trust too many people, you open yourself up to all of these people and one of those days, you realize that you opened up to the wrong folks, that they’ve done or said things you wish they hadn’t and it’s something of a vicious circle.

Or maybe I just still prefer to see the glass half empty—or full, since it’s half air, half water—and that just suits me fine. I am who I am, why change me?

Final Word Count: 822

Which one of you said I was intimidating? I’d like to shake your hand for finally giving me the respect I deserve.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Liberty Reinhart
Race: Human
Age: 28
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
Final Word Count: 776 words
 

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I’m not a fighter. I’m just fine not being a fighter. I’m a skinny guy who just wants to be left alone most of the time. I’m that guy that used to be picked on while he was growing up because of just how different he was. My eyes certainly didn’t help my case, not with their mismatched colours and the fact that the mismatch wasn’t even on the normal scale of mismatch.

Anyway.

I did what I had to do to keep myself safe while I was growing up, but in this new world, things have certainly been different. Most people are minding their own business, that in itself isn’t much of a problem and it’s been fine, but I suppose that my skinny butt still attracts some unwanted attention. It’s inevitable. The world might have changed in a physical way, but the people haven’t. There still are idiots out there who seem to thrive on the misery of others and one of them has been around our group of buildings recently.

Thankfully and I am thankful because I haven’t been the one who has had to deal with the issue, but there has been this young man—he’s young to me—who has been causing issues, picking on the younger crowd yet and just making a pest of himself. I’ve only heard the recent story second-hand, but it seems as though the idiot in question has started to spend less and less time around because someone went and stated that one of the bigger teens who spend time around was intimidating.

Considering I know the teen in question as he lives in an apartment on a floor below us, I can promise you that he’s an absolute teddy bear. He’s almost more of a nonviolent nature than I am so that someone told the frustrating idiot that this particular teen was intimidating is something unfounded. However, as it clearly helped the situation, I suppose that none of us can complain.

This whole thing did remind me of a similar situation that happened while I was in school, myself. I was that one kid that did try to be the wallflower. The people I used to live with just didn’t care a whole lot. They had a gaggle of foster kids, myself included, and they weren’t very present to keep anyone in line. I mean, they had food on the table, we each had our rooms, but it was more like living in a hotel and I spent as little time there as I could.

At school, though, I got to watch people a lot, it was just one of those things. I faintly remember one morning when this one kid just came up to his group of quiet friends, looking bright-eyed and just grinning. That was fairly unusual considering he was one of the kids who got picked on constantly while at school, a bit like yours truly. I overheard him saying that he had to find the girl who had told her little group of friends that he was somehow intimidating as that had finally given him some of the respect he deserved. I’m pretty sure there was something about shaking her hand and thanking her and all but just that one little thing, it was sweet.

I’m not sure how long that lasted, I do remember that I got transferred out of that class and into another one not overly long after that little scene, so I’m not even sure if that panned out or not, in the long run.

There are plenty of similarities between what the world used to be like before, and what it is now. In a way, I’m fairly certain that it mostly comes from the fact that we’re human. We’ve always been human, and we’ll always be human. Human nature won’t change; at least, it won’t change that quickly. We’ve been through a world-changing event, but I don’t know that it’ll change us that drastically. Sure, some have changed, but mostly so that they could survive, but in a general sense of the word, now that we’re living far more than we’re surviving, I don’t think that the change will really stick.

Yeah, yeah, I’m the type of person who sees the glass possibly as half empty, though it might as well be full because it is half-filled with water, half-filled with air but that’s something else entirely. I just don’t think you can take the a-hole out of people who were that way just because they survived a snow storm that took out the vast majority of the population. But that’s just me.

I’m a little lost, but it’s okay. I think I’ll manage to find my way no matter where I go next.

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

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It’s still weird, to me, to see teenagers just roaming freely as they like, no question asked. I mean, I did grow up in the time before the snow when you didn’t really get out of going to school, so that was on the daily things for me but, for most of these kids, school is a thing of the past. I’ve heard rumours of other settlements where they have things that resemble schools and somehow, that makes me long for places like that.

That’s not to say these kids and teenagers are savages and they know nothing, furthest from; they have ‘street’ smarts. They know their way around this new world of theirs, they call it their home almost easier than any of us do but I’m still slightly uncomfortable when I see kids that couldn’t be much older than nine or ten if they wander on their own, looking a little lost, looking a little confused.

I crossed paths with one of those kids just a week ago. He was a sweet little boy; he told me he was ten. He told me that he was a little lost but that it was okay. He’d manage to find his way no matter where he next went. That left me to wonder what had happened to his parents. Were they all right? Had he grown up on his own in the wild? That seemed unlikely. While some of his words seemed to need a little coaxing to come out right, he could talk well enough for a boy of his age. He didn’t look malnourished; he didn’t look ill or anything. I didn’t see any fear in his eyes or any healing bruises, so I just don’t know.

He didn’t stay around very long. He asked me to point him in the direction of the nearest body of water and I did. He gave me a bright-eyed grin and he was gone.

That he’s still on my mind seems to be a testament to the fact that I’m clearly disturbed by the idea of someone so young not having an adult—or at least a somewhat older teen—at their sides. As someone who grew up in the foster system, I’ve always had someone I could turn to; an adult I could talk to. I didn’t always trust that adult but there still was an adult somewhere in my life even when I wished there wouldn’t have been any but that’s just how I am.

I haven’t seen or heard anything from that particular boy since. It shouldn’t still be bothering me and I don’t know why it does. It might just be the memory of his eyes that stays with me and struck a chord somewhere in me. I think that, in a way, he reminded me of myself. It’s an odd thing to admit but I’ve rarely met anyone else with mismatched eyes and none with them as mismatched as me but that little boy, with one blue eye and one more golden, he stood out to me and I think, in a way, this is why I’m still thinking about him.

That’s not to say I can do anything about it. This world we live in, it’s huge. Who knows how much terrain he might have been able to cover in a week’s time? He could be anywhere at all and my chances of finding him are near-zero. I don’t even know what I would do or say if I were to find him anyway. It’s not like I could just tell him to follow me home and we’d all take him in, though I’m sure Kassandra wouldn’t say no. He’d be just a few years older than Storm, in the end, but that’s not really mine to decide on and, again, who knows where he’s at, at this point?

I know I have to let it go. I probably will in a while more but, for now, he’s still in my mind and I can’t help it, not really.

I’m giving you one chance to fix this.

 
Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Liberty Reinhart
Race: Human
Age: 25
Final Word Count: 631 words
 

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Not all foster parents are great. It’s one of those subjects I don’t really walk to talk at length about but I know I have to, every now and again. It’s just one of those things. I know that the world technically no longer has any foster parents to its name, at least, certainly not here in this jungle word. No one seems to know for certain whether or not the whole world was subjected to this life-changing storm and after-effects, in the end.

I’m aware that a few of the foster parents I’ve had were only trying their best and I was the one who was being difficult. I’m not going to lie about that. I’m not going to lie about anything really. It’s not my place. I might not be open about everything but I try not to lie and I’m old enough to accept that life is just one of those things.

There was one family where I’d landed that really wasn’t all that great. They had so many rules, it’s like they were trying to run a small army. You couldn’t be out beyond a certain hour, you had to get your homework done within a certain time frame, you had to do your chores at a certain time, no talking about X subject, no talking at the table at all, just, it was just a whole mess.

I remember just vaguely that, at one point, I’d forgotten to wipe down the mirror after I’d showered. It was one of their rules. Each shower was timed, each time in the bathroom was timed and you had to wipe down the counter and the mirror when you were done. The one time I forgot to do that, I was told that I only had one chance to fix my problem behaviour or that they’d just put me right back into the system.

As you can imagine, or maybe not, I did make sure to ‘behave’ after that, even though it had just been a small mistake. Beyond their crazy rules, the whole place wasn’t so bad but it’s not where I spent my last couple of years before the snow storm came. It’s not something I’m willing to be open about much, no matter that it’s been years at this point.

Even Tempest isn’t privy to these details and I don’t really hide anything from her. I have no reason to. She doesn’t judge me for the life I lived before and I think that’s for the best. I’m not a bad person, I never went looking for trouble but I looked just different enough from what was considered the norm due to my weirdly mismatched eyes, that I was often enough on the receiving end of bullying. Not something that sat very well with me.

I like to give people plenty of time and chances to fix any problems they might have. Especially if it’s something simple and small. It just seems easier to help people to fix their issues than bully them into it because you don’t make friends that way. Not that I’m trying to make friends. I’m fine with being a partial loner. I’ve got Tempest and her family and that’s good by me.

Giving people ultimatums doesn’t work, not really. They might fix whatever it is they have to fix to fit in with the timeline you give them, but they don’t learn anything from it. All they’ll remember from the situation was the fear and discomfort they felt while they did all they could to ‘make it better’, trust me. It’s just not worth it so don’t do it.

Not that I can change the world and not that I’m trying, but it’s one of those things that I’ve learned.

Stop using lame excuses to get me to do your work.

Timeline/World: New York City – Surviving Earth
Characters: Liberty Reinhart
Race: Human
Age: 24
Final Word Count: 541 words

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What do you do when you hate the people you work with? In some cases, I’ve seen people pick on these people in hope of driving them away, in other cases I’ve seen some flat out ignore the jerks they hate—I fall into that category—and in some cases though I’ve only witnessed that twice, it’s the jerks themselves who seem intent on making sure the uncomfortable person of the group gets saddled down with more work than they can manage.

I’ve been on the receiving end of that last one recently and it pisses me off. I’m a pacifist through and through, ask any of the people I work with or the people I share my life with. Not a lot of the latter but just enough for me to be content with my lot in life.

Stuart makes it easy to want to hate him, though. I’m not sure if he’s just all around lazy or he seems to think I’m the perfect victim. The one with the weird eyes—’hey kid, why you wearing just one contact lens and why is it pink, you gay?!’—who tends to stay on the skinny side of things and who just doesn’t argue with the higher-ups about the job needing to be done but Stuart just pushes all the right buttons to make me mad. Not that I’ve yelled at him but I told him to step off his high horse, I told him to stop using lame excuses to get me to do his work. None of it has really worked but I’m biding my time. He’ll get what’s coming. Karma’s a bitch.

Don’t give me that look. I’m not plotting anything, not really. I’m just being patient. Patience is something I have plenty of. I spent a lot of time before the world ended just sitting out there in one of the public gardens and just watching the flowers bloom. I’m that weird kid that could sit motionlessly for hours without really feeling a need to do anything else and without feeling my muscles bunch and seize up on me.

I’d probably be a good hunter if the thought of killing an animal to eat it didn’t make me queasy. I can sit still and silently endlessly. It’s just one of those things. So yeah, I know Stuart has it coming and it’ll hit hard when it does, I just feel it deep in my bones. It’ll be a well-deserved blow and while I won’t laugh and point, I’ll feel satisfied enough to not lose any sleep over it all. I’m looking forward to that.

Mind you, I don’t do all the work he tries to pile up on me. I may look like an idiot or even like I’m simple but I’m not. It’s no fault of mine that his ‘chores’ are never done. I never once agreed to do his work for him and he’ll either finally get into trouble or he’ll get switched teams until they realize he doesn’t work well with anyone. Unless somehow there’s someone out there who has what it takes to get him back on track but I’m not holding my breath for that either. He’s just an idiot. Nothing more.