When I said ‘let me down’ I meant literally, not metaphorically.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Current Date: June 5, 2024

Character: Louis Lanoblesse
Race: Human
Age: 23
Current residence: Warwick, New York
 

---

Last year, I started teaching a first-grade class. I’d already helped while I was studying—and I’m still not quite done as I’m aiming for my Master’s but that’s coming along too—and I had a fair idea of what to expect. I never really imagined that I would get this far in life. Considering the type of hell that I went through when I was younger, I think I’d made my peace with working at some fast-food place for the rest of my life. My time in the chair changed that, and Jeff coming into my life more permanently changed that too.

I was tutoring more than a dozen students when I first started with my classes at university. I’m grateful that most of said studying could take place online. I was probably just one of the lucky ones because I know that usually, none of the classes that I’ve gone through could be taken online. Maybe it was just a matter of right-time and right-place.

It helped considering that I didn’t want to rely on the chair if I could help it, and I wouldn’t have really been able to cover all the campus distance I would have had to on my own two feet if I’d had to go in person.

The first time I stepped in that classroom with the kids just chattering away together, it made me pause, I had to ask myself if I was ready; I was worrying that they’d hate me, that I’d fail them and just, so many things born of a lifetime spent struggling with bullying. It took a couple of days before that fear started to fail. The kids were all so sweet. Some of them had a whole lot more energy than the others but I adapted, and I learned.

A lot of them had questions about my cane. I can walk longer distances now than I could years ago after I’d just gotten back on my feet, but I still tire out and yeah, I sit on the edge of my desk often enough. My bosses are aware of this and have okayed other things that I might need. There was one teacher who tried to somehow tattle on me for the fact that I wasn’t moving all around the classroom and engaging the kids and that backfired for them, it was something to witness.

For some reason, I truly thought that I’d not have to deal with drama as far as the other teachers were concerned. I wasn’t completely wrong in my belief. Most of them are fairly nice while a few just ignore me outright and I’m fine with that. Of the ones that ignore me, a slightly older gentleman seems to be able to sustain the teacher’s lounge-slash-break room drama all by himself.

I’ve lost count of how often he’ll be on his phone while in that break room—which, he’s perfectly allowed, I don’t judge, and I do text Jeff a little when I’m in there too—but he’ll be speaking loudly, as though he’s gotten a little hard of hearing with age. That, again, that’s perfectly fine. But every conversation is about something whoever poor sap on the other end of the phone did wrong.

Just last week, he was complaining to the unknown that when he’d asked her—his words—to let him down, he had meant literally, not metaphorically. It made me pause just a moment, I might have shared a raised brow with a colleague who teaches a class of second graders, we both shrugged but let it be. I can’t even imagine how that happened.

You have to understand, the man is fairly tall and bulky—to not say a little pudgy around the waist but I’m trying to be nice and I don’t know what his personal life is like and I don’t want to know either—that it would take a fairly strong woman to lift him to any height, especially any height that would require he demand to then be let down.

When it’s not something like this, it’s about a dinner that was too well done.

Or about laundry that had bits of papers still scattered throughout as though pockets had not been emptied.

If the woman on the other side of that phone is his wife or partner, I feel bad for her. He seems like such a miserable person that I wouldn’t want to be around him until the end of everything. Then again, I really don’t know him. I don’t know her. I don’t know anything, and I don’t want to know anything. Maybe all the complaining he’s doing is founded. Maybe she’s a terrible person too and they’re just perfectly matched.

I will never know.

I don’t want to know.

You can’t make me want to know.

I just wish he’d either step out or lower his voice a little. None of us wants to hear him.

Final Word Count: 827

I’ll help you with your baggage—your emotional baggage. The bags themselves? You got it, I believe in you.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Current Date: June 18, 2023

Character: Louis Lanoblesse
Race: Human
Age: 44
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
 

---

I can’t remember at all last I saw anyone with that much baggage while they were moving into one of the apartments in the hub. I haven’t been part of, or witnessed, that many people moving in and out, but in the years since we’ve settled here, I’d like to think that I have witnessed a few different ones and that it’s enough for me to make this particular statement.

It isn’t as though I’m generalizing, I’m just putting together a statement about what I’ve noticed. I wonder if you can tell that I was a teacher before the world ended and I taught in a certain school where clearly speaking your mind could lead you in trouble and you had to be good at explaining yourself. This applied as much to the teachers as it did to the students, and it was not a good time. It was, however, a job.

But truly, just a few days ago I saw someone moving in to an apartment that had been empty for some months and they had two suitcases—I didn’t even know that these types of things had survived at all—and no less than three of those large gym or sports-type bags that kids used to carry around for uniforms or sports gear. That’s a lot of stuff for someone to move around, especially considering the type of lives we have now. I’m not judging, I’m just a little baffled.

It reminded me of a neighbour that had moved into the house next door to mine a long, long time ago. It’s strange that I remember these things, but I’ve forgotten so much otherwise about life before and the means we used to get to the bunker. I had moved into that house not that long ago myself, I was still in the process of unpacking.

I knew the house next door to already have someone living in but not that long after I’d moved in, myself, there was an unmarked van that dropped a young woman outside the door of that house. She had so many bags with her, it was unsettling to see. It was almost as though she’d put everything she might have ever owned in bags and suitcases and left wherever spot she’d been before with those.

It’s hard to forget how, when the young man opened the door to her after she’d knocked, he only spared one glance at her bags before looking at her and, clear as day for some strange reasons, I remember how he told her that yes, he would help her with her baggage—her emotional one. But the literal bags she’d come in? She could get those inside herself, he believed in her. He then promptly turned around, left the door open and let her deal with her mountain of bags.

The neighbourhood I lived in was part of a small development thing where all the houses were built after one particular model. So, the interior was all the same, but one could ask for a different outside finish if they got the house early enough in. As I’d bought the house second-hand from the original owner, there was no such decision for me but I hardly minded. I was more interested in having a roof over my head than getting to decide whether or not I wanted the siding on my house to be white or not.

It was a house, I had a roof and I got to house my brother—until he did that one stupid thing that left a mark on me and took him out of my life forever—and I did get to meet Jeff so I suppose that things in my life worked out well enough.

I don’t know if anyone was waiting for that new tenant that came into the apartment with so much baggage of their own. I did recall that it had been empty for some time, but I didn’t see anyone else move in possibly before or after. Not that I spend my days just staring out the windows at my neighbours and judging their every little action but at times, I do get to catch glimpses of these things.

I’m not about to go gossip about everything that happens around here. It’s never been something I’ve done. I might speculate a bit about the people around me, but I do it mostly while on my own. That or I might discuss it some with Jeff but never to the point of trying to get rumours going. I live my life peacefully and I’d like for others to do the same.

Final Word Count: 800

Every time I hear you two bicker, I get two years added onto my lifespan. Keep it up and I’ll become immortal.

Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Current Date: April 20, 2058

Character: Louis Lanoblesse
Race: Human
Age: 104, physically about 30
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
 

---

I wonder if it’s strange that the memories I have of my schooling are, at this point, fuzzy. I mean, I graduated high school stupidly early, I entered university to get into my teaching career at a just-as-young-an-age and the rest is somewhat history. I remember some of the bullying; I remember that quite a few of my students didn’t respect me, possibly because of my age; and don’t get me started on some of the classmates I had while I was studying.

There were two in particular, they were four or five years older than I was—the normal age, so to speak, to be taking these classes—who took a bit of a shine to me. I’m not sure where it came from; it wasn’t as though I’d gone right up to them to introduce myself and let them know that hey, here I was, a child prodigy learning the rope of teaching.

One day, I’m minding my own business, the next, they’re around but not in an obnoxious way. They’re not picking on me; they’re studying at the table I’m studying; they’re eating their lunch at the quiet, out-of-the-way table I’d picked. It was all little things, in the end. I think it took me a week of quiet co-existing if you would before I asked them what it was all about; after all, I had a right to know, right? I was used to being this loner that no one else wanted anything to do with because I was clearly just too young to be around.

They were cousins, I think it was. James and Ronald. Jim and Ron, as I remember first introductions happened. It’s strange how certain details stick to you, but not the rest. It’s not such a bad thing, mind you, but it’s still strange. They just thought it was interesting that I was there and that sort of ended up being that. We went together to the classes we shared; when it happened, we ate together; we had study hours together. It was interesting.

When they became clearly comfortable with me, and I with them, I started teasing them. I realized that they tended to bicker every so often and that bickering was, most of the time, pointless. Or, well, to me, it felt pointless. I think that point is possibly the important part. They were bickering about what lunch to get, or about where they were going to go once the day was over.

In a strange sort of way, what I remember most about it all is how, at one particular point, I know I told them that every time I heard them bicker, it added two years onto my lifespan; so if they kept at it, I’d become immortal. It made them pause for all of a moment, they shared this look and I guess the rest is sort of history.

Needless to say, their bickering didn’t lessen but it wasn’t an angry sort of thing. It was petty and mostly pointless, yes, but they weren’t really hurting anyone with their bickering, so I don’t really see why it would have been a problem. I do have faint memories of others telling them to quit it, stating that they were annoying, and childish and well, it only made them bicker more—at that point, I realized that they were doing it to spite everyone else.

I don’t know for sure what happened to them once I graduated; because, of course, I got out earlier than expected but I had great grades in everything, and all the paperwork made one thing clear: I was ready to step into the workforce proper.

Thinking back, I wonder if I have any regrets about the choices I’ve made in my life. The choices that led me to that career. In a way, I knew I’d always wanted to be a teacher. I was that teacher for a few years until I lost my job over something that had nothing to do with my personal life choices but still.

I know that I never would have met Jeff if I hadn’t been a teacher. If I hadn’t taken that path in life. I think that, just for that one not-so-little thing, my life choices were clear and they were just what they should have been. I wouldn’t change a thing—well, possibly a couple of things, like my being the absolute idiot I was after I lost my job, but that’s one of those things and in a way, I feel as though it might have made us stronger, so perhaps, it wasn’t all that bad of a thing in the end either.

Final Word Count: 781

You’re only nice to me when you want things, so what is it this time?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Louis Lanoblesse
Race: Human
Age: 21
Current residence: Warwick, New York
Final Word Count: 806 words
 

---

Growing up was hard. My parents were often arguing thanks to mom being an alcoholic. When I ended up in that wheelchair, things got even worse before they did get better, but I suppose that my story is just one of many other people who have likely had it so much harder than I did. I can walk, though I tire on longer walks. I have someone in my life who means the world to me, we have four-legged furbabies—just the one, but it’s enough for now—I have a job that pays well, and I think I get the respect I deserve through that job, so, just, you know, life is doing okay.

One would think that the worst time in my life was when I was bound to that wheelchair. They wouldn’t be completely wrong but, at the same time, they wouldn’t actually be right. It wasn’t the time I spent in the wheelchair that was depressing for me. I’d actually accepted my fate at that point. I’d been told I never would walk again, and I’d made my peace if you would. A small part of me wanted things to go back to the way they’d been before but that was impossible, wasn’t it?

It was the time a little before the shooting that remains with me as being the most miserable time in the world. I never want to go back to that time, and I don’t think I ever will, but I don’t know the future. Still.

My friendship with Jeff was hovering a little into a pit of near-nothing. We talked, we stopped talking, we talked, we did argue a bit, but it was because I was worried about this idiot, and I knew I already adored him in ways that weren’t right. We were on two completely opposite ends of the spectrum, I stood no chance with him. None.

Between our arguing, I was gangly, all limbs, people ignored me unless they needed something from me or, you know, they got on my case and wouldn’t let go for one reason or another and that usually involved a lot of teasing or name-calling because yeah, I was that one nerdy kid that everyone loved to pick on. Life at home was hard though I was good at ignoring that part of me while I was at school but, all in all, I’m not going to lie, those days of my life have left a mark on me that even my stay in the wheelchair didn’t.

I think it became a sort of defence mechanism when someone would approach me at school. I’d be wary as could be. No one came even anywhere close to me and even now, I’m still not sure what drew Jeff into my life. I’m not going to spend too much time thinking about that, too.

So, when another student would sidle up to me—yeah, they totally sidled up—I’d clam up. I’d try to ignore them but, well, it was hard, and they were only ever nice to me when they wanted something from me. I knew that one a little too well already and whenever I found my courage, when one of them was near me and trying to butter me up, I’d remind them that I knew they were only nice to me because they wanted something, so they might as well get it out in the open then.

For the most part, it worked in my favour. They’d roll their eyes, they’d huff because I figure I must have taken the fun out of whatever it is they were trying to do and they’d ask for these homework answers, or information on that test and it was lame.

The fact that I refused to help them, most of the time, didn’t help with the fact that most of them ignored me like nobody’s business, of course. It only made things worse, I’m sure it got rumours started and less and less, people would bother with me because, well yeah, I wouldn’t give them what they wanted. Some still tried, I suppose they thought that maybe they’d manage to sweet-talk me into it and well, that didn’t work in anyone’s favour either.

So yeah, I’m sure it might be a surprise to some that I don’t consider my time in the chair to be the worst part of my life. Not being able to help Jeff and be at his side as I wanted to be, that was hard. Mom and her violent, drunken rage, that was hard. Being shot and left for dead? That was just the start of another part of my life, and I’d made my peace.

It’s all in the past now, though, my life is about as perfect as it can get, I think.

I could get lost in those eyes and that’s a scary feeling for me.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Louis Lanoblesse
Race: Human
Age: 102, physically about 30
Current residence: Atheria City, Eresiel
Final Word Count: 763 words
 

---

When I first realized I was falling for him, I admit that I was pretty much terrified. Here I was, his teacher—a ridiculously young teacher, I’m aware—and he was my student. Sure, we weren’t quite five years apart in age, but he still was my student, and I had no rights to be falling for him. I was young for a teacher, and it wasn’t my first relationship with a student. I don’t know if it was the age or something else, but I suppose it doesn’t really matter.

It’s not as though I was that one guy constantly looking for a relationship; there had been just the one person more before him and it hadn’t turned out well for me either that time.

I did very stupid things after I’d gotten inevitably fired from my job—not even for being in that relationship but I suppose that’s just something else entirely. I nearly lost myself and I nearly lost him. Only one nurse seemed to not lose hope for me; the doctor, I was later told, had set his mind on how he would not help me at all, even if my heart were to fail to do its job.

Looking back, I would imagine that this should have been enough to warrant the man lose his job, refusing to treat a patient but it is what it is and I’m just glad that the young nurse who kept me alive and allowed Jeff to spend the night with me still kept her own job for going against whatever ‘rules’ the doctor had set up for me. It’s so long ago and far back at this point, it’s hard to remember the details clearly.

Some of the details I do remember, however, is that upon seeing his eyes for that first time the following morning—a lifetime ago now—I just knew that I could still and would get lost in these eyes and I’d do so until the end of all time. It was a terrifying feeling for me. I hadn’t felt quite like that with the other that had come before him.

It was in no way easy after that. I had lost my teaching job, though I managed to find a job in a library for a while. It wasn’t what I had studied for, but it still was a job, and it was what I needed. Things didn’t, of course, get fixed up instantly with Jeff either but looking at us now, we made it work. We were two young souls in love and that was the only thing that mattered.

I still get lost in his eyes even now. During those dark years, when death tried to reach for me a second time, I almost let go that time too. I fell in an in-between state. It’s not that I wanted to die, it’s that I didn’t even really know if that was really what was happening to me. I had migraines that kept me unable to function for days on end, but it really was only once I’d come home on that train, and they did my once-over to make sure I was all right that they found the tumour.

Let me tell you, I spent the final few hours before the operation just getting lost in his eyes all over again; I had to. I wanted to. It was what I needed the most and only that would allow me to get back to my feet. That was all there was to it. It took me forever to get back on my feet after that, it feels like. I know it wasn’t that long, but it felt like it. I was constantly tired, and I didn’t even need to get through chemotherapy.

Jeff’s patience and love with me during that exhausting time in my life is something I hold onto when I feel a little frayed around the edges. Not that it really ever happens—nothing really seems to be bad enough to get me there—but I will never forget these moments. Nor will I forget the delighted feeling at meeting our first grandchild, even while I still was recovering.

I still remember how Willow told all of us that she wanted at least three little ones, perhaps even more. That she passed is still something that hurts but I’ve learned to accept that it is one of these things and that it’s all right to move on. She will never be forgotten but the pain of her loss has mostly passed.

I’m still here because I said I wasn’t going to give up on you and I meant it.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Louis Lanoblesse
Race: Human
Age: 42
Current residence: New York City Ruins, New York
Final Word Count: 748 words
 

---

I still remember the day my brother blew his brains out in my very pristine and white bathroom. I don’t think I could forget, even if I wanted to. I mean I’d been housing him for a while. He was struggling to pay his debt, he was sure the collectors were going to come for him. I’d offered to help him pay that debt, so long as I could potentially do so in instalments but, clearly, he had other plans.

I lost track of how often I reminded him that I’d promised to help him and that I was sticking by him because he was family. I hadn’t even thought about handing him over to the potential collector whenever they came.

So, when I first heard the shot rang out, I was pretty much in denial. Who wouldn’t be? There he’d been, in my bathroom. His brains were all over the floor and walls and the ceiling. There was not a single spot that he’d missed at that point, and I don’t know what shocked me more. That he’d killed himself or the mess he’d left behind.

His presence did have some good for me, in the end. It got Jeff into my life. Not in any conventional ways, of course, but that got the ball rolling.

Mind you, I didn’t take him in because I wanted into his pants, that’s just crass. I took him in because I guess I’m like that. Taking in strays isn’t all that usual though I stopped doing so after taking him in. I made him the same promise I’d made my brother and I kept that promise, see? We’re both here and alive and well, though, to be honest, I don’t know which of the two of us really was more the pillar when the snow first came, and it was time to head out there to the transport. My memories of those days are oddly fuzzy. They’re like an in-between that my brain tries to forget.

It’s sad in a way, isn’t it? Here is my brain, remembering almost every small detail of my brother’s suicide but I can’t remember how we really managed to survive the snow when it first started to get really bad. It isn’t as though we had been living in a high-rise. The house was a one-floor deal and just, I really don’t know how we got out. I just know that we do because, well, we’re here now, aren’t we?

I don’t know that I could imagine anything much more terrifying than the idea of losing him. For a while, I think I fretted myself to the point of an ulcer. I was worried about them coming by to get him back or about him doing something stupid because, well, it was just one of these thoughts. I’d already had to live through one person doing that, in the end.

This life, though. It’s not perfect but I think that it isn’t all that far off. Oh, I know. It’s not perfect, perfection doesn’t exist. The nights are too humid, at times. The days are too hot, people are still people and just, you know. It’s life. But so long as he’s there with me? I think that this is all I need. It doesn’t seem like I’m asking for that much, does it? I just want us to have something to call our own until we’re both too old to continue on.

It took me time to wrap my mind around these emotions. I hadn’t even really given it much thought. Not while I was younger, not until he came into my life, actually. I never thought about wanting to share my life with someone, but he unlocked that in me. Maybe I just needed someone in my life for more than just a few months to be able to feel that I could truly trust them with something as personal and private as my heart.

That or, you know, I’m not going to lie, I did find myself staring at certain parts of him once I realize that hey, you know what, I might actually be human, and I might actually have physical needs. Though that, too, took a pretty long time to manifest itself. I guess I’d always just been so focused on keeping my life on track and making sure I wanted for nothing that I didn’t give that part of me much thought. It’s all right, though. Look at us now.

I promise I’m not ignoring you. I’m simply not listening to what you’re saying while I work on this extremely important task.

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Louis Lanoblesse
Race: Human
Age: 20
Final Word Count: 790 words
 

---

I never imagined myself as a teacher, though I know that some would probably like to call me a glorified tutor. I suppose it depends on how you look at it. I don’t have any set credentials, not yet. The studying I’ve been doing isn’t completed yet but I do have a full scholarship to help me along. On that same note, most of my professors have been understanding of my limits, for the vast majority of the classes I’ve taken so far, most are available through online schooling. Only four, over the last two years, have required my presence at the university.

During my free time, to help with the house costs, though since dad left, there hasn’t been much to pay beyond the basic necessities and all, I took up a few tutoring jobs.

Now, I bet you’re saying, ‘Well there you have it, you just said it yourself, tutoring jobs.’

So sure, yeah, that’s what they started at. I’d tutor a couple of students, mostly online. They’d send me an email if they had questions, they’d actually call with bigger issues and once a week, we’d do a sort of one-on-one video call for anything more they might have need.

Except, after about four months, I suppose that this site thing where they ‘rate the teachers’ is something I ended up on for some reason and my teaching group actually grew. So yeah, sure, I’m still just tutoring these people but it does pay and the group now numbers with more people than I can count on both of my hands. I have fourteen people coming to me for tutoring so you’ll excuse me if I see it almost more like teaching than not. We still do the thing through email, they still call when they know I’m not in class though they tend to text first to find out if they can and now, twice a week, I host an hour-long group video call to answer any and all questions that way.

It’s an income and I can’t complain.

Just before the holidays, though, I had this one kid—she’s my age, I know I can’t rightfully call her that—she’d joined the group just after the school year had started up again but she hadn’t been very present for the twice-a-week video calls. Mind you, they’re not mandatory and payment is based on how long I spend with each—and the more I get to work with, the somewhat lower the cost is per student; at least, that’s how I work.

So there she is, not very often present in the group calls though she emails me often enough. She’s called me once or twice, never quite within the time frame I give them but I let it slip a few times before reminding them that I’m not their professor and that I’m helping because I can, not because I have to.

Last time I had that group call near the middle of December, she was there, it was surprising. I try to draw all of them into the discussion when I can and I tried to call on her three times but every time, she just ignored me completely. I know she could hear me, I know her microphone worked just fine, she’d been talking to another student during the break I give them halfway through the hour.

So when the hour was over, I told everyone to have a good day, I sent her a quick notice asking her to stay online and I watched as the others logged off. I asked her why she ignored me as I was asking her questions but she somehow decided that the best story to tell me was that she hadn’t been ignoring me; she’d just not been listening to what I was saying while she worked on some supposedly extremely important task.

I mean, fair. It could have been true but why log in at all if you’re not going to listen to me while I’m trying to help you because you pay me to help you? I bet you can see where I’m going with this though I didn’t so much put it into these words for her; I don’t think it would have been worth it. I just reminded her that the point of the video sessions was to discuss things and get help from everyone all around, but ignoring the group wasn’t exactly working in her favour. She shrugged and logged out without another word.

Since then, I’ve still received a handful of emails but she’s been otherwise quiet. I’m not going to chase her around. If she wants help, she knows how to reach me.

If you truly think that you aren’t responsible for this, try convincing me.

 
Timeline/World: Through the Looking Glass – Atheria 1st Generation
Characters: Louis Lanoblesse
Race: Human
Age: 101, physically about 30
Final Word Count: 651 words
 

---

Most nights, I don’t remember my dreams. I can’t complain about that particular fact, I wake up feeling rested and I can’t really ask for much of anything else. Restful sleep is something that eluded me for nearly years and now, decades later, I just appreciate every single night of peaceful sleep. It changed me, I think, this tumour and this near-death experience. I can’t take sleep for granted and I don’t anymore.

I did before, that’s the thing. I think it’s easy to take sleep for granted until you’re unable to sleep properly anymore. For a lot of people I might have known before, it’s just one of those things to then take sleep for granted again after a while of restful nights but I can’t be like that.

So when the rare dream stays with me come morning, I give it some thought. I note it down, no matter how inane it might seem and I save it along with the other rare few dreams that remain.

Most of these dreams seem to pertain to things that no longer are. A good few of them centre on my teaching years. You could say that not all of these years were terrible years. It did lead me to meeting with Jeff and well, that’s the one most important part of my life, isn’t it? Our meeting, it led us to where we are now, it led to a shared life, to children, to grandchildren. I never thought I would ever have a family like this.

One particular dream was about a scene I hadn’t thought about in, well, forever. Most of them are but this one feels like it came from somewhere buried much deeper than any other dreams I might have had.

It was close to the beginning of my teaching career, the kids didn’t really take me very seriously because I was quite young and I suppose it’s one of those things. I would have to discipline some of the students but I would try to go about it in a way that involved them realizing that what they’d done wasn’t something they were supposed to.

Once class was over, I’d take them aside and we’d talk, I’d tell them that if they truly thought they weren’t responsible for what they were being essentially ‘blamed’ for, I needed them to convince me that this was the case. If they weren’t responsible for the trouble, they would be able to clear their names, right? If there was one thing I turned out to be good at, it was listening to these kids. Most of the time, they ended up just breaking down and admitting to their guilt but now and again, a few students clearly hadn’t been at the source of the problem and did a fine job of convincing me of the fact.

There was this one student, though. I’d heard plenty of horror stories about him and the blame often fell to his shoulders but every time I would take him aside to talk about the problem, he’d talk his way right out of it all. The thing is, it was clear he wasn’t responsible for any of the things he was blamed for. Anyone worth a lick and who was willing to listen would have seen this.

When he was finally transferred school after too many complaints—none of them from my own classroom—he just sort of disappeared. I have no idea where he might have landed or what happened to him. It wasn’t as though I really could keep track of him but, in a way, it’s fine. I already understood that I couldn’t save them all, no matter that I might want to. It was just one of those things, in the long run. You might want to save every single person out there that you think needs saving, but you can’t.

After what feels like ages walking in circles, we’ve finally found the one person who could probably help us and you scare them off with your grumpy glaring!

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – New York City
Characters: Louis Lanoblesse
Race: Human
Age: 41
Final Word Count: 666 words
 

---

Kids these days, I say, as I shake my cane back and forth, glaring at the two young adults who are wandering away—well no, who am I kidding? I’m not that old and I’m just tired, so if you’ll excuse me, I think this started up on the weird, if not quite wrong, foot.

But really, I probably shouldn’t be people watching when I haven’t had enough sleep. The stories my mind makes up about what they’re saying or why they’re wandering are just really… well strange, I guess. They might not be out there when compared with other things but they’re always worth a chuckle or two to me.

Sleep has been a little elusive over the last few days. It might just be the heat getting to me more than anything else. It’s like I feel the humidity way deep in my bones and it makes settling and sleeping a frustrating activity. I probably would have to talk to someone about that. For now, I’m enjoying watching people roam and my brain is having a blast coming up with weird and random ideas as to what their daily adventures might be like.

Like, this pair down by the water, she’s been gesticulating at him for a while and she started after she tried to approach someone and that very person just sort of ran away. Or well, that’s what it looks like to me but it’s also very possible that this was just poor timing on everyone’s part but my brain offered the following when I first saw her gesticulate:

They’ve been walking around for ages, lost, unable to find their way. They’re likely from another settlement. They finally found the one person who could likely help them get everything figured out but nope! That poor sap was scared away by someone’s grumpy glaring. Now, of course, if my brain follows that train of thought, the grumpy glaring came from the guy but he mostly just looks completely exasperated by her and her still happening gesticulating. It’s getting ridiculous.

I mean, it’s not like I’m really that far off but I still can’t hear anything that she might be saying to him and with all the arm movement she’s got going on, I would have thought that she wouldn’t have been talking at a normal volume, let alone maybe even whispers.

See, this is why I shouldn’t people watch when I’m tired. My brain comes up with the weirdest thing.

It’s highly possible that she just talks with her hands a lot; it’s also quite possible that they’ve lived here since the bunker has opened its doors to let people out into the sunshine. I wouldn’t know. Despite our population being nowhere near what it was before, there still is quite the number of people living here and I don’t pay enough attention to everyone to know who they all are. I have other things to do with my time and being aware of everyone would just be headache-inducing; that’s the last thing I want.

After what feels like an eternity, she seems to finally stop gesticulating; instead, she actually gives him the finger and I can’t help but chuckle softly as he does the same right back and they both turn their backs to one another. They don’t even walk away, not really. They just stand there, back to back, a few feet between them as though waiting out whatever is wrong between them will fix itself.

Ladies and gentlefolk, I don’t think that’s how things usually are meant to work out but what would I know? My life isn’t a fairy tale though it certainly seems like it might be on some days. I’m sure these two will figure themselves out. I think it’s time for me to head back to bed at this point because I need that nap and I need it sooner rather than later. At least I’m grateful that I can sleep when it’s still bright out.

I couldn’t do it… I tried so hard. And I did nothing. I was useless.

 
Timeline/World: Atheria – 1st Generation
Characters: Louis Lanoblesse
Race: Human
Age: 100, physically about 30
Final Word Count: 614 words
 

---

When I was being treated for the tumour, I think I sort of fell into a half-between state. When I slept, I swam through memories, or what I thought were memories but they seemed so vivid that I thought they were happening as I dreamed. When I was awake, I was so exhausted that I couldn’t even focus on anything that surrounded me.

I’m pretty sure that if I hadn’t come back when I did, if they hadn’t operated when they did, I wouldn’t be here now, I wouldn’t have had more kids and I would certainly not be appreciating every moment of my life the way I do. I would be six feet under and I don’t even want to think about what that would have done to Jeff. I also don’t want to know what it would have meant for Willow but I suppose that particular point is moot, though I suppose it may seem cruel to look at it from this angle.

One scene, in particular, came back much more often than the others. I didn’t know what it meant back then and I’m not even sure if it was just bad dreams or a premonition. One way or another; one reason or the next, it made me feel guilty and I think that it likely hindered my healing process.

I won’t go too deeply into the details but let’s just say that I was being faced with a particular death, I could see all the ugly details of how it was happening and why and just, so many things but that death hadn’t happened yet, I didn’t want it to happen though it did, years later. So many, many years later. I hadn’t given much thought to that dream since then, not often as I did think it a figment brought on by delirium and even now, I’m not certain.

All we really know about her passing is that it was an accident. My dream back then didn’t really make it seem like an accident but it’s been so long and it was so painful when it happened that I didn’t give it as much thought as I had.

Every time I woke up from that dream, I felt completely drained. I felt as though I had failed her though I’d wanted to help. I wanted to reach out and stop her from crossing that road but the pain was all-encompassing, even when I slept and it was crippling, I couldn’t move a muscle.

I spent hours trying to make myself believe that I didn’t reach out to her due to the physical pain that was just as present in my dream as it was in my waking moments but I don’t know that I believe myself. I still felt like a coward, like I was absolutely useless.

I did talk about it to Luce when he came to see me. When we talked about what had happened while I’d been away, what I saw during the healing phase, everything. I hid little from the man and he offered me words that perhaps made sense back then but now that I think about it, I don’t know.

It’s been some time since she’s left, I don’t dwell on the hole left behind too often. There is too much still left to life to remain stuck in the past. She still has a hold over a part of my heart and that will never change. I just try to not think about the ache and pain of the loss, it would make me unable to live my life to the fullest the way I know I was meant to do.