I have a lot of regrets and I think having caffeine this late is one of them.

Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Project: Lucifer
Current Date: November 22, 2022

Character: Maximillian Rosenfeld
Race: Human
Age: 37
Current residence: Aubagne, France
 

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A few months into the little deer family settling into their routine, our world changed again. It’s been a little more than a year at this point and I’m still trying to wrap my mind around it. It’s just so baffling. The Silencers left. The one nearest to us was still so far away that we barely had its glow to contend with but over the course of a few days, that glow faded, little by little until we were back into nothing but the pitch-black of night and the stars above us.

I don’t know that either one of us really realized that; or if we did, we didn’t pay it much mind. We only realized that silence wasn’t of the utmost importance during a rather private moment where things got perhaps a little out of hand. There was a single cry and, honestly, I know we both were certain that this was going to be it.

And yet… it wasn’t. We’re still here. We’re still not overly loud, I don’t know that I trust the Silencers to be completely gone. Life has changed again and while it has been a year, I’m still wrapping my mind around it.

I’d say that the little deer family stopped coming around that time. I don’t think our neighbour is the reason why they’re gone. So, I took to that thought with a small hint of relief.

We were settled by the crackling fire in the fireplace a few days ago, just quietly reminiscing about the past. I don’t know which one of us got the ball rolling, but I guess that it doesn’t really matter. We’ve both lived so long together that I think that there will always be times when we’re just going to have a passing thought of that past, one way or another.

Yukio came to be on the subject, and I think that we both possibly sort of expected it. Once or twice a year, I think, we sort of just settle and think back on how things turned out, on how we could have possibly done things differently—mostly me on that front, I’m sure. I’ve blamed myself a lot—and I somehow brought up to the surface one of the few times before we all properly met up.

I’ve always been an early riser. Yukio was too most of the time but there were days when he much preferred to roll over and go back to sleep at least for a short while if he could help it. These mornings were more prevalent on the mornings following nights when he’d have coffee a little too late and it was the same story over and over again. Every single time.

He’d huff about having quite a few regrets—being stuck learning from his father to take over the business was far from being fun and games—but that one of the main ones really was about having caffeine so late in the evening when he knew he had to sleep soon and the caffeine would keep him awake much longer than he wanted.

I could hardly commiserate with him on the subject, I’ve never been one for coffee, much preferring orange juice if given a chance and only ever in the mornings. I kept to water for the rest of my day, and it suited me fine. Once in a blue moon, I could have been talked into tea. Something that has become oddly more common now that the world is at it is, but we’ve been making out own and it’s been interesting.

I don’t know why that particular memory came to the surface. Maybe because one of the bins we use for some of our dried foot used to be a coffee bin and it was about time we filled it back up. At times, random memories will just crop up to the surface and there won’t be much to do about it other than just let it pass on through. Trying to ignore it doesn’t do either of us any good and usually, talking a little about whichever memory comes up is a good way for us to sort of see both sides of the coin if you would.

I’m an odd man. That’s not something I can even argue about. I’ve been raised in a peculiar way and that’s something I’ve stuck with even now. I’m sure there are days when Thane is exasperated with my need to keep him safe, even though I know he can take care of himself just fine in the world we live in now—and the world we used to live in as well. We are as we are.

Final Word Count: 783

Why do you keep coming back? That’s all I want to know. Can’t you at least tell me that?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Project: Lucifer
Characters: Maximillian Rosenfeld
Race: Human
Age: 35
Current residence: Aubagne, France
Final Word Count: 742 words
 

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It isn’t all that uncommon to see wild animals roaming. If I’m being honest, there are more of them left on this planet than there probably are humans. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve made some sort of comeback from there being so few of us around. That’s not to say that the human population has been completely removed from the planet, but we’ve been through a few cities of England, through France and we met so few people. I don’t know how many were taken when the Silencers first landed but it was a lot.

Through our travels, I found a bow, I’ve found arrows, I’ve found means of keeping us safe and, most importantly in its own way, I’ve found means of keeping us fed. I’ve learned how to hunt and that was not a piece of cake. It was more difficult than it had any right to be, but I’ve made it this far and I’ve learned to be pretty efficient with a bow.

Over the last few weeks, a family—I call them a family, I could be wrong but there are two fawns with two adults—of deer have been roaming along the edge of what I call our property and I haven’t had to heart to bring out the bow and arrows. I’ve mostly watched them from a distance. We’re not actually short on meat at this point and we have a lot of fish in our diet so there was no need to try and hunt them down.

I know, however, that our neighbour, even though they’re not all that close, is more of an avid hunter than I am and I’m pretty sure that if he’d noticed the deer, he’d have been out to get them all.

My mind goes through endless possibilities whenever I see them coming back around and seemingly a little closer to the house every time. I have to ask myself why they keep on coming back. I wonder why. It’s really the one thing I feel like I deserve to know but, you know. They are deer and they’re not going to be able to answer my questions unless, somehow, the presence of the Silencers has given them abilities that they shouldn’t have. You know the type. I don’t think deer will ever be able to talk and, in a way, it really is for the best.

Thane is aware of them; we both keep an eye out for them when they’re around and we keep an eye out on the neighbour possibly coming around when they are. It’s not all that common that he drops by, but we do exchange a few things as he seems to be struggling with his garden, but when he does drop by, it is completely unannounced and just, yeah.

So far, there have been no encounters, but I don’t know that it’ll last. The moment he spots them is the moment we’re going to have to find ways to get them to leave. Once we scare them off, I don’t expect them to want to come back and, well, I’m pretty sure that mister-hunter-neighbour is going to be cross with us for a while for costing him good meat.

The thing is, I know he has no need for extra meat. The man has so much meat curing and just put away that he could possibly eat nothing but meat for the next year and he still would have plenty to go around. At this point, I know that all the hunting he’s doing is for sports and I have a hard time with that. It might be because of how I was raised but this need to protect seems to extend to the innocence that is this deer family.

When it comes to that, I know that we’ll figure out the way to go. I’m not really all that worried if he stops coming around. It just means more fruits and vegetables for us, and we can live off of fish for some time yet. There is plenty for us to catch and substitutions aren’t all that unheard of. We’ve made it this far and we can still make it just fine if push comes to shove.

With the Silencers, we have to live our lives one day after the other, there’s really no other way to go at it and that’s all right in the end. I don’t mind that much.

I know I said it didn’t work. I told you. Why’d you try it anyway?

 
Timeline/World: Until Tomorrow – Family Values
Characters: Maximillian Rosenfeld
Race: Human
Age: 34
Final Word Count: 658 words
 

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Watching young couples fighting never fails to make me cringe a little inside. I mean, I can understand that people will not always agree on everything, it’s inevitable. There still remains the fact that arguing is never a pleasant affair to witness, no matter the couple’s age. It just seems to get to me more when the pair is obviously young and have their whole lives ahead of them.

If they’re already arguing now, what are things going to be like, years down the road?

Just the same, I’m quite sure that plenty would roll their eyes at me for thinking that young couples will stay together for the long run. I suppose it might just be one of those things, as far as I’m concerned. As someone whose only childhood friend and boss only ever had the one relationship that lasted until his life was ended—far too soon—I just don’t see the point in multiple partners. Though I guess I should be a little clearer, I don’t get the point of sleeping around to build up ‘experience’ when I feel like you should be discovering things with the one person who means the world to you.

Maybe I’m just weirdly sentimental. It might be seen as pathetic by a lot of people, all things considered, but at this point, I’d just say, ‘so what?’. I’ve never had much of anything that could lead me to being sentimental so this is going to be one of those things and no one’s going to change that, not really.

This young pair, though, they can’t be much older than eighteen, nineteen maybe. They were at the first store I stopped at and now they’re also at this one and I’d be wary if I didn’t know that the two stores are the main ones to stop at for food. The first one is a marketplace more than a store but the fact remains that I crossed them both times and, well, they were arguing in hushed whispers both times.

I tried not to pay them much attention the first time, I only crossed their paths once and I wouldn’t even have recalled their arguing if I hadn’t crossed them that second time, in the second store. From there, though, their arguing seemed more heated. Still hushed, angry whispers but heated.

What little I could hear of it when I had to walk by them to get to a few items, was something about she had told him that something didn’t work, she knew she had, and yet, he’d had tried to do it anyway. She wanted to know why. He just seemed exasperated and I didn’t stay any longer to figure any of it out. It’s none of my business, what people argue about. I still just feel that it’s sort of sad that people argue at all, though I know it’s inevitable, but in a way, the arguing should be kept out of the public eye, unless you’re out to cause a scene.

Maybe I’m just old-fashioned, I just don’t know. I am how I am; nothing is going to change that. I was raised in a way that seems to be fading into the background, at least, here; this way seems to be disappearing though it might not back where I grew up. I’m not in any hurry to head back over there to check it out. The only way you could get me to go back there was if it was for a vacation of sorts. Even then, I’m quite fine with not going too far from home.

That young couple, it remains on my mind. I hope they’ll be able to work out their issues, they seemed like they were paired rather well in a general sense of the word, it would be a shame if they were to not stay together due to something that could potentially have simply been a misunderstanding.

How inconvenient. I guess I have to deal with you.

 
Timeline/World: Alternate Earth – Once Upon a Time
Characters: Maximillian Rosenfeld
Race: Human
Age: 33
Final Word Count: 630 words
 

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A lot of people seem to think that a bodyguard’s job is stressful twenty-four/seven, but it’s not, not really. While my experience is based only off two different people, I believe it’s more than enough to get a pretty good idea of what most places are like. There was a lot more action with my first boss but I guess that’s because he came from a family that was better known for dealings on the wrong side of the law. Not that my boss didn’t do his best to stay on the right side of the law but his father still brought forward things to deal with that weren’t. It’s how he died, he went without me but I think I would have died too if I’d gone.

Second boss is a little different. Still mostly covered first boss’s dealings but the threats were less present and it was mellower though it’s not always sunshine and rainbows after the rain. There are some things I’ve had to do, one of them very recently, that do not make me proud of my job and they are things I’m not about to mention to Thane. He doesn’t need the stress.

As is, these things have now become so rare that I feel as if I need to mention it even less since it feels more like a freak occurrence than anything else but I still had to deal with it.

Mind you, as it stands, I’m not even sure if the term ‘bodyguard’ fits my station, it’s not really what I’m hired to do anymore but it’s in my blood and I can’t just stop and let it go.

We were being followed, a week back. Everywhere we went. When we were back home, the following would stop, they wouldn’t even come anywhere near the block so that was a small mercy but the moment we stepped outside, they were there, trying to act casual and to most everyone else it likely looked like they were being very casual but they weren’t, not really.

Yesterday, you can imagine that after a week of being followed but nothing more happening, my patience wore thin because it’s just one of those things so I excused myself. I went to deal with the problem and while it didn’t turn out as messily as other problems I’d had to deal with before, I still had to turn to techniques I wish I didn’t have to.

As it turns out? This kid—couldn’t have been more than fifteen—claimed he was the boss’s son. Thing is, he claimed he was Yukio’s son and at the age I imagined him to be, turning back the clocks, I could tell exactly where my first boss had been at that age and that had been back home in Japan, being taught about the family business and I was with him all the time. Plus, the kid didn’t have an ounce of Japanese in him and it was just heartbreaking that someone would use this dirty tactic now, of all times.

I think I had finally been able to make myself move on and that just brought the ache of the loss of my oldest, now very dead friend, right back to the surface.

I didn’t beat the kid. I’m not that kind of guy. I might have shaken him some and reminded him that this kind of scam was bullshit and trying to get money out of people by claiming to be the son of a rich, albeit very dead man, was not the way to go about at it.

So I suppose that, in a way, it wasn’t so much that big of an issue but it still was a case I had to deal with.

I don’t have a quick fix for everything, but I know I have one for this.

Timeline/World: Alternate Earth – Once Upon a Time
Characters: Maximillian Rosenfeld
Race: Human
Age: 26
Final Word Count: 561 words

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If there is one word people might ever use to describe me is ‘unprepared.’ On the contrary, I’m most likely over-prepared for everything but I prefer things that way. Going out somewhere even if it’s just the corner store? I’ll be carrying a weapon. I have my licence to carry and it allows me to carry concealed. I don’t have my permit for every residence we visit in the world but for our main residence here and a few others, I do and that gun is never far from my reach. I’m just that kind of person.

Now, I know that there is plenty I can’t prevent, plenty I can’t plan for and plenty that will slip me by without my notice, no matter that I pride myself on not being caught off guard. Nobody is perfect though I’d like to claim I almost am. However, I’m not that full of myself.

Last time we went out, however—we mostly just went out for a drive, something I’ve found myself appreciating here in Thun due to how beautiful everything is—we ended up with a flat. Now, see, a flat is something I always have a quick-fix for. It’s easy. I know not everyone likes to carry a spare around and let alone does everyone know how to change a tyre. I don’t mind getting my hands dirty to change a flat tyre to replace it with the spare until we can get everything squared away at our destination.

Of course, if we get lost on the way to wherever our destination is, that’s something else entirely and I refuse to take the blame. Never mind that I’m usually the one driving. I can follow instructions well enough but there are distractions to be had when one is driving with a very fine specimen of a man next to them. For so long, I’ve always had someone in the back seat, never next to me and even now, years later, I’m still not completely used to that. I’m not complaining, furthest from. I’m just pointing out the fact that if we get lost, it’s not my fault.

Not that I’ll tell him that to his face, I’ll just grin and shrug as I park us on the side of the road and plug the GPS back in. I don’t like that thing. I’m a little old-fashioned as far as that’s concerned and I’ll only bring it out if I absolutely need it but really, I can read road signs, I can memorize the way to places so why would I need a GPS? I mostly keep it in our things and set it up when he mentions it because otherwise, I’d rather just forget it exists.

Except, I know that staying lost for longer than one was expecting to be lost (yes, I’ve seen about getting us ‘lost’ for whiles before because we needed it), isn’t really something that most are fond of. I haven’t had much time in my life, before it changed so drastically at the loss of my first boss and childhood friend, to appreciate the simpler things in life. So you’ll have to excuse me if I’m not in any rush to get back to the proper road if no one is expecting me anywhere. We’re not lost; we’re just wandering the scenic route.